Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - Help/Tips/Tricks Only 1 mage DPS- Good variety or Lacking Synergy?

Grp comp with only 1 mage DPS - Useful for variety, or lacking Synergy?
So halfway through lvl 5, going to be leaving the starting island soon.
Currently I'm running:
#1. Beast as my main tank/support - Str/Con Cleric 1h/shield with some warfare for battlestomp cc
#2. (main character) Sebille - Shadowblade physical dps / some poly cc
#3. Ifan - ranged physical dps/utility wayfarer

Now #4 is my main reason for posting. Aside from support/utility, these first 3 characters deal physical dps. My 4th slot is my only magic dps:
#4. Lohse - enchantress ranged aero/hydro, lightning/ice DPS/CC.
It seems like she's the weak link because she's the only one working down enemy's magic defenses.

Often times when I assist down a target, it'll be dead before I can even break their magic defense bar. With my first 3 all tag-teaming physical dps, its much more often that enemies have weakened/broken armor barriers, and can be finished off with that extra physical dps. It feels like I'm lacking synergy because Lohse is alone in working down enemy magic defense. I'm using decent dual wands on her (mixed elements) to try and work down barriers to save lightning to burst them down after the magic barriers drop....

It seems like if she was just another archer or physical dps there would be better synergy, but then I'd be missing out on damage type variety.

Thoughts?

I was considering dropping Ifan the wayfarer for a second mage, (perhaps Fane or RedPrince as a pyro wizard?), that way I'd have:
1 tank and 1 assassin for 2x physical dps assisting eachother on one target, ignoring it's magic defense cutting straight through armor for the kill faster.
2x magic dps to assist on a separate target, ignoring it's physical armor defense, cutting through magic defense together then going for the kill faster.

My counter argument against adding a second mage (like a pyro/geo wizard) is because my main character being an elf shadowblade was always getting stuck in ground AoE effects of fire/poison/etc next to enemies. Archers can avoid friendly fire AoE much easier, thats why I have my current setup.

Thx for any Suggestions/feedback :D

You will suffer later in the game if you stay with Beast 1h shield : better go 2h and destroy the physical armor so you can cc faster. 1h shield is shit for a melee.

If I were you I would go with a summoner/support. Oil can go throught armors to slow people / summoning is great and very flexible.

A good team for you would be :
- 1 bruiser 2handed warfare necro for a neafly unkillable melee monster.
- 1 range dps (Ifan with highground deals op damages)
- 1 assassin
- 1 support geo/summoner with utility spells like heal and teleport

Dont go with staff on your support, wand shield is tons better : with this, mage becomes a tank support.

I don't get the argument that onehanded and shield is bad for a melee. A warrior with a twohander is squishy even if his armor looks like the heaviest plate on earth (or Rivellon). Necro is of no great help when there is no time to heal. And, more important, Necro skills + points heal but healing is only second class support in this game. Necro on my twohanded warrior is a nice addition, but a rather small addition.

Sword-and-shield is not for damage in the first place but for defense and support, although Bouncing Shield is a high damage skill. A cleric is however not the best base for a strong support tank, so maybe the way to twohanded is better. On the other hand, you already have two dedicated physical damage dealers, I don't see much difficulty to go through the armor.

For the fourth char, I would also advice going summoner. If you cannot resist the big numbers and go twohanded warrior, the incarnate could tank damage to a certain degree. A summoner is not the best support during early play because you should put any point in Summoning till you have 10 in it (Champion incarnate). For support you will like to have points in Hydro and Geo. My summoner has some points in Hydro but less than my tank. She (Lohse) usually carries a crossbow but changes to onehanded + shield if attacked, cause if she dies the incarnate disappars and it is in some aspects the strongest char in your group.

If you would go the magical way, I would advice a Pyro/Geo mage in addition. Hydro/Aero is not that much damage, it's more about CC and support. A split party (2 physical, 2 magical damage) can be handy in some situations. There were some fights where I doubted my decisison to go pure physical damage, f.e. when there are lots of foes with 1000 physical and 100 magical armor.

Trust me, later in the game you will have shitton of psychical armor anyway and 2h is the only way to go atm. Shield gives you nothing but useless points in armor because you will deal 0 dmg and enemies will attack your other characters anyway

In actual state of game going 1h+shield is just useless slot in party.

It's not really about armor though. Armor is not a problem near the end of the game, as magic is a far bigger concern. Adding some magic armor + shield up is way more useful than all the heavy armor money can buy. In fact, I've even found myself grabbing a few points in int so I could wear robes on my "tanks", as I suddenly realized my wand + shield wearing casters were getting tankier than my heavy hitters.

That being said, for a "tank" I'd probably just get enough strength to wear stuff and then go int + magic anyway, while still maintaining all the useful knock downs, movement abilities, shield up, deflection, etc stuff that tanks get.

You dont really need shields up if you use fortify and spells like that efficently. If shields up is so important, why i finished this game Solo as Shadowblade double dagger, and even one guy did Tactican mode Solo 2h Death Knight As long as you do right spells combinations, you dont need shield for anything.

Playing on classic (with no early release experience) I purposely split my party to more conventional RPG roles because I found playing D:OS EE that doing the "best" builds (aka all physical or all magic in this game) just made the game boring.

1. Tank: Warfare / 1 Hand + Shield / Poly
2. Air/Water Mage (staff): Aero/Hydro + minor Necro (I barely use the spells, it was more for a learning experience)
3. Fire/Earth Mage (wands): Pyro/Earth + minor Hydro for only 2-3 support spells, generally not needed on classic
4. Rogue: Scoundrel / DW / Poly

So far, at 19 and just having finished the Nameless Isle I can say the game still isn't really challenging unless you are fighting things above your level, or a few bosses at your level. At this point I'm 2-3 levels above what I'm fighting and it's unfortunately a joke.

Sorry for getting off topic, the point I wanted to make:
- 1h / Shield is fine at least on Classic. Find a shield with 10% blocking. It seems sort of random which ones have this. Maybe 2h is much better, but if you like the flavor of 1h/shield it's perfectly alright.
- If I were in your shoes, I would probably make the 4th character a utility mage that doesn't do magic damage. Spread them across any schools you like and just take abilities that buff/heal, that don't rely on breaking magic armor (like oil) or other utility effects teleport, netherswap, whatever. You're physical toons will do the damage and this character can support them. Or use the various spells that do reduce physical armor (necro has several).