Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - Suggestions and Feedback Origin Skills and Balance

So I have done a playthrough of the early access after the latest patch, and I have some opinions to share about the origin skills for each character.

I believe most of them are well-balanced against other source-point consuming abilities.

Ifan's wolf is a great summon that absorbs a respectable amount of damage while dealing some of his own - I'd say this is a good skill.

Lohse's Maddening Song seems like it has some potential, as, if properly used, it can disable a decent number of enemies while also dealing damage (by causing them to attack eachother).

Timewarp, overall, seems really powerful. Abilities like this usually have the potential to break the game, but I still can't say for sure how it can be done. Until someone discovers it, I can't say for sure that it's overpowered.

Sebile's skill seems really situational. The main problem I have with it is that it can't actually remove status effects that disable her (as she's already disabled, and therefore skips her turn). I'd say this is one of the weaker ones.

The Red Prince's ability is the one I have a problem with. I believe this is horribly underpowered in comparison with either any of the other origins abilities, or with any other source consuming ability. It removes a mediocre amount of magical armor from the enemy, and restores it to himself.

Even if this skill didn't cost a source point, I'm still not sure if I would use it - that's how bad it is.

I'm not sure if this skill can be fixed with simple number tweaking, unless the number became something outlandishly high. The skill might need to be reworked.

Perhaps it could be made into a Magical Armor version of Overpower (the warfare SP ability). That's the only idea I have so far, however.

If any of you have thoughts on the matter, I'd love to hear them.

Yeah, even just looking at it, the Red Prince's skill looks underwhelming. I agree that small tweaks probably won't make it worthwhile either.

One reason I like Time Warp is that the game ALREADY slaps custom characters in the face by making them clones of the Origin characters (unless they changed this). As if the game is actively punishing you for wanting your own characters (to say nothing about how you lose out on content)

So giving them a very powerful ability goes a long way to make up for this. As if to say "Sure, you won't get unique missions and your dialog is lifted from other character's personality... So here, one of the most powerful skills just for you".

Which honestly if anything kind of Balances Timewarp.

Sebille's ability is "just there in case you need it" wasn't particularly useful i'd rather spend my source point on mortal blow.

Sebille's does seem just awful. Maybe with more numerous source points it will be useful in a pinch, but it still seems like most of the time your source could be spent better. It needs to remove way more statuses, be castable on allies, or even be an AOE effect on your whole party. Similarly, maybe if Red Prince's stole armor from a bunch of enemies (either a cone attack or AOE), it would be better.

Agree. I didnt play the latest patch yet but i already see "Time Warp" is going to outperform all the origin ones. (if it works like the description says)

Not sure about Ifan's wolf, hopefully it power is at least on par with the Scource Hound or slightly more, its a source skill afterall.

Demonic Stare seem weak for a source skill as well as Sebille's Shackle, only removes soft CC while most of them can be removed with normal support skills.

While other Class Source Skills are either powerhouse ability or game changing ability.

Sebiles ability is terrible as already mentioned it does everything a regular skill does but costs a source point. If it was coded to be usable while disabled I could see the use in it though would still be on the weak side IMO. Timewarp is by far the strongest skill and has amazing synergy with skin graft since the loss of armour doesn't mean much if you can finish the fight within them two turns.

One thing i'm on the fence about is how the source skills encourage/discourage certain buillds with each character. For Lohse'ssource power is blocked by magic armor so if you want to use it you need a teammate to eradicate their magic armor. For Ifan's source power the fact it scales with summoning and level kind of ticks me off since you'll either have to go full summoner or summoner hybrid to make good use of it. Red prince's is underwhelming the way i would change it is make it provide both physical and magical armor and scale (damage wise not recovery wise) with warfare/aerothourge. I've already provided my thoughts on sebille's :P

It still works without summoning ability. It just has a clear summoner synergy.

In fact combining it will summoner might not be that great an idea because the summoner will likely also have a summon source skill.

Still annoyed that they seem to be forcing you to play the origin characters to get by . . .

Yes, ifan's skill mechanics (scale with summoning) is something really awful to see. But it imho pretty nicely demonstrates the problems with the layout of the basic gameplay elements.
I wish stuff like that or the armor system and it's problems would finally be taken into account.

I usually play as Ifan, and my main problem with his wolf was that it is summoned without any physical or magic armor. Because of this, it spent a huge amount of it's time crowd controlled.

At least with the incarnates I can give them magic armor the same round I summon then, and then hit them with physical armor the next round. I couldn't help the wolf at all, unless of course I had an earth or water caster to buff him.

I just kind of think for a source ability it should at least have a little bit of armor so he doesn't immediately get crowd controlled.

The Origin abilities are weak in their initial implementation on purpose, I feel.

Red Prince's is hopefully a precursor test for a magical version of Overpower. It would suck if ONLY he had this type of skill, practically forcing him to be a mage.

Lohse's is the perfect example of a "bad" source skill. It can affect allies. It only works when the armor is gone. It does no damage to strip even 1 point of remaining armor. It is the mage class in a nutshell: Useless until the armor is gone, but still able to screw over your team.

Ifan's is weird because it lacks armors AND that he spawns in as a Wayfarer. The class seems poorly suited for his background. He should be a shadowblade of sorts with Finesse and Summoning.

Sebbi's is the only one that makes sense, but doesn't fit well with her class. She's a rogue. They have 500+ ways to remove debuffs through Adrenaline, Hasting Themselves, etc.

Sebille could have some a skill that reflects her background and race.

Maybe something like Ancestor tree ... something?
Which would maybe apply slow down to all enemies in some AoE circle, bypassing all armors and resistances?

Ancestor tree roots?


Red Prince could summon a demon maybe? That would be in line with his background story too.

Well, see, the reason he has the 'stare' thing where he steals armor seems to be because, as I've gathered playing the latest patch with him as my main - that he summoned or had a demon,y es, but he literally looked at it and STARED it into submission. So really, his origin skill should be some sort of uber-charm.

Yes, fantastic. Doesnt mean he charmed the demon or that he can charm others.
Its a demon stare, not charm demons.

Anyway, they can keep that and change it into something more useful.
Or do something else, which would also fit with that origin story.

I have to agree with you people. Even thought i like the idea, that the Custom-Charakter Skill is "better" as an tradeoff for the missing Questline and such, i still find the rest of the Skills pretty underwhelming.

He explicitly states he stared the demon into doing his bidding, so I don't see why he wouldn't have some kind of powerful control spell as his Source skill. And I mean it'd be a pretty useless ability if it only worked on one specific demon, don't you think? I don't think innate magic is ever that specific.