Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - General The Perfect Party

Er, yeah. They're the sharp type too rather than reenactors' swords.

Zombie defense!

I watched Shaun of the Dead too: 12" records are the best defence against zombies.

Those worked in "Mars Attacks" too (but in a different way and against, well, Martians).

I'm happy to say that after 5 years of grinding this question in my mind, I think I've finally found my answer.
Kinda ironic that it is the same party composition that I used on my playthrough of the first game, Divinity Original Sin.

Yesterday I started the quest Hero's Rest. And as soon as I saw my enemies I knew I had found my answer. I feel like the 4 "heroes" party is the party composition that I've been searching for. It is the same party composition shown in the trailer of the game. And it's the basic pattern that I have seen throughout the game so far, in the enemy AI parties. (a reminder here that I haven't finished the game, I think I'm not even half way through)

The 4 heroes party also seems to point out the 4 basic races of the game. Not counting with Undead which was added later, from what I've read.

Another indication that I have for this party configuration are the Cranley Huwbert's books. So far I found "Of Rogues" and "Of Warriors". I imagine there are other 2 called something like "Of Wizards" and "Of Rangers". I searched for a collection of all Huwbert's books on the internet but didn't find anywhere. Anyone know where to find the whole encyclopedia? 🙂📚

The party composition from the Hero's Rest quest is:
Garrick, a human mage
Bromley, a dwarf ranger
Vydia, a lizard tank
Halla, an elven rogue
Maybe there's a Class-Race connection here. The Red Lizard being a lizard tank, Sebille being an elven rogue, and Lohse being a human mage. Maybe not.

Seems to me that the archetype intended by the devs is: 2 melee characters (fighter and rogue), and 2 ranged characters (mage and ranger). Maybe not, maybe that's just me.
It's very hard to guess what is the "right" party in a game that is so big and dynamic, like DOS II. Does this archetypal party even exists? Maybe not.

I called Strength, Finesse and Intelligence the "3 Pillars" of the game. So to this party configuration I'm giving the name of "the 4 corners" of the game's class system.

Stabbey gave a very good and succinct answer to my original post. He clearly knows more about the game than I do. His answer also seems to be the consensus among other veteran players that I've read. 2 physical damage dealers, 2 magic damage dealers. That is definitely what the 2 Armour bars lead us to believe.
So maybe Stabbey actually gave the right answer to my question. But I'd say I was making the wrong question then.

As I said in my original post, what I mean by "default perfect party" is not clear even for me. I asked what is the most powerful party in this game and Stabbey might just have answered that question.
But I would say then... that maybe I didn't know what I was searching for, but recognised it when I found it.

What I wanted to know in other words, is what party "fits" not only the combat system, but the whole game, including the story, side mechanics like the Civil Abilities and even the predefined companions. So, a more philosophical approach I guess, to "filling all the gaps".

In my original post I used the word balance to describe the party that I was searching for. But looking back I think I shouldn't have used it. The videogame world already gave it's own baggage of meanings to the word balance. Balance in videogames has much more of a mathematical meaning, which was the meaning intended by Stabbey, than what I had in mind using the word balance.

In conclusion, I would like to repeat that I didn't finish the game, so I'm totally open to change my current idea of what is "The Perfect Party" as I gather more clues to solve this mystery 🕵️‍♂️. But I feel like the current version will be permanent.

To complicate things, warriors can be proficient mages and visa-versa by the time one reaches Arx.

Right. I didn't reach Arx yet, but it's so easy to get magic skill points through equipment, that I think every character should have at least a few magic spells.
It does add to some confusion.

I'm back with an update on my research 😄. On this post I will talk about 4 topics surrounding my Perfect Party theory:

1- The relation to the Cranley Huwbert books
2- The relation to weapon-dependent skills
3- Damage "balance"? (not really, don't take this one too seriously)
4- Roles that I give to each party member (only talking about roles inside a battle)


---
1- The connection between my vision of the archetypal party composition and the Cranley Huwbert books

In my last post I said I was expecting to find 2 books with the title "Of Rangers" and "Of Wizards" in them, since I had already found Of Rogues and Of Warriors. They would be consolidating my theory that the 4 archetypal classes in this game are Warrior, Ranger, Wizard and Rogue. To my surprise, I actually found one called "Of Rangers". But now I don't think there's one called "Of Wizards". So here's some explanation...

The references that I was getting from Huwbert's books to back my theory, are actually a list of all the Skills from the Combat Abilities. There's one book for each of the 10 Skills. The Skills are Warfare, Huntsman, Scoundrel, etc. you know what I'm talking about.
So there will be no "Of Wizards" book because there's no single Skill for wizard-type characters, instead there are many magic Skills, and a book for each one of them.

This new design also corroborates my theory of Warrior, Ranger, Mage, and Rogue. Or in the old terms, 1 Strength based, 2 Finesse based and 1 Intelligence based. The fourth mysterious character being the Rogue. Personally, I never wanted the 4th character to be the Rogue, I just feel like that is what the game "wants".

So, there are 10 Skills in total. Three of them go to the non-magical classes, and seven! go to the Mage.
Warfare to the Warrior
Huntsman to the Ranger
Scoundrel to the Rogue
7 magical Skills to the Mage

It might seem unfair to give 7 to the Mage, but the thing is that everybody is at least a little bit of a wizard in Rivellon, Harry Potter would be shocked. All the magic Skills can be shared with non-magical characters. It's just not their focus. The Mage will be "specialising" on the 7 magic Skills then.
So 3 exclusive Skills for the Warrior, Ranger and Scoundrel, but no exclusive Skill for the Mage.

So...
There are 10 Skills in total and a Huwbert book for each Skill. Three of them are referring to 3 combat roles. The "of Warriors" book to the Warfare Skill. The "of Rangers" book to the Huntsman Skill. And the "of Rogues" book to the Scoundrel Skill. There can't be a "of Wizards" book because Wizards get multiple Skills. The other 7 Skill schools being "magical", anyone can have a little of these 7, but mages will probably have a bigger focus on them.

The 7 magic Skills being:
4 Elemental: Pyrokinesis, Hydrosophism, Aerotheurgy and Geomancy
3 "extra": Necromancy, Summoning, Polymorphism (or Metamorphosis)

Here's a list of all the Cranley Huwbert's books that are related to Skills.

Huwbert's Encyclopedia Vol. 12: Aerotheurgy
Huwbert's Encyclopedia Vol. 13: Geomancy
Huwbert's Encyclopedia Vol. 14: Hydrosophy
Huwbert's Encyclopedia Vol. 15: Pyrokinesis
Huwbert's Encyclopedia Vol. 16: Necromancy
Huwbert's Encyclopedia Vol. 17: Metamorphosis [this one is equivalent to the Polymorph Skill]
Huwbert's Encyclopedia Vol. 18: Roguery (Of Rogues)
Huwbert's Encyclopedia Vol. 19: Ranging (Of Rangers)
Huwbert's Encyclopedia Vol. 20: Summoning
Huwbert's Encyclopedia Vol. 21: Warfare (Of Warriors)


All that being said, let me leave a personal opinion here. If I was creating a fantasy world, only Wizard/Mages would have access to magic spells/powers. Other classes could have magical items/equipment, but not any kind of magical abilities.
This thing of anyone having magic spells is confusing to me. But I can see why I they went with it, it's for the sake of freedom. It's so the player can have the freedom/versatility to create his own very specific, unique build. So, I get it.

---
2- Weapon-dependent skills

There are some skills that require a specific type of weapon, and will not work if the character is not wielding that weapon. If you look at the design of this weapon-skill dependency system, you will see again, the Warrior-Ranger-Mage-Rogue pattern repeated.

I've found 4 types of skills in the weapon-skill dependency system:
1- Warfare skills- Require a Melee Weapon or a Shield. The Warrior/Tank role.
2- Huntsman skills- Require a Ranged Weapon. The Ranger role.
3- Scoundrel skills- Require a Dagger. The Rogue role.
4- The 7 Magic Skills- Don't require any weapon. The Mage role.

---
3- Damage "balance"

I've seen some people define their most balanced party by observing the damage that the party causes to the enemies, like in:
2 physical damage dealers, 2 magical damage dealers. Theoretically, that would be the best combination of raw power (high damage) and versatility (choosing to hit Physical Armour or Magic Armour depending on which one is lower.).
But the party that I have been formulating, ends up balancing the Armour of the party members themselves, not the damage that they cause. For example:
In my party of 1 Strength based character, 2 Finesse based characters, and 1 Intelligence based character... the Strength character gets high Physical Armour, but low Magic Armour. The Intelligence character does the exact opposite, getting high Magic Armour and low Physical Armour. And the 2 Finesse characters sit right in the middle, both getting equal amounts of Physical and Magic Armours. So the party balances it's own defences, between physical and magical.

This party composition is also balanced in it's range of attack/defence, having 2 melee and 2 ranged characters. And of the 2 Finesse characters, one is melee and the other is ranged, so they are not fighting for the same role but rather complementing each other.

A reminder here, that the goal of this party is not to be the strongest party possible and defeat enemies as fast as possible. My goal is to identify what I call the archetypal party, or the party that fits better all the standard mechanics given to us by the game. It is not necessarily the most powerful party, but still tries to be as powerful as possible after meeting the previous requirements of "being the archetypal one". Pretty abstract, but I feel like I'm getting there. 😄

For the damage this party causes, I made a scheme which is not very accurate, but still interesting to observe. It shows that there's still some balance in the damage that this party causes, even though it is not optimised for balance in damage. Balancing the damage output was never my priority, but it sorta happened.

for Physical Damage:
Primary: Ranger
Secondary: Rogue and Warrior. The Rogue sometimes does a lot of damage, but never as much as the Ranger. The Warrior has the potential to be a main, but I like to have at least 1 character focusing on defence/tanking. As my warrior focus on defence he ends up not dealing as much damage as he could.
Tertiary: Mage. Definitely not the mage's priority, he can still do some physical damage through Necromancy spells. Infect and Raise Bone Widow being my favourite. Incarnates and Totems are also an option.

for Magic Damage:
Primary: Mage
Secondary: Ranger. Sometimes an elemental arrow does more damage than a magic spell, especially with the good critical hits that come from Rangers. The number of arrows have never been a problem to me, I always have plenty of all arrows, by finding them in loot and crafting them. Except for blessed/cursed arrows, those are more rare.
Tertiary: my Rogue and Warrior always carry all kinds of grenades. Grenades do not deal a good amount of damage, but at least they have the versatility there, of having one for all elements. You never know what weakness your enemies will have.

---
4- Roles that I give to each party member:

Warrior: Survivability, Defence. The Tank, after all someone has to take that first blow. Always have a shield, high Vitality and high Physical Armour. Also does a bit of healing and support. High Strength Attribute to carry STUFF, and to help with the physical damage. Always have all kinds of grenades.

Ranger: Highest damage in the party, and from a safe place. The sniper type. Low Constitution though, so kind of a glass cannon.
The one that gets all those sweet kills.

Mage: Versatility. Highest Memory Attribute in the party, so the highest number of Skills in battle. High elemental damage, always able to exploit any enemy weakness. Support and healing skills. Summons. Also low Constitution, so I leave a shield in his Inventory for when the enemy rogue decides to say hi.

Rogue: Mobility and "Situationism". The fastest character in the party, the Rogue uses his high movement and teleportation skills to attack, and to avoid being attacked. The Rogue is very situational, what should he do? It always depends, it's never a fixed role like the other characters. It's always about improvising. Maybe I just don't know how to play it? For me it's the hardest character to play. He causes good damage but not the highest, he causes negative statuses, and he runs, he runs away when he needs to, or else he dies.
Of course, always goes for the Backstab.
One thing that I like to do with Rogues is to use Ruptured Tendons and Chicken Claw in the same turn. Then the opponent kills itself just by walking around in chicken form.

---
When I use the words "mage" and "wizard" I mean the same thing.
By Wizard I don't mean the standard Wizard class that the game offers, with Pyrokinesis and Geomancy. I just mean any character that uses mainly magic.

By Rogue, I mean Shadowblade, Rogue, or anything similar.

---
So in conclusion, I still have 2 theories for what is this ideal party composition in this game.
1- The first theory is about the party composition that I have talked about on this entire post:
1 Strength based character (Warrior), 2 Finesse based characters (Ranger and Rogue), and 1 Intelligence based character (Mage).

2- The second theory is that the 4th character is not predefined like the other 3 are. On this theory the player can go crazy with his main character, not worrying about balance, because the other 3 characters already secured the balance of the game mechanics. The 3 predefined characters being:
1 Strength based character, 1 Finesse based character, and 1 Intelligence based character.

It seems this should be put somewhere for easy reference rather then ultimately getting buried in an archived thread.

That would be ascribing far more importance to this thread than it deserves. This thread is a bizarre example of excessively pointless navel-gazing and obsessive over-analyzing of a subject which does not deserve anywhere close to this much analysis.

I'm not trying to say that to be rude, just that it's utterly bewildering to be putting this much thought into the topic.

Well, well, seems like I managed to annoy someone with my big posts. To be honest, I had a feeling this was going to happen sooner or later, just by the size of my posts. 😄
So, in the first place, I'm sorry if I ever sounded offensive towards you, Stabbey. In all my... "many words", I never intended to insult you, or even to disprove you. You were the first to answer my original post and the greatest contributor to this thread so far. As I mentioned before, you didn't give me a wrong answer, but I was kind of making the wrong question, in my original post.
I do not want a fight with you or anyone else in the forum.

In defence of my "research", I think it actually is a pretty relevant topic on the C-RPG world. In every game that I've played with parties, it always comes to my mind: what is the ideal party for this specific game? and I bet everyone made themselves this question at least once. It might look like I went a little bit too deep on my search for this answer. But the thing is that many of the ideas that I shared in my last post, were already brewing in my head for some months already. My big posts might give the impression that I sat on the computer for 24 hours straight writing a forum post 😄. What I do is, I write just a bit each day, on the Notepad. I start with just a few words, and tomorrow a bit more, and a bit more and so on. Only when it's finished I paste it on the internet browser. I do this because I have lost big texts before by typing it straight to the browser, it's dangerous. You accidentally close/refresh the window and it's all gone.

So, please do not take my posts as me versus you, Stabbey. It's not my intention at least.

Back to my "defence", when I was still creating my character, I was actually going to play solo. Only me, no companions, is the way I wanted to go. But as I researched a bit on the internet, I realised that it is not the ideal way to play this game, mainly because I wouldn't have enough points to spend on all the Civil Abilities. So I wouldn't be fully enjoying the game in a Solo run. To be honest I felt a little bit forced to play as a party back then. So I thought, well, if I'm already doing this, let's go to the end. If going solo doesn't allow me the whole experience of the game, I want a party that does offer this whole experience, or at least as much as possible. There is where my research for this "complete" party started.

If you play Solo you can beat the game. If you play with a party of 4 members of the same class, like 4 mages, you can beat the game. And it is great that this game offers us such an enormous range of options, but in both of those 2 cases, the player would be missing the experience of many scenarios in the game. So I decided to give up on my solo run and play the game as the game wanted me to play it. With a party that would allow me to experience the maximum range of scenarios offered my the game. It took a lot more effort than I expected, but you know what? it has always, always been fun to ponder about this subject to me. Doing a little bit at a time, for the months! that I have been on my first playthrough, it was not wasted at all. In fact, I'm not done with it and will keep observing if the game has more clues for me about this subject.
I bet someone out there would say that all the more advanced knowledge that you gathered about the mechanics of the combat of the game (like what you explained to me about the Warfare points), were also completely pointless, since you can just play on Explorer mode and forget about the numbers. But each person enjoys the game in it's own way. Some think that the lore is pointless and what matters is only the combat. Others are the opposite.
I'd say that we should all respect the way that other people enjoy the game. Whatever you like about the game, will always be pointless to someone else, but they should still respect you, right?. Well I think it's impossible to call something a:
"bizarre example of excessively pointless navel-gazing and obsessive over-analyzing of a subject which does not deserve anywhere close to this much analysis." without sounding provocative.

My posts and words have not been pointless, at all, if me and others have enjoyed it. And with the more than 1,000 views on this thread, I suspect I'm not the only one interested.

You've made good contributions to this thread Stabbey, please feel free to make more. ✌

Haha, I will take that as a compliment caninelegion. But I have to agree with Stabbey here, "That would be ascribing far more importance to this thread than it deserves."
This thread shouldn't receive any special treatment, mainly for being all speculation. Even if I was right about all my assumptions so far, it is still just a theory made by a fan. And there are still many more experienced fans out there that would disagree with my theory.

I think the developers don't even want this archetypal party to stand out too much for the player. If there is a "Perfect Party" in the game, then why would anyone play the others, right? They want the player to feel like any party will be perfect.
"Just pick your favorite classes and stereotypes and you can enjoy the full game". Sadly the game is not exactly like that, but they tried really hard to make it happen. I like the conclusion that they arrived at in the development of the game. 👌

IMO, the best games will always have one "best way" - only it differs for each person. I'm not a power player myself, but there are many who want to find that one best way to get the most "points" even if it means killing every NPC (and I'm not saying that is what you do) met in the game and I can't help feel that to do this, they'd like to read as many opinions of "perfect" as they can to come up with their own idea of perfect. I read it but, I didn't take it to heart (I only have a general idea of how I will handle each playthrough - my games are rather unorganized ). I did feel that, with all the time and effort put into it, it shouldn't be wasted. It was an interesting read. I didn't suggest how to preserve it because, well, I couldn't think of a suitable way.

Yeah, I also wouldn't call myself a power player as you say. I usually try to kill as few people as I can. I spare even some evil ones.

I think each person has it's own version of "perfect". The perfect party for me will definitely not be a universal perfect.

Yesterday I finished the game. I don't know if I will continue playing, so my conclusion remains the same as my post made in 06/04/20.
Took me almost exactly 400 hours to finish the game.

I do not conclude in this thread that I have found the Perfect Party for this game. The title of this thread, "The Perfect Party", works just as a "target". A "goal", that I intended for me and other players to reach together. I didn't receive many different opinions on what would be the Perfect Party, so I just pursued my own vision of it. And I really found a satisfactory conclusion in my search, but this conclusion is certainly not for everyone. Depending on the difficult that you're playing, or simply on your personal taste, the ideal party can differ greatly from my conclusion.

More or less the conclusion that I reached is a party that "fills many gaps", but not all. It tries to cover as many Combat Abilities and Civil Abilities as possible for example. I was always trying to identify the party that the game was built for, instead of building it according to my personal preferences.

In such extensive games like Divinity Original Sin and Pillars of Eternity, I believe that no party is perfect. The perfect party is that one that you love the most.
But this search for perfection (be it attainable or not), makes the game a lot more fun. At least for me.
I hope everyone enjoys their own Perfect Party 😅👌

I liked the one in "Animal House".

🎉🤵👯‍♂️👯‍♀️🥳🎆🎆🎈🎊

Spoilers here for all the stats of all the new armour sets from the recently released GIft Bag, The Four Relics of Rivellon. No spoilers for the new quests/enemies though, I haven't played or seen them.


I really thought that I was done with this thread. But with the recently released Gift Bag, The Four Relics of Rivellon, I just received, unexpectedly, the biggest confirmation so far, that my theory, is right after all.

The Four Relics are the answer. They are what I've been searching for for all these months (years?) of DOS gameplay, scientific research, philosophical thinking, daily prayer to the 7 fake gods, forum posting, watching youtube videos, reading game guides... I exhausted all my tools! And now they all become unnecessary, because all that I needed was a simple observation of the Four Relics stats.

So, as I said in another post, I recently finished my first run of DOS II and I'm still not sure about making a second run. As I'm not sure, I decided today to have just a little peak at the stats of the new sets of armour that come with the newest DLC, to see if it would encourage me to go for a second run of the game. And voilà! This is what I found, here are all the stats of the new armour sets, from the Divinity: Original Sin reddit:

https://www.reddit.com/r/DivinityOriginalSin/comments/h9rb6z/the_four_relics_of_rivellon_stats/ and
https://www.reddit.com/r/DivinityOr..._of_rivellon_stats_of_all_4_armour_sets/

The stats and skills of the new armour sets (The Four Relics) match perfectly with the party composition that I have deduced to be the, "archetypal party". What I have also called: "the 4 corners" of the game's class system. I used many clues to deduce it, but nothing has felt so much like a "confirmation from the devs" like the Four Relics.

The archetypal party is:

1 Strength based character. The Warrior/Tank/Knight/Fighter.
2 Finesse based characters. The Ranger/Hunter/Wayfarer and the Rogue/Shadowblade/Thief.
1 Intelligence based character. The Wizard/Mage/Spellcaster.

The correspondence between the 4 Classes and the Four Relics is:

The Devourer set - The Warrior Class
The Vulture set - The Ranger Class
The Captain set - The Rogue Class
The Contamination set - The Mage Class


Here's a more in-depth analysis of the connections between the Four Relics and the 4 Classes;

1. The Devourer set - The Warrior Class.
This set requires Strength (the Warrior Attribute)
This set gives Strength and Constitution points (mainly Warrior Attributes).
It gives Warfare (the Warrior Skill) points and skills. Also gives Two-Handed points.

2. The Vulture set - The Ranger Class
This set requires Finesse (the Ranger Attribute)
This set gives Finesse and Initiative points (mainly Ranger Attributes, Initiative coming from Wits for Rangers).
It gives Ranged and Huntsman (the Ranger Skill). It gives Accuracy and Critical Chance, great stats for a Ranger.
It gives the Wings skill which is great for Rangers, that should always be on high grounds.

3. The Captain set - The Rogue Class
This set requires Finesse (the Rogue Attribute)
This set gives Finesse (the Rogue Attribute).
It gives Scoundrel (the Rogue Skill), Movement, Dodging, and Thievery all Rogue-related stats.

4. The Contamination set - The Mage Class
This set should require Intelligence, but doesn't 😄 *
This is the only set that gives Intelligence (the Mage Attribute) points.
It is the only set that gives magical Skill points, to Geomancer and Hydrosophist. It also gives magical/elemental skills and resistance to poison, Mages usually have higher elemental resistances on their armour.
It unlocks Mnemonic which gives more Memory points, most of the skills on the game are magical, so Mages usually benefit more from Memory points.

* On the Attribute requirement of the Contamination set:
The Contamination set requires Constitution of all things, this Attribute is not a standard requirement for armour in the game, it's a requirement for shields, so this is a big exception here. The requirements for armour are always the "3 Pillars" of the game's mechanics, The 3 are Strength, Finesse and Intelligence.
We have 4 types of armour in this game, armour that require Strength, armour that require Finesse, armour that require Intelligence, and armour that don't require any Attribute points. But for some mysterious reason the devs decided to put a Constitution requirement on this set?! 🤷‍♂️ If you know why they did it, please tell me.
Here are my guesses of why they did it: In the Divinity games there's a trend of making magic available to anyone, any class, so I assume it requires Constitution in order to make this set more universal than the others. Then you can put this set on any character even if it has low Intelligence. In Rivellon's world Hagrid would say: "Everyone is a wizard, Harry, not just you!"😅
Would make more sense for it to require Intelligence and give Memory instead of Constitution. That would fit better the standards of the game, but a little variation doesn't hurt. And I'm guessing this variation somehow fits the quests related to the Contamination set.
But anyways, ignoring it's requirement exception, this set is obviously the one for the Magus, or at least the most "magical" one out of the Four Relics. Observing the stats and skills it gives leaves no doubt about that.


Now I can finally rest my head about this topic. I found what I was searching for. Now may the next come, BG III, and hopefully, DOS III, one day.
On D&D they already have it established and widely known that their archetypal party is:
1 Fighter
1 Wizard
1 Rogue
1 Cleric
So, yay, no work for me there. That if BG III really sticks to the D&D format. It probably will, so the archetypal party for BG III is already established. Though they could also use the same format used in DOS II, I wouldn't mind. I'm fine with anything they come up with really.
The D&D format is pretty similar to the DOS II format isn't it? But Rangers are just so good in DOS II, you can not go without one.

If DOS III ever comes out, I have a feeling that it will keep the DOS II formula for party composition. Because from the little that I can remember from DOS 1, it's ideal party composition was the same as DOS II.
So maybe I really finished my homework here😄. Well, far from me to assume that I learned everything. There's always a lot to learn in these games. The hard part will be to wait for them.