Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - Help/Tips/Tricks Wits Build that is actually good.

This build requires lone wolf, and doesn't start to pay off until around level 10.

I thought of the build because I was playing a staff user that was Int based. The basic idea was to play them exactly like your standard 2hander, except they deal magic damage instead of melee. This allowed for magic based CC's like Mind control.

The problem was that I found the game to be skewed toward favoring physical damage, due to a generally higher amount of Magic armor amongst enemies (At least the strongest ones that you need to kill asap.). But I still really liked the staff idea, since it converts all Warfare skills to being Int based when you use a staff.

That was when I thought of the Wits idea. With lone wolf and 20 two-handed skill, your crit damage is pretty insane. I calculated out the difference, and there is only a very slight decrease in damage done when you raise Wits instead of your damage stat, once your crit damage is over the 250% range, because of the crit chance Wits provides.

There are three key things to this build. 1)Being human helps a lot because of the 5% crit chance. 2)Use flame runes in your necklace for crit chance, and get crit chance gear. 3)Save before looking at a merchant's wares - When you find one with a legendary two-hander, keep reloading until it has +20% crit chance.

With those three things, you will hit 100% crit chance (or 90%+) as early as when you first get to driftwood (The paladin leader usually sells legendary two handers. The nobleman on the second floor of the tavern often has legendary staves.). Of course, you can also use Spears since your damage is Wits based.

Once your two-handed skill is maxed, you raise scoundrel, not warfare. You only need warfare at 2.

With this build, you can switch between magic damage and physical damage on the fly. You may also want to get summoning to 3 for charm, since it pairs well with staff damage. Staves also are great for setting up water + lightning stuns. Also, get polymorph 1 once you can, for chicken and invis.

I realize that with Enrage, having your damage stat increased is far more beneficial, since you won't need crit. The problem is that it requires 2 AP (an entire attack), doesn't last, has a cooldown, requires a memory slot, and mutes you. You are also locked in to using only one damage type.

Now, you could even take this build a step further, and raise scoundrel instead of two-hander skill, and use ANY weapon type. The problem is that it doesn't work late game, because scoundrel will be maxed and you will have no way to raise damage without specializing in some manner. But it would make for a great mid-game build.

You could also make it a ranged build by going scoundrel + huntsman, and switching between ranged weapons and wands, using high ground.

Another benefit to the extremely high Wits, is you often get two turns back to back.

Of course, you could just do a summoner build instead, which is OP, and has the same kind of flexibility, since you can choose to make magic damage or physical damage summons. But all that summoning, and totem casting, and infusions just get tedious after the 500th fight. But it does make for a great build on your second character, if you do the Wits build.

I don't think you get extra turns with high wits. You will only be first in the initiative rotation. You can however, get two turns back to back if you delay your turn.
Personally I think it's much easier to buy two +10% crit wands (no need for savescumming) and then use spells with Savage Sortilage to crit. A human with Hothead, high Wits and flame runes already has a decent chance to crit without having to invest points into suboptimal choices like weapon skills. And you can increase that with gear adding to crit chance. Raising scoundrel after investing 2-3 points in any school you need would be a priority, most definitely.
The problem with weapon skills that their scaling is additive not multiplicative like that of warfare or elemental school damage. (You can easily test that by playing around with the stats a bit in front of the speccing mirror.) So it's best to avoid them as long as you have better things to do with your skill points. On a caster I would neglect weapon skills altogether, it's more beneficial to max one or two elemental schools plus scoundrel and maybe respec before certain fights.

I haven't calculated how weapon skills scale, but two-handed is a no brainier (and too OP compared to the other weapon skills, if you ask me.) because of the +crit damage on top of the regular damage increase. Damage wise, two handed skill is better than scoundrel by a huge margin, so it's anything but sub-optimal.

Also, investing in elemental skills forces you to use a single element for the benefit. A staff with two handed skill allows you to use any elemental type with equal proficiency. I just haven't been able to justify doing it, because of that.

But the Wits build will have less damage than a full damage stat build. But the point is to have the flexibility. Being able to swap between magic and physical damage types is hugely beneficial, especially when CCs are so finite, yet exceedingly important. Being able to utilize both magic armor and physical armor based CCs has proved very valuable.

Anyways, I'm not saying it's the best build around. But it's fun and flexible, and relies on a stat that most people claim is worthless.

As for double turns, I haven't figured out what causes it, but I usually get 1 or two per fight, and it never happens outside of me having an insanely high Wits character.

No, you don't need an optimal build to have fun in the game. As for the double turns: a lot of people claimed to get double turns on occasion with high wits, but afaik this has not been confirmed by Larian. Are you playing solo or are you running two lone wolf characters?

I'm running 2 characters.

I'm yet to see this with my two lone wolf characters. But maybe their wits is not yet high enough.

I can confirm now that you don't get double turns with extremely high wits. I think people claming this probably don't notice enemies delaying their turns or spending their turn on recovering from effects (e.g. knockdown, frozen, petrified etc.)

You are probably right. But it's something I never saw happen until I had very high Wits. Maybe when you have the last turn of the round, there is some sort of Initiative penalty the next round, which high Wits overcomes.

I've been trying out a little different Wits build lately, which has been working very well. This time, it's more of an evasion build, though.

I was playing around with evasion builds, and ultimately the main issue I was running into, was the stupidly small range of leadership. My solution to the problem, was to use ranged weapons so that you can remain grouped together; but the problem with that, is you need to dual wield to get the Parry Mastery bonus, and also the +10% bonus from having 10 dual wield. But there is a ranged weapon you can dual wield...wands! So I made a leadership character who is a tank, and the other 3 characters dual wield with wands. With some decent leadership gear on the tank, and +dodge gear on the others, it's very easy to get over 80% dodge, as well as the huge resistance bonus from leadership. The dodge characters all wear mage armor to beef up their magic armor. I waited until level 8 to go with this build, since before then having the leadership character as DD seemed far more valuable.

So far it has been pretty interesting. Wands are a little low on the damage side, but allow for some extra CC (I like to use rain + air wands to shock.). But the dodging is outrageous!

The main reason I'm sticking to a Wits build instead of going Int, is because I can increase scoundrel instead of leveling a specific element, and thus can use any type of wand (otherwise shopping is an even greater nightmare than it already is with this build.).

It's actually easier to buy two wands with 10% critical chance each than to get a staff with 20%. Also, while dual wielding wands it's much better to use spells (with savage sortilage) so after you got some nice wands you don't have to shop for them at every single level-up, as you're not using them as weapons anyway.

I'd never go for an evasion build though. Too defensive for minimal offensive bonus considering the additive nature of weapon skills. I'd just take Aero 2 with all party members for Uncanny Evasion, Nether Swap and Teleport. Helps with issues.

IMO with a wizard putting 2-3 points in any elemental skill is enough. Maybe 5 in one or two disciplines later, if you want to use the 3 source point skills. Otherwise the rest should go into scoundrel. But upping crit chance is also possible with gear, especially as fire runes grant INT bonuses too. So I'd max INT before going for WIT.

I guess compared to physical weapon damage wands fare even worse than staves, their damage being reduced twice with each shot by elemental resistances. Bows or two handers have a much higher damage output, and they will do full damage. As you progress in the game most enemies will have at least 20% resistance to all elements making casters weaker than physical damage dealers overall. I still like having one caster around for CC and to deal with massive physical armor foes.

Nice! That's the missing piece I didn't think of!

You'd miss out on 10% evasion from dual wielding spec (I don't see the point in keeping it if you are not using the wands for damage), but that's such a huge investment for such little bonus, anyways. But you'd still get the bonus from Parry Mastery.

I think the best part of it is the lack of need to upgrade gear as often.

I think this is a pretty nice build, because aside from the crazy range limitations, Leadership is a pretty strong skill. My characters are all at 50%+ resistances across the board, and without dual wield skill, would still be at 70%+ evasion. Yeah, you can buff your evasion, but that requires AP, memory slots, and they have cooldowns. Also, another side benefit is that because your characters are all together, they all get bonuses from your buffs, AoE heals, and Dome of Protection. True, they also all get hit by AoE spells, but they all get cut in half or more from resistances.

The interesting thing about the Wits build, is that it gives so much flexibility, and at least mid game, you'd be very strong with all spell circles (Since your damage would come from scoundrel.). In fact, after you max Scoundrel, you could then put points into Polymorph (to raise Wits or Int once crit chance is 100%), and this would allow you to continue increasing damage for all spell circles without having to specialize.

Well, the idea behind dual wielding wands without ever using them is having two items granting INT boni and additional crit chance which with savage sortilage also applies to spells.

Sure, your characters have evasion without using AP or memory slots but you're also severely crippling their attack capabilities. The best defense is offense in this game (a dead or cc-ed enemy won't harm you), so actively spending points on leadership feels like a waste. So does putting points in weapon skills on wizards. In fact it's questionable for physical characters as well as damage boni from warfare and scoundrel are multiplicative while weapon skills are additive. In general it's best to raise crit chance (hothead, gear, fire runes and maybe some WITs if you can spare them) and stay with scoundrel after maxing warfare.

With wizards there is obviously no need for warfare (unless you're a necromancer), but apart from maxing INT you will need those attribute points for memory more than you need WITs.

Without item boni you can only add a maximum of 30 WITs to a character which is only +30% crit chance. Hothead (10) + quality weapon (20) + other crit gear (avg 10) already give you 40% at the cost of one talent point (assuming you have enough gold and patience to buy the items), without limiting your attack capabilities. Remember, WITs only increases the chance to crit but not the actual damage. STR / FIN / INT respectively increase your damage which is why it's better to max them before raising WITs.

IMO increasing WITs is more important for having at least one character in control of a battle immediately. And of course it's a must have for glass cannons, otherwise they never get to act

Well, like I said, the Wits build is not necessarily the best build around. Its main purpose is flexibility.

It allows you to spec into scoundrel and get more damage benefits from it. Because of the way stats work, the extra crit sort of evens out the lack of Int.

And I don't know if I agree with the best defense being a good offense. Surely this is the case in more nominal difficulty fights. But when you're in those really difficult fights, especially if you are fighting something above your level, your characters can die very fast. Having 50% extra magic resistance and 70%+ dodging can be a life saver in those fights.

I think most people have adopted the heavily offensive strategy because of the way tanks fail in this game. But with a leadership build, oddly enough your tank (leadership character) becomes your squishiest character.

I'm not going to try and argue that this is the best build or anything. But trying to say that it is an inferior build, is simply irony, when you are comparing it to a casting build. Anything that doesn't include very large swords or crossbows, is an inferior build, honestly.

Another build I had some fun with, was a dual sword evasion build, without leadership. The dodging was only 50-60%, and the damage was less than a two hand or ranged build, but that dodge was pretty handy!

Well, that's exactly what I was talking about. As there are so many other options to raise your critical chance apart from raising WITs you can put points into scoundrel regardless. And the extra crit chance from putting points into WITs at the expense of your damage dealing ability does not get evened out.

E.g. this is the damage formula the game uses for a two hander:

[base weapon damage] * (1 + 0.05 * (STR + Two-Handed)) * (1+0.05* Warfare) * (1 + [if crit](0.5 + 0.05 * Scoundrel + 0.05 * Two-Handed)

calculation of crit chance: 0.01 * (WITs - 10) + [if hothead] 0.1 + [if human] 0.05 + 0.01 * [gear crit chance]

As far as I can tell [if crit] gets only calculated once for an ability, even if it involves multiple hits (e.g. Onslaught)

From the formula it's easy to see, that the most optimal way of character progress should look like this:
1. buy the best weapon you can find at each new level
2. max Warfare
3. max STR, get enough memory for your skills then put any leftover points into WITs
4. max Two-Handed put leftover points into Scoundrel

With a wizard build the picture changes slightly:
[spell base damage] * (1 + 0.05 * INT) * (1+0.05* elemental skill) * (1 + [if crit](0.5 + 0.05 * Scoundrel + [if high ground](0.2 + 0.05 * Huntsman)

calculation of crit chance: [if savage sortilage](0.01 * (WITs - 10) + [if hothead] 0.1 + [if human] 0.05 + 0.01 * [gear crit chance])

So here it's easy to see that in order to maximize damage you should technically maximize your favourite elemental skill. However, this would also make you relatively inflexible as you will encounter enemies with 100+ resistance to your chosen element. So it's best to create the build this way:

1. make sure you have enough Memory to have a nice assortment of spells from multiple schools
2. put 2-3 points into magic skills, maybe 5 in one or two
3. max INT
4. put the rest of the points into huntsman if you can stick to high ground
5. if you can see in advance that you won't be able to utilize high ground boni (e.g. upcoming indoor battle), respec into scoundrel
6. put leftover attribute points into WITs

The thing is, I only play on tactician and even on tactician you could still get by with inferior builds, especially after reaching Driftwood. So you can just play whatever character you like, even one who maxes out Leadership and Dual-Wielding and uses wands to deal damage. But no, this guy is not the optimal solution for this game.

As far as tanks go there is no such a thing as a tank in this game, due to the fact that there are no skills other than provoke to make an enemy attack a specific character. In fact, if you want to make a tank, it's probably best to make him a glass cannon and give him tons of CON and huge armor boni as the AI is programmed to go for the weakest link. Glass cannon would just put a large "hit me" sign on his back

I think I already had some suggestions regarding defensive abilities. Aero 2 with Uncanny Evasion (1AP), Teleport (2AP), Nether Swap (1AP) are possibly the best utilities in the game. You could also use Smoke Cover (1AP) or Chameleon Cloak (1AP).

However, I think the biggest problem with your party equipped with wands is that it's lacking cc capabilities. With wands you cannot utilize Battle Ram, Battle Stomp, Crippling blow and the rest of Warfare. Neither can you use special arrows for knockdowns / stuns / charms. And they do way less damage than any other weapon. This I think is the primary reason you feel you need more defense.

This game gives you plenty of abilities to incapacitate an enemy if you can't kill them outright. Not using these can certainly make life difficult.

Well, the desire for defense didn't come from me using wands. I used wands as a way to create a good evasion party.

In fact, huddling close together for the Leadership aura made me notice another great benefit - Thick of the Fight would be a 40% damage increase. But now this makes me wonder how strong a 4 crossbow party would be, lol.

As far as CC's go, I actually have a plethora of them without having warfare and archery CC's. I'm already going to be focusing on magic armor, so it makes a lot of sense to use magic armor based CC's. I have +3 summoning on all characters because I really like Dominate Mind (Chicken is arguably better because of thew lower AP cost and only requiring 1 skill rank, but Dominate Mind is long range, and gets 2 turns worth of attacks from the charmed character.), I have Chloroform, Petrifying Visage, and I have Freezing/Stun. I'm thinking of dropping the Dominate Mind because of the AP cost, and because I can CC just fine without and do damage at the same time, with other methods.

What I'm trying to decide right now, is what to do with Elemental Affinity. Ideally I'd like to have good synergy between my 3 mages, and make the best use of them being close together. I know Searing Daggers is a good way to throw down some easy fire. What are some other skills (Not just fire but all affinities) that are good for setting up elemental affinity? I know Flesh Sacrifice is good for Necromancer...

A 4 xbow party would definitely be much stronger, although I like having one party member with high STR to carry vendor trash.

I used to use Dominate Mind until I figured charm arrows were much easier to handle. Dominate Mind comes at a horrible AP cost without actually doing damage and sometimes charmed enemies don't contribute to the combat in any meaningful way. Some enemies are also scripted to do certain things which overrides charm altogether. In more difficult fights it's easier to use maggot grenades, but otherwise charm arrows or stun arrows work wonders and they're ultra cheap to make. Knockdown arrows are more expensive but still more useful than chicken which has a very limited range. Also, there are just too many enemies with Walk it Off to get two turns out of them. Hence I rather use special arrows for 2AP with normal damage and cc capabilities.

More on elemental affinity e.g. in this thread.

Yeah, I was planning on trying love grenades instead of Dominate Mind.

As far as Elemental Affinity goes, Fire just seems a given, since it's so easy to get surfaces going for low AP. Geomancer sounds like an easy way to get surfaces as well, using Flesh Sacrifice, but the problem is fire + geo is majorly lacking in CC. I'm leaning towards starting with fire to DD away magic armor, and then electrifying blood and switching to air skills to inflict stun. But then again, with all the dodge and resistances, maybe I don't need to worry about CC as much

Geo is not lacking cc. Fossil Strike and Impalement are awesome as they don't even require you to rid the enemy of magic armor. Also, they will even slow them down if you cast them in combination with fire traps -- which they technically shouldn't do, as all the oil is supposed to explode instantly, right? Worm Tremor prevents characters from moving or teleporting for 2 turns and Earthquake knocks down enemies in a very large radius. IMO geo is the most versatile school for cc Also, both of the latter only affect enemies, which is extra useful.

Fire sucks at cc, that's for sure, except for Fire Whip which has a very limited range. A very situational spell sadly.

Air damage is problematic, as it is pretty easy to stun your own party members if they stand in the same puddle of water or blood. Also, there is no reliable way to make elemental affinity work with Aero.

If you like using summons though, you might want to consider Cursed Electric Infusion. If your summons are the only ones in melee range, this is probably the easiest way to stun groups of enemies without hurting your party members. Your incarnate would then get Closed Circuit and Electric Discharge for free.

I was excited about Earthquake CC, until I realized it's resisted by Physical Armor...seriously?

I also noticed one flaw with my dodge build, and that's that magic enemies gang up big time on my Leadership character, because everyone else is wearing robes and thus have significantly higher magic armor. I think what I will need to do is put him in Finesse armor only, and with a masterful rune in his necklace that should hopefully do the trick.

The other problem is that all the friendly fire damage hits the leadership character much harder.

Granted, this was mainly a problem because I was fighting enemies 2 levels above me, but technically that's the point of this build - to be able to survive in the hardest of fights.

What I think I might try next, is going air. A couple of my characters have stun immunity on items, and I could probably find a couple more. Then I could take advantage of Elemental Affinity by casting an electric spell on water or blood (Rain or Flesh Sacrifice). I know electric discharge can be ground targeted. Yeah, it's an extra AP to set up than other elements, but only 1 character needs to set it up to benefit the others.

As a secondary element, I could go Hydrosophist. Then I'd have stun + freeze + petrify which is a good amount of CC. I would also have Cryogenic Stasis to keep my leadership character alive in tight spots (I tested it, and Leadership aura still applies.). The problem with Hydrosophist is the damage is fairly lacking, and there aren't many spells, so I may run out of things to cast.

Maybe air + geo would be a good combo, because I could turn the electrified pool into poison. But ultimately, I'd probably prefer to lead with Geo spells, since I could stun them with air spells once magic armor is gone.

Eventually I plan to make my Leadership character a summoner, since that would go well with his high Con build. But probably not until I can make Champion incarnates, which is probably not a reasonable expectation until level 15+ or so (With the help of +summoning items).

Guess, its another of these cases, where the armor system shows, how much it disable the crossclassing, for which the first game was famous. Same goes for chloroform, which is a scoundrel skill that effects magic armor, thought most of scoundrel checks with physical armor. Or Medusas Head which does magic damage and inflicts petrify, but scales with strength and is close range. Or about 80% of all special arrows. So in general those skills are only usefull, when you know, that you will be able to CC. The damage itself is hardly important. I can imagine, a warrior with earth quake would be an even more unstoppable cc machine, than he already is. That earthquake also can apply slow makes it even stronger, I guess.

The problem with hydro & air is the simple fact, that those are pretty low damage class therefore taking down magic armor is a real chore. Hydro-air got as much screwed by the armor system, as by loved aero-rogue got. Also electrified surfaces are less reliable, because they discharge easier and are low on damage anyway. Fire poison/oil still has the huge 'blow everything up' bonus regarding damage.

Not sure about your idea with air and geo, those classes offer no real synergy as far as I know. Contamination kills all the electrifiable surfaces and increases change of friendly fire, not to mention, that all undeads would love poison.

This is exactly why I like geo. Most of its skills will be resisted by magical armor but if you find yourself surrounded by wizards with zero physical armor earthquake is the way to go.

Not sure about the warrior-earthquake combo. Warfare already grants enough cc skills that are resisted by physical damage and they will scale with Warfare and STR.

I have never had too much use for Hydro other than using Armor of Frost from scrolls or memorizing some damaging spells specifically against opponents with water weakness.

I use Aero almost exclusively for utility.

Then again, I never tried using a 4-man mage party before as the OP is suggesting. Might go for that in my next playthrough as a different type of challenge.