Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity Original Sin - Help/Tips/Tricks Fighter\Mages, are they viable?

I've finished the first playthrough with Ranger and Fire\Geo Wizard and I'm thinking about what other builds to try. I've always loved playing fighter\mages in AD&D games and want to try it here as well as a Fire\Geo battlemage with a rogue as a second character and Jahan and Madora, of course. But many people say that hybrid classes are weak. Anyone who played with this preset - are they anything to write home about or not worth the try?

All mine are hybrid and I had no problems. Except first time I faced B-Rex when I was like 2 levels under him and did not realise would spawn those elemental's. I also had problem I guess first few times took on skeleton general and his sister I think it was...again problem I was 2-3 levels below them at the time but I figured a trick to take them down by funneling them through gate at bottom of the stairs one by one. Other than those all my characters were hybrid and did fine so go for it I say.

Nope, hybrid away. If doing proper you're probably stronger than staying 'true'... my fighter became a lot better once I spend a single point in geo and got a spider summon for him for example... all the AP-cost reduction for mages by self-buffing helps, my warriors usually wait up on targets anyway.

Have fun expirimenting!

You will be gimping yourself severely early-game by going a hybrid that uses two different mainstats (dex/int/strength). I tried making a 'paladin' myself, going water+earth+man-at-arms, and after a while I had to choose between not equipping my best strength gear or making my spells suck. -40% penalty to the efficiency of your spells because of low int makes them not worth the action points.

After a while, though, you end up capping out, at 15 points, your primary main stat, after which you may as well start leveling a secondary, of whic int is the best since strength+dex doesn't make a lot of sense.

So I'd say they're viable mid-lategame. You can get there a lot earlier if you pump all your bonus stats books into the same character. But I wouldn't do it early-game; I tried it, and ended up starting over after reaching lvl 7 or something.

If you don't mind gimping yourself a little, it doesn't matter a huge deal, though, as long as your other characters aren't also all gimped somehow.

So, struggling in the early game, shine in the late game? Hmm, well ok. I don't plan to make hybrids out of Jahan, Madora and 2nd character rogue, so I suppose I'll manage. Could be a fun challenge. The only thing to decide now is to whom should I give the all powerful Witchcraft school.

Simulacrum has no idea what he is talking about.
If he "gimped" himself thats because he is a lousy player that expects whatever he does to work as well as a focused build and dish out damage at same levels.
While he completely fails to understand what jack of all trades are actually good with.
Ive seen him post that rubbish as if its gospel in other threads too, because he expects wrong things and cant figure out whats what and then just wants to make sure everyone understand how "bad the game is".


Jack of all trades work exceptionally well in this game since it is made for such builds.
Despite those preset builds in Character creation screen.

With hybrid build you of course trade between being very good at a single thing to being very diverse and having more options.

It is better to start like that from the start and adapt your playstyle and attribute-talent building to it.

here is a tip:

Yes, Air magic has some interesting skills almost begging to be used with melee character. Hmm, should I give Fire\Geo to Jahan?

You can do whatever you want, as long as youre willing to adapt to a build and play it correctly, tactically as in - a part of a team. and that requires using environment and all items at your disposal.

You actually dont have to have all the skills in the team, but you also can - if you want.

I will not tell you how to play because i think discovering that for yourself is the most rewarding experience.

You can give Fire-Geo to Jahan, to Madora or to one of the two of yours.

Plus, you will be able to hire henchmen after a while so you will be able to take or create different kinds of support team members. And there is a kind of respec... (what a filthy word) later on in the game.

Splashing a bit of Int (like 7 to start) and getting early game magic schools on a Dex or Str based marksman or warrior is a great way to go.

My first play was a pure Man-At-Arms warrior, who quickly picked up 1 point of Marksman for Tactical Retreat... and then I realised that this synergy is entirely viable and even stronger in many ways than staying pure.

In terms of winning combinations:

- Aerothurge 2/3 on a Warrior: Become Air, Lightning Strike, Teleportation = unsurpassed mobility, defense and utility. Bring distant enemies to you, halve physical damage and teleport-stun through enemies before engaging in melee.

- Pyrokinetic 2/3 on a Warrior: Explode, fireballs, Wildfire... this is a high-risk - high-reward playstyle until you get decent fire resistance, and turns you into a selfhealing nuker when you pass the 100% resistance barrier (beyond 100%, fire damage will heal!)

- Witchcraft 1 is a no-brainer, for Oath of Desecration - 50% damage is huge and the investment is minimal - you could even run this with 6 Int and just gear bonuses.

- Hydrosophist 1 for especially Water of Life: Constitution bonus at 4 AP fits melee perfectly and is a 'hidden' spotheal, because the added HP is not lost when the buff ends. Also, you can use Slow Current to make more use of the Bully talent which is awesome melee synergy, and wet enemies are easily stunned with lightning.

- Geomancer is pretty useless in my book, although Fortify is nice but if you need Fortify to survive, generally you won't survive anyway. Summons are generally too weak for their AP cost and required investment, but maybe I haven't really played into their strengths yet. However there is no synergy there like there is in the above schools.


So, yeah. They're viable

My current playthrough is with 2 Lone Wolves, one as a Dex/Int hybrid with a Bow, and the other as a Str/Int hybrid with a 2hander. I'm destroying the game and have such ridiculous margin for error, its unreal. You can do this with 4 party members too however, just halve the amount of schools you pick up, or max out at 3 and see how deep you can go into them. But I am guessing that the pay off for investing beyond level 2 or 3 in those schools is going to be higher than the benefits, especially when compared to the first 2 levels with all those utilities.

Great and very helpful analysis, thanks Vayra. I think I might try a melee/mage hybrid myself

I have man-at-arms 5 and hydrosophist and geomancer 4 on my non-lone wolf character (It would've been 3 for hydrosophist and geomancer if not for the +ability books...) and it's working fine. I even just got 1 pyrokinetic for the haste real late.

I chose that combination because it's the closest thing I could find for a paladin-like guy. My only issues were early on when I was fumbling spells, and somewhere in the middle where I struggled a bit with gear requirements and +AP costs on skills for low ranks in schools.

If you need accuracy, earth allows you to bless, which a) doesn't require many attacks during its duration before it beats precision stance on an AP-cost basis, if your need for accuracy is over several turns, and b) can be combined with the power stance, if your need for accuracy is for a few exceptionally hard hits.

While nowhere near as generally useful as Wildfire or Become Air, it certainly has its place. A warrior or warrior-mage missing his target is a sad thing to see.

My problem with power stance is that it sucks. It's literally worse than not using it, unless you have a 100% hit chance with it. Then it's the exact same as not having it if you have a two-handed weapon, but still worse with a onehanded.

5 is 125% of 4. With two handers it's the same AP>Damage.
4 is 133% of 3. With one handers it's more AP per damage.

Accuracy stance isn't the worst, but whenever I feel I need accuracy I personally like using blessed earth to buff the whole party.

Just look at low level spells and decide what you can realistically cast at something like 8 INT or DEX to aid you in hand to hand combat.

Five best low level spells from each school (as many as you can learn at meagre +2 skill):

Scoundrel: haste, invisibility, charm monster, heal, teleport. (DEX)
Pyro: burn, haste, boost PER, flare/fireball projectile, summon elemental.
Hydro: heal, slow, rain, freeze, summon elemental.
Aero: freeze, blind, teleport, absorb 1/2 damage, invisibility.
Geo: spread oil, bless, armor, AoE knockdown, spider.
Witch: enfeeble, curse, blind, summon a skeleton and destroy summon.

My favourite here would be Fighter/Hydro, with his rains dousing flames to allow movement (which is critical), and freezes and heals protecting own team from damage. He can also take a point in Witch for a trio like destroy summon, blind and enfeeble to strengthen that tactics.

Then pair him up with real mass murderer, on 2nd fighter (a 2-hander preferably) drop 1 point into Pyro and Geo to haste, bless and armor your guys in the early rounds when enemies get closer, and then just wipe them out.

Then you can add a mix of archer/rogue, using arrows from sneak or switching to dagger and backstab. And finish the team with the mage that actually has awesome high level spells. A proper three-school DPS-er, someone that'd for example have all the high-level Pyro/Aero/Hydro spells and maxed INT to use them to their fullest.

This is entirely correct... if the measure of whether an action is smart or not is damage/AP spent over time. If e.g the game was about whaling away at million hitpoint strong target dummies, you'd definitely have a point.

But that is not the case. Most fights feature multiple enemies with hitpoint pools of various sizes, and cutting down on the number of enemies to limit how many enemies act against you each turn is important.

As an obvious example of what I mean, assuming you are going to hit in the first place, if you can kill something in one hit with power stance that won't die in a normal hit, then it is a question of one hit for 5AP or two hits for 4AP each (or one hit for 4AP and somebody else in your party spending AP on doing the rest of the damage). NOT using power stance in that situation is foolish - not only will it cost the party more AP in total to kill the enemy, the enemy may even get an extra turn to act against the party in.

The same goes when you are not at the last hit. Let's take the typical example of a fighter with 10 AP, who can either hit twice for 4 AP, with 2 AP left over for next turn, or make a 4 AP and a 5 AP hit, or two 5 AP hits. Which of these three options is the smartest depends entirely upon the remaining health of the target and the actions of other party members.

THE argument against power stance is not that it sucks, because it doesn't, but that it is a stance that needs quite a bit of fiddling with to benefit from, being toggled either on or off on an individual strike basis as the circumstances require in order to maximize its performance.

As a general rule, it should be used at maxed precision when doing so will with a high degree of certainty result in killing off enemies faster without the risk of misses, or when there is a risk of misses and enemies' armour is so high that the extra damage justifies both the increased cost and the increased risk.

Ill just add that a Fighter-Geo build is actually perfectly playable and as worthy as any other mix.

Fact.

It just needs to be played a bit differently, - appropriately - instead of same as any other, different build.

Good points about Bless and its usefulness, had not even considered stacking power stance and Bless. Thanks Peter

I can attest to the aerofighter being a fun build. but, don't stop at 3 air, go all the way to 5.

why?

IMMUNE TO STUN.

egads, with the right equip, you can easily make a fighter than is damn near invulnerable to anything.

I went sword and board, and shield maxes out at 80%... but that means you only take 20% of ranged and melee hits, combined with auto 50% damage reduction from the air skill...

you really don't need armor at that point, make sure you are always in a rage state.

but... for folks thinking the fighters are be all and end all of damage output... even fully boosted, with desecration and raged, my mage still does more single target damage.

one spell... death punch. without even buffing, at level 17 my mage does over 1600 damage with just that one spell. yeesh.

which brings up another intersting fighter combo to try...

the glass monk.

go lone wolf, glass cannon, fighter5/witch4/aero1 use become like air for protection, wear leather or robes only for armor (light and move fast - look for +movement items). cast disabling spells on your opponent first (which get REALLY brutal once you hit level 16), then use the Kill Bill 5 finger punch of death. hell, you don't even NEED weapons, except for the boost to your stats. build is int/con/dex. use dagger and shield for armaments (again, just for stats), or just a staff.


gonna try this on my next plathrough, but I get the idea of how it would work just by using my current mage to fight.

the only thing I'm a little less sure of is how it does early on, but you could always just go pure fighter until you can respec.

Two-handed weapons + Guerrilla + Power Stance is a net gain in damage even on a imagined target dummy. 125% damage * 2 = 250% for a increase of 50% AP and 10% reduced hit chance. If you have anyway 100% hit-chance it becomes even better.




My two fighters need buffs for that. And do it 4-5 times per turn ;-)
Alternatively they do about 16000 damage with whirlwind. And well than there is flurry, which is a waste to use on anything, but bosses. ;-)

not at level 17 they don't, not without a crit, and not 5 times a turn either.

unless you hacked them with a save editor.