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

Talent wise depending on the difficulty you play where some talents might be a bit more "mandatory" then others there are a few ways to go, I will take your suggestion into account and will not include leech into any build, also I will leave out zombie.

Easy/Normal difficulty with lonewolf

Level 01: Lone wolf, Bully
Level 03: Wait with spending talent untill you hit level 5 and take Glass Cannon.
Level 07: Wait with spending talent untill you have 5 ranks Man-at-arms and then take Weather the Storm.
Level 11: Picture of health deserves an honorable mention, but probably better to let the demon eat all your talents from here on out and grab extra attribute points.
Level 15,19,23: See level 11

Easy/Normal difficulty without lonewolf

Level 01: Bully, Picture of health (requires Man-at-arms rank 2)
Level 03: Wait with spending talent untill you hit level 5 and take Glass Cannon.
Level 07: Wait with spending talent untill you have 5 ranks Man-at-arms and then take Weather the Storm.
Level 11: Let the demon eat all your talents from here on out and grab extra attribute points.
Level 15,19,23: See level 11

Hard difficulty with lonewolf

Level 01: Lone wolf, Picture of health (requires Man-at-arms rank 2)
Level 03: Wait with spending talent untill you hit level 5 and take Glass Cannon.
Level 07: Wait with spending talent untill you have 5 ranks Man-at-arms and then take Weather the Storm.
Level 11: Bully, however letting the demon eat this talent is probably fine too.
Level 15,19,23: Let the demon eat all your talents from here on out and grab extra attribute points or max out willpower and bodybuilding when trading your talents for ability points.

Hard difficulty without lonewolf

Level 01: Picture of health (requires Man-at-arms rank 2), Bully
Level 03: Just save it untill you enough vitality so that Glass Cannon is not a huge disadvantage anymore.
Level 07: Wait with spending talent untill you have 5 ranks Man-at-arms and then take Weather the Storm.
Level 11,15,19,23: Let the demon eat all your talents from here on out and grab extra attribute points or max out willpower and bodybuilding when trading your talents for ability points.

Honorable mention goes to Thick Skin however 5+Man-at-armsx2 is 15 armor at best. (I never took this talent as for me I rather have 10 ability points or 2 attribute points.)

As you can see, I don't give talents much respect as 90% of the ones we have are just bad imo. I take into account if I rather have my talent or 2 attribute points and not many talents will surpass the +2 attributes or the 10 ability points for that matter.

I did leave out leech because it was suggested and I did leave out zombie because I personally just don't like that talent. (Even though there is no visual drawback when you take that talent, the idea of playing a zombie is a just a nay nay for me.)

So to sum it all from my perspective the most talents you ever need as a melee is 5 and you will be immortal, Lonewolf, leech, glass cannon, weather the storm, and for icing on the cake: picture of health. Personally if you take the leech route I would drop bully because you will start level 1 with leech, lone wolf and if you take that into consideration it would mean you pick up bully level 11+ I rather have +2 attributes or 10 ability points. You can ofcourse add zombie into the mix for more opness but eventually you will have poison resistance 150%+ so once again I rather have the demon eat my talent then using it.

Conclusion: without the demon being able to eat talents, I would probably like some talents better.

With kind regards,

Rashar.