Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity - Original Sin - General End game weapon skill balance (Spoilers)

Well lets face it, it is lame. And if you don't like it, the simple solution is to download a cheat engine table and just convert your 1h/2h/bow/xbow level in to Tenebrium once it feels appropriate to do so.

@Casta
I did say that the premise Tenebrium weapons are your ultimate weapons is debatable. Of course it's not necessary. I can play the game with white weapons and no armor if I wanted to. For the people who like to maximize their numbers though, Tenebrium weapons are the best choice.

Say you sharpened your cleaver and added an elemental essence, the most you can improve a regular weapon. It's at 100-200 slashing, 40-80 Fire. With 1-handed mastery at 5, your potential is 210 - 420, avg 315.

Now you add Tenebrium. This means the weapon is at 100-200 slashing, 40-80 fire, 40-80 Tenebrium. Assuming you maxed Tenebrium to 5 and got the quest which gives you +1 Tenebrium, your potential is now 288 - 576, avg 432.

With how weapon mastery works, I'm not sure how you can buff one class and nerd another. Like LordOfBones said, it's more the talents being unbalanced

Actually the simple solution is to abuse the ability by using it exclusively. This mechanic only punishes the people who didn't know better and invested in the normal weapon abilities.

It's a better weapon ability (since it doesn't discriminate on weapon type, and you get a free bonus from quest) for better weapons (see my post to Casta about the numbers).

There is also a Book in the geomancer's shop that gives one char +1 Tenebrium. Add another +1 from your gear and your Warrior can get an average damage of >1000 per hit (unbuffed!).

Thanks forgot that one

But yeah it's easy to get 5+ Tenebrium without even adding +Tenebrium gear whereas with regular weapon abilities you don't get that

yes, obviously ignoring weapon skills until tenebrium is the way to go. that is not rocket science.

however, this is a 1 player game. a player who does not come to the forums and do extensive research about his entertainment should not end up punished by stupid game mechanics.

its a bad design, period. you start off with selective weapon skills forcing specialization. then magically later on tenebrium appears that covers all weapons with 1 skill while rendering all of those points completely wasted.

there is no way you can spin that where it is a good game design.

the only possible excuse could be if it were intended to be a money sink to force a respec cost. however, with the enormous pain of acquiring skill books that is not an acceptable excuse.

I am not. I personally think this is poor design. I'm just responding to BlackMarch who seems to be suggesting that a character editor is the solution to this problem.

Here are the changes I'd like to see:
1. Rot now comes in various strengths. The highest possible strength is 5, which means you take 5 Tenebrium damage per tick. Also, the rot in the Immaculate Trial now varies according to difficulty: Rot 1 for Easy, Rot 2 for Normal, Rot 3 for Hard.
2. The Tenebrium ability itself doesn't increase damage at all; instead, its sole function is to mitigate Rot. So if you have Rot 4 and Tenebrium 3, you only take 1 Tenebrium damage per tick, instead of 4. Additionally, each point provides 5% Tenebrium resistance. It is reclassified as a Defense ability. The damage ability for the actual weapon in question (ex: One-Handed) would always apply.
3. When crafting Tenebrium weapons, you can add Tenebrium Bars to the weapon up to 5 times. Each time increases the Tenebrium damage further (7% of base physical damage per bar), but also increments its Rot index (up to 5). You need both Tenebrium and Crafting equal to the level you are going up towards in order to make the new weapon (so for Rot 5 you'd need Tiberium 5 and Crafting 5). No weapon would have a Tenebrium skill requirement to equip, merely a suggestion (assuming you don't like being inflicted with Rot).
4. Being struck with a Tenebrium weapon has a chance of inflicting Rot on the being struck, equal to the Rot of that weapon.
5. When you get the Tenebrium ability from Brandon, it adds one hard point to your Tenebrium abilities, not one boost point. That means the second point would cost 2 ability points, not one.
6. The book in the Geomancer's shop is renamed "Advanced Tiberium Use" or something similar, and adds one boost point to Tenebrium, but does not unlock the skill for further development; you'll have to get the ability from Brandon if you want to invest ability points in it.
7. Weapons cannot roll the Tenebrium ability (ex: +1 Tenebrium; of course they can still be Rot 4 or whatever). Other gear slots can.
8. Tenebrium itself (ore, bars) is Rot 5. Using the Blood Stone case is highly recommended.

I must say that I am quite surprised how the game suddenly introduces a new weapon type late in the game, completely making all other points invested in bows/crossbows/one handed/two handed useless.
Now one could go for a respec, but that would mean losing all skills.

Without reading through the entire thread, I completely agree with the OP and I hope Larian will fix this huge mistake.

@ScrotieMcB

I don't think 5 per tick is really punishing enough. I have no problem throwing a heal spell every now and then so that I don't have to sink 15 points into a skill. Maybe 5% of your life

@Gotcha!

Glad you agree, how would you want Larian to fix it?

It's a lot more punishing than what we have now.

Maybe make it an all-or-nothing thing. Ex: Tenebrium 5 would prevent Rot 5 completely, but Tenebrium 4 wouldn't do anything. Then you could balance whatever damage numbers you need to in order to make it effective; perhaps it would be (Rot number * level), in which case Rot 5 on a level 18 character would do 90 per turn. You'd probably notice that, even with 1600 Life.

Oh woe is me ... atm my skill is either too low or it's not even possible to enhance blunt or staves weapons with tenebrium. So poor Jahar, which I refrained from upgrading has all these points to spend, but I can't even get him a tenny staff! I'll just make him a pure mage then and just skill up his water & air, I was thinking that he would make a good witch & I already looted a bunch of witchy skill books that no one in my band of miscreants can even read.

I don't think staves can get Tenebrium'd.