Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - General Tactician mode feels busted

Currently, my support mage with like 20 int Fane does, at level 8, 60 on his AoE earth spell with oil + slow. this is quite high because my arrow shot does 90 each on a single target on high ground and he's going somewhat tanky over pure damage and can keep the whole team shield up with regening 30 armor and MR per turn (Mend Armor and Soothing cold) with 100 heal per turn and 90 armor/magic armor on fortify/magic shield.

So with some experience now, I won't say mages are absolutely dogpoo anymore although still weaker than warfare because of how they can crit and abuse OP weapon. It's just that the game has bad level 1 to 4 mage scaling that needs to be curved down and rebalanced. They also don't get any gear to support them until like level 5 and are stuck with 4-5 damage wand while everyone else is getting 20 damage crossbow or 2H.

And there are still a lot of foes with only 80 magic armor while having 200 physical armor or something that can easily be CC'd by a mage in a single turn.

If you do want to play 2 mage comp, just wait until act 1 is over and go for it with that free respec. It should be perfectly doable because the scaling gets really ridiculous as you level up so it can somewhat keep up with any weapon in the green zone (but still lose out against purple and unique unless they go dual wand and deal single target damage instead of AoE. Also, they do need high level to have that magical AoE crit talent or they can only crit with wand.)

Really, play the mode to a certain length first instead of just sticking to a bunch of "If-Then"

Thanks, that is what I expected, but it seemed some were making it sound like it was only a stat boost and thinking Larian took steps backwards. So if AI has more things at its disposal in Tactical, then I totally can see no stat boost necessary for a different experience vs Classic. Will be interesting testing over the coming months.

You will need the stat boost. In Act 1 with good gears the moment I start shopping in the Seeker camp and wear full bracchus set, I am able to stand and get focus fired by 5 enemies (Bloodrose cave slane quest) and still not die because I have Mending armor on along with 100 recovery per turn healing.

When the enemies have +50% damage and still can't kill me, it already shows how much of a joke the difficulty will be outside boss fights if you remove that damage bonus.

Even boss fight will outright show you which targets has the most ridiuclous damage that you need to take down first if you have loremaster for examining. Like, for example, the Gheist in Act 1 Final boss fight. Without the Aura, it has 80 damage something. The aura pushes that to like 120 a hit or higher.

Same goes to all the other magisters in that fight. I removed dallis from the fight via teleport (they lose his 50% damage and +2 all stat aura) and their damage dropped into joke level again even with tactician stat boost. (30-35 per hit while I'm dealing 90+!)

The enemies with stat boost are completely fine and are only game-breaking to deal with if you have very bad builds or very bad gears in a mode that is all about playing with the strongest build.

Have you encountered NPCs that can use teleport in a fight? I'm curious to see if many of them use it or even have it.

The issue was the same with EA Classic. The first few levels were tough, but later on everything got quite easy. Larian really seems to have a problem with evaluating how hard a fight really is. Mainly probably because there are so broken skills like teleport, which can totally take a team apart as shown. If they need stats boost and aura boost in Tactician to be threating, they sound pretty easy in Classic.

Gotta be honest with you People are just plain wrong on how hard it is and are just undergeared most likely. I've now made it to level 14 in tactician mode and the only enemies I have trouble with are the ones a couple levels above me which is how is should be and this is with a mixed physical and magic with 1 ranger party [img:center]https://imgur.com/a/roEzM[/img]

Has anyone got to act 2 or further on tactician yet? stuff gets ridiculous like you only have 400ish armor on you but your enemies is approaching 2K armor and 3K hp?!????

I don't recall any on EA. This is the first time I start to see enemies using them. Netherswap and teleport appeared at Dallis fight though enemies kinda suck with Netherswap but will use it with a corpse to get you into their range.

I've gotten to around halfway through act 2 I think hard to tell and ya they get a lot of armor and hp but so you do when you get to their level

It's amazing the magic mirror allow you to respec as much as you want on all of the character. If you want to play mages, you can always just wait until you get there.

beware i think magic mirror is bugged, if you have a skill thats over the cap (say from equipments) and you respec that skill it wont let you go over the cap again.

Though thank the gods they let us respec everything, if anything i really appreciate that.

Nothing like removing the unneeded Pet pal and level 2 to 1 scoundrel and get even more powerboost. They really expect you to have the best of the best build and if fails, just reload on the mirror and redo act 2.

no pet pal means youre missing potential exp and items though

I saw a solo tactician on Alexander and it seems only feastable by bugging out the AI. At one point his full equipped level 9 char was at around 3hp so luck saved him pretty much.

I removed the one I got on Ifan who went Shadowblade. I still have it on my normal char.

And I have to say, our gears are so dumb now that we can insert rune. That fight on the ship where they rush your lady was a joke. I just steal a source orb, insert it into a necklace and keep the dodging aura up making me dodge every physical attack they have.

Unless the enemies are getting some kind of +100% accuracy, this is going to be hilarious to abuse.

Did you try taking off all gear before using the mirror?

Yeah, I must agree, the new tactical mode is pants – but it at least forced me to abandon it, reroll as a custom ‘The Black Prince’ with the warrior voice (to counter the let down that is the The Red Ponce). It’s rushed, which is expected, given everything else they had to do. This is strictly a WIP, as I see it. The enemies have just been turned into the equivalent of bullet sponges, which was just getting really boring as the game went on.

So it’s idea time. Personally, I’m in favour of keeping classic-mode stats on enemies, but adding something imaginative that genuinely makes the combat more tactical, rather just more chore-like. I’m a big fan of random events to take care of this. I also think it would be cool if tactical mode introduced a new enemy faction whose motives run parallel to the main story.

I was thinking of a group of source-addicts, whose mutations have forced them to terraform their habitats into source-infused biospheres (or something). They appear in combat as shadowy assassin types, stalking source users for potential harvesting. Like the magisters, they experiment with the source, but they’re focused on transforming plant life etc to create environments that can sustain their mutated physiologies.

In early combat, they’re just scouts reinforcing the ranks of existing enemies. They’d only appear randomly, perhaps flanking your team halfway through battle. They’d have classic-level stats, but the appearance of just 2 of them when you think you’re down to the last enemy should be enough to cause a manageable level of trouble.

As you progress, they bring a few extras with them. Source-mutated plants, like a snapping, dribbling venus flytrap type monstrosity, or a malicious spore spewing entity, or some vines-for-tentacles grotesque. At this stage, they’re also equipped with unique source-drug potions they made from their mutated plants, which grant random status boosts in battle (but never artificially inflate HP or armour). Again, they always appear at random stages during battle, when you least expect it.

Later, you’ll spark the interest of their masters, boss-like characters, who’ll also appear randomly in combat encounters. The source-plants can also randomly go feral, mutate into a much bigger mini-boss, and attack everyone, kind of like the voidworm. This should destabilise the battle, without being unfair.

So yeah, a focus on random battle events, with all enemies having normal classic mode stats.

As to the logic around why enemies like the magisters etc would welcome the aid of a separate faction, this could easily be woven in – as the new faction could sell themselves as ‘hired assassin’ types who don’t need to reveal their true motive. With regard to beast-like enemies, these source assassins could have some source trick that tames the beasts, with the result of them siding with the assassins.

Alternatively, the same idea could be taken, and the random additions to battles could just involve enemies sourced from the enemies already in the game – or even a healthy mix of both regular enemies and enemies from the new faction!

Honestly, I'm not sure what people are complaining about, it is supposed to be highest difficulty setting there is which is not hardcore mode. Of course it's supposed to be difficult that's the whole point?

And things having higher armor and vitality so you won't be able to reliably cc and kill them all while laughing, on classic you can build half optimal party and literally sweep through everything so far half asleep.

And yes I started tactician and it seems to be unfair at the beginning, but from classic playthrough I know that eventually you get to the point where you become so retarded strong that only chance to challenge you is some sort of cheese like splitting the party or outright overwhelming level difference. Like my classic playthrough tank can probably kill half a frikkin' spawn by himself no problem with reflection, damage and sheer toughness and wizard can frikkin AoE nuke the faces off if he crits right through magic armor, not even talking about ranger twoshotting shit from across the map.

It's just pure numbers problem the one you solve with gear and stacked skills and powerups. Issues is you don't have it at the start, but as it was first game you start slow but then snowball into ridiculousness if you min max.

Besides it's like week one, I bet in two months when all the broken OP shit builds and cheese tactics are discovered people will roll through tactician, just like in original.

[quote=Gaidax]on classic you can build half optimal party and literally sweep through everything so far half asleep.[/quote]
The whole Internet would gain a massive improvement on the information-to-noise ratio if people wouldn't engage in such stupid hyperbolic posturing.

tbh, the hardest thing about the game is figuring out where to go next, that's all.

One moment, the game is so easy because you're fighting foes of the same level or below.
The next, you find yourself in a level 12 region with a level 9 group trying to do some quests and enemies have too mcuh stat for you to kill because of that 3 level advantage and lack of leveled gears.

Like, starting at Act 2, one of the earlier quest level 9 - 10 is to search for a place "East" of town in "Reaper's Bluff". However, if you go east according to the world map, you're at Reaper coast and later, some level 12 area. You actually have to go the left side to start finding level 10 stuffs to fight instead of level 11-12.

It's amazing they didn't add region name to the world map Make me want to kill everything just to keep up with the level and purge the town later just to be sure I don't end up underleveled because I'm missing some sort of quest.

I have no idea what are you so triggered about. Reality is people are doing it, it is difficult and maybe dumb kind of difficult, but it's supposed to be a challenge, because ultimately classic mode you become so OP that you can roll that one even not min maxing.

And this is the only real challenging alternative to classic, unless you are a total Edgelord.

And yes you should be optimizing, be clever and fight dirty there, it's called tactician for a reason. I have a feeling half of the people complaining expected to just waltz in there and mop shit up because they think they are so smart.