Larian Studios Forums Divinity II The Dragon Knight Saga / Flames of Vengeance (English) Divinity II - The Dragon Knight Saga My DKS guide: Skill advice

As may be somewhat obvious, I haven't exactly extensively tested all the skills in the game for value. Most of my observations on skills are, despite my best efforts, through the filter of a battlemage (and playing on Casual for the most part, because anything higher is just more stress when writing a guide).

So, basically, anyone who's up for this, look through the skill section of my DKS guide, and point out:
-Skills I've said suck, but are actually good. Name specific builds where necessary. (Fireball is a HUGE example of this, though that's more a consequence of the magic damage formula changes in DKS)
-Skills I've not properly described the effects of.
-Any other suggestions that may come to mind.
-This all goes triple for status magic and summon stuff. I've never touched Blind, Charm, Curse, Fear, Summon Ghost/Undead/Demon, Summon Mastery, Life Tap, or even Firewall, Magic Blast (which apparently sucks terribly now), Polymorph, Ranger skills except Explosive Arrows, Potion Efficiency, and Evade, or weapon Expertise skills except Dual-Wield.

And of course, point out any errors in my skill tables, whether spelling, grammatical, or in the actual data.

I think in case of Blind, Charm, Curse, Fear, Summon Ghost/Undead, it's safe to say these are quite useful in the first part of the game (everything pre-Sentinel Island) but lose their usefulness after that.

For Blind, specifically, I'm hoping that people who've used it can give a report on how effective it was.

For me though, summons have always been useless, except VERY early on, where I just used a bow. Also, Curse and Blind are higher level skills, you may not have them before Sentinel Island.

I find the ghost very useful even in the endgame. Depending on your character, it's nice to get healed up once in a while. Also, the heals of a high-level ghost are faster than most potion - and you get it totally for free (not that it matters later, but in the midgame, it saves you tons and tons of potions).
Actually, having a high-level ghost makes the endfights (mostly the one of ED) much, much easier to handle. Also, a ghost makes tight stuff as the fight against Raze, against the Power Rangers, or similar much easier. All in all, it is the skill I would recommend for any and every character to have as high as possible.
DKS took out some of the nastiest fights in ED but the ghost is still pretty handy to have in many situations.

Fear is worthless, imo.

Curse is "nice", but on normal difficulty surely not needed. Blind and charm can be turned into nice builds, but I found it annoying to have charmed enemies standing around when all "enemy enemies" are already dead (you have to wait for the charm to wear off to kill the charmies).

Blind is a handy thing, but it's not really necessary. Can make some things somewhat easier and itf fits for nearly any character.

Poison Arrow is nice, but not THAT nice. A ranger should rather out the skillpoints in something different and get more power of the ten skillpoints that you get in Poison Arrow. At the beginning (first ten or so levels) that skill actually helps somewhat. Given a ranger can easily dodge around in a distance vs. most enemies, this little help is not much needed, though.
Life Tap is the mana-regen-thing? It's awesome for characters that do not use much mana but have tons of life energy and a high life-regeneration. It's especially awesome to fill up your mana after summoning something or to be fresh again in mid-battle.
I think my ranger on the latest run did not drink more than a dozen mana-potions (and most of these in the early levels), so I could totally skip buying/making them.

Firewall is the pure blast, especially on a fighter. For a mage, it's really nice to have against larger groups (or around corners) and easily takes care of many enemies (especially if your fireball is again in cooldown).

The "Path of the Ranger" (the last thing of the rangers) the *THE* thing to have as a ranger. It turns your ranger into a war-machine that throws out 8.000 to 10.000 damage in criticals later on.
The ranger-bow-upgrade is also "nice", but you can live with only a few skillpoints in them for most of the game (throw in five points during the first 15 or 20 levels and you are good until FoV; if you then are swamped in skillpoints throw some more into it to maximise your damage-output).

I never felt I "needed" Potion Efficiency. If you need a higher health or mana output in a situation, just take the bigger potion and your are totally set. I'd not put more than one or two skillpoints into it.

Evade is nice to put one point in. The others really do not "pay" (10% chance to evade for the first, 2% for each following point). So I'd recommend putting that one point into it and be happy - if you want a higher evade, I'd use items.

I find a "Guide" must be as objective as possible, so for the skills( among other things) this is almost impossible !!
EACH gamer has his/her favorite skills and so his/her favorite skills are in his/her eyes the BEST skills and other skills he/she not used are "useless" ??
O no !

When a Guide only write about the effects of each level of each skill, that's objective . But NOT if you go saying useful or useless or .... etc ....

So that's my opinion.

But I never expect a "perfect Guide", so no stress Lancet ... your guide is already big and full of information ! Nothing can be "perfect", fortunately !

I'm a little bit afraid that you go feeling 'sad' when analyse a game too much !! Then, I'm afraid, the Fun flow away of it, no ?

But probably it's my feeling with a "game" : I only wish to have Fun, it's a Game, entertainment in my life, so for me no point of analyse a game in it's most detailed properties (for example with the % in damage values for the different enchantments, if they stack or not, ... etc etc ...) !

I never assigned any skill points to Blind/Curse/Charm, etc, because i didn't like the whole "target enemy upto level XX" aspect. why bother, if you're just gonna kill them? not to mention since i'd allocate the points to more physical abilities, by the time i could potentially allocate points, the maximum enemy level is well below my characters and everything else is usually around my level so it's a waste of skill point.

the only time "I" allocate a skill point, if when i read the mind of the proprietor of the brothel in Aleroth via FoV... w00t skill point, meh to it being assigned to Charm.

You can always unlearn your skills to reclaim the skill points that go into the skills from mindreads from FoV, like Charm, Master Herbalist, etc.

Lancet, I've been using the guide you have posted on Game FAQs and it's been a big help, so I'm glad you're on this forum so I can say "Thank you." I have a question/comment on one of the Ranger skills, explosive arrows. You mention how powerful this skill is and I notice that in my version of the game, the damage starts at 130 points, half the 260 points you mention in your guide. It looks like the game developers realized that this skill could tip the balance of the game. I mean, it's only natural to want to hammer every enemy in your path, but I agree that it would quickly take the challenge out of the game. I'm just re-working my character at the Battle Tower and I think I'll put a few point into it. Even at half-speed it still looks awesome.

If you have either the DKS version, or the ED+FoV patch, Explosive Arrows uses the lower numbers they changed it to. As it was, it was EXTREMELY overpowered. They reduced the damage by half at early levels, and by a third at later levels. Even now, it's still pretty good for AoE damage on any character build, just not quite as completely overpowered.

@ tedsini; You're probably using the wrong FAQ;
http://www.gamefaqs.com/pc/998546-divinity-ii-the-dragon-knight-saga/faqs/62264
is the correct one for DKS.