Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity Original Sin - Help/Tips/Tricks I know one-handers are looked down on, but...

Aren't they good for battle mages? A sword, shield and mail doesn't require much in the way of strength, compared to a great sword and plate armour. It all fits together much more nicely when you only have to meet the requirements for your skills and spells. I tried a two-handing battlemage and it was a struggle to meet all of the requirements and ended up just using low level buffs so I could swing the big sword around, not un-effective but it was boring.

I view one-handers as this relatively minor bonus you receive to go along with your shield. I mean, one-hander versus two-hander is really no contest if you look at it that way; however, shield vs two-hander (vs staff) is an actual decision, where sometimes shields are the best answer.

I prefer my battlemages to use shields, but this doesn't mean I'm super-inclined to increase their one-handed damage or anything. I'm more likely to put ability points in Shield Specialist than in Tenebrium (aka One-Handed) for such characters.

In other words, I love shields, I really do, but in a way I'm still looking down on one-handers. I use them anyway, of course.

Except Sword of the Planets. That one-hander is awesome.

It's funny because I look at it in the opposite way. I don't see shields as being particularly amazing, for me warriors tend to do very well against physical attacks as it is, it's elemental attacks that are a problem for a significant part of the game. The only reason I'm using shields is because I have to use single-handed weapons due to how tight the attribute spread is for a battle mage and it doesn't cost you anything to equip a shields at that point. There is also the added benefit of the shield being another enchanted item too, which can help when you're spread so thin on attributes.

I'm tempted to play around with spears too, as they also seem to have low'ish strength requirements. For kicks next playthrough I'm leaning towards a water elemental sword and board, a fire spearmen, a lightning rogue and an earth archer.

If your mages are not using a staff, then shields are actually quite nice on them. If your mages are using a shield, then you might as well put a weapon in their hand for the stat bonuses even if you never use the weapon to attack.