I'm normally extremely good at tactics like in this game. Looking around briefly to see what to do finished things in town still exploring hit level three and then tried some exits 2 led to zombies which killed me and the other exit led to about five orcs with an archer that killed me.

While I explore options and get better I could use some quick handy hints or tricks that people have learned while playing game to help me improve.

I don't see a quick tips topic in existence here when I searched.

- Do you have a 4 party team? If not, recruit from the Inn & Library.

- Any zombies that are near walls can be dealt with using a hit & retreat strategy. Pull them towards the gate so that the guards help.

- Use Rain + Bitter Chill to freeze 1 enemy. Use Knockdown to stop another enemy. Use BlitzBolt + the wet surface caused by Rain to electrify multiple enemies. This is not good for your melee, but if you have a ranged party it is excellent.

- I usually play so that 3 of 4 team members have at least 1 skill that can stop an enemy from participating for 3-4 rounds.

- Buy Wildfire if you have person who can cast Fire spells.

- Get Madora the biggest, honking-huge weapon can find.

Now that I'm done with the ending, here are some things I can advice to someone in retrospect to minimize frustration and get the most out of it on the first playthrough:

1. Get someone in your party to max out Perception - it will save you a LOT of frustration when you're pixel-hunting for tiny switches to solve a 'puzzle' or open a door. Believe me, this game has way, WAY too many. Perception has many good uses, too, but this is the main reason.

2. Get Pet Pal from the get-go. Animals can often give you hints on how to solve 'puzzles' or if you're stuck. You will also be missing out on quests and flavor (as animal speech is usually quite funny and well-written).

3. Prepare to reload and save often, not just quick-save. This game is buggy. I had to reload three times to an earlier save because the right events for the main quest line didn't trigger (e.g. I initiated a boss fight before she triggered a dialogue). Funniest thing, you may not know you're stuck until you've advanced an hour or two forward and hit a brick wall.

4. Prepare for hard, frustrating puzzles. This game has a lot of them.

5. Many skills are pointless as you can easily get them from items. Loremaster (need 2 points max) and telekinesis are the main ones. Some say crafting and blacksmithing are also like that, but I only used it to repair weapons (and you need 1 point for that) and never used crafting.

"Rogue" skills (lockpicking, pickpocketing, sneaking) are mostly a waste of points - I've come across only 2 (!) locks in the entire game that couldn't be opened any other way (broken, or opened with a key), and for that I had 2 scrolls of open lock. In other words, lockpicking is useless. Sneaking is useless once you get the invisibility spell. Pickpocketing is useless since getting 5 points in it only lets you steal up to 700 gold value or so (so not even a level 9 book). I was swimming in money like Scrooge McDuck by the second half of the game and have nothing useful to do with it, about 120 000 left by the end (and I bought every single spell for my mages in every element and the best weapons I could for my fighters, every time).

6. Don't play with "Random AI" on your partner. It may seem fun at first, but it will get extremely frustrating once you get to parts with a clear right v. wrong answer.

7. DON'T get the "Leech" talent. It is extremely broken and makes fighters mostly invincible in melee.

8. Charisma is useful. Gives you a lot of XP and sometimes very valuable information.

9. Have fun! This game is a gem, even if only a flawed one.

Use blind. For the love of all that's holy, use Blind. Put one point into Witchcraft - just one! - and then revel in the glory that is Blind.

And, of course, you were given great suggestions in the posts above mine, too. But, seriously. Use Blind.

Haha, with Drain Willpower it's the second-most-broken combat ability in the game (after Leech). Every boss in the game (including the last one) goes down to this combo, they just stand there and do nothing and I've never had it miss.

Best tip ever:

When you arrive in Cyseal go to legion HQ, speak to legion commander, go to Inn and inspect room for star stone.
Then sneak / invis to the NE flaming side of the map to get the second stone and this unlocks Hall of Heroes in the homestead.

And then you can recruit Him.



Make him Shield user. Give him 3-4 skills into shields and you can toss him against anything, they won't even scratch him.

wait wait.. why is he naked?

Also if it's just two star stones why not the one in the hospital like place where Evelyn lives for the second one?

- There are no must-have perks, but some are nice to have from the get-go and to always have on main characters. Pet Pal allows to get tips in many areas from local animals and creatures, talk to the rats, talk to the cats. Politician will boost your main chatter's Charisma so he can easier convince people to lean his way. Crafting and Blacksmithing can be boosted this way as well. This means that preferably one of your starting characters should be the social type, covering charisma and barter (possibly leadership as well) with perks to that end. And the other the crafty type with crafting and blacksmithing, possibly also loremaster. Do yourself a favour and add those on top of their classes, regardless of what those classes are to begin with.

- Get ranged abilities for all of your characters. You want to be spending your APs on dishing out damage rather than on moving your guys around. So build a team of archery and magic. Let enemy waste his APs on getting close to you while you barrage him. Give them crossbows, give them ranged skills. Try to stay away from enemies rather than charging at them. Leave charging to summoned creatures, they can sponge damage for you.

- When you evaluate your party, think how you are going to be able to fight a group of explosive enemies rushing at you. Not how you are going to charge enemy and cut him to bits and pieces.

- Hybrides suck. They just don't work at the moment with how attributes apply to skills. Make a pick of the main attribute for each of your characters. I'd suggest two INT characters (to cover all schools of magic), one DEX character (preferably an archer, but could also be a Rogue), and one STR character (tankish type to make use of all the many Man-at-Arms abilities). Then attempt to max those. If you try to go in as a party of Wayfarer/Battlemage/Shadowblade/Cleric, you'll get rofl-stomped by monsters right outside the gates, while the best items and spells are either heavily penalized or unusable in your inventory.

- Don't use default companions. Make your first 1k (steal paintings and sell), and get two lvl1 hirelings that complement your starting two the most. As soon as you hire them, fire them from your team, then rehire - this way their XP will be equal to your main two's, and you get to spend the points as you like.

- Prioritize healing spells and buff/debuff spells for all characters, both when you learn and when you fight. If you have a choice of Power Stance and Cure Wounds, always pick Cure Wounds. If you have a choice of hitting an enemy for 20 damage or slowing him down, slow him down.

- Spread out, you don't want your guys to be too close to one another. Cover more ground, weaken enemy's AoE skills by preventing them from being applied to everyone on your team with one shot.

- You can use the Air/Teleport spell to drop one enemy on top of another, doubling the damage, if you aim close enough. Drop one archer onto another, drop a knight on top of enemy mage. Possibly the best of all the starting skills. It's always my opening move.

- Combos. Combos, combos. Drop a boulder somewhere to spread poison, then ignite it all to blow it to bits. Wet a monster and then freeze him. Always think how to combo spells and skills. This gets especially scary when two mages covering all schools combine their skills with an archer who, with a wide array of arrowheads at his disposal, can pretty much every round detonate or freeze someone.

- Witchery. You might think that fireballs solve all problems, but in reality it's manipulation spells that allow you to force enemy to waste his rounds and APs on recovery. Buffs and debuffs are extremely strong in the game, and a key part to master if you find combat too difficult. A little bit of ice on the ground to trip enemy charge, a little bit of blind, a little bit of slow, a little bit of stun. It all gives you way more advantage than four or even eight damage spells.

- Summoning. Summon a spider, a wolf, a whatever. Then Haste it, Armor it, then watch your enemies waste their APs on trying to kill the thing that you can resummon after it's dead. You like rushing forward, rush with a fully buffed summon, make him chase enemy mages and archers out of combat, while you deal with melee opponents.

- Perception, you need one of your character to be a perceptive one. You just do. Otherwise you'll be walking onto mines all the time, and miss all the important buttons and such. Might be easiest to put it onto a DEX character.

- Ignore nasty deeds skills. And I mean - all of them. You don't need either of sneak, pickpocket or lockpick. Ignore telekinesis, whatever little telekinesis you need, you'll get from items.

- For gear you want items that boost skills first, then items that boost attributes, then everything else (resistances, life etc.). +1 skill is just that, +1 at a low level. But at +4, it's worth many more points. This also heavily dictates perk choice.

- For levelling, you want to conserve points and rather bee-line one specific skill than spread out into a thousand different things. Don't put your skill points into just anything, conserve them for later to boost character-defining skills.

- Steal everything. Craft everything. Sell it all afterwards. Always sharpen all your blades, reinforce all your armors.

- Do not purchase any of the crafting items, you'll find all the quills, looking glasses and mortars while looting the city.

Great stuff, thanks. But on the one hand you suggest a STR focused character and advise against hybrids, on the other hand you recommend giving all characters ranged abilities.

Any point in teaching my 2h warrior main how to use a crossbow? I'd need to invest in dex, marksmanship and xbow ?

I guess it's the old discussion about how useful melee characters actually are, but I don't care that much about minmaxing and really want to play a warrior main (with leadership & charisma). Then again I'm not far into the game yet, but after reading this considering to restart a 4th time. But the game should be playable as melee, no?

2h melee is ridiculously powerful, if not overpowered in my experience. Flurry lets you hit 4 (!) times with your two-handed weapon at a cost of 8 AP, a properly buffed warrior can deal more than 1000 damage to a single target per turn by level 11 or so. Not to mention Man-at-Arms specialists are unkillable with ultra high resists and HP (cue the naked guy screenshot above).

The downside, of course, is that there isn't much tactics involved. Rush in, kill everything, win game.

You don't *need* any ranged weapons unless that's your style.

You can play and win with any party comp, it's just some are more broken than others.

I am lost. Who is this and how do I recruit him? I made it to the Hall of Heros and able able to recruit people. Is it random who you get?

No, Cain is always there waiting for you to recruit him.

Just scroll through your henchies and eventually he'll come up.

Do I need Pet Pal for both/all members or only one character?

One, but be sure you use him/her to talk to animals, if you begin the convo with someone without pet pal they don't speak your language.

I just realized not everyone knows this:

In combat, on the right side of the screen you have an icon that allows your character to WAIT. When he waits, he'll move at the end of the turn. So if enemies are out of range and generally there's very little to do, you click that button and let them move a little, maybe closer to the end of the turn there will be a better opportunity to spend the points productively.

I did not know that. Good to know!

"Steal everything. Craft everything. Sell it all afterwards. Always sharpen all your blades, reinforce all your armors"

This should be every players' motto, I think!

I was thinking the other day that we needed a tips for new players thread (mainly because I was angling for tips myself), but we seem to have it now. Good work, people.

Or just skip a turn and have double action points by the time the enemy gets close enough?

Some builds may not be able to hold up to double their recovery AP.

- Chaining orders with the shift key held down is particularly useful when covering large distances on foot. Shift click the ground at your desired target but keep in mind to also do it in front of every door/gate on the way.

Doing this you can focus on inventory management or go afk for a minute while your characters are executing orders.

Keep in mind that switching active characters will interrupt them so only switch inventories with arrow symbols.

You can pick up barrels.. oil barrels.. ooze barrels... .. and you can throw them... couple that with sneaking and you can STACK THEM near enemies, much fireworks ensues... imo a VITAL early mid and late game tactic.

I think a lot of people do not realize that they can literally take oil barrels with them and place them before and during a fight with a marginal cost of AP ;P

Too silly for me, but maybe great move for Donkey Kong.

Theres a lot of truth in this. I learned the hard way and started as Cleric and Shadowblade. Theres just too little attribute points and ability points to go around and i end up with diluted attribute distribution(neither good dmg not good defense and poor AP) and low ability levels(hell, i didnt have enough spell slots). My spells are penalized(Higher AP cost and lower % hit) and my dmg was sub par as well as my defenses weaker(bodybuilding/willpower).

I then rerolled as Archer and Wizard, so much better. I have sufficient perception for the party, my spells work normally and my dmg and defenses are excellent. I could easily utilize the combos due to having access to all spells. I also have enough points for crafting and blacksmithing. Basically the synergy in my party went through the roof.

Its quite disappointing that hybrids are pretty much penalized. I kinda like the system in Alpha/Beta, theres close to no penalty in going mass hybrid but then again i understand how imbalanced that is...

I don't know. Starting off Hybrids are bad, but I'm at level 10 with a mystic Knight build and It's great so far. Got some buffs so I have more health, a healing spell to help heal the party alongside the healer, and a ranged attack for when there's something in the way.

Hybrids are great if you go for a lonewolf 2-man team playthrough, right now my 2 level 14 characters; warrior/mage and rogue/mage are killing it.

You don't even need lone wolf for hybrid. You just need to be smart about which spells you use. Going for a low INT hybrid? Then stick with heals, buffs and tier 1 spells. You would be amazed what you can do with a measly 8 INT and 1 point in a few spell schools...

To elaborate a bit, you can use your hybrids for setting off literally every elemental combo effect in the game and stick to the higher tier spells on a pure mage, or literally any combination of whatever you want. Keep an open mind and remember you can respec down the road! (it's costly but money is pretty easy to get)

OK let's assume that's true. Skipping a turn and getting some extra AP is better than waiting and getting ZERO.

Here's another tip that I discovered the hard way (i.e. had to restart):

If you're planning on using the Scoundrel ability Walk in Shadows (which is great for stealing stuff, for example), it's a good idea to get it at character creation. The vendors don't seem to sell it at all, at least not at lower levels.

That's just not true. I'm playing with exact this setup and my shadowblade has the ability to crowd-control (stun, blind), buff (desecration), kill (i can backstab an orc to death in one turn). And he also runs fast (fast track + talent). Oh and he summons armored skeletons. I have no AP penalties, I do have change penalties due to low attributes but they are only up to -10% which is negligible.
My cleric is a buffer/debuffer +offheal. She also cripples targets for Madora to kill (with bully talent) The only thing she lacks is AP but I'm working on it

So the hybrids are fine. Of course a pure mage can master 3 or all the elemental schools with ease, but still shadowblade is more then viable

And btw Loremaster is also a useful skill: try hovering your enemy with Ctrl pressed: the amount of information you get depends on Loremaster

This guy is right, "hybdrids suck" is horrible advice, all classes are much better even with just a couple skills from another class.

Ranger + Fast Track + Cure Wounds
Mage + Fast Tack + Tactical Retreat
Warrior + Heals/Lightning Strike + Charming Touch
Rogue + Tactical Retreat/Lightning Strike + Cure Wounds

Literally every class is much stornger mixed than pure.

"Hybrid" classes are harder in the beginning. If you want to make things easier on yourself, try starting them as a pure and add the other branch later. E.g. I want a cleric sort of character so I start out as a pure fighter so avoid suffering strength penalties on skills. When I level up I put points into intelligence and get hydrosophy when I have enough int for the skills I want

The proper order of things early:

1. Tutorial cave.
2. Loot the city.
3. Do quests within the city till you're level 4. Buy skills, smith weapons, hire henchmen.
4. Go through the cave in the graveyard killing lvl 4 enemies under there.
5. Go outside through a well on the other end.
6. Clear all the skeleton groups in the western part of the maptill you're level 5.
7. Approach Lighthouse and try beating the boss there.
8. Clear all the boar+undead groups in the north-western part.
9. Do the killer robot quest. You're level 6 now.
10. Return to the harbour, deal with the orcs in the western beach.

So, murder-hobos?
I was hoping for something more in this game. I went to the city for the first time and was pleasantly surprised that everything I touched gave me (what appears to be) negative reputation with the citizens.

So you're saying I should pick up everything that's not nailed down and deal with the consequences? Are there any consequences?

Just another note, if you are anal about opening chests and such, get the pyramid ports, and have a pure lockpicker hero. I carry chests back to town with me for him to unlock. Hire a level 1 hero, with lockpicking, fire him, and rehire, put points into lockpicking. Either bring chests to him or have him come to you. A door you can't open and there is no key and you are not wanting to beat it down? Place a pyramid there and get your lockpicker.

Signed, Wyle E. Coyote
Genius!

I have a silly question: How can I increase ability level? I mean, now scarlet got 4th level. She has Man-at Arms ability of the firts level, but I can't increase it. How I could do that?

You need 2 points to increase to level 2 of a skill, 3 points for level 3 and so on.

Don't throw anything away! If you are not sure if you need an item either "send it to homestead" or store it in a "junk" backpack either on your main or companion.

Divinity: Original Sin - Ornate Chests - Legendary Item Farming GUIDE/Tutorial/Tips/Tricks

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xPFtAOEJf0&list=UURj3Q06KOxAZWHaHScrkAOw

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Correct. Only players suck.

Any kind of hybrid build is great. The game is made to be classless - actually. Although it doesnt look like it because of that character creation section and its style of displaying "presets" to "help" the ... "less fortunate" players among us.

Which ended in dumbing down the gaem.

Also, someone above said you should take hybrids early because something,something, blah, blah, blah.
Complete nonsense. The result of twisted mentality that plays jack of all trades as focused builds.

In reality, if you want to play jack of all trades then you do so from the start so you can properly plan the attribute and talents allocation and learn to use its diverse skills during starting easier sections of the game.

Very nice tips people, learned a thing or two.

Adding my 2 cents about Nasty Deeds and his children:

Nasty deeds has few useful skills, but the useful one is VERY useful.

Lockpicking isn't that useful because there are very few unbreakable chests in the game (also because traps are not associated with lockpicking).
Pickpocket sucks really hard. It's moderately useful at the beginning, but by the time you can have pickpocket 5 you don't need it anymore, also it scales bad that late in the game you will want to respec to get the points back and use somewhere else.
Sneaking is great. Sneaking is sublime. To archetypes that really benefit from it.

It's useful for Rogues and Rangers, mostly. Other archetypes don't need or would rather use the points elsewhere.

However using it offensively isn't as simple as just blowing everything with spells or rushing the enemy like with other archetypes, rangers and rogues they make good duelists/assassins, so i usually use them to kill the highest priority target and then re-stealth.

Improving sneaking reduces the amount of AP used to stealth during combat, it also reduces the effective range the opponent starts to detect you, by level 4-5 i can enter stealth from a few meters off of my enemies.

Some tips on rogues/rangers talents and skills that go well with them:

GUERRILLA:
Scoundrel skill 1 gives access to Guerrilla which is very useful for dex based characters.

It gives +100% damage for an attack from a stealthed position. Do note that this does not applies to powers, otherwise every mage would do that too. Only actual attacks (Bow shot, dagger stab, etc.) get the bonus.

Initially you can't use it DURING combat, so most likely you will enter stealth before the battle and THEN you will attack. But when you get to Sneaking 5 either with points or with equipment, you can use 1 AP to enter stealth, which allows you to reliably get the bonus by entering stealth before attacking.

This benefits RANGERS A LOT. If you get Quickdraw (requires Marskman 5) together with Sneaking 5 and Guerrilla, you can sneak and shoot more than once per turn and you can leave yourself in stealth for next round of abuse.

This also benefits ROGUES somewhat. They use daggers, which cost 2 AP per attack and with Sneaking 5 they can use 1 AP to double their damage. That totals 3 AP. Now you just need to learn to NEVER ATTACK FROM THE FRONT =P.

BACKSTABBER:

If you got Backstabber and you position yourself right there is a change on the mouse cursor telling that you can execute a backstab. The backstab itself it's a high chance of crit, i don't remember if it's a guaranteed critical.

But you would tell me that backstabbing is hard. And i answer you: only if you do it wrong. Cast area of effect spells that create terrain your enemies will want to avoid. Then go behind them and start murdering. The area of effect will force them to walk to you or try to get line of sight by the sides, which is where your rogue is conveniently waiting to murder them. Also, Smoke and Blind are your friends.

If possible, grab a few Aerotheurge levels (1 or 2 should suffice), so you can get Teleport, Become Air and Lightning Strike.

Also, VERY IMPORTANT: If you are behind an enemy and it's not his turn and you miss an attack, he will turn to you, forcing you to move to his back again. So don't miss. Get high dexterity and use bless if you need.

And if your main is a be Heartless as it gives +20% to hit when you backstab.
If your character is a ranger i'd recommend him be Compassionate to get the extra 3% crit chance.

The backstabber playstyle is not for everyone though, it requires patience and good positioning, it also requires a firm mouse grip because if you misclick, your character will probably move away from the backstab position.

Regarding sneak ,you dont necessarily need to invest in it to make it 5 since void essence's can complement most gear pieces, and cautious trait, might invest 1 point heh...


but yes 5 is a must for 1 point ap in combat

NOW what i must add to it is that it's also great for warrior archetypes not just rogues

it adds up with rage and oath , get behind an enemy or use the environment/spells to block the view of others, it's a Boss killer through and through...
example:
2handed warrior add in oath spell 50% dmg buff + rage 50% dmg + a haste effect and bless for good measure the sneak of 5 =1 point of double the initial dmg and you got yourself a killing machine ,I have personally tested it on patch 1.81

ALL OF THIS only if you get the guerilla talent, and i always do as for the 25% dmg stance i didnt test it with that but if it multiplies it + the oath and rage instead of doubleing the base then even better