Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - Suggestions and Feedback Some more feedback

So I recently bought Divinity Original sin 2 and jumped into clasic mode,completly blindfolded and made 3 toons within a 2 day spawn.

The first 2 toons I made were a Battlemage and an Inquisitor,both custom made humans and got completly overwhelmed due to poor party optimisation - I built my party around the notion that the custom human would be my main damage dealer and all companions had to support him.

The reason why the battlemage failed to live up to my expectations is because of the Aerothurge/Warfare combo on a dualwielder. While I understand that Larian would like to consider a battlemage as a dual wielder because elemental enchanted weapons are the way to go,dealing damage to both phisical and magical armor,I feel that starting out with a staff would be better for a low level battlemage due to the following reasons:

1)The axes only deal damage to physical armor and Aerothurge requires that magical armor be shreaded so it can apply it's conditions. Having axes in place of staff feels very counter intuitive to me,especialy when you consider that Warfare skills require physical armor to be shreded.

2)This is more of a personal reason,but I believe it's easier to find 2 good two handed weapons(one str based weapon and one staff) rather than 2 good str based weapons, a crafting recipe and crafting materials.

I had a similar problem with the Inquisitor,where my skills required me to shred my oponent's physical armor, while I was given a staff,which only shreded magical armor and a class fantasy that was more in tune with my starting weapon rather than my actual spell kit - this is really bad as it makes the game feel very confusing for newcomers like myself who dived in head first,no questions asked.

If we could make the Inquisitor the dedicated mage slayer with aerothurge + warfare + staff as the starter weapon...I would be the happiest man alive.

Also for a proper Battlemage I would recomend Pyrokinetic and Warfare due to it's wombo-combo compatibility at early level(haste+enraged+clear mind - did anyone try this yet on clasic?) would work really well on a dual wielder that starts with comeback kid.

To further support Larian I would like to recomend an update for the Inquisitor class description to better suit it's new role as the magic armor shreder: Devastate your foe with arcane might and martial prowess.
The one for battlemage can stay as it is.

Few quick advices. Dont call you characters "toons" and dont use the term "dps".

Carry on.

I've played battlemage and so far I like it.

But the concerns you've mentioned also crossed my mind, but this is why you have up to 4 characters in your team. When you have a Wizard in the back field and a fighter up front able to remove their armor and magic shield, the battlemage thrives stunting and blinding enemy's around.

It also forces you to spread around your stats between STR and INT instead of going all in on one stats which is ok too, you're building an even character that can adapt to more situation.

It is how you build your team, not about having one character being able to fulfill himself on his own... there are multiples combo to explore.

Lately I've been trying a Zombie Witch with someone who played Summoner and was able to spread the poison all over the place. I think an Enchanter to be able to wash the fire away would be a great addition if the poison goes to flame but I think we had a Fighter and Rogue to combo with....

Ok,dps might not have been the best word to describe my battlemage,but I will call my characters both toons,minions and avatars in the same sentence if I see it fit.

DPS is a mechanic that has nothing to do with this type of a game.
And in RPGs the characters you make are called Player Character(s). Or PCs.

Feel free to use the vocabulary and terms that dont apply to this kind of genre.

I do admit that I haven't thought about using my battlemage as a controler as opposed to a straight up damage dealer and I will probably have another go at playing a battlemage in the future.

After reading your post I am starting to wonder if maybe the Inquisitor is some sort of niche class that is meant to complement Rangers, Wayfarers and Enchanters.

But even so....do you guys think Pyro might a better fit than Necromancy for the Inquisitor...I am thinking Calm mind over Mosquito Swarm.

There are so many combos to choose from but to me Hydrosophist is the most useful skill tree to have, second would be Aerothurge..... and to be properly balance, you need 2 close range combat and 2 far range combat.

If you take a Cleric (Hydrosophist and Necromancer)
Then you should go for a Battlemage (Aerothurge, Warfare)
You have now 2 character's that can be up close but doesn't do tremendous damage.
You can add a Ranger (or Wayfarer which is half half) for far range damage to basic Armor (Huntsman)
Then a Wizard for Magic damage (Pyrotechnic and Geomancer)

If you take an Enchanter (Hydrosophist, Aerothurge)
Then again you need magic damage which leave the choice between Wizard and Witch)

If you go Witch, because of the poison, you may want a Summoner that allows creature to navigate through....but you'll have 3 far range....so Summoner might not be the way

Then you need a close combat, maybe that can protect himself because of the poison spreading but also because it can turn into fire....need Geomancer for the armor somewhere therefor Fighter seem the most obvious option.... and some other close range

If you chosen Wizard, I think your option for close range opens for a Rogue/Assassin and a Knight or some other good close range damage

Which leaves me to say that Wizard (Offence magic, get some +WIT (play first)), Enchanter (Defense magic, + INT), Rogue (very high physical damage, +FIN) and Knight (High physical damage or can be a tank, +STR) might be the best combo, but it feels too conventional....the usual classes...nothing special....

But I just don't see any way to have a Rogue with an Archer in the same team to be properly balance...I don't see much options to have a good group with a Summoner or a Witch.

Maybe to try something unconventional, I should go Witch, Summoner, Enchanter and Fighter see how it goes...and again I won't be using a bow/crossbow (Huntsman tree) user...

Clear Mind is a nice skill, but remember, if your sleeping, you can't cast it, so it should really be used with a character that is less likely to be "sleeping" so that he can cast it on the person who's affected by it

For some classes there is a STRONGLY implied path you are meant to go down.

Air's advantage, that isn't that visible ATM, is that it is the king of field manipulation/position/movement and combos well with melee attackers. Meaning if you go down this route putting points into Warfare is nice. I suggest getting teleport, Blinding radiance, and Netherswap.

As well REMEMBER that a lot of these classes are meant to have synergy... with other classes. The Scoundrel's Chloroform bottle for example is one of the best Magic Armor shredding skills in the game (with the downside of doing no damage to health), thus allowing them to do an assist if needed OR taking advantage of an armor loss.

So having someone capable of dealing with both types of armor isn't a disadvantage as long as you build it well.

The class that has the WORST synergy is the Witch (ATM) because currently Necromancy does not mix well with a distance attacker. Meaning even against shredded targets the Witch doesn't do their own job well.
-I will STILL never agree with a "Chose the recipient of chains" suggestion. It makes the skill far too strong.

I never considered this to be a disadvantage,I just believe that Warfare+Aerothurge+Double Axe on a low level character isn't the best combo because it's too focused on the late game potential. However after reading Angelius's comments I think I might not have been the most patient of players when exploring the capabilities of a battlemage due to it's reliance on good elemental one handers.

There is no more synergy between magic and physical, that is the core problem of the armor system. You either focus physical or magical damage, everything else it not effective at all. Having weapons who deal physical and magical damage are not that effective anymore either.

To admit I originally thought Magic and physical was meant to be a small buffer to stop the opening CC gambit AND allow enemies who have a lot of it to not be supper immune to everything.

The big problem is that... Even though an enemy might have 4x as much physical protection as they do magic... Your sheer physical damage usually offsets that if you just stack that.

As well enemies often have WAY more armor than HP... So it isn't like you get enough cross benefit from breaking both.

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Still better than it was before where it was just "first hit wins!"... but it still has a serious problem.

For the Might and Inteligence route, I kind of agree...in my playtesting session with a dwarf inquisitor I never once wanted to switch him to his spare melee weapon to burst down armor.

Finesse and Inteligence however make for a very fun variant of the Battlemage. I was initialy play testing an elven Inquisitor (Aeromancer/Pyrokinetics - Calm Mind,Favorable Wind) and the amount of weapon variety I have available to myself is amazing - I can melee with spear and staff and I can also fight at range with wands and staves on top of multiple viable pathways to consolidate my build.

My only regret with this build is that I didn't take Geomancy in place of Pyro because I wanted to take advantage of the fact that I knew I would start with a fire staff.