Larian Studios Forums Divinity 2 - Ego Draconis (English) Divinity 2 - Ego Draconis Unarmed Combat, A Report

This is not a guide, just a report; I want to dispel the notion that Unarmed combat doesn't work well in this game. I just finished the game at level 34 with an unarmed warrior. It was a little tough in the very beginning, before level 10, and a little bit at level 20 (due to low magic resistance against groups of imp mages), but really it is completely feasible and fun. Taking on mobs of demons and evil doers with nothing more than bare fists and decimating them all -- lots of fun.
I have read on this forum that Unarmed is difficult, and doesn't work at higher levels due to an inability to do enough damage. It is not true. Trash enemies can often be taken out in 2 blows.

Here are the rules my character followed:
1. No ranged weapons, no melee weapons, no magic damage or healing spells at any time from start to finish. I did use my creature at times, and I carried a shield on my back.

Skills
No points were invested in any Priest, Mage, Ranger or Dragon Slayer skills other than 12 in Unarmed Expertise and 1 to Mana Leech. I did wear an item that gave me 2 points in evade. All points went into Warrior Skills and Unarmed Expertise only.

Initially I used Rush Attack with 1-2 points. At the end game I put 5 points in it because I had a bunch of extra skill points.
My primary skills were Whirlwind and Jump Attack. I took Whirlwind to 11 points for the decreased cooldown and maxed Jump Attack. Bleed and Life Leech received as many points as my level allowed. One point to Regenerate. No other Warrior Skills received any points. I might try Battle Rage next time.


Attribute Points
Initially I took Vitality to 30 and maxed Strength. In the beginning I think I probably put a couple in Intelligence and Dex only for armor requirements. T the end I put a bunch more in Vitality because I had a lot of spare unused points.
At Level 34, stripped of all equipment attributes are:
Vitality -- 45
Spirit -- 2
Strength -- 100
Dex -- 4
Intelligence -- 4



Damage
At Level 34, stripped of all equipment damage = 185-225

Fully equipped damage = 533-573

Resistance
At Level 34, stripped of all equipment
melee resistance = 35.68
magic resistance = 2.17
ranged resistance = 2.17

Fully equipped
melee resistance = 61.87
magic resistance = 62.34
ranged resistance = 47.86

I used a lot of melee damage charms and enchanted armor with magical and ranged resistance. I wore Ulthring's armor. The vendor in Aleroth is your best friend when it comes to charms and jewelry. My shield was level 19--never did find a much better one, and I had a couple of good charms in it.

level 10

level 32

level 34

Never though I can use Wirlwind without a melee weapon ! I will try this next

I have already one time try to combat with my fists and it was indeed fun !


Nice done Cleglaw !! My congratulations

Going up the first path in Farglow, my character kicked a rabbit to death running past... which was kind of funny, so then I had to track down a few more to punch and kick to death. I reloaded, though, not wanting to kill neutral creatures if there was no benefit (that I knew of at the time... see Killer Rabbit for details/spoilers).

My next character (once DKS is released) I think I will play a bit of a ranger, with unarmed combat when melee is required (which will probably be a fair bit, since I'm not going to do much jumping and rolling around to dodge).

Whirlwind works fine without a melee weapon. It even has a range of attack which exceeds expectations. Once you get the cooldown to 2 seconds, you can Whirlwind on every other attack if you like. And it works with Life Leech, Mana Leech and Bleed. Whirlwind does a nice job against single targets as well as groups of enemies.

I forgot to mention that this character was played on medium difficulty, the same difficulty I play all of my characters.

Could somebody who is playing/has played a strictly melee character please list the damage their character does/ did at high levels both with and without armor and jewelry on.

These are the stats for my duel wielding warrior at the end of the game, normal difficulty, from the Finished Divinity II ? Tell us with which stats. topic. Applying the unused stat points to Strength would give an additional damage bonus, but I didn't need to do so.

With just the starting skill point in Unarmed Expertise, with no equipment at all, my unarmed damage was 71-86 (boosting Strength would bring that to 82-100). With Unarmed Expertise at level 13 (same as I had Duel Wield) damage is 167-203 (or 193-235 with stat points applied to Strength).

Huh. I'll have to try an unarmed character now. But wouldn't more points into Dexterity be better to increase your chances of a critical hit - vital after your strength gets maxed?

I never felt inclined to try to maximize critical hits.

I was talking to Clegclaw and his 4 dexterity. And I think it's a fair point. When you are using a weapon, you can always get a better one. When you're unarmed, as far as I know, your damage will eventually hit a cap after you are at 100 Strength and have filled all your Enchantment slots with +Melee Damage (if that even works outside of weapons).

There is no + melee damage enchantment -- those all go on weapons, and I didn't have any weapons. There are charms that give + melee damage.
I suppose you could go the dexterity route. I went with vitality for my surplus attribute points. More skill points in bleed might do better (I stopped at 10) since bleed essentially doubles your damage, much as a critical hit would do. To be honest, I didn't pay any attention to whether I was getting crits or not. I have proved to myself that no points are really needed in intell and spirit for a warrior.