Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - Help/Tips/Tricks As 2H Necro, I don't actually need warfare or STR?

Just want to see if I got this right.

I wanted to play a 2H sword Necro. However there is no actual skills from warfare I want. Good mobility and CC of poly and I can go for Spear instead. And if I want to double down on my necro investment I can simply use a Staff?

I googled that staves as 2H weapons actually has decent damage, same with spears?

Scoundrel would also be good for 2 points to grant adrenaline+teleport etc.

So if I want to make a strong 2H necro warrior... I actually don't need warrior at all?

All the Warfare skills I've seen so far work off Finesse.

Warfare use is based on weapon you are using
Fineese= spears and daggers
Swords etc strength
If you use staff it removes magic armour
Some warfare skills needs to remove physical ARMOUR (unless changed from EA)

Based on my weapon? So if I'm making a 2H staff build, warfare skills will use int for damage?

Warfare and Staff is an odd combination. Yes, you can use a Staff with almost all Warfare abilities (sans those that require a Shield of course). BUT.

Staff works against Magic Armor, and Warfare abilities are resisted by Physical Armor. So you aren't able to break down Physical Armor with your weapon.

Also, the benefit of Warfare doesn't work with the Staff, since it only affects Physical Damage. A Staff that does Air damage gets extra damage from Aerothurge NOT Warfare (as an example).

So while you CAN use the Staff with Warfare its not a good idea unless you're taking the Warfare ability for some of the Buffs and not the Attacks.

[quote=KentDA]Warfare and Staff is an odd combination. Yes, you can use a Staff with almost all Warfare abilities (sans those that require a Shield of course). BUT.

Staff works against Magic Armor, and Warfare abilities are resisted by Physical Armor. So you aren't able to break down Physical Armor with your weapon.

Also, the benefit of Warfare doesn't work with the Staff, since it only affects Physical Damage. A Staff that does Air damage gets extra damage from Aerothurge NOT Warfare (as an example).

So while you CAN use the Staff with Warfare its not a good idea unless you're taking the Warfare ability for some of the Buffs and not the Attacks. [/quote]

Well the thing is... I planned to go:

Warfare 2: For whirlwind and phoenix dive
Scoundrel2: For pawn + Adrenaline + teleport
Necro+2H: Rest

Since Necromancer gives damage as leech, the plan was to use a 2H staff as a melee weapon. Staves has an element to them and can be crafted with poison and enchanted etc.

So the playstyle is: Teleport/dive in and AOE the hell out of everything hopefully exploding and igniting stuff all over the place for mass leech through the dots from the mayhem.

Talents would be pawn and opportunity attack, not sure what else yet.

I really really think you could upgrade this build with some good pyromancing abilities as you will be int char anyway ->using supernova gives you huge aoe burst on top of phoenix dive fires, combined with fireball/ignition and topped off by spontaneous combustion (deals damage based on remaining turns of burning).

Basically you could have about 5-6 high aoe-high damage spells in row. Just have a backup plan for fire immune

Elemental affinity could probably help greatly with that aswell

How do you intent to play a "strong" warrior without warrior skills??

Warrior skills need Warfare. A warrior without knockdown abilities is ... bad. A point in Warfare gives also + 5% damage to all physical damage, even to your physical Necro damage.

So I would say "no" to your question.

[quote=geala]How do you intent to play a "strong" warrior without warrior skills??

Warrior skills need Warfare. A warrior without knockdown abilities is ... bad. A point in Warfare gives also + 5% damage to all physical damage, even to your physical Necro damage.

So I would say "no" to your question.[/quote]

So for a warrior necro build, better to go Str+Non-staff 2H?

Definitely, there is quite nice synergy there.

I thought about doing something like this.

I'm new to the series so still figuring things out, I wonder if I've gimped myself now and need to start again.

The idea was to use Warfare for the Knockdown and some buffs, Necro for the rest with maybe some other schools thrown in, not sure which.

With 2 Handed Staff for my magic casting needs and being able to use those warrior skills if needed.

With Points in INT and Warfare my casting Damage
Hmm

Guess this is bad?

Well you are doing magic damage, and all your CC is resisted by physical armor.. thats really bad for you

But you dont really need to reroll, just switch weapon for physical and next two level ups add some strength to the mix. Necro spells benefit from int, so it is far from wasted, and you can add some geo/hydro support skills for sustaining yourselfs.

A staff does physical melee damage and magical ranged damage, or is that changed? You could use this to your advantage in a group with mixed damage.

I don't have a two-handed char with Necro, but my main is a Necro/Hydro/Warfare/Poly combination with "sword and board". Warfare/Necro and Strength is a good combination with synergies but I also put points in Intelligence for the Necro spells.

A warrior needs some some points in Intelligence anyway to be able to wear higher level mage items to augment the pure magical armor on heavy armor.

Still getting the hang of all the interactions.. So a caster necro using warfare cc is bad..

How's the interaction between necro and aero.. Was thinking taking lizard for start so have fire and poison wands.. Plus blood and lighting combo's.. It's that a thing?

Look, its damage types are different(necro doing physical, rest is magical damage), but they both scale with INT. So you dont want to use necro+aero in same combo on one enemy, as you will attack both of his armors, basically wasting damage.

BUT having more damage types at your disposal is good thing, as you can for example finish damaged enemies with one of their armors down. And necro lifesteal will work with whatever type

So yeah, its viable, just not in the same combo. And realistically speaking, when going for INT character, you want atleast 3 schools (aero+hydro+necro) for example, and if you feel like it take 4th in the mix for diversification (geo being most versatile with spells doing earth+poison and statuses for both physical and magical)