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

Yeah but the damage will be very uneven.Also I would like to point out that spears are still a thing in this game. With points spread between int and fin, the hydro/warfare companion/avatar could jugle between a very exotic arsenal of wands,staves,spears,bows and crossbows....and I think we just made Finesse Cleric a thing now for mixed damage parties and full physical parties.

Geo/Warfare on a full undead party could also be a hilarious setup provided you are not fighting undead or voidwoken which are immune to the spells covered by Geomancy,because Geomancy covers 2 elements (oil and poison)



Did you do elemental fire arrows using a crossbow with a fire rune in it?

Can anyone tell me if this is normal for this community? Or are these two just abnormally pretentious?

Show a video of this working. Seriously. You write in such a way that makes it look like you're faking having more knowledge on the actual mechanics than you actually do, and you keep dancing around giving real answers to the questions asked, or claims made.

I will gladly eat a bucket of crow if proven wrong, but I've spent enough time with the game to know that the things you keep suggesting simply do not work; or at least they don't work during the periods you're claiming that they do. It's like you're a data analyst telling a field agent how to do their job, because the manual and spreadsheets tell you how it should work, not how it actually does in real time.

Your whole "I could show you, but then I'd have to kill you" spiel doesn't really cut it.

Regarding Elemental Arrows: they scale with the school of the matching element. Problem is, they don't scale with INT and scale decently using FIN instead. Similarly with the various arrows that are non physical (poison cloud/shock arrow etc). So using a bow with an elemental caster won't really do anything for you over simply using a wand, other than for physical use only. You'd still be better off simply using Bouncing Shield instead, even with the two turn cooldown.

The community is generally very friendly and usually requires little intervention, thankfully; it would be nice if everyone remembered to be polite.

I don't get how you can claim you have done due diligence when you're saying that my proposal requires Lonewolf when Lonewolf would at least do 25% more damage.

It's even funnier when you consider that you wrote earlier about having a character with 30 int and 10 pyro and barely doing ~100 damage and then spoke with such authority on understanding how scaling works...

If you walked backwards from those values and looked at the order of spells being used combined with the bare minimums listed out by me earlier in the conversation you could easily extrapolate what kind of gear I had and roughly about what Int and Pyro values I had.

Furthermore, you have this funny belief that spending time with the game automatically means you know how things work.

I am going to give you a chance to walk back and do exactly as I suggested. Hint: Lonewolves deal more damage than what I am doing which is basic shit... but you wouldn't know that. If you still want a video then I'll definitely want something back in return for wasting my time when you could have just ran the numbers (or, you know, play the game). In the mean time, I'll leave this as a teaser:

It's not going to hit remotely close to what you need to be competitive with say typical rangers. Though if you were referring to why I struck out my previous statement it was because the tool tip for Fire Arrows (not elemental arrows, I mean the actual consumable) stated it was going to do 380ish - 450ish damage and instead yielded... 187 to 187*2 on a target with 0 resists. Hence, the tool tips lie.

You're ultimately better off with just using warfare skills with a staff or using warfare points with a two hander as your alternate.

You still haven't looked at my combo guide? There are 2 problems with your setup, first your setup doesn't take advantage of height damage bonus, second, medusa scale off str instead of int.

Bring up summoner in how viable mage is is just stupid.

Summoner may as well stay as one of their own style, side by side with physic and mage simply because how idiotic OP it is. 14+ summon do 500+ damage on one hit, EVEN bigger with their own surface skill, and even bigger with SOURCE buff.

I think the reason mage so weak in this game is because you can run SUMMONER so freaking easy and still have point for a mage. And that's why pure mage get nerfed so hard (not even scale with weapon which is retardo) for fear of Mage summoner become too OP.

And pls, can you guys not keep comparing how your "Lone Wolf" is so OP? It is basically easy mode for tactician.

You know I can just spec into glass cannon, dump all wit stats into int and memory, and it'd end up with the same result right? This is level 8, Lonewolf's impact isn't even huge yet, you need to accept fact.

I'll give you credit where it's due, your original post was why I went back and played through the game with an elementalist but since I like character interaction I will never pick Lonewolf.

There are a ton of things wrong with my setup; I am not using time skip, I am not scumming gear to maximize my damage, I am not using barrels, I am not scumming for perfect skills, no mines, nothing.

I'm keeping this as simple as possible with as few external modifiers as possible which means no high ground, no prebuffs outside of Medusa.

Also, yes I realize it scales off of strength but the radius for Medusa is just as big as Ignite's radius and it's guaranteed CC - yes, you could use ANYTHING and I mentioned that earlier, if you're left with 2AP you can pretty much use any guaranteed CC that you want be it Dominate Mind, Terrify, Medusa, Charm grenade.

In this case, Medusa was enough to strip off the last bit of armor and provide CC. Simple as that.

And finally, you're using a lonewolf combo, and I am using a glass cannon. So my damage is NOWHERE near that - look at Impalement, I might get 150 even with high ground bonus? Notice that my Impalement is hitting for not even half of yours. So your set up really doesn't make sense for this, you need extra damage from somewhere and the next biggest thing is Nova.

Who is doing that?

My impalement hits harder is because I'm using death wish and you are not. I'm not sure how you could've missed that.

I'd demonstrate this with a glass cannon build but sadly the mirror is available after this fight.

Take my Impalement of 71 and do the math for high ground, plus death wish with a 30% damage bonus. I do not think you will reach 200.

I'll just leave this here, it's a shame that death wish isn't restricted to mages.

Again.

Your death wish bonus is at 30% when you're using Impalement against Alexander.

Run through the math as a Glass Cannon character and you'll have a pretty big deficit.

...You realize I healed from necromancy during the combo right?

The reason I started off my exhibit with Round 1 is so you have full transparency and I already stated my method and what was being used.

However, you started off at round 2, and I have no insight on what health you're at. On your exhibit A, I see a vitality gain of 36.

So what I have to do is to guess the amount of health you have, figure out what you did round one, and then factor in Lonewolf and guess out your build and then compare it to the control which is my glass cannon build to figure out the difference.

Kind of unfair, but deserved I suppose.

But whatever, I did forget about using Death Wish though and at that point your criticisms weren't even applicable because it was out of scope part and the round 2 start is a dead give away that I missed - oops.

GG me.

Problem I see is that you can't fit death wish into your combo because you'll downright kill yourself with supernova, you can spend ap elsewhere to help compensate that but then you lose on damage per ap even further.

Keep in mind that Mage spells scale to your character level where physical skills don't - but instead scale based on weapon damage (which is scaled to your level). So in a sense they theoretically scale in the same way. However; If we aren't factoring in that Mage spells don't have an additional focus ability that physical weapon based users do have (e.g; INT+Pyro as opposed to a phys build with STR||FIN + Weapon Specialization + Warfare) then I'd be in disagreement with you here. But since it's almost mandatory to specialize in a weapon for min/maxed damage on a physical build, Magi can't do that, so for this particular argument I agree with you which also brings up my next point...

...The comparison between 2H Melee Phys and a Mage who specializes primarily in only one spell school (plus some scattered abilities for buffs etc.) is like comparing apples to oranges anyway. They are both viable fruits (characters) but have completely different tastes and textures (play styles and itemization requirements).

That's not to say that you can't build a very effective Mage though.



Elemental Affinity is never the complete answer, though at times can be helpful. What many people don't realize and thus don't utilize, which makes Magi super powerful, are Green Teas and the Level 5 Polymorph skill Apotheosis which, when used in-tandem, allows you to spam almost every tier 3 Source spell on the books at a cost of 1AP and 0SP per cast. Add in the ability to pop Skin Graft next turn with the addition of utilizing Adrenaline Rush and Sacrifice (if you're an Elf) and you can pretty much obliterate everything in single turn with a Mage, even a hybrid Mage, unless they are highly resistant or immune to your damage (which is a thing).

Another skill with a bonus not mentioned on the tooltip, and also a relatively misguiding tooltip thereof since it specifically mentions it works with ranged attacks and ranged weapon abilities, even though it works with melee attacks and abilities as well, is Elemental Arrows. Yes, this ability will add x amount of damage type to your melee based attacks and skills. So on a Rogue or STR based Melee, pop it on a puddle of Blood and see what happens to your outputted physical damage. It's hilarious!



Totally disagree with you there. I don't think I've ever wasted AP on a wand toss, other than extremely early game where available memorized spells are limited. Rangers, whilst having plenty of multi-target abilities (Ricochet, Arrow Storm, Pierce, Arrow Spray), are otherwise almost exclusively used as a single target damage character with the bulk of AP spent on basic attacks where Mage skills are focused on AOE and can do so very effectively if you position yourself properly and use skills like teleport and Netherswap to preface the bulk of your turn to group enemies together. On the opposing side of the same token though, as far as "balance" is concerned, AOE skills should never be doing anywhere close to the same damage per target as a single target focused ability that you explained like Ballistic Shot, however, those figures you stated (8k Ballistic Shot crit) are VERY situational based on high ground and the *substantially* increased range gained as a result.



2H melee is quite powerful but not the end-all-be-all. The comparison as far as numbers go is very similar, but it really will come down to your preferred playstyle.

Savage Sortilege isn't exactly a wasted talent either. Most of the time, your Mage isn't going to land the finishing blow on an enemy (Usually it's you Melee or Ranger(s) that will do that) so you don't need Executioner, and you don't need to take Pawn either because in most fights your Mage is usually perched somewhere and remains somewhat stationary for the duration of most battles as long as you have LOS. Otherwise usually maneuvering with Wings, Phoenix Strike, Cloak and Dagger, Retreat, your Cat summon etc, etc. This leaves an open talent for none other than Savage Sortilege.

Personally I prefer STR Melee builds though, but non specialized where my damage takes a small hit overall in favor of pumping Necromancer for insane survivability (Can heal to full in 1 turn from half VIT just by leeching). This also allows me to go 2H, DW, or SS as STR Melee without any repercussions for one in favor over the other, and I can itemize that character on a per-battle basis. I can also scale more damage upward with Scoundrel since my crit chance is usually around 80%, which is almost as effective as 5% damage from a weapon specialization (Except for 2h) and also gives me insane movement buff. If I want to be tanky as hell in a certain fight, I equip a really nice 1H + An Maflin. If I just want to deal a lot of damage, I go 2H. If I want to CC without relying as much on skills to do so, I Dual Wield 1-handers each with 3x 20% chance debuffs. My go-to is usually any combination of 20% chance to Stun, Petrify, Knock Down, Set Atrophy, Blind, and Silence. Unfortunately mathematics and statistics don't make a guaranteed 120% chance to debuff, as a 20% chance to proc each of 6 debuffs can all fail. The chances of them all failing is incredibly slim though, and many time will result in multiple debuffs being applied to an enemy per attack.

Anyway just some food for thought toward this, what seems to be at this point, age old debate about Magi vs. Phys. "Which is better".

And yeah, OP you didn't exactly specify how a Mage can outdo 2H melee. I gave plenty of examples and reasons and situations and experiences of mine that prove that you can make them extremely viable and useful, but I've yet to see or experience them outperforming or outdoing phys builds as the thread title suggests.

Elemental Affinity is just to get you through to the point where you can execute the above combination. At that point, balance and this entire discussion goes out the window because everyone is hurling 3 Source abilities like pennies.

That pretty much starts right after Act 2.