Larian Studios Forums Divinity II The Dragon Knight Saga / Flames of Vengeance (English) Divinity II - The Dragon Knight Saga My thoughts on mixed character builds.

It seems to me that if your character build is highly mixed, you better have some high-class manual skills to back it up. However, if you simply go with the flow and be a true warrior-class with warrior skills, mage-class with mage skills, the battles will feel alot smoother...



But I often find that boring! lol. Right now, I'm doing something that is mainly a warrior but with a hint of an archer. I like how I poison my enemies before I bash their skulls! So sneaky and clever.



What about you guys?

I discovered after many hours of playing, and try other builds, that a Priest build I like very much & one time I played an almost pure Priest ... but in some way not what I find the most funny way to go to the end of FoV.
After that I tried a Ranger Priest & a Mage Priest. On this moment I'm playing a Warrior Priest ! (just reached level 11 this morning )

I thought this will be a real challenge, but in turns to be not bad, not bad at all !! And I play on nightmare .
The combination of warrior with priest skills plays fantastic smooth and is o so big fun !!! ...

Smooth, but so far never one moment boring !
For example : Rush Attack an enemy I choose carefully and immediately Charm it or Blind it ! So fun to look at the effects !

Also know that it's still a dangerous situation IF I do NOT plan a good strategy each time again AND when the fight begin I never forget to accomplish my plan(s), be open minded to change the plan if it turns out to be "a not so good plan" and always be careful & patient . Better save (read as: better jump out of the fight and run, with or without using Hide in Shadows) than sorry (die & reload) Sometimes even a healing potion is to late, so better evade the battlefield and prepare myself for a next move !

I start to believe this Warrior Priest (Wirlpriesly, female hero) is my Ultimate Build,
but who knows what will be the next that comes of it ?

I switched to a pure tank build right now. I'm at level 8.

I'll keep everyone updated about him.

In my first playthrough I went with a Ranger with some priestly skills like Hide in Shadows, which is an excellent skill to have in tough battles with lots of enemies. While invisible you can heal, summon your creature, etc., so I always try to get a few points in that. I have to thank Joram for telling me what a good skill that is.

I'm on my second playthrough now on Hard, at level 42 now in FoV.I started out trying to be a straight mage with a few priestly skills, but you don't really have a lot of good offensive spells there and they take a while to develop. So I found as the game progressed I was once again picking up more Ranger skills like splitting and exploding arrows.

But you frequently get into close quarters fights where it's good to have some melee ability so I put a few points in dual-wielding and thousand strikes, which is one of the best offensive skills in the warrior tree, particularly in boss fights.

So overall I found that, for me, it was best to go with a mixed character build because none of the skill trees like warrior, mage, etc., really give you enough if you just pursue one exclusively. Even a level 10 fireball with max destruction and way of the battle mage won't do that much to enemies at higher levels. And while some of the warrior skills are good I found that all too often I would start out fighting one or two opponents only to get quickly overwhelmed when four or five more join in.

So most of the time in crowded fights I thin the numbers out and weaken the remainder with ranged skills, fireballs, exploding arrows, etc, then finish them off with melee weapons and thousand strikes. And, to buy time, I use hide in shadows and summon demon. I found that my creature and my demon together can tie up a lot of bad guys while I hang back and rain down fireballs and exploding arrows, but if I get rush attacked I can always quickly switch to melee mode.

In DKS I found that, particularly at higher difficulty levels, versatility is better than specialization. You need a few options to deal with different kinds of battles, and since a lot of the skills don't do much I found that carefully picking and choosing saved a lot of time and frustration. It's a very different game than a game like DA:O where you have so many options available within particular skill trees, not just a fireball, but an inferno, not just winter's grasp but a blizzard or even storm of the century. What I wouldn't give for just one good area effect skill in DKS, like electrocuting four or five bad guys in one go, but that lack of skills makes DKS a lot more challenging, your'e on your own, with less options, and you have to put more thought into a lot of things, and that's one of the things that really hooked me on DKS.

I dunno, pure builds can be pretty strong. My warrior ended up doing around 3,000 damage with some hits. My mage had some pretty strong one hit spells (as well as a counter attack that activated and killed some weak enemies whenever they attacked him) and my ranger is pretty strong without any spells or warrior abilities. It's all about the charms that you put in your equipment, if you use the highest charms (the ones that give 5+ statistic points - Divine charms) then you can create a pretty strong character but the trouble is finding them.

Also finding the best "Enchantments" and place them on your favorite equipment makes your hero more powerful !
I never found many of +5 Divine Charms, but honestly I also never reloaded for better stuff in chests, by quest rewards or whatever.

Offtopic, but I wish to share a personal comment I with you about "reloading for better stuff" :
I take the loot like it comes, that's for me part of a "roleplay element" ... because in some way, reloading is like "cheating" ...

And what's more :
When I never reload and then find a very nice piece in a chest, by quest reward or at a merchant
I am sooooo happy, happy like a child on Saint Nicholas day opening a box with LEGO bricks !!

And I know for myself that "reloading" will let the fun/pleasure melt away as snow in the sun ...

The only time I reloaded for better stuff was to try to extract some gems from malachite veins; even though I ended up with a surplus. One thing I noticed is that the content of the veins seemed to be determined when I entered an area, but I'm sure that previously it used to be the case when you looked at the vein itself, so maybe they changed something at some point. But other than that, I avoid doing that sort of thing (the only other habitual reload I remember doing was in Oblivion to get a more useful sigil stone so I didn't end up with a whole load of water walking enchantments...)

In terms of build, I seem to find I'm fairly haphazard and always end up with a bit of a "jack of all trades" type of character.

That's interesting, I haven't had any trouble finding charms. I'm most of the way through FoV on my 2nd playthrough and I have 17 divine charms on my armor, weapons and jewellery, and another 10 in storage. And just as many lesser charms.

I don't change weapons, armor, etc., very much. Once I find something that works well I stick with it. So since all items have no more than 3 charm slots I usually hold off adding charms until I have blessed or divine ones. But once everything has been charmed additional charms aren't much use.

While enchantments are good I've found that most good weapons you find have some enchantments. The problem with adding enchantments is finding the ingredients. I don't always have the patience to run around filling up my pack with every stone or plant in the area. And every time I send Tom, Dick or Harry out they just come back badly chewed up and I have to keep paying to heal them and equip them. I would personally much rather be out exploring than dealing with all that administrative stuff, so while I've done some enchanting and some alchemy it hasn't been a really big part of the game for me, perhaps if I do a playthrough on nightmare I will have to pay more attention to those parts of the game.

At the end of DKS I had 56 blessed and 61 divine charms.

Did you pay your trainer and enchanter to upgrade the runners? Better armour should help them be successful more often, and better weapons helps them return with more stuff.

Whoah.

I know charms are very cool and useful but I didn't know you guys had such high dependence on them! I equip myself with as much charms as possible and, I remember finishing Ego Draconis many times being able to collect only 5 or 6 total divine charms, and I have yet to recieve any charms above 5+.

I didn't actually use any charms, I just bought blessed/divine ones sometimes when they showed up at merchants (because early in the game I thought they could came in handy later, and mid to late game because I had lots of loot/gold to trade with) and kept any that I got from loot.

In the original release of D2:ED I collected 8 blessed and 8 divine charms.

Charms in Ego Draconis only dropped from certain bosses, which is why they were rare. They're more common in DKS.

I tend to use more pure character builds to maximize power. DKS encourages this by having three separate power attributes that don't really mesh well together. You don't get a lot of benefit to weapon damage from pumping both Strength and Dexterity, as different weapons only take one into account.

Why not? I use them. I just don't get alot of them since I play Ego Draconis. lol.

It'll take a while before I decide to install my Flames of Vengeance.

Early in the game I didn't want to 'waste' any charms on equipment that could get replaced soon, so hung onto charms figuring I could use them if I ran into any problems. There were a couple times I used stat/armour potions before tough fights, but I didn't need more than a temporary bonus.

When I got to level 15, unlike earlier levels I didn't really have a good sense of where best to put the stat points, so just stuck them somewhere. Level 16 I was in the middle of a section of combat, so left them unassigned, level 17 I figured I should wait until my character started showing some weakness or vulnerability and then distribute stat points accordingly. By level 18/19 I was wondering how long I could go without using any more stat points... which turned out to be level 47 (ie the rest of the game).
Playing on nightmare and not using any stat points after level 15, it just seemed silly to start using charms.

I upgraded my runners but they would still keep asking for more. And you have to pay to heal them. It seemed to be a kind of a black hole. Essentially your'e paying a very high price for a few potions and enchantments in order to save the hassle of gathering materials. But I think it would have been better to just have the option to buy ingredients from merchants if you want to avoid gathering, rather than going through all that time-consuming hassle of going to your skill trainer and blacksmith to equip them, then going to your alchemist to heal them when they still come back chewed up and demanding more. The game makes you pay a pretty stiff price for the luxury of having servants go and get materials, but they could have accomplished that just by having specialty merchants charge a premium price for those materials. That whole aspect of the game seemed a little overcomplicated.

I have to say that after reading some of the responses in this thread I'm tempted to try a 3rd playthrough with a pure character build, just for the challenge. And do it on Nightmare.The replayability of this game is one of it's best features. I'm up around 275 hours now almost at the end of my 2nd playthrough but I don't think I have really come close to exhausting all the possibilities DKS offers.

There are 3 levels of upgrades for the runners.

Runners and Tower ? / Very low success rate with Fanny Blossom?

You can buy some ingredients from merchants, but their inventories only reset once each time you level, so you can't build up a huge supply that way. If you collect minerals and plants as you explore, the runners and merchants can fairly easily fill in any ingredients you may be lacking, but if not, trying to get by on just runners or merchants.

I a previous playthrough I upgraded only the herb runner because I take all points in Master Herbalist at that time and then I was fast making money money money !!
... makes the world go round

Fast money you say? All I do for that is to overload myself with diamonds and malachite ores and sell sell sell.

And my first priority whenever I get the battle tower is to get all three of my men fully armed as soon as possible.

Yes, fast money via making potions. It really is a money maker, believe it or not, that's all up to you

Did you know a level 5 statpotion (strengh/dext or int) is worth 136 gold, level 8 gives 226 and level 10 gives 286 gold! That's all more than a Malachite Ore (40 gold, right?) and a Diamond gives 180 gold selling it.
If you invest in skill Master Herbalist you need only :
Level 5 potion: 1 Black Rose ; Level 8 potion: 1 Dragon Nail ; Level 10 potion: 1 Fanny Blossom
Okay, then you must invest in Master Herbalist, but skillpoints enough, no ? And yewellery items with a boost to Master Herbalist could be found/bought too .

Without Master Herbalist you need many more ingredients making potions ! But upgrading your Alchemy platform also lowers the amount of ingredients needed for making potions !
The Allan Brew is worth around 250 gold pieces and you can spend all your Holy Basil & Wisperwoood herbs on them .
But it's all up to you of course .

I like it to be a Master Herbalist ... and I buy all herbs I can find by merchants from start to finish (on my current playthrough) ... they don't cost much gold, but give you afterwards a coin purse you can't lift anymore ... (I remember on level 30 I had at least 250 000 goldcoints and upgraded all three runners - total cost 14 000 x 3 >>> 42 000 gold - and train different skills up to level 15 ).

But in fact it's too many gold and for what or who ? So I'm not planning to do a "collecting gold mania" ever again . If I really need money ... I make money selling potions and other loot, but otherwise ...