Larian Studios Forums Divinity 2 - Ego Draconis (English) Help/Tips/Tricks Comparing Skills

I was just thinking what skills the hybrid character I plan to make should take. I started comparing two contenders for a ranged area attack. The best choices would be Fire Ball or Exploding Arrow. It's probably not a good idea to take both considering how similar they are. Here's the stats of both, comment or even list any skills you have trouble choosing between.

Fire Ball- Maxes out at Rank 14

Base Damage: 1592
Base Mana Cost: 100
Damage Range: 12 Ft.
Side Effect: 18% chance of Burn damage(how much damage does this do?)
Cooldown: 15s

Comments: The spell will cost 50 with a rank 5 Mana Efficiency. Unlike EA its damage can be boosted to very high levels. Intelligence can give it up to a 100% boost, Destruction can boost it another 50%, and Way of the Battle Mage can add another 60%. So It's Maximum Damage is 1592*2*1.5*1.6=7641.6. Rounded that's 7,642 over a 12 foot range with a 18% chance of inflicting extra burn damage. All that for 50 mana every 15 seconds.

Exploding Arrow- Maxes out at Rank 13

Base Damage: 2014
Base Mana Cost: 62
Damage Range: 17 Ft.
Side Effect: 34% chance of Knock Down
Cooldown: 5s

Comments: Costs 31 with a rank 5 Mana Efficiency. It's base damage is higher than FB, but it can't be boosted. It's also cheaper and can be used more often over a larger area with a potentially better effect.

Summary: FB can be learned from the beginning of the game and does not require a bow to use. You could even use it with weapons drawn or sheathed. However it requires more work to get to that 7600 damage mark. EA only needs 13 points while FB would require 24 to reach that high damage. Unless your a battle mage or just a pure mage that would require too much investment to boost the power of one skill. So EA is the best skill for a hybrid character.

I had a hybred ranger/warrior and quite honestly did not use either of those.

I just had a bow with good regular and magic damage and enchanted that baby up higher every chance I got. I was dealing up to 600+ damage with it at end of game. More powerful then my dual wield swords but a little slower and you also have misses about 20% of the time.
Black ring level 26 only took 3 hits with my bow and they were compost.

By the way you analyze too much, just get out there and get me some tasty goblin steaks. I'm hungry, I am a growing dragon after all.

30johner: you basically cant judge skill damage base on the raw damage data, as mob has resistance of their own, as well as affected by difficulty mode you are in. Take my own ranger damage as an example. Weapon damage shown in character sheet is bout 148-263 +(14-14), with 30+ dex at lvl31. The max normal damage on lvl28 black ring will never exceed 120 damage in high difficulty mode, and it can goes as low as around 70 to 90 damage per shot. If difficulty being tuned down, damage can be double up and even further more to the lowest difficulty.

Pure mage will be more suitable in maxing fireball damage, as they can just ignore passive like weapon mastery and concentrated all on spells related skills, since they can run around spamming magic missiles non stop. Explosive arrow will be a better choice, if you just need something to switch between whirlwind, where you get to spam skill more frequently. I not too sure if bow's damage and will increase explosive arrow damage or not, with highly chances it wont, as I tried with buffing up the way of ranger, the damage has no changes with explosive arrow. So I will assume it wont.

I actually did a small experiment by re-skill my lvl35 warrior with pure ranger skills and magic missile. And honestly it wasnt bad as I thought. All needed to be done is just stand there spamming hotkey for skills and potions, and you see everything around you went dead Since my warrior only 35, its impossible to to get rank 13 explosive arrow as it need lvl37, and I has no gear which boost the skill. Rank 12 explosive arrow has 1804 damage as stated. It burst out 700+ damage on divine and Zandalor, where paladins take 800+ damage. Rank 13 magic missiles without any skill buff does bout 200 to 210 damage per hit on paladins and 170+ on Divine and Zandalor, with total 5 hits per cast. Its very funny to see both Divine and Zandalor keep healing themselves in order to survive my nuke of magic missiles, and finally both lay dead as their healing can match the speed of my spamming. Below are the screenshot of my re-skilled warrior and I dont actually had a good bow to test with him.

i feel exploding arrow demon and magic blast are the best along with my dual weild but thats just how i like to play you ashould probly try the skills in combat and see which one you like

I was just comparing the skills, call it thinking out load. I know the skills won't do the damage displayed, I was just listing their base/maximum possible power. Although maybe if you got ranger surprise to a very high level you could remove the enemies resistance and inflict close to the mentioned number. I've played the game alot and know what all the skills do, I was just thinking of listing a few skills that were similar. Also I always play on medium difficulty.

Edit: Also I'm thinking of using sword and shield for this character. The damage bonus is the highest next to unarmed and its attack rate is also best next to unarmed/single-handed. Shields are also pretty strong. Also I'm just plain bored with dual wield and 2-hand has too big a damage range for my taste.