Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity - Original Sin - General Tenebrium

From what I have read in the forums, and from my experience ingame, this is how it works:

1. Tenebrium +1 allows a character to use tenebrium without getting the rot.
2. Tenebrium weapons are unaffected by weapon skills (damage boost) other than tenebrium skill.

I think, that this is not the best way to handle it for obvious reasons.

Another way to handle it that comes to my mind is that at certain point of the game, in order to allow the party members to handle tenebrium, they should get immunity to rot.

Yes, please, good people from Larian, do something about it! It is not game-breaking, but rather annoying.
My husband and I got to the point of obtaining Tenebrium skill and discovered that now all our One-handed and Two-handed skills matter not anymore. So either we start the game again and ignore weapon skills until Tenebrium arrives to put all the skillpoints there (as an option we can use Moloch, but he can't help Madora or Jahan), or we stop playing this great game for now and see if the whole Tenebrium mess somehow gets fixed.

Or you just ignore Tenebrium weapons, which are in general worse anyway.
Tenebrium weapons have fixed Tenebrium Damage bonus, but can not additional sharpened in a whetstone nor will accept a elemental essence to increase furthermore elemental damage.

Besides that, you get a free +1 boost to tenebrium weapons for all chars and a skill book for another free bonus to one character, meaning that spending more than 6 skill points seems absolutely unnecessary anyway. Same has the other weapon skills, because those have plenty of belts and other items with a skill bonus to them anyway.

Either way, it may hurt the pride of a min/maxer, but even with spending points on both or not leveling up tenebrium weapons much, you will be able to still get thru like a hot butter knives true butter. Might not be fluid butter anymore, but still easy enough.

But the bonus from Tenebrium still increases for every point past 5. With the +2 that you get from the quest / book you can get another +3 from gear (Legendaries only), since Tenebrium can be boosted by rings and amulets while the other weapon skills can only be increase by +2 from belts and bracers. So with leadership you will end up with a passive +115% damage bonus compared to the +85% that you get from regular weapons.

Actually tenebrium weapons are worth it, because they have a crapton of damage even without sharpening. And correct me if I'm wrong, most creatures in the game have no tenebrium resistance and receive the full tenebrium damage, unlike elemental damage.

Tenebrium Weapons are usually better than anything but legendaries of the same level.
That makes them a nice alternative if the RNG Gods hate you.
You can also get them EXTREMELY EARLY (around level 3) if you are really eager.

Resistance or lack thereof is definitely an advantage. And yeah, the damage is nice even without sharping, but as I said, if you add elemental damage and sharpening than the tenebrium weapon does not look that good anymore.

That the tenebrium skill works above level 5 is new to me, might give them a small overall edge than I guess.

Well crafting in this game actually is pretty overpowered. I've seen people claiming damage numbers on 2 handers achieved through crafting, that I just haven't seen drop in the game.

I guess tenebrium weapons are for those who can't be bothered to spend so much time crafting, like me.

legendary Lvl 20 Bow with elemental damage, max points in Bow (no improvements through crafting): 297 dmg (you won't find any item > lvl 20)
handcrafted Lvl 23 Bow, max points in Tenebrium (second Bowstrings, Tenebrium, Tormented Soul, Sextant): 715 dmg

I craft my weapons at every level and then add tenebrium damage to maximize the damage.

There is something else about tenebrium vs weapon skill that has not been mentioned:

Tenebrium skill boosts the damage of every weapon proficiency, which in my opinion, is a big advantage in comparison to other weapon skills.

Yep, Tenebrium makes it really easy to switch between 1H and 2H weapons or have dex chars that are skilled with bow and dagger.

I believe that's at the heart of many complaints: that it makes skills like single-handed, two-handed, bow, and crossbow obsolete and a wasted investment. The two skills should compliment each other, in my opinion, not one making the other useless. A player with an investment in bow skills and the tenebrium skill should be more proficient with a tenebrium bow than a player with either skill alone.

I agree. Hate it when skills become obsolete.

I have to agree as well with that.
BTW, the normal weapon skills seem to work as well above level 5,just noticed when I reached two-handed 5 that there is an option for level 6 too. One less advantage for tenebrium, but another bad thing about spending points on non-tenebrium skills if you do not have 2 characters that use the same weapon type.

For me, what I've been doing is finding a good non-tenebrium weapon, sharpening it and then adding the bar as the last step to make it as powerful as it can get. Though once adding the bar, it cannot be made better which is pretty stupid.

The Tenebrium skill should be an ability (like Bully) that you get to learn automatically. That would best resolve this mess.

By "ability" Lightning means "talent." And yes, that.

All weapon skills will give you a 10% bonus per level in that ability. The big difference for Tenebrium weapons is that you will have a passive +2 Bonus (1 from Brandon's Quest and 1 from the Geomancer's book), which means you can get to level 10 in that ability (+3 from rings and amulets) for a 100% damage bonus.