Alistair is a good tank char. Here’s a simple program for him, which works most of the time:
Self any: activate shield wall
Self any: activate threaten
Self health < 50% (or whatever): use pot
Ally being attacked by melee or ranged: taunt
enemy nearest visible: attack
Since the tactics run top to bottom every time, he will first activate his talents – since they are on forever, it won’t try to activate again. Then he will check his health and pot if needed.
Next he starts tanking by kicking out a taunt and then he starts attacking. You can put in a shield bash or overpower or whatever damage talent you want but it has to be right before the attack line – anything below the attack command will never work because attack nearest visible is always true.
Your healer tactics are the next important ones:
alistair any: heroic defense (or whatever sustained buff)
self health < 25%: heal self
alistair healh < 50%: heal alistair
ally health < 25%: mass heal
alistair health < 75%: regeneration
Then attack mages if everyone is ok:
enemy nearest visible mage: petrify
enemy nearest visible mage: stonefist
Then pot if needed and attack with staff shots:
self mana < 10%: drink lyrium pot
enemy target of alistair: attack
You can, of course, mix up the healing to your preferences, but remember it executes from the top down, so most important things first.
Everyone else should have something like this:
self any: activate buff talent
self health < 25%: pot
enemy nearest visible mage: spell for mages, arrow of slaying for archers, etc
enemy nearest visible mage: attack
enemy target of alistair: talent (such as lightning bolt, crit strike, whatever)
enemy target of alistair: talent (repeat as needed)
enemy target of alistair: attack
If you want to put some other stuff in for protection, that’s easy to. Put it at the top right after the health check (healing is always priority one).
For example:
self surrounded by 3 or more enemies: mind blast
self under melee attack: stone armor
self under melee attack: dirty fighting
morrigan,wynn,player if mage under melee attack: arrow of slaying, taunt, shield bash (kills an enemy attacking your mage, though it’s best not to have the main tank do this as he moves the fight toward your mage, have another character deal with it)
you can also throw in something like this:
enemies clustered 3 or more: talent sleep (avoid using this for spells that can do FF unless on normal or casual)
enemy status sleeping: talent waking nightmare
Or something like this:
enemy status immobilized/can’t attack: any attack that causes crits (chance to shatter or whatever)
Anyway, all of these special things should go between self healing/defense and the set of commands that are “attack alistair’s target”. Properly set up, the tank grabs most of the mobs, the other party members take out mages, then they focus down alistair’s targets, and maybe take advantage of special circumstances like petrified enemies or whatever.
One super important thing when fighting dragons is that they have a grab attack that is nasty. A line you can add that is great (and it needs to go at the top):
ally status grabbed: talent force field
Having lots of tactics slots for mages is important. Less so for rogues/archers/warrior dps. Tank doesn’t need a lot, he just hits the nearest guy and keeps taunting when needed. If you make sure he has the big armor, he’ll keep threat most of the time.
ETA: oh yes, take mages off of “default” and put them in ranged mode, same with archers. You can experiment with other characters.
