Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity - Original Sin - Enhanced Edition Enhanced Edition - The new MinMax builds?

Hey guys, big fan of the original game here and just about to start with the enhanced edition. Seems like such a polished game now! Big thumbs up for Larian!

I'm a big fan of finding synergies, min-maxing and optimizing builds etc. It usually means I spend more time reading the wiki and crunching numbers (which for me is fun!) than actually playing the game.
With so much new content though, and not having played in a long time, I'd appreciate some pointers of the new talents and skills.

1) Whats your experience with the strongest builds you've made? What makes it so good?

2) I usually preferred the lone wolf talent. Is it still a viable option?

3) What do you consider "overpowered" skills at the moment?
(In the original game I never played with the cheesy overpowered though, like the leech and comeback kid thing. But it's still good to know what's out there)

4) Which playstyle is weakest in your opinion?

I'm also wondering, in the Enhanced Edition; what are the extra skill/talent points you can gather and is it possible to miss any (that you cannot recover later on)?

And do you get them for both characters or can you choose which one to give them to?

My opinion on the Lone Wolf talent is that it IS viable still, but i would not recommend it to a min-maxer. Losing that second companion is too much of a loss. Lone Wolf basically does half the damage, has way less ability points to spend overall and is capable of doing less on the battlefield than what you could do with two characters. I would honestly only recommend Lone Wolf in case of a min-maxer for certain types of builds that need the extra ability points and/or HP on one character and won't care about losing the damage or is able to make up for it.

Can't really comment on overpowered builds as im still trying stuff too. All i know is that most info on the internet is outdated and almost nobody really has said anything about EE version.

Good topic to discus. Builders !

I still do not have the top build finished however here are my notes:
- there are no OP talents
- there are few useless talents
- glass-canon is over-nerfed

- dual wands are bad-ass
- dual weapons are badass especially on skill level 5

- the best skill ever is Rapture (high Int required)
- Winged feet skill is game changer
- elemental shield spells has been overnerfed
- school skill level 5 or 4 doesnt worth it, generaly.
- single point to a spell school has best reward -> best spend point

Da best group would be
- zombie&fire rezistent group
- 2 high Int mages (one for dual wands, second for staff)
- Madora (becouse of resist dead talent)

You can't go wrong min-maxing any build as long as it's not a Rogue. Rogues are useless for a good majority of the game, and spend a lot of their turns moving into position or waiting to strike instead of actually getting stuff done. They also make your other three characters take more damage, since the Rogue will be in Sneak most of the time. They simply don't do enough damage and don't attack often enough to make up for what you're sacrificing to have a Rogue on the team. Also, most of the Scoundrel skills are terrible.

Mages will want to get Intelligence to around 15, then focus on Speed and Constitution. Jahan is great as a crowd control mage with Aero and Hydro, and he gets stupidly overpowered late-game with the master skills in those categories. Storm, Chain Lightning, and Hail Attack come to mind. I also typically put one point into Man at Arms so he can use Helping Hand, because it is not dependent on Strength like the other Man at Arms skills. Since he's only mastering two schools of magic, you can put two points into Geo for the Magic Poison Dart skill (although the Petrify skills are also handy, and have Willpower saving throws instead of Bodybuilding). I usually give him some points in Blacksmithing and Crafting, but at this point, Crafting is much more important than Blacksmithing. The Rank 5 Blacksmithing weapons aren't anywhere near as good as found or bought weapons, but you can make some great stuff (skillbooks, charm arrows, etc) with Rank 5 Crafting. Give him a point in Blacksmithing for repairs and three points in Crafting, but keep a couple Crafting wearables in his backpack to boost it to Rank 5 when needed.

If you're going to make your own mage, I'd go with Pyro, Geo, and Witchcraft, with some Loremaster thrown in. All four characters having the Zombie talent will save your life countless times, and the Magic Poison Dart spell from Geo is a better Zombie healing spell than any actual Hydro healing spell. It heals instantly, puts a heal-over-time on the character, and you can use it every turn. You should have it on both of your mages. Until you get this skill, you should have Summon Spider and just bleed his poison after battles to heal your party. Witchcraft is great for the Undead Decapitator, Charm, Drain Willpower, and Soulsap. With enough Speed, you can use Drain Willpower and either Charm or Soulsap in the same turn, guaranteeing the Charm or Soulsap. Pyro is good for buffs and defensive spells like Wildfire, Smokescreen, Burn My Eyes, and Purifying Fire, but I honestly hardly ever use it offensively unless it's the Meteor Strike skill that you get late-game.

You can't go wrong with a fighter, as long as they use two-handed weapons. Sword-and-shield characters just aren't effective enough at tanking damage (with only one Taunt skill in the game) to sacrifice the damage you get from two-handers. Get Strength to 15 and buff Speed and Constitution as needed. With Zombie and high fire resistance, this character can pretty much do whatever they want. Throw some Pyro skills in there for some extra fun, such as walking around in your own self-immolation without taking any damage at all!

Bairdotr is great as an archer, and is the only character I feel comfortable having Glass Cannon. I always give her crossbows instead of longbows because the crits are where her damage is at. It's easy for Jahan to make plenty of special arrows for her, and I usually carry around 50-100 Poisoncloud Arrows because everyone has the Zombie talent. Just pick up an ooze barrel when you leave Cyseal to the west and combine the ooze barrel with arrowheads to create Poison Arrowheads, then combine the Poison Arrowheads together to make Poisonclouds. I also use the ooze barrel to make plenty of Large Poison Potions to distribute throughout the team. The Shrapnel Scatter master skill is kind of nice if you want her to be a bit of a loose cannon, but the Arrow Spray master skill is a must-have. You can one-shot many of the game's bosses with it if you're close enough, and it pairs nicely with Jahan's air elemental as long as he casts it on his first turn, because it can featherdrop Bairdotr into Arrow Spray distance of any enemy on the field. Give her some Scoundrel skills because she doesn't have anything else to put the points into.

The most effective min-maxed team makeup I've found is:

Geo-Pyro-Witchcraft Mage
Two-handed fighter
Jahan
Bairdotr

To answer some of your other questions, the only really "overpowered" skills I've encountered are the master magic skills, such as Meteor Strike, Earthquake, Storm, and Hail Attack, although Arrow Spray is also pretty OP. Most of the good talents got nerfed in the Enhanced Edition, so things like Leech and Guerilla aren't very helpful anymore. Zombie is a very underrated talent, and allows you to cheese a good deal of the game. Don't underestimate it. There are a lot of poison traps in the game, and during the Braccus Rex fight, the Lighthouse Ghoul can heal your entire party practically every round if you keep him alive til the end.

Lone Wolf is not viable. It's only helpful if you don't like managing four characters.

Thanks for the replies guys. I've decided to go with:

- 1 Lone wolf battlemage --> with Zombie & Demon talents
This will be a close up mage with touch spells for cheap AP cost, explode and self-immolation, and it's using the warrior skills primarily for Rage (+50% spell damage) and melee power stance (+20% spell damage).
Hybrid chars need the extra talent points from Lone wolf, and the higher hitpoints allow it to soak poison and fire damage for a longer time to heal.

- In the back will be 2 identical mages with Witchcraft and geomancy to throw poison at the main tank to heal him. They'll also both have the Stench talent to make the AoE tank more effective.
I've taken Jahan at the moment. Slightly modified him to get rid of the unwanted level up choices and make him the same as the main character mage. (This also meant I removed 1 attribute point from him which he had more for some reason)

So far it's going great in Tactician mode. I used to always play with 2 lone wolves, but having 1 strong main char and 2 support chars works wonders too.

I play the EE and I have an archer, a dual wielding warrior, Jahan and Madora.

A warrior with 5 points in dual wielding does very high damage. With your normal attack you do more damage with 3AP than a 2h weapon for 4AP. A dual wielder has also 2 weapons to enchant (tormented soul) to boost your stats even more. Fighters should put 1 point into air so they can teleport the enemy or jump to the enemy.

5 points in crafting and blacksmithing allows you to make weapons that do more damage than any weapon you can find. If you are dual wielding self crafted axes and use wheatstone, tenebrium and tormented soul on them, your damage gets really high.

Jahan has 4 points in fire, air, water and witchcraft and 24 int (I am lv 21 and do the source temple.) He can CC everything and his summons are also nice.

If you use the AOE attacks of the archer on a single enemy you get very high damage (party friendly and with huge range). Those special arrows are also nice.

I do not need to spend points in constitution. If you use CC, summons and lots of damage you will almost never get a hit (I play on normal). Only when my max AP went close to the AP I get per turn, I raised con. I focused on the primary stat of your skill (str or dex or int) and speed.

Good ways to start combat are to drop a summon between the enemies, charm one enemy or teleport one enemy to your fighter.


questions:
I never used zombie.
- Does raising your poison resistance increase or lower your healing?
- Do you bleed ooze?
- Are fire using enemies a big problem?
- Do NPC react to being a zombie?

Something different: Can you teleport enemies onto lava?

- you are harmed by healing spells, however you can create unlimited poison vials by an empty vial and ooze barel. Then combine two poisons makes a big healin potion for 2AP, laso you can heal others by a poison dart spell
- enemyeas do not read resistances so most enemys are healing you
- you need to apply fire essences to each end every item. Buy them whenever possible. Quite soon, most of your party are healed by the poison AND by flame.
- NPC do not react that you are zombie

Full fire-zombie party is current most cheesy play.

Let Ghoul-of-light-house heal you, Kill Twins. Teleport bone lord to Twins lava pool. Kill bracus. Finaly teleport Ghoul-the-healer to lava pool. Battle finished with full health. easy peasy.

Thanks for your answers.

with my first question I meant how much you are healed by poison.

example: Your poison dart does 100 poison damage.
- Do you get healed by 100 points if you are a zombie with 0% poison resistance?
- If you have 50% poison resistance, are you healed by 50 points, 150 points or does it not do anything for a zombie?

Edit: 100% resistance seem to be the maximum as passive bonus, so you will not get healed by fire unless you use potions or spells. I am not sure if the demon talent makes sense for somebody who has fire magic anyway.

A player with the Zombie talent will have 200% poison resistance, meaning that he will heal for 2x whatever the poison damage is.

So since this topic is still somewhat fresh, let's continue the min-maxing discussion little longer.

Which talents do you guys consider to be worth it to a min-maxer? I mean there are some of the obviously good ones like Zombie and Bully but which others do you consider to actually give something worthwhile? Of course it depends alot on the build too since many talents are locked behind skill requirement.

Yeah I was wondering about the talents for my mages. They have "Stench" and "Far Out Man" but the rest of the talents don't seem that important.

Has anyone tried the following 3 combo:

- Glass Cannon (Grants 4 extra recovery Action Points but your total vitality is decreased by 50%.)
- Comeback Kid (An enemy's killing blow will leave you with just 1 HP - instead of death)
- What a Rush (Increases recovery and maximum Action Points by 2 when your health is below 30%.)

Glass cannon makes you weak, but you won't die due to comeback kid, and when you live a turn you heal up and have increased action points from What a Rush.

Stench helps vs melee attackers, and maybe create a smokescreen in front of your mages so ranged can't attack you? (with Glass Cannon and What a Rush you get 6 extra AP to move in and out of the smoke during your turn)

If anyone has experience with this I'd like to know how it works.

I typically use Zombie, Stench, Far Out Man, Glass Cannon on the ranger, and Opportunist, Bully, and Leech on the two-hander.

Getting Bigger and Better and All Skilled Up was previously not a viable option, since you could trade those two Talent points for quite a few Ability or Attribute points, which was much more effective than simply getting the two Talents, but in Enhanced Edition, you can only trade them for one Ability point each. So after I get the necessary talents, I just pick up those two with any extra points I have.

If I have any points left over after getting the Talents I've described above, I'll just get things like Lightning Rod for Jahan or Elemental Ranger for Bairdotr.

Comeback Kid isn't useful enough for me to take it as a talent. I've played through Tactician mode a few times with Madora, and I think I've only ever had her use it one time. Similarly, by using Zombie, my health is never below 30%, so What a Rush isn't useful either.

As far as Smokescreen goes, I've had mixed results. Usually the archers and mages just shoot right through it, which doesn't really make sense. My party can't see through it, but the enemy can? And if they can't, then they just walk through it and melee whoever they want, whether they have Stench or not. I'll still try to use it occasionally, but for the most part, it seems to be pretty broken.

Could you guys post some of the full builds of these characters like what to get where and start with, for those of us that are new and want to make them, are not experienced with making them based on what people just say?