Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - Suggestions and Feedback Original Sin 2 Skills

Thought I would make a post about the Skills that Original Sin 2 has to offer as I haven't really seen too many posts about that topic (either that or I am not looking in the right place) and I wanted to not only throw my personal opinions and a few ideas out there but also see what others think.

---Opinions---

Rage is possibly my favourite spell in the game so far. It synergises fabulously with Warlord and Savage Sortilege and all of them packaged together makes for a very satisfying combat experience... However this combination seems too strong for this early stage in the game (as early as level 2) but I really hope that this combo sticks around.

The two main Hydrosophist damaging spells (Hail Strike and Winter Blast) seem to also be a tad too strong for early game as they have low CD, guaranteed chance to Freeze, are AoE and only cost 1 Ap to cast. Hail Strike should really be the source skill rather than Steam Lance (which sounds like it should be a damaging skill really)

Necromancy seems a bit... dull. I haven't really been testing out Necromancy so that judgement could be deemed unfair but looking through the skills I haven't really seen any appealing spells (apart from Mosquito Swarm I suppose)

Cutting the rest of my opinions a bit short (seeing as I am already writing a novel it seems) so I will be brief. Warfare; it has Rage and ALL the gap closers. Fabulous. Scoundrel; Bit underwhelming and Walk in Shadows being a Source Skill rubs me the wrong way. Aerotheurge; Teleport is a bit too cheap (AP wise), Geomancer; Not found Impalement yet but it looks AMAZING. Pyrokinetic; For the most part, it's pretty satisfying. Huntsman; Tactical Retreat is nice, still I prefer to have Rage and Flesh Sacrifice and just Basic Attack.

---Ideas---

I haven't really thought of AP costs or whether they are Source Skills but got some basic concepts.

*Necromancer: Pain Link
Think Shackles of Pain but instead of the target receiving the damage that you take it will link two enemies together and they will take damage when the other is damaged

*Necromancer: Harvest
Blood Sucker but with dead bodies instead (and a more significant heal) maybe a bit of a damage boost thrown in as well?

*Geomancy: Plant Mine
Place an invisible seed at a location, if an enemy steps on it it explodes into poison dealing poison damage and leaving a poison surface. This could be good for setting up choke points and comboing with Fire Spells/Arrows


I am sure there are some more concepts floating around in my head but this is really long as is so I think i'll stop there for the time being.
You get a muffin and a radiant smile if you read all this

+1 to the ideas!

Personally I would like to see some CC abilities that fucks with someone's brains like - scare, sleep, confuse and alike.

Nice post. Your opinions seem to be in line with the majority I've seen around here.

As for skills, I'm looking forward to a lot of the EE skills making a comeback, which I can only assume will be the case.

I want Warlord to stay at +2 AP per kill, but Rage needs a pretty big nerf. At the very least, Rage should prevent you from using any skills for the duration of the effect - normal attacks only. That's probably still not enough.

Hail Strike is far too powerful for a 1 AP spell.

I kinda agree with Necromancy. I looked at those and didn't see too much which was worthwhile. The healing through blood one was interesting, but not worth the skill slot which could be filled with the more-useful Restoration. There just were not all that many exciting skills.

Shackles of Pain would be more useful if it worked like Netherswap and allowed you to link two targets. That would allow you to tether two enemies together, or allow your mage to tether the warrior/rogue and an enemy instead of herself and an enemy.

Walk in Shadows is garbage-tier. It was unimpressive given all its flaws in D:OS EE, and nerfing it to need 3 Memory and a Source Point makes it completely worthless.

Teleport is very useful for out of combat stuff, so if it needs a nerf, increasing the AP cost to 4 would work.

Well, your post seems pretty reasonable, but when you say



How do you think they will balance several extra turns per combat? If there were a talent that just straight up let you take a second turn, don't you think it would be equally popular? No matter how the damage numbers add up, if I can get an extra 6 AP over the course of an encounter from finishing blows alone (about what I consistently get with it), don't you think that's a little strong?

My problem with Shackes of Pain: It sounds like the enemie should get all the damage you receive, but you receive still damage yourself.

Also Warlord is just fucking broken. Same goes for Hail strike and even more Winterblast. And of course Criple in combination with rage and twohanded. ^^

I've killed one of my character once when the enemy used shackle of pain and I didn't notice. I think it has good synergy with a tank, not on a squishy mage. I made a 2H strength/Intel hybrid with necromancer skills and it's my strongest character in terms of usefulness + damage. I keep a 2h staff and a 2h axe and I swap em when the need to hit armour or magic armour arises.



I like this idea but I would tweak it as where it stands it's incredibly strong (2X total damage potential for the whole team while the debuff is on)

Instead, I would share the damage that is dealt between two character ( ally or foe ). It could be used in two ways.

1. Redirect some damage from an accessible CC'd target to a squishy mage/ranger on top far away foe example.
2. Redirect some damage from YOUR squishy to someone else

And of course the damage could be tweaked, some additional effect could occur if the targets are bleeding/blessed/cursed ( synergy with the necro theme, rain of blood etc...). This could be a staple skill for the necro to help spread the pain around in any way!

*Displacement topic*
I think that positioning(heights) plus effects on grounds are taking even more importance in this game than the previous DOS:EE. I would love to see more displacement effects put on some skills.

Aeorothurge Tree
Gust/Burst of wind : displace characters towards a target position. This can be used to push or pull characters (allies or foes or both? The troll is real :D) towards a certain area ( cursed fire, poison fields, static clouds, push off a ramp and take fall damage)

Warfare Tree
Brutal throw : Throw target character ( in melee range) XYZ distance at the targetted position based on Strength attr

Scoundrel Tree
Trip : Push back a character a few feets backwards ( enough to disengage the attack of opportunity) and maybe make them knockdown until they play ( Not make them lose their turn, but make bully work until the character gets up)

These could also be affected by the weight of the character. A Heavy armoured warrior could not be thrown far compared to a little ranger with a bow.

Definitely want more enemy repositioning skills, preferably ones that depend more on your own position than teleport (like how Gust would require you to be in the right place to move your enemies where you want them to go.)



Agree with Rat, that's very strong. Just splitting the damage between the two is a neat idea, and very versatile. I also like it linking together certain debuffs or buffs, though that could be stupidly strong with CC (especially something like charm). Maybe it just links statuses that damage, like bleeding, burning, poisoned?

Another similar skill could be a debuff that makes any characters 5m or so from the debuffed target take 30-50% of the damage the debuffed target takes. Maybe something like "Hateful Empathy" or "Suffering Circle." Maybe could be tied to blood, where enemies (or all characters) standing in the same blood puddles share some damage, though I do think maybe there's already a lot of blood-focused Necro skills.

Necro also needs corpse-manipulating skills for the most thematic skills. Corpse Explosion is an obvious one (probably a 3-mem skill) that could damage and disease nearby characters (maybe letting you automatically loot* the items in the process). Raised dead from corpses is also obvious, though not sure if Summoning Master is the only summon tree. Raised dead could be very weak summons that you can't directly control, perhaps.

*On that note, a "Loot Magnet" skill would be neat, where you loot all nearby corpses and items on the ground for 1 AP. Would be a nice telekinesis skill, if that tree will have any skills. Could prove useful for gaining some consumables mid battle, though might be pretty situational and maybe would need something else to make it worth the memory cost.

Been thinking and thought it would be quite cool to have spells that enchant your weapon (Not counting wands or Staves) to cause it's attacks to deal bonus elemental damage based on your intelligence and perhaps some bonus effects (Similar to some looted weapons having 5-9 fire damage with 10% chance to burn sort of thing but an actual skill)

Could be Defensive variants for shields that grant some Marmour/Parmour (Armour of Frost and Fortify already cover that to be honest) and a hefty resistance boost to that element.

Would be nice for us who want to combine might and magic in a thematic Spellblade-y way

Had an idea for a spell that would be useful for a Battlemage, allowing the Battlemage to melee attack from a range maybe based on Int. They don't currently hold their weapons so why do they need to be at melee range to use them, I think it makes sense to give them a range boost and its thematic too imo.

Seen that some people, as well as myself, have been playing the Epic Encounters mod for DOS:EE and they have some pretty awesome looking skills which I think would be an asset if they were implemented into Original Sin 2.

Just going to list off a few that I think would fit into OS2 (these are all new to Epic Encounters or reworked older skills), bear in mind that I didn't think these up, that's all down to the creator(s) of Epic Encounters

"Heat Metal": Pyrokinetic. Deals low fire damage and applies warm and heat metal to the target. Heat Metal deals bonus 30-300% damage depending on how heavily armoured the target is. In OS2 terms, the higher the targets physical armour the more fire damage this spell will do (which targets Magic Armour of course)

"Cold Snap": Hydrosophist. Deals moderate water damage which is increased if the target is wet or chilled and increased further if the target is frozen, removes Wet, Chilled, Frozen from the target. In OS2 this would be a solid burst spell when the target has lost all of it's M-Armour (so it can actually be CC'd, still think that skills should have a lower chance of CCing when Armours are up but that's not the point)

"Rime": Hydrosophist. Inflicts Rime on the target which continuously creates 1m of frost below the target (including while moving) while Rime is in effect. An ally will not be slip on the ice while under the effect of RIme. While in OS2 the P-armour would block the knock down effect it would still be an option to halt their advance (Dealing physical armour damage every step if they have physical armour), although most of the melee enemies have Phoenix dive so this skill wouldn't be as useful

"Crush": Warfare. deals 150% weapon damage and applies crush to the target, lowering armour and resistances by X%. In OS2 the damage could be increased against P-Armour (Possibly scaling with the Warfare passive)

Also in the Epic Encounters Mod there are hybrid skills which typically require investment in two ability schools which I think would translate fantastically in OS2 seeing as putting a point in a skill school ability also provides a passive bonus as well as in general just rewarding hybrids more (I am a fan of a good hybrid)
Examples would be;

"Boil": Pyrokinetic, requires Hydrosophist. Deals fire damage and applies warm and boil to the target, Boil deals an additional 150% of the initial damage if the target is either standing in water or wet, if both are true then the additional damage increases to 300%, removes wet and creates a steam cloud around the target. Could pretty much function the same in OS2.

"Cauterize": Pyrokinetic, requires Hydrosophist: Deals fire damage and applies cauterize to the target which removes bleeding and (in an allies case) Decaying touch while healing for a large amount. Same deal in OS2 but of course can synergise with Decaying Touch on an enemy to deal NASTY damage

Heat metal I'd outright change due to the nature of the game. That being the most enemies will have lots of armor.

It should either do bonus damage if the opponent's physical armor is still up or how much is left (or reduced if it is not... but semantics)... Or, like Chloroform, deal damage only to physical armor (which for fire... targeting physical armor is a good ability) but not to health.

pls larian studios read all these posts about skills. the more the merrier

Honestly they probably finished the skills.

I sure hope not because some of them are bad. Most notably Ignition and Contamination.