Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - General Are mages a bit...weak?

That's what I said as soon as I got into the Alpha. I hated the source point mechanic for spells we could use no proplem in OS1.

Source as a mechanic is stupid. Source should have been special upgrade points to upgrade your skills/powers beyond normal, not be stupid limited ammo.

Honestly, aside from starter being VERY weak for mages which is the usual thing in D:OS it seems, they get to be fine really.

Like maybe not balls to the wall min/max physical damage dealer, but really they do the job for me. I stack crit like mad on wizard, ended above 80% crit with Geo/Pyro and it wrecks pretty fine, really.

I am sure physical can be min/maxed more, but this did the job just fine really.

14 base int - mainly stack wits. hot head + savage sortile.
get all the crit chance + wits you can get on gear.
there is a 2 slot amulet somewhere in act 2 socket it with the highest fire runes you have.
once you get power frames and giant runes put them on your fire runes first. 3 int and loads of crit.
in arx you will get a 3 slot amulet at that point you will probably reach 100% crit.
school priority: your choice of ele > scoundrel > huntsman.
use the higher ground!
once you get that 20% crit chance weapon you will feel like a god.

All my spells crit for 3k dmg at lvl 21 - source spells usually one shot everything.

my mage has last rites that damage can crit too =D - so I pain chackled an enemy used living on the edge and next turned revived the dead ally. it crit for 7k piercing damage - way to turn a death into a stunning victory ^_^

thank me later.

I finished my classic play through with a 4 man physical group.

Near the end of Act 2 on my second. Playing on tactical with two lone wolf mages. I've yet to use a single source spell besides bless. This play through has incredibly easy. I'm was taking on lvl 15 enemies at lvl 12.

This is due to multiple things. One that lone wolf seems incredibly broken. Two that I know a lot more about the game and the fights. Three is the I don't need to go find gear every level or two on a mage to keep going, my damage scales with level up alone.

I think I could run through with two lone wolf physical characters probably a little quicker, but I'm not sure it would be easier. Mage AoE and range are huge benefits that help in a lot of fights.

Spells really dont do more damage than normal attacks from rangers for example but yet you have long CDs on them. It wouldnt be as bad if your wand attack would do as much damage as from a normal bow or weapon attack but it doesnt, it does way less damage.

On top of it mobs have resistances which lowers your damage even further and thanks to the new armor/shield system there is nothing which reduces physical damage.

If you dont care for achievements I can recommend the fast casting mod for mages which halves the CDs for damage spells.

You are already limited by AP so I dont get why Larian didnt balance the game around having low CDs on damage spells like lightning bolt, fireball etc. ? Its bad gamedesign if you always have to use each round different spells. And often enough you are not left with a good alternative for 1-2 rounds, doesnt make sense and is not fun.

So mages are weak huh.

What about a mage that is up close and is designed around the 2-handed perk and a staff, using things like Master of Sparks, Firebrand and whirlwind.

Or an Aero Equivalent, Staff beat downs and touch based spells??

Still not that great?

I agree that physical damage dealers stroger, But mages have better aoe. Get elemental affinity and put 1 in warfare to get executioner, then mages do insane damage. You can cast impale, fosill strike and fireball in one turn, reduce 3-4 enemies life to %25

... that sounds awesome. Must try on my next playthrough ^^

(Although at the moment I get nervous trepidations from just hearing 'fire aoe'. I did the 'oil rig' fight last night where you have to save the apprentice on the gallows. Good god. FIRE EVERYWHERE! Cursed fire too. Ugh.)

I know this seems to primarily be focused on elemental damage casters, but Summoners are stupidly strong. They can be stupidly boring too if you are trying to use them as a buffer, and their spell damage will generally be weaker too for a while since your goal is to rush Summoning to 10.

Rangers are easily the strongest class in the game. The main downside is finding 3x - 4x bows of comparative damage every few levels. Otherwise, they don't really have any downsides as a class, and I know two-handed gets mentioned a bit, but two-handed has nothing on what Rangers can do.

1. Start leveling up Summoning.
2. Raise Finesse and use a bow. Summoning exists on Finesse gear. There's even Int + Summoning on Finesse gear.
3. At some point early, put a single point into Huntsman (or get it through gear).
4. Profit.

It's not initially going to be as strong as a Warfare focused Ranger in terms of the damage you personally do with a bow, but you end up with a "caster" that can do significantly more single target damage over time compared to wands, and you also end up with a giant ass pet that can learn spells that do more damage than a dedicated elemental damage dealer for a very long time. It also doesn't hurt that you need 3 in any given school at some point if you want to buff the pet to the (insanely strong) source versions either, so you can still use all of the non stat, level only scaling abilities. And of course Teleport...

Right now i have started two games with my friends in coop.

The first party was:

Cleric
Enchanter
Knight
Ranger

The second party was:

Cleric
Rouge (Undead)
Conjurer (Undead)
Enchanter

The first party is right now hell to play. The knight and the Cleric are very, ,very slow. Enemy is running away most of the time. Ranger is getting focused down very often. Mages feel somewhat weak in the first act. I like the enchanter, but after he has used all his spells, he stands in the corner and stares holes into cheese.


The second party is an easy walkthrough. The rouge just destroys everything and everybody. I think this class is one of the strongest in the game. Especially as undead, because the enemy never uses poison against you and your party.

Some people say the Conjurer is weak. I do not think so. 5th party member and the conjurse incarnate does TONS of damage. + We are playing him as undead, so posion the area and there you go.

I have build my cleric on Necromancer, Warrior and hydro. Most of the time i am not even healing with him, but using the healing and necro spells as wepons. With some Warrios skills throwing CC skills at the enemies. And i have got the flesh summoning for the Cleric as Necromancer. So we have 6 party members all the time.

The enchanter got some geomancer spells to heal our undead or weaken the enemy.

Normally the first Team build should be the stronger one, but it is not.

The second build concentrates on the rouge most of the time as the main damage dealer. It works better than a knight and a cleric. They are both to slow.

"Tanky" builds in this game are way too slow and actually kind of pointless since enemies just ignore them anyway. The only real reason to go into Warfare besides physical damage is for Battle Stomp, or if you're wanting to play as a caster with a shield, Shield Toss. Battle Stomp is weapon based anyway, not stat based. Even once you unlock the mobility skills from either Huntsman or Scoundrel (even using The Pawn talent), they just don't do enough damage for the AP.

They kind of could, but then Reactive Armor was nerfed, so now they don't. Ranger is actually weak for the first few levels other than getting the Ifran specific crossbow as well as the one in the fort dungeon, but once you can actually start buying or finding gear, they take off. Ifran alone is a game changer early on.

Apologies but I feel the overwhelming urge to post this link for the betterment of mankind.

That's still not a spell-based "mage" (get it, mage as in someone who stands back and casts stuff?), but a melee one. Now go stand in the corner and be ashamed of yourself.



Summoners aren't even "stupidly strong". They start off very solid, but the damage and tankiness fall flat in mid- to lategame. When your Incarnate (with Summoning 12 + Infusions) does about 980 per swing, and your physical tank does about 1200+ per auto-attack with crap gear and almost no points in Warfare..you know something's off.

It's not like I'm new to the series and was looking for some actual advice before I commit to a build I know almost nothing about with regards to how it works let alone the rest of the game in terms and mechanics, do's and don't and part comps, your input was very helpful.

Also touch based spells are spells - go home. Whether I shock you in your face or from far away, I shocked your arse.

Blah blah. I guess Whirlwind is a spell then also? I'm glad you found my input helpful, however. Always happy to help!

Maybe I should've worded my first post a bit better..or the title for that matter. I'm neither talking about melee mages, nor about mage hybrid builds.

Well you can not play divinity from the "classical" point of view.

The classical combos like: 1 tank, one healer, one mage + 1 another DD does not work out very well.

Because tanks in Divinity 2 are ignored most of the time by the enemy. No tank has the "taunt" ability available at lvl 1.

You have the knight with tons of CC, but no "tank" abilities. ( The fighter who would be the classical tank, has no taunt ability too)

The healer class has one healing spell and it needs a lot of time to recharge. Something like a "true" healer does not exist in this game at the beginning.

A "true" mage would be the fire wizard. Sorry to say it that way, but this class is outright bad. In the early game you blow up your mates all the time or you can not use your spells at all. And even when you have the chance to use them, the damage is very bad.

+ The scaling in the early game for all mages. (Not good)

(+ Bartering, Lucky charm and thievery are MUST HAVE in every game!)

Do not understand me wrong. I like this game very much and i am playing it a lot right now.

But as i have written before. I have got a very hard time playing the "classical" combo, before switching to full AP rogue + support mage builds.

In Divinity 2 "mages" are basically support caster classes. Or combined classes.

Because of this full damage mages are not very good.

Right now i am playing a party with only ap classes, with some support magic and most of them are agility classes. Armor is basically useless, when the enemy is kiting you around.

The best combos are burst combos at the moment, with a lot of movement.

Considering this thread has already talked about rangers and summoners and two handed melee chars, I don't think me asking about the viability of an alternative mage build was all that strange, what was the harm?

Whirlwind is a spell when you're enchanted with Master of Sparks, your sword shoots flames, that's pretty damn magical

Like I said, this is my first Divinity game, or any top down rpg, you can probably appreciate wanting a little help when this game boasts such depth.

And I still don't know if it's just ranged based casters that are comparatively weak or if Staff Based Melee Range Casters are too, or if they actually perform well.

*sigh*

How about you try and gear your mage properly?

My Pyromancer with a dab of everything did the same and often more dmg than my physical dmg dealers.

I will admit that the other skill lines are abit weaker, but Laser Ray and Firewhip both could easily tear through magic armor turn 1 and whipe them off the board turn 2 if they had weak magic armor.

I keep hearing this about how the mages fall behind the physical, but I had no such issues. I ran 2 mages, and a 2handed tank and a huntsman, everything went smoothly. Yes on classic, and I never used source spells besides the final battle. So yeah, not sure what you're doing wrong but I had no issues.

Honestly it somewhat devolved into munchkinism here. It kinda begs a question what exactly is "weak" in some people minds, is "weak" meaning you are not oneshotting shit turn 1 or something?

Honestly mages are fine, it's more a case where there are more retarded combos and synergy builds exist there and they happen to have physical affinity because of more scaling with weapons.

But in the end you can do it just fine with mages really.