Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - Suggestions and Feedback My review of the presets

The bad

Inquisitor - skills have no synergy with the default weapon and stat line distribution for this preset and forces you to party with something capable of shreding physical armor in order to CC properly.

Aerothurge is a way better skill line to have than Necromancer on this preset because it buffs the damage from staff,regardless of what element you have on that weapon.

I made a dwarf Inquisitor once and made the Red Prince a knight. The dwarf inquisitor with the sword was a beast and the Red Prince was surprisingly capable at combat with the staff and default abilities of the Knight...but there was room for only one melee executioner and the prince had to go.

Perhaps with the release of the dwarven companion,you guys will see just how good the Inquisitor preset can be at low levels...when you trade that silly staff for your default melee weapon obtained from your Knight/Fighter preset.

The meh,average

Battemage - I had dificulties in enjoying this preset so my opinion here is highly biased,but I strongly believe that the Battlemage should have started with a staff, so that the skills synergise better during the first 4 levels and at later levels due to the str investment get a two handed weapon - it's not that hard to keybind a huge axe and a magic staff to the quick cast bar.

Conjurer - a pure support class which relies at low levels on the RNG of Dimensional Bolt. What ruins this preset for me is the God awful stat line distribution at character creation.

I would recomend +2 in Wits (this in my opinion is the most important stat for a summoner,you have to get your dudes out before the enemy attacks) and +1 in Int over the +2 in INT, (which is overkill,the damage from Dimensional Bolt is not worth it) and +1 in Finesse (Larian did you guys just dumped a INT/FIN hibrid on us out of boredom at character creation?)

The fighter - My only problem with this preset is one skill, Contamination.Why? It's pointless for a tank. Could you please replace it with Battering Ram. Contamination on a fighter is only good if the fighter is a Zombie. Mobility skills for a tank trump utility skills.


The Good

Here are the builds I feel,work as intended: Knight,Ranger, Metamorph

The ones I didn't have time to use:Rogue, Shadowblade,Witch,Wayfarer.

I feel like Metamorph wasn't perfect either.

The default uses a Spear, which has a damage increase from Finesse. However, the stat Scaling for Tentacle Lash is exclusively Strength.

The other Metamoprh skills either have no Stat scaling, or scale off of weapon.
If the Metamorph were using a 2H Str weapon, all their abilities would scale with Str.
Therefore, I think changing the default weapon to a Str weapon or changing the scaling on Tentacle Lash to Finesse would cause this template to make more sense.

Or changing the scaling on Tentacle Lash to match the chosen weapon, like how it works with Bull Horns.

Or better yet, since the ability doesn't involve the weapon even, have it scale off of the highest of your 3 primary stats.

I like Spear on Metamorph for one reason only, it enables custom builds based around the notion that you need to craft/loot a spear.

On my first playthrough I was really happy I could make a finesse based knight - despite the fact that the party I made with this character failed,just knowing that there is a preset which can land me a spear made me really happy.

On the other hand I wish that 1 point in Two Handed went into either Retribution or Perseverence to better consolidate it's role as a jack of all trades. Despite this minor annoyance for me I feel that Metamorph is fine

Yeah, I don't have a problem with the flavor, and it's nice that we have a template that has a spear option, I'm just saying the choice of a spear has anti-synergy with one of their starting skills only scaling off of a different stat.

I disagree to an extent with what you are saying here - I agree it has anti-synergy but I disagree with you, on the notion that the anti-synergy is bad for this preset.

In my opinion, Metamorph is probably the most advanced and well executed preset in this list because, unlike other presets it does not give a specific combo to execute like the Knight preset at early levels - but rather it features lots of optional spells which you can remove at your discretion based on your plan of action.

It's like Wayfarer in the way it was built - one stat is dedicated to weapon damage (finesse for both builds) and one stat is dedicated to spell damage (str for metamorph due to tentacle and int for wayfarer due to it's starting spells)
The difference between Wayfarer and Metamorph is that the role of your main stats can change based on how you level up and what spell you chose to unmemorize, at level 2, if you are activating this preset on a companion.

Metamorph standard preset is very dependent on team composition and skill investment and can be very easily built into a multitude of roles,because the preset is 100% composed of optional parts which you can remove at your leisure.

Me for instance I took Ifan ben-Mezd as my companion and metamorph tank and decided to get 1 point in Scoundrel to get Adrenaline Rush and Chloroform so I can use Chicken Claw in combat vs opponents with low magical armor and am considering to go from any str melee weapon and shield to dagger and shield so I can invest more in Scoundrel for the movement speed to offset penalty from str based armor,critical strike rating and spells, but it's easier for me to go Warfare for the bonus damage to physical armor and access to Whirlwind,Rage and Phoenix Dive.

The only thing that make's things difficult for me is that 1 blasted point in two handed. I think the Metamorph preset was designed to be a melee crowd controler build where you would follow the lead of the tank and start cc-ing based on what armor has been torn to shreds by your main armor shreder/damage dealer, which is why I did not give the Metamorph build a bad score - I am not using it as intended by Larian.

Why put any weaponskills on the presets? Just put them on the other skills. I think it limits the future build way too much if you are locked to a weapontype from the beginning and there are always people who want to do/try things differently.

You're not locked, except on companions, and I hope Larian changes that.

The presets are just guidelines. The only thing locked about the presets is their starting equipment, which is one reason why they have certain weapon skills. If you want to make a wizard who carries a 2H sword, pick the Knight preset and change everything else to match the Wizard. You want your Rogue to start out with a bow instead of daggers, pick the Ranger preset.

There is one minor issue: let's say I wasn't paying attention to the preset I chose and I go ahead and customize that preset's skills, etc. Once I realize I wanted a different preset for a specific starting weapon, I have to start all over again. This could be easily avoided if we could also customize the weapon, regardless of preset.

This review is mostly aimed at presets for companions because at character creation you can modify the presets to your likeing - not true with companions though so we should start helping Larian improve these presets as they are important for the new player experience and help simplify party planing for experienced players by reducing the amount of bad/faulty presets.

This thread is also relevant for new players as it highlights presets which are almost completly broken - like conjurer which I rated as useless due to it's stat distribution and inquisitor, which is broken at lvl 1 (unless we take into account a dwarf companion and a pc with str based weapons) due to it's stats and starting weapon alone,but through a departure from the class fantasy instiled at character creation/preset selection for companions it is salvageable.



In the case of the Inquisitor this means that the guideline dictated by Larian is complete bogus when you launch the game and see how horrible the skills synergize with the starting stats and the default weapon.



On some presets such as Rogues,Rangers and Fighter I feel that weapon skills are mandatory for these presets because the weapon choice strongly dictates the playstyle. This is not true however for clerics,metamorphs and conjurers.



That is just negligence on your end mate.

Fair enough, carry on. I'll also join you in saying WHY do Fighters get Contamination? It's one of the most useless skills in the entire game, it shouldn't even exist, much less be a preset.




No argument there. I actually built my Inquisitor more around gaining maximum AP, so they start out with their abilities as Pyrokinetic, Warfare, and Telekinesis, and the skills Battering Ram, Haste, and Flaming Daggers. They keep the Warlord Talent and pick up the Scoundrel's Adrenaline at level 2.


EDIT:



If you're using Dimensional Bolt as a direct attack spell, you are doing it wrong. It is a surface creation spell. You cast it on the edge of the battlefields to get your totems up, positioned in such a way as to make it difficult for enemies to attack it and you, or beside an enemy to get an Incarnate positioned.

It needs its AP cost lowered to 1, but other than that, Dimensional Bolt is fine for its purpose.

It may be neglihence but that's not the point. I just don't understand why it's difficult to have a pure custom preset that allows you to also change the weapon. I doubt that's hard to implement.

I consider Dimensional Bolt a crap spell even for the purpose of creating a surface, simply because of it's rng mechanic...the jab I made about Dimensional Bolt's damage was to highlight the fact that most members of the community already know that Intelect is useless for the conjurer preset because at low level (1-5) it only buffs one really bad spell. (as proven by the fact that when you read "damage" and "dimensional bolt" and thought that I may be using Dimensional Bolt for damage, you jumped to warn me that it is a bad spell for dealing damage.)

Maybe if they replaced Farsight Infusion with some support skill that shows that Conjurer has more value beyond summoning (for example ralying cry) to better justify an investment in Intelect. If I were to go in the game right now and plan for a conjurer,I would use the human race and enchanter preset,then set my wits at 14 with 10 in rest + escapist talent.Afterwards as I level up I would alternate Str and Int while pumping up Wits constantly so I can get more value from my shield.

Personally I don't agree that "proper classes" should be straight forward, geared for early game domination (mainly damage dealing), and deal only one kind of damage (So basically that all classes are good solo).

Certainly they shouldn't be an early game dirge or be tricks.

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Not that all the classes are fine. The honest worst is the Witch.

Yet that is because the Witch not only has a weak set overall, but because the Witch's combination is REALLY not complimentary outside exactly one combo... and I mean short and long run.

Necromancy is currently really geared for close range fighters.

I agree with you here,but that doesn't mean that presets which are borderline unplayable such as Inquisitor and Conjurer should not be updated.

Witch on the other hand I consider a good preset because it is situational,but strong within specific party compositions at early levels and easily tweaked at high levels - it is mainly a zombie party healer/damage over time specialist.

Fighter is just as situanional (I like to call it "zombie cleric"),but worse than a witch on a non-zombie party, however it's only saving grace are the stat line and weapon load out. The skill combo for the fighter is complete garbage for a tank but it's slightly average as a cleric type character where the purpose is to clear the path for the rogue/inquisitor/knight to charge like a dummy in the middle of the fight so it can ATTEMPT to kill something in one turn and then dump fortify on him.

Conjurer is in the exact oposite situation as the fighter,but like fighter it is in the "meh" category because it can be turned around (it's insalely difficult to do so with Sebile and the red prince - Loshe and Ifan are stuck as bow wielding mages).

We can always unmemorise the crapy spells like contamination on fighter and we can always complain how battering ram would have been more intuitive for the fighter preset which is supposed to be the tankiest load out for fighting in the front line (thanks to Larian's description of the preset at character creation) and not giving front line support to the shadowblade who jumped just outside of your casting range.

I'm running Lhose as a Conjurer/Healer, and she is quite helpful with her summons. I also have a 4-Conjurer party, although I haven't played them a lot lately, as I'm focusing on my main group. A better stat line wouldn't hurt, but it's only two attribute points out of place. I would not call the Conjurers "borderline unplayable".



I will agree with Intellect not being that great for Summoners. (I think that's okay in principle given the high number of INT-favouring archtypes already.) Some other people have complained that Dimensional Bolt was bad because of its low damage, which is why I thought you might have also thought that way.

I'll disagree with your complaint about Dimensional Bolt's RNG. RNG is still part of the game, so I don't think it is out of place, and I like having the utility as part of the Summoner Skill set. It gives you additional control over placing micro-surfaces in specific spots. If you don't want to take the chances of getting a bad damage type you can place your summon on normal ground for the physical damage type.




Another buff skill wouldn't be a bad idea, but don't delete Farsight Infusion, that's very useful for the ranged attack it grants.

You know ranged attack... +15% damage.

I meant it gives the Incarnate a ranged attack, allowing it to hit enemies it otherwise would not be able to reach and attack.

Both Infusions are great because they each grant a significant armor bonus and a 15% passive bonus to all damage, in addition to the extra active skills.

I really like the Summoning skill tree, but I feel it's much more effective with a bow than a wand.
For starters, the Physical incarnates/totems (Blood/Wood) do significantly more damage than the elemental ones, which pairs better with bow, since it does physical damage too.
With a wand (the weakest damage per AP weapon) it's tough to get through Magic Armor, so the elemental totems don't end up getting to apply their statuses.
Doing physical damage on the other hand will be higher and allow your infused Incarnate to Knockdown Enemies with Battering Ram.
Another benefit of using a bow, if you really want an element, you have tons of special arrows to create the desired ground type, and it won't require you to divert any points away from Summoning to do so.

Aside from Dimensional Bolt, all summoning abilities (Totems/Incarnates, etc.) don't scale off of any stat, only player level and Summoning Skill.
This means Finesse or Str stackers are just as effective with summons as anyone else.

Dimensional Bolt is bad anyway. 2 AP for a random surface or weak and unreliable damage is too much to pay. There are better uses of your AP for either case, and being bad at 2 things doesn't make it flexible enough to be used in combat, in my opinion.