Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - Help/Tips/Tricks How to make Fane Cleric not so useless...

I have Prince as a fighter, Sebille as rogue, Fane cleric, and myself as a wizard in my party. I recently switched to classic mode because explorer seemed to easy. It was then I realized that Fane is pretty useless as is. He really doesn't have much for heals, furthermore I need him doing magic damage and Necro and Hydro is pretty junk for that. Any suggestions on how I can beef him up? I realize he's supposed to be more of a melee cleric but I need another magic damage member in my party to compliment my wizard. Already to Reaper's Coast so can't switch him out for someone else, wondering if it's maybe better to just start over to avoid all the hair pulling.

Being cleric is in D:OS2 less about healing and more about giving armor, so he should at least get earth to for fortify I guess. Necro is more about dealing physical damage and therefore won't do much good on the long run, I think. With his special skill he can stay a good supporter, giving free turns and so.

You can also use earth to support your mage giving him more oil and poison to blow up.

You do know that you can re-spec your characters at any time right? Fane is a jack of all trades and the most OP of all the characters because of time warp and the ability to switch races on a whim. You really need to think through your builds and how your team will utilize that characters skills. You need to build a synergy between your entire team so they work together instead of acting like directionless individuals. Magic teams are tricky because of all the different magic types and the various resistances of each enemy group you encounter. It's better to go physical damage so you don't have to worry about resistance values.

I ran a group with Fane as a cleric, here's what I did, and it worked pretty well:

1) I put points in Hydro, Geo, and warfare. a few points in necro to unlock the spells (Necro will scale with warfare, so don't need to put many points in that).
2) used warfare spells as well as Geo and Hydro. I did mostly physical damage with him, and used Pheonix dive to move around. put as many buff spells as I could on him, and between those and his occasional heal (my ranger seems to get focus fired allot, he spens allot of time buffing and healing her), 3) When not buffing, I get up close and use Bouncing shield and blitz to get armor down, and Battle stomp to CC mobs.
4) I use the poison spells in Geo to heal Fane (kinda ironic that his default class setup has heal spells that damage him...go figure). poison dart is good with this, he can target himself with it. if you want to use the damage spells, make sure you have another magic user in the party to help beat down the magic armor. Necro spells are best in this setup if you want some ranged and want to keep it simple.
5) Intelligence is sorta wasted on him since he mostly buffs and heals (int doesn't help this), so instead I buff Con/Str, and Mem (wit for better initiative). Lots of Mem, he will be a spell hog.

Combat sort of goes like this:
Round 1: position yourself to get as many people as possible with Soothing cold and mend metal (this can often take an action point or two). Cast both of those in round one.
Round 2: offensive physical skills to work down mobs armor, keep an eye on party members.
Round 3: armor buff spell as needed. Most the party should be good with just the two from round 1, but often a single person gets focus fire from mobs, so they may need a bit more.
Round 4: whack mobs more. spend the rest of your physical skills.
Round 5: Soothing Cold and Mend Metal should be back up again, reapply and repeat cycle.

Really, if you set his spells up right, he will be spending most his time buffing and Cc'ing mobs, with an occasional bless to remove negative conditions. He is also amazing to set up with reactive armor. with heavy armor (this is what the str is for) and a nice shield, he can do a ton of damage with RA, and keep his own buffs and health up in the process. Also keep in mind that there's lots of healing spells available once you get to the second act. so you'll have plenty to choose from.

And make sure you use the mirror on the ship to re-adjust his stats if needed. Remember, Int is only affective if you plan on doing most your damage with spells, AND you plan on focusing on more then 2 schools or so. with a buff bot/physcial damage dealer like Fane, it really isn't needed much. Necro will get bonuses from warfare, but you can still put points in it if you want the armor spells/heals to be bigger. it sort of pales compared to Hydro and Geo though, So I tend to put it last in the priority list for skill points. Hope this helps.