Larian Studios Forums Divinity II The Dragon Knight Saga / Flames of Vengeance (English) Divinity II - The Dragon Knight Saga Item Stat Error - Aleroth Archmage Belt Set Bonus

Hello, I have been thoroughly enjoying Divinity II: The Dragon Knight Saga, and registered here because I felt obliged to note that someone clearly misplaced a decimal when calculating the set bonus for the Aleroth Archmage Belt.

With a single other item from the set, the Aleroth Archmage Belt grants a whopping +5 to Mana Regen. Not +0.5, but +5. This alone is more than I believe is otherwise possible with any other items combined no matter how hard you try, even including enchantments. It only increases with more set pieces, but as it stands you never need more mana regen than having the belt and the ring from the Aleroth Archmage set to have an inexhaustible supply of mana.

While I suppose this could be intentional, I cannot believe that this would be the case with an item that can, in conjunction with only a single other item of its set, grant such an overwhelming advantage.

I play as a mage character, so I do not know if having an inexhaustible supply of mana would give as much of an overwhelming advantage to a melee-oriented character as it does to a mage,but I imagine it would grant at least a benefit disproportionate to the expected benefit from a pair of items of that level and at that stage of the game.

That said, but this is a very minor issue and it is my enjoyment of this game that encouraged me to bring attention to this error.

There were a couple patches for the game, so if it were a mistake you'd think it would have been fixed. Also, if it were a misplaced decimal, the values for the rest of bonuses would be off (0.5, 0.6, 0.75, etc make sense, but the incremental increases for 0.5, 0.53, 0.56, 0.59, 0.62, etc seem a little small).

Even without that belt, any character can effectively have an unlimited mana pool (though I have not tried a mage build).

Playing a ranger in DKS, I found a few levels of Mana Efficiency (level 6 at the end of the game) and Increased Mana enchantments (once I started getting armour with 2 enchantment slots) pretty much eliminated mana restrictions, even without boosting Intelligence or Spirit.

In the original release of D2:ED playing a warrior, I never bothered with high mana skills like Thousand Strikes, and level 1 of Mana Leech was more than enough to keep me from running out. I learned level 5 of Mana Efficiency so I could summon my creature and have enough mana left over to cast the Healing spell soon after if I needed to.


Welcome to the forum.

Well, one might assume so. The problem is that it presents an overwhelming advantage and the opportunity cost (even in FoV) of "upgrading" to ANYTHING ELSE for the ring+belt slots would be less than 100 mana and approximately 130 health. Thus, if you use mana with any regularity, it would seem that you lose far more by "upgrading" than you would gain, meaning that a rational player would retain the level 22 ring and level 23 belt for the remainder of the game. This renders all subsequent rings/belts moot and decreases the value to the player of a rich inventory system.

I assumed that it had not been caught by patches because it was a set bonus and assumed that it was indeed an error because having such a substantial benefit from only a pair of items (whereas if reaching that kind of regen from the whole set (or at least many more items from it than simply two) would force you to sacrifice many more benefits from other items to retain the mana regen such that at some point it would be more beneficial to upgrade even at the cost of such a massive mana regen bonus. Even in that situation, however, it still seems disproportionately powerful at that level, since you would be retaining it for that benefit for far longer than you would retain anything else.

As it stands, it is overwhelmingly powerful compared to other options at that level and remains the only rational option for anyone using much mana for the remainder of the game (given its low opportunity cost vs. the substantial investment in skill points and enchantments to even partially compensate for the lost regen.

As it stands, I've been pumping Vitality more than Spirit because, after stacking health regen on jewelry in addition to health and armor enchantments to all armor, I'm effectively immortal and that mana regen means that I can call my creature, summon demon, and sling infinite spells with no trouble.

I suppose it might not be an error, but I do not think it would be a prudent game design decision and the quality of the rest of the game led me to assume it was a mistake rather than what would otherwise seem to be an indisputably bad design decision.

And thank you for the welcome.

I loaded up my level 36 mage at the start of FoV and replaced the Archmage belt. She did have 100 Intelligence, and you probably only want 60-70 by that point (because of the Dragon Wizard set), so my stats were a bit high. She had 0.9% Mana regenerated per second, and a base pool of 850 - which is really low, because I hadn't been putting in any points into Spirit.

Even without the belt, I was in no danger of running dry on mana. I was using my skills as fast as possible, and while I wasn't topping off, I was still gaining more than I was losing.

Therefore, the belt is not a game-breaker by giving you unlimited mana, you can already effectively have unlimited mana without the belt.



Only Rangers have a noticeable benefit from fast regen, really. Warriors skills use little mana - and a handful of points into Spirit won't affect their ability to fight. Mages usually have so much it doesn't matter, but Rangers have fast-cooldown skills that will drain their mana faster than other classes.

And playing as a Priest it's nice to have the Aleroth Archmage Belt. It's indeed a powerful Belt wearing it together with another piece of that Armour Set, but I like it. If the MP regeneration was not +5 but +2 or 3 I would still happy with that !

I first place I was suprized to discover the +5 bonus and I couldn't hardly believe my own eyes ...I was thinking I had a "Wishing Well Dream" ...

I've the retail version(PC) of this game, patched to the latest and I can tell that it's no glitch! But I could care little about set/preset armors and equipments as I found them often carrying lackluster and inefficient buffs. Also they limit your options of using unique pieces. I only used the defenders of aleroth set initially and even liked it since it would let me dual-wield. Mine is a battlemage but I never liked the Aleroth Archmage set. Yes, the belt bonus might just make it worth your while but otherwise I had gears, epic+unique, that would surpass any given preset except the Ulthring's set. I only used to run out of mana at the beginning; couple of points in mana leech, few in mana efficiency (or at least get Amdusius's helm if want to point-stack) and voila! Made lots of mana potions back in village, had to sell those for tinkers

I found myself running very low on mana only when used consecutive Thousand-Strikes! Irony it seems as this is a melee skill and not suitable for pure mages.

BTW- I've heard people found some weird stats in different versions of this game. Someone got summon ghosts or something in his/her hunter's amulet and I had rush-attack in archmage necklace!

Rush Attack : it's indeed a little bit strange the Aleroth ArchMAGE Set have a skill bonus for Rush Attack, but imo Rush Attack is handy in many circumstances ! (so in fact for all kind of build)

As a Mage using Magic Blast, and has invested in Confusion as passive skill, the enemy(ies) can be confused, so make most profit is to Rush Attack and use Firewall and/or use a weapon that do magical damage (if you've a high Intelligence value) or a balanced weapon.

As a Priest Rush Attack is very handy to fast rush to THAT enemy you wish to Blind, Charm or Curse ...

As a warrior RA is certainly handy: RA + Thousand Strikes or + Wirlwind or starting Dual Wielding, etc etc ...

As a Ranger I believe RA is less useful, but like the battle with Amdusias ... as a pure ranger I've many troubles fighting him because of his very dangerous explosive arrows! Using RA and start with a melee weapon is much better to win that battle !