Larian Studios Forums Divinity II The Dragon Knight Saga / Flames of Vengeance (English) Divinity II - The Dragon Knight Saga The unfair disadvantage among warrior builds...

Who agrees with me on the title? I was doing well with my tank, but not even as half-way well with my good mage build!

The advantage of super-damaging spells from a distance makes a whole lot of difference, and if you mix Vitality in your list of priorities, you have an invincible mage (mine is VIT, INT, and SPR).

I can understand a more pure warrior build is a real pain in the *ss comparing with a more pure mage ... but mostly I don't like "pure" builds ...

But since I start with a warrior priest build I can only say it's more easy than with a mage priest or ranger priest ! The combination warrior + priest skills do really "match" very good !
It feels so ... I don't find the right words to explain ... sorry

Even on nightmare it was survivable to face Amdusias on level 13 (without a Creature with a Ghoulish Head, but with a Goblin L3 fireball), the Killer Rabbit on level 17, Razakel & Laiken also in level 17 + Lady Kara & John on ... level 17 ! ... I mindreaded a lot of NPC's to gain many Experience Dept (more than 12 000 points) so I was able to do a Trading Tour on all trader's in the Orobas Fjords on level 17, except Nicolas in High Hall !
Yes, that's the trick I have done more than ones !

I agree about the disadvantages of the warrior build. What worked for me was a mage/ranger, with some priestly skills like Summon Demo and Hide in Shadows. With a good mage/ranger build you can do excellent ranged damage using both Fireball and Exploding Arrows. One of the great things about Divinity DKS is the way your character can roll, dodge, do backflips, etc, which works really well with a primarily ranged fighter. I tired melee fighting but all too often got overwhelmed by numbers, but a good ranged fighter can take out a lot of tough bad guys without anyone getting near him/her.

I said in another post that a good boss battle should be a sort of final exam on what youv'e learned in the game and that was true with Berlihn and Ygerna on hard difficulty. Ygerna has a very strong rush attack but I was able to dodge it and keep her at a distance while I pelted her with ranged attacks, occasionally using Hide in Shadows to heal, change position, etc.So I think that in this game a little flexibility goes a long way.

i myself went for str and health with a lil bit of mana just to summon my minions and heal myself and i did realy well throught the game.
on dragon form that was a pain in the butt fighting the flying deamon in a small cave in high hall.
cant complain bout the worrior realy myself.

Well, I've played both builds -pure mage and pure warrior-, and I must say that pure mages could get extremely powerful, faster than pure warriors.

But, on the other hand, when you reach high levels, warriors also become unstoppable. The problem is the first third of the game; enemies hit hard and pure warriors need to put up with some nasty hits.

too true zerael it is a bit frustrating when your a worrier but i did a lot and i mean lot of mind reading of most of the npc's to find out who was best to spend XP to gain LVL UP'S.
all about trial and error and reloads lol.

persivation and determination as well as iron will to see it to the end.

I've always loved the warrior build when playing MMORPGs and single player RPGs, but Divinity II is proving to be quite unforgiving for my taste.



And I have to agree with Zerael and Sadiablo. Warriors are unstoppable, but in order to be a great warrior, you have to go through a slow and painstaking process to get to where you need. I reached level 23 and I BARELY felt the benefits of my extremely high VIT and STR.

Warriors who use Strength get crazy health regen out of the deal, though so it gets to the point where it's nearly impossible for them to die.

However, it's RANGERS who are overpowered, not Mages or Warriors. Just max out Splitting arrow, and stack on +Critical Chance jewellery and you can end up with insane damage dealing, and wipe out hordes of foes in the blink of an eye.

If you look at it in a realistic perspective, they SHOULD be overpowering! lol!

No hulking brute can match the piercing power of a pointed projectile travelling at a great speed. Plus, their skills are designed to make them untouchable.



And about the warrior thing, I did see the effects of that on mine. I would charge on a horde of Imps that use magic blasts and magic missiles and it would take them twenty seconds to actually kill me without me healing. You're taking about a group of five imps at a time, two warriors, two shamans using magic blast, and a healer that uses magic missile.

But even then, I can't rely on my warrior. It's still difficult because I have to draw in an enemy at a time. I can't kill many at a time the same way I could if I was a ranger or a wizard and twenty seconds isn't a whole lot of time.

Therefore, I am forced to either waste alot of potions, unlike the other classes, or draw in one enemy at a time, which could take forever.



During broken valley, I spent hours grinding on skeletons because the only thing I could do was to whirlwind a huge horde, run away, and then do it again. I had to do this about 25 to 30 times in order to kill one measly skull.

I agree a "pure" warrior build is difficult to survive ... but WHY have gamers THE wish to build up a "pure" warrior ?
Is it because a "warrior" feels more Sturdy/Venturous to play with ?

Ever tried a new "combination" of skills from different classes ?
A combination that is magnificent to play with ? No ?
Well, try a Warrior Priest ! It's so fantastic fun & smooth to play and the battles are most of the time fast over !! That's not always what I want because I love the combat in DKS !
The only skill from the mage tree I also use (via bosot from yewellery item(s)) is Mana Efficiency. No ranger skills, no bow or Shield, only Two Handed Flamberges

Plenty of combinations of skills, but one truly nice comb. is Rush Attack + Charm/Blind or Rush Attack + Thousand Strikes/Wirlwind/Fatality ...
Or Hide in Shadows > run to a Healer > Charm him and fight on his side !
And so on, and so further ... Never reached my Battle Tower so fast (only level 17 after killing Laiken, still L17!) as this time playing a Warrior Priest (used Charm many and do all the mindreadings, don't choose the extra XP by Quest Rewards ...

but WHY have gamers THE wish to build up a "pure" warrior ?

The fact that people keep saying it is so hard is making me want to try it.

Wait, would Mana Efficiency and level 1 of Healing disqualify the 'pure' label? In D2:ED with my strength based duel wielding warrior and DKS with my ranger, I invested in Mana Efficiency so I would not need to boost Spirit or Intelligence in order to summon the creature and have enough mana left over to use special skills.

In any case, I've been planning on playing the PC version with an unarmed warrior, once I build a new computer (which I'm not in a hurry for; I won't really need it until D:DC and D:OS are released).

My experience is quite the opposite. My build is a ranger/warrior and the warrior skills came in handy at high levels.

I was at nightmare difficulty during my last play. I never had to rely on potions with life leech and health regen maxed out. My fight with Ygerna lasted a few seconds when I rushed her and executed thousand strikes, with criticals at max. I never bothered with any healing spells because of this.

However, during the early part (ego draconis) I relied heavily on my ranger skills. So in that aspect, the warrior skills are indeed at a disadvantage at low levels.

It is possible to play a warrior priest from start to end on nightmare mode without any use of ranger skills and only with Mana Eff. (and ev. Healing) as extra mage skill(s) .
And without any hard trouble killing hard mobs (like Amdusias, Black Ring's, Chieftains, Skeltons, etc ...
But I've to say that Charm & Blind are very handy/powerfull Priest skills !! And the Summons (Ghost, Undead, Demon) too, but here you MUST upgrade them always if you can upgrade them
On my current play I only go for the Summon Ghost (and my Creature) ... more temporaly allies I make via the Charm skill ...

Never I've had the feeling DKS was that easy playing nightmare mode with a warrior priest !

@Raze :
when I write down the word "pure" build then it's a "pure", so only skills from 1 class
I know that's narrow minded to say it this way, but know that I myself don't love "pure" builds.
On the other hand: it CAN be a nice challenge to try a "pure" build (with a little few exceptions like for the skill Mana Eff., for example )

When I fought Ygerna (on nightmare) I summoned my creature right away (which I probably didn't need to do, though he did keep Behrlihn occupied), cast WotR, by which time she was right up to me, so I cast Splitting Arrows, jumped back and IIRC only needed one regular arrow to finish her off.


If I decide to try a pure warrior build, I can always invest in Intelligence and Spirit rather than learn Mana Efficiency, and use more Healing Auras on jewellery, rather than the Healing spell (I ended up with plenty of malachite gems in DKS, so I really didn't need to hoard them).

Yes, that's a way you defenitely can go ... With my Warrior Priest I put points in Strength & intelligence (go for balanced two handed swords) so my HP & MP regenerate faster.
With Summon Ghost I only needed so far just a few healing potions here and there (now Wirlpriesly is level 19, on nightmare), all the rest the Ghost do fill up my HP bar. Together with skill Life Tap it's easy to fill up my mana pool fast (faster than drinking a mana potion (if Life Tap isn't in 'cool down time' of course ).
Didn't invest a point in dexterity and just in the beginning a few points in Spirit. All the other points I become via equipment (in first place I go for all equipm. with boosts to vitality and/or spirit).

Good luck killing enemies "up close and personal" ...
... these are the words of Gawain,
Gawain is the name

Well, I don't like warriors too much; in fact, I always tend to stick with mage classes ^_^ But for my second playthrough I wanted to try something different -and, since I had read that rangers were extremele overpowered, I leaned towards the pure warrior skills path.

But... now I remember that I increased difficulty level (not nightmare, the previous one; the first time I played on normal). Now I'm not sure if the warrior pure class was difficult because its a weak build indeed or because the difference in difficulty levels is noticeable to that point.

I did something similar(on hard) but with Fireball and exploding arrows as well as splitting arrows.I also boosted my armor with a potion.I had some melee skills but found it best to keep her as far away as possible. I am also tempted to try a purer build but it just seems less tactical and much more time-consuming, particularly at lower levels. Most games don't give you the option of creating a build with so many different skills. Your'e more usually forced to create a pure mage, warrior, etc. So if a game gives you a lot more flexibility to create unique types of builds than it seems to make sense to take advantage of it. It's that flexibility that gives the game so much replayability, imo.

I made a "pure" warrior on nightmare, maxing 2-handed weapons. It's hard, especially in the flying fortresses where you need to dodge a lot, but not impossible. Might be easier with shield or two-weapons.

I put one point in the invisibility spell at that time, else it would have been too painful (my computer is a bit old, so it's quite laggy when there are too many monsters, with a better computer it might have been easier).

But I didn't need to put any point into spirit, you get enough mana just by leveling and increasing Intelligence for regeneration.