Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - General Questions on finesse mechanics

1. The bonuses for putting skillpoints in dual wielding seems weird for rogue type characters seems weird. +damage is ofc nice, but the +crit seems completely off. If you plan to take backtab you are going to be using a weapon that works with it, that means a 1h weapon, and that makes dual wielding two 1h weapons very likely.
But whenever you do backstab any bonuses to critical chanse from points in dual wielding is completely wasted since you are guaranteed to crit anyway.

2. How are spears intended to be utilized in this game?
I kind of like that they were made a finesse weapon. But this means that if you really like spears as a weapon you cannot really build a good set of skills around them.
You can ofc use warfare skills, but they will do less damage with a spear than they would with a two handed sword with identical stats since warfare skills are boosted by strength and not finesse.
On the other hand finesse based skills do not support fighting with a spear. Scoundrel skills that are based on weapons are all based on daggers, and huntsman skills are (as is reasonable) all based on ranged weapons.

You can always just use a spear because you think its cool ofc, but it would be fun if there was some way to pick up a spear and have the available skills support that.
Some skills that are based on a finesse melee weapon (without having to be specifically daggers) would be really cool. But if no skills are planned to work with spears, perhaps just changing it to a strength type weapon so it works just as well with warfare skills as other 2h weapons do.

I am wondering about the viability of either a 1h no offhand build or possibly a 1h shield wielding support character. 1h ups your damage and accuracy, plus requires less AP per attack, so it synergizes somewhat with backstab. I am interested to see how high the block chance gets with shields; between a decent block chance and dodge you could focus primarily on magic armor and keep a decent ammount of survivability.

Why would that matter? You can't really aggro enemies, so even if you did have a practically invincible tank, all your other characters would die and you'd just be left with a character who can't really do anything.

1. You have cool downs, so you will be auto attacking at some point, also Savage Sortilege in the event that you're hybrid.
2. Spears seem geared towards warfare/scoundrel builds and have the advantage of higher crit base; use the warfare skills that are mainly in the domain of movement, buffs, and weapon damage. For Scoundrel use the ones that involve buff and movement. I am pretty sure you can still utilize Guerilla. Your gear will be more or less the same and you'll be aiming for a dodge build type ... thing.

Yes a 1h build might have good damage output since you simply make more attacks. The problem I see with this is that later in the game when every item has significant stat bonuses you need to sacrifice some stats in order to use just a single 1h weapon.

Enraged Crippling Strike, even from a 1H, isn't small amounts of damage. Nor is deliberately running across a field of necrofire and proccing Shackles of Pain. You still can disrupt the backline too by targeting specific vulnerabilities.