Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity Original Sin - Help/Tips/Tricks [AVOID SPOILERS!] Qs & Build Proposals

Greetings, all!

I'm new to Divinity: Original Sin. I've not left Cyseal yet. I plan to start over with a new party (go, go multiplayer!) with each of us playing on Hard using the Source Difficulty mod. We plan to play a duo of Wizards (Fire/Earth primarily and Air/Water primarily). Using companions is uncertain yet.

-=SKILL QUESTIONS=-
-How important is Charisma? It seems useful only in rock paper scissors and lowering shop prices. Charisma seems most useful early game for shop discounts, but generally 'meh' afterward.

-How important is Bartering? It seems like a short-term, early-game skill like Charisma.

-How important are Crafting and Blacksmithing? I generally avoid complicated item creation systems in games - which Crafting and Blacksmithing seem to be - but was considering making a companion a 'craft slave.' That is, he focuses all his points into Crafting and Blacksmithing and generally stays at home base when I don't need an item made.

-How important is Lucky Charm? I like the notion of getting better loot from chests. I also like being more powerful and character optimization in general.

-How important is Loremaster? It seems super useful at first, but I can pay to identify items and I can probably easily guess my foes' elemental resistances. Overall, with enough prior RPG experience, Lpremaster feels like a 'pass on it.'

-How important is maxing a school of magic that's important to me? For example, Geomancy (Earth magic) has Earthquake as its highest level ability, one that requires Geomancer5 to access. If I disregard Earthquake, how important is it to max Geomancy?

-How important are Bodybuilding and Willpower? The author of the Source Difficulty Mod recommends maxing these on my characters, but if I'm primarily in back with summons, ranged weapons, buffs, and crowd control, do I truly need more than one point in each? If so, how much?

-How important is Telekinesis? This seems like a talent for the explosive barrel-minded, and for those who enjoy making barricades and messing around.

-=SPELL QUESTIONS=-
I understand general spell tactics: Preferably, start each fight with high initiative, high AP, buffed, and with summons (plural). During fights, contain foes and use the environment to my advantage.

With that said, what spells do you especially recommend I take or avoid? (I have my proposed builds at the bottom.)

And, again, ｭ｡avoid spoilers!

-=TALENT QUESTIONS=-
-How important is Leech for a dual mage setup?

-How important is Pet Pal? It seems... amusing. Like Telekinesis, it also seems totally optional but fun for those who use it well.

-How helpful is Elemental Affinity? It seems only slightly helpful due to the Fire/Earth and Air/Water combo.

-If I pick up Lone Wolf after level 1, do I retroactively get the bonus points?

-Do you believe the talent Glass Cannon usually makes the game too easy? Why?

-=MISC QUESTIONS=-
-How important are fear and curse immunity? The Bolt talent and Spiritual trait give fear immunity and the Forgiving trait gives curse immunity.

-= | | BUILD: SCORCHED EARTH WIZARD (FIRE/EARTH PRIMARY, WITCHCRAFT SECONDARY) | | =-


-=BUILD: COLD, BLUSTERY ARCHMAGE (AIR/COLD/WITCHCRAFT)=-

Neither Charisma or Bartering are really important; your impressions are correct. Bartering may be more useful after the large balancing patch (no ETA) when some issues with the game econemy are addressed.

Crafting and Blacksmithing can be quite helpful, but you can also get by without them.

Lucky Charm is nice to have, but not essential.

Personally, I prefer to be able to identify items right away, rather than batch identify and sort later at a merchant. It isn't essential, and you can get a couple levels of Loremaster from equipment bonuses.

Telekinesis is handy for looting, and makes it easier to reach some items.

Pet Pal gives you access to additional quests, or alternate ways to do some quests, and some hints or flavour text.

You can do very well without charisma or bartering. If you want to get better prices you can still buy bartering items or craft charisma accessories as long as one of you is willing to change his outfit before talking to merchants. There's plenty of money available in the game.

To me figuring out crafting / blacksmithing recipes and then planning out my party's items was part of the fun. However, you can certainly manage without it, if you really want. You may, however, find it easier to get through some parts of the story with specifically crafted weapons. Random loot is what it is. Random. You cannot count on it.

To me Lucky Charm seems totally useless, given that you have plenty of loot in the game anyway.

I prefer being able to identify items and to be able to see enemy strengths and weaknesses. Again, if you're OK to pay for identify spells at the merchant's, it's your call.

I'd say if you already invest in intelligence with a character he can as well get all schools, even if you cannot get all of them to rank 5. Again, my preference.

Bodybuilding and willpower should be maxed in the late game unless you play an all time sneaky build.

Telekinesis is very useful but it seems you can buy / loot plenty of telekinesis items.

I'd take Leech with melee characters, so unless you want your wizard to become a battle mage, I'd pass.

Story-wise Pet Pal is priceless Animals are funny and they can give you quests too.

Elemental affinity is useful if you have multiple elements and also good resistances. Saving on AP is one of the key techniques to get better in fights.

Yes, Glass Cannon does make the game too easy. But then again, so does sneaking or Leech or Zombie and lots of other capabilities. Or rather, there are simply not enough talents worth taking (there are also some seriously bad ones like 'All Skilled Up'...)

If you don't want to be scared away from fights or get charmed or cursed those traits are fairly important (And much better than their counterparts, obviously.)

As for your attribute progression I'd take Glass Cannon with a mage. I'd max INT (at 15) asap while putting some points into CON as well. There will be ways to get a bit more than the standard progression, though.

I recommend you to use companions, to add physical damage. Later, magic dmg will be weak! I'll base my replies on this.

I think Crafting and Blacksmithing is very good, because it can create very powerful gears like 2h axes that do about twice the damage of weapons you can loot or buy. You also don't have to depend your luck of finding good stuff. I max these on my active characters, because it's way more convenient, they don't require much investiment (talent, trait and gear bonuses) and there really are more than enough points.

Lucky Charm is not good. The extra items aren't worth all the points. I had it maxed on my 1st playthrough, so I know by experience.

In the first map, it's simple to guess enemies' weaknesses, but later, it is not. I like Loremaster for this, it improves the strategic aspect of fights.

Tier 5 spells are underwhelming/bad. I like to maintain Pyro, Geo and Aero at lvl3, Witch at lvl4 and Hydro at lvl5 (but my parties have physical attackers). This gives enough slots to have all the good spells without penalty. But since you have 2 mages, you can have 3 schools maxed on each and experience all the spells yourself.

You won't be able to effectively combo geo+pyro or hydro+aero if they're in the same character. There's not enough AP in the beginning for a single character to combo them in one turn. Enemies will move out after a turn.

Agree with all you wrote, Vaxsan, except the last paragraph. Even at level one you can do combos like Midnight Oil + fire staff. And of course at level 5 you can take Glass Cannon to be capable of casting more than one spell per round. If you do all the Cyseal quests you're not far away from level 5 if my memory serves me right.

The problem with combos including two characters is exactly that the two casters may not be in the right initiative order or may be too much apart for the combos to function.

Greetings, all! Thankee for your kind replies!

Starting my team with 8 SPD each helped me do Midnight Oil + flaming staff shot. Before leaving for the Undead lands near Cyseal, I got all my casters Wildfire, which is effectively, "Cast on turn one. On future turns, use two or more spells/melee specials." In addition, I made my characters 'self-contained,' meaning my Water/Air Mage does his Water/Air stuff without relying on another character to set up or finish a combo. It's worked so far.

Doing all the stuff in Cyseal that I know about (before departing toward Silverglen) got me to level 3.5ish.

Saving and reloading before treasure chests (and saving in a separate slot once I found soemthing interesting) tremendously helped: It's how I got 2 legendary items at level 2, and probably a few more legendaries (and one Unique!) since then!

Cheers, Endarire! Did you make two lone wolf casters or a four-man party? (I'd take Vaxsan's advice to heart and would not create an all mage team. Elemental damage will be weak in the late game.)

Small tip on Wildfire


Another tip on Silverglen

I have Madora the Paladin and Jahan the Air/Water crafter as companions.

My, how melee does damage in this game, though not much else!