Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity Original Sin - Help/Tips/Tricks Need advice on build viability

Hello all,

Picking the game up next week when I'm back from abroad - I've researched a ton of info before diving in and came up with the following builds for my first run. All advice would be greatly appreciated!

Dante - Archmage - Dante will be a devastating force of nature, a master wizard; ultimately, he will rake hellfire across the battlefield as his undead minions slaughter any survivors.

Talents:
- Lone Wolf
- Far Out Man
- Glass Cannon (5)
- Save remaining talent(s) (you'll have an extra 5 by saving them to exchange for 10 ability points or 2 stat points each around level 12)

Stat Points (base 5, 15 total to spend through normal leveling) (more through saved talent exchange):
Intelligence to 15 (+10) (normal leveling)
Constitution to 12 (+5 normal leveling, +2 talent exchange or books)
Speed to 7 (books or stat exchange)
You'll want to trade in two talents to get the necessary constitution and speed

Abilities (68 base points with lone wolf) (30 more points with three traded talents) (98 total points = 6.5 abilities mastered):
1. Pyro
2. Hydro
3. Aero
4. Witchcraft
5. Willpower
6. Leadership

Jaye - Nature's Spirit - Jaye stalks her prey from afar, unleashing elemental arrows to devastating effect. Jaye, rarely seen without her trusted wolf companion, is known for ripping apart the earth to swallow enemies whole.

Talents:
Sidestep
Pet Pal
Bully (3)
Weatherproof (7)
Save the rest for talent exchange

Attributes (5 base, 15 through leveling, 4 extra through talent exchange = 19 total to spend)
Dexterity to 13 (+8)
Speed to 13 (+8) (alternate points between dexterity and speed)
Constitution to 8 (+3)

Abilities (49 base, + 10 from talent exchange = 59 points = 3.8 abilities mastered):
Bow
Marksman
Geomancer
Crafting (mastered with items)

Please let me know what you think!

In my opinion, your strategy would work well so long as you can get your summons out early(or build Jaye's companion for the sole purpose of tanking damage) to draw threat away from Dante and Jaye so that they can unleash their heavy damage from afar.

Also, you might want to reconsider the lack of points in Speed/Perception, as if your heroes are high damage but mediocre hp and are unable to cast their spells before the enemy does, you are at a great disadvantage. Perception is also important for an archer's (Jaye) accuracy over long ranges and crit chance.

Geomancer spells (including summons) are much more powerful with a higher intelligence stat. And so Jaye with a low Intelligence and Perception stat may find it difficult to dish out damage consistently (summons and her will miss a lot when attacking).

Overall, so long as your party contains the following characteristics you should breeze through combat:

1) Tank - Hero/es or summons that are able to absorb majority of the enemy damage.
2) Healer/Buffer/De-buffer - Hero/es that will heal other party members and provide shields/cures against specialist enemies, and makes use of control spells to turn the battle in your favor when the enemy outnumbers you.
3) Command All Elements - Hero/s that together have a damage spell for each of the elements. Terrain control is a nice bonus to have but not essential.
4) Damage - Hero/es that focus on obliterating enemies in just a few blows/spells.

So for you it seems, Dante will take on 1,3, and 4. Hopefully he will have sufficient AP to achieve this.
Jaye will take on 1,2,3 and 4. Hopefully she will have sufficient AP to carry out all tasks in a turn if required.

Overall, I like Dante but not so much Jaye. Dante will bring many victories so long as he does not draw threat and is not disabled.

Why would you post this twice?

Well doesn't matter, I guess.



You want to give petpal to your caster character as "mages" talent choises are horrible.

Willpower is not needed as a mage, If something ever reaches you with a lonewolf/glass cannon mage, you are doing something wrong.

You want to make sure that your AP/turn never exceeds you max. AP.

Other then that I think your mage is properly min/maxed.

As far as your Archer is concerned, I think the talent choises are horrible (except for bully)

sidestep is a very low tier talent and wasted on a character that should never be in melee.

Weather the storms is an even lower level tier talent and from my pov should just be ignored.

As said earlier I believe petpal should be on casters as they have less decent talent options.

Then what do I suggest for an archer?

For starters Bully + Guerrillia, then @ level 3 save talent, buy glass cannon @ 5 then @ level 7 save talent and wait till you can buy Quickdraw. (Bully, Guerrillia, Glass Cannon, Quickdraw)

Do not put points into bow (or any weapons for that matter) later in the game a new type of weapon will be introduced making older weapons slightly obsolete. (Do some research on this then decide whether you will or won't go for those weapons.)

Archer with geomancer means that you will need atleast 8 intelligence, while this is doable and lots of fun it does mean somewhere in your character build you will have to fit in 3 int. Usually this will come at the price of dex. With an int of 8 you all you need is probably 1 point is every school to pick up all the low level spells. Preferably also the ones that synergize with bully and even more preferable they also synergize with as you mentioned your archmage.

Examples of level 1 spells to look out for with your archer(If int is 8 that is):

Withcraft: Oath of desecration, w/e, w/e
Pyro: Flare, Wildfire, w/e
Geo: Bless, Midnight oil, Summon spider (@ level 4 might want to throw out bless for Boulder Bash due to synergy with bully talent)
Hydro: Slow current, Minor heal, Rain(synergy with blitz bolt and with mage)
Aero: Teleportation, Blitzbolt(synergy with mage character and with rain, as wet characters have an increased chance to be stunned by electric attacks.), w/e

With an int of 8 you have a pretty good arsenal of spells to use in most situations.

I would strongly consider giving the archer glass cannon aswell.

1: Glass cannon is without any question the best talent in the game.
2: This is also leads to a more favourable stat distribution.

Speaking of the latter, you did not mention Perception, this is a very good stat for an archer and you should make sure it is high enough otherwise your chance to hit over distance will be very poor. Perception also increases crit. chance and initiative and ofcourse you will see more hidden stuff. (There are points in the game where it is possible to miss stuff due lack of perception)

For me an archer needs to divide points between Dex,Per,Con,Speed and if you also want him to cast that means atleast another 3 points to int.

GLHF!

With kind regards,

Rashar.

Thanks to both replies! That was very useful info, good to know I needed to tweak my ranger a lot. Would've been bad to start like that and have to reroll.

Rashar, posted twice to get more input. Will delete if it's a problem or against the rules.

Thanks again guys, very much looking forward to playing this game on Tuesday!

No problem, just did not understand why.

Happy building!

With kind regards,

Rashar.

p.s. link to a(n) older/closed topic however pretty good when you building your archer.

http://www.larian.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Main=52674&Number=539812#Post539812

Ooh yeah that's super helpful, thanks for the link!

I think I'm going to almost completely follow your build, didn't realize perception was so critical.

Well if you are a bow user it does a lot, for other type of characters perception is really something they can ditch.

If you want the extra versatility on archer do find the room to grab some extra int. You will find tons of amulets and you are bound to find one with dex,int, + other random stuff. Int is also a requirement to wear Sarongs, this requirement goes from int 6 to int 10.

Legendary sarongs seem very rare but there bonusus are really insane, they usually come with 5/6 abilities and them being, willpower, body building, int, random res, random res, initiative. something like that.

If you see sarongs being sold and they are rare or better and have good stats, do buy them, even rare sarongs are hard to find. (atleast upto level 14-15)

With kind regards,

Rashar.

On the topic of archers, I found early on in my last playthrough that using a bow with air damage, and optionally a chance to stun on hit was way too good. Shoot an enemy, it spurts out blood, your arrow electrifies the blood. Congratulations, you just stunned 1-3 enemies. Sometimes more if they're in a puddle.

That works throughout the game.

Yeap, air is one of the better elements to roll on a weapon.

With kind regards,

Rashar.