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[His Majesty]

Hey guys... a bit of a disappointing scenario.

I'm playing with my wife, she's Pyro/Geo Wizard and I'm a 2H Warfare Fighter.

We have just about finished the starter island and she is feeling inadequate in battles compared to me. I can destroy targets in a single turn and she constantly has trouble removing magic armour to allow her spells to even do anything (apply burns, poison, etc).

It's not her fault, her character is built properly and using the spells that she can acquire. I've googled casters being a bit underpowered and it seems to be a problem in the game unless you spam Source spells, which doesn't sound fun at all.

She wants to still use spells because she likes casters but doesn't like feeling like she's a useless buff machine in battle.

Is there a combination of magic ability trees that you recommend? We have read that Summoner/Geo is good, but she's not too keen on controlling many summons. Should she just go Ranger or Rogue?

In my experience casters won't come close to the damage of rangers or warriors. But pyro/geo is a great combination for the amount of buffs it can provide: haste, peace of mind, fortify, mend metal. And setting the entire battlefield on fire is super satisfying of course. Pyro also has some good damage attacks with laser and fireball and geo can provide CC both for magical armour (petrify) and physical armour (earthquake, impalement).

 

[Sarcasm]

Tactican mode is kind of stupid.

Its either piss easy and zzz.

Or its piss hard and you're fighting a spreadsheet.

 

[Ivory Samoan]

Tactican mode is kind of stupid.

Its either piss easy and zzz.

Or its piss hard and you're fighting a spreadsheet.

Is AI affected heavily, or more HP/Shield boosts?

 

[Sarcasm]

Is AI affected heavily, or more HP/Shield boosts?

Its really just padding of their stats and numbers. The AI is slightly different supposedly but I don't notice a difference when playing in MP in other people's games on classic.

I have two main saves:

My Single Player physical dual lone wolves on tactician and my main friend magical attack dual lone wolves on tactician.

Pretty wide ends of the spectrum.

But yea 60 hours. I think I am not going to play this game for weeks. Always have the MP save.

 

[lionpants]

Thanks for all the options guys, we have some great builds to look at now.

 

[TheCthultist]

Is there a combination of magic ability trees that you recommend? We have read that Summoner/Geo is good, but she's not too keen on controlling many summons. Should she just go Ranger or Rogue?

Playing as a strict Necro/Summoner right now and once you hit 10 in summoning the Incarnate minion becomes insanely powerful. Mix in the various buffs you can apply to it (most of which can be applied the same turn its summoned) and the fact that it can be made into any element present on the battlefield and you go from dealing very little damage to completely melting enemies with a combination of your minion and spells. Necro eventually gets a similarly powerful, though not nearly as versatile, minion in the Bone Widow who deals massive amounts of physical damage and can move anywhere on the battlefield in a single action. Also since only one active minion (not counting the auto-casting totems) can be summoned at any one time, control is pretty straight forward.
Once you finish Fort Joy you'll have a chance to respec just about everything so I would definitely suggest she throw some points into Summoning if nothing else.

 

[AJLma]

Hey guys... a bit of a disappointing scenario.

I'm playing with my wife, she's Pyro/Geo Wizard and I'm a 2H Warfare Fighter.

We have just about finished the starter island and she is feeling inadequate in battles compared to me. I can destroy targets in a single turn and she constantly has trouble removing magic armour to allow her spells to even do anything (apply burns, poison, etc).

It's not her fault, her character is built properly and using the spells that she can acquire. I've googled casters being a bit underpowered and it seems to be a problem in the game unless you spam Source spells, which doesn't sound fun at all.

She wants to still use spells because she likes casters but doesn't like feeling like she's a useless buff machine in battle.

Is there a combination of magic ability trees that you recommend? We have read that Summoner/Geo is good, but she's not too keen on controlling many summons. Should she just go Ranger or Rogue?

Pyro/Geo can be beastly. Start out by putting all your points into Pyro and Intelligence, until she does decent damage, then get Geo up to 2-3 so you can equip the better spells. Then once you start getting gear, stack her with all the +intelligence and +pyrokinetic gear you can find. Pyro for your damage, Geo for slowed status and support damage from setting oil on fire with Pyro. Poison is a bit useless, but if a target is burning you can hit them with poison to cause a mini explosion that does decent extra damage. Duel wield a (L)poison and (R)fire wand for this to happen even on your regular attacks.

Mages are not for easy mode in this game, you really have to consider all combinations you can put together including how all spells work with each other, and your gear.

EDIT: One more thing, take the perk that allows magic attacks to crit, and also look for +crit chance gear. This is where mages get most of their 1 turn kill potential.

 

[Chaozfly]

Hey guys... a bit of a disappointing scenario.

I'm playing with my wife, she's Pyro/Geo Wizard and I'm a 2H Warfare Fighter.

We have just about finished the starter island and she is feeling inadequate in battles compared to me. I can destroy targets in a single turn and she constantly has trouble removing magic armour to allow her spells to even do anything (apply burns, poison, etc).

It's not her fault, her character is built properly and using the spells that she can acquire. I've googled casters being a bit underpowered and it seems to be a problem in the game unless you spam Source spells, which doesn't sound fun at all.

She wants to still use spells because she likes casters but doesn't like feeling like she's a useless buff machine in battle.

Is there a combination of magic ability trees that you recommend? We have read that Summoner/Geo is good, but she's not too keen on controlling many summons. Should she just go Ranger or Rogue?

My main was Necro/Hydro, but I changed her to Pyro/Hydro/Necro and her damage output is great. I'm in act 3/Level 19 (classic mode) and this is her Laser Ray.
https://abload.de/img/2017-09-3018_53_24-do18xk6.png
The status effects are really not that important, because the primary damage so devastating.
My 2Hand-Guy does somewhat more damage, but is not as flexible as she is. I don't now at what point in the game you are, but there are many enemies with a lot of physical armor that get melted by my magical skills.

Savage Sortilage as a talent is a must, because it gives your magical skills a crit chance.

Fane was my Summoner/Aero, but I found Aero to be pretty lacking. Now he is a ranger, but his damage is laso pretty bad compared to my rogue and my 2hand-guy.

 

[Metroidvania]

Hit ESC and change the formation so everyone's not clumped. That makes avoiding CC a lot easier.

Yeah, that's fair - there are times, though, where combat is basically 'forced' upon you without you knowing (or would 'think' you can initiate on your end), and it's either quick reload or get wrecked.

My main was Necro/Hydro, but I changed her to Pyro/Hydro/Necro and her damage output is great. I'm in act 3/Level 19 (classic mode) and this is her Laser Ray.
https://abload.de/img/2017-09-3018_53_24-do18xk6.png
The status effects are really not that important, because the primary damage so devastating.

What's your int and pyro stat at, if you don't mind me asking?

My wizard is primarily support/CC with aero/hydro (and is coming into her own with the higher tier skills for damage), but has a decent amount of pyro thrown in...but I just hit level 17 at the very end of Act 2, and my laser is like half that.

(Or is the level scaling just that bonkers for 'base' damage?)

Also, somewhat related, is there a 'good'/optimal way anyone's found to spread the elements outside of manually setting it up ahead of time for elemental affinity? It seems like that would be a key part of eking out more usefulness from mages, but a part of me dislikes 'gaming' the system so much with just starting fire swaths before every encounter?

 

[johancruijff]

For Chapter/Act 1

Spoiler

i killed the creepy magister that makes meat golem and gives Fane the device to rip faces and there's a little girl in the top left cell that want me to lift a grate but his cell is already open, it's a bugged quest ? (or you have to open the gate before killing everyone) i teleported her outside the cell, but that hurt her and she ran away...

 

[Eyeh4wk]

For Chapter/Act 1

Spoiler

i killed the creepy magister that makes meat golem and gives Fane the device to rip faces and there's a little girl in the top left cell that want me to lift a grate but his cell is already open, it's a bugged quest ? (or you have to open the gate before killing everyone) i teleported her outside the cell, but that hurt her and she ran away...

Spoiler

lol, thats not a cell. She means the grate to the sewer right next to her. Which will complete the escape fort Joy quest and make all magisters attack you,
so beware.

 

[johancruijff]

Spoiler

i already killed them all, i just wanted to save the girl

 

[loganclaws]

Spoiler

lol, thats not a cell. She means the grate to the sewer right next to her. Which will complete the escape fort Joy quest and make all magisters attack you,
so beware.

Huh that's weird, this person wasn't there for me in that area.

 

[Abstrusity]

Yeah so I broke the game enough to make it easy mode.

Works a lot better than i nthe first OS: Two handed with opportunity attacks tank, crossbow ranged with height damage.

I'm one rounding people on the nameless isle, sometimes oneshotting them outright.

But only in Classic mode thus far.

 

[Reani]

Yeah so I broke the game enough to make it easy mode.

Works a lot better than i nthe first OS: Two handed with opportunity attacks tank, crossbow ranged with height damage.

I'm one rounding people on the nameless isle, sometimes oneshotting them outright.

But only in Classic mode thus far.

its the same on tactician

 

[Blyr]

Hey guys... a bit of a disappointing scenario.

I'm playing with my wife, she's Pyro/Geo Wizard and I'm a 2H Warfare Fighter.

We have just about finished the starter island and she is feeling inadequate in battles compared to me. I can destroy targets in a single turn and she constantly has trouble removing magic armour to allow her spells to even do anything (apply burns, poison, etc).

It's not her fault, her character is built properly and using the spells that she can acquire. I've googled casters being a bit underpowered and it seems to be a problem in the game unless you spam Source spells, which doesn't sound fun at all.

She wants to still use spells because she likes casters but doesn't like feeling like she's a useless buff machine in battle.

Is there a combination of magic ability trees that you recommend? We have read that Summoner/Geo is good, but she's not too keen on controlling many summons. Should she just go Ranger or Rogue?

What is her stat spread like?

I'd say go 2-3 pts in Geo (2 for now), maybe 1-2 pts in Aero for teleport and a few lightning spells when you run into enemies who heal from poison/fire, and pump the rest into Pyro to maximize the damage you do.

Also I'd say maybe have her hard cap Memory at 20-25 slots, with mnemonic (it applies to your base stats, so 20-25 pts TOTAL) and pump the rest into INT

Mages in this game won't be able to kill targets on turn 1 in most scenarios, but they excel and doing a ton of damage to multiple targets, managing threats (teleport is a must-have) and creating a lot of fields and surfaces to shred enemy magic armor as they run through it, for multiple enemies, which then allows you to start applying statuses.

Since you're a 2h Warrior, maybe have her invest 1-2 pts in Necro as well, because that targets physical armor, and Shackles of Pain is a beautiful skill. If points are a problem, a 1pt investment in Aero / 1 in Necro should suffice, and get the points required (lvl 2 for some of the more fun skills) from equipment

I wouldn't recommend Summoner off the bat bc it requires a HEAVY point investment as a dedicated stat dump, which is why I typically have my hydro/aero put the minimum amount of points into hydro/aero to do damage and heal, and then invest the rest in Summoning to hit summoning of 10 immediately, while only giving them gear that gives +1 summoning bc summoning isn't affected by INT, only the summon skill itself.. (Champion Incarnate is absurdly powerful if you go this route though, and it has made my hydro/aero such a threat in the past I had to give her a shield because the enemies always singled her out to kill her so they could despawn the incarnate)

 

[FlyinJ]

What happens to the loot a corpse is carrying if you cast bloated corpse on it? Does it drop on the ground when the corpse explodes?

 

[Taruranto]

What happens to the loot a corpse is carrying if you cast bloated corpse on it? Does it drop on the ground when the corpse explodes?

The bloated corpse is a completely different model, the "original" corpse stays there. This is true for all skills that work on bodies, by the way. The loot never gets damaged.

 

[Pancakes]

its the same on tactician

Yep, base game is really easily broken once you figure out the tricks for it. Can't wait for patches to balance things out and mods to fix the scaling issues.

 

[[TW]Stone]

Am I horrible for playing this mostly on explorer mode?

 

[Dipper145]

Boy that ending was worse than everything that came before it, but I guess it's kind of hard to tie up everything in a neat bow with the story this game tries to present.

Probably was compounded by a bug I kept experiencing right before the last fight where I assume a fight is supposed to take place, but after the conversation a fight never started even if I attacked people with my character. Tried reloading a few times but it didn't change anything, but eventually managed to trigger the final battle scene regardless. Was super frustrating to get a bug like that right at the end, which caused me to miss the first part of the final sequence of events.

Considering replaying it again, but really wish there were 8 origin characters instead of 6, so you could do 2 full playthroughs and have the more interesting story bits to see. Probably going to wait for updates and stuff and check back in further down the line.

 

[Syder]

Doing a Sebille lone wolf kill everything playthrough

KILL THE MASTERS

 

[Royal_Phalanx]

Finally feel like I'm getting the hang of this game. I'm getting loads of great abilities in Act 2 now. Money isn't so much of a problem anymore now that I'm getting loads of high value gear to sell off. Seems like looting and selling EVERYTHING you can is the key to getting good at this game. Money is much more difficult to come by early game so the abilities you choose to buy are key.

 

[Orcastar]

Boy that ending was worse than everything that came before it, but I guess it's kind of hard to tie up everything in a neat bow with the story this game tries to present.

Probably was compounded by a bug I kept experiencing right before the last fight where I assume a fight is supposed to take place, but after the conversation a fight never started even if I attacked people with my character. Tried reloading a few times but it didn't change anything, but eventually managed to trigger the final battle scene regardless. Was super frustrating to get a bug like that right at the end, which caused me to miss the first part of the final sequence of events.

Considering replaying it again, but really wish there were 8 origin characters instead of 6, so you could do 2 full playthroughs and have the more interesting story bits to see. Probably going to wait for updates and stuff and check back in further down the line.

With the current number of characters you can do a run with 4 origin characters followed by a run with a custom character accompanied by the two origin characters you didn't pick and the origin character you used as your avatar on the first run. This way you get to see how clsoe your interpretation of the character was to how they behave as a party member.

 

[Lanrutcon]

Chapter 4 just gets worse and worse :/ this is really not the way to end a game, dudes. Stop with the pointless combat, stop with the loot that infinitely worse than the yellows you can get from the merchants, stop with the puzzles which are just padding. Just let me go fight the endboss and get some credits at this point.

I don't usually say this, but this game started overstaying its welcome around the time when my party could casually destroy the world ending demon it spent 2 chapters hyping up in a round.

 

[Chaos17]

Driftwood, finished Lohar quest and started Graveyard...

What am I doing here again ?... I've played the previous game in co-and we me with my mate we had a blast. But now ? These artificial armors are just a pain, lot of time my mate who has 2 mages just can't do nothing because of high magical armor, it's more faster that I kill enemies with physical instead.

And the story ? I don't know I think there could've been more cut-scene and less... Go to point B C D F G before completing a quest, lol
Also there're almost 0 dialog between players. Before in the first the 2 main characters had more interactions and could decide a bit more together the result of a dialog.
I'm disapointed with the lact of interaction that you can do in game with your friend beside combat.

 

[Currygan]

Teleport is your friend

Wut wut, can you explain

 

[texhnolyze]

Doing a Sebille lone wolf kill everything playthrough

KILL THE MASTERS

The possibility for a pure evil path is amazing in this game. I'm looking forward to that.

Evil path is more than just simply being an asshole in dialog choices like in some conventional AAA RPGs, but it includes genocide and mass murder.

 

[Currygan]

Man, I've had it with these bloody magisters. They trynna

Spoiler

execute a whole family in the Blackpits

, including children. Fuck low profile, sending my biggest artillery directly up their arses

 

[z1ggy]

81 hours in and just arrived to act 4, is this one longer than act 3? or kinda the same?

 

[Chaos17]

Hit ESC and change the formation so everyone's not clumped. That makes avoiding CC a lot easier.

I don't really recommend this because a lot of buffs and healing spells don't have a large range and the shield you can cast with source point is too good and saved a lot of time our life.

 

[Lanrutcon]

Been in the final fight of the game for the last 50 odd minutes.

It's amazing amounts of fun watching the 11 boss characters take 5 minutes to finish their moves, just so you have the privilege of rezzing your characters so you can spend another 5 minutes watching the game play itself.

Who thought this was a good idea?

 

[texhnolyze]

81 hours in and just arrived to act 4, is this one longer than act 3? or kinda the same?

It's longer. I've been in Act 4 for maybe 20 hours and I'm still halfway there.

It's kinda like Act 2 where you have one main hub and you go explore to all directions.

Also, it looks rather small on the map, but there are actually lots of dungeons inside the city.

 

[Arkkoran]

Been in the final fight of the game for the last 50 odd minutes.

It's amazing amounts of fun watching the 11 boss characters take 5 minutes to finish their moves, just so you have the privilege of rezzing your characters so you can spend another 5 minutes watching the game play itself.

Who thought this was a good idea?

That sounds like a nightmare.

CheatEngine's speedhack has become a necessity for me when playing these two games.

 

[MisterShine]

A Fire Emblem-esque 'Remove Combat Animations' would not go amiss at a certain point.

 

[Taruranto]

I'm surprised after 3 games (Original + EE + This) there is no "Combat speed" option.

Anyway

I'll have to check a few NPCs and I'm done with this area, hopefully. I'm waaay over-leveled so the latest fights have been a breeze.

 

[sadblob]

I'm surprised after 3 games (Original + EE + This) there is no "Combat speed" option.

Anyway



I'll have to check a few NPCs and I'm done with this area, hopefully. I'm waaay over-leveled so the latest fights have been a breeze.

Did you get the

Spoiler

4 heroes

quest? Maybe I'm missing it but I don't see it in your map.

EDIT: also it bothers me a lot that there's only one waypoint for the entire northeast area.

 

[AcAnchoa]

I've just met Alice and I think I'll go someplace else.

 

[Currygan]

I've just met Alice and I think I'll go someplace else.

First moment in the game I was truly scared shitless. Creepy as heck

 

[Dipper145]

Been in the final fight of the game for the last 50 odd minutes.

It's amazing amounts of fun watching the 11 boss characters take 5 minutes to finish their moves, just so you have the privilege of rezzing your characters so you can spend another 5 minutes watching the game play itself.

Who thought this was a good idea?

Yeah this was my experience pretty much exactly. It was really bad compared to everything that came before it. It was not fun to watch the AI fight each other, or decide to drink 6 different potions in a row without moving, but taking 3 minutes to do so. Often times I actually got up and walked away while the majority of the enemies turns played out.

 

[GwyndolinCinder]

Who thought this was a good idea?

Seriously.
Its DM 101 stuff. And it happens constantly throughout the game.

 

[ASilentProtagonist]

If I had a hard time getting into Original Sin, would I find this more engaging? I liked Original Sin's charm, and how open it was, but found it a bit boring.

 

[Baraka Obama]

If I had a hard time getting into Original Sin, would I find this more engaging? I liked Original Sin's charm, and how about it was, but found it a bit boring.

This game is EONS more interesting

 

[Lanrutcon]

And done. 127 hours. Level 22 all around. 2 x Ranger, 1 x Wizard, 1 x Enchanter.

Thoughts:

Spoiler

Pros:
+ Amazing game
+ Pretty much kicks the crap out of every crpg we've seen this decade.
+ I did everything I could and I still feel I missed an entire game's worth of stuff.
+ Rewards creative thinking.
+ All difficulty evaporated once I understood the game's systems.

Cons:
+ Memory leaks.
+ City fps drops.
+ Last few fights of the game are 1/30th of the quality of the rest of the game.
+ Final fight was a great opportunity to give the player a chance to BE the goddamn Divine. Instead, you get infinite Source Points. Woopee. Still have skill cooldowns. Still only have 4 AP in a fight where everyone is packing 6 or 8. Garbage!
+ Ending itself is...weird? I never got a shot at the King. He's the main antagonist for 3/4 of the game and we never even get a chance to fight him.
+ Inventory management needs like, a million UI enhancements to not to be shit. Sorry, but it's easily the weakest part of the game.
+ Spells damage is a bit of a joke. They really over-nerfed spells from the original.

Mods that I will need before I do another run:
- All crafting recipes unlocked from day 1. Tired of alt-tabbing to read the wiki.
- Hotbar doesn't auto-populate.
- Remove Necrofire. Way too many of the "big" fights just end with an entire screen full of Necrofire. At some point that gets boring. Blessing Necrofire should turn it into Blessed Fire, not Fire.
- All characters share all Civil skills. Because having the reload because the npc talked to your non-Persuasion character is kinda dumb. Same for bartering, etc.
- Warfare, Summoning and Ranged nerfs. You all know exactly what I'm talking about.
- Wits buff of some kind.
- AP balance. Way too many enemies have 6 or 8 starting AP, and then just straight up out initiative you and kill a character before you can act.

 

[AcAnchoa]

Ok, nevermind, I just killed her, it was fairly easy, even if I was three levels below her and playing on tactician.

Spoiler

I teleported her to the water below and began spreading my team and breaking the totems. When she showed up again I hit her a couple of times, then three of my team members died. I then revived the other three, knocked Alice down and kept her like that for the rest of the fight.

 

[Sentenza]

If I had a hard time getting into Original Sin, would I find this more engaging? I liked Original Sin's charm, and how open it was, but found it a bit boring.

Probably not.
The game is a net improvement above the previous one in most ways, but if you didn't like the first you may be completely beyond redemption.

 

[jtb]

How's the writing in this game?

I didn't find the writing in D:OS 1 bad, per se, but just pretty annoying - borderline insufferable fwiw

 

[Stiler]

How's the writing in this game?

I didn't find the writing in D:OS 1 bad, per se, but just pretty annoying - borderline insufferable fwiw

Much much better, the story/characters and quests are some of the best things about it so far.

Pet Pal is great too, some of the animals have great stories and quests, lots of humor but some are more serious/sad as well.

 

[Speely]

How's the writing in this game?

I didn't find the writing in D:OS 1 bad, per se, but just pretty annoying - borderline insufferable fwiw

It's top-notch. Dialogue in particular is great, and the Narrator often surprises with some great content. The voice acting is also FAR better than I would have expected.

Edit: No, seriously. The voice acting combined with the great writing makes the world feel very lived-in and makes even ancillary characters interesting.

 

[texhnolyze]

If I had a hard time getting into Original Sin, would I find this more engaging? I liked Original Sin's charm, and how open it was, but found it a bit boring.

I had to force myself to progress through the first game after reaching the 2nd map. It was quite a slog.

In comparison, I look forward to play this game every day. I think about it every moment I'm not playing the game.

How's the writing in this game?

I didn't find the writing in D:OS 1 bad, per se, but just pretty annoying - borderline insufferable fwiw

It's much better. It's darker and has a more serious tone with toned down humor. Every line is also fully voiced by talented voice actors.