Just starting Divinity: Original Sin 2. Any advice?

[Man_Over_Game]

So I just started this game and, so far, it seems frustratingly hard to find synergies in this game. The game doesn't give you tooltip information from the character creator, so it doesn't tell you things like "Does the Summoner combat ability improve the power of your Necromancy summons?" or "Does the exploding cadaver leave behind a corpse (since it takes a corpse?" or "Does the exploding cadaver get healed by Poison just like the undead PC?", or "When I cast that ability that poisons adjacent enemies or allied undead, can it cast it on myself if I'm undead?", so I was left with a lot of concepts that would be cool, if I could guarantee that they worked in-game, or if I could ensure that a future party member could do the thing I would want them to, but I wouldn't have much confidence about them.

Easy example? The polymorpher has a melee attack that turns people into a chicken, but there's no reference as to what turning them into a chicken actually does!

So, with no idea what my future party-members were capable of, I decided to go the most self-centric build possible, where everything I did worked together with me, and Stealth was the best fit I could find. So Scoundrel and that polymorpher thing that lets me cast Invisibility on myself.

I have made the mistake of going Stealth first in games that didn't really support it (looking at you, Outer Worlds), but I didn't really see many other choices considering the limited amount of information available to me without constantly googling everything.

How big of a mistake did I make? What kind of things should I be on the lookout for? Anything I should learn about the plot?

[Anonymouswizard]

First off, while the party members have default skill sets which they'll mention upon recruitment, before they actually join your party you get to pick out of any of the default builds. So while some picks make more sense you're not going to lock yourself out of a viable part compesition via your MC's build (especially as you also get full control of how everybody levels). The only thing that doesn't change is unique Source skills (as everybody is a Sourcerer), and even those aren't available at the beginning.

I'm not sure how Stealth works, I haven't used it, but you'll have a full party by the time Act 1 is in full swing, so being self sufficient isn't required. Just make sure you grab the weapons in the chest after the excrement hits the cooling device and you shouldn't have any trouble with the prologue fights, and then there's no required fights until you've had the chance to pick up some party memebers.

[Man_Over_Game]

I haven’t gotten past the tutorial yet, but based on what I’ve experimented with, Stealth works through:

Stealth being a “condition” you apply to yourself, with you having a higher chance to Stealth while not near someone who cares about what you’re doing or being in their “vision cone”.

A character’s “vision cone” is what they see in front of them. It moves with them and is visible while you are Stealthed. This means that you can actually move near people and beside them while stealthed, as long as they don’t have a patrol or a reason to move all that much.

Targets that are asleep don’t seem to have a vision cone, which is useful considering the Scoundrel comes with a ranged attack that deals no damage but knocks the target unconscious, at range, while not breaking your stealth. In a 1v1, I was able to knock out the hostile prisoner on the ship, stealth in the same turn, and then hit him the following turn for a huge bonus (since my Trait gives me 40% more damage on a stealth-breaking attack).

Through some (albeit failed) experiments with the Prisoner + Guard fight, I was able to discover that I can Hide mid-combat, as long as enemies aren't nearby or if they're distracted. It also seems that they might not know where I am as long as I'm Stealthed, but they might be able to spot me if their vision cone hovers over me during their movement. Not 100% sure, though, since he didn't have any ranged attacks (so who knows what the AI could actually have known during its turns).

Seems fun and functional, though.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

If you want to go solo (or just one party member), pick up the Lone Wolf talent as soon as you can. It gives you massive bonuses as long as your party size doesn't go over 2 (not counting summons and the like).

Once you finish... Act II, I think? You get the ability to completely respec yourself and/or any party members as often as you like, so you don't have to worry too much about making a mistake with your build.

[Thomas Cardew]

So I just started this game and, so far, it seems frustratingly hard to find synergies in this game. ..

.or if I could ensure that a future party member could do the thing I would want them to, but I wouldn't have much confidence about them.

So, with no idea what my future party-members were capable of, I decided to go the most self-centric build possible, where everything I did worked together with me, and Stealth was the best fit I could find. So Scoundrel and that polymorpher thing that lets me cast Invisibility on myself.


How big of a mistake did I make? What kind of things should I be on the lookout for? Anything I should learn about the plot?
In reverse order:

You didn't make a mistake. As soon as you finish the first act, you get access to a mirror which lets you do free infinite respecs on any character. The only exception being There's an act 1 potion you can make called blood of the Attar from a special rose that gives +1 to every character stat. You can only make 1. If you respec the character who has this buff, you lose it. You also lose it if they die so it may or may not even be an issue depending on how you play There's also an official giftbag(mod) which includes it in act 1 which you may or may not have enabled.

The game lets you control the initial class of your companions and they also get free infinite respecs after act 1. You'll be able to make them basically do whatever you want.

As for synergies, there's a couple big things to know in advance. There's two types of damage physical and magic. Elemental skills do magic, necromancy/weapon/arrow skills do physical. Magic skills scale with intelligence and the relevant school of magic to do more damage. Weapon skills scale with it's main attribute and Warfare to do more damage. Necromancy is a special case and scale with intelligence and Warfare. In general for a magic build, pick a school and max it. For physical build, get a enough points to do the skills you want and max warfare.

Combat is a lot about applying status effects after breaking armor. Aero/hydro and Fire/geo work wells as combos in those pairs but not with others. Fire and Geo can cause explosions and extra damage while Aero/hydro cause freeze/shock/stun. Physical can cause knocked down or atrophy or softer statuses like crippled.

Friendly fire does exist. Set off a fireball and you will hurt any allies in the aoe. Helpful friendly fire, like poison on an undead bypass armor so you'll get the effect and do no damage.

Because of how armor works, an all magic, all physical, or 2/2 split works best. Depending on what difficulty you chose there may be so physical or magic immune fights which require creativity. This is because you don't want to have to break both armors.


So "Does the Summoner combat ability improve the power of your Necromancy summons?" or "Does the exploding cadaver leave behind a corpse (since it takes a corpse?" or "Does the exploding cadaver get healed by Poison just like the undead PC?", or "When I cast that ability that poisons adjacent enemies or allied undead, can it cast it on myself if I'm undead?", so I was left with a lot of concepts that would be cool, if I could guarantee that they worked in-game, or if I could ensure that a future party member could do the thing I would want them to, but I wouldn't have much confidence about them.

Easy example? The polymorpher has a melee attack that turns people into a chicken, but there's no reference as to what turning them into a chicken actually does!



To answer these: Yes, summoner improves necromancer summons now. BUT your incarnate probably scales better. I don't think exploding cadaver leaves a corpse behind. But you can reuse the same corpse. Yes, you can cast abilities on yourself. AOEs centered on the caster generally automatically hit the caster. Aimed AOEs hit whatever you aim it at. Single target on-click skills hit who/what you click on.

It turns them into a chicken. Quite literally that's what it does. On that characters turn, they can't attack or cast spells. They can move unless affected by a different status and will try to run away. A great combo is Chicken and Ruptured Tendons which will cause the enemy to run around and bleed to death.

[Man_Over_Game]

In reverse order:

You didn't make a mistake. As soon as you finish the first act, you get access to a mirror which lets you do free infinite respecs on any character. The only exception being There's an act 1 potion you can make called blood of the Attar from a special rose that gives +1 to every character stat. You can only make 1. If you respec the character who has this buff, you lose it. You also lose it if they die so it may or may not even be an issue depending on how you play There's also an official giftbag(mod) which includes it in act 1 which you may or may not have enabled.

The game lets you control the initial class of your companions and they also get free infinite respecs after act 1. You'll be able to make them basically do whatever you want.

As for synergies, there's a couple big things to know in advance. There's two types of damage physical and magic. Elemental skills do magic, necromancy/weapon/arrow skills do physical. Magic skills scale with intelligence and the relevant school of magic to do more damage. Weapon skills scale with it's main attribute and Warfare to do more damage. Necromancy is a special case and scale with intelligence and Warfare. In general for a magic build, pick a school and max it. For physical build, get a enough points to do the skills you want and max warfare.

Combat is a lot about applying status effects after breaking armor. Aero/hydro and Fire/geo work wells as combos in those pairs but not with others. Fire and Geo can cause explosions and extra damage while Aero/hydro cause freeze/shock/stun. Physical can cause knocked down or atrophy or softer statuses like crippled.

Friendly fire does exist. Set off a fireball and you will hurt any allies in the aoe. Helpful friendly fire, like poison on an undead bypass armor so you'll get the effect and do no damage.

Thank you, excellent advice!

Is there a way to see what abilities more points will unlock in the future? Also, are there notable "hybrid" mechanics, like if I wanted a melee character (Warfare) that was good with a specific supporting element? So far, it seems that the winning strategy would just be to get all of my magic stuff from ranged characters and have all of my frontline be Warfare/Stealth types, but I want to mix it up a little bit more than that, if possible.

Also, how does dual-wielding work?

[Lord Raziere]

I'm playing it to sporadically, technically six hours in and its still beginning? this is a long game. the only advice I can think of is to be careful about the environment when casting magic, if your party is in a puddle of water for example and an electric spell is cast on someone in it, it will hurt everyone in that puddle, and thats just one example of how the environment is a factor.

also this game doesn't hold your hand. you have quest objectives and markers, but its kind of hard to figure out which marker refers to which objective and while you have a goal at least for the first area, how to get to it isn't immediately obvious, and it seems quests can be completed before your ever given them, if one example is any indication. dialogue also really matters, I think I locked myself out of something by being honest rather than pretending to know what the person is talking about when I was exploring about. I do say if this game was third person rather than isometric top down view, I think it'd be one of my favorite rpgs.

[Thomas Cardew]

Thank you, excellent advice!

Is there a way to see what abilities more points will unlock in the future? Also, are there notable "hybrid" mechanics, like if I wanted a melee character (Warfare) that was good with a specific supporting element? So far, it seems that the winning strategy would just be to get all of my magic stuff from ranged characters and have all of my frontline be Warfare/Stealth types, but I want to mix it up a little bit more than that, if possible.

Also, how does dual-wielding work?

Not in advance other than looking at the wiki.

There are some hybrid mechanics. Elemental magic and Necro skillbooks can be combined with a physical skillbook to create hybrid skills. For example, there's a skill that makes your weapons do fire damage by combining warfare and pyrob books. But the armor system generally means those aren't worthwhile. The exception is Necro/Hydra which creates an incredibly damaging physical aoe spell. You can also use staffs as 2h weapons for melee skills but they will do magic damage. In this case, you'd want to put a couple points into warfare for skills and then max the right magic school for staff damage type. They'd attack with melee skills but do magic damage. This doesn't work amazingly well since the warfare statuses are resisted by physical armor.

Mages actually make decent front line combatants. They general want a wand or stat-stick sword and shield which gives them extra armor. They can also use their touch range skills. Archers do incredible damage and are capable of soloing a couple of encounters. One thing to keep in mind is gear availability. It's easier to kit out a daggers rogue, plate 2h warrior, cloth wand shield mage, and archer, than 4 archers since they aren't fighting for the same gear.

That said, most characters benefit from a 1 skill point dip into scoundrel for adrenaline. Extra ap for alpha-striking is amazing. Maybe 2 for the ability to teleport with cloak and dagger on mages, archers and warfare get their own movement skills. Stealth is great for everyone but doesn't require point. You can start an encounter with 1 character, this will freeze everyone in place as combat starts letting you see their sightlines. You can then move your other characters in stealth into range and get a free attack in.

So, weapons in general are either 2h or 1h. Staffs, spears, and 2h swords are 2h. 1h swords, wands, daggers, and shields are 1h. Bows and crossbows are ranged. These control the weapon skill your character uses. A character with a staff counts uses the twohanded and gets a crit damage multiplier. A character using a sword and shield, counts as singlehanded getting an accuracy. Ranged gets crit chance. Dual wielding gets dodge chance.

You can dual wield 2 1h weapons. The offhand weapon gets a -50% damage bonus. In general, you'll only want to dual wield daggers on a rogue. They get some big bonuses for backstabbing using scoundrel skills. You can also dual wield wands, the combos I mentioned before work well because once armor is broken a aero/hydro wand combo can cause status by auto attacking. Or a geo/fire wand cause a poison pool and then ignite it.

EDIT: I neglected to mention that some of the craziest builds you can do involve 5 points in polymorph. This lets you use apotheosis, adrenaline, and skin graft to dump a ton of damage using your chosen damage class then hide using chameleon clock while your ap recovers.

[Man_Over_Game]

After doing some research, it seems that some solid combinations are:

Melee + Fire
Melee + Polymorph
Geomancy + Necromancy
Necromancy + Summoning

Also, it seems that summons don't scale off of your stats as much as the skill they come from (which makes Necromancy and Summoning decent choices for low-intelligence characters).

[Thomas Cardew]

After doing some research, it seems that some solid combinations are:

Melee + Fire
Melee + Polymorph
Geomancy + Necromancy
Necromancy + Summoning

Also, it seems that summons don't scale off of your stats as much as the skill they come from (which makes Necromancy and Summoning decent choices for low-intelligence characters).

Side note that polymorph's main damage skill scales off of strength so it's not ideal for a rogue who will scale with finesse. But it's great on a 2h Melee with a strength weapon.

[PraetorDragoon]

Not combat related, but I want to point you to Persuasion.

Despite Persuasion mentioning stats in the line, that matters less than the actual argument and the Persuasion skill. If you persuasion is low, then it doesn't matter how high your strength is, you're not going to pass the check. Similarily, if the argument isn't great then the persuasion requirement becomes high.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

Side note that polymorph's main damage skill scales off of strength so it's not ideal for a rogue who will scale with finesse. But it's great on a 2h Melee with a strength weapon.

Polymorph's real advantage is its utility/mobility. Bull Rush moves you while doing damage to enemies in your path, Wings let you ignore half of the environmental effects and of course fly places, Jump lets you shoot around the map for a low action point cost, and Chameleon Cloak of course turns you invisible. A later ability even lets you reset all of your cooldowns.

Those are all great features for a Rogue who wants to backstab reliably, especially since most of them won't provoke attacks of opportunity. The extra attribute point you get for each point in Polymorph is also quite nice.

[Techwarrior]

In general, you are heavily rewarded for having your character choose one school to specialize in. This school should be the major damage type you want to deal with that character. I.e. any physical damage character wants Warfare, and any character that wants to deal Ice damage wants Hydrosophist. Meanwhile you are also incentived to have access to a ton of various utility skills from differing schools. It's not uncommon for a character to have a grab bag of schools to get utility until around level 6-10. Around that point you will want to start putting points in your main school.

DOS:2 is a game about breaking your opponents' armor score and CC them repeatedly until they die, while you maintain your own armor as much as possible. For this reason, you'll get much farther with skills like Armour of Frost than with Restoration.

As has been mentioned, you generally want to have either a fully physical, fully magical, or relatively even split of damage types. Each of those party types have advantages, but I would recommend the even split group for a first timer. Going even deeper, I would recommend having 2 melee range and 2 ranged style characters just so that you have a good mix of frontline and backline. It's hard to over stress how important it is that you keep from going too crazy with conflicting elemental schools. Fire/Geo mix as do Hydro/Aero, but you should generally avoid using all 4 in one team.

Act 1 is a great place to test out all the various skill lines and get a feel for them. I personally played around for about 4 hours and then restarted a new save file knowing how I would like to build my characters.

[Psyren]

There are numerous builds and general tips on Fextralife, I'd recommend checking those out. They are also the folks behind the wiki.

[Man_Over_Game]

In this game, do you have a bunch of backup party members that you can swap to? And, if so, do they earn experience when they aren't in your active party?

[Thomas Cardew]

In this game, do you have a bunch of backup party members that you can swap to? And, if so, do they earn experience when they aren't in your active party?

There are 5 premade origin characters. You can have 3 of them as party members. You can also hire undead mercs after act 2. I'd suggest sticking with the origin chars for a first playthrough. Any characters you temporarily have not attached to your party will rejoin at your current level. All xp is shared.

Death is an annoyance. There are cheap and plentiful resurrection scrolls. They can even be used in combat. Obviously not ideally.

[Maryring]

Levels count for a lot. Like, a lot a lot. If you find yourself struggling, go somewhere else, earn a level, and come back to a cakewalk of a fight.

[Anonymouswizard]

There are 5 premade origin characters.

Six. Red Prince, Beast, Sebille, Ifran, Lohse, and Fane. While you should generally pay one of them because they get more plot hooks than a custom character it's not required.


As for reserve members, eh, kind of. You can swap people in and out and they join at your XP total. I believe once you get far enough there's an area where dismissed major characters will wait to avoid the 'need to track them down' issue, but I've not got to they point yet due to the game's balancing really rubbing me the wrong way (it's oh so easy to wander into quests you're underlevelled for).

[InvisibleBison]

In this game, do you have a bunch of backup party members that you can swap to?

Kind of. All of the pre-made characters (except the one you chose to play as, if you chose to play as one) are available to join your party until a certain point in the story, after which those who were in your party at the critical moment are available. After that point, you also gain access to a bunch of generic mercenaries who you can recruit to augment your ranks or to pick up a specific skillset for a section that requires it.

[druid91]

Also you can change your entire build around at will after a certain point.

[Psyren]

I'd suggest sticking with the origin chars for a first playthrough.

While I agree with this for the party, I recommend a custom character for your main, as you'll be the truest "blank slate" for learning about the world and not having to worry about any personal quests or relationships your primary character might have that you don't know about. This also gives you full freedom to pick your starting flags, whereas the main cast have at least a couple they can't change.

[Man_Over_Game]

One thing that kinda feels odd is how unlikable all of the characters are. Psychopaths, narcissists, etc. As cool as the Elf's ability is to eat pieces of corpses to get information, I'm going to get rid of her in a heartbeat just so I don't feel obligated to satisfy her wanton killing of random people she doesn't like.

I think it's going to be one of those games, where my "Completionist" side is going to be at ends with my inherent "Do-gooder", and the best way to play may need me to just be an ***hole.

I remember reading somewhere that attempting to save someone on the ship is fruitless, but mercy-killing them rewards experience, so I might just have to get over the idea of trying to be a good guy in this game.



Also, I want to say that it's pretty damn clever of the developers to not have special powers cost that much. Too many games require you to focus on doing one thing all of the time, so the game gets more boring and less versatile the further you get into it.

But by making special powers cost fewer action points than basic attacks, and then tacking on a cooldown for those powers, it makes sure that diversifying your powers is a prevalent strategy, while also not forcing a player to choose between using their special powers or their Basic Attack. Specializing (and being boring) doesn't make you relevant, combos are what make you relevant.

It's pretty clever, and probably one of the best RPG combat systems I've come across.

[druid91]

One thing that kinda feels odd is how unlikable all of the characters are. Psychopaths, narcissists, etc. As cool as the Elf's ability is to eat pieces of corpses to get information, I'm going to get rid of her in a heartbeat just so I don't feel obligated to satisfy her wanton killing of random people she doesn't like.

I think it's going to be one of those games, where my "Completionist" side is going to be at ends with my inherent "Do-gooder", and the best way to play may need me to just be an ***hole.

I remember reading somewhere that attempting to save someone on the ship is fruitless, but mercy-killing them rewards experience, so I might just have to get over the idea of trying to be a good guy in this game.



Also, I want to say that it's pretty damn clever of the developers to not have special powers cost that much. Too many games require you to focus on doing one thing all of the time, so the game gets more boring and less versatile the further you get into it.

But by making special powers cost fewer action points than basic attacks, and then tacking on a cooldown for those powers, it makes sure that diversifying your powers is a prevalent strategy, while also not forcing a player to choose between using their special powers or their Basic Attack. Specializing (and being boring) doesn't make you relevant, combos are what make you relevant.

It's pretty clever, and probably one of the best RPG combat systems I've come across.

While it's a bit of a spoiler there is a very good reason she doesn't like those people. She just doesn't talk about it at first.

[Psyren]

One thing that kinda feels odd is how unlikable all of the characters are.

"All the characters?" Beast, Ifan and Lohse are great. Fane is conceited but he definitely grows on you.

Red Prince and Sebille I agree, but that's only two.

[Man_Over_Game]

"All the characters?" Beast, Ifan and Lohse are great. Fane is conceited but he definitely grows on you.

Red Prince and Sebille I agree, but that's only two.

I realized what it was. I was playing as Lohse, and most of her personal lines involve making dumb remarks in serious situations, it made her feel really selfish and spoiled, and I didn't get much of Beast's or Ifan's character until a few hours in.

So at the time of posting, I only really had experience with 4 characters, and they all just seemed like jerks the whole way through.

[Thomas Cardew]

I realized what it was. I was playing as Lohse, and most of her personal lines involve making dumb remarks in serious situations, it made her feel really selfish and spoiled, and I didn't get much of Beast's or Ifan's character until a few hours in.

So at the time of posting, I only really had experience with 4 characters, and they all just seemed like jerks the whole way through.

The Red Prince is a jerk. He grows as a person over the game, that's his arc. Ifan and Beast are pretty likable but generic from the start. As someone above pointed out, Sebille's introduction is a shock. But she doesn't want to kill Random people and she also grows on you. Ironically, I think Lohse is a lot better as companion than a main. Her lines serve much better as comic relief from the sidekick. Also, Hey Chief, is just the best.

[Lord Raziere]

Red Prince and Sebille I agree, but that's only two.

Man, I picked the two worst ones, glad to hear I can change them out later though.

[Psyren]

Man, I picked the two worst ones, glad to hear I can change them out later though.

Without spoiling - you have plenty of time, but don't wait too long to decide :smalltongue:

But yes, there are a lot of quests in and around Fort Joy (including the intro for every party member's "loyalty mission") to help you decide who you like.


Man, I picked the two worst ones, glad to hear I can change them out later though.

You can also make them less jackass-y throughout the game. No spoilers, but I'll throw this mild bit in the box anyway:
Pretty much everyone, no matter how self-centered or annoying they are, gets a decent arc provided you talk to them regularly and do their loyalty stuff (treat it like a Bioware game and you'll be generally fine.)

With that said, I personally advise against pursuing a romance with those two :smallyuk:



Also, I want to say that it's pretty damn clever of the developers to not have special powers cost that much. Too many games require you to focus on doing one thing all of the time, so the game gets more boring and less versatile the further you get into it.

But by making special powers cost fewer action points than basic attacks, and then tacking on a cooldown for those powers, it makes sure that diversifying your powers is a prevalent strategy, while also not forcing a player to choose between using their special powers or their Basic Attack. Specializing (and being boring) doesn't make you relevant, combos are what make you relevant.

It's pretty clever, and probably one of the best RPG combat systems I've come across.

Agreed 100% on the combat. Before I tried this, I was starting to think I just didn't like turn-based games, but this one rekindled all my love for them. The biggest factor of course being that it's truly turn-based, rather than one of those godawful hybrid systems like ATB or real-time-with-pause.

[Man_Over_Game]

Agreed 100% on the combat. Before I tried this, I was starting to think I just didn't like turn-based games, but this one rekindled all my love for them. The biggest factor of course being that it's truly turn-based, rather than one of those godawful hybrid systems like ATB or real-time-with-pause.

Check out Battle Chasers: Nightwar. It's immediately what D:OS2 made me think of but in the JRPG format: Likable characters with a lot of character and crosstalk, good art design, and a combat system that rejects 1-dimensional gameplay.

Divinity added superpowers by making them inexpensive in combat with long cooldowns, but BC:NW did it by making basic attacks generate temporary mana to spend in a fight coupled with making mana very expensive to replace (combined makes it so that you're balancing between using basic attacks to follow up with specials to conserve mana for harder fights in the future, or spamming your specials out of the gate to deal with a difficult fight that you expect to lose otherwise).

It's probably the only other modern RPG I've found that has a classic RPG combat system and takes combat seriously as a focal point of the game. Most of the other turn-based RPGs I've come across either have some really fun gimmicks that are more defining than the combat itself (Darkest Dungeon, Undertale), or they just use an uninteresting and bland method for combat that could have been copy-pasted from the PS1 era.

If BC:NW sounds like it's up your alley, it's available on Android, if you don't mind it burning through your battery. They did an overhaul on the UI for mobile, so it doesn't really feel like a port like some other games.


Anyway, back on topic, I decided to restart and play Ifen as a Summoner (since I read that his unique wolf power scales with summoning), and man, Summoning is a lot of fun! I thought it would be boring, like a set-it-and-forget-it kind of playstyle, but the emphasis on leveraging nearby elements based on your surroundings and party capabilities, while creating bottlenecks through elemental hazards and chokepoints combined with element-immune totems and summons, it's been a lot of fun!

I read somewhere that summoning drops off after a point, but I'm hoping that the wolf-synergy will help make up for that. Not sure how Sourcery works, though, so it might not be something I can rely on very much once it's available.

One thing I thought was interesting/stupid is how useless Pet Friend has been. Other than finding out more about the dumb perspectives of animals, every single animal I've talked to has been useless and is as enjoyable to listen to as the Red Prince. Feels like a waste of a talent so far.

[Psyren]

Pet Pal is extremely useful. There are numerous quests that can only be gotten with this skill, as well as additional resolutions to other quests. As quest rewards scale, you're potentially leaving a lot of treasure on the table by not being able to talk to animals.

I don't know who told you summoning falls off either but they are definitely lying. Investing in the skill turns your Incarnate into an absolute powerhouse and tank. You can also drop the summon on top of their archers/casters, behind enemy lines, in front of your own ranged etc. Personally I avoided utilizing its elemental surface synergies because my party was all physical (Red Prince Tank, Ifan Archer, Me Summoner, Fane Necromancer) and it stayed valuable all the way to endgame.

[Man_Over_Game]

Hmm...

What elements work best with a 50/50 split? I think it'd be Water (The support powers of Water would work well on a physical-oriented party) & Wind (Wind seems to have a lot of melee-oriented effects), but I'm not sure how correct I am with that.

I want to keep my Summoner, and I want to leverage the elemental system, and I've heard that there are encounters where enemies are immune to either physical or magical damage later on, so I'm trying not to limit my party to be physical-only. The problem is, elemental stuff seems a lot more finnicky and harder to pull off, so I'm worried I'll have to sacrifice my summoner in order to have enough elemental stuff to make it work.

[Techwarrior]

The easiest way to make a summoner combo with another magic damage dealer is to make sure that you summon your incarnate on the surfaces the other caster makes. As long as you don't mix either of Hydro/Aero with Geo/Pyro you should be fine. I personally use a Hydrosophist that uses Summoning as their main skill with an Aerothurge.

Summoning books combo with each of the 4 elemental schools (and Necro) to make a skill that turns your incarnate into the relevant element.

[Psyren]

Summoning is phenomenal in this game for the same reason it is in D&D - action and resource economy. As long as a summon lasts for more actions than it took you to make it, you win. Every time it hits an enemy while you're doing anything else (including hitting another enemy or even the same enemy) - you win. Every time an enemy hits it instead of one of your party members, and saves you actions/cooldowns/items on healing them - you win. Every time you can drop it on top of an enemy instead of moving one of your own melee party members there - you win. Every time it blocks an enemy from reaching your party - you win.

Add to that the fact that summons can fit into both physical and elemental parties, and you end up with a truly versatile technique. Summon Incarnate is one of the best spells in the entire game for a full caster.


Hmm...

What elements work best with a 50/50 split? I think it'd be Water (The support powers of Water would work well on a physical-oriented party) & Wind (Wind seems to have a lot of melee-oriented effects), but I'm not sure how correct I am with that.

I want to keep my Summoner, and I want to leverage the elemental system, and I've heard that there are encounters where enemies are immune to either physical or magical damage later on, so I'm trying not to limit my party to be physical-only. The problem is, elemental stuff seems a lot more finnicky and harder to pull off, so I'm worried I'll have to sacrifice my summoner in order to have enough elemental stuff to make it work.

Generally you want an all physical or all elemental party (damage-wise anyway - support spells from air and water among others are definitely good to have.). This allows you to focus all your party's attacks on one kind of defense, and batter through it quickly. Healing works very well on a summoner since they will have plenty of points left over, and be able to heal when needed without giving up all their actions.

There are some heavily armored and heavily barriered enemies later on, but no full physical immunities that I'm aware of. Most dangerous enemies have both barriers and armor, but high values in both are rare. And even the heaviest defense won't take long to batter through if all 4 of you are doing the same type of damage.
Once you break through one defense, they are vulnerable to any and all CC that doesn't target the other, allowing you to remove enemy combatants quickly.

50/50 damage is doable but imo you're making it harder on yourself for no real reason. There should be a few builds on it out there if you really want that however.

Also - an Incarnate summoned from a blood surface is physical too in case you don't have any empty spaces for one, just spill some blood (or summon some up with a necromancer) and go to town.

[Man_Over_Game]

Summoning is phenomenal in this game for the same reason it is in D&D - action and resource economy. As long as a summon lasts for more actions than it took you to make it, you win. Every time it hits an enemy while you're doing anything else (including hitting another enemy or even the same enemy) - you win. Every time an enemy hits it instead of one of your party members, and saves you actions/cooldowns/items on healing them - you win. Every time you can drop it on top of an enemy instead of moving one of your own melee party members there - you win. Every time it blocks an enemy from reaching your party - you win.

Add to that the fact that summons can fit into both physical and elemental parties, and you end up with a truly versatile technique. Summon Incarnate is one of the best spells in the entire game for a full caster.



Generally you want an all physical or all elemental party (damage-wise anyway - support spells from air and water among others are definitely good to have.). This allows you to focus all your party's attacks on one kind of defense, and batter through it quickly. Healing works very well on a summoner since they will have plenty of points left over, and be able to heal when needed without giving up all their actions.

There are some heavily armored and heavily barriered enemies later on, but no full physical immunities that I'm aware of. Most dangerous enemies have both barriers and armor, but high values in both are rare. And even the heaviest defense won't take long to batter through if all 4 of you are doing the same type of damage.
Once you break through one defense, they are vulnerable to any and all CC that doesn't target the other, allowing you to remove enemy combatants quickly.

50/50 damage is doable but imo you're making it harder on yourself for no real reason. There should be a few builds on it out there if you really want that however.

Also - an Incarnate summoned from a blood surface is physical too in case you don't have any empty spaces for one, just spill some blood (or summon some up with a necromancer) and go to town.

Might be a silly question, but do undead bleed?

[Psyren]

Might be a silly question, but do undead bleed?

I don't know about all of them but the Bloated Corpse you can animate from a dead body does, and I think the Mosquito Swarm summon creates blood too. Both deal physical damage, which is why necromancy fits well in a physical party. The Infect spell also deals physical damage.

The most common source for on-demand blood though is the Raining Blood spell, which requires a single point in Hydrosophist, so not hard for your necro to pick up if you want that. This will let you generate blood no matter what you're fighting.

[Morty]

An unfortunate realization I had about D:OS2 is that while it might seem you have many and varied tactical options, what you want to do nine times out of ten is deal as much damage as quickly as possible, then stun-lock enemies when their armor is gone. Also, you're going to need to replace your gear every couple of levels, or it just won't keep up with enemies.

[Lord Raziere]

An unfortunate realization I had about D:OS2 is that while it might seem you have many and varied tactical options, what you want to do nine times out of ten is deal as much damage as quickly as possible, then stun-lock enemies when their armor is gone. Also, you're going to need to replace your gear every couple of levels, or it just won't keep up with enemies.

So what I do in every rpg, but with more stunlocking?

[druid91]

Honestly the last serious playthrough I did I combined Necromancy, Melee, with that one Geo power that turns surfaces into poison on an undead human character.

Using chains of pain + healing potions is ridiculously OP.

[Psyren]

So what I do in every rpg, but with more stunlocking?

Yeah I genuinely don't see the issue here. DPR is king, even in tabletop. No one is forcing you to play optimally Morty :smalltongue:


An unfortunate realization I had about D:OS2 is that while it might seem you have many and varied tactical options, what you want to do nine times out of ten is deal as much damage as quickly as possible, then stun-lock enemies when their armor is gone. Also, you're going to need to replace your gear every couple of levels, or it just won't keep up with enemies.

There are moves that bypass defenses if you want to get fancy, but they typically cost valuable Source, which you don't even have any of early on and even once you do can be a pain to refill depending on where you are. (Unless of course you're going for an evil playthrough, in which case it's all over the place, disregard :smallbiggrin:) This is why builds that shatter defenses efficiently tend to be strongest.

[tonberrian]

Here's a fun trick. You may have seen the ice terrain, and how it causes everyone to slip and fall if they move too much. What the game doesn't tell you is that you can combine nails with any boots or shoes to be immune to slipping.

[Man_Over_Game]

One thing I've noticed that makes this game stand out with the whole DPR/Stunlock thing is kinda down to the details.

For instance, combos that rely on Poison + Fire do end up dealing a ton of DPR, but they're also incredibly volatile due to the blast radius and the lasting Burning effect, making it really unsafe for your allies to easily manipulate around.

Most high-DPR effects in the game seem to have very limited AoEs, meaning that you may have several enemies that still have armor that keeps them from being stunned. Couple that with the fact that most stun effects come from AoEs, and now you're having to choose between stunning one guy at a time, or delaying your combo a turn so that you can stun two or three.

What's the ideal setup for a Water/Wind team? Since you'd be focusing on magical damage, and you don't have the burst potential that Fire+Poison would have, I'd imagine you'd want to put all of your characters on elemental damage but that seems really redundant.

[Psyren]

Here's a fun trick. You may have seen the ice terrain, and how it causes everyone to slip and fall if they move too much. What the game doesn't tell you is that you can combine nails with any boots or shoes to be immune to slipping.

Yeah there's a lot of little tricks like this that just don't get tutorialized sadly. Check out this video for that one and many more:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikUr-aS67ME



What's the ideal setup for a Water/Wind team? Since you'd be focusing on magical damage, and you don't have the burst potential that Fire+Poison would have, I'd imagine you'd want to put all of your characters on elemental damage but that seems really redundant.

I've seen Water-focused (Tidalist) and Air-focused (Stormchaser) builds but rarely both. I would check Fextralife to see if someone has put something together.

[Thomas Cardew]

What's the ideal setup for a Water/Wind team? Since you'd be focusing on magical damage, and you don't have the burst potential that Fire+Poison would have, I'd imagine you'd want to put all of your characters on elemental damage but that seems really redundant.

Depends on how many people you're running. But generally, a elemental affinity build works well. Grab an elf or human for the extra ap/damage or critchance, dual wield wands or 1-h and shield. The weapon is a stat stick for skills and crit chance, there's some perfectly good act 1 uniques you can use into end game. At say level 12, you'll have 3 talents, the pawn and elemental affinity are required. Savage sortilege, far out man, and hot head are good ones. Glass cannon if you want/ understand that playstyle. You'll want a decent amount of points into memory for spell slots, usually a total of 16-20. Maybe a few into strength and finesse for gear requirements or just run cloth. The rest go into intelligence for damage or wits for crit chance and to get your initiative in the right spot.

You need a 1 point scoundrel dip for the pawn, might as well grab adrenaline. I'd also dip 1 point into geo and pyro for the buffs. Haste, Peace of mind, and fortify are all really good. Decide which you'd like to focus between hydro and aero. Max one and get the other to 5ish using items. Cast rain to get the wet status, use nether swap, teleport, and the free movement from the pawn to set up for AOES. Use the free movement from the pawn to move around to stand on the right surface to get the ap reduction from elemental affinity. Generally focus on one set of skills then the other. This is because the wet debuff gets consumed into chilled or shocked and then frozen or stunned which reduce only one type of resistance instead of both.

[Techwarrior]

What's the ideal setup for a Water/Wind team? Since you'd be focusing on magical damage, and you don't have the burst potential that Fire+Poison would have, I'd imagine you'd want to put all of your characters on elemental damage but that seems really redundant.

Summoner (Hydro) + Aerothurge + Hydrosophist (wands) + one Warfare character utilizing a staff with either Hydro or Aero.

[Thomas Cardew]

Oh you meant team comp not character build. Aeromage, Hydromage, Summoner, Archer.

Aeromage (wands+shield). should have couple points in hydro for utility. Probably 1 in warfare for executioner since you'll use them for nuking. Grab shield bounce for the ability to do decent chunk of Pdamage if/when you need it.

Hydromage (wands). should have a couple points in aero for utility, 1s scoundrel +pawn and elemental affinity since ice surfaces are relatively common.

Summoner, (sword and shield). Max summoning and keep the 2 major infusions. Grab a point or 2 in geo/pryo/hydro/aero for the buffs teleports. Either summon on an ice field for magic damage or blood pool for pdps. Get at least 1 point in warfare early for shield bounce.

Archer, (crossbow). Standard build, get 5-ish points in huntsman for skills, max warfare. Then put points as need for utility or damage. Scoundrel for adrenaline, Polymorph for chameleon cloak or Apotheosis shenanigans, and Pyro for Peace of Mind and haste are always great. Ranged for more damage. Grab executioner. You can either do pdps on targets with the summoner/summons or you can use the myraid of special arrows and the elemental arrowheads skill to do elemental damage. Probably the most versatile class.

[Aliess]

The FextraLife videos are great, especially if you're staying to struggle towards the end.
If you aren't in a rush though I'd highly recommend experimenting and puzzling it out. I got a lot of entertainment from the game trying things out (and occasionally dying) and trying to deal with the unexpected side effects. A lot of fights will kill you quick if you're not ready for them, and then be a cake walk once you've worked them out.

[Man_Over_Game]

Summoner (Hydro) + Aerothurge + Hydrosophist (wands) + one Warfare character utilizing a staff with either Hydro or Aero.

Does this imply that Warfare skills do magical damage if you're wielding a staff?

If so, that'd change everything.

[Rodin]

Does this imply that Warfare skills do magical damage if you're wielding a staff?

If so, that'd change everything.

They do, but it's important to understand the interaction.

The Warfare character skill increases physical damage dealt.

Warfare skills themselves deal weapon damage.

Staves deal elemental damage.

Elemental damage is entirely controlled by the relevant elemental character skill.

So, to have a staff warrior you need to have just enough Warfare to learn the skills with the rest of your points poured into whatever element(s) you want your staff warrior to be. Any additional Warfare points will be wasted because you aren't dealing physical damage. Most staves will be unsuitable for you because you will want to focus in a particular set of elements.

It's an unconventional build with a lot of restrictions, but from what I hear it can get some truly amazing damage if built correctly.

[Thomas Cardew]

They do, but it's important to understand the interaction.

The Warfare character skill increases physical damage dealt.

Warfare skills themselves deal weapon damage.

Staves deal elemental damage.

Elemental damage is entirely controlled by the relevant elemental character skill.

So, to have a staff warrior you need to have just enough Warfare to learn the skills with the rest of your points poured into whatever element(s) you want your staff warrior to be. Any additional Warfare points will be wasted because you aren't dealing physical damage. Most staves will be unsuitable for you because you will want to focus in a particular set of elements.

It's an unconventional build with a lot of restrictions, but from what I hear it can get some truly amazing damage if built correctly.

You also give up all the warfare cc's because they are all resisted by physical armor. You won't knock-down, cripple, or atrophy anyone until you break their physical armor. It works best with a fire mage, typically lizard for inate resistance. Given that (a) everything ends up on fire usually anyway, (b) fire has a lot of close range skills. Undead geomancer is also great, but it really most about everything works in this game. It's not optimal, but you don't need to be anywhere near optimal to play.

Heck, through the power of interrupted conversations you can make a suicide bomber build where you die and explode on people until they're dead.

[Man_Over_Game]

Ah, I see.

So in a Physical party, the Warfare guy is the one inflicting the status debuffs. However, in an Elemental party, he's the one dealing the burst damage needed to allow the elemental debuffs from your casters to go through.

Makes sense now, thanks!

THat would actually mean that the Elemental Warfare guy would probably benefit the most from extra Wits (for the initiative bonus), so that your high damage-dealer is the one going first.

[Man_Over_Game]

What happens to skills you've learned through consumables when you respec?

[Techwarrior]

If you mean via books, etc, those are still considered "learned." You can't put them into your memory slots until you have the appropriate skill ranks though. You can cheese this by learning a skill, then equipping gear to give +skill and then removing the skill points.

[InvisibleBison]

If you mean via books, etc, those are still considered "learned." You can't put them into your memory slots until you have the appropriate skill ranks though. You can cheese this by learning a skill, then equipping gear to give +skill and then removing the skill points.

I'm pretty sure you can just equip the +skill gear and learn the skill, without needing to respec.

[Techwarrior]

You definitely can. It's just normally easier to have already learned the skill before you find the gear to shift points away. I don't find it a common thing where I want a utility skill and have +skill gear before I learn the skills personally.

[Man_Over_Game]

Aff, didn't take into account that respecing doesn't make you forget your old stuff to learn the new stuff.

I haven't actually used a skill book yet. I'm gonna go on a limb and guess that they're each one-time use? Besides buying them, what are some ways to get more? I don't want to have to redo my entire run just because I didn't think to make everyone pick jobs they would end up with.

[Thomas Cardew]

They're only short at the very beginning of the game. You can buy more, inventories reset every hour. You find them in chests and as quest rewards. You can steal them. You can craft some of them using scrolls and blank skill books. You end up selling them for pennies later.

You are way over thinking this. You will not have to restart. Period. The game is very forgiving. You can change your mind a bunch, and reset it later. Just play. Explore. Level up.

[Techwarrior]

Crafting is your best friend in this game to be honest. You can make at level armor if you need it. You can make skillbooks. There's tons of consumables you can make that make your life a ton easier. Honestly if you think to yourself "I wonder how to do X," you can probably just make it.

[tonberrian]

Oh, one thing I wish someone had told ME: merchants you sell to will keep those items you sold forever, they'll never be rid of them. Which, if you sell a bunch of stuff to one of the merchants that follows you between chapters? Can a) make it really hard to see what they have in stock that's new and useful, and b) can actually start causing loading issues as their inventory is filled with all your trash. You can allay this by selling only to merchants that carry only skill books - they'll always only regenerate skill book inventory, so you never have to check them for new useful items when their inventory refreshes.

[Anteros]

Ah, I see.

So in a Physical party, the Warfare guy is the one inflicting the status debuffs. However, in an Elemental party, he's the one dealing the burst damage needed to allow the elemental debuffs from your casters to go through.

Makes sense now, thanks!

THat would actually mean that the Elemental Warfare guy would probably benefit the most from extra Wits (for the initiative bonus), so that your high damage-dealer is the one going first.

Every guy is the warfare guy in a physical party. You'll want to max it on anyone who deals physical damage. The way damage is calculated, a point in warfare is worth more than a point in something like scoundrel or two handed or whatever else.

[Thomas Cardew]

Oh, one thing I wish someone had told ME: merchants you sell to will keep those items you sold forever, they'll never be rid of them. Which, if you sell a bunch of stuff to one of the merchants that follows you between chapters? Can a) make it really hard to see what they have in stock that's new and useful, and b) can actually start causing loading issues as their inventory is filled with all your trash. You can allay this by selling only to merchants that carry only skill books - they'll always only regenerate skill book inventory, so you never have to check them for new useful items when their inventory refreshes.

A few related tips:

1) You can only pickpocket someone once per character. There's both a weight limit and value limit, max out either one of these and you'll either be locked out of stealing more or caught. Thievery increases both limits, it can be worth waiting a bit to get a couple items with + thievery to get a lot more value out of your characters' pickpocket chance. Keep a couple extra items with these modifiers so you can swap to them later.

2) Merchants inventories reset on level ups and every IRL hour. As tonberrian mentioned they keep all the crap you sell them. It's useful to pick 1-2 dump merchants per act that don't carry stuff you want and just sell to them.

3) It's possible to upgrade the level of items once in the game. Light cheese, method spoiler. If you rescue the fletcher, you can sell unique items to him before the end of act 3. When you move to act 4, all items will change to your current level. You can then buy them back at a loss but with improved stats. There's relatively few items and builds this is worth it for though. But if you have a favorite weapon you want to upgrade, it's a neat trick.

4) If you need to buy something to even out gold when selling, runes and frames are a good option. Frames can't be crafted. Only bought or received as quest rewards/treasure. So they're a little rarer. Giant runes can be stuck in items regardless of level and provide good buffs.

[Morty]

D:OS2 inventory is honestly one of the worst I've ever seen, which is saying a lot, because RPG inventories are sort of terrible at the baseline. There's just so many things about it that are annoying and difficult for no good reason - on top of having to juggle your gear every few levels, so you interact with it constantly.

[Thomas Cardew]

It's also absolutely hilarious to me that the free giftbag/mod the developers gave out to make inventory management better somehow manages to be EVEN worse than the base game.

[Man_Over_Game]

It's also absolutely hilarious to me that the free giftbag/mod the developers gave out to make inventory management better somehow manages to be EVEN worse than the base game.

Yep. I added it, instantly regretted it.

[Psyren]

My best advice is to make use of containers - bags within your bags essentially. Once you have a designated bag for, say, the special arrows you find, or potions/scrolls, any future such items you come across will automatically get thrown in there. You can then put those bags on your action bar to access all the items of that category and save UI space.

This doesn't solve the game's inventory problems entirely but it can help make your life easier.

You can also sort items by weight, which is really handy for telling what is making your main character encumbered (e.g. I picked up a barrel back there without meaning to again.) You can transfer the heavy stuff like spare gear and incomplete sets to your tank character - Red Prince in my case.

[Morty]

It's also absolutely hilarious to me that the free giftbag/mod the developers gave out to make inventory management better somehow manages to be EVEN worse than the base game.


Yep. I added it, instantly regretted it.

I'm morbidly curious about how the mod makes it worse.

[Man_Over_Game]

I'm morbidly curious about how the mod makes it worse.

Adds like 20 labeled bags to every character's inventory, you have to manually put items in/out the bags. Like the solution to fixing your clutter problem at home is getting 50 baskets in different colors.

Here's an image that shows it: https://static.wixstatic.com/media/03021d_7f788d791b8340bf8239406d9d1954b3~mv2.jpg/v1/fill/w_740,h_416,al_c,q_90,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01/03021d_7f788d791b8340bf8239406d9d1954b3~mv2.webp

Also, it's worth noting that items in the bags are not considered in your inventory, for things like crafting or runes.

[Psyren]

Also, it's worth noting that items in the bags are not considered in your inventory, for things like crafting or runes.

Oof! That's amazingly bad. Glad I never got that one...

[Thomas Cardew]

It also does things like divide weapons into blunt and bladed, which aren't meaningful categories in game, instead of 1-h or 2-h. Or group gems, high value useless vendor items, and jewelry, wearble magic items, together.

[Morty]

This looks like the devs were aware people had issues with inventory but somewhat fuzzy on what the actual problem was. I'm generally used to being elbow-deep in trash in RPGs; D:OS 2 makes it worse specifically because keeping your gear up to date is so crucial to winning. If you don't do it you'll just get crushed. Likewise with using all the crafting components, consumables and whatnot.

[Anteros]

I think the inventory wouldn't have been so bad if you weren't forced to interact with it so much. You basically have to change out your entire gear set every level in order to be effective. Especially at higher difficulties. This is compounded by the fact that gear isn't really unique either...it's just the same crap with bigger numbers, so changing gear isn't even interesting, it's just a slog. The inventory system itself could have been fine if they just gave you like 80% less random crap to clutter up your inventory, and had you change gear less often.

[Techwarrior]

The real tragedy is that they have all the tools to make the gear management work and just didn't. There's no reason that I shouldn't be able to select multiple items to move at a time for instance. There's no reason I shouldn't be able to set priorities on who picks up what with the backpack system. There's no reason for me to not be able to label my bags so that I know where to look for my stuff...

It's the laziest, most bare bones inventory system. Except it has the tools needed to actually have worked. They just didn't do it.