Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity Original Sin - Help/Tips/Tricks Mixed Spec Mage, Few Magic Questions

I'm running a two-hander + witch/geomancer setup aimed at warrior delivering immense single target and AoE damage while witch is buffing him with damage, summoning minions and crowd controlling / damaging at distance.

I find it pretty hard to overcome difficulties like firefields or static clouds or poison pools as I have no ranger with elemental arrows nor an elemental mage. I do my best to stock up the appropriate scrolls but scrolls are finite and sometimes not available at vendors.

So I was pondering -is having a mixed spec mage worth it? I was thinking of investing 1 point into fire, air and water to be able to use fireball (or any other fire aoe spell), rain and tornado. And some other useful spells.

I was thinking to go high Geo because of the powerful summons (lvl 13 bloodswarm and lvl 16 or 17 earth elemental, if I remember correct). Also, the description of levelling magical skills is a bit vague - does investing into them decrease the AP needed to cast all spells of that type or it only removes the penalty for not having a high enough skill level?

And does the skill level of the summon in fact reflect the power of the summoned creature? So a Skill Level 8 Summon Wolf > Skill Level 7 Summon Undead Warrior?

Finally, currently there's not much data on the D:OS wiki some skill descriptions are missing. Could anyone explain (or point me to the source of information) just what Death Punch and Soul Sap do so I could figure if I want them in my build?

You can invest 1 point in all four magic spells so that you can take advantage of all environmental hazards. Or you can do what I do, and just keep a few elemental staves in your inventory. It doesn't matter if your air staff does worthless damage. It still electrocutes puddles just fine.
You only reduce/eliminate the action point penalty. You can never reduce the action point cost below the default for the spell.
A little bit, but summons increase in level with you. So the level you gain the summon is more about playstyle and the theme of the school.

Bring someone with tornado?

In the beginning it will be hard no matter what you do.

1 map is hard no matter what, and sometimes half of second map is too. But once you reach level 13
you just bulldoze everything no matter where you have put your points.

Just remember dont take twohanded if you plan on taking a tennebrium weapon on because then those points will just be wasted. learned that the hard way sadly

And take dust devil in the beginning because you cant buy that in the game.

There are only few useful Talents for mages - just don't spend these talents and you can trade them for 10 Ability points each and have a great caster that has access to every school of magic.
Imo Earth is the worst school of magic. Every class has their Elementals (Skeletons for Witchcraft), but their damage spells are relatively weak because the enemies mid-lategame often have high poison resistance. Basically you could only take Bless + Summon Spider and move on.

The summons scale with your level: http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/...;browsefilter=myfiles&view=imagewall

Deathpunch deals a ton of non-elemental damage (~1000).
Soulsap will add almost every debuff effect on the target that does not count as a status effect, including -50% resistance vs everything (elemental + regular damage).

Yeah, I've noticed that shooting with my air staff stuns people standing in blood. Is it possible to shoot with a water staff with that basic intial skill on a fire surface and extinguish the flames? I think that even if it is, it seems pretty tedious at best as the radius of the attack is pretty small.



Thanks! Is there a way to determine just how high my skill has to be to eliminate the penalty? I haven't found any clear statements on that point in the game.



Yeah, but doesn't "Skill Level" reflect the power of the spell? I figured that would be the ultimate way of finding the most powerful summoned creature.

Thanks for the tips! I cannot bring 'someone with Tornado' as I have two Lone Wolves. I've already taken Dust Devil when I started the game, I'm currently level 9. Whirlwind is much more powerful though, however while I still have free skill slots I'm using both. I've no idea what Tenebrium weapon is (in case you're going to explain don't spoil too much, please), but you can just respec your points, can't you?

Nice screenshots, thanks! Would be interesting to also have a look at the undead summons.

Well, I'm not supposed to know about that talent-AP trade as a new player, am I?
True, the school doesn't seem very powerful, but I'm only using Boulder Bash at the moment. I was using Summon Spider but found Summon Undead Warrior and started using it instead. I was thinking to only keep Boulder, some other spell (not Bless probably, as I have enough Offence Rating, no misses at all) and a summon as I thought that Geo has the most powerful summons (due to Skill Levels of Blood Swarm and Earth Elemental).

Remember when you unlock the room with the teller of secrets to buy 2 tomes she has every level.

Its about 10 attribute points and like 30 skillpoints if you do it each level.

Wasnt that changed with the last patch so you can only buy those books from er once?

No. I have the latest patch and I bought the books from her several times since I started playing today.

But it really should be once. My OCD cannot handle missing points, and literally started over just so I could get access to the Teller of Secrets at Level 4.

Level 4?! Where is she?

http://www.larian.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=522103&#Post522103
Wrote this post just for you

Thanks a lot mate!

I'm getting really disappointed in Geo and the points I put into it. I heard there's a way to respec in Homestead, how many Stars do I need for it? And I also heard you're losing all the skills forever, is that so?

7 Stars unlocks the Respec.
You forget all your skills, and have to go buy skill books again. You should have MORE than enough gold to afford them, but some skills (Dust Devil, Whirlwind, Lightning Bolt) are almost impossible to find.

Geo is underwhelming. Too many things are poison resistant, but maybe Geo will get a little love in future patches. It's not a bad set of skills, but its utility peaks pretty early.

I daresay game is pretty unforgiving in terms of wrong builds.

I went for geo/pyro/witch character. I liked the poison fire explosion combo and the end game bosses can all be poisoned. So in my opinion geo alone may be underwhelming but in combination with pyro it is pretty damn effective.