Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - Suggestions and Feedback Fix teleport and other "must have" skills

For one, make teleport only as effective as the mage.

Restrict teleport target size/level and/or teleporting distance so that not every character is the same as effective teleporting monsters around.
Maybe make teleportation dependent on the enemy's willpower? (NOPE! NOT GOING ANYWHERE)

I swear right now combat is mostly about teleportation

A good starting place would be making the teleportation range based around the caster, not around the target, or at least require LoS from the caster to the final destination.

In my current playthrough I've just slapped Teleport onto Ifan my Rogue because he's pretty inept at being a Rogue and he needs something to do with his AP when he can't do anything else.

What is "willpower"? There is no such thing in D:OS 2.



Doesn't there already have to be LoS? It sure seems like there is from the times I've cast it.

I guess the idea I had for increasing the AP cost of Teleport to 4 AP doesn't fit with the idea to just make it worse overall for non-mages.

I agree that Teleport should either be limited by Intelligence and/or Aerotheurge levels, as suggested above, and/or require magic armor "saving throw", but to balance this and reduce party clicks outside of combat, I think that the mage should also be able to teleport themselves. The side quest that this would disrupt the verisimilitude for be damned. Why should Phoenix Dive and Tactical Retreat be better than Teleport in this respect? Traditionally, fantasy setting speaking, Teleport should be an escape and utility skill more than an attack skill anyway.

Oh, and as for everyone just taking the skill, this is a little off-topic, but the issue was raised, make skills cost more than 1 point investment in the related category. Why not make Teleport cost 2, or 3 (just a thought, this would need to be tested for balance) points in Aerotheurge? I think Larian has said they want to allow people to branch out their builds more easily in this game, but honestly, without the "taxes" on skills, I'm just dumping all my combat points into a single category of attack, like Ranged, or into Pain Reflection, and it's a massacre every fight...

Right, and sudden spectacular chain reactions. I hope we get gummy bears armed by fireworks soon. They will shoot fireworks with random element and teleport like crazy. When you slap them then gummy pain reflection bounce it back to you. I know it sounds wierd but it will be not very difference from current average battle.

Lets make Teleport touch range in the first. Then add a behavior :
- if target is caster or ally then make soft land. No check required.
- otherwise target must make successful roll (errr, I mean - be out of magic shield) then he can be thrown away with hard landing
- if enemy is out of magic shield but has spell Enforced active or is turned into stone, then cant be teleported either.
- range of teleporting (also damage) is driven by Aero skill. More skill, further you throw, more dmg. Base is 8m then +1m for every Aero skill. If you teleport enemy target for shorter distance than your max, then dmg is also lower.
- Dmg hp is only one part, when you get moved you are disoriented and need to get balance e.g. character is stripped as many AP for 1 turn as the level of Aerotheurg is. e.g. Dmg HP should be nerfed once more a bit.

Current Combat teleport is nonsense. Well, Curent Teleport feels like proof of concept. lol

We should probably think very, VERY carefully about the kinds of nerfs and what effects they would have.

Is Teleport really so much more powerful than every other skill? Is it really the ONLY skill which is just so broken that it must be given a lot of super-special restrictions which no other skill has?
Would such restrictions apply to the Teleporter gives, or are they exempt and full-power?


Teleport is such an incredibly useful utility skill for non-combat and for exploration that I would be very hesitant to nerf it across the board and restrict it and lock it away from non-mages, even though every other magic skill is okay with just a single point in any other school. I would not want to restrict Teleport (and by extension the magical gloves) to the point where you pretty much force every single party to carry a mage specialized in air magic.

There are a ton of locations for exploration which can only be reached with the current Teleport. Break the maximum range and then there's a hefty loot difference between air-mage parties and all other parties. That's not ideal for balance.

If the real problem is combat-teleportation, increase the AP cost of Teleport to 4-5 and the cooldown to 4-5 turns.

or Vault or Expeditious retreat or ...
Is the Teleport the only spell which everyone must have or be doomed?

That's not even that.
It's the "floor is lava" combat mechanics and movement premiums in general.

Because there is no dedicated points for movement, abilities that let you move to an enemy, or an enemy to you are at a massive mechanical value advantage from the get go.

When you add the fact that a lot of the combat is based around surface (ab)use, which the ability to move an enemy also takes advantage of, Teleport becomes the single most powerful ability in the game, even if it did zero damage.

I suppose unsurprising given my "stop nerfing things!" comment, I'm very much for leaving teleport as it is: I find it much too useful and I think it's a handy thing to have in combat. I'd be sad if it was another thing that got shaved off because someone else thought it was too interesting.

I really don't see that many problems with teleport at the minute. Out of combat it is fine how it is. Maybe in combat increase the AP cost and the cooldown by 1 (That would roughly equate to it's cost in the original. A 7 out of potentially 20 AP pool, compared to a 2 out of a 6 AP pool)

I would be perfectly fine if they removed the damage component, it's use isn't for damage. It's for grouping an enemy with it's fellows so you can Fireball their gnads off, getting an ally out of harms way (ending up doing this quite a lot, despite dealing some damage to them) as well as porting an enemy off of their height advantage and placing them IN harms way.

If Larian does get rid of the damage of Teleportation I hope they will still make an Aerotheurge skill that picks up an enemy and slams them down (In place of course)

I was about to agree with the "remove the damage from Teleport" suggestion, but I remembered that probably exists for a very good reason - to not let you teleport neutral NPC's like guards and merchants away from locations they're watching, thus letting you exploit things.




Vault isn't a teleport spell, I think you mean Cloak and Dagger and Tactical Retreat. So all right, there are alternatives... but as those are self-teleports, not Teleport Other, which would mean more people would need to invest into self-teleport skills.

All I'm saying is that I'd think really long and hard about all the consequences of cutting the range of Teleport.

I don't really agree that is a "must have", at least not in classic mode (not that we've seen honour mode yet). The game is not very hard if you are patient as it is now. However, the topic is about it feeling "must have", and if it does to you, then you are likely to spend a single point in Aerotheurge to get it.

I think this is the biggest problem right here, and in general, not just for Teleport. You can just put one point into the skill category, and you can use pretty much any skill in the game for it. I did post above that the devs could look into nerfing Teleport, but all that range limiting stuff for just this one skill is just conjecture, and would likely be hard to implement in a balanced way. If anything, it should be BUFFED to allow you to not hurt allies, and to be able to use it on yourself (the caster using it), but in general, this whole design principle where you can access most (if not all) skills with a single point invested should be reexamined. Maybe teleport should cost 2 points in Aerotheurge, seriously, and look at other skills as well.

I have a similar stance, but it isn't even based on how "useful" it is. I honestly don't even find it that powerful.

It's just that it's a very FUN ability to use and abuse, and I fear any significant nerf (after they already lowered its damage quite a bit in the last build) could turn it in something DULL.

There are two significant reason why Teleport is broken.
1) Enemy pathing is terrible
and
2) The enemies don't know how to use their own teleports.
-Seriously the CPU really has to stop using "Phoenix Dive" as an attack.

That is it honestly. Anyone who argues it "does too much damage" I must go "REALLY?" because it is probably the least damaging spell (of ones that do damage) in the game.

The only nerf I'd even suggest for teleport is perhaps it should have a higher memory cost to represent how useful it is, in combat.

You're quite correct, of course. I often just use it for a laugh. I think I'm starting to realise why I'm not all that good at combat and tactics.

right, its One of the "advantage" cutting AP per round.

Greed for moving characters around exploding battlefield is natural. However there are other classes.
Warfare - Battering ram - Enemy hit should be moved by 1 meter aside in case of side (collateral) hit. If its direct hit-push then opponent is moved to to the max spell range or up to the other floor element. That subtle change make Battering really fun. Is there someone standing on clear surface? Ram him to the fire. The nit pick is, opponent is pushed to the other surface but user stays in current surface. Doable by script.
Also ram should be able to push people off the cliff. Everyone likes "This is Spartaaaa" effect right? And there is so much towers in this game ... .
Similar for Vault - counts it as sudden attack, so if opponent is 1m to a cliff it makes kick to a knee and overthrow an opponent off the cliff. Of course that aiming icon of a skill change when an opponent is in proper place.

If they keep that verticality, (personaly I hate it becouse of camera issues) falling damage should be implemented.

Do you have some other idea of moving skills upgrade?
I have added some details to fix Teleport. Few posts above.

All it really needs is the AP cost increased to 2 (I mean it is 1 right now, correct?). You shouldn't be able to teleport with a spare AP. It's too delicate to touch its range since it has so many non-combat uses currently, and even a quest that depends on its range (though that could be tweaked over course).