Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity Original Sin - Beta Which skill setups are you guys enjoying the most?

Just curious what most are enjoying at this point. I havent dove in deep simply because its such a tease, i want to delve into this game full speed with its launch so im a bit limited in any type of class opinion yet.

This is a classless system.

Been going 2x lone wolf mages just buffing up and comboing off eachother.

I have found playing from range to be generally superior to melee, as you get to let enemies come to you which allows you to reserve AP/not spend lots of AP moving. Get into a good position, chokepoint enemies with AoE ground effects, stun/freeze/slow for control and use whatever is the appropriate element damage for the fight.

The occasional boss that's immune to CC is annoying but can still be kited to some degree I've found.

Str characters are the bread and butter of the dps world - wading in knee deep in blood, they hack and slash with 2h weapons to smash out massive amounts of damage. A few knockdown spells in their repertoire and a charge give them some CC but ultimately it's all about the big hits.

Dex characters offer a lot of support, don't feel trapped into choosing between bows or knives because a smart dex player can bring both. With high speed you'll offer great deployment, excellent CC options and a lot of movement.

Int characters have the most spells available, so they bring more variety than you'll fix into a single build.
Damage - Found in Pyro and Aero heavily
Control - Aero/Hydro are good for locking down the enemy.
Support - Geo/Witch focus on buffs/debuffs.

Str/Dex - Str players will gain movement from the dex, skills to get you around the battlefield quicker to deal more damage to spread out foes. Dex players will gain higher armor, better AoE damage too.

Str/Int - Str players either gain ranged attacks, self buffs/enemy debuffs or the ability to stop the enemy from pounding away on you. Int players get heavier armor, more damage with a 2hander and some additional CC options.

Dex/Int - Dex players get self buffs, or extra control to really dominate the battlefield. Int players can gain movement or maybe a sexy bow option for cheaper ways to play off their own spells.

Whatever you fancy is available, just make sure someone has a healing spell to top you off outside of combat!!!

Yes but each skill point setup points in the direction of a particular class.

Just like when you start the game, you can select wizard, ranger, rogue, shadowblade etc...

While technically just points, its still more interesting to discuss them as classes since they can still be classified as such.

Thats really all i was referring to. Even if people make their own builds, and classify them as battle mage or what have you, im curious to hear how its worked.

Edit: Edited it so this thread doesnt derail into semantics.

I'm trying to find some cobination of "classes" for my chars to make the game most exciting. I'm not looking for something that is best. I had fun with rouges, so let's mix them up with some magic and I'm set with one of them. But I can't decide what to choose for my second char. Be it warrior/mage, or ranger/mage.

So far shadowblade has the most utility that iv seen.
High movement, invis, stun, blind, -chance to hit debuffs, -50% dmg debuff and if you keep your daggers upgarded they deal on-par damage that a 2H fighter deals when back stabbing.

I give my wizard 1 point in each element just so that he can use the environment to his advantage more. I mainly use my wizard as a healer, buffer debuffer and damage only if needed.

My ranger i use for utility mainly. Magic arrows seem to be underrated. Break armour arrow, steam arrow and charm arrow are all very very powerful. The group luck buff they bring is also great. Once a ranger has enough speed to get 2 bow shots per turn their damage isnt all that bad at all. I gave my ranger 1 point into geomancy to be able to summon a spider (very useful) and to create oil so that she can then fire a fire arrow into it for some nice aoe damage. I only dropped 1 dex at character creation and put it into int. The rest of her int boosts come from items so that her spells are at 100%.

I have tried making a sword and board healer/fighter. It works but there is no need for it imo. I would rather have my wizard focus on heals and buff/debuff than have a character that sometimes deals average damage OR throws out some heals.

Over all the best setup (for my play style at least) is shadowblade, ranger, hydro/witch wizard and pure fighter.

I would like to see if fighter/witch combo would work at all. Anyone tested it??

Please believe me that when I say "Good luck with that." my sincerity and cynicism are too close to balanced to call.

Me, I prefer the ranged approach with glass cannons. Mages and archers both, although I'm enjoying mages more than usual in this game. There are a lot of perfectly viable approaches, although we'll see how that carries through the full game.

I tend not to even need the companions - I've carried them along for the dialog a couple of times, but they aren't entirely developed/released yet. I hope.

I've tanked as well, but sniping is just too damned satisfying for me. Take that as you will.

I decided to made my first playthrough with recreated Geralt and Yennefer. Including their characters, thanks to Larian for ton of discussable situations. So, pale dude with light armor and two-handed sword and just a bit of magic and alchemy, and girl with lot of air magic.

This sounds like a really awesome idea!

I have done quite a bit of theorycrafting on potential setups for my characters. The main question is what level of skill one can get to at level 20, which as I understand it is max, depending on you build.

Currently I am choosing between one of the two setups below for my first game:

Two multiclassed characters:
Here my thought is to make a Ranger/Water/Earth/Witch and Knight/Fire/Air combo. I have done som calculations and it is possible to get all the skills to level 3 (spending 6 points on each), while also getting some utility in Nasty Deeds and Crafing/Blacksmithing.
However it will be impossible to get any skill to level 5, so high level spells will cost 4 extra action points to use, which is a lot. Also there is very few points to spare for extra weapon damage, armor specialist, bod building, and willpower.

*I did this in my last beta runthrough, and it was difficult at early levels, but really powerful after level 6 as the characters were so versatile.

Two specialized characters:
Here I am thinking a pure mage combined with either a Knight or a Ranger. The mage will combo probably 4 of the 5 different spell schools, which means few of the schools will be at skill level 5, but 2 can which should be enough. A pure Knight will be a beast in melee combat, as warriors scale really well.

To be honest my character makeup might just end up depending on what type of companions I can get my hands on. So far we only know of Madora and Jahan, I would really like to get my hands on a Ranger/Rogue like companion and a cleric like companion (and preferably some with better personalities than Madora and Jahan ;-) )

Hmm, seems many people are preoccupied with thinking through their specializations. I'm thinking about it as well, but I'm kinda bummed about how many talent points per level there is in the current beta, which is not a lot. Are we gonna get roughly 1 point per level in the final release as well? I hope not, otherwise we'll have to very narrowly specialize to get any talent to max at level 20. Which is not fun.
Personally though, I'm thinking about making a pure ranger and wizard duo.
Ranger's gonna be the talker and treasure hunter - I've come to realize it should be one and the same character because of Perception stat, which is quite useful for a ranger, and used both for detecting hidden stuff and percieving best persuasion choices in dialogues. This also means that he's gonna invest some points in Charisma for easy wins in dialogues and in Lucky Charm to find more precious loot. I'm also thinking about squeezing some points into Crafting just because hoarding stuff and then moving it to another character to craft smth is too cumbersome. The rest of the points are for the usual Bow and Expert Marksman.
Wizard's gonna be the Loremaster nerd, concentrating mainly on Fire and Earth magic schools. She'll also invest some points into handy telekenisis for reaching hard to get stuff.

I enjoyed a Wayfarer and Shadowblade. Gave Jahan Pyro.

You get more skill points at higher levels

I really liked the ranger setup because of all the different arrow types in the game. The cleric I had an issue with due to being blunt weapon specialized and there not being that many blunt weapons. But I suppose I can fix that.

@Aramintai - I think you'll get 48 points in total at lvl 20. Still not a lot to really max out skills if you want to go multiclass, but that is kind of the point of a negative side to multiclassed characters.

@LeBurns - You can always switch out the Anaconda talent before starting the game, that should make sure you don't "waste" a talent.

In turn base I love choice. This game gives you a ton, having mixed classes, means even more.

Battlemage - Mixed Fighter and Magician, always great with options.

Wizard - Pure, most schools learned. Magicians in TB games always have the most choice.

Madora - I get her up to a point I can use a bow with her, so she becomes a fighter/ranger, allowing her to use all the custom arrows really adds to what she can do move to move.

Jahan - Like the wizard main I build. Learns most schools has lots of options.

3 out of 4 will have Teleport to really mess with the baddies.

I work the two wizards into Glass Cannons, focus is Int, Cons and Speed, this way they get at least two pops per round. Getting 16+ AP a round at level 6'ish is pretty powerful.