Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - General Optimal party discussion.

With the introduction of being able to change the companions classes when you recruit them I thought it'd be interesting to discuss what everyone thinks the optimal party would be now that we can have whatever party we want.

Pre-patch I saw a lot of 2 rogues, tank, healer. I personally play with 2 mages, 1 tank, 1 rogue.

I think talking about what everyone thinks could be overpowered or is overpowered currently could help them balance the game better in the future.

For me the optional party is always so that i cover all magic and fighting types.
This patch my main (Ifan) is water/earth, the Red Prince Ranger/fire mage (was either that or wizard, he needs to be the fire dude.) Lohse got to be a battle mage to cover air and warfare and Sebille was left to be a Shadowblade because she needs to be a finesse user. (Tired of her being the ranger anyway).

The problem with all the preset classes is that to many of them have earth or necro as secondary.
Why do not cleric have warfare as secondary?
I kinda liked the first version better where they had they starting classes and then the points to spare for the secondary skill. The last one was awful since there where two preset skills.

I don't think we are going to get an accurate sample of what are the best party compositions right now. The AI 2.0 update completely broke the game in terms of allowing the player to have several viable options. So right now, it's stack crowed control and Will(initiative) just to stand the chance of surviving more than a round or two, ruling out many class options for your companions. If you don't take out or CC one or two enemies in the first round(or you have low initiative and you have to wait for 2 enemies to go first) you have already lost, often because you entire team, even if spread out manually, will be stuned/knocked down/sitting at 10% life before you even have a chance to move.

When they tweak the numbers a bit, I think we will see things more clearly.

Explorer difficulty could be a whole nother story though.

I am going with same thing I used in DOS1 and DOS:EE and my first run through DOS2-EA

2-handed melee
Sword and board melee
Dual daggers
Bow

Nobody will have any points in Aero, Pyro, Geo, Hydro or Witch. No magic at all. No potions. Only food used for healing in combat.

That was the most enjoyable group in both versions of the 1st game as well as in the early access of this one so far.

I looked forward to using it on my first run through the full game on Tactical, or whatever the hardest difficulty is called this time.

Two mages (one with staff and one with wand and shield)
One fighter (sword and shield)
One Archer.

Is my most recent playthrough.

I am tempted to go with the following as what I would consider optimal.

Two fighters with shields.
Two wand users with shields

You can have a rogue character as the 5th to call in when you need to rob people.

Basically characters without shields are too brittle.

Archer - Warrior - Dual thief - Support Mage is still my go-to set up for easygameasylife.

Because of how the armor/magicshield system work, specing into a balance hybrid makes it too hard to deal actual damage as you need to break through the inflated value to be useful in the first place and with the extra cost on the current skill books, it's almost impossible to get all the useful spell learnt early without spending some time crafting and using the hourly store reset to get some gold with a good barter character (usually the prince) with level 5+ thievery.

I have no trouble playing with no shield since the AI, although much better, is still predictable and the only way to really lose if when you somehow get 3-4 man CC'd at once but with a good initiative (wit build) and some good damage on the archer and thief, you can pretty much kill all the CC chars before they even get to act.

My preferred party in the previous patch (and I hope this still becomes possible in the full game) was a Jack of all trades mage: he did average damage, but he had a answer for any situation that the game threw at him (vit healing, armor healing, damage, cc, ect.) a dedicated mage healer that had access to all healing type spells and buffs but could do no real damage, a mostly pure back stab rouge (he had a couple magic spell like teleport, but his main focus was dps, and stealing), and a sword and shield magic knight (even split between magic and physical offense). This build wasn't possible in the current update, which was a bit frustrating considering it still is my dream way of experiencing DOS2 (part of why i replayed that patch so many times).

My build for the current patch was two enchanters, a knight, and a rouge. I found it could complete the journey, with little difficulty whatsoever, but I had barley any fun playing this way.

Im also doing just fine with a knight, a rogue, and two mages. Ive got 2x teleport (gloves and spell), 2x vit heal (spell and ring), 2x physical armor heal and 2x magic armor heal between them all. The rogue and knight do massive damage, the mages just kind of stand around and wait till something needs healing, occasionally CCing things that have no/little magic armor.

While this party setup is giving me no problems, its mainly due to the knight and rogue killing everything. Im feeling that a pure mage is actually not needed and inefficient in the game. Due to the way physical and magic armor work i cant even use my mages to finish off low health things the knight and rogue might have left behind, giving them bows would work better than them using wands, and im finding pumping int and the spell schools is really not a good return since the rejuvination on my non hydrosophist works just fine, and the physical armor heal my rogue has (elf, ate the head) also works just fine.

Another knight and maybe a bow user with 1 level in hydro, geo, and aero just to learn the teleport skill and all heals, and then focusing on ranged damage/huntsman would probably be far superior to an actual mage.

I feel like having a split party that has to go through physical and magic armor is just not efficient at all, maybe an all mage party would work out ok but the issue is the rogue and knight are so strong because they managed to find really good weapons. It could be maybe that mages are late bloomers but it really feels like physical damage with just a level of some magic schools for support spells are the way to go. If CC did not have to go through magic armor it would be different, mages could be lower damage but provide CC, at range and aoe, but currently my two handed warrior does close and medium range aoe CC just fine, and for longer ranges you have two people with teleport. No better way to deal with archers then to just teleport them in the same spot and let the knight slaughter them.

The one upside is that once i realized this i put shields on both my mages and now they are pretty good tanks... this all just seems totally backwards though.

Oh, i am raising wits enough that i always go first. I think this is critical

While it's only one character in the party, I've had great success with a lizard inquisitor who has been customized to use Aerothurge, Pyromancer, and Warfare. The traits I picked were Comeback Kid and Far Out Man, but they aren't necessary.

You put a majority of your points into Intelligence while putting points into Memory as needed. All of your combat trait points should go into Aerothurge once you have one point in both Pyromancer and Warfare to maximize magic armor damage, then pick up the following skills when you can (In any order):

Crippling Blow, Shocking Touch, Blinding Radiance, Phoenix Dive, Spontaneous Combustion, Ignition.

You can compliment these as you see fit with Battering Ram/War Stomp, Haste, Teleportation, Burn My Eyes, and a decent staff so your warfare skills do magic damage.

Since you have no investment into Wits, you will almost always go last on the first turn. When your lizard's turn comes up, caste Haste and Burn My Eyes (I had my ranger cast this on my inquisitor). This should push them up to the front of the next round in the initiative order, which allows them to essentially gain two turns back-to-back.

Then you Phoenix Dive in when you see a good opportunity and unload all of your AoE magic damage and fire skills (Ignition, Lizard Breath, Crippling Blow with a staff). Your goal is to break the magic armor of one of your targets apply stacks of burning to them, then follow up with Spontaneous Combustion. On average, Spontaneous Combustion on a target with 3 stacks of burning dealt around 100-140 magic damage in an AoE, which completely melts through what most enemies have (on top of the damage you did the prior turn with your initial opener, usually around 60-80). Since you are fire immune from Phoenix Dive, you don't have to worry about hitting yourself with Spontaneous Combustion (it even healed me since I had over 100 fire resist). Once you have broken all the magic armor of your surrounding enemies, you are free to follow up with Blinding Radiance for AoE CC, or Shocking Touch in case one enemy still has a bit of magic armor left.

It was definitely one of the most fun characters I've played, and I'm thrilled to have actually found a very good use for the Lizard Racial ability- I'd actually be a bit sad to see it changed now. A large part of what makes this build so much fun to play (aside from massive explosions) is the fact that most of your skills only cost 1 AP. You can do a ridiculous amount of burst damage and you have access to warfare skills and physical targeting CC to compliment a warrior or ranger in your party, too.

Agreed, i very much enjoyed playing the staff lizard with a few warfare skills in my last game.Basically an inquisitor.

They need to give full party customization. I dont like how the main consideration i put into character creation is which member of the party im planning is the furthest away from the presets.

There are builds that have no good preset even close to them - like a spear user.

In the last 3 patches i made always the same party:
Necro - Tank (Lizzard) : With Reflect, Bartending and that inicial Forti armor
Mage (custom) : Heals, Buffs, Dmg AoE, Dmg Single target, lot of CC (with telep), With adrenaline, cloroform and ret. On this patch i make it full Lucky charm on civ.
Air - Rogue(ifan): For telep, swap and inv. Full dualweild and fullfill with granades. Full thief.
Mage - Archer(Sebille): With healing, Telep, buff, Adrenaline cloro, some little huntssman skills and full ranged. Civ on Sneak to use snipe.

I had to admit that in the last patch, the Necro-Tank was a little bit difficult to use it at the beginnin and i have to use a staff on him so he could hit safe from dmg, but when i got equip i put him a shield and tank everything again.
Making this changes i would consider just using the incial skills in other way that benefit more the incial game, but i think i will do the same party again on the next patch i enjoy it too much.

If i would change something, would be everything to change the gameplay, cose i like that party. I would make a full party of mages haha just to try that.

Personally I'm also inclined to spread skills across as many characters as possible. For example they'll all have adrenaline and haste, and then as wide a smattering of spells and CC as possible each. This means leveling up mnemonic early to increase memory.

I find this works nicely and is still worth the cost.

I don't think there is a "best" party composition per say, aside from abusing mechanics, all Combat Abilities are good and useful besides Necro as far as the Early Access Alpha version goes.

For me, I find that the best party is the one that makes the best use of the basic utilities certain Combat Abilities offer. Which is why I use Scoundrel for everything. Adrenaline is simply the best skill in the game.

If I had to redo a party for another game, I'd go with the following:
1. Lizard Pyro/Geo using Bow or Crossbow with 1 Scoundrel and 1 Huntsman for Adrenaline, Cloak and Dagger, First Aid, Tactical Retreat and Special Arrows.
2. Human War/Hydro using Sword and Board with 1 Aero and 1 Scoundrel for Adrenaline, Teleport, Nether Swap, Shocking Touch and Lightning Discharge.
3. Lizard Aero/Necro using Dual Wand (Poison main hand + Fire off hand if possible) with 1 Scoundrel and 1 Pyro for Adrenaline, Fireball, Haste and Burn your Eyes.
4. Elf War/Two-handed using Two-hander with 1 Scoundrel for Adrenaline and Cloak and Dagger. Make sure you have Warlord talent for that character.

#1 is there mostly for support using Special Arrows, Fortify, Haste, Burn my Eyes and applying slow with oil, but also provide with Geo/Pyro nukes against high physical armor enemies to quickly remove magical armor for #2 and #3 to stun with Aero.
#2 is the tank and healer. His only purpose is to soak damage and support with as many CCs as possible. Being in the thick of the fight, he can make use of any CC and have the best positioning for using teleport on enemies. Human for Encourage and Bartering.
#3 take care of whatever is left. Provides support damage to both #1 and #4 with Mosquito Swarm, Dual Wand attacks and Fireball. Also bring a second copy of Haste and Burn your Eyes to the table.
#4 is all about dealing physical damage and wiping out the enemy ranged characters with the help of #2 and #3 teleporting enemies in and swapping melee enemies with their ranged allies. Rage + Adrenaline + Flesh Sacrifice will easily allow him to execute at least one monster while hitting multiple enemies with Crippling Blow, Whirlwind, Battle Stomp, Blitz Attack and Battering Ram. Once one of them goes down, the Warlord talent kicks in and it's easy to chain up the kills from there. Can also use Phoenix Dive or Cloak and Dagger to not die from Rage debuff if there are still a lot of enemies alive.

Recently cleared another run that was kinda disappointing especially with the price reduction allowing me to fully gear everything without even trying to manipulate the market, reaching the maximum potential of every char with majority of them wearing blue, purple or unique gears. Here's what I feel is clearly the best party now.

2 Ranger
-Fin-Wit Crossbow Elf
-Fin-Wit Bow whatever

1 Fighter
-Powerhouse pure STR 2H abuse (Custom Elf for maximum OP)

1 Mage
-12 Con int-mem Super buff and heal (12 con is for shield requirement at Seeker camp. You only need about 4-5 points in mem and you can start wearing Mem gears from the seeker camp after level 6)

Explanation

Elf racial is OP

The best race in the game atm as a damage dealer. A *1.2 final multiplicative with extra AP on top of all the crit and other stuffs on a damage build allow you to 100-0 anything not bosses in one turn and do your job as the "Squishy killer". Give them a crossbow to maximize your preemptive damage. Elf is also one of the few character who can shoot Crossbow twice consecutively.

Whatever buff -> haste -> rage -> Sneak Snipe at the start for this kind of stupid damage with crossbow snipe (snipe book is dirtcheap now you can have it by level 3 when you get the Houndmaster crossbow and abuse it with Rage right away)



Pre emp, Buff + stealth Snipe

Turn 1, use Elf racial and shoot crossbow twice.

Turn 2 (if you even get to it), use Adrenaline and shoot crossbow twice.

Dual Knife is actually average

One of the dual knife selling point is the guaranteed crit with backstab to deal major damage all the time to a single target. However, because of Rage, single-target killer as Ragebow will outperform them in everyway.. from range.

Fortunately, Scoundrel stat gives you crit multiplier bonus and movement speed (for positioning) with finesse as primary stat anyway so Ifan always pick up a bow if needed. However, if you are playing custom char, you best drop Ifan because Sebille is just too good simply for being an elf.

2H abuse

Pure str build, Bracchus gear, use Ordi Hammer -> Zaleskar Axe -> Pig girl vendor weapon after level 7

Enjoy ending nearly every fight in the game the moment you get to swing your weapon and wipe the entire team you rounded using the super enchanter with Swap and Teleport as the last player to get to go. For example, this situation.



Ahh Redaka and her minions, all rounded up for a team wipe.

90% of the fights in the game will last only 1 or 2 round in total if you play this comp properly.