Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - General x100 Polymorph for everyone?

Damage wise, no spell will compete with physical damage dealer like warfare, rogue or hunter. By far, very far.
But necromancy has some usefull spell yes. That's why I said it may be the only one worth taking.
But the best party would still be 3 ranger, 1 warrior.

re: the two above posts

Indeed, it doesn't scale with the weapon, instead it scales with level, which physical skills do not. In my experience in game and my testing in dungeon master mode I have found the level based scaling to result in superior damage in all situations when not using a weapon overlevelled for the character in question (which results in a -80% hit chance so it becomes a moot point at that time).

Again if you are getting different results and are getting MORE damage from physical skills and attacks while I am getting substantially LESS compared to an equally levelled character focusing on Necro, Warfare and Int instead of Warfare, (whatever) and Str, I'd love to know what your setup is in term of the weapons used and skills used because that is the opposite of my experience and I'd love to test and evaluate the discrepancy.

I'll point out though that there is indeed a vast difference at level 1, but it's my experience that difference is mostly made up by level 5, way in favor of spells by 10, and insanely different (like well over 5x as much damage by spells) by level 20 if you ever reach that point. So are you just evaluating the situation at level 1-3 and that's why you think that is the case?

I'm already looking at a 20 int level 6 fane.
Against a level 6 17 Finesse lizard with Ifan crossbow

Fane does 33-36 damage with his necromancy on all 3 spells (Mosquito, Touch, Disease)
My archer does 43-49 per shot, not counting crit and the skills he can use to boost em, like blood-elemental arrow adding another 13-14 damage per shot that can be used pre-fight.

You really have to consider that the physical damgae can crit easily and without the need for that talent while also having way more factor to boost its damage than spell do in nearly every case. Not to mention that when the spells go on CD, you can't deal damage. At level 6, after Fane uses those 3 spells, I am forced to go to backline buffing and healing with him until they come off CD. Meanwhile, my archer can still keep on going and if we do count late game, that 3 source point 16 hit attack is going to make all large targets cry.

Though I will admit that magic might actually become decent after a few levels in with a bunch of int (since wit has been nerfed woo) because of their scaling but the pisspoor level 1 to 5 along from lack of weapon scaling is really hurting its viability, especially in tactician mode where you need to focus fire as soon as possible and kill a few targets, or at least the boss, before they get to move again.