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[AColdDay]

One thing I really like about this game is that the origin dialogue options aren't always the "correct" option.

Most of the time in an RPG when you have dialogue options that can be influenced by your choices, the unique choices are always better.

Example:

1. Enough talk, let's dunk our faces into this boiling lava.
2. I think we should dunk our entire heads into this boiling lava.
3. (Doctor) Guys we will die if we make physical contact with this lava. Let's walk around it.

In Divinity Original Sin 2, I have to be careful letting Sebille say whatever comes naturally to her!

 

[Renekton]

Many regrets for using a custom character.

Using Larian's premade characters like Red Prince is a richer experience.

 

[Elven_Star]

25 hours in, Act 2, level 13 right now. Going with a summoner/necromancer Fane and a Scoundrel/Warfare (ranged) Lohse. For Fane I've pumped the most points in Intelligence, for Lohse Finesse (will go for Wits next probably). What are some fun spells for this setup and where can I get the spellbooks?

Help =P

 

[Sanctuary]

Alice?

I divided my party into two. My tanks up front engaging the battle, and my ranged units in the 2nd floor of the ruined building. The mage supported my tank by giving magic armor, while my ranger decimated her as soon as her can. Because our ranged units were so far away from her, she focused on my tanks instead. She's down in a couple of turns.

How many people actually fought her and won on their first attempt without any prior knowledge? I doubt many, and that was his point I think. There are a few seemingly bullshit fights in this game where if you don't already have your group spread out and ready to go before the fight starts, it can be decimating. You don't know about the invisible enemies (that seem to spawn out of thin air once the fight begins), or how the elite or boss has 8-10 AP and that they will do a bunch of AoE attacks, possibly stripping and debilitating someone before you even get a turn. There are too many instances where this happens. Once it happens the first time you can adjust accordingly, but it shouldn't be happening in the first place. Can you imagine someone attempting Honor Mode on a first playthrough?

Then there's also the problem with the game forcing your highest initiative character to the back of the bus if it happens to be a boss with a transformation. The fight will start with the boss in one form, with your high initiative character in line to go next. The boss then proceeds to change forms and this makes it count as a new enemy, which then completely skips the turn of the party member in your group that should have gone first. It also happens sometimes when you kill enemies in a certain order too.

The game isn't brutal or anything, and you can learn from "mistakes" (player or game), but hopefully some of these issues get ironed out.

 

[texhnolyze]

How many people actually fought her and won on their first attempt without any prior knowledge? I doubt many, and that was his point I think. There are a few seemingly bullshit fights in this game where if you don't already have your group spread out and ready to go before the fight starts, it can be decimating. You don't know about the invisible enemies (that seem to spawn out of thin air once the fight begins), or how the elite or boss has 8-10 AP and that they will do a bunch of AoE attacks, possibly stripping and debilitating someone before you even get a turn. There are too many instances where this happens. Once it happens the first time you can adjust accordingly, but it shouldn't be happening in the first place. Can you imagine someone attempting Honor Mode on a first playthrough?

Then there's also the problem with the game forcing your highest initiative character to the back of the bus if it happens to be a boss with a transformation. The fight will start with the boss in one form, with your high initiative character in line to go next. The boss then proceeds to change forms and this makes it count as a new enemy, which then completely skips the turn of the party member in your group that should have gone first. It also happens sometimes when you kill enemies in a certain order too.

The game isn't brutal or anything, and you can learn from "mistakes" (player or game), but hopefully some of these issues get ironed out.

I mean, that's also my point. You're not supposed to steamroll every encounter in this game. That's the autosave function is for. You'll get owned every now and then and that's fine, because you'll learn from that. Learn where the enemies will start and who's gonna start and what their first moves are, and overcome them on your 2nd try. Or maybe 3rd.

Why is it that our privilege to beat everything in one go?

 

[Sanctuary]

Why is it that our privilege to beat everything in one go?

It's not really a privilege, and I don't mind losing if it seems like I was completely unprepared or made stupid mistakes. What I don't like are the "Aha, gotcha!" moments where you have absolutely no idea where enemy placement is because they are either cloaked or just appear from nowhere, or sometimes when you don't even know that you're technically about to engage in a fight in the first place. The turn skipping doesn't help matters either and feels either like a bug, or blatant cheating.

So here is a question, why do half the scoundrel abilities not specifically say "can backstab", i went to look at daggers drawn and 5 hits for 2 source and 4 ap that can't backstab seems kinda weak.

Almost all of them backstab when using daggers, regardless of the description. Drawn Daggers does in fact backstab too. So do Warfare abilities like Cripple, Whirlwind and Blitz (although Blitz is wonky). Cripple is a great 2 AP spender too when you don't have anything better available (most of the above 2 AP abilities aren't efficient).

The way the scaling is done, early on at least, seems a bit counter intuitive to me.

I changed my ranger and rogue to be 2-3 points in huntsman and scoundrel respectively for skills with the rest in warfare and the damage increase vs. having most points in the actual tree is quite notable.

Just strikes me as odd that a ranger with 10 points in warfare and 3 in huntsman has better damage than one with 10 in huntsman and 3 in warfare.

It's because the Scoundrel and Huntsman tree aren't specifically for the skills that are associated with them. Scoundrel grants a movement speed as well as a critical damage bonus to all attacks that can crit, and Huntsman grants a height bonus to all ranged attacks. Both affect spells too. It does seem a bit counterintuitive at first though.

Also, in case some didn't know, Far Man Out affects a lot of the mobility skills. It will cause stuff like Backlash, Phoenix Dive, Tactical Retreat and Cloak and Dagger to gain an addtional 2m range. It also affects grenades. The description of it is stupid, and it's been this way since the previous game. Basically anything that is a ranged attack, or causes you to jump in some way benefits.

 

[texhnolyze]

It's not really a privilege, and I don't mind losing if it seems like I was completely unprepared or made stupid mistakes. What I don't like are the "Aha, gotcha!" moments where you have absolutely no idea where enemy placement is because they are either cloaked or just appear from nowhere, or sometimes when you don't even know that you're technically about to engage in a fight in the first place. The turn skipping doesn't help matters either and feels either like a bug, or blatant cheating.

Because it works either way, we can also cheat them. In some fights, you can prepare and position your units in the best spots before starting the fight, while the enemies are standing right there waiting for our leader to finish the conversation. I do agree with the turn skipping though, it's annoying because we don't know what causes it.

Also, I found the "Aha, gotcha!" moments actually exciting, especially if you can overcome them on your first try. Each combat is so random and very unique, you don't know the classes of your enemies, skills and spells they have, etc. In most other tactical RPGs, you can see everything from the start of the battle and after a while it may get boring. The constant surprise and unique encounter in Original Sin 2 are what make the amazing and stand out from other similar games, imho.

 

[decoyplatypus]

One thing I really like about this game is that the origin dialogue options aren't always the "correct" option.

I agree with this.

Also, in case some didn't know, Far Man Out affects a lot of the mobility skills. It will cause stuff like Backlash, Phoenix Dive, Tactical Retreat and Cloak and Dagger to gain an addtional 2m range. . . . Basically anything that is a ranged attack, or causes you to jump in some way benefits.

Ooooooh.

It's been way too long since I played the the first game. It turns out I forgot (or never knew) a lot of helpful information.

 

[Sanctuary]

Because it works either way, we can also cheat them. In some fights, you can prepare and position your units in the best spots before starting the fight, while the enemies are standing right there waiting for our leader to finish the conversation. I do agree with the turn skipping though, it's annoying because we don't know what causes it.

Also, I found the "Aha, gotcha!" moments actually exciting, especially if you can overcome them on your first try. Each combat is so random and very unique, you don't know the classes of your enemies, skills and spells they have, etc. In most other tactical RPGs, you can see everything from the start of the battle and after a while it may get boring. The constant surprise and unique encounter in Original Sin 2 are what make the amazing and stand out from other similar games, imho.

This doesn't really work that well in practice. When you really set up your group to be in a good position, half of the time (if not more) the fight begins where only 1-3 of your party is actually in combat. Then, when you move those that are not engaged into the fight, it will make them start on the second round instead of the first. Sometimes you can get one shot off before this happens, but you still only get that one shot before you actually get to really start anything.

I really dislike the ambush fights precisely because you can't setup your group ahead of time, unless you simply guess that it's going to be yet another ambush fight. Every single time. Even with the formations, your group still typically starts clumped up enough to be hit by a bunch of AoE. There's really not a whole lot of learning that happens in those situations. It's basically "Oh, it's this bullshit, OK" and then they get stomped the next go.

 

[Not Spaceghost]

Almost all of them backstab when using daggers, regardless of the description. Drawn Daggers does in fact backstab too. So do Warfare abilities like Cripple, Whirlwind and Blitz (although Blitz is wonky). Cripple is a great 2 AP spender too when you don't have anything better available

Oh that's interesting, a bit frustrating though. What's the point of going out of your way to say CAN BACKSTAB on some tool tips if it generally doesn't matter?

 

[texhnolyze]

This doesn't really work that well in practice. When you really set up your group to be in a good position, half of the time (if not more) the fight begins where only 1-3 of your party is actually in combat. Then, when you move those that are not engaged into the fight, it will make them start on the second round instead of the first. Sometimes you can get one shot off before this happens, but you still only get that one shot before you actually get to really start anything.

I really dislike the ambush fights precisely because you can't setup your group ahead of time, unless you simply guess that it's going to be yet another ambush fight. Every single time. Even with the formations, your group still typically starts clumped up enough to be hit by a bunch of AoE.

Weird, that's not my experience so far. As long as everyone is within the vicinity of the fight, they'll be included on the first round. I've had some cases like that, though most of them were because I put them too far away from the enemies, or because there are some obstacles like walls or something like that. But yeah, ambush is useless.

 

[Sanctuary]

Oh that's interesting, a bit frustrating though. What's the point of going out of your way to say CAN BACKSTAB on some tool tips if it generally doesn't matter?

I honestly stopped paying attention to the tooltips after my first playthrough, but the only two that I can remember that specifically mention backstabbing would be Throwing Knife and Backlash. I don't really know why Throwing Knife says this other than to just let you know that yes, the projectile can critical from behind (since it doesn't from the front). As far as Backlash is concerned, I think it's just to inform the player that it teleports you directly behind, since you can only backstab from behind anyway. Pretty much any of the skills that use a weapon for damage will crit from behind when using daggers.

Weird, that's not my experience so far. As long as everyone is within the vicinity of the fight, they'll be included on the first round. I've had some cases like that, though most of them were because I put them too far away from the enemies, or because there are some obstacles like walls or something like that. But yeah, ambush is useless.

Seems to depend on just how many ranged units you're using and how spread out you have them. See that choice sniping spot at ~20m? Put your Rangers up there and they won't be in combat when you initiate it with a melee unit. Sometimes the 1-2 characters 1-2m directly behind them don't engage either though if you started the fight with a ranged shot.

 

[johancruijff]

This doesn't really work that well in practice. When you really set up your group to be in a good position, half of the time (if not more) the fight begins where only 1-3 of your party is actually in combat. Then, when you move those that are not engaged into the fight, it will make them start on the second round instead of the first. Sometimes you can get one shot off before this happens, but you still only get that one shot before you actually get to really start anything.

notable example early on: the fight against the magisters if you go left of Zaleskar

 

[Not Spaceghost]

The way the scaling is done, early on at least, seems a bit counter intuitive to me.

I changed my ranger and rogue to be 2-3 points in huntsman and scoundrel respectively for skills with the rest in warfare and the damage increase vs. having most points in the actual tree is quite notable.

Just strikes me as odd that a ranger with 10 points in warfare and 3 in huntsman has better damage than one with 10 in huntsman and 3 in warfare.

Stats in this game are annoying and I dislike it much more than how they did it in DOS1. It's very unintuitive to get an "efficient" min mixed build. In DOS1 you would just pump points into what you used. If you used scoundrel skills and dual daggers and you wanted to do more damage you would pump dex and dual wielding, then you would put points into the skill tree of the abilities you used to reduce their AP cost and let you use higher tier ones.

The way the modifiers are done in DOS2 it's actually about 40-50% better to pump warfare instead of a weapon skill if you're a using a physical weapon. For example, when dual wielding daggers for a backstab build 60 finesse, 20 DW, 15 scoundrel and 5 warfare is about 40% less powerful than 60 finesse 5 DW, 15 scoundrel and 20 warfare.

I believe that damage is calculated in a specific order which is why warfare is so strong.
1. Gear Damage
This is the base damage that your gear does, this is what appears on the weapon itself.
2. Gear Damage + % from Weapon Skill
Be it 2H, Dual Wielding or Ranged, it is applied as a bonus first before anything else. Let's call this one Total Weapon Damage (TWD)
3. TWD + % from Strength/Finesse
Each point from the stats boosts damage by 5% and it always has a base of 10 (It can be lowered but eh). So yes, Stat Multiplier is applied AFTER Weapon Skills. Let's call this one Total Base Damage (TBD)
4. Warfare
TBD is then affected by warfare your percentage. it's all increased by your % bonus from warfare. So if you have 20 in warfare this is the point where your damage is doubled.

 

[Sanctuary]

Stats in this game are annoying and I dislike it much more than how they did it in DOS1. It's very unintuitive to get an "efficient" min mixed build. In DOS1 you would just pump points into what you used. If you used scoundrel skills and dual daggers and you wanted to do more damage you would pump dex and dual wielding, then you would put points into the skill tree of the abilities you used to reduce their AP cost and let you use higher tier ones.

The way the modifiers are done in DOS2 it's actually about 40-50% better to pump warfare instead of a weapon skill if you're a using a physical weapon. For example, when dual wielding daggers for a backstab build 60 finesse, 20 DW, 15 scoundrel and 5 warfare is about 40% less powerful than 60 finesse 5 DW, 15 scoundrel and 20 warfare.

I believe that damage is calculated in a specific order which is why warfare is so strong.
1. Gear Damage
This is the base damage that your gear does, this is what appears on the weapon itself.
2. Gear Damage + % from Weapon Skill
Be it 2H, Dual Wielding or Ranged, it is applied as a bonus first before anything else. Let's call this one Total Weapon Damage (TWD)
3. TWD + % from Strength/Finesse
Each point from the stats boosts damage by 5% and it always has a base of 10 (It can be lowered but eh). So yes, Stat Multiplier is applied AFTER Weapon Skills. Let's call this one Total Base Damage (TBD)
4. Warfare
TBD is then affected by warfare your percentage. it's all increased by your % bonus from warfare. So if you have 20 in warfare this is the point where your damage is doubled.

Sure, it doesn't seem like raising the "Warrior" skill tree should affect all physical damage the way it does, yet why would anyone bother to raise it above 3 (for most of the game) before maxing out their respective weapon skills first (which offer more than just a "5%" damage increase per point)? Aside from skill prerequisites, Warfare does nothing but add 5% damage. Not to "one-handed" or "two-handed" melee weapons specifically either. Physical damage in general.

The problem lies in the fact that no one is going to know how big of a difference the damage is between these abilities without respeccing a bunch to check, because the descriptions are entirely too vague and read as though they are similar, but they aren't. +5% damage and 1% crit sure looks a lot better than just +5% damage. Yet it's not. It's actually far easier to get an optimized build in this game than it was in the previous thanks to how stripped down everything is in comparison. You just don't know what does what upon a first glance. Basically all weapon schools are additive and Huntsman, Scoundrel and Warfare are multiplicative. Otherwise, it's just main stat dumping aside from maybe a single character that you want to go first a fight, or late game when you have nothing better to spend your points on than Wits for extra crit chance.

CON is mostly a forgettable stat unless you want to use a shield, and even then I think the most you need is 14 unless you're an Elf that uses Flesh Sacrifice a bunch, then it will need to be higher.
MEM isn't actually all that useful later on, and seems to have the biggest impact during a first playthrough (especially mid game) when you want to try everything out. Most builds can get by with base memory, or at most grabbing Mneumonic for three memory slots. The only real reason to put stats anywhere else would be if you found a piece of armor that has amazing bonuses for your build, but you're 1-3 shy of the stat requirement to use it. Even than that's usually going to be temporary.

edit: The issue specifically with Dual Wielding is that all it really does is decreases the penalty of the off hand, while Warfare increases damage in general. So while the off hand still retains its penalty, it's still increasing in damage with every point of Warfare, while the main hand benefits even more.

 

[BrassDragon]

Woha, the writer's room went all in on the romance scenes. Be gentle with my glass cannon, Larian.

 

[Eyeh4wk]

Many regrets for using a custom character.

Using Larian's premade characters like Red Prince is a richer experience.

Really? Totally the opposite from me, lol. I actually restarted my game to a custom char cause I didn't like the idea of being "forced" to choose tagged dialogue options during all game. I feel you can experience the origin characters' story better with them as companions.

 

[johancruijff]

Really? Totally the opposite from me, lol. I actually restarted my game to a custom char cause I didn't like the idea of being "forced" to choose tagged dialogue options during all game. I feel you can experience the origin characters' story better with them as companions.

I have to agree

That's why i'm doing 2 playthrough 1 custom + 3 origin characters

 

[BossDarkseid]

Sure, it doesn't seem like raising the "Warrior" skill tree should affect all physical damage the way it does, yet why would anyone bother to raise it above 3 (for most of the game) before maxing out their respective weapon skills first (which offer more than just a "5%" damage increase per point)? Aside from skill prerequisites, Warfare does nothing but add 5% damage. Not to "one-handed" or "two-handed" melee weapons specifically either. Physical damage in general.

The problem lies in the fact that no one is going to know how big of a difference the damage is between these abilities without respeccing a bunch to check, because the descriptions are entirely too vague and read as though they are similar, but they aren't. +5% damage and 1% crit sure looks a lot better than just +5% damage. Yet it's not. It's actually far easier to get an optimized build in this game than it was in the previous thanks to how stripped down everything is in comparison. You just don't know what does what upon a first glance. Basically all weapon schools are additive and Huntsman, Scoundrel and Warfare are multiplicative. Otherwise, it's just main stat dumping aside from maybe a single character that you want to go first a fight, or late game when you have nothing better to spend your points on than Wits for extra crit chance.

CON is mostly a forgettable stat unless you want to use a shield, and even then I think the most you need is 14 unless you're an Elf that uses Flesh Sacrifice a bunch, then it will need to be higher.
MEM isn't actually all that useful later on, and seems to have the biggest impact during a first playthrough (especially mid game) when you want to try everything out. Most builds can get by with base memory, or at most grabbing Mneumonic for three memory slots. The only real reason to put stats anywhere else would be if you found a piece of armor that has amazing bonuses for your build, but you're 1-3 shy of the stat requirement to use it. Even than that's usually going to be temporary.

edit: The issue specifically with Dual Wielding is that all it really does is decreases the penalty of the off hand, while Warfare increases damage in general. So while the off hand still retains its penalty, it's still increasing in damage with every point of Warfare, while the main hand benefits even more.

So...in your opinion, would you say Dual Wielding is not a priority stat/skill for a dual wielding Rogue? It might sound stupid but I guess you would see more benefit maxing Warfare?

 

[Not Spaceghost]

Sure, it doesn't seem like raising the "Warrior" skill tree should affect all physical damage the way it does, yet why would anyone bother to raise it above 3 (for most of the game) before maxing out their respective weapon skills first (which offer more than just a "5%" damage increase per point)? Aside from skill prerequisites, Warfare does nothing but add 5% damage. Not to "one-handed" or "two-handed" melee weapons specifically either. Physical damage in general.

The problem lies in the fact that no one is going to know how big of a difference the damage is between these abilities without respeccing a bunch to check, because the descriptions are entirely too vague and read as though they are similar, but they aren't. +5% damage and 1% crit sure looks a lot better than just +5% damage. Yet it's not. It's actually far easier to get an optimized build in this game than it was in the previous thanks to how stripped down everything is in comparison. You just don't know what does what upon a first glance. Basically all weapon schools are additive and Huntsman, Scoundrel and Warfare are multiplicative. Otherwise, it's just main stat dumping aside from maybe a single character that you want to go first a fight, or late game when you have nothing better to spend your points on than Wits for extra crit chance.

My calculations all say that if you're a character that uses physical damage weapons as their primary damage source then putting points into warfare is always better than putting points into your weapon skill for raw damage increase, and I think that's wrong and not a good intuitive character building experience.

https://i.imgur.com/2u3eDem.jpg

Sorry for the poorly compiled image I forgot to take a screenshot of the DW build but literally the only difference is I moved the points out of warfare into DW so DW was at 20 and warfare was at 4 and I think it illustrates the point pretty perfectly. It's essentially the same build (with a bit less dodge) but with basically 30% more damage output because I put points in the not intuitive place to put them.

But yeah you're right, the tool tips don't give you enough information so they all seem ridiculously vague. Even to most people if you just mouse over the tooltips finesse says +5% damage per point, weapon skills say +5% damage per point and warfare says 5% damage per point. So unless you're paying close attention you'd think "oh any of them is a 5% increase, what a nice and flexible system!" But you'd be wrong. And yeah you're kind of right that it's easier to get a functional build in this game, but then again this game also has respeccing so it almost matters less that it's easier to get a functional build. My argument is that it's not intuitive to fully min max around warfare on a character that might not even use the tree. I get it's a petty complaint but it's still a bit annoying.

So...in your opinion, would you say Dual Wielding is not a priority stat/skill for a dual wielding Rogue? It might sound stupid but I guess you would see more benefit maxing Warfare?

In my opinion and from what I have tested (look at the imgur link in my post) yes, it is superior to get warfare over DW for a dagger backstab rogue.

 

[BossDarkseid]

In my opinion and from what I have tested (look at the imgur link in my post) yes, it is superior to get warfare over DW for a dagger backstab rogue.

Thank ye.

I have my Finesse at 40 and have enough memory with default to equip all the skills I want. Not sure what should be my priority next. I like having quite a bit of HP, but don't know if CON or WIS etc would be more valuable, or something else

 

[Taruranto]

lol the

Spoiler

sex scene

at the end of the 3th act, laughed all the way through it.

 

[Sanctuary]

So...in your opinion, would you say Dual Wielding is not a priority stat/skill for a dual wielding Rogue? It might sound stupid but I guess you would see more benefit maxing Warfare?

For all physical damage builds:

Warfare to 10, while only raising other schools such as Scoundrel or Huntsman as required to use skills. For a while you won't need more than two points, and even longer after that you won't need more than three. After that, it just depends, but for a Rogue taking Scoundrel to 10 will generally be more useful than raising Dual Wield at all.

For a Warrior, their weapon skill is what you would raise next usually, although Scoundrel isn't a total waste either.

For physical ranged builds:

Warfare to 10 and then potentially Huntsman to 10. This is going to depend though on how much you want to move your characters into position for the height advantage on top of how many encounters actually allow you to do so. Aside from a single Hunstaman ability, you'll be at a disadvantage damage wise raising Huntsman over Ranged Weapon on any of the encounters that don't actually allow you to move into an elevated position, or where those positions cause line of sight issues, put you out of range, or just cost too much AP in general. You'll basically dominate all of the encounters that have easy elevation access, and not so much on those that don't.

Ranged attacks by default all have a 20% multiplicative bonus from elevation. This includes spell damage, so increasing Huntsman will also increase all spell damage from an elevated position, but unless you're hyper focused on a single school, you probably won't have too many extra points to invest for a Mage in that school. Plus, similarly to physical ranged builds, encounters with a lack of elevation make those points useless, and both physical and magical damage benefit from Scoundrel at all times when you have a healthy crit chance.

Thank ye.

I have my Finesse at 40 and have enough memory with default to equip all the skills I want. Not sure what should be my priority next. I like having quite a bit of HP, but don't know if CON or WIS etc would be more valuable, or something else

Yeah, it's an issue with all builds really. After you max your primary stat, most everything else is just kind of "whatever". Aside from some caster builds, you really don't need more than base MEM and CON is really only there for when your armor gets depleted; even then it's still not great aside from wearing a shield. Other than wearing non primary stat items, Wits is pretty much the only useful stat for the crit. On a Rogue it's much less useful, but it's still better than anything else since occasionally you might need to attack from a different position than directly behind (although very infrequently). Of course, Wits also gives the initiative bonus, but this only works for a single character in your group, so only the one you want to go first should raise it for that bonus.

 

[Ivory Samoan]

Really? Totally the opposite from me, lol. I actually restarted my game to a custom char cause I didn't like the idea of being "forced" to choose tagged dialogue options during all game. I feel you can experience the origin characters' story better with them as companions.

This is me too, it's a personal RP thing: loving the utter crap out of this game.

It's so damn addictive....I can't remember a game making me not sleep this much, perhaps Mass Effect 2 on release, that's the last time this happened.

I'm literally played all night (it's 7am here in NZ) and now I have to go to work, this is dangerous stuff guys.

 

[Dragon1893]

I honestly can't remember the last time a game kicked my ass like this and I spend a lot of time playing rpgs that like to kick ass and take names. I feel like such a noob but I love it lol.

 

[Flaboere]

I need a little help here, for act 2:

I'm in the caves where

Spoiler

my party gets split up. I read to use the pyramids to bring them together, but 2 of them are in combat and can't use the pyramids. Am I missing something here?

 

[Leezard]

I need a little help here, for act 2:

I'm in the caves where

Spoiler

my party gets split up. I read to use the pyramids to bring them together, but 2 of them are in combat and can't use the pyramids. Am I missing something here?

You can use pyramids in combat. It requires 6 AP.

 

[Flaboere]

You can use pyramids in combat. It requires 6 AP.

Thanks! That worked.

 

[Blyr]

Almost 200 hours in the game, and I only just found out the "Far Out Man" talent works with Ranger skills, for some reason I thought it would be limited to spells, but the description clearly says "skills"

My ranger just got about 200% more broken starting fights with Blood Arrows + Ballistic Shot from high ground (I've already been able to kill multiple enemies on turn one, this is just absurd)

I think Mages' biggest weakness right now is that their weapons don't buff their skills like the physical classes do, so finding a unique wand with 3 slots and +2 INT is pretty much the weapon you're going to end the game with, especially if it has bonuses to a skill you're trying to buff (My lvl 13 summoner is still using a Lvl 9 unique wand because it has +2 summoning and +2 int)

It'd also give you a reason to dual wield wands or use staffs, because of the higher base damage, as opposed to Wand+Shield, which there's really no point to not give your casters a shield at this point, with how armor works

It's a bit frustrating to see my Pyromancer with 13 in Pyro, 35INT do about ~200 damage with fireball, while my Ranger does ~1k with Ballistic shot from elevation.. sure that's specific positioning and a buff to her physical damage from a skill, but Mages don't even have something like that, the best we have is Peace Of Mind, which scales decently (I think it was giving +5 INT at one point in the game) but you could also use that buff on a ranger, and make them even more powerful while there's nothing to directly buff Mages' damage to such levels

I think they need to buff the scaling rate for spells to +10% per point investment (which if I could figure out how to mod the game I'd do myself and test it out) or make it so weapons buff your skill damage, instead of the opposite happening (Pyro buffs fire wands, for example, except there's little to no reason to ever use your basic attack and you don't have weapon skills)

Actually, hilariously, if you found a weapon you were going to keep until the end of the game, with an elemental modifier, you could use runes to make that weapon even stronger by putting points in the corresponding elemental skill once you had maxed out Warfare, as it'd buff your magic damage on the weapon, making Rangers/Physical classes even more powerful, while mages are left lagging behind

Couple this with the fact that Summons (as hilariously broken as they are) are completely separated from INT scaling and rely solely on the Summoning skill, and the armor system in place as-is, it's really making me question why I'd even play a mage to begin with, when most of my utility is creating fields and CC, fields which hamper my melee teammates and damage them, removing their magic armor, while CC is effectively useless while the enemy has magic armor.. (and armor is so BS, I had

Spoiler

Radeka

hit me with shackles of pain while I had 70 physical armor, and yet she resisted when she had 3 physical armor, are you kidding me?)

Still loving the game, but I hope the patch in the near future adjusts or fixes the magic scaling, or if not I need to get into the files and tweak it and figure out how to do it myself, because this is getting silly, most fights are over in 1-2 turns due to my ranger alone, while I've put a few points into Necromancer on my Pyro just so she can also throw out a Summon along with our healer so she doesn't feel like a wasted character slot

 

[RenegadeXV8]

Gonna park my game at the end of Act 2 and wait for the patch. Currently have 4 bugged quests.

 

[Sygma]

Almost 200 hours in the game, and I only just found out the "Far Out Man" talent works with Ranger skills, for some reason I thought it would be limited to spells, but the description clearly says "skills"

My ranger just got about 200% more broken starting fights with Blood Arrows + Ballistic Shot from high ground (I've already been able to kill multiple enemies on turn one, this is just absurd)

I think Mages' biggest weakness right now is that their weapons don't buff their skills like the physical classes do, so finding a unique wand with 3 slots and +2 INT is pretty much the weapon you're going to end the game with, especially if it has bonuses to a skill you're trying to buff (My lvl 13 summoner is still using a Lvl 9 unique wand because it has +2 summoning and +2 int)

It'd also give you a reason to dual wield wands or use staffs, because of the higher base damage, as opposed to Wand+Shield, which there's really no point to not give your casters a shield at this point, with how armor works

It's a bit frustrating to see my Pyromancer with 13 in Pyro, 35INT do about ~200 damage with fireball, while my Ranger does ~1k with Ballistic shot from elevation.. sure that's specific positioning and a buff to her physical damage from a skill, but Mages don't even have something like that, the best we have is Peace Of Mind, which scales decently (I think it was giving +5 INT at one point in the game) but you could also use that buff on a ranger, and make them even more powerful while there's nothing to directly buff Mages' damage to such levels

I think they need to buff the scaling rate for spells to +10% per point investment (which if I could figure out how to mod the game I'd do myself and test it out) or make it so weapons buff your skill damage, instead of the opposite happening (Pyro buffs fire wands, for example, except there's little to no reason to ever use your basic attack and you don't have weapon skills)

Actually, hilariously, if you found a weapon you were going to keep until the end of the game, with an elemental modifier, you could use runes to make that weapon even stronger by putting points in the corresponding elemental skill once you had maxed out Warfare, as it'd buff your magic damage on the weapon, making Rangers/Physical classes even more powerful, while mages are left lagging behind

Couple this with the fact that Summons (as hilariously broken as they are) are completely separated from INT scaling and rely solely on the Summoning skill, and the armor system in place as-is, it's really making me question why I'd even play a mage to begin with, when most of my utility is creating fields and CC, fields which hamper my melee teammates and damage them, removing their magic armor, while CC is effectively useless while the enemy has magic armor.. (and armor is so BS, I had

Spoiler

Radeka

hit me with shackles of pain while I had 70 physical armor, and yet she resisted when she had 3 physical armor, are you kidding me?)

Still loving the game, but I hope the patch in the near future adjusts or fixes the magic scaling, or if not I need to get into the files and tweak it and figure out how to do it myself, because this is getting silly, most fights are over in 1-2 turns due to my ranger alone, while I've put a few points into Necromancer on my Pyro just so she can also throw out a Summon along with our healer so she doesn't feel like a wasted character slot

You re completely forgetting Death Wish man. Its an insane buff lol. If you go caster you should go full glass canon and use that spell just for the lulz. At 1hp you ll obliterate things. Also profit of high ground since as a caster it nets +20% damage

Act 4 and I can basically finish the game with only one character. That said

Spoiler

the mistake in the sewers

did hit me really fucking hard and I didn't expect that at all since I ve been steamrolling from halfway Act 2

 

[Not Spaceghost]

Gonna park my game at the end of Act 2 and wait for the patch. Currently have 4 bugged quests.

Which ones out of curiosity? Most quests in this game can be ignored / completed via alternative means. We had a bugged quest in act 2 (everything revolving around Garenth) and we still managed to fix it by clever use of game mechanics.

 

[Sygma]

Which ones out of curiosity? Most quests in this game can be ignored / completed via alternative means. We had a bugged quest in act 2 (everything revolving around Garenth) and we still managed to fix it by clever use of game mechanics.

For me it was hide and seek, grebb and a handful of others

 

[Taruranto]

Dunno, personally I'm not having an issue with magic damage. I run an all-mages party (With the exception of my summoner/ranger) and stuff has been too easy for a while now because AOE damage is massive (Level 17 and Fireball does 1k+ and you get to fire 2-3 spells if you have Elementalist and you play your cards well) and enemies get stunned/etc pretty much immediately now. Plus everyone can teleport/swap with each other.

Rangers are incredibly powerful however, yeah.

 

[Not Spaceghost]

I think Mage works best with lone wolf, it's definitely lacking in synergies like the other builds but I can do like 3000 damage with super nova and regularly pump out 800 damage with targeted spells at level 18.

For me it was hide and seek, grebb and a handful of others

Oh hide and seek is weird, I've only ever been able to successfully complete it with an elf in the party. One of the quest flags seems to fuck up otherwise. I don't think I had trouble with grebb though. But those quests are all very non essential to the act.

 

[Blyr]

You re completely forgetting Death Wish man. Its an insane buff lol. If you go caster you should go full glass canon and use that spell just for the lulz. Also profit of high ground since as a caster it nets +20% damage

I actually did forget about that spell, I might use it on my Pyro (She's Pyro/Geo/Necro, with utility points in Aero for teleport and some electrical skills) and pairing it with Living On The Edge would be fantastic to drop myself to 1hp and just nuke (the only problem is I'd recover too much HP from necro.. >.<) but like, even then, I could comparatively use that buff on my Ranger, and make her even stronger, because she's usually in unreachable areas and is under 0 threat of death (as she kills enemy archers and mages on turn 1, thanks executioner!)

That's my entire problem with the system -- the buffs we have make the strong characters even stronger, while only getting the casters to the "base level" the other characters enjoy freely. It'd be nice if there were a bonus on a specific skill tree that applied a buff like, "Increases all elemental damage done by 5%", maybe in Summoner or something (since that one deals with all elements equally, and pumping summoner is almost a requirement anyways) in the same way the physical characters have

It still wouldn't fix the problem with the current system, where stats scale absurdly high at later levels, so characters who rely on weapons for their damage get significant boosts (further compounded by their stat investments and ability trees) but it might make help close the gap between a 2h Warrior / Rogue / Ranger and a caster

It honestly almost feels like, with the way the skill system and books are set up, they intended for spells to be buffs and a secondary source of damage, while you primarily went with a physical class.. invest 2 points into Pyro for fireball so you get elemental ranger to shred armor and apply magical debuffs, while not making them too strong, or maybe this is whiplash from D:OS1 where casters were very, very strong and they over-nerfed them to compensate

Dunno, personally I'm not having an issue with mage damage. I run an all-mage party (With the exception of my summoner/ranger) and stuff has been too easy for a while now because AOE damage is massive (Level 17 and Fireball does 1k+ and you get to fire 2-3 spells if you have Elementalist and you play your cards well) and enemies get stunned/etc pretty much immediately now. Plus everyone can teleport/swap with each other.

Rangers are incredibly powerful however, yeah.

I'm not having an issue with the damage per-se, on my first PT my fireball did around 2k-3k dmg (I abused the heck out of runes and only used gear that gave +int or +pyro) but the issue was enemies typically had 5k+ magic armor, meanwhile my ranger and 2h warrior had 2k base weapon damage, and I distinctly remember performing a 10k crit during act 4.. I killed

Spoiler

Dallis

in 1 hit, and then we just burst down

Spoiler

Braccus

which ended the final fight in a handful of turns

My biggest issue is that mages feel weak compared to my other classes, I haven't actually had difficulty in a fight at all on this playthrough, especially once I gave my casters shields, no one on my team even gets close to dying anymore, it just doesn't feel like my casters are making a meaningful contribution to the rest of the party, like if I were to dismiss 2 of my characters and simply roll with a 2h Warrior and Ranger, I'd probably be facing the same difficulty in combat as I am now, which is a bit frustrating because casters are always my favorite class to play in games

 

[Not Spaceghost]

maybe this is whiplash from D:OS1 where casters were very, very strong and they over-nerfed them to compensate

I definitely agree with this statement. In both of my DOS1 runs, one classic and one EE my caster was my primary nuker and utility AND support character while everyone else in the party were basically just buffer. In DOS1EE melee my scoundrel character at the tail end of the game became a killing machine but it had a rough time getting there. I remember meteor shower from EE being an instant win the fight button. It would do like 15,000 damage in an AOE, it was insanity. Something like 30 meteors each doing like 450 damage.

 

[Sanctuary]

It's a bit frustrating to see my Pyromancer with 13 in Pyro, 35INT do about ~200 damage with fireball, while my Ranger does ~1k with Ballistic shot from elevation.. sure that's specific positioning and a buff to her physical damage from a skill, but Mages don't even have something like that, the best we have is Peace Of Mind, which scales decently (I think it was giving +5 INT at one point in the game) but you could also use that buff on a ranger, and make them even more powerful while there's nothing to directly buff Mages' damage to such levels

What? Spell damage is comparatively weak when Rangers do what they can do, but spells gain the elevation damage bonus too. They also benefit from critical chance if you take the talent, and getting at least 50% crit chance is not terribly difficult. By end game on my first playthrough it wasn't uncommon to crit for 1200 on a fireball. Of course a Ranger should be doing close to 3K or more on a single target (when not using Arrow Storm), but elemental damage isn't horribly broken barring resists (which are annoying). I agree that wand selection is very lackluster, but you can do more damage than what you've been doing with magic. The biggest issue is that all physical or all magical groups work the best. Split groups work "fine" for beating the game on classic, but you'll have a much easier time going with one damage type over another. I'm not really counting things like buffs and heals either since they are independent of enemy armor types.

Side note: has anyone actually used Asssinate much? It's technically a 4AP skill that doesn't really even seem to do as much damage as a 2AP Ballistic shot at range. The biggest benefit IMO is if you had to cloak in the previous round and you're somewhat close to an enemy. I barely ever use this, and it's a late game skill.

 

[Blyr]

What? Spell damage is comparatively weak when Rangers do what they can do, but spells gain the elevation damage bonus too. They also benefit from critical chance if you take the talent, and getting at least 50% crit chance is not terribly difficult. I agree that wand selection is very lackluster, but you can do more damage than what you've been doing with magic.

I'm still at a low enough level that no one is selling rune frames for me, and I haven't found any decent wands or gear with +crit % chance for my mages, sadly

I also don't have any decent movement utility for my mages, unless I want to invest in warfare/scoundrel/poly, but yes crits on spells is very good, just still not as good.

I typically position my archer next to my DPS mage and have my healer lag behind my tank a bit (she's going to be throwing out her incarnate and setting up ice fields, which enemies typically just ignore and use a movement ability to get around most of the time anyways, but I still like to think it helps) but this is how a typical scenario plays out

Enemy with maybe, ~300 physical armor, 300 magical armor, 800 HP (rough estimate, I don't remember specifics)

Turn 1: My mage can use impalement, followed by fireball from elevation, and strip their magical armor and do about 10-15% HP damage

Turn 1: My ranger can use ballistic shot and kill them instantly, get +2 AP from executioner, and then use ricochet + marksmans fang to soften other targets, or use barrage and leave a 2nd target at deaths door (except for once where I hilariously crit with ricochet and killed 3 mages instantly)

It's like .. Spells and magic feels balanced in such a way to draw fights out and make them last longer, tuned in turn with the difficulty of the game, so it's still challenging but not a cakewalk, it's just they never tuned the physical classes as well because I had started fighting enemies 3 Lvls above me "just to see what would happen" and fights played out similarly to how they did in my first playthrough where I was relying heavily on my mages

Again: My complaint isn't about mages in a vaccuum: their damage is fine and feels "tuned" to the difficulty, it's when I compare them to other classes that they feel underwhelming, because seeing Character A and Character B do 500-1k dmg with a single skill while I'm only doing 400-500 with crits is disheartening

The biggest issue is that all physical or all magical groups work the best. Split groups work "fine" for beating the game on classic, but you'll have a much easier time going with one damage type over another. I'm not really counting things like buffs and heals either since they are independent of enemy armor types.

I think this is actually the primary problem, the way the armor system is designed and the bloat at later levels significantly hinders, or at the very least discourages a "split" group, as you'll have your heavy hitters stripping one armor type to deal direct damage, while half your party is left chipping away.. I would very much like to see some "single target" spells though that could atleast broach the same levels of effectiveness as some of the other classes, or abilities (even source abilities) like Overpower for magic

 

[JC Sera]

Beat the game, bit sad its over now.
Act 4 definitely needs some polishing, especially with the critical path quests..

 

[terencecah]

Anyone else get a sound bug that mutes any NPC that you talk to?

 

[RenegadeXV8]

Why would anyone use a Staff instead of wand + shield? The stat boosts are incredibly minor for what you lose in defense.

With a shield you get +50% physical and magic armor, +1-3 constitution, resistances and more defensive buffs. It's a literal no brainer in Tactician.

If staves had a flat +20% spell damage buff and an additional +1-3 (depending on Tier) elemental magic stat boost, they would be a hell of a lot more attractive.

Which ones out of curiosity? Most quests in this game can be ignored / completed via alternative means. We had a bugged quest in act 2 (everything revolving around Garenth) and we still managed to fix it by clever use of game mechanics.

Polymorphed cows, bridge trolls, three altars, and the beggar's dog quests do not finish even after I completed all the objectives. I've already done everything else in whole Act.

 

[Sygma]

I actually did forget about that spell, I might use it on my Pyro (She's Pyro/Geo/Necro, with utility points in Aero for teleport and some electrical skills) and pairing it with Living On The Edge would be fantastic to drop myself to 1hp and just nuke (the only problem is I'd recover too much HP from necro.. >.<) but like, even then, I could comparatively use that buff on my Ranger, and make her even stronger, because she's usually in unreachable areas and is under 0 threat of death (as she kills enemy archers and mages on turn 1, thanks executioner!)

That's my entire problem with the system -- the buffs we have make the strong characters even stronger, while only getting the casters to the "base level" the other characters enjoy freely. It'd be nice if there were a bonus on a specific skill tree that applied a buff like, "Increases all elemental damage done by 5%", maybe in Summoner or something (since that one deals with all elements equally, and pumping summoner is almost a requirement anyways) in the same way the physical characters have

It still wouldn't fix the problem with the current system, where stats scale absurdly high at later levels, so characters who rely on weapons for their damage get significant boosts (further compounded by their stat investments and ability trees) but it might make help close the gap between a 2h Warrior / Rogue / Ranger and a caster

It honestly almost feels like, with the way the skill system and books are set up, they intended for spells to be buffs and a secondary source of damage, while you primarily went with a physical class.. invest 2 points into Pyro for fireball so you get elemental ranger to shred armor and apply magical debuffs, while not making them too strong, or maybe this is whiplash from D:OS1 where casters were very, very strong and they over-nerfed them to compensate


I'm not having an issue with the damage per-se, on my first PT my fireball did around 2k-3k dmg (I abused the heck out of runes and only used gear that gave +int or +pyro) but the issue was enemies typically had 5k+ magic armor, meanwhile my ranger and 2h warrior had 2k base weapon damage, and I distinctly remember performing a 10k crit during act 4.. I killed

Spoiler

Dallis

in 1 hit, and then we just burst down

Spoiler

Braccus

which ended the final fight in a handful of turns

My biggest issue is that mages feel weak compared to my other classes, I haven't actually had difficulty in a fight at all on this playthrough, especially once I gave my casters shields, no one on my team even gets close to dying anymore, it just doesn't feel like my casters are making a meaningful contribution to the rest of the party, like if I were to dismiss 2 of my characters and simply roll with a 2h Warrior and Ranger, I'd probably be facing the same difficulty in combat as I am now, which is a bit frustrating because casters are always my favorite class to play in games

It's just the way the damage works that kinda is at fault here

And the blood magic counted as physical damage too, I don't think you can hit as hard with the other schools. Main problem being that if you play necro / summoner you want Warfare maxed aswell as Summoning / necromancy and thats kinda counter intuitive to say the least

Also since many schools have an invocation, I think that they designed casters to be able to deal as much damage as the other specs aslong as you don't only use direct spells

The only problem of 2h is that you can use Enrage coupled with source skills and it just cheese pretty much everything. Any boss on sight ? welp here goes. Full crit onslaught with 2k+ weapon damage is utterly ridiculous imho

 

[Sanctuary]

It's like .. Spells and magic feels balanced in such a way to draw fights out and make them last longer, tuned in turn with the difficulty of the game, so it's still challenging but not a cakewalk, it's just they never tuned the physical classes as well because I had started fighting enemies 3 Lvls above me "just to see what would happen" and fights played out similarly to how they did in my first playthrough where I was relying heavily on my mages

Again: My complaint isn't about mages in a vaccuum: their damage is fine and feels "tuned" to the difficulty, it's when I compare them to other classes that they feel underwhelming, because seeing Character A and Character B do 500-1k dmg with a single skill while I'm only doing 400-500 with crits is disheartening

Once I finish my current playthrough (about done), on my next run I'm going to see how different an all caster group is. The only thing I'm not sure about is if I want to have 2x Pyro/Geo or if I want to have 2x Pryo/Aero with 2x Geo/Hydro. There's pros and cons to both setups. I want to see how well it fares so that I can potentially play that in honor mode (with liberal grenade use too).

Also, while technically a caster skill, the spells that the Incarnate gets just feel so out of place compared to what the player seems to be able to do at the point you can reach Summoning rank 10. The Incarnate doesn't scale with stats, so it seems to start at a much higher base than what a comparable character can reach at a similar point. Fireball and Epidemic of Fire for example both do massively more damage than what the player can with those same spells for a long while, and on top of that Epidemic only costs the 1 Source needed to infuse the Incarnate with , while the actual spell itself costs 2!

TBH, I think "casters" are fine if you want to include Summoning. It's a terribly boring playstyle, but a group of four Summoners will absolutely steamroll the game just as easy (maybe easier) than an all physical group. Almost to the point in which it feels like cheating. And while they don't scale well in the later levels, by the time they start falling behind, the player can have 10 in any given school to supplement. I also like using companions when I play, but if you really want to break the game, you would have a custom group (maybe use Sebille) of four Elves too.

 

[Jag]

Anyone else get a sound bug that mutes any NPC that you talk to?

I've had it happen a few times.

 

[PetriP-TNT]

Really liking this game so far, just

Spoiler

found Gareth

and have done all kinds of cool things

 

[Brohan]

Bought this game 2 days ago and having a blast with it so far. Stats and skill choices are pretty hard but thats fine.

Still messing around on prison island and love that there are so many different routes to take.

Would be really cool to have a game group for a game like this.

 

[Currygan]

Which ones out of curiosity? Most quests in this game can be ignored / completed via alternative means. We had a bugged quest in act 2 (everything revolving around Garenth) and we still managed to fix it by clever use of game mechanics.

Reluctant Servants for me. Killed the guy and gravekeeper wont talk to me, she is unclickable

 

[Taruranto]

Can you respect in act 4?

 

[sadblob]

Can you respect in act 4?

Yep.