Larian Studios Forums Beyond Divinity (English) Help/Tips/Tricks Two Best Skills in the Game

IMO the two most useful skills that aren't all that obvious are the warrior craftsman sharpen skill and the shaman nature hammer skill.

If you buy sharpen as soon as you get to the first battleground (early in chapter 1 unless you overlook the key or the chest), raise it to the maximum (unlearning other skills if needed) and sharpen a weapon needing no agility you will enormously increase your damage dealing potential as long as you have agility of 13 or so. You can then unlearn sharpen. The first BG dungeon provides plenty of cash if that is an issue.

If you get the hammer spell early in chapter 2 (again, at the BG) you really need no other magic for the rest of the game though a wide area effect spell is sometimes useful to have also. It does better damage than the description indicates, hurts any enemies near where it falls (often killing them outright) and usually paralyzes them for a few rounds. Through the final battle it is enormously useful - even a party of two warriors benefits from being able to cast it even at low power levels. My warrior with intelligence of 1 hastily unlearned other skills and learned hammer in the middle of the final battle my first game and won an otherwise hopeless fight as a result.

Who can teach me hammer in the second act? Also, when I go to a teacher and get Bow Level: 8 what exactly is that doing for me? I've wasted several thousand gold on skills like this and I don't really see any benefit.

Hammer => the hermit in the Spider area up to lvl 5 or BF trader Elkar up to lvl 2.
Kiya

To answer the other part of your question.

When you buy skill level X, that means that you can now use your skill points to train it up to level X. You don't actually GET any skill for your purchase - you get the ability to train.

So if you buy the hammer skill in the battleground at the start of act two that means you can train it up to level 2. If you try and raise it higher nothing happens. Now suppose you visit the hermit and buy hammer 5. You still have the skill at level 2. But if you have some skill points lying around (or unlearn some other skill to free them up) you can click on that little + and now the number will go higher than two - all the way to five. Later you can raise it even more.

Clear now?

Yes, I just don't have the gold to unlearn now... <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/ohh.gif" alt="" />

Is it a good choice to go through the whole game with a sharpened shortsword? Just curious.

You should have plenty of cash after a while - each time you enter the battleground the merchants restock their cash and revise their inventories so you can sell all you have even if they don't have enough money to buy it - just return a few times. The fire arrows alone that the monsters in the first BG drop are worth a fair amount and if you clear out the first dungeon (clicking on all barrels, bookcases, chests, etc that have anything in them) you should have a lot you can sell.

The shortsword is nice to have for a low strength character since no strength is needed to use it. If you have a warrior that you give good strength to you will want to switch to better weapons later.

NOTE in particular that 1.45 has eliminated the enhancement to sharpen that came in with 1.44. You now need more agility to use sharpened weapons (+9, 13, 17, 21, 25 etc).

This means that you can't use a weapon created with sharpen skill 6 (if created with the patch installed, weapons you already have stay as is) unless you have at least agility of 30. If you put essentially all your points into agility this means level 7 (and with strength of 4 or so you won't be able to use many other weapons).

A level 7 character with agility of 30 and all other skills near the starting values is quite powerful - I ran the hero and the DK well into act 1 with that approach and never once even needed a healing potion - but not many of us like putting all our points into one attribute.

Hammer and lightnight storm!

I don't have enough mana to cast hammer even once!

Not even at low power? Hmnnnnnn.

Obvious approaches:

1. Buy potions of intelligence and take same - I'm not sure how long they last but but you can stock up with a few. Should increase intelligence by enough to give plenty of mana.

2. Check the stores for items with +int or + mana - maybe crap you sold to get better stuff. Buy them for this fight.

3. Alternative to buying potions - give yourself some points in extract and use alchemy to make potions.

4. If you have any charm slots available (preferably on gear you don't plan on keeping all that long) try sticking a mana (Icen) or int (Koor) charm in. The green charms don't do much but they are cheap and may do enough.

5. If you can use the battlefield to go up a level this will let you raise intelligence a few points. Or clear out a dungeon you haven't bothered with (if any) for the loot such as potions of int, gear raising int and mana etc.

6. If all else fails play unfair. Every time you get a good whack in and the shaman goes down nicely in hit points, save. With enough restores you will hit every round ,smile> and he will die real fast for you too.

elemental curse agains water followed by lightning storm and no one will survive. very good combination. If you have trouble with the last enemy you can always take a high level of poison weapon and hit him, run around killing of his summons and hit him when the poison weres off. takes alittle time but he will die and it is fairly safe.

Man you need to be a genius to know all this stuff! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/biggrin.gif" alt="" />

Ok I'll try what you've mentioned, hopefully I've got some INT equipment left.

Agh, I just don't have the money to buy charms. They really ought to have made the ability to remove charms since I have so much equipment I don't wear with valuable charms in it.

I have a cunning plan, though. I sell all my crap so I can unlearn a skill then train up pickpocket. Then I steal my stuff back and steal some charms and then I'll have enough money to get my old skill back. What do you think?

utumno
pickpocket well. look at what is available at a merchant BEFORE ripping them off.
that way you know exactly what that unidentified ring (belt, sword) is.
also, the merchant inventory can become quite jammed up (on the pickpocket screen) so it really helps to know the item(s) you're after.
my suggestion is to always go for the highest value arrows you can find. arrows are split-able.
if you were to pickpocket a gold charm (for instance), that's great - but at lower level just try to find a merchant that has 50,000 gold sitting around to buy it back! no, grab some expensive arrows and slowly sell them off (or trade). this works extremely well.
also please recognize that gold itself is seldom the best option to rip off. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Sometimes it can be alittle difficult getting the right stuff when you pickpocket. I do the following.
Sell a large charm like the mana one you receive in the beginning of the game to a merchant and get all the stuff you dont want from him (you can also use gold instead that will work just as well)
Then pickpocket and steal back the charm (or the gold) and what ever arrows you absolutly must have. Then go to all the other merchants and ofload the junk you bought. You can repeat this feat untill you feel you have enough money to last a life time or you are simply bored. Then dump the pickpocket skill again unless you want to walk around pickpocketing everybody. ( I only did it once, now I have so many valuable arrows that it would take a life time to get rid of them again so I really dont need pickpocket anymore)

Well it worked, sort of. Who in act 2 can teach me pickpocket 6? Now I have a little trouble, I don't want to unlearn pickpocket, so how can I make my DK Survivor viable in combat for less than 10 skillpoints?

BF trader Keith teaches pickpocket up to lvl 7 for 4000.
Kiya

why don't you let him/her learn Hammer? A mage spell - either form the hermit in the Spider Area (he's cheap) up to lvl 5 - or more expensive from BF trader Elkar up to lvl 2 for 4000?

This is really a very good spell. Your char stuns and your DK finishes off.

It's a great spell but I need to find socketed items so I can put intelligence charms in it first.

I started off as a survivor - and then slowly built up my magic. My combat skills were bow: went for acc. and critical hit. What about bow then?

What level did you turn to magic?

about 12/14? I started with this in Act 2, as soon as I had Shaman Hammer - as it doesn't need much mana, I put 2 skill pts into it first - always on the lookout for mana/int. items.
Kiya

And as a survivor, I had bow/pickpocket already as starting skills (up to lvl 5) - built up pp up to lvl 4 - let it like that. Stole cautiously and carefully in the BF, so I didn't waste by stealing useless stuff. Went for gold (only when more than 10000), gold charms and splitting arrows - and very good stuff (orange items, I wanted to use). I could steal 4 items frome each trader + gold. And I knew, I could only do this 1x per act, as soon as I had used up my pp skill. Cash was important for me - cause I knew I would have to unlearn at the end - I planned everything.

She didn't have many skills => bow (to 6), pp (to 4), hammer (to 5) and then shortly before the endfights, alchemy lvl 4 for my 2 holy water bowls.

Dk had 2-hand (to 10), sharpen( to 5), trap detection(to 3/4). That's all.

At the end of the game, I still had a lot of money and tons of silver/red charms. I sold the lesser ones. Played on tactical and finished in lvl 29.