Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - Help/Tips/Tricks Solo Retaliation Build

Today I finished the Early Access with a Solo Retaliation focused tank in Classic Mode. I ended the game with 1 Hydromancy and 10 Retaliation. Here are my stats.



It took a long time to come online. I didn't feel very powerful until I hit Level 6 and got my Retaliation up to 7. If Lone Wolf gives additional points, it will make the process much quicker to come online.

Hydromancy was very important for two major reasons. Until I became sufficiently tanky, I had to make sure that incoming damage did not exceed how quickly I could heal myself. To this end, I used the combination of Rain + Global Cooling to create large patches of ice that I would stand in. Archers and Mages could still damage me, but Melee fighters would often fall down attempting to reach me. I made sure to craft Winter Boots very early.

Since I was so tanky, anytime I was fighting with a friendly NPC, the enemies would ignore the hell out of me and try to smash the friendly NPC. So Restoration, Healing Ritual, and eventually Steam Lance became important for keeping them alive! This was a major reason for taking Hydromancy instead of Necromancy.

As an interesting observation, the AI would actually stop attacking me when it got low on health. It would realize that the next hit or two against me would kill it, and it would go into defensive mode just buffing its allies and healing itself if it had such skills. Once it had some health back, it would try to attack me again, but almost no enemies would suicide themselves against me intentionally.

As a con: It's not a very active way to play, and the fights are not incredibly fast. You might find yourself getting bored. But it does have a certain tempo - a strategy to raising your defenses at certain points to counter the moments when you know the enemy CC is coming off cooldown. Like a proper tank!

As a pro: Even if you do get stunned or frozen, you don't care! Your retaliation keeps on working. You just need the occassional window to Rain + Global Cooling + Restoration.

As a pro: I was completely unafraid of single high powered enemies. They would hit me for 100+ damage at a time, and I would retaliate back just as hard. It's also hilarious watching Hammer Pets and Alexsandar just stop attacking you because they realize they are going to kill themselves.

Necromancy: Obviously, Necromancy is a great combination with Retaliation. You heal for half the amount of damage you take, which would make you almost immortal. But I didn't go that direction for this EA test because 1) there were not enough points. If Lone Wolf offers additional points like it did in DOS1, then Necromancy might become an option. 2) Necromancy doesn't keep friendly NPCs alive. Keeping them alive was one of the hardest parts about this playthrough, because enemies would completely ignore me. I know taunts are going to be in the game at full release, but I doubt it will keep everyone taunted all the time.

Very good report.

What talents did you choose? Where is it necessary to keep friendly NPCs alive? I played the EA a lot but cannot remember to be in such a need except perhaps for the Paladin (never was able to do it), so what do I miss?

Interesting build, I'll give you that. I'm glad it's not another spammy build that solely relies on abusing AP-giving abilities and traits.


Only fights I can think of are the elf at the beginning of Fort Joy and Gareth at Bracuss' armoury, but both of those NPCs are a bit better at taking care of themselves than Paladin Cork (I think that's his name) and you aren't as heavily outnumbered.

I am playing around with a similar build. Except I put a point into polymorph. Reason for this was to have access to all of the poly abilities and because when you use bullhorns your ret is increased. So you don't lose anything but you gain a lot of utility.

Pet Pal and All Skilled Up. I actually kind of regret All Skilled Up, but I was really desperate to get extra sources of Retaliation in the early game. Unlike spellcasting abilities like Geo and Pryo, the first couple of points of Retaliation are really not impressive or particularly helpful. When the game actually releases, I'll probably replay her as Lohse with Lone Wolf and Pet Pal.
Elodi in the beginning of Fort Joy. Butters if you decide to fight Griff. Delorus down in the dungeon. Cork in the Fort. Gareth in the Armory. Pretty much everybody in the Dallis fight on the ship. Oh, and the cat if you feel so inclined.

I like the AI choices avoiding your character. Can't wait to see what else lies behind their decision tree.

Many players realized that a tanky character usually isn't focused by the AI and while I like it because the AI understand a certain concept of Threat level when analyzing their foes (the player party), it is true some players felt the Tanks archetype were undesirable because unable to force the enemy attacks on them.

However the totems from the summoner is still problematic because I feel the AI choose to target them too often because the AI seems to detect them as an easy kill and most probably go for them instead of your party member that would require more effort.

Now on a side note, what if all you mages have some retaliation ?
Would that mean the AI will focus on your non retaliation tank character ?

PS: Nice build

that wont be nessisary.. since in the full release there will be a taunt skill for tanks forcing aggro on them.

Yes but it probably will have a limited range and duration

In what scenario do you have to protect Butter from Griff? I thought she joined the fight on his side if you provoked him to attack. Does she simply leave combat if she's the last character alive?

If you offer to help her escape and meet her in another town, she will join your side against Griff if you get in a fight with him.

Huh, I didn't know that. I knew you could arrange to meet up with her on the mainland but I don't think I've fought Griff in those playthroughs. That's kind of neat, I was wondering if you'd actually have to spare the entire camp if you wanted to 'save' her.

I'm trying a similar build and come across a problem. How do you deal with enemies with higher than 100% elemental resistances? For example, the fire slugs on the underground, they heal when they do fire damage, because retribution is a damage dealt the same way you received (fire, since they only attack with fire attacks).

It looked impossible for me to kill them, because the character has low damage and they will be healing themselves instead of hurting themselves.

Hahahaha, wow that is very funny. I hope Larian had found this one and fix it to make the damage reflected as Physical damage only or find a way to address this.

Yeah I would consider that as a bug, ... a funny bug but still.

Mechanics are working as they should.
It's not because something doesn't work in your favour that it is a bug.

I only hope, the delinked enviromental effects from their causer. Pretty annoying, if you walk with retaliation through a fire and your own teammates gets damage or a neutral.

Lol. I know that but that case will happen more than once I guess will be pretty often, like undead with poison or whatnot making literally this specialization completely useless in several situation and even working AGAINST you AND you can't even turn it off.

Unlike saying "shit I can't use my fire spell I have to do something else". Here it is just: "Shit they keep healing themselves and I can't do anything about it but killing my character, yeah I have spent retribution to make my character worse..."

You don't think this is a bug? Well I do, meaning even if it is originally as design, they probably should change it, because that spec does not make you stronger but it works against you and you can't work around it.

What if you have a boss you can't skip that you can't kill because always healing himself with your retribution?
In 4 man party you'll probably try to fight with your 3 other characters but if you play alone ?
Even if it the retribution does not always do damages back it should at least not heal them back because you can't turn it off.

I assumed damage from retaliation is always physical.

But whatever, you still can kill fireslugs or any enemy by applying the Decaying Touch on it. It saves against magic armor, so you will have to break it first, which might not be easy, but after that they will damage themselves, right?

It requires you to have 1 point in Necromancy but you probably will want to increase it anyway.

PS: It lasts 3 turns and has a cooldown of 6, so you probably will want to kite them.

But i also think that reflection from Retribution should be in a form of physical damage, it does not make a lot of sense otherwise, because it nullifies, in some situations, which i assume would be numerous, your entire defense skill in which you could put 10 freaking points for example.

Fix it ASAP Larian! Please!

I waited a little bit to fight the Slugs, so when I fought them I had two water wands, Hail Strike, and Winter Blast. Rain + Global Cooling also snuffs out the fire trails because the ice just turns into water as they cross it.

Assuming DOS2 has major elemental places like DOS1 (Fire Undead, Winter Plane), you've got a couple of options:
1) Double Wands and freezing them, if you can outdamage their healing this way.
2) Put on resistance items, so their self healing is minimal. Then kill them the ordinary way.
3) Use your stockpiled scrolls. I had a mountain of scrolls I could use.
4) Lead them into a Barrel Trap. This is a little tedious, but lets you kill everything but Fire Immunes.
5) Pick up Necromancy for Decaying Touch.

The main reason why I didn't go with Necromancy was just a lack of spare points. In the real game (especially with Lone Wolf) I would definitely recommend at least a point of Necromancy. Decaying Touch absolutely wrecks enemies that your Retaliation would heal.

Actually no, decaying touch only affect healing spells or potions, no all healing.
I am not 100% sure but really think Healing from higher than 100% resist in an element still heals you with decaying touch.
Healing from necromancy spec or skill (mosquito swarm, pool of blood) still heals you with decaying touch so you literally have nothing to stop it.

I was thinking how this mechanical design would work. I didn't test it, but if you say decaying touch isn't useful in this case, I really think retribution should be redesigned. Not necessarily physical damage, but some sort of "true" damage. This means it couldn't be resisted.

For example, if someone hits you with a physical attack, they'll recieve unresistable physical damage on their physical armor, if any. If they hit you with a fire or poison spell, they should take damage on their magical armor, if any, but an unresistable "neutral" magical damage.

Maybe they should do something about two characters with retribution hitting each other too, so it stops the "boucing" damage. Maybe the retribution damage shouldn't trigger the reciever's retribution, because it becomes a cluster of numbers whenever one hit each other.