Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - Suggestions and Feedback Magic/Physical armor system is flawed

I have played 25 hours of the alpha, so i feel i have a good grasp of the game as it currently sits. Honestly would of played more but just want to wait for the whole game atm.

My first play through i only had physical damage characters. Eventually i realized how much of a strength it is to have all your characters be either magic or physical. in doing so you can completely ignore the other type of armor.

My fear is that currently it would be sub optimal to mix your group up. i would say maybe they plan on having enemies completely immune to certain damage but i personally have always hated that mechanic, its annoying and a cop out in my opinion

Not sure what the fix would be, because i do like the idea of magic and physical armor being separate entities. Maybe have the magic/physical armor absorb (enter # here)% of its counterpart so you still have a reason to destroy it?

Didn't see it like that but it's indeed a problem.

That's what I'm saying for a long time. It seriously hampers diversion. It's always easier to hammer through one of the defenses than both. And once you did it's the same as in DOS1 > perma CC.

So I wrote this a couple of times here already, my idea on that matter, keeping as much of the existing system as possible:

- "magic armor" > "energy shield" (or whatever name) = a more active HP substitution, but it's skill only, like the elemental shields in DOS1-nonEE


- "physical armor" > "stability" (or whatever name) = works like PA/MA does now, but as protection against ALL kinds of effects, and is ENTROPY-BASED (!), specific effects removing specific amounts of said ressource

What's it good for?

First it increases diversion, as you're not hampered when mixing aspects. With the more active ES mages would be more prone to CC, as lower AP thanks to slow, or no actions thanks to stun, etc. would mean a complete loss of protection very soon.
Additionally making the "anti status mechanic" entropy-based would A) remove that problem of DOS1 that RNG of high defenses would screw up things, as well as B) prevent the problem of DOS2, the complete stunlock once defenses are depleted.

Instead of trying to get through an additional layers of armor, just let your mages attack the enemies that are weak to magic damage. Having at least 1 skill memorized that deals damage atypical damage for your class can be a great way to finish of enemies that have already taken heavy damage from that damage type.
Since the difficulty is supposed to increase as the game progresses, I would expect to see battles vs enemie groups with high, but unevenly distributed armor, which would be rather challanging for a party that primarily relies on one damage type.

yeah you may be at a disadvantage to the ones with high def of your type, but then the ones with high def of the opposing type would be easy

Yeah, but the issue is that magic hits so hard that any decently well built caster you can make will easily one round even a "tanky" magic armor using foe, usually multiple depending on placement, and often kill or CC them after cutting through the armor. So you really only need one offensive caster, unless you want a support character. (I like having one geomancer/hydrosophist/pyro that literally does nothing but fortify, ice armor, haste, and teleport combatants around. Super useful for getting the warrior you just phoenix dived into a bad spot out, or keeping them alive.)