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

Spoiler: Spoiler

Show

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

Spoiler: Spoiler

Show

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

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:

Spoiler

Show

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

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.