Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - General Extremely powerful mage combos. (guide, solo mage)

I wanted to delay this in a later guide but since there are so many people hating on non summoner mages, I'll just release this so people may change their views on mages and maybe stop underestimating them.

Consider this a follow up to my old early access guide.
http://larian.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=605011#Post605011

I will mention 2 skill combos in this guide, one with source and one without.

Talent

Lone wolf
Elemental Affinity
What a Rush
Executioner



Here is a screenshot of my character at level 10 in act II tactician mode, as you can see there are many spells on the bar, the combos will involve these spells and more that I currently don't have access to. By end game I expect to have 10 ranks in huntsman for 75% more damage on high ground, 10 ranks in pyro, geo, and at least 5 ranks in poly.

First get your character low on hp, like 10% hp or so, you'll also need high initiative like me to delay turns.



combat start(cast haste before you start combat)
FIRST TURN
Run behind full cover, or use smoke cover spell to make enemies run out of hiding if they are far, this step may not be needed.

Use tactical retreat right next to an enemy on low ground, netherswap with another enemy, potentially on high ground, teleport a third enemy to the same spot.
cast flaming crescendo on one of the enemies, use chameleon cloak to end the turn, 1 ap + 1 ap + 2 ap + 2 ap + 1 = 7 ap

(Jump to high ground with cloak and dagger if you chose to avoid line of sight last turn and have spare ap, otherwise go to high ground on 4th turn)

SECOND TURN
End this turn without doing anything, or reposition if you need but have 2 ap leftover.

THIRD TURN
Delay this turn

FOURTH TURN
Here is when the combo actually starts:

Throw explosive trap
Flesh sacrifice
Death wish (-1 ap)
Turn to oil
Impalement (-1 ap)
Throw dust (-1 ap)
Fossil strike (-1 ap)
Poison dart (-1 ap)
Ignition
Fireball (-1 ap)
Haste

10 ap total

Death wish's damage bonus is not additive with int bonus.

Make sure to detonate the trap with the impalement to create fire ground so fossil strike and poison dart also causes surface damage, I'm not sure when flaming crescendo detonates since I don't have it yet but it should be either this turn or the next.

FIFTH Turn

Spontaneous combustion (-1 ap)
Searing daggers (-1 ap)
Adrenaline
Pressure spike
Rain
Dazing bolt (3 ap)

7/9 ap

You'll most likely leech above 50% vitality on the fourth turn so we get 1 less ap from What a Rush talent, there should be 2 ap left over for whatever, electric discharge, staff of magus, time warp etc. The water/lightning combo at the end ensures that enemies you couldn't kill gets stunned for an extra turn. Pressure spike removes burning, rain creates water, and Dazing bolt is a rather big aoe skill that shock enemy and also shock water to apply stun.

I will have to discover if wand can still perma stun enemies in water but I doubt it, so if enemies are still alive after stuns, use uncanny evasion to stall your cds. Edit: cryogenic stasis makes you lose a turn, so it's a bad skill, I'm not sure if it's intended this way or a bug.


This is a non source combo, a source combo I planned for later would look something like this:


FOURTH TURN

Throw explosive trap
Flesh sacrifice
Death wish (-1 ap)
Turn to oil
Apotheosis (3 ap)
Pyroclastic eruption (-1 ap = 2ap)
Haste

FIFTH TURN

Acid spores (-1 ap = 2ap)
Time warp (2 ap)
Impalement (-1 ap)
Throw dust (-1 ap)
Fossil strike (-1 ap)
Poison dart (-1 ap)

Assuming one pyroclastic eruption and trap won't break magic armor and leech vitality, What a Rush's effect stays on the Fifth turn.


SIXTH TURN

Ignition
Meteor Shower (-1 ap = 3ap)
Fireball (-1 ap)
Spontaneous combustion (-1 ap)
Adrenaline
Skin graft (2 ap)
Adrenaline
Meteor Shower (-1 ap = 3ap)
Flesh sacrifice
Blessed smoke cover


Whats a rush's effect should be off, 6 base ap, + 1 from haste, + 4 from adrenaline, and possibly +1 from flesh sacrifice at the end.


Note, the above combos doesn't take in account of combat ap gain from executioner, so more stuff can be squeezed into the combo, for example, epidemic of flame.
It's unfortunate that a lot of the mid level geo/pyro/aeo skills aren't very good.

Laser ray/fire whip/supernova/earthquake/poison wave all have the same issue, doesn't benefit from high ground damage bonus and have a somewhat lower damage/ap ratio except for poison wave which is the same as dart, but 75% damage bonus from high ground is simply way too good.

ALthough I'm currently encountering some enemies with very high magic armor and resistance, or large scattered groups of 5, I think I'll manage it and reach the source combo.

That's pretty much for the combo guide, I might do another full solo guide later if I finish and have spare time.

Lonewolf? ....

Endgame is somewhere around level 21 ... you don't have enough points for 4 maxed abilities. Just go for 10 invested points in huntsman and put the rest in your elemental abilities (put the most points in your favorite spell school).

The "problem" with mages isn't that you can't beat the game with them. It's that attack to break physical armor + battering ram or chicken > chaining most spells together. If you aren't a lone wolf and discounting things that give you extra turns (like Chameleon cheese and Fane's Time Warp) you will typically have 4 AP on a turn. Many spells require 3 AP and your first spell might not even break through magical armor. Your basic attack generally sucks as a mage and it usually takes 2 spells to CC someone even after their armor is broken and enemies have elemental resistances but there is no such thing as physical resistances so your DPS tends to be lackluster contrasted with a physical attacker. The three hardest hitting builds in the game are warfare ranger, 2h warfare/poly and warfare scoundrel and two of those options have superior CC as well.

That's not to say you can't win or that you can't possibly beat the game on tactician or that it's impossible to play a mage it's just that magi are "gimped" compared to physical heroes.

Lonewolf as a whole is generally "OP". You don't need to split gear so your economic situation is stronger (less reliance on lucky charm/thiever), and you get to stronger point investments earlier in the game which allows you to take key adversaries out of the fight in less turns. A lone wolf mage is inherently stronger than a non-lone wolf mage. Even with that being said, you can certainly beat the game on tactician with 4 mages but you'd be a lot better off building them against only complimentary elements (IE, hydro/aero with geo just for armor buffs) - because then you could synergize off statuses like shocked and chilled instead of having one mage casting spells into resistances. And you'd be able to face roll the game even easier if you just ignored mages altogether and stacked heavy hitting physical heroes and put a couple self-buffs on them as necessary.

Considering lone wolf gets like 2 skill point every level, it might actually be possible, items may add some skills too, but yea aero isn't as useful as pyro and geo.

Lonewolf mage is a lot better than regular mage I agree yea, but it's really due to the nature of the mage class itself, mage skills actually involves "combos", where the physical classes are more like just damage in the face, and then cc when armor is gone etc, don't have to take consideration of skill orders whatsoever, so having extra ap available really helps the mage so much more than it helps physical classes.

Stun is pretty good. Frozen is also pretty good. I think you're hung up on act 1, get back to me after you try chain lightning.

So you think chain lightning is better than meteor shower? You have access to chain lightning early sure, but that doesn't mean max aero before pyro and geo is a good idea.

The thing about aero skills is that there are no good ways to reduce the skill ap cost, vacuum touch/shocking touch have bad range, electric bolt have awful radius, you mentioned stun, yes stun is good and I've included it in the combo, doesn't really need chain lightning for it though, chain lightning costs 3 ap, I'd probably rather use the source for skin graft, and time warp for another set of low ap cost skills.

Idk why anyone would max one element alone, that seems sub-optimal and pointless. Is there any extra benefit?

Otherwise, what you should do is put enough points to use skills in whatever element, and the rest go into polymorph so you get more intelligence points, increasing ALL skill damage by 5%, not just 1 element. Then once you max Intell and polymorph, you just go Wits and Hunstman for even more damage, and get crit on spells. That's how I steamrolled the game with my geo/pyro mages along with ranger+rogue.

Polymorph OP

I read somewhere that the damage bonus from magic schools is not additive with int bonus, so investing in poly's impact won't be as big when you have say like 60+ int.

Edit: made up an example.

Poly isn't always straight up better, if the skill system works the way I think it works.

For example, you are a pyro/geo mage that needs damage in these 2 schools, you have 60 int, 6 pyro, and 6 geo, and you have 4 skill points to spend on a lonewolf character.

Spending the points in pyro/geo, will make the damage for each school rise from 130% to 150%, equivalent to 15.38% more damage.

Spending the points in poly, which gives 8 int, will make the total damage go from, 350% to 390%, result in about 11.43% more damage.

In this case, going full poly is not a superior choice.

The biggest benefit from Polymorph isn't the extra stat point it gives. That actually gives you the smallest increase of the things you can invest in to increase spell damage. The biggest benefit is rank five to unlock Apotheosis so you can use more than a single source guzzling spell. Early on, putting points into Polymorph for the stat point is a huge waste.

I didn't mean early on, but after you get all the necessary skills you want to use. Then isn't it just 5% increase to all vs 5% increase to just one?

omegazen short answer is no.

(primary stat % + weapon skill % -9 ) * (elemental damage% +1) + ) * (crit%[if you crit] + high ground % +1)

Just realized in game that I made a mistake in the combo, haste shouldn't be cast before oil because it'll result in slow removing haste effect and lose the ap gain, so the trap should be the first action of the turn, and haste should come after oil. Edited the the original combo.