Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - Suggestions and Feedback Skin Graft isn't that good

I had read some messages that complained that Skin Graft was overpowered, but after trying it for myself I would say that it isn't that good.

Skin Graft resets all cooldowns for 0 AP, removes all your physical and magical armor and cures most status effects. However it can only be used once per combat.

The fact that it's only usable once per combat makes its utility very limited. It's also weird that it's the only ability with that mechanic; if a limit on usage was desired, it should have just been a source ability.

To begin with it could be argued that, if I have enough memory, cooldowns are not a problem, so the ability is not as powerful as it might seem. Dropping all armor is also a significant drawback that already offsets it enough to pay for whatever advantage resetting cooldowns brings.

I think making it unlimited but with higher drawbacks, like a higher AP cost of 3 and a long cooldown, would be a better balanced option.

Haven't tried it yet, but it seems like a coup de grace kind of skill to me, where you use it to basically end fights so you don't have to worry so much about the armor loss. Or you use it if you have no armor already. Or if you desperately need a particular skill (like magic shell to cure a stunned ally). It's extremely versatile.

Imagine raging, and whirlwind and crippling blow a group of enemies and knocking them down with battering ram, then skin grafting and AOE critting AGAIN. That's a recipe for wrecking everything.

A 2-3 AP cost with a cooldown would be much more of a nerf than a buff. You'd need to make the ability at least 6 turn cooldown, and a lot of fights would be over before you'd want to use it again anyway. I mean, it possibly NEEDS a nerf like this, and maybe an AP cost with a cooldown is the right direction, but if you're looking for a buff, I think you should consider a different tweak.

I don't think having a large number of skills necessarily negates the value of skin graft. First, some skills are simply better than others and have longer cooldowns. And also each skill generally provides a unique or powerful benefit that you might want in a particular situation (especially something like magic shell or whirlwind). Finally, there's really not enough skills yet for characters like pure rogues and warriors to necessarily ALWAYS have an offensive skill available.

It doesn't restore your AP, so you'd have to wait until the next turn.

Alternatively, you could just use other skills from another tree instead of re-using the same ones.

I think it's very good - it just may not be ideal for your build. If you have a lot of skills to choose from, it may not be worth using, however, if you have a few important skills with long cooldowns - it can be a good way to end a fight. Personally I use it on my wayfarer (I guess that would be the closest class - archer/buffer/healer) to be able to unload buffs, heals, and chameleon/snipe then for 0 AP, refresh all those important skills and use them again next turn. I could also see it being useful (though potentially dangerous) on a warfare build to refresh all knockdowns in a pinch which basically could keep multiple enemies CCed for multiple turns (if you rotate knockdowns). It may be situational, but the fact that it costs 0 AP puts it close to the "overtuned" side of the power spectrum.

The only balanced option is removing it from the game. How is it balanced that I only need to invest 1 point into Polymorph to get a skill that effectively DOUBLES my damage output?

Take any build you want. Add Skin Graft to it. Your build is twice as good.

People are thinking, that those skills are only easy to learn, because they did not put in restrictions for the testing.

Well... EVENTUALLY you get enough memory and skills that you are never wasting a turn.

Then again Skin Graft is a early game skill... So its utility going down as the game goes on and having more of a niche purpose in the late game does make some sense.

This is blatantly untrue.

This assumes all damage is done via abilities (ignoring weapon attacks) and assumes that users are generating AP faster than they are generating cooldowns, which is also particularly untrue after a few levels. There is no way any build doubles its damage from including Skin Graft, not even for just 1 turn of simulation. It's not like Skin Graft grants you extra AP to actually use all of those CDs.
Also, this claim ignores the drawback of losing all armor from casting Skin Graft. The extra CDs may seem hollow if you are CCd on the next enemy turn.

I'm not saying Skin Graft is bad, having all of your cooldowns back at once has a lot of utility value, but let's not resort to such extreme hyperbole.

I think the main power spike from using Skin Graft is when it resets skills that grant immediate extra AP, like Flesh Sacrifice and Adrenaline Rush. However, it doesn't even work cleanly with Adrenaline Rush as one can't benefit from it again while still having the debuff.

Sure, it takes another turn (unless you can get warlord to proc a bunch). But there's definitely times when the best one or two skills in a situation are on cooldown. Whirlwind + crippling blow are pretty much the best skills to use if you have 3+ enemies around you. Even if you're a hybrid with a bunch of other skills to play with. And especially if you're NOT a hybrid, with a fairly limited pool of skills. Between Polymorph + Warfare, there really aren't that many offensive AOE skills.



Double damage might be a bit of a stretch, but it could be a significant boost in damage. Skills tend to deal more damage than weapon attacks, and certain skills are especially potent. Two 3-4 enemy hitting ricochets is a lot more damage than one ricochet plus a standard attack.

Really, this is all such moot discussion with the minimal limitations on what skills you can learn. With Skin Graft as a 3+ polymorph needed skill, it will remain a great skill, but not one that you can throw into any build for instant massive utility. We really need to see proper limitations on skills. Even 2 points needed for certain skills would be a good start.

The armor loss is a significant downside, but again, the skill is best used as a finisher, when your armor is already low or gone or the most dangerous enemies are cc'd.

Yeah, but you won't be using a standard attack, you'll use Ricochet and Marksman's Fang, which is actually more damage than 2 Ricochet. So there won't be a gain for resetting those CDs until you actually run out of abilities worth using. Also, Ricochet only forks a max of 2 times.


Have the devs said this, or something like this? I haven't seen anything official about the current skills gaining requirement increases. I guess I hoped they'd just have more skills with higher requirements in the full release.
Higher reqs for some skills would be a great way to get more build diversity, I'd like to see that.


Sure, but I think all these great finishers, like this, Warlord, Rage, etc. are going to be a lot less OP when we actually have Tactician mode. When there are more enemies, with more health and resistances, the drawbacks of losing all armor or taking more damage will go up and the ease of getting a kill will go down enough to put them more in line, or maybe even leave them unused.

No they haven't said anything, but it'd be absurd for them to not impose requirements on skills. As much as freedom in a classless system is fun, you're absolutely right that no/light requirements actually reduces build diversity. And is just a nightmare to balance period.

Marksman Fang being better than ricochet depends on how enemies line up. But anyway, resetting both ricochet and marksman fang would be even better than basic attacks. We'll see if Tactician mode can be tough enough to make losing armor basically fatal no matter what. I don't think that's a good direction (in fact, I'd like to see losing armor a little less dangerous). I would not be surprised if Skin Graft gets nerfed. It is probably the most versatile skill in the game. We shall see if other factors make it less powerful though.

Yeah, I'm not a fan of armor being such a dominant factor in combat either.
But, aside from Skin Graft's armor loss, if fights are longer then an ability that only gets used once per fight has a lot less kick than it does in short fights.

Obviously Skin Graft doesn't say "Increase Damage by 100%" in the description...

Look guys, I only know the game as it is now. I don't know what it's gonna be like in Tactician or if they're making the skills tier 3 or whatever. I play the game as it is, and currently Skin Graft is not "Not that good". In fact, it makes everything better. In 30 levels I would never regret putting 1 point into poly for Graft, Chameleon, AND an ability point.

So my gripe really isn't with Graft as much as it is with Polymorph in general.

I really can't wait to see how hard this game gets so I can shut up, but until then it only makes sense they're just "testing" the skills.

Skin Graft is really good on my physical damage members (Ranger and Rogue). On Magical members, maybe not. The high burst allows allow to eliminate a threat direclty (or just physical armor on difficult targets).

This is not a 100% increase damage, but the burst potential is really powerful.

That why I really wish, Larian would talk more with us. We would really need to know, what their plans regarding skill tiers will be. It would help with a more accurate testing and also would offer to possibility to discuss accurate tiers for specific skill so that they don't just turn into a 'everyone will have'.

Absolutely. Trying to telegraph the importance of that for years now. Hoped it would be slightly better after the DOS2 KS, but sadly not.

At least the really important bricks like the, sadly, really problem causing armor/protection system, and so on, should be discussed.

A lot of devs commonly write in their forum, that's great, but not even needed. At least a compact, coordinated wrapup post every week addressing concerns/goals and related proposals would already help.

Absolutely. I almost feel like suggesting they hire someone (me) and pay them minimum wage to do this xD. I was thinking a few weeks ago maybe we should take the initiative of organizing and presenting the discussions addressed in this thread in a compact way so it's easier for them. Sometimes I think they probably feel like we're all complaining too much and not seeing the bigger picture and that might be true in some cases but generally I see a consensus on a handful of these topics. They have a really great opportunity to make this brilliant game near-perfect and legendary.