Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - General You can build good mages that can outdo 2H Melee

I agree. I like the armor system, but it needs be slightly less central to strategy.

Sanctuary, you make a lot of good and sensible points but yet you dismiss a bit too liberally some crucial things that make mages very good and at the least more than viable. I wont deny physical > elemental because I can't be certain about Ranger, but I've dabbled with rogue & warrior enough to know how strong they're and what they can't do that mages can. I also believe than a mixed damage group is WAY better than a pure physical one (and than an pure elemental, of course).

1) They can control terrain way better than physical character.

2) They have WAY more powerful AoE damage than physical, and sometimes very easy to setup too (Hello Aero ?)

3) They have elemental affinity which IS a big factor, I wonder why you're dismissing this so easily ? It makes for insane burst potential and/or utility. I dont think physical have that kind of option.

4) Synergy between physical & elemental build are powerful. Some targets are way easier to deal with in a certain way (pure physical, elemental, one specific element etc), and if you have a mixed group, you can take advantage of this.

Your target is more sensible to elemental and your warrior looks helpless ? Not really, use them skills to enable yours mages (Phoenix Dive on your Pyro, Flay skin / Medusa Head / Oily blob).

Your target has a lot of resist / magic armor and your mage feels sad ? Enable your warrior / rogue ! Haste, PoM, Firebrand, Encourage, Teleport target at the feets of your Knight, block terrain to isolate the target, slow/cripple other targets etc. You can even use Boucing Shield for a more straightforward physical support.

5) I'm not even talking about summoner here because you already said they're good. The inner versatility of the school makes it very solid in almost all case.


Again I cant be sure about Ranger because I have yet to play one despite having already more than 150 hours on that game.

It's not. My first group was (Two-Handed after a restart, when realising how bad sword and shield is in this game) Warrior, Ranger, Pyro/Geo/65% crit/Scoundrel caster with a Summoner/Geo/Hydro/Poly group. They struggled during the earliest levels, but then as soon as Ifran's BFG was unlocked, it got drastically easier. Other than Fireball and Searing Daggers, caster damage is pretty bad until Act 2 in general, even with combinations. The key to this team even working was the Summoner too since it could either have a physical Incarnate, or an elemental one. To add insult to injury, the Incarnate will do more damage with Fireball and Epidemic of Fire than what an elemental caster, that's focused purely on Pyromancy can do at the same level for a long while. Epidemic also costs less to cast this way than if the character tried casting it...

Slow and Cripple were useful against melee, but that's about the extent of manipulation that mattered. Teleport has too long of a cooldown to be reliable, and Netherswap never seemed to work at all the way I needed it to.



And this doesn't matter in the slightest. A dead enemy doesn't reach you anyway.



Arrow Storm says they don't. Barrage and Ricochet are also comparable to Fireball. Thunderstorm, Hail Storm and Meteor Shower are the most damaging AoE spells Mages get, and they are AP/Source hogs. Plus, does it even matter? Most encounters have enemies that are spread out and they come in pairs. They only group up to take advantage of much of anything other than Thunderstorm when fights drag on aside from a few, very specific encounters.



Insane "burst damage" that requires spending extra AP to setup in the first place. It's not efficient until the fights start dragging out. Elemental Arrows (especially on an Elf) will actually add more burst damage at the start for 1 AP.



Nope, nope, nope. My second playthrough was 2x Rangers, 1x Rogue, 1x Summoner/Ranger (who would have been better off as a more focused Ranger most of the time. Biggest issue is finding three near equivalent bows every few levels) and they blew through high physical/low magic armor faster than what my caster was able to do to low magic all throughout the entire game. Split damage can work fine, but it's still much worse than an all physical group, even against higher physical armor.



Or simply kill them instead.



Or simply kill them instead.

I started a 4x elemental caster group recently, and they were an absolute nightmare to play compared to the previous two. Easily the least fun I've had with the game, and the only reason I kept going was hoping that there would eventually be some kind of payoff. There wasn't. The mixed group worked better, but that was mostly because of the Ranger and Summoner, while the second, all physical group was a night and day difference, and clearly better than any other combination (not necessarily the builds, but simply being physical).

Then again maybe Ranger are that broken ! Will try with my 3rd playthrough.

I still believe mixed is better than all physical without the Ranger in that equation, especially when I see people talking about how 4 two-handed warrior are the best ever group.

If rangers are the issue, then it's more an issue with them than with elemental damage and mages, imo.

The problem is this game has lots of enemies with elemental resistances and even inmunities, but almost none with physical resistance or super high dodge, so in the long term physical-damaging classes have a easier time. Players can put elemental resistances above his magic armor, but there is no phys resistance, so phys works better against them too. Lots of weapons and skills have cc debufs and so. 1 lvl in geo gets you the slow cc, no armor save, no int required. So rangers, warriors and rogues are going to be much more effective in one to one. Period. No discussion here.

Even so, I like mages, I even made an all-mage party (The summoner uses elemental pets and the warrior uses staffs with warfare to blow that pesky magic armor, switching damage type if neccesary. A pity the shield but...) and it is very fun. There are enemies with low or no magic armor. Lots of CC to mess with the enemies and plenty of fights that require switch skills and damage type and think about who you attack to. I do not even remember have to examine the enemies in my previous playthrough. It was like shot, crush, bomb, all the time. It looks like another game.

You can even switch your damage type using the respec statue in Lady Vengeance to adapt to each dungeon if you like.


Most players know this, but since this is about advices for magic-users...

About stats, do not neglect your wits nor your memory, most skills have long cooldowns and some of the best require 2 slots and source ( even you can use skin graft or apotheosis do not count on it).

Concerning damage vs enemies with no resistance, i concour that fire-geo damage outclasses any other. Pyro is all about raw damage. Fire-geo has the advantage of explode and works well with savage sorcery (plus hothead) and torturer. Geo has very effective effects like entangle, petrify or slow (no armor save) and set surfaces with cc effects with poison and oil. Geo-fire combos does damage and agravated damage with poison and explosions. Also, Epidemic of fire and Pyroclastic are superb when used with apotheosis.

Water-air combos does little damage, but you have the shock-stun to cc enemies and it is easy to create surfaces with rain and bloodrain.
Even I admit that Hydro has his uses, you can use Aero against a burning enemy to shock and stun-lock, but water and blood drowses them. Only few air skills work against fire (like pressure spike). The good thing is that you can use skills like turn oil, poison wave or any fire skill to create clouds and apply fire damage to previous water or ice surfaces and add even more elemental damage (But not viceversa).So, most of the time I use geo-pyro and Aero in top of them, with Hydro only to heal if necessary.

Huntsman, warfare and scoundrel are useful to have, if only for erratic wisp, smoke cover and cleanse wounds. And The Pawn!. Not much use of necromancy, even it is very nice. I use vampiric hunger instead if necessary.

source: http://divinityoriginalsin2.wiki.fextralife.com/file/Divinity-Original-Sin-2/fO6mOM3.jpg

They are multiplicative in some way, but critdamage starts with a base of 50% and highgrounddamage starts with a base of 20% (I think ... haven't checked). An increase from 0% to 5% has a larger effect than an increase from 50% to 55%.

so when you compare warfare vs huntsman:

10 points in warfare = damage * 1.5 * 1.2 = damage * 1.8
10 points in huntsman = damage * 1 * 1.7 = damage * 1.7

>> warfare is better

also according to this thread critdamagemultiplier and highgroundmultiplier seem to be additive to each other: http://larian.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=625206

so the damage formula seems to be:

base damage * (statbonus + weapontalentbonus) * warfarebonus * (critbonus + highgroundbonus)

It most likely is just a problem with ranged + physical, although until the more recent chicken nerf (haven't tried it since), Rogues were equally good taking out a single target at the start of a fight. They just couldn't bounce from target to target as easily until much later, but they could take out bigger single targets in general faster. They also have nothing comparable to Arrow Storm (which can kill 2-5 enemies in one shot).

Rogues are primarily single target. They can use some multihitting attacks like Cripple and Battle Stomp, but those don't take out groups nearly as fast. Whirlwind can be used too, but the range is too short and you have to be behind all of the enemies to really get much out of it.

Warriors are just, ugh...nothing until midway through Act 2 and they don't start pulling their weight until around level 17+. I honestly don't know what would be worse between 4x Warriors and 4x elemental casters. The Warriors would at least have an easier time with CC, especially if they did a Battle Stomp train. It's just that their magic armor would be relatively so low that all it would take is a boss (with their cheating initiative) to launch 2x AoE attacks like they do at the start to strip you, and then chain CC the group before they can even move).

I actually want to do a 4x Rogue group. The most annoying thing will probably be trying to get 8x good daggers though. I might just settle for 2x Rogues and 2x Warriors.

http://larian.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=628643#Post628643

I'll just leave this mage combo here since I'm not getting much comments on it, I honestly think it's stronger than all other classes in act I in terms of damage, as for later I'll have to find out.

Sigh...



Like I said the last time you posted your "Previously in EA with builds that are no longer valid" post, you can do similar with a Ranger using Chameleon and Sneak.

Except ranger can't match the aoe until ranger gets arrow storm? You keep mentioning ranger, when it's really just reactive shot being buggy and arrow storm being op, the fix is simple, and has nothing to do with mages being weak.

My point is that mage combos can be very effective, almost all the spells in the first combo is available in act 1, and only cost a single ap, where ranger have to spend 2 ap for every shot, or are you saying ranger can do the same kind of aoe damage in act I? It's not like ranger win in terms of single target either when all of the mages' skills are 1 ap cost.

They can't match the AoE if that AoE is hitting more than three targets until Arrow Storm, no, and they also can't use more than two abilities per fight generally that hit multiple enemies. Yet, it doesn't even matter when they can take out 2-3 enemies faster anyway even without the AoE.

Early game with a LW (LOL) Ranger, you can rush to the Houndmaster Crossbow. You could opt to also play as Ifran instead, but this is only a good option through the earliest portion of Act 1 due to the power of his personal crossbow. That falls way behind to what an Elf (without giving up a helm slot) can start doing around level 7-8. Or you could always just duo with Ifran, rush to his bow and then drop him. But I guess that's not really solo, so it doesn't count.

I just find the LW requirement to make such an argument laughable though. You can make any build powerful with LW, and the majority of players are going to want to play the game with four characters, especially in their first playthrough, duo at most. After that? It doesn't really matter much unless you want to experience all that the companions have to offer, which means another four party group most likely. LW isn't a good metric at all for comparing builds. Before gear inflation, some are going to put it to better use than others, but it won't remain static throughout the game.

Your entire foundation rests upon LW. You're basically saying "Mages don't suck, see, you just have to solo completely if you want to do anything with them!".

Yea, and at the end of act I, which is level 8, mage will still stay ahead in terms of damage, you can shoot 3 arrows per turn, against let's say 3 enemies, how long is that gonna take. The gheists on the ship have like 1k + hp each, and let's say even if you can get 100 damage per shot, which is just a random number I made up, that'll still take ages.

I'm not sure how long the mage can stay ahead of ranger since the way of the damage scaling is weird, but up until level 10 I believe mage is stronger.

And you don't have to solo, I'm doing it because I feels like it's a challenge, you can have a lone wolf char along with another lone wolf char.

I convinced you that lonewolf mage is stronger than lonewolf anything else in act I at least right?

Nowhere in here are you demonstrating that you outperform a 2h warrior. Click bait. In order for you to outperform a 2h warrior you'd need your spells to cleave (which generally they do, but with long cooldowns) a group of enemies which have > physical armor than their magical armor + resistances + resistances applied against their HP pool. Since in general this never happens you simply cannot outperform a 2h warrior with a mage. You'd also need to be able to first turn CC without lone wolf. This is also something that generally doesn't happen with magi. Likewise you'd need your spells to scale with weapon damage which doesn't happen. People mention 2h poly warriors as OP because ranged attackers cannot use battering ram and battle stomp and rogues don't cleave and generally get slightly worse scaling towards the end game because of dual wield. Basically at the point where 2h will consistently crit and cleave it's better. Let's also not forget about stuff like 'silence' which is generally irrelevant to a physical attacker.

Btw no one said archers are 'underpowered', they're easily the heaviest hitters in the game and can also CC thanks to things like knock-down arrows.

Easily the most options. Stronger than anything else though? I don't know. A Ranger can get through fights without taking any damage at all, but they might take longer (hitting spacebar is hard though).

I didn't even know people thought that 2H melee was the strongest until I read this post, but I guess it makes sense that it's top tier. I always thought top tier was was Ranger or Rogue, and Summoner, with mage close in tier 2. That said, I breezed through the game with two elemental mages(one slightly more focused on buffing support, and my main hitter with glass cannon), with Ifan as Ranger with Glass cannon and execute, and Sebille as rogue. Great comp, and mage hits just as hard as others.

My Geo/Pyro mage(and later added heavy hitting Air spells like chain lightning against earth or fire immune), blew almost every enemy up on the first turn starting from high ground(and this was before I got crits on spells). Rarely did I find enemies that could take both Earth and Fire until later, and by then I had air as well.

My first turn went like this, Mage always going first: Explosive mine+impalement or fireball, or for fire immune: impalement+ fossil. And other combos, depending on the situation. I pretty much always ended my first round with 2 or more enemies dead, or close to dead. The rest was Sebille and Ifan cleaning up the dudes with magic armor. Had some tougher fights endgame when their resistances and armor ramped up, but still got through it relatively easily.

Look up a guy on youtube doing an honor playthrough so far up past episode 70, he also has a similar setup to me, and he wrecks everything with two mages.

Single element mages can do comparable raw damage to physical until you run into resistances. Then suddenly your damage is not so hot or you even heal enemies with it. Unless you're willing to respec for each encounter which I find completely masochistic.

Also, any given elemental school on its own has worse utility than warfare, which has abilities for every occasion. Mages have to use more than 1 element to be viable.

The best elemental lategame mage build I used was actually 5 in all elements and poly + a little bit in scoundrel (with gear of course) + glasscannon. Then you can spam max tier source spells under apotheosis + adrenaline (potentially recharging them with skin graft in the end), and they do way more damage than anything else mage has, even when compared to if you had 10+ in the relevant skill. You also usually have at least some spells that would hurt. Still this is weaker than a maxed physical build that also requires no skill to build or play.

Well, there's plenty of ignorance going on in this thread so I might as well add my own, here are my observations.

Pyro/Geo is actually pretty terrible and it's a choice born out of convenience/ignorance; Pyro consumes Geo and with most spells having a 1AP tax you need Elemental Affinity + The Pawn to pay the tax and you will rarely have a source of Geo that isn't being consumed by Pyro. Plus, too many damn undead so half the school is wasted. So, here's what I end up doing on Tactician:

0 Source: Phoenix Dive -> Flesh Sacrifice -> The Pawn (into Fire) -> Nova -> The Pawn (repositioning into more fire) -> Consider Adrenaline -> Ray -> Consider Medusa ? Medusa Active : Consider Chamelon ? Fireball -> Medusa -> Chamelon : Fireball -> Searing Daggers -> Combust -> Ignite.

Dominate Mind / Teleport can be thrown in there as well.

1 Source: Time Warp -> Flesh Sacrifice -> Medusa / Teleport -> Dive -> Pawn -> Fireball -> Go to 0 Source and start at Nova.

Nova / Ray will generally wipe out magic armor on most targets even if they have resistances. Pre level 20 it's pretty hard for most builds to exceed that output and generally by the end of the turn on the mage you'll have 2-3 targets CC from Medusa's Petrify or whatever else you decide to use.

I would never raw pick Geo as a secondary, I would rather go Summoner before that, but gearing choices will be the factor that swings you in one direction or another -- some times you gotta' go with the bad pick.

It should be blatantly clear that while yes 'Mages' can compete, it takes a lot more effort and pre-planning, and by the end of the game it's all moot anyways as everyone is using Arrow Storm, Meteor, or whatever combined with Shed Skin so they can do it all over again.

The issues with immunity and resistances vary depending on build, but overall I would say it's pretty overstated.

That being said all of Act 2 you'll generally have mages stomp all over the place due to having access to 1-3 Source per fight; chain lightning, summons, and I am sure there are others, tend to shit on everything while melee and ranged have slim to no pickings.

... I'm pretty sure that all optmized characters will have access to Adrenaline, Apotheosis, and Skin Graft at minimum - +10 anything will have enough points for that. The rest comes down to gear available and then you specc accordingly.

A lot of people keep saying this, but it's either from inexperience, or because they only remember very late game and BIG NUMBERS.



You thought right.

Anyway, don't expect elemental casters to get a buff anytime soon when you can do shit like this at the end of Act 1:



Notice the damage on that Fireball. Respeccing to 30 INT and 10 Pyro only gets the caster 81 - 90 damage. Now if you're elevated, you should be doing similar or just over that, but it's still pretty dumb. It gets worse too once Epidemic of Fire is unlocked. Later on the Summoned spells get weaker due to Savage Sortilege and a good crit chance and damage bonus, but that's not for a while.

Alexander did jack before the real boss appeared, and neither did any of his cronies. The only damage I took was from the real boss too from ranged attacks. This is also with my group being completely unoptimized for this fight due to being all FIN with bows and summoning 4x Fire Incarnates. At one point I had twelve fire totems shooting the boss too (they don't do a ton individually, but it adds up).

It will be even dumber when I have each caster focused on a single element each. I'd just go 2x Pyro, 2x Aero, but I'd rather be able to use the Artillery Plant without having to just dump 3 into Geo and then not raising it further. Plus itemization.

Summoning also gets a ridiculously potent instant heal (it's variable, but it often heals for a ton while also refilling magic armor) and Charm. Charm. That's 4x Charms in this group.

Nice. I have to try summoning next it seems hilarious. Yeah I never really tried doing any huge min-maxing, I might start a new game now that I finished and do a lone wolf or completely different comp. Mage was so fun, I'll definitely still use it.

Most of the game I would blow everything up with my Pyro/Geo on the first turn (teleport enemies closer+explosive mine+impalement first turn one-shots or nearly kills almost anything from high ground, and also crits), and never really needed any other element until later(geo is great because poison and earth are two different resists). Always took high ground when I could to start of course. Even if they were immune to one, I still had more than enough from the other element to use. And by the time I ran into enemies that were earth+fire resistant, I had stocked up on some Air.

I don't think there is ever a need for more than 3 different elements since the enemies normally are immune to only 2 at most? I didn't like hydro much either.

Also pro-tip to anyone who hasn't noticed this: An optimal way for elemental damage is to put only the necessary points in the element to use the skills. The rest should go into polymorph>intelligence to give ALL your elements 5%. Then huntsman for overall high ground, and THEN put points into the individual elements when you're maxed in those.