Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity Original Sin - Help/Tips/Tricks Advanced Tips: How to Improve Your Melee Class.

Great advice in all points, though i don't agree entirely with point 2.

Chance to hit with status effects (Blind, Knockdown, etc.) is decreased by opponent's Willpower and Bodybuilding and they are boosted by your primary stat for that skill (str for man-at-arms, int for spells and dex for ranged and rogues skills), so if your chance to hit is 100% and opponent has Bodybuilding 4, chance goes to 60%).

Since you're not boosting int much, your Blind will probably have a mediocre chance to hit, specially from Luculla Forest onward (you will note by the resist checks made by your opponents that they have a rather higher defense than enemies in Cyseal), making Blind useless on a non-mage. It will probably still work during Cyseal, but afterwards when opponents start to get tougher in defenses, it will stop work far less often.

Oath of Desecration is awesome. But i'd rather swing one extra time with my 1-handed. I believe It's preferable to have someone else use oath on you, specially if that someone acts before you do.

Charming Touch and Cloak and Dagger are kinda useless for a warrior. Specially because your dex is probably crappy 7 (5, but boosted by your tormented soul to 7), so chance to hit is crappy and because cloak and dagger costs a crapload of ap, you WILL have to invest more points into Scoundrel, more points that are not needed.

Now that i explained why i don't think your spell selection is that good, I think should provide some alternatives, so here it goes:

All Man-at-Arms abilites can be useful (except Phoenix Dive). But mainly Battering Ram, Crushing Fist, Dust Devil, Whirlwind, Cure Wounds, Power and Precision stance and later, Rage.

Any shield spell you can get will reduce the load on your mages, which will be free to keep casting cc and damage spells.

Aerotheurge, either 3 or 5. You can go either with 3 to use: Teleportation, Invisibility, Become Air, Shocking Touch and Lightning Strike and 2 from your choice, or go all the way to 5 to get Lightning Rod that gives you immunity to Stun (Immunity to Air damage from high resistances doesn't give you immunity to stun). If you got to Air 5, maybe get Air Shield (I didn't bother as Jahan and my friend had all shield spells between the two of them)

Teleportation lets you select who you want to crush first from afar or put a high damage enemy far away WHILE DEALING DAMAGE, it's damage is also not Air, it's crushing damage.

Invisibility is mainly used to steal stuff or to get a better position before combat (unchain character, turn invisible, go to target, start combat, dust devil -> whirlwind =P).

Become Air is the real tanking spell. It cuts all physical damage by half. Some enemies will try to avoid you if you have high armor and their prospective damage is ridiculous, other enemies will jus hit you and waste their turn causing 15-20 damage (when your health pool is 800+).

Shocking Touch is evil. Usually i start combat by using Battering Ram + Shocking Touch, and then next turn I Rage + Flurry my target to death.

Lightning Strike is deliciously fun, Lower Resistances + Lightning Strike during Rain has a very nice chance to stun lots of people. You just need to master how to use it.

Geomancy 1. You can get Midnight Oil, Summon Spider (for the flanking bonus) and either Fortify or Bless (to be honest, you don't need both).

Midnight Oil is fantastic. It slows, benefiting a warrior with the Bully Talent and it also sets the combo to use a fire spell. Finally, if you have more than 120% fire resist and a piece of equipment that gives immunity to slow, you can use the oil when you're surrounded by enemies and blast all your fire spells on your warrior. He will heal even if he gets burning (-20 fire resist) and it will make all opponents slowed and taking fire damage (probably burning too).

Summon Spider is a decent summon. It has a fairly high HP and evade so you can use it to set up your attacks better by flanking. It's specially useful if Madora is your only melee character.

Bless or Fortify are useful buffs. But they should be in mages, not a melee character, however if you got one slot, why not get one? If by any chance you do a mistake or a rogue accidently gets into a bad position, you can give them fortify to help mitigate the damage they will receive.

Hydrosophist and Pyrokinetic have pretty good spells, but most of them would be more useful in mages, still if you wanna go "Paladin", Minor Heal and Slow Current, and if you wanna go "Blackguard", you can always get Wildfire (for haste) and Blaze (to detonate barrels, of course).

I think we could do a review on talents (Except Leech + Comeback kid, which is ridiculous)