Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - Suggestions and Feedback Is the split magic/physical armor a good thing?

I like the concept of having a split between magic and physical armor for my own group, and I prefer them being related to certain status effects much more than the system of original sin 1, but this has one very negative downside:
It pushes your group to choose one damage class.
Why would I want to have mages and fighters in the same group, if I could choose just one of them and kill my enemies without having to damage both, their physical and magic armor?
Im sure there is a balancing aspect to this too, but this really limits the builds that can work together.
Are there good ideas, how to overcome this?

This discussion has been done to death.

You're also incorrect about it pushing you to all one damage type. a 2 magic, 2 physical party works just fine. You do NOT need to damage BOTH an enemy's armor types, you go for the lowest one with your characters who specialize in that type of damage. The only time that matters is when you've killed so many enemies that you have no weak targets left, at which point the fight should be pretty much done.

The only combinations this limits are 3/1 builds (either kind) for obvious reasons.

If the only downside you're seeing is "it pushes your group to choose one damage class", then that's not true. You can do that and it works fine but the system really doesn't push you to do that. Some have reported that they had more difficulty when playing a party that focused on one single damage type.

I played a 3/1 party once and it was fine. But yes, you do need to know what you're doing. You can take advantage of summoned minions to compensate for the damage type your party lacks. Basically you can turn your party in to a 3/2, rather than 3/1, with summons.

I find it fun to always try and balance my team, thus I prefer to choose a class and build something around it. My go to build is 1:Witch with Rouge/Areothurge/Hydro 2:Warrior with War/Terra/Hydro 3:Wayfarer with Ranger/Terra/Hydro and 4:Wizard with Necro/Pyro/Summoning because it allows me to setup a myriad of devastating solutions , but the fact that my team also usually has a Custom Lizard,Red Prince,Beast,Fane comp makes me question other factors.
All in all, it's hard to truly mix melee and magic though not impossible if you put in the effort.

i actually consider it optimal to split the party's damage, since there are several enemies in the game who are either highly resistant or even immune to certain damage types. you'll also have characters with no armor of a certain type and high armor of another. your overall damage output might be lower and fights might go a bit longer, but you'll have a better time CCing everyone, which is really what this game comes down to anyway - always having a way to exploit an enemy's weakness and then making sure they can't move once their armor is gone

your results will definitely vary depending on who you ask, and some people still swear by the 4 physical damage party setup. if it works, it works