Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - Help/Tips/Tricks Pls help with a good party build

Hey Mates,

First....sorry for my bad english but i cant find an adequate forum in my country.
I played first days in normal mode and had much problems with enemies so i restarted and read skill-/charbuildtopics.

I know i dont need to, because i can reskill later, but i also missed some quests and i want do all of them because i like the game so much (best RPG ever / oldschool baldurs gate style).

I made a plan for my party to get in tactical mode later but i am worried about beeing competitive in endgame and maybe some dlc coming later.

So pls check out my build suggestion (concentrate mainly on magic damage):

(Fighter) Full Warfare + Polymorph to tank damage and block enemies
(Conjurer) Full Summoning + ?maybe Aero
(Enchanter) Hydrosophist + Aerotheurge
(Magician) Pyrokinetic + Geomancer

1. Question What would be a good skill for my Conjurer
2. Question Its useful to have a fighter if the rest is dealing mainly psychical damage (can i deal instead also this kind of damage with him with the same damage like 2h weapons with 2h staves?)
3. Question Are These 4 Fitting together and which 3rd skill i maybe should add

Thx for your answers

You can change from Classic to Tactician at any time in the campaign (but you cannot change back from Tactician) and you can respecc the whole party at any time after Act 1, so relax.

A pure damage group has some advantages (one of the two armors is down sooner by focus fire) but also disadvantages (you cannot act against the lesser armor by choice). I have a pure physical group and it is ok, but in many fights I did not find it wise to focus on only one enemy at a time but fought two or even more, due to positioning or availability of skills. A mixed group with 2 physical and 2 magical chars would have been of advantage sometimes. If you see for example a mob with 1200 physical and 200 magical armor, you regret some choices a bit. But I never liked mages in any games, so I play only physical damage chars in release.

To your group: I would get rid of the Fighter/tank and add a mage or I would get rid of one of the mages and add a second physical damage dealer. The first alternative seems to be easier. I would add a Hydrosophist/Geomancer/Polymorph/(Necromancy) char.

Mages are not squishy in this game. They can wear any armor (with some points in the attributes, with lvl 19 heavy armor you only need 14 strength for example) and they can use shields with ease. My summoner with shield has a lot more armor than my twohanded warrior.

Tanking in the game is not such a great idea, at least on Tactician. I respecced my onehanded/shield warrior to a rogue after changing to Tactician, because the enemy damage is high and a onehanded warrior deals very little damage while being able to eat only a certain amount of damage.

If you like a tank/support, it should be with Hydrosophist and Geomancer and Polymorph and perhaps Necromancy; the first gives good healing skills, the first two increase armor renewal skills a lot (very important), the last can heal big chunks of vitality. Necro deals mainly physical damage, so it is not for the damage you take it in a magical damage group. Polymorph is great for a group with magical damage because of Medusa Head.

As said, currently (lvl 20) I don't have a tank in my group. My Summoner is also the support char. She (Lohse) has points in Hydro and Geo. I find this much better than Aero. All my chars have some cheap support and healing skills in addition.

The two mages are very straight and will offer good CC and good damage. For your Summoner you could think of Hydro and or/Necro. The summons from Necro benefit from points in Summoning to an absurd level.

Ok(changed to this):

(Fighter) Full Warfare + Polymorph or (Cleric) Hydrosophist + Geomancer
(Conjurer) Full Summoning + Necro + Hydro
(Enchanter) Hydrosophist + Aerotheurge
(Magician) Pyrokinetic + Geomancer

Still not sure about the ability of the Fighter to deal also same amount of magical damage with staves.
But i am sure the conjurer is also a physical damage dealer if i want...so i have 2 phys and 2 Magic without the cleric.

At start the mages seems UP and at the end they are OP. Maybe i should reskill a party after Level 10 to 4 magical chars and start with 2 physical 2 magical?

I don't know anything about staves, never used one.

The incarnate can deal physical or magical damage, depending on the surface you raise it from. It is strong but not as strong as a normal char (luckily). My incarnate on level 20 with 16 points in Summoning deals about 800 to 900 damage or so with a normal hit. My lvl 20 twohanded warrior with lvl 16 to lvl 19 gear deals about 1700, my ranger 1400 damage with a normal hit. They have 98% and 83% crit chance. I think that could be better with better gear, but you can see the relation.

A "Cleric" in the sense of the game is a Necromancer/Hydrosophist combi. It deals not that much damage as long as the physical armor is not gone. It can deal a lot damage with Decaying Touch + heal, but you need to remove physical armor first. The main task in all fights is to remove the armor asap, and both incarnate or onehanded warrior or Necromancer are not the best at this.

After reading alot here...especially the section where new suggestions for the game are made i think i was wrong in thinking wizards in endgame are best choice. Seems physical damage is superior to magical.

So what you think about this Combo:

(fighter) warfare + summoner
(fighter) warfare + polymorph
(huntsman) ranged + polymorph
(wizard) hydro + geo to support armor and healing

Honestly, I would not bother with the wizard. I played with a somewhat similar build in my first playthrough and the reality of it is that your wizard is dead weight because that occasional heal/buff/debuff is not going to be useful enough to justify the spot of a fourth physical DPS. Also, physical damage characters get enough debuffs from Warfare that the role becomes somewhat redundant. If you are playing on Classic, it does not really matter as you are unlikely to really get stuck anywhere for particularly long. However, if you want a cookie cutter build, do the following:

1. Fighter with Warfare + Dual Wield (2x1H weapons)
2. Fighter with Warfare + 2H (2H weapon)
3. Rogue with Warfare + Scoundrel (2x Daggers)
4. Ranger with Warfare + Huntsman (Bow/Xbow)

Warfare is the bread and butter of every physical build so do not be afraid to skimp on it. If you want more of a "Tank" character, take Leadership on one of the Warriors. With the above party your run should be an absolute breeze.

If you play on classic, no need for a gamebreaker combo to beat it.

Your team comp is ok I guess, put 2 points in aero for teleport.

Ok thx for your hints...i constructed a bit around my "gamebreaker-combo":

Red Prince - Warrior
- Dual Wielding / Warfare / Leadership
- Strength / Konstitution
- all skilled up / picture of health / bigger & better
- maybe some geomancer skills later

Bestie - Warrior
- Twohanded / Warfare
- Strength / Konstitution / bit witness for treasures and traps
- all skilled up / picture of health / bigger & better
- maybe some polymorph skills later

Ifan - Ranger
- Warfare / Huntsman
- Finesse / Konstitution
- far out man / all skilled up / elemental ranger / bigger & better / pet pal
- maybe some summoner skills later

Sebille - Rogue (2 Daggers)
- Dual Wielding / Warfare / Scoundrel
- Finesse / Konstitution
- Guerilla / perry master / bigger & better
- maybe some necromancer skills later

what you think?

I basically had your exact team in my 1st game (tactician) except i used a hybrid ranger/ice mage for my 2nd mage. My summoner was my fire mage. And my main mage was water, air.

Here is what i learned. This game is easier when all your characters deal similar damage and as far I remember, there is nothing immune to physical damage nor was there anything immune to all elemental damage. That said, some things can be immune to one, two or three elemental types.

So if you want to min/max here is the absolute most broken team you can make:

1. Summoner 10 + Anything
2. Summoner 10 + Anything
3. Summoner 10 + Anything
4. Summoner 10 + Anything

Why? Because summoner infernal is basically another character on the field with their own AP per turn and the infernal can do any damage type and you get 4 of them! On top of that, summoner does not need INT! So you can easily have a full power summoned infernal while your character is actually a warrior, ranger or rogue. Last, the level 10 infernal is a real beast. He has good defenses once fully buffed, great spells and disables, heals, teleports and nukes. With 4 infernals, its like having 8 characters with a total of 32 AP per round without haste! And they are awesome at positioning since you can plop them down anywhere and they make great blockers!

Once you have level 10 summon, you can do anything with the last 10 levels. You can make all your characters rangers with max finesse and absolutely decimate everything from range in round 2. Or you can make them all tanky by giving them a shield and 1h weapon and then pump str/con to bring up their damage/hps. If you make them tanky, they will be ignored by the AI because they like to target the weaker stuff 1st, which in this case, would be the 4 infernals. You can make them all undead and have them play dead for most of the fight and by the time the play dead is expired, they are almost ready to summon another infernal if the current one is almost dead (lol).

- Don't waste points in constitution.
- Leadership is shit (5 meters range is awful even with you stack your warriors), but if you think your team will always be at 5meters range... sure
- Wits is key for big crits for warriors. Without wits you can't have 90%+ crit chance.
- why not polymorph on your rogue ? It's basic
- put some poly on all warriors : better mobility
- guerilla is a waste of a talent don't use it man
- I don't see the point of having a dual wielder if you can just use 2h

To the guy above, it's INCARNATE and not infernal
But you are right, summons are strong af.
And you didnt even talk about the lava summon with ray of doom / the plant with 1500 dps burst at lvl 9 / the bone widow
Incarnates are your main summon, but source summons are strong too

Red Prince - Warrior
- 30%Twohanded / 70%Warfare
- 70%Strength / 20%Witness / 10% Constitution
- all skilled up / picture of health / bigger & better
- some points in poly and maybe later in summoner

Bestie - Warrior
- 30%Twohanded / 70%Warfare
- 70%Strength / 20%Witness / 10% Constitution
- all skilled up / picture of health / bigger & better
- some points in poly and maybe later in summoner

Ifan - Ranger
- 70%Warfare / 20%Ranged / 10%Huntsman
- 60%Finesse / 30% Witness / 10%Constitution
- far out man / all skilled up / elemental ranger / bigger & better / pet pal
- some points in poly and maybe later in summoner

Sebille - Rogue (2 Daggers)
- 10% Dual Wielding / 60% Warfare / 30% Scoundrel
- 60%Finesse / 30% Witness / 10%Constitution
- perry master / bigger & better
- some points in poly and maybe later in summoner

What you think bout this?

- just max warfare, then put the rest in 2h. More effective.
- you will need more wits, until you get some sweet crit chance (90+)
- elemental ranger is a waste imo
- why not hothead for your ranger ?
- as for const, picture of health is... well. Not that useful. Why not executioner ?

But I don't understand : you want to min/max your build to destroy the game or something ?

Investing into Wits only makes sense if you also take skills that synergise with crit - e.g. Scoundrel, Ranged, etc. In short, it's a different build. I would just dump everything into the main stat and only put into Wits once the main stat is maxed.

You want Executioner on all melee chars.

I would stay away from Summoning. Yes, it is good but only worth it if you really invest into it and this will mean that your core build suffers. You simply do not need it for these builds. Also, frankly, I find Summoning to be really, really boring. With a 4-man party fights already take a long time, but they take even longer when you have summons out.

As for Poly, again, you are diluting your main build by taking it and the skills it provides are situational. I would avoid it.

Wits with scoundrel are not useful. If you are going scoundrel, you should be backstabbing. Otherwise you just can't compete with other builds.


Summons can be among the hardest hitting damage options in the game. Particularly in early game, they can also be a very useful meat shield. I do however agree, if you aren't going to commit to them, you're better off without.

Poly is VERY useful for mobility. I agree don't go past a few points tops, but to say you should avoid it entirely for 2-3% more damage I believe is erroneous.

Where I absolutely agree with you though, is that you cannot do *all* of these things. You need to have one primary method of doing damage and pick mostly skills that multiply that. Otherwise you will be outclassed mid-late game.

Here are a couple examples to back up my previous post.
1st build

vs
2nd build

The second link avoids polymorph like you suggested. Notice how little of a damage increase you get in exchange for sacrificing it entirely.


Now, if you take that to an extreme, you can screw yourself over though.

3rd build

In this last link, you can see that if you spread yourself too thin, you can cut your damage substantially. (to about 2/3 per attack). That might not seem like *too* much, but it is certainly the difference between 1 round kill or not. Or vs bosses, 1 round armor strip or not.

I was not referring to the Rogue class in particular. Scoundrel is essential for all crit builds - including warrior and ranger - because of the crit damage multiplier it provides. I am even taking it on my mages right now because I am going down the crit route.

As for Poly, frankly, I have never tried it and I appreciate that it looks useful on paper, but I have practically never thought that I was lacking mobility because Warfare (Phoenix Attack, Blitz, Battering Ram), Scoundrel (extra move speed, Backlash, C&D) and Huntsman (Tactical Retreat and you are already ranged) skills already provide so much of it.

Scoundrel is really only ideal for melee crit builds. For your mages, it is far easier to get high ground and put your points in Huntsman. Also, scoundrel is not particularly useful for crit 2 hander builds, as 2 hander provides a better damage boost.

In short, scoundrel is only useful for melee, dual wielding, critical builds. EVEN for scoundrels, you should be putting 10ish less points in scoundrel than warfare. For anyone without 100% crit chance, the gap gets even wider.

The stat priority simplified for maximizing damage:
2 handed warrior
Elemental skill or Warfare for physical > 2 hander & crit chance > Scoundrel

dual wielding melee crit
Warfare > Scoundrel > Polymorph

bow build
Warfare > Huntsman > Scoundrel & Crit chance

Caster build
Elemental Skill > Hunstman & high ground > synergy elements for muli-element spells.


There are break points, and there are variations, but this will get you to 95% of the maximum damage possible.

There is a calculator for all of it here:
www.irodemine.com/divinity2/damage.php

Yikes, thanks for the correction.

I never bothered trying any other summons (except standard spider on non-summoners) because the single darn INCARNATE in my 1st playthrough rarely died. So I didnt bother using mem slots for any other summons lol.

I loved the flexibility of the incarnate. I did use the spider on my other toons since they were not summoners. The spider is awesome for blocking. Two spiders can easily block a very wide corridor or you can use them to bugger ranged attackers who continuously have to move away from them to shoot someone else. Of course, since they have opportunism, they get free hits all the time on top of their 4 AP per round. Only problem with spiders is cost is high without elemental affinity (3AP) and they are controlled very easily even if you buff their magic armor. I honestly never tried the slug... in my 1st playthrough I always conserved source points because I wanted to be ready for a ambush... turns out I didnt need to worry about that. I didnt need source points at all in the game at any encounter except against the annoying respawning fire elemental things.

It's a basic rule in rpg : use your consumables, use your special spells, because if not you will never use them at all.

Source points are not here because they are needed, they are here because you can cast op spells with them.

Fane double turn spell / special summons / aoe spells of doom...

Not using source spells is pretty meh.

Thx alot guys