Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - Suggestions and Feedback Thoughts on Attributes

I would like to get feedback on attributes from people. Right now it seems that Wits are king (being the only source of initiative), which is largely driven by the armor and CC system (armor = 0 CC, no armor = 100% CC - most cases).

Let's not talk about armor and CC, but instead the attributes themselves in the current system.

Current Attributes

Strength (+5% damage), +2% armor, out of combat weight related things
Finesse (+5% damage), +1% dodge, out of combat pickpocket
Intelligence (+5% damage), +2% magic armor, no out of combat things?
Constitution +7 Vitality, no other effects?
Memory +1 Memory slot, no other effects?
Wits +1% Crit, +1 initiative, out of combat perception abilities (traps), resistance to pickpocket

(Please correct/add if this isn't complete)

So we have Strength, Finesse, and Intelligence providing related damage increase (aligned skills and weapons) and some defensive capability.
Constitution is just health, and the gives the least amount of benefit of all attributes (doesn't scale, armor > health, no other benefits).
Wits contains 2 things which are offensive, and is the only source of initiative, as well as covering old out of combat perception skills.
Memory does only 1 thing, but it's pretty powerful given new spell slot system.

My Thoughts

Wits - Overpowered, need to have other skills provide initiative, perhaps str, fin, int should provide 0.25 - 0.5 initiative.

Constitution - Underpowered, perhaps constitution should provide resistances, or % armor/magic armor, or something else. My thoughts is that any "tanky/survival" class should focus on this, so the benefits should reflect that.

Str, Fin, Int - Personally i think these should perhaps have additional offensive benefit that applies to anything (not just aligned scaling spells/weapons) - example would be Fin providing pierce damage or something.

Intelligence - Does this provide any out of combat benefit, I would think it should (just don't know what)

Thank you for raising the question.
In DOS1 masteries'dependance on a specific stat was the worst mechanic which blocked multi-classing. In DOS2 the situation is not so bad due to non-damaging skills, but far from perfect.
I believe stats should not boost exclusively specific masteries and weapons, but have only general effects.

I don't agree "Wits are King".

I've never really bothered with it (except drinking a Wits potion to get the Braccus Pantaloons).

Who cares about initiative? Either you are first or you aren't. So either you put enough points into Wits or you didn't. Assuming you don't know in advance what initiative every other person has you may as well either pump everything into it (and be weak) or forget about it and go last. There is no point putting half your points into Wits on the off chance.

Even when I've ended up with lots of initiative I'll often skip a turn anyway to let the others go first.

Your suggestion that CON is underpowered is certainly true - I think everyone agrees with that. I do anyway.

The rest of your points I just don't understand. Finesse should give piercing damage irrespective of weapon? Hmmm. Unarmed? With a lump of wood?

Intelligence should do something not aligned to spells? Like what? Be better at lockpicking?

If I understood I'd probably disagree but as it is I just don't get it so perhaps it is all a good idea. Whatever it is

Wits is super overated. It only seems effective because it attempts to reward people who can't make proper decisions in encounters and get bopped in the first 5 seconds.

It only effects the very first turn, it doesn't help on any of the other turns - other than possibly carrying an advantage along from your opener. Regardless, you would have to either read a guide, play through the game once, or haphazardly guess about how much initiative you should have. You aren't going to know. And it detracts from your other stats. You either go first or you don't. Some fights you likely can't go first because "lol boss stats" or perhaps ambush mechanics further down the line.

Memory is the strongest attribute in the game by far. The only thing with memory is that it has an upper limit where you eventually achieve enough slots. Every single situation, fight, in game, out of game, in real life, whatever, will have an optimal solution. Having options is what allows you to always choose the optimal solution. Memory is what gives you a huge array of options.

Armor is the strongest mechanic in the game. Building your team to abuse armor stacking and life recovery is the strongest gameplay because it prolongs the fights.

Decision making is what separates good players from bad players, good free thinking humans from limited AI, in any game. Street Fighter, Marvel Vs Capcom, Starcraft, whatever, doesn't matter. Making the right choices is what ultimately matters. Having an encounter where you make 40 decisions will cause your skill to shine more so than a shorter encounter where you only make 2 decisions. Building your team to last for many rounds will completely remove any chance of losing. War of attrition is king, and the longer an encounter goes, the less and less the effect Wits has, thus making it a weaker and weaker stat.

This is why bad poker players go to vegas and make bad decisions, roll the dice and either get lucky or lose. Or they get lucky, then continue to play, and because they make bad decisions in-game, they lose it all. Whereas good players can continuously make intelligent decisions and laws of math rewards the proper decision making. Same with noobs in Starcraft who try to rush and win games early, but longer games showcase how bad they are. Deflecting some noob's proxy barracks and then moving it to mid game will cause you to win every single time if you're more skilled than a noob.

Build your team to handle all situations by having a wide range of choices, and then make encounters last longer so that you can display critical thinking and proper decision making. You will win every single encounter there is or ever will be.

Don't blow your load in the first 5 seconds

A small brainstorming of potential effects:
Str: more damage of all the skills and weapons (in order to avoid lore-wise justification, could be renamed into "might")
Fin: extra shield reduction or patrial overriding of shield/armor, accuracy, dodge
Int: better skill area and distance, chance to increase duration of effects, spell shielding.
Con: phisical shielding and health.

You know, not all people liked PoE attribute system. Can we keep it to PoE?

If the 3 attributes get an equal number of masteries, this will partially solve the problem.

Unlikely, even if you are talking about bonuses to abilities and not skills.

The game is heavily skewed towards Intelligence, with 7 INT-based skill schools, 2 FIN-based skill schools an 1 STR-based skill school.

I disagree that Wits are overrated. Going first always has some advantage, but usually this is lost soon after, but not in DOS 2. Wits (going first) synergize really well with the current available spells, CC mechanics, and other game mechanics. These pieces all come together to make going first (every turn, not just first) extremely advantageous.

There are a few main pieces that work to do this:


- Teleport - you can easily put this on everyone, and thus get all enemies into a position that maximizes AOE and puts them in a disadvantaged location

- Mobility Spells (Tactical Retreat, Phoenix, Vault, etc.) - easily allows you to get into a position you want, both offensively and defensively

- Armor + buffs - You can easily pump up your front liner with lots of defense and offense, making them immune to basically any CC, having lots of AP, and doing tons of damage (Rage!)

- CC system - given you can quite easily move enemies all together, or at least pick off one of them, once armor is gone you have 100% CC chance. Now you perma CC them (or they you).

- Healing/CC recovery - The healing is way more powerful, and removes a lot of CC (other than stun), so if you play it right (you went first, so you're already in position and have the advantage) you'll easily recover and not lose a turn to CC.

Playing strategically doesn't negate the effect of Wits, it EXEMPLIFIES it, as you can continually exploit the advantage so your enemies almost never have a chance to act.

I do agree that right now skills lean heavily towards INT, which maybe should be balanced more. It should also perhaps be more clear what things scale off of, as many Warfare (or all?) spells scale with your weapon alignment (str, fin, or int).

Right now, with the given armor system, it's actually advantageous to have a party focus on 1 primary damage type (magic or physical) to quick get rid of armor and apply your 100% chance CC (since resistance appears to have no affect on CC chance). Building 3 physical with 1 magic (for buffs, heals, environment, and some damage) works a lot better than a balanced team of damage. I'm sure the opposite is also true (magic heavy).

Do non-damaging spells scale with an attribute?
What you are saying about armor is interesting. And it even more hurts multi-classing. Maybe this could be balanced if almost every enemy had at least minor armors of both types AND reducing both types of armor to 0 made enemies (and players) more vulnerable or otherwise debuffed.

I think everything with numbers scales, but buff and debuffs don't.

Physical is overall better than magical at current state. There are no resistance vs physical anymore and your damage depends on your weapon, so it is easier to max the damage.

My only reservation to this idea is that given any combat situation, some enemies might have significantly more of one armor than another. Of course, having 4 physical on your team, even if physical armor is the highest for a particular enemy you will still be able to break them down and CC, but in my experience battles end faster if your mages focus the melee and the melee focus the mages. Notice that if you only have physical, youre only limited to that kind of CC, which might not be enough depending on party comp. Being prepared to take down both kinds of armor opens up the possibility of using all the CC skills.