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Divinity: Original Sin 2 |OT| Dragons & Dungeon Mastering

cevion

Member
These are good, especially the secodn one, it's great.




Laser Ray is high damage, it's just hard to hit multiple targets with it. Fire Whip I found useless, not great range and less damage than Laser Ray.

Thanks for your response! Glad to hear you're a fan of burning/necrofire + Spontaneous Combustion as well. It's very satisfying to pull of, for me at least, (reminds me of that old Warlock skill in WoW), even if it's such a simple combo!

Good to know about Laser Ray! I'll give it a shot and then skip Fire Whip then, the latter sounds dissapointing the way you described it. Cheers mate! :> If you (or anyone else) got additional spell tips/combos that you're fond of I'd love to hear more!

It still seemed to do decent damage just not as much as it had done. I haven't really messed with too many skill combos, I recently restarted for the 289385th time and I've been having fun with Rupture Tendons + Chicken Claw but everybody knows about that one.

Ah, I see. Well, I'll give it a shot nevertheless. Heh, I had my fair share of restarts as well so I can definitely relate. Think how LONG this game will last you if you keep on starting over though ;-)

Oh I THINK I read about that combo but I haven't gotten a chance to try it out yet! Problem is I think most scoundrel skills requires you to have a dagger equipped. (Found out the hard way after purchasing serveral skillbooks, eagerly wanting to turn my 2h-warrior into a lean, mean backstab machine, zipping around with a giant club)

I currently roll with a 2h tank/Mage/Summoner/Ranger. Maybe I can give my Ranger a Dagger and have some fun with Rupture Tendons and Chicken Claw. Thank you for that! :) Also, I do love whenever my warrior (or my incarnate) triggers an attack of opportunity. Is Reaction Shot similar or something you'd recommend? Got to try that one as well. Polymorph is nice for everyone since it seems to scale with whatever stat your equipped weapon scales with, and I've been having fun with medusa head on my tank.

On Pyro, having Elemental Affinity and standing in fire makes a big difference since you can use 2 of the 3AP skills or 3x 1/2 AP skills in a row, doing stupid damage on anything not fire resistant.

That's a splendid tip! I seem to stand in fire almost every battle so that will definitely be my next pick-up talent wise. Cheers! I read your whole post and really appreciate you typing all that useful information. I'm gonna let go of my Worm Tremor dream (didn't realize it was 3 AP, geez) and pick up Laser Ray. Sounds like it's at least worth the 1 memory slot. I do like disables but with Elemental Affinity, Searing Daggers still seems like the better choice over Fire Whip. As you stated, focusing down magic Armor with spells makes it so disables aren't really needed (unless you want to mess around with charm or similar shenanigans)

Oh good clarification on the reactive armor thing. I hadn't considered Heart of Steel - must have missed that skill book! Was thinking of throwing in an adrenaline rush or a haste into the mix so I have enough AP to stack enough phys armor for RA to do meaningful damage. I'll definitely try combo:ing it with Whirlwind.

Right now I'm doing a similar thing where I teleport the enemies to me, do whirlwind on my warrior and then a WW on my incarnate. That usually leaves the enemies with 0, or very little physical armor. Yet to try earthquake (been using fossil strike and impalement like you) Going to incorporate it into my rotation thanks to your advice (I do love me some knockdowns, simple but effective disable!)

Again, thank you so much for those tips and clarifications! I'm gonna get some rest now, since I can barely form coherent sentances, but looking forward to putting some of those tactics into play :)

Take care!
 
Aw, I heard they nerfed it but is it really bad? Was thinking of stacking fortify, bone cage (maybe throw in deflective barrier if I have the AP) and finally shackles of pain (since reactive armor hurts the caster) then unleash reactive armor. I'll have to try and see if this is viable. The remaining part of this post is gonna be about interesting spell combos - please share if you have any neat ones that you recommend! :)

I've been meaning to experiment with Bloated Corpse + Flaming Crescendo, something that I theorycrafted about the other day. Do this combo on turn 1 on your summoner, then after the explosion you go ahead and summon your beefy incarnate and infuse/haste/enrage that fella!

Next up is Spontaneous Combustion. On a high int character you can do something like Fireball + Spont. Combustion or just Ignition + SC. SC does good damage even if you haven't even applied Burning/Necrofire to your enemy. (Not really a combo per se, just want to plug that spell since it's surprisingly high-damage!)

Two pyro skills I've yet to try are Fire Whip and Laser Ray. Anyone mess with them yet? I'd love to hear how you guys like those skills. Also interested in uses for the geo skill "Worm Tremor". Trying to figure out if I can heal Fane with it.

Oh, and shield throw/shield's up are really good on caster characters! You could give them something like mosquito bite/infect to further add to your selection of physical damage skills on said casters!
Thanks in advance! I want you guys's dirty secrets on sweet spell combos! :3



This is my experience as well. I usually summon an incarnate and have them destroy every locked door for me, or have them go through trapped rooms if I'm unsure of what nasty stuff lies ahead...

On Pyro, having Elemental Affinity and standing in fire makes a big difference since you can use 2 of the 3AP skills or 3x 1/2 AP skills in a row, doing stupid damage on anything not fire resistant.

Laser is really good at 2AP, at 3 it's a bit expensive but still good. It does high damage and has a very long range, the width of the laser isn't too bad(not great but not too bad) and it leaves powerful burning cloud behind so anything walking through takes fairly high damage. Main issue is it can't be used if the elevation is too different, it fires in a straight line and won't go "up or down" stuff, at least not too much(still works for small elevation so it's not flat ground only, but you can't climb up a tower then fire a laser ray down).

Fire Whip is in my opinion not worth it, I'm still using Searing Daggers over it. Once I have enough memory I guess I'll take it, but it's not great. The only advantage it provides is the blind which is a soft disable on ranged characters(archers and mages), but it's hard to pop their magic shield with just the skill and if you're going to use 2 firespells on a target, they'll probably be dead anyway. It has some uses but I wish the blind lasted longer for example.

Worm Tremor isn't good for undead healing, because it inflicts earth damage first, so you'll take damage then be poisonned to heal. Also you'll be unable to move and I'm not sure you can get affected by the poison at all if you have magic armor and block the 2nd part. Most poison spells are kinda meh though other than the source skill Acid Spores. I prefer Fossil Strike and Impalement which do good damage and slow enemies(Impalement will also cripple sometimes, although I don't use it for that much since it needs phys armor to be removed first). I don't use Worm Tremor, damage is too weak for the AP.

On Reactive Armor, it's pretty heavily nerfed. It's decent but won't be crazy damage anymore unless you buff your phys armor a lot. If you have 5AP from Haste though you can do Heart of Steel+Fortify and then Reactive and it'll do a lot of damage(and Heart will heal your phys armor in the future turns which is nice). Just a raw Reactive Armor with 3geo on my tank does about the same damage as whirlwind, while hurting myself and allies. Still useful because it's 2 aoes in a row, can rip all physical armor of a bunch of stuff and then hit them with an Earthquake from my mage for aoe knockdown.
 
Mini rant. I am annoyed how the purge wand recharge seems to have glitched by the end of the Act. I got around it, but it still sad that the nothing changes even when going through the correct dialogue.

I am pretty much at the end of the Fort Joy island. Just preparing myself for the worst now.
 

jrcbandit

Member
Finally getting around to starting the game. I plan on having a 2 handed warfare/poly/necro damage dealer and something similar for a rogue except replace warfare with scoundrel. For my mage, going hydro for healing/crowd control and pyro for damage. For final character, do summoners count as magic damage with totems and incarnate? I know you don't want 3 physical and 1 magic, you either go all one way or even mix. A summoner with 3 necro could also use the bone spider summon when more physical damage is necessary. Would it be better just to have a 2nd mage instead as I read summoners lose luster in acts 2 and 3?
 

Type2

Member
So what does a proper ranger build look like?
2hand warrior build?
Are most people running their summoner as a support after the big beastie is out and buffed?
 

CHC

Member
How is the loot in this game? Is it improved, with memorable items like in Baldur's Gate II or Planescape? I remember the first game being extremely dull in terms of items until they patched it some designated boss drops.
 

Xeteh

Member
Ah, I see. Well, I'll give it a shot nevertheless. Heh, I had my fair share of restarts as well so I can definitely relate. Think how LONG this game will last you if you keep on starting over though ;-)

Oh I THINK I read about that combo but I haven't gotten a chance to try it out yet! Problem is I think most scoundrel skills requires you to have a dagger equipped. (Found out the hard way after purchasing serveral skillbooks, eagerly wanting to turn my 2h-warrior into a lean, mean backstab machine, zipping around with a giant club)

I currently roll with a 2h tank/Mage/Summoner/Ranger. Maybe I can give my Ranger a Dagger and have some fun with Rupture Tendons and Chicken Claw. Thank you for that! :) Also, I do love whenever my warrior (or my incarnate) triggers an attack of opportunity. Is Reaction Shot similar or something you'd recommend? Got to try that one as well. Polymorph is nice for everyone since it seems to scale with whatever stat your equipped weapon scales with, and I've been having fun with medusa head on my tank.

I haven't really bothered with Reaction Shot, its just a free normal attack if they step in to the area which isn't huge and since it costs AP to put up I wouldn't compare it to attacks of opportunity. My Rogue is still early on (just hit act 2) but hits like a truck, I gave it Opportunist to see if when an enemy moves out of range if it backstabs for the attack and it does which is really nice. Rip Tendons + Chicken is mostly for if I can't get behind something but it does the trick.
 

bati

Member
How is the loot in this game? Is it improved, with memorable items like in Baldur's Gate II or Planescape? I remember the first game being extremely dull in terms of items until they patched it some designated boss drops.

Some unique items but bulk of the loot is randomly generated. Item mods seem to be more like in Pillars of Eternity rather than Baldur's Gate.
 

kionedrik

Member
Tactical Mode is not well designed, I wouldn't recommend it for anyone.

I couldn't disagree more.
It's much more challenging than Classic but also exponentially more rewarding. I tried playing in Classic and had to restart because it was so easy it was becoming boring.
 
Tactical mode really exacerbates the issues with the combat; high armor and health means that things get even more into pure damage minmax territory than Classic or Explorer. It's not a good way of doing things imo.
 

Hendrick's

If only my penis was as big as my GamerScore!
Is there a way to open multiple bags at once to more easily transfer/sort items? It's kind of driving me nuts.
 

Lorcain

Member
I made Lohse (companion) a metamorph heavy armor nightmare that falls from the skies on angelic wings to smash the shit out of her enemies and turn them into chickens. I have been having so much fun with that character/skill combo that I actually regret not having her as my main character.

My MC is Ifan (ranger), and while he does crazy damage, he's not as fun as playing metamorph Lohse. I need to swap out her heavy armor helm though for a light helm which gives her what appears to be 50 lbs of amazing long red hair adorned with bone jewelry.
 
I couldn't disagree more.
It's much more challenging than Classic but also exponentially more rewarding. I tried playing in Classic and had to restart because it was so easy it was becoming boring.

Ha, am I the only one who finds this game insanely difficult already? Am I doing something wrong?

I started in classic but after trying and failing to kill the hound master in the prison cells below fort joy I just gave up and lowered the difficulty to the easiest setting. I played the entire first game on whatever the normal difficulty was and it was fucking hard as shit for me - I had to cheese some bosses and the final boss of the game was just impossible for me. I had to download a trainer to beat the game.
 

Sinatar

Official GAF Bottom Feeder
How do you mean, difficulty spikes?

They did nothing but give everyone a 50% stat boost. No new enemies, no new tactics, just number padding.

In comparison Tactical in DOS1 completely changed each fight, new enemies, new AI behaviors, it was a completely different experience.
 
I am absolutely GIDDY with what I just achieved. Spoilers for my brilliant Jonathan/Gwyndon battle solution. I can't believe it worked:

I tried the battle twice and of course that little jerk got himself killed no matter what I tried. So I decided to get clever with it. This is all pre-battle setup: I carried crates from nearby areas and blocked off the nearby magister gate so no one could walk through. I teleported Gwyndon straight from the noose to the ground near the gate, next to my PC, triggering a conversation with him. He thanks you and then abruptly still attacks Jonathan, triggering the fight. But instead I teleported him again with another character during his thanks with your PC, straight into the magisters camp and shut the gate. He thanks you and blasts the gate since he cant reach the other area....which doesn't trigger anything and he goes home and you can go end the quest, thus removing him completely. I still have to do the fight again if I choose to, but the hardest part is gone!

AAAAAAHHHHH pure relief!
 

Sygma

Member
So why class like Ranger (Huntsman?) scales so insane amounts off all of stats and weapon stats while basically all other scale like pure garbage? Even Rogue has nowhere near same levels of scaling and it's one better scaling classes.

Magical classes outside of summons of Summoner scale worst, garbage at bottom of garbage heap.

Basically why Ranger scales so insanely better than anything else in the game making it obviously broken and OP class? Should it be nerfed or should other classes be buffed to its level of scaling?

Blood magic in the game is super strong but the rest not so much
 

Lorcain

Member
Ha, am I the only one who finds this game insanely difficult already? Am I doing something wrong?

I started in classic but after trying and failing to kill the hound master in the prison cells below fort joy I just gave up and lowered the difficulty to the easiest setting. I played the entire first game on whatever the normal difficulty was and it was fucking hard as shit for me - I had to cheese some bosses and the final boss of the game was just impossible for me. I had to download a trainer to beat the game.
Classic is already challenging, with some encounters being really difficult depending on when you face them. In DO and DO2 there's no such thing as cheesing. Larian gave us the entire game world to work with for fights. They're like puzzles. And since many fights start our party of adventurers at a disadvantage, we have to use any means necessary!

I like to carry a few oil/poison barrels with me at all times for those special occasions.
 

Vamphuntr

Member
In the final act pretty much every class hit like a truck anyway. Summoning and Polymorph are probably the better magic schools in this one. The level 10 incarnate is good because you infuse him with abilities while the bone widow does 2000 damage for 2 AP. Inner Demon will also shred 2000 Magic Armor and terrify. All of the spell that cost 3 source points like Meteor Storm will hit for 10k damage but so does Arrow Spray and Onslaught for much cheaper. You just get better AoE control. Polymorph just offers much variety, You get movements, buff, source points reduction, debuffs removal and actual debuffs.

The most hilarious combo so far for me is to terrify an enemy with inner demon and have the terrified character run into the medusa head polymorpher and get petrified.
 

Maximo

Member
Ha, am I the only one who finds this game insanely difficult already? Am I doing something wrong?

I started in classic but after trying and failing to kill the hound master in the prison cells below fort joy I just gave up and lowered the difficulty to the easiest setting. I played the entire first game on whatever the normal difficulty was and it was fucking hard as shit for me - I had to cheese some bosses and the final boss of the game was just impossible for me. I had to download a trainer to beat the game.

Brah take the pride hit and play Explorer nothing wrong with going with the first difficulty just enjoy the game you can freely change the difficulty at any time if it gets too easy later on.
 

bati

Member
My action bars just got ruined thanks to the encounter
with the prostitute in Driftwood that strips you of your gear
. I fucking love it when RPGs pull shit like this. No, really. Nothing like reslotting every goddamn thing back and trying to guess which items you had equipped last - because hey, while we're at it, why not wipe the Wares tag from all items too!

As if the inventory management wasn't a nightmare enough on its own.

It's really baffling how a game with so many QoL features manages to have an equal amount of very questionable UI systems.
 

sadblob

Member
xi16xyO.jpg


Is this a Dark Souls reference?
 

Lorcain

Member
I'd say so, the bonfire swords in 3 were coiled.
I've noticed a few clever shortcuts already that become available after completing a tough encounter, opening up easier access to that area. They even have the ladders you can kick down. I have to think those were inspired by BB/DS.
 

epmode

Member
They did nothing but give everyone a 50% stat boost. No new enemies, no new tactics, just number padding.

In comparison Tactical in DOS1 completely changed each fight, new enemies, new AI behaviors, it was a completely different experience.

I read that this only applied to the first act of DOS1. For the rest of the game, the fights played like the normal difficulty just with higher stats.

I never tried tactical mode for more than a few hours so I can't say either way.
 

Alric

Member
Question for anyone who has tried these.

What do you think would be a stronger build for Fane.

Two-Hander/Necro/Warfare
Dagger/shield/necro/war/scoundrel
Dual-Dagger/necro/war/scoundrel

I've currently been going with the first but I think i'm towards the end of chapter one and while I know you'll be able to re-spec, I was just curious for anyone who has tried a similar build.
 

Burt

Member
Haha, just messing around with a Lone Wolf run, and I just saw on the ship in the beginning behind some locked doors, magister Ricks and Murtof.

I can't get to them because the doors are locked, but I'm sure if I could, they would say something along the lines of "I'm getting too old for this shit".
 

kionedrik

Member
Can anyone help in the "A Man and His Dog" quest? At this point I'm desperate to finish the quest.
I found the dog in the cemetery,
he mentions something about the smell of the memorial in the center but I can't find anything.
I've scanned everywhere with high wits and spirit vision and found nothing. Where am I supposed to go or what am I supposed to interact with?
 

bati

Member
Haha, just messing around with a Lone Wolf run, and I just saw on the ship in the beginning behind some locked doors, magister Ricks and Murtof.

I can't get to them because the doors are locked, but I'm sure if I could, they would say something along the lines of "I'm getting too old for this shit".

You can break down that door with your weapon.
 
Can anyone help in the "A Man and His Dog" quest? At this point I'm desperate to finish the quest.
I found the dog in the cemetery,
he mentions something about the smell of the memorial in the center but I can't find anything.
I've scanned everywhere with high wits and spirit vision and found nothing. Where am I supposed to go or what am I supposed to interact with?

As far as I and pretty much everyone else on the internet knows: that is pretty much the end of the quest. It never properly finishes except to let you know that the point he is probably referring to is the graveyard of heroes, and that they smell like Source (the fishery). There is no real resolution, and it won't leave your quest log until you leave Act 2.
 

Mikǝ

Neo Member
Does anyone know when vendors actually restock items? I'm doing a drastic respec in Act II and some key Scoundrel abilities aren't available from the vendor.
 

QFNS

Unconfirmed Member
Mikǝ;249994278 said:
Does anyone know when vendors actually restock items? I'm doing a drastic respec in Act II and some key Scoundrel abilities aren't available from the vendor.

I believe it is once an hour or any time after you level up.
 

Kuosi

Member
So what does a proper ranger build look like?
2hand warrior build?
Are most people running their summoner as a support after the big beastie is out and buffed?

Ranger: finesse+wits, Ranged>Warfare>Huntsman>Scoundrel talent: hot headed,executioner,far out +glass cannon/arrow rec/ele ranger

2h war: Str, bit of wits, Two handed>Warfare>Scoundrel or you can get necro for bit of sustain and do a bit less dmg, also few points of poly is good(better than scoundrel before you get big crit anyway, tho I recommend 2 points in scoundrel early for cloak and dagger)
talents: executioner/pawn, opportunist, then pretty much picture of health/hot headed/living armor

You can literally take 10 summoning on pretty much any build as bone widow scales from nothing but summoning skill level and character level, so 2h warrior with summoning is totally fine
 

Sygma

Member
How is the loot in this game? Is it improved, with memorable items like in Baldur's Gate II or Planescape? I remember the first game being extremely dull in terms of items until they patched it some designated boss drops.

Well they fixed the loot as in, this time around you get stuff for the classes you're actually playing. It never happened for me in both Original Sin and Original Sin enhanced edition lol. Always had to buy shit and it got tiring
 
Question for anyone who has tried these.

What do you think would be a stronger build for Fane.

Two-Hander/Necro/Warfare
Dagger/shield/necro/war/scoundrel
Dual-Dagger/necro/war/scoundrel

I've currently been going with the first but I think i'm towards the end of chapter one and while I know you'll be able to re-spec, I was just curious for anyone who has tried a similar build.

Well for the rogue variant, dual wield is superior in all ways for this type of characters I'd say, the damage loss from using a shield makes them really not worth it imo, even though I usually like shields. If you lower the damage rogue do, they'd have to focus more on utility stuff and play like a tank, like you'd get the 2 knockdowns, probably medusa head and spider legs and just play like a standard tank, only with higher damage from behind. Doesn't sound terrible but if you want to assassinate people you definitely want the 2 daggers, shield throw alone doesn't make up for losing 30% damage on every other attack.

As for 2H, I haven't really played one so I can't say for sure but I feel they're not really worth it either in this game, although they'll perform fine. The main concern is unlike the first game there aren't as many good way to leverage the higher damage per hit due to lacking in damage skills, kinda. You can't use Scoundrel skills without a dagger, polymorph doesn't have much in terms of damage so mostly you can only use warfare skills, but the only high damage ones are Cripple(single target, not that much damage), Whirlwind(the good one) and Blitz Attack(good only if you can hit 2 targets). Onslaught and Overpower being source skills limit your options and All In is really not that impressive. There is a similar issue with Scoundrel skills imo which lack damage options. Huntsman on the other hand has a bunch of high damage skills, wish there were more, or less source centric damage options at least.

I haven't ran tests on 2H though but if I had to guess what does the most damage on the physical side of things, it'd go Archer > Rogue > 2H/Dual Wield Str > Shield user(although possibly higher if you use reactive armor with all the buffs instead but it's annoying to play imo so I don't bother).
 
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