Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity Original Sin - Help/Tips/Tricks Some tricks I use to play on hard

Right, so most of these are probably known, but I felt compelled to post my own thread (since I have posted nothing thus far). I have some trouble in combat on hard (sometimes ). PS: I am in NO-WAY a pro or anything - just my 2 cents on this game.

1.) Oil Barrels - I convinced dudes to be my buddies, grabbed all the oil barrels, stacked them around the enemies that are far higher level than me and then proceeded to fireball the barrels. Enemies a couple levels above you won't be a problem anymore!

CAUTION: The fire on the ground seems to spread very far with a lot barrels. So yeah, don't expect a tiny pool of fire.



2.) Co-op Sneak Attack - My friend and I control 2 characters each. So, we cast haste on ourselves with our mages, we go into sneakmode and summon some minions to give us a free headstart in the battle. We usually count 3, 2, 1, GO! and then cast on GO.

3.) Lava Co-op Teleport - We basically sneak into combat and then teleport/featherspell the enemies straight into lava (if there are some nearby) and instantly take out almost any enemy before the combat even starts. I therefore recommend teaching level 1 aerothurge to all your characters for a free teleport before combat.

4.) Keep Fire Resist Gear (+weather the storm for man at arms dudes) - If you have atleast 120% fire resist (-20% from burning), you can run into lava without taking damage. This allows you to collect gear there, or even fight in lava, giving melee enemies a REALLY hard time.

5.)

NOTE: Eidolon has mentioned that it bow ability points might not boost tenebrium bows. I wouldn't mind if someone would test this to confirm.

6.) Archers - these 3 talents are devastating to almost all enemies, but require some caution in playing: glass cannon (double ap recover, half life), the -1AP attack talent (I think marksman lvl 5 thing) and stench (to give you some space, since its hard to survive -50% life). You'll have to stack up your constitution to improve the effectiveness of glass cannon since you want to increase your max AP, and a little more life won't hurt (it hurts without it!)

7.)

8.)

Non-spoiler summary: Don't go willy-nilly and destroy every chest you see if you can't unlock it. You might just break a quest or 2.


9.) Summons

9.1) Elemental de-summoning - I'm not sure what the requirements of this is, but it is possible to reduce your cooldown of elemental summons to 1 turn while having enough AP to summon one each turn. When they are de-summoned, they release an elemental effect on their surrounding ground that is similar to their element.

So, I typically summon an air elemental before battle (to keep a turn ahead), position him in a nice tactical position during combat and then summon the more powerful fire elemental in a defensive position so that the air ele. desummons. This typically stuns a lot of enemies, providing a very cheap group CC as well as a fire elemental ready to attack in the first turn.

9.2) Hiding behind your summons - The geomancy spider can take a lot of damage. It is thus very useful to send into a group dangerous enemies to keep them busy while you take care of the rest. The elemental summons also do a bit of tanking (although not that much).

10.) Narrow pathway positions - If you ever find a narrow pathway, try to position your entire party behind it with your tanky characters just behind it and your summons inside.

Also, crowd controlling enemies in such a pathway is very easy since they all crowd at the area and are grouped up. I typically use that piercing ice attack with my mage, which typically freezes a mob or two and leaves a slippery slab of ice behind.

11.) Knockdowns - This is one of my favourite effects in the game, whether it is from knockdown spells or slipping on ice. It provides a 100% chance to hit as long as you are in range, so that all your characters can switch to their damage stances and still hit (only do so if it is AP effective)

12.) Charming - Assuming you have an archer (which is a damn fine magic user with the proper arrows), the charming marksman skills are amazing.

Not only do they allow the enemies to tank themselves and attack each other, but spell casters tend to buff your characters.

NOTE: Most bosses cannot be charmed.

So, there's my noobie trick guide. Hopefully someone finds something new here (experienced players won't) that'll make the game on hard a little bit more manageable (for noobs like me).

Are you absolutely sure that the weapon talent affects the damage of tenebrium weapons / tenebrium enchanted weapons?
Without the Leadership bonus, the displayed damage is physical weapon damage * (1+Tenebrium skill * 0.1) + Tenebrium Damage + Elemental Damage. Your weaponskill doesn't affect the damage at all, although the bonus is listed as weaponskill bonus (like +100% from Bow if you have Tenebrium 10, regardless of your Bowskill).

I would add:

Be aware that elementals create an effect when they die/unsummon. Be aware you can use this to your advantage.

Charm and Summons are your friends. Absolute bestest friends. Hide behind them, let them cause significant enemy AP wastage. If you can't hide behind summons, hide behind your toughest character.

An enemy that can't use AP is a good enemy. Know your CC, use it wisely. Touch spells are significantly better value than long range ones for pure CC. For those hard to reach enemies, drain their willpower first.

I, however, wish the game posed a significantly greater challenge post Cyseal.

I used the lava trick against the Death Lord because it was retarded enough to create a lava surface right in front of me out of what I think was oil before, not sure how because usually oil just lights into regular fire but the dumbass did it somehow, instantly after I had Jahan teleport drop its stupid ass right on it for thousands of damage, took away nearly all its health and I killed it in the next blow I think.

I'm not absolutely sure no. I didn't actually test the before and after effects to see if the damage worked like that, but it makes logical sense to me: A bow gets the +10% X Bow ability damage. Thus, a tenebrium bow should get +10%(Bow) x 10%(Tenebrium).

However, if I am mistaken... then my bad! (I'd feel like a fool for balancing the maths and not actually checking if it works that way)



I'll add that to the list. I actually do summon my air elemental (which I find lacks a bit) just to summon my fire elemental the next turn to stun a group enemies.



Again, I agree like hell. I also hide behind my spiders/wolves/elementals during combat - sometimes I "cheat" cast them before battle to be a turn ahead.

And yeah, charming is probably one of the best ways to turn a battle around (evident in the effect it has when it is used on your own characters)



I don't think the game is very doable without CC. Using blind/stun/freezes etc. is kind of standard play for me, but I won't consider it a trick really. I'll just add it to the list for noobies like me to get a mini idea of what they have to do.

However, my favourite CC is knocking down enemies with ice on the ground. I always chuckle when I see them slipping.



I sort of agree with you. I then proceeded fighting level 12-13 mobs with a lvl 9 crew - which, although resulted in probably my most memorable battle to date, was VERYYYYY hard. It all got exponentially easier after that though.



Lava is definitely a great feature in this game, but at times I feel it's too overpowered. The fact that a level 1 character can instantly kill almost any enemy in the game with a single teleport is a little overpowered. I believe the damage should be reduced by a factor of 10 for all enemies (for balance's sake)

@Diablofire: Just load the last autosave and visit the respec demon, if you want to verify it, but this is the main reason why the Tenebrium skill is discussed so much here.
I was just surprised by your numbers, because I thought that you have figured out that the weapon skill actually will matter and only the displayed damage on the paper doll is wrong, which would put an end to all the complaining.

If the damage boni of abilities would stack, I would expect them to work the same way as the health boni do, namely additive not multiplicative. With the -25% health penalty on hard, Glass Cannon reduces your life to 25% (100%-25%-50%) of the value based on your CON, not 37.5% (75%*50%).