Just finished Trespasser myself. I was on my "proper" playthrough while all the DLCs came out, so right after Doom Upon All the World I had Jaws of Hakkon waiting. Right after that's done, The Descent came out. After that's done, I picked up Mount & Blade Warband again, and played that for a week or so when Trespasser got released.
The one peeve I might nit-pick is that my Inquisitor hit the level cap a few hours into Jaws of Hakkon. Those enemies (river spiders included) gave off massive XPs despite not being more difficult, and then just... nothing.
On the equipment side, following common advice, I crafted armour but relied on pickups for weapons. Always went with On Hit: Gain Guard for Masterwork, which is a bit stale, but improved survivability MASSIVELY, especially when paired with Knight Enchanter Inquisitor. Thus, at the start, exploited the Redcliffe chest a bit, and then later on farmed the heck out of Silverite, always keeping 4 on hand. Once my party all had Level 4 Schematics made with Level 4 Materials, there was no need to change anything. Thus, same pieces of kit were worn basically from killing the 2nd-last High Dragon (usually the Hissing Wastes one) all the way to the end of the actual game in Trespasser. That made the DLC loots also kinda stale, but that's kinda my own fault for pre-planning so much.
Case in point: Cassandra was my Divine, and when she showed up in Trespasser with her special armour, I actually guffaw-ed and then... made her wear the crafted stuff again
In terms of party composition, I stuck with the "Starter Party" - Cassandra for sword-and-board tank, Varric as ranged rogue and biographer, and Solas... who was technically made redundant by my Inquisitor, but awfully important to the story to be left behind. After he left, he was replaced by Iron Bull in the 2H warrior role, which completes my preferred party loadout. This way, all looted weapons have an immediate home except for Daggers (only Cole or Rogue Inquisitor can do that) and Bows (Varric is... too short to string it up?
)
I made a point to NEVER fast travel within the map. This made The Descent even more grating to play than you alluded to, as endless elevator rides were required to get back up to the operations table in order to build the bloody bridges, and then more rides again back down again to access your new areas. Ugh. This, compounds by the nonsensical "story" and my previous point of not needing loots anymore, made it forgettable. Well, except for the CRAZY amount of platforming required for the Gear collection I guess... that I can recall... and not in a good way....
I felt that Hakkon had a lot of forced travelling back and forth, but that might be my exploration style clashing with what the developers intended. The "treehouse" camps were amazing, though, and made much more sense than the main game's camps that were sometimes even traversed by enemies and none of the soldiers there ever helped you
Finally, fully agreed that Trespasser was excellent, and the proper way to end the game. The "Anchor-blowing-up-uncontrollably" for the final battle sequence was super annoying... and was something similar to what I advocated for right here in this thread, so it was awesome
Hopefully you sat through the credits... hearing Cassandra "mocking" her colleagues as she read Varric's latest book aloud was SOOOO CUTE! D'awww
Also, my previously voiced concern that Ferelden would not like The Inquisition holding keeps on its lands was addressed, so that was a nice surprise.
Here are the end-game stats, taken at the final auto-save:
The armour was crafted at the end of the Hissing Wastes (when all the main-game lootable High Dragons were offed), while the Staff came from Hakkon. I was slightly peeved that I only got to use the armour for very little of the main game, but then slightly more peeved that none of the DLC loots managed to replace it
Thus, the Golden Nug will be a GODSEND.
Attributes and Stats:
Therein lies my problem.... I spent about 200hrs on this over the past year, ~120hrs on this playthrough... and I wouldn't change a thing: Cassandra + Varric + Solas / Iron Bull, Human Mage Inquisitor Knight Enchanter who understandably now can no longer wield the Spirit Blade
I can't imagine not playing it, but there is nothing else for me to do. MP? I got BF4 for that.
Mount & Blade will have to tie me over... that game will NEVER end....
...or maybe The Golden Nug will entice me back. Maybe THAT will be the proper play-through? Should have enough time until the next one, yes?