Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity Original Sin - Help/Tips/Tricks Help in building an ORIGINAL Knight hybrid tank?

Sorry for the wall of text!
So, I Thought that I can Build something strange but also funny and useful to play. I'm playing with a friend who plays wizard and goes for bartering and leadership, so I go for loremaster and a little of blacksmithing. We both go for lone wolf and leadership for the bonuses.
I'll type my character starting stat/talent/skill here:

Starting class: Knight
Stat:

Str: 8
Dex:5
Int:7 (6+1tal)
Spd:6
Con:6
Per:5


Skill:

Man-at-arms:1
Bodybuilding:1
Master armor:1
Two Handed Weapon:1
Leadership:1


Talents:

Lone Wolf(yes..)
Know-It-All(yes..)

I took Dust devil, battering ram, power stance.

Now you probably are laughing on my talents and my stats. "int on a knight? what the ****?!"
Well i know it's not exactly "The Perfect Tank Handbook" , but i thought that i can go for a little Int to take some usefull buffing/cc spells like air form, resistance, etc.
You will think "but you have a wizard! let him go for that!"..
Well as i said i want something different and this will probably be a semi-hybrid build.

now we are level 6, we are going decently even if I'm a little confused about how should i play my char. and since i bought my spells my friends feels a little useless, even if he's more effective than me, obviously.

Actually my character is like this:

12 Str (+1 bonus from item)
5 Dex
6 Con
7 Int
6 Spd
5 Per


Talents:

Lone wolf
Know it all
All skilled Up


Skills:

man at arms 3
2Handed 2
Bodybuilding 1
Armor specialist 1
willpower 2(1 from trait)
Pyrokinetic 1
Aeroteurge 1
Hydrosophist 1
leadership 2(1 from trait)
Crafting 1(from trait)
blacksmithing 1
loremaster 2(or 3 honestly i dont remember all the bonuses)

Im not 100% sure that's exactly like this, but roughly that's it.

Now what i'd like to know is what you think and if I messed up, or it's a decent build? I play 99% of time in 2h(cuz i need to do some damage and 1h it's not enough), but since i found this 1h weapon who gives me +1 in 1handed & shield specialist sometime (when i'm in trouble) i use it.
Other things i like to know is what kind of spell, talents and skills should i focus on? Should i leave the mage way to my friend or is it a decent investment for me too? (cause i have a lot of skill point every level thanks to lone wolf so probably i can be a little more "skillmonkey-ish"and i can heal my self or buff myself).
For now i'm keeping whirlwind's book cause i know it's a ultra rare/unique skill and i cant have it if i retrain myself(and i'd like to keep my char like this). Ofc i will never be as good as my friend's mage but how can my char be the better version of himself? For example i heard about these attribute books etc. So should i buy it and put that point in int? or con? or str?
let me know your opinion and advice!
Thanks in advance!

Since you are asking what I think and whether or not I think you "messed" up, I shall give you my points of view, keep in mind that I tend to look at things from a min/max perspective. My goal is to build the "best" character with the resources given, while trying to make sure to invest the bare minimum in stuff that is not needed.

I could write an essay on how I would I play a character that will eventually get molded into a battlemage so I will try to keep it short. (I failed...)

@ Character creation

str8, dex5, int7, con5, speed5, per5 - talents: Lonewolf, bully - skills: crushing fist, dust devil - battering ram - ability points: man at arms2, witchraft1, (random elemental school1)

@ level 2, +1 int to get to 8 mininum int for the basic spells, make sure to put a point into the 3 missing elemental schools. Then go on a shopping spree to buy all the great level 1 hybrid spells: Oath of desecration, wildfire, flare, midnight oil, summon spider, rain, minor heal, slow current, blitz bolt, teleportation, divine light, cure wounds - make rings/belts/amulet that give +1speed movement/+1constitution

@ level 3, save talent and use it @ level 5 to take glass cannon. If you have 1 point in every elemental school then max out man-at-arms 1st if you want to take weather the storms.

@ level 4, +1 str, time to do another round of skillbook pickup and grab: boulder bash, become air, absorb elements, blind, small fireball

@ level 5, use the talent you saved up @ level 3 and grab glass cannon, either max out man at arms if you want weather the storm asap or increase aerothurge to 2, hydro to 2 and pyro to 2 so you can grab upto 5 skills with those schools.

@ level 6, divide attribute point to str/int/con/speed depending on gear, save up gold for teller of secrets and the level 7 skillsbooks.

@7+... ... By now you get the point I hope.

Talents @ level 11 will look: Lone wolf, bully, glass cannon, picture of health, weather the storms(With latest patch not so great anymore) so you can switch that out and take guerrillia or just feed it to the demon aswell. IF you decide to go for guerrillia make sure to get sneak to 5 with gear/essences/trait. It is possible to reach 5 sneak by investing 0 points.

Fire resistance should be softcapped @ 80% asap although you want to get everything to 80% because it's great! focus of the build will be the combination of bully+oath of desecration+rage and then hit something with flurry. While spells offer mostly versatility you can think in the direction of absorb elements to go over the 80% softcap, rain+lightning strike to travel a considerable distance and end up stunning/killing them while being in melee (if you enjoy lightning strike a lot, the opportunist talent becomes better as you will land directly behind the last target from lightining strike) Somewhere along the line you will have extra ability points, those can go into bodybuilding/iron will and if you're using a 1hander+shield then shield spec. Leadership is an option and don't forget to max out tenebrium skill asap when you unlock it.

Now this is what I would do.

What do I think of what you did and more importantly I will explain why I think that.

Investing ability points in 2handed (or any weapon for that matter) is a pure waste, later in the game you will find out that there's a special type of weapon and that overrides all invested points in weapons.

Buying know it all, later in the game you can feed a talent to the demon and get 2 attribute points for it (even though know it all lets you go +1 over the softcap of 15 it is not worth it on a hybrid imo) So imo you're losing +1 attribute point here.

points in armour spec: pretty much wasted as most importing thing is to ignore the movement penalty and you can do that by crafting armour+whetstone which gives any medium-heavy armor +0,10 movement instead of the previous movement penalty.

power stances: they are pretty bad imo, as a hybrid you have bless(geo1) so there is no reason to use a stance that makes your auto attacks cost +1AP. The damage stance is more terrible as we will rarely auto attack and even then the damage increase does not allways outweigh the AP increase.

Loremaster: Gold is never an issue so either identify @ merchants and make sure to carry +loremaster rings and amulet so you have +3 ready anytime and with the trait that makes it 4, so no reason to invest points in it untill you reach endgame.

blacksmithing/crafting: depending on what you want to do, there is little reason to get it crazy high. You can get +1 crafting/bs on bracers/belts so just have them around and equip them whenever you go crafting.

As far as attribute point distributing goes: make sure to maintain str as high as possible as it will scale with all your man at arms abilities, it respsonsible for your melee to hit and your damage. Int should be high enough to cast the spells you really need on a 1 turn cooldown basis so invest heavily. Keep constitution and speed in "balance" so glass cannon works optimal. In any case make sure no AP's go to waste due to having more turn/ap then max ap.

all skilled up, worst talent in the game, this one gives +2 ability points, later in the game you trade in a talent to a demon and you get 10 ability points, and he gives you the option to trade in 5 ability points into +1 attribute point. Also teller of secrets sells +1 attribute books and +3 ability books (1 of each per level up) divide them wisely and reap the rewards.

That might have sounded negative, but it is not my intention to flame or belittle, otherwise I wouldnt have taken the time to type all this...

Anyway, I guess for now this will do!

With kind regards,

Rashar.

thank you very much! it is really explanatory and helped me figure out how should i proceed in the game!