Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - Suggestions and Feedback [Feedback] Some feedback and thoughts.

First of all i want to say big THANKS for great game! Good job Larian, i'm glad that we have you!

So, back to business. I've finished Fort Joy act in DE and have some thoughts (and maybe a bit of comlains) about the current state of the game.

First of all: Torturer is bugged - it doesn't extend duration of DoT effects as intended.

About balance:
1. 1h weapons. Right now hero build with 1h weapon and free off-hand is inferior. It does much less damage than 2h and dual, has less defence than 1h with shield, has less bonuses than dual and cost same 2AP for each attack. In early access builds 1h+free off-hand hero needed 1AP for attack and it was reasonable. It would be wise to return it again in game from the beginning or maybe you can add this effect to Ambidextrous talent.
2. Grenades. They are very-very weak (espesially copmared to arrows). Maybe there is way to increase their scaling with level or even add scaling from stats/weapons?
3. Medusa Head. It is strange that this spell's power scales only with strength while Bull's Horns scales with stat of your main weapon. I undestood Polimorph as universal school for every class and build but this makes it limited to strength only (wich is twice strange 'cos your own Metamorph preset is finesse-oriented).
4. Crafting. It is much weaker than it was in D:OS1. D:OS is game where you highly depend on equipment. In D:OS1 you could create good (but still much weaker than legendary or divine) items if you couldn't get (find or buy) them normal way. In D:OS2 you can only buy or find good items. That's bad not only for gameplay but also for roleplay - what if i want to play as magical smith? At least you can give us recipe for creating rune slots in items so we could balance some equipment.
Another problem close to crafting are weapons with mixed type of damage. Due to current armor system it is totally useless and unwise to do e.g. 100 phys damage and 3 fire with your sword. I see solution in runes: let them not only increase but also totally convert damage to it's type. I mean that when you insert frost rune in your axe it will make it frost axe without any physical damage. I think it will create brand new branch of hero builds, some kind of "elemental knights".
And one more problem that's look more like a bug. We can't create stats (int, str, fin, etc.) potions stronger than +1. There are just no recipes. But still we can find potion e.g. +11 Intelligence. That is really frustrating.

Two more things i want to mention:
5. Flurry of strikes. Maybe it is bug but normal dual weapon attack does same (or even more!) damage than Flurry. That's really weird.
6. Negative statuses. Most of the "soft" negative statuses' duration is 1 turn. By "soft" i mean statuses that do not prevent char from all actions - that is Atrophy, Silence, Blind, Cripple, Slow. Also want to mention Sleep 'cos you can't attack sleeping char without waking him up. Such a short duration makes these statuses too weak most of the time. In all my playthroughs i ignored them in 80% of cases because of it. And it is creating one more problem - Walk it off talent is totally useless because of it! Who would need it when most bad statuses' duration is 1 turn already? I think increasing duration will make these statuses more usefull and won't break game balance since you have many healing spells to remove them and Walk it off talent.
And one bug with Silence status worth to mention - it is blocking Bouncing shield ability.

Walk-if-off was always one of the weak talents. Partwise because it works on buffs too, in the end it might do more harm than good. Also in DOS2 most effects, soft or hard cc, only last 1 round and in such cases it has no effect at all, because it does not set the duration below 1 turn.

And Silence works on many other odd skills too if I remember correctly.

In regards to 1.

Maybe you should rethink that a bit..
A single one handed sword should do less damage than a two handed weapon, it should also do less total damage than dual wielding two single handed weapons of the same type. The reasons for this is that, 1. A one handed sword is lighter than a two handed weapon and you are swinging it with one hand, meaning you get less power into the swing than you get by using two hands. When dual wielding you are hitting with two weapons and so the total damage should be higher, but at the same time wielding a single one hand weapon should do a little more damage than a one of the dual wielded weapons would do individually, but not much, and also the off hand weapon should do less damage than the main hand weapon. When single wielding a one handed weapon your pose would be different than when dual wielding and you would use your body more to put power into it. As for a single one handed weapon with the off hand free having less defense than a single one handed weapon with a shield in the off hand, well.. That one make perfect sense, it's a shield, you use it to shield yourself and to block incoming attacks, what would happen if you try to block a sword with your arm? You get hurt, of course. But on the other hand, when using a single one handed weapon with the off hand free one should get a little higher dodge bonus. Perhaps changing the "Single-handed" skill so that in addition to giving 5% damage and 5% accuracy per point it give 2% dodge per point, if the off hand is free.

I'm truly can't thank you enough not many developer could giving game so much content like you guys and yes Divinity Original Sin 2 is a game with a TON of content, deep story and companion relationship etc. The definitive edition you give us companion sir lora is a brilliant idea IMO, such delightful companion who accompany us along the journey. Please don't stop creating such insightful game like DOS:2, becuase DOS:2 really thought me things that "you should done things deeply and efficiently" eventhough i face brutal process which is i dont like turn-based RPG in the first place but the DOS:2 content really motivate me emotionally to dive in deeper and face obstacles smartly :)