Larian Studios Forums Divinity II The Dragon Knight Saga / Flames of Vengeance (English) Divinity II - The Dragon Knight Saga When will the gameplay become difficult again?

The game is on "normal" setting. DKS Ego Draconis part

There's a part of the gameplay when I experienced difficulties (about level 10). So I decided to go to the Orobas Fjords and pick level 18 goblins one by one, then went back to the level 11 Black Rings (IIRC I was level 14 or something). Ok, so... life was easy. Then at some point the monster levels catched up. Good, the gameplay became difficult again.

I'm just at level 35 and just finished the flying fortresses. The gameplay became too easy, Raze never even got a chance to go to any of his healing stations. I rarely summon creatures anymore. I stopped drinking potions. I stopped being tactical and went charging into fortresses blindly. So I skipped a lot of quests in the hope that the levels will catch up. Still, the only battle that posed the slightest difficulty was against Zandalor and the Divine one. Even then I didn't have to use any potions.

BTw the game has been dropping Epic(Dark Red) items like crazy starting at level 24. My character has Epic items all over except for 1 ring. I have multiple epic cuirasses. I stopped collecting the set armors since the epic items seem to outclass them. What's the purpose of the set armors if it's outclassed so early in the game?

Is this normal? Does everyone have to go to "options" and raise the difficulty of the game at some point in the future?

I play the game on nightmare difficulty and at some points I lowered the difficulty for a moment (for killing Zagan, for example).

And the game was never too easy for me, except a few parts are not that hard as I excepted, but maybe that's because I now know that it can make a big diference what kind of Build I used (skills and stats) .
For me a warrior build I find difficult, but a ranger and mage is good for me. Now playing almost as a Priest and that's the build that's suits my playstyle best !

I was level 34 when I finished the Ego Draconis part and go to the FoV part (without making use of Wisdom, don't invest in the Mindreading skill and choose not the XP after solving a quest.
On this way the game difficulty remains good for me.

Some people here do also this:
make a "handicap" for themself like not investing statpoints after a certain level, or let uninvested skillpoints "uninvested" ...

I myself didn't fidn so many Epic gear, but indeed the Epic gear is very nice .

About the Armour Sets :
Do not forget that wearing more than 1 part of a Armour Set give already a BONUS on each part of that set and the more items you're wearing, the higher the bonus will be on each part of that Armour Set !!
And like the Archmage Armour Set (I like it most of all sets, so far - playing now FoV part) : the Belt of that set is really special and come in handy if you frequently use skills with a high Mana cost (like Thousand Strikes, for example) !

Play and have Fun with the Dragon Knight Saga for a long time,
Find out what suits you best and you will say: "That build is mine !"

Thanks I think I'm going for nightmare for FoV. I just played again through Aleroth up to the end of Ego Draconis on hard.

It's really weird, the arena showered me with Epic gears. Now, I have equipment bonus of +6 in wisdom. But I like the idea of going nightmare and at some points lowering the difficulty if need be. (though this injures my character's pride somewhat )

update: cool! My first encounter in FoV were level 37s vs my lvl 35 on nightmare and the difficulty was just right again.

Glad you find a way to make this game again hard enough for you

Just curious, which kidn of build do you use ?

I like it to read about all kind of builds people make within one beautiful pearl of a rpg the DKS is !

PS :
Sorry to everyone that I can't stop saying I like DKS so much ! ... I love the game !! ... After playing so many many many hours Divine Divinity (DD) ... finally this follow-up holds my attention enough to play further on and don't interrupt it by playing again DD

I'm not exactly proud of my build since it's so... ugly lol. Note that the build was made on normal. It's passable for nightmare. My experience: Death is guaranteed on nightmare when you face 3-4 foes(1-2 levels above you) at the same time (alone) especially against magic foes.

Level 40-warrior
15 Heal, 13 life leech, 14 regenerate, 8 Mana efficiency, 13 two handed weapon, 2 thousand strikes
3 rush attack (from equipment bonus-I'm using this a lot), 3 wisdom (equipment bonus).

Max strength, 82 intelligence, 42 vitality, 26 spirit, 4 dexterity

Warning: The build is useless once the two handed weapon's damage is not properly scaled against the enemy. It was made when I got an Epic high damage two handed weapon. This made even 1 point in thousands strikes quite useful.

Why would this build "ugly" ? IF it's your personal preference or your search(searching in process via experience) for a build that suits you best ... , why not

To be honest: I will not make such a build, but who am I? Like Regenerate I don't take that skill since I use Healing and a Ghost that heals me (Summon Ghost) .... so to say, no need for the Reg. skill.

Next build I start will be a Ranger Priest, using mostly Priest skills and always a Bow (2-hand weapon) or in case of need, a Two-handed Sword ...

Thanks, actually I was planning on going through the game only once.

But you've roused my curiosity and I might be playing this game again and explore different approaches (classes, builds).

Glad you enjoy this lovely rpg so much that you wish to start over again trying other builds etc ...
I've the same "problem" .... "problem" with having not enough Time ! To know that I'm playing with one hero since 11th of March 2011 and still only L36 ... plus ... already thinking about starting a new hero ! Years will past by before I'm done with playing this Divinity game !


O, so sorry I forgot to warn you "reading the words I write down" ....

because ...

... I'm a "Willy" ...


No, back to business and seriously,
I am who I am, most always curiously !

The thing about this game is that, I think, there's the possibility for a wide spectrum of how "powerful" your character is. . .

Some players might not be very good at picking a strong skill tree. Some players might miss a lot of the "optional" skill books, set equipment, etc. Some players might not make good use of the enchanting and charming features.

If you're a real 'power player' and get a really strong build, by level 30 you're rather god-like, it's true.

The devs have to make it so that someone playing on normal, who might not leverage all the optional and hidden bonus items real well, can still complete the game. I think that's why you are finding it so easy for you - you've ended up with a very, very strong build.

By the way, have you done the "Mighty Morphin Power Rangers" encounter yet (that's my own name, btw - it's a group of rogue dragon-slayers you can fight in an optional encounter)? I honestly found them to be one of the hardest encounters in the game - mostly because there's five of them and most of them use very powerful ranged attacks against you (magic and bows). It's certainly winnable, but I found it to be very much a challenge.

I found with most of my characters, that when I first entered the first flying fortress, it was pretty hard, but pretty quickly got easier as I continued to level up.

LOL I remember that. It was so funny I had to reply immediately . But that was the most deceiving trick of all. I remember during the cutscene when they were not only silly but their appearances were ragged which has the player thinking, "You're all dead. Piece of cake" (or whatever cliche you can think of). Then suddenly during their formation, they get these armors and weapons. I remember thinking, "oh... this is not good."

I think I reloaded 3 times there, I survived when I was humble enough to jump away and kill them one by one and ... use potions (the character I started this thread with was melee).

I encountered them again at nightmare with my ranger. Didn't underestimate them, and killed them straight away. (used a cheap trick though. I jumped between the high and low ledges which kept their the melees running to and fro so I can freely deal with the ranged ones.)

You mean the Dragon Slayers at the Dragon Cliff Castle in Orobas Fjords?

O yes, they're strong and dangerous, but in fact, even at nightmare diff., it wasn't that difficult for me. My Summon Ghost and Creature (with Rush Attack/Fatality L10) are a great help !
I remember I used Firewall and Stun Arrows and further on I think Explosive Arrows too. All that, while jumping and rolling to evade some attacks ...

Yes, I used explosive arrows with lots of jumping too. I read a lot of posts about how useful explosive arrows are and they're right.

For my ranger, unfortunately my creature has become some sort of... canon fodder. On purely ranged enemies with no AOE attack, I summon it and push my character behind it. The creature absorbs enemy projectiles while my arrows can cleanly pass through it. It's not pretty to look at, but then again, I'm not the elegant type.

BTW, IIRC I think a more powerful melee build is two weapons, I posted somewhere the result I got when I experimented with it in the endgame of FoV.