Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - Suggestions and Feedback Companion preset review: Beast

This time the Fighter and Knight presets will be sharing the same segment because their stat line up is very clean, there is no odd stat that to indicate that a particular nieche would be more advantageous that the other, like in the case of Sebile where you could have squezed more survivability and damage out of her as a dual wielder with the fighter preset.

The fighter preset is a better choice than the knight preset for those who want to role play a traditional world of warcraft-type paladin into their party simply because you get Fortify for free.

For those who are willing to go away from that traditional I would recomend puting a staff unto the Red Prince,while he has the fighter preset active for better spellcasting results.

The knight's only downside as always is the lack of a disengage ability and lack of the executione ability to move in a more advantageous position after you brutaly crack the skulls of your enemies open.

Once again the battlemage is the superior pick to fighter for the purpose of creating a tank. There are very little faults within a dwarven battlemage, I would just dump the second axe for a shield because of how tanky he can get later on if built properly and have him threaten an ogre to give my party his gold or risk getting headbutted straight in the....area most accessible to the dwarf.

This is basicaly Knight 2.0 and Battlemage 2.0 mashed up into 1 build, I strongly recomend players who need a front line fighter to just get a Inquisitor Beast because of how good the starting skills and stats are for a sword and board user. For those who do not need a tank,but want a dwarven berserker in the party,I still recomend the Inquisitor preset as a starting point for that.

The better your gear,the more resiliant he is versus cc due to his high strenght and inteligence stat. Having executioner as the level 1 talent here is also very good because it gives the player the choice to branch out between being a very resiliant vanguard for your party or a terrifying battlemage.

The dwarf racials in tandem with this preset encourage a swashbuckler type nieche where you equip a dagger in the main and a str based weapon in the off hand for the most damage and accesibility to spells.

In combat,I feel that the Beast is on par with the human pair of companions.
The dwarves have the advantage of a wider arsenal of weaponry early on and the low wits make them more desiarble for executing surgical attacks,where you need to block off a certain enemy's escape route.

Once again I struggle to find good things to say about the Shadowblade preset. Sebile and the human duo are probably the best companions on to whom you should load this preset, provided you are willing to sacrifice them to this preset.

The Beast as a shadowblade is probably worse than the Red Prince as a shadowblade,because the latter can become a mixed damage dealer. This preset could also work with the above mentioned swasbuckler-is weapon loadout but in terms of dealing damage it will probably 1 level weaker than the Rogue, both suffering from the fact that they are locked with the backstabber talent.

Two of the weakest choices of presets for the Beast,with Shadowblade being the weakest. Having +2 in Strenght makes our dwarven friend one power level weaker than the Red Prince and less usefull because Petrifing touch is less usefull than the lizzard's fiery breath.

The Beast is a very capable spellcaster, as his counterpart in the tv show the magicians. The +2 in strenght make's it easier for the Beast to transition towards the role of a Battlemage with these presets and the +1 can help in certain situations where you need to execute ambushes - especialy if you are willing to invest some more or gain more via gear.

A dwarven conjurer makes for a very competent battlemage - I had a great time with my dwarven conjurer, remaking him into a battlemage was a very gold consuming and fun activity. The only downside to any conjurer is the talent choice they are given (pet pall).

The best part about a dwarven conjurer is that he does not need high inteligence to be competent at summoning stuff and the stats gained from this preset make him one of the best early game sword and board users,second only to the dwarven Inquisitor and possibly dwarven battlemage.

Dwarves make for decent clerics. This preset is the third greatest choice for a sword and board type character. Having high inteligence and str stats early on,and continuing to invest in them can make any shield user very tanky by increasing both armor types.

The advantage of having a dwarven cleric is that you can chose on which stat his survivability will depend on finesse or constitution. Finesse is less reliable than constitution for the point of staying alive,but serves as a casting stat for Chloroform which could be used as a secret weapon on a dwarf cleric.

The skills synergise very well and it does not need any points in Polymorph to balance out the stats.I still believe the talent choice for this preset is pretty weak ,though

A good alternative to the knight, this is more crowd control oriented as opposed to the knight which seems more burst damage orientated due to his access to the rage skill.

Has the potential to be a very good skirmisher (a character that is good with both greatswords and longbows) for those who are willing to swap the weapons of their characters in combat and not be annoyed by this notion.