Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - General Tactician mode feels busted

90% dodge rate on everyone for 1 turn is almost complete invul. I was chaining it and the "You must lose" enemy whiffed their attacks like 30 times in a row.

It was fun beating a group of 4 super bloated level 11 enemies with a group of 10 heavily under geared in armor since I only buy weapons.

Had to reload though because the quest has to do with losing. Good that I get to see my prince complain about people for being weak for getting dragged by the void woken.

Understood, but it is a general DOS 1 and 2 tip, if you find yourself under leveled, you most likely missed something, go there first... OR... try something new and learn a new trick!

DOS's give you a CRAZY amount options per round, probably too many. My guess is they can't balance it because of this, so that is why lower difficulty levels can become very easy to beat. They have to A. make sure people of all types can beat the game and B. as you get better, the gap between you vs AI grows to the point it is comical.

The mod potential for both games for a Master Balanced version is large and some have attempted it with good results.

I absolutely love tactician difficulty. In first game it was pretty easy, here you really need to use tactics and think alot about every turn. I spent so many hours reloading failed battles and its so satisfying when you finally beat them. Only level 6, but loving it.

I also enjoy new mechanics with physical/magic shields. I think it adds plenty of depth to combat.

Hi, just wanted to say I'm still loving Tactician and don't think it should get nerfed at all. In my opinion, it is easier than EA because of the buffs to players:

>Rogues actually got buffed due to the Ruptured Tendons + Chicken Claw combo.
>Also, Summoner was buffed to ridiculous degrees.

And, the new turn order mechanics mean you can stealth characters and they get a turn when they enter combat.

And if you get certain tools, such as the Warfare + Hydro skill, you can nearly one-shot Undead enemies by casting heal spells.

I’ve played tactician mode and worked my way through it like it was a 9-5 job, and nearly fell asleep. At no point was I challenged, or did I encounter an obstacle to my progress. I just encountered work after work. Drudge, basically. No battle was too difficult – that never came into play. The battles were just boring, because they increased stats and prolonged the length of the fights. It’s donkey work going through that. No challenge, no difficulty – just a longer fight. That’s not ‘tactical’.

I never lost one fight, but I near feel asleep at the computer through one of them.
At least in classic mode, there’s a pace. There was a pace in D:OS1 tactician as well, because it wasn’t just ‘inflate their stats’.

There are plenty of more imaginative options. I’ve suggested a few. If you like prolonging fights by 10-15min, where there’s still no challenge, maybe that should be a checkbox option for you. And you can keep this thing, where you’re beating the proverbial dead horse, again, and again.

I want something more creative.

It's the core problem with the armor system. There is now less randomness, but on the other hand it turned into a pure grindfest in armorpeeling.

Ok, I've moved out of the Fort Joy, beating the badass magister bishop. On tactician it was rather challenging. But for now, my characters are equipped... just fine. So what am I really afraid of are the numbers that another guy pointed in his thread here on the forum. He told that mobs will have 3-4k armor and hp. And now on my level 8 I can't imagine dealing with it. Does someone have anything to say? Need to mention, that Fort Joy was not as hard as you guys pointed on the first pages. Yes, armor is imbalanced af, but with some tricky postitioning it is all manageable.

Ive been playing Classic and Tactician with removed bloat whole day.

The differences are either non existent or minimal.

Crocs are completely same in both, Turtles are the same, Poisoned frogs in the cave are the same and the fight in Prison is completely the same. Same numbers of enemies, same level, same stats, same skills and the same Ai behavior. The only difference are those buffed stats of armor, damage and HP.
Im just about to go fight the guardians in Withermore soul jar tomb on Classic to see if there is any difference there compared to Tactician (with bloat removed), but ive been at it all day so i need to take a break, maybe even sleep.


Ive only noticed that the first two voidwoken on the beach have an additional "vampiric" ability, which of course doesnt mean anything in that case because they just life steal a point or two.

The rare differences seem to be just those additional abilities, usually just one. I presume i will see those in other fights further on, but it isnt applied to every enemy group or encounter. Even when it is, most likely its a single ability or "aura" that just buffs the same basic three stats even more, or something that doesnt make a big difference.

I guess it was a quick and easy way to create an apparent difference.

Its a shame because the Ai is really good and capable of providing diverse reactions and gameplay. There are other ways to achieve a true difference and make fights properly harder and much more interesting instead of this forced slow chipping away at HP - Armor bloated numbers.
There could have been enemy groups with fighters of different and higher levels, which would allow some (commanders) to have different and more spells or abilities to use, better equipment and appropriately higher HP and Armor values that relate to their levels and equipment... and so on. Even with the exact same Ai capabilities.

For those who enjoy this kind of dumb "hardness" someone should make a mod that bloats enemy HP and armors by 2000%. They will love it.


btw, teleport is a total gimmick because you get it at the start while no enemies have it, and all characters can use that skill through the gloves or scrolls regardless if they have any points in Aero or not. It should be nerfed so only Aerothurges can use it and it should be available only with two or three points in the skill.
The gloves should have limited charges of it at the start so you cant abuse it.

But... that some other kind of a game.

Yeah, exactly. There's already a mod out which removes the HP bloat, so if Tactician is "ruined" by removing it and adding in more enemies, additional enemy skills/Talents and other visible differences, there's nothing stopping people who liked the HP bloat from using the same kind of mod you're using now, but in reverse to add the bloat back in.




Nope, I cannot agree with that idea, the game has put in a lot of non-combat uses for it. I just used the gloves to teleport up some mushrooms from an unreachable ledge, for instance.

But I'm not worried that Larian will do as you suggest, so I'm not going to argue about it. It was already nerfed in combat to require Aerothurge 2 and cost 2 AP (they could have gone up to 4 AP, but at least it was something).

Yeah... i dont really think anyone will do it. I was just saying.
Non combat uses of it should be given to telekinesis instead. Which would make it much more valuable and needed then it is now.

With the gloves and a lot of scrolls for it i havent even noticed it requires 2 levels in aerothurge.

It just makes a lot of fights much, much easier at the start, while enemies dont have it.
So it could be done (theoretically speaking) for a true harder difficulty.

Of course it wont be, but just that one change would substantially change the difficulty in a right way.

Act 2 tactician actually made use of this and made the armor system decent again.

The easiest example is the evasiave aura battle that was mentioned early. Some people go for the convo option to clear it because it seems unclearable as they can never hit the char with that +90% dodge rate (the silent monk has like 110% dodge rate)

The trick is that the magister only has 150 magic armor. Even the silent monk nearby has 150 physical instead of the usual magic armor. The game actually wants you to beat the fight with a magic damage CC and apply something like frozen or cripple+slow. I actually used my frozen grenade for once just to help apply the frozen on her for 100% hit rate.

And this is used many times through out Act 2 where the armor system is finally used to give enemy actual weakness unlike Act 1 where everything just have high physical and magical armor. The only mobs that break this rule are the Voidwoken but they are kinda intended to be ridiculously op and appear in very limited number with clear method to beat them outside that one specific encounter so far at level 10-11 cave quest.

There are games with no randomness but that are tactical. The issue is that the game doesn't really shift in the situation.

In DOS1 for example an enemy not falling for your CC, being immune to it, or being able to move over your obstacles required you to approach things in a relatively different way, and the skills weren't so similar that you could just use a different attack. It is also telling that SOME enemies remained continuous threats within battle.

In DOS2 things are relatively straight forward and if you are in danger it is typically because you messed up. Enemies have little-no ability to cause upsets or shift the gameplay. The best example of this are the Gators: They have oil and they have a teleport, but they do it early and you will kill them before then. If they do recharge, well they had it the entire time and your counters are recharged.

(Also telling that in spite there being magic and physical armor... ONLY magic gets resistances, immunities, and drains... AND had its cooldowns increased. What a coincidence two of the best magic types are physical)

I am not surprised that Tactition mode is both too hard and too easy for some people. If you know the strategy (yes there is a non-exploit strategy) then... well... you just removed the only trick the game had.

The armors just sort of ended up weird. Honestly at this point I am thinking hybrid system might have been the better way to do it. Have the armors to prevent "First turn CC I win!", but don't remove the CC chances.

Or you know... don't split the armor types and simply have defense AND armor.

I have found that enemies having more armors and more hp forces me to approach the fights in a different way.

With the armor system preventing most CC, some skills are stronger in Tactical difficulty - Like Teleport or frozen ground.

Calling it bloat does not change the fact that enemies not being easilly CCed makes the game more tactical. You don't just have to stand there punching them for 50% longer, you have to change up your whole strategy in a lot of fights.
The way you have to use more suvival tools on the front liners lowers your damage and again makes it harder to get CC in.

Optimizing numbers are more required to be able to win at all.

Me and a friend play it blind. We don't optimize at all really. We play the archetypes we wanted from the start and since we didn't know what skills we would be able to obtain or how gear works, we haven't been able to use any of that to our advantage either, but we still do fine.
We struggle with some fights - some are epic, we remember most (kudos to Larian for making most encounters that good)
Finished Act1 yesterday. Tons of fun.
If you know the game systems and make a party specifically to be strong, I don't think this mode (at least not act1) poses an incredible amount of challenge, so I am glad we are clueless

I have definately 100% played games where that was the case. Where simply buffing an enemy changed the way the entire game was played.

For example Freedom Force Vs. The Third Reich... The Gorillas are defeated in one hit with one of your heroes stronger attacks, making it a great opener. Yet they not only survive but their attacks are devastating. So suddenly the winning opening gambit means you have to carefully maneuver around.

The ISSUE in DoS2s case is the optimal strategies overwhelmingly still work. A lot of people's trouble with the game on Tactition usually translates to them relying on defense to survive a round.

So far been doing the game on tactician as a solo character lone wolf and am around level 12 now. Some fights are ridiculous due to gains, especially with boss characters as the stats were already high to begin with. It was ok until I got off Joy, the stat increase wasn't that out of wack but now it has gotten a little silly.

I like many others was expecting a similar thing to EE with new mobs and the occasional skill here/there, hardest AI, etc. If its just a +50% armour/hp/damage boost across the board and nothing more its quite the let down and I would change the difficulty back down if I could.

You can just lower the bloat through a text based mod Horrorscope made. I havent decided which would be a sweet spot yet, but armor buffs can be removed completely, while leaving some extra HP (10 - 20%) and "chance to hit" could be it.

I think the extra aura are tactician only since they appear out of nowhere when the fight begins (like the executioner having absolutely no buff but the moment you start the fight, Evasive aura pops up and force you to use AoE magic and CC to kill her)

Also the bloated stats aren't that ridiculous when you consider how bloated your stats are going to be with legendary gears you can find from just shopping. The game pretty much scales your enemies stat up as much as you gain from buying items. Most enemies in the level 12-13 zones on non-monster in tactician still get gipped in highground 4 arrows. You're gonna enjoy it even less when a single archer can gip magisters and undead before they even act.

Just a brief background of my experience: Finished DOSEE tactician and never played DOS2 EA.

I dove straight into tactician considering that my first DOSEE play through was tactician as well. My approach
in DOSEE was to play a diverse party which could react to many different situations. This worked pretty well, although it was harder early on than later on. Later it became a little easy.

I thought I'd take a similar approach in DOS2 tactician and I am struggling big time. I can beat a lot of the fights but they are draining resources like crazy and I have to do some crazy positioning before fights. The reason for this struggle is simply armor. In DOSEE you could mostly just CC anyone with a relatively small chance of it failing. In DOS2 tactical you have to get rid of armor first. With my diverse party, I struggle to do any one kind of specific damage well. Just to give an idea, here is my party setup:

Red Prince (Warfare + poly) (ME)
Sebille (Ranger)
Lohse (Enchanter)
Fane (Conjurer)

I can actually use all except Lohse to do physical damage, but the problem is that if you've stripped physical armor you need to have good physical CC to follow up with. Currently only Red Prince has physical CC. Sebille can use knockdown arrows, but she only has so many.

All in all I think summoning is pretty awesome, but it lacks CC. What it lacks in CC it makes up for with totems and incarnate wailing on your enemies constantly. I'm not sure if lacking CC is forgivable in DOS games though. I'll give it a better try in a later play through.

Another learning curve I think is to learn to replenish your own armors.

So I'll be rerolling to something like this:

Red Prince (WAR, POL, maybe GEO) - Melee tank
Soak up damage as much as possible and deal as much damage as what can be done with a single 1H weapon.

Lohse (Enchanter with AER, GEO, HYD, WIT) - Support
Just heal and buff as much as possible. Maybe switch out for magic oriented offence for fights when required. I like the WIT/GEO combo spells for removing armor which I think will work well in this group. She will most likely be my grenadier as well.

Sebille/Ifane (MAR, AER, some other things maybe) - Ranged damage
Basically as much ranged damage as possible. Ellezard mentioned that evasion aura is good so I'll add AER. Also having an extra char with teleport is never a bad thing. I'm leaning towards Sebille because of her having that whole cannibalism thing going. Quite a laugh with her in the party as Red Prince so far though. Good times.

Fane/Beast (WAR, HYD, GEO) - Melee damage slightly support
I just want a few points in HYD and GEO for cleanse wounds and of course more armor regen. Otherwise it'll be focusing on 2H dps. I like Fane, but not sure if I want him around considering that regen kills him.

Strategy will be very physical approach and outlast my enemies. Anyone with high phys armor can maybe be dealt with using special arrows and my Lohse. I think once I've done a first play through, then I can get a little more creative on subsequent ones.

On a general note, I think it is an unrealistic expectation to think you can oneshot tactician on your first play through playing whatever comp you want to. Being able to play any comp will come with time and much game knowledge. I oneshotted DOSEE tactician and it left me feeling a little cheated.

As for increasing difficulty by bloating stats, I don't think that's the only thing they did. In developer updates they mentioned the improved AI and extra abilities. I don't have a point of reference given that I don't play classic, but I trust them that the AI is smarter in tactician than classic if they say it is. Bloating the stats just adds an endurance dynamic to it. For WoW players, nailing the tactic one or twice isn't enough to beat that raid boss. You have to consistently do everything well over time in order to beat the boss. The way I see it, it's the same here. I can see how people are frustrated by it though. If Larian come up with some novel way to make it harder I will be surprised and impressed. AI can only be so smart without going down a very deep rabbit hole with incredibly specialized skillsets. They've done a decent job so far and I think with updates it will only improve.

The game is already easy as it is, removing the added stats will makes it ridiculously easy just like in DoS1. This is a type of game where when you know how to probably gear up your characters and take advantage of the environments then everything becomes easy, no matter how good the AI is.

Just gonna be honest and say that if the players complain about stats being bloated, chances are, they either have very weak builds or heavily undergeared.

People talk about 4k health and 4k shield while dealing 250-300 damage a hit.

This is my char with at level 13. 9 in Huntsman and 12 in warfare inclufing all the gear bonus.

https://i.imgur.com/a9flMXC.jpg

378 damage normal shot with a purple weapon. And my 2H red prince does even more than that!

If I have a legendary crossbow with rune slot and crit, that's already something like 700+ per hit.

At level 13.

Enemies need those +50% stat so they can actually compete with super bloated player stat.