Larian Studios Forums Divinity 2 - Ego Draconis (English) Help/Tips/Tricks Pure mages do not need int

If my observations are correct, intelligence does not affect spell damage, only weapon damage.
So why would a "pure mage", one who does not use weapons need int?
The answer is, only to get mana regeneration. I made a post to crunch some numbers on how much int you would need, and the answer is, at least for the beginning and middle of the game, surprisingly few points. You should take 37 points of spirit before you take the second point of int.
So where should all your points go?
str, dex and int are all bad choices, as they do not give you either damage or regeneration.
Vitality or spirit on the other hand, are prime choices.

Here is a (theoretical) level 15 character:
vit=31
str=1
spi=31
int=1
dex=1
HP/mana=337

Perhaps you do not need that much HP, but that is besides the point. The point is, intelligence is a lategame investment, which is contrary to the advice given ingame.

comments?

You forget the use of items.

Mana potions are more usefull if you have low mana.
Same as drinks.

Also, Intelligence upgrades your magic resistance, while Spirit only upgrades your mana.

??? Only weapon damage?

I always though Intelligence influence also magic spells like Firewall, Magic Missile, etc ...
strange I never discovered that my magic spells didn't become stronger via upgrading my Int ...

So I'm totally wrong and I can better spend my statpoints into other stats than boosting my Int. !?
(if I want to play a Mage/Priest that only use weapons if really needed)

Funny is that I learn every day new things about DKS

Yes.
I saved 34 stat points, checked my damage with 1 int and with 35 int and it was the exact same.


Yes.
Unless ofcourse you care about the other stuff that Int provides, such as protection from magic damage and so on.

I would like to hear someone prove otherwise, but it seems the above holds true - int does not affect spell damage at all.

I checked with level 10 Magic Missile in a save at the end of D2:ED, and an Intelligence of 25 or 64 made no difference to damage.

In DKS Intelligence does help with spell damage. With a particular (named) undead opponent late in FoV, using level 10 Magic Missiles and Fireball, he took 113/695 damage, respectively, with an intelligence of 12, and 160/929 with an intelligence of 100. He appeared to be immune to Fire Wall (level 10).

DKS?
Enlighten me, I am still new to the vocabulary of Divinity...

DKS is 'Divinity II – The Dragon Knight Saga', a remastered version of D2:ED together with the add-on Flames of Vengeance.

Aha !!!

So in the first version of Divinity II (Ego Draconis - so withhout the Flames of Vengeance add-on!!), the spell damage was ONLY related to the current level of skill itself ....

... BUT with the Remastered Version, Divinity II : The Dragon Knight Saga (on Xbox = also with the Flames of Vengeance part included), also Intelligence give extra damage to magic spells !

I'm very happy Larian make it that way ! It's more logical Intelligence boosts Magical Spells too, because Magic Spells are ALL that is Magic !

Thanks Raze & UsingBlanks for the info !

I appear to have made a blunder. Im playing DKS, and thereby posting in the wrong forum.


No. Im playing DKS and I cant see any extra damage...

What level / spells / opponents did you try?


In DKS you would probably want to duel wield, since the magic damage bonuses / enchantments are added to spells. There is no need to invest in the duel wield expertise skill, as the off-hand penalty is not taken into account for spell damage.

I saved up all my stat points until level 10, then checked spell damage. Added all of them and then compared damage. It is the same.
In order to have a "proof", I would have to wait until level level 20 or something (so I could get 100 int), but the game gets hard without stat points

Now I'm really confused ...
Please can someone (people of the Larian Team?) explain what's all about "magic damage to weapons and/or Magic Spells & Intelligence"

Which spells did you check, and at what level? It is possible the variation in spell damage obscured the intelligence bonus (especially if the opponents had a high magic armour rating), certain spells don't get a bonus, there may be a dependence on the level of the spell, etc.

Do you have the patch installed, or an updated digital download version? This might have been something added in the patch.

I went back, and I can now see, that I blew it

I can ONLY speak for DKS, since thats the version I have (Thanks for the info Raze!), but THERE IS extra spell damage from Int.
My original conclusion was based on checking in the "skills" tab, I was certain that it would update to reflect any extra damage I was doing. It doesn't so all my conclusions in this post are wrong

Is it possible to get the whole topic deleted, in order not to spread misinformation?

Perhaps there is no spell damage in D2:ED, the post may be valid for those who own that game.