Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - Suggestions and Feedback Attributes and Abilities

A & A needs more tweaking imo.

For starters Defence Abilities are pretty much empty, only Leadership and Pain Reflection.
I kinda prefer the old Leadership buff, but this works too i guess, resistances is nice.
Dunno what to say about Pain Reflection, it feels out of place, usually in RPGs it is an active skill, i.e. it is a tactically used skill.

Bodybuilding and Willpower needs to make a return as right now Health is obsolete, once your Armor is gone, its basically a death sentence.

Magical Armor Fortification & Physical Armor Fortification. This new addition will fit in nicely in Defence. Basically Armor Fortification provides damage reduction for your Phy or Mag Armor. 1 level = +5% damage reduction up to maximum 5 levels = +25% damage reduction, like all skills you can go beyond if equipped with the corresponding gear. This will go hand in hand with Bodybuilding and Willpower to allows players more options on managing their defenses.

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As for Attributes, stats need heavier weightage.

Strength - Increase Str based weapon & skill dmg, small increase to accuracy, decrease cooldown of Str skills(e.g. 20 Str=-1 turn CD, 25 Str=-2 turn CD)

Finesse - Increase Fin based weapon & skill dmg, small increase to accuracy, increase dodge chance, decrease cooldown of Fin skills(e.g. 23 Fin=-1 turn CD, 28 Fin=-2 turn CD)

Intelligence - Increase Int based weapon & skill dmg, small increase to accuracy, decrease cooldown of Int skills(e.g. 20 Int =-1 turn CD, 25 Int =-2 turn CD)

Constitution - Increase Vitality. Increase Physical Armor.

Memory - Increase memory slot. Increase Magic Armor.

Wits - No changes.

I try to keep it as simple as possible.

So the premise is, Tanks can be real Tanks by investing in Con and Mem while DPS will stay as DPS with Str, Int or Fin instead of the current system where Str and Int increases both offense and defense(+Dmg and Armor), literally making all DPS a Tank. Also gives Constitution and Memory more impact to the builds.

As for Cooldown Reduction, it serves as an incentive and visible threshold or guideline when making builds. Should my tank invest in 20 Str for the -1 CD to my defensive skills or go all out Mem & Con for +Phy/Mag Armor? Should my DPS be all out Spell Glasscannon and dump 25 in Int or go for a hybrid of 20 Int: 20 Str etc.

Of course the % increments and numbers need to be balanced. I'm 100% fully aware the current build will not support the proposed changes. I'll leave it to the devs to do the excel sheet balancing.

+Magic/Physical Armor damage reduction isn't any different than just adding more armor, while making it less intuitive. And straight up +Armor skills aren't very interesting. We definitely need a couple defense skills, preferably one helping shields, but hopefully make it interesting. We might need bodybuilding and willpower to come back. Those aren't particularly interesting either, but they may be necessary.

Global cooldown reduction is stupidly hard to balance, as we saw in the first game. It's a cool idea, but it doesn't work well in a turn-based game (it works well in games with real-time cooldowns, though).

Constitution still gives you a way bigger return than strength or intelligence. 10 points in Con is +70% vitality, which defends against all damage, where 10 in strength is +20% physical armor, which only helps against physical damage, though it does block CC. And memory is perfect at this point, imo. Feels really nice, unlike 2 memory cost per skill before.

I see a Pain reflection as a rare high level necro spell. But regular skill ? Like a regular soldier or a rat will get hit by arrow so archer might die, heart attack perhaps ? Pretty crazy world.

I believe that pain reflection skill is a kind of test or placeholder, because it might not work in the game.

I actually like pain reflection a lot, though it might be too good right now. It's fun and satisfying, though it doesn't feel like a defense ability, I suppose. It would feel less weird if it only reflected melee damage, or perhaps damage taken by an opponent within melee range, though that might make it too weak. Needs some kind of tweak probably, but I like the concept.