Larian Studios Forums Divinity II The Dragon Knight Saga / Flames of Vengeance (English) Divinity II - The Dragon Knight Saga Major difficulty increase after latest patch

I'm a bit hooped My character was doing just fine in DKS until I installed the latest patch to counter a huge bug with invisible/non-attacking enemies, and now the game is so difficult my poor character can't do anything. I've been reloading non-stop since I installed the patch, and I'm at level 30.

Trouble is, I made a mage, but my build and skill combination is obviously all wrong to survive now. My stats are mage-based so I can't switch my skills over to archery or fighter. I'm really in trouble, here.

What skill set should I have for a mage? And what armour?

Right now I have about 45 in vitality, 45 in Spirit, 25 STR, 10 or so dex, 45 in Intel.

Skills are:

10 Magic Missile, 9 Fireball, 4 Firewall, 9 or so in Regen (which is useless in combat; should have gone with the Healing spell instead) and then of course Mindread, Lockpick level 5 and a couple of levels of Retribution.

My armour is kind of a mish-mash because I've only found parts of sets.

At level 30 the Fortresses are hopeless, no chance at all except for knocking out the Ballistae and other Towers, and I can't even do the High Hall quest for the Well, which was easy last time. Thsi character now dies if more than one enemy attacks at the same time, period.

Are you sure that you didn't accidentally bump the difficulty setting up too high?

Respec those points out of Regeneration, Firewall, and Retribution (and maybe Mind Read). Get 1-3 points into Healing.

Firewall is only good at melee range, so it's not compatible with Magic Missile.

Like Stabbey said, check the difficulty setting. There was a higher difficulty level added with the patch and some of the enchantment level requirements changed (due to fairly over-powered weapons being generated early in the game), but there shouldn't be a huge jump in difficulty.

You can easily switch to melee combat using magic based weapons (which get a boost from intelligence, as opposed to normal weapons which get a boost from strength).

I played a mage, and had no problemns after the patch - some of the damage enchants were reduced like Raze said, but not the level 10 one.

But your build does seem odd to me - I had nearly 100 int by the time I was at level 30 (with equipment bonuses). In my opinion your int should be double your spirit and about four times your vitality. Strength and Dexterity should be completely ignored as they don't do anything useful for a Mage.

As for Armour, I settled on the Dragon Mage set (but you can't get that until the FoV part of the game). Armour enchants should be +mana and +health (with 8 Malachite gems you can get +400 to each across your armour). Jewellery enchants should be +regen (level 10, as it's not worth wasting the gems on lower levels) and static charge. And you should be dual wielding with +magic damage on each weapon (you don't need any dual-wield skill points, as it doesn't affect the spell damage bonuses).

But you should definitely be focusing on int as this directly affects your spell damage - it's better to kill fast as a Mage, rather than have the stamina for a long battle (by spending lots of points on spirit).

Thanks. Too bad I can't redistribbute my stats, but maybe I can beef up Magic Damage with Destruction while I up my Intel. Regen sounded great, but in reality needs to be very high level boosted with enchants, I guess. Next time I'll stick with vanilla Healling.

I haven't found any really high level enchantments yet, and I don't want to waste my Malachite gems on low level enchants. The best I have is a Magic damage boost 75 points. The rest of the enchants I have are unimpressive mid-range ones.

over powered weapons early in game? Like what?
Example?

As far as switching to magic based weapons, that's fine for dealing damage, but usually mages have some type of magic shield that reduce damage from melee and ranged attacks. Not so in this game. Mages are impossible to play in the game. Everyone has to be a fighter in the game, you can use mage skills, and ranged skills, but it's nearly impossible to avoid melee, so you have to have melee armor resistance which means strength.

I just gave up playing anything but a fighter for the most part, with a few magical enhancements and a good strong bow for picking at a crowd from a distance and getting them to break formation.

Before the patch people reported finding weapons very early in the game with damage bonuses on the order of 50, etc.

possible bug - difficulty... um where is it?


Lots of people have played mages. If opponents get too close, use Firewall and retreat (or Hide in Shadows) if you don't want to engage in any melee combat.
Actually, someone playing a mage recently commented about neglecting strength and dexterity, so apparently equipment enchantments and potions, etc are more than enough for melee and ranged resistances.

I agree with Raze. There are people who can play as mages. Thats why mage is availble as a class. When the enemy gets too close to start melee attacks they put some distance between them and who ever it is and hit them with magic from a distance. I dont play as a mage because I like hack-n-slash. With that being said even I know not to stand toe-to-toe with somebody when I am a ranged fighter because I will get my a** handed to me if I didnt build my character in a way that can make me a melee fighter.

I said that earlier this thread, but I've got to admit it depends on your definition of a 'mage'.

To me a mage is someone who focuses entirely on maximum damage at the expense of survivability - basically 'kill them before they even get the chance to touch you'. Such a build requires adopting 'hit and run' tactics, and makes it hard in the occasional confined battle areas, but it definitely works in DKS. From level 20-40 (at normal difficulty) I could kill pretty much all non-boss monsters with one hit (although, admittedly, I'd then be nearly helpless until the cooldown had completed). Towards the end of the game (and after carefully managing my build, equipment and enchants) it was getting so easy that I increased the difficulty level to 'hard' - by then I could do 10k damage from a single spell.

But that's just my opinion - it depends on how you want to play the game. DKS handles mages like most RPGs do - weak at the start, but able to churn through monsters faster than any other build once you've achieved a decent level. Basically, I'm just too impatient to be a tank - I want to kill the enemy and proceed ASAP, instead of gradually wearing them down. And if that means the occasional death because one of them got too close, then so be it...

I think that is what makes an RPG's so great , you can play any way you want.
Also I like to experiment without help , and learn from failure's lol....