Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - Suggestions and Feedback Non-summoner creatures seem broken on Summoner

and again...its need more time but after release

dos 1 + dos 2
how many time do they have to create a perfect mechanic with the help of community?
seems like they dont spend time on that

Frankly, I doubt there ever will be the perfect balance because there pretty much never is. I would say it's better balanced than DoS1, but even games like League of Legends constantly have to improve balance, and that's been out for several years already. Almost a decade.

Balance of DoS2 is bad compared to DoS EE.
DoS1 main problem is with perma CC, perma stealths and some others that we have in DoS2 too
Additionaly DoS2 have lots of new mechanic issues
LoL didnt have same problems. And have new heroes every couple of weeks. Sure, they need some balance.

P.S Lets call it game mechanic not balance, cos the main problem with uninteresting, broken and builds-killing mechanic

or RKG (role-killing game)

In DoS1, I remember being able to basically just leave the rest of my team behind because my main (a mage) could clear the entire thing himself. Most fights ended after my first turn.

LoL is a different type of game, so of course it's problems aren't the same. However, it has had, and still has, many champions considered overpowered and drastic buffs or nerfs to many of them. A lot of the changes are to old items or champions, not just newer ones. It's an unending process.

EDIT: I'm not going to call it a mechanic because mechanics are just elements of gameplay and they don't have an inherent problem, the problem is how they work with, and compared to, the other mechanics.

In this case:
Having summoning boost all summons is a good idea in general as it allows for cross-skill builds. The problem is how powerful the summons are per tree and how much they get buffed by summoning.

Ofc. Redused CD. Cast CC or dmg -> Stealth -> repeat -> gg
Rogue, Warrior and Archer could do the same



Elements of gameplay like armor system, resists system, CC system, dmg system, builds variety, difficulty system, economy, quest system (doing y before x), attribute system, schools synergy system and all all all have a problems. So i cant understand what are u talking about. Sorry

Maybe after 25 years of gaming i want to much from the game of 2017... but no.

What I'm saying is that the mechanic of summoning creatures isn't a bad idea. Neither is having that summon get strengthened by another skill. The problem is how those summoned creatures are compared to other mechanics.

Basically, the problem isn't the mechanic itself, it's how the mechanic is balanced according to the other mechanics. That's why I'm calling it a balancing issue, not a mechanic.

Agreed.
"summoning balance" will be better
But we still have tons of problems with game mechanics

Well, this boss needs to have then more than 5000 HP (on level 15) to "deal" more dmg with the vitality aspect of mortal blow than with the "normal dmg" of the ability. Why? 20% of 5000 Hp is 1000 DMG. This is the amount of dmg you anyway deal with mortal blow at level 15. All bosses I fought so far at level 15 had between 3000 and 5000 HP max. If you then also would aim for the same dmg as the spores then you would need to have a boss with like 7500 HP at level 15 as 20% of 7500 is 1500. If you would aim to make it Source Point equal DMG to the acid spores then the bosses would need double or more HP. Again ignoring the fact that acid spores can hit multiple targets and can be used two times during the uptime of the plant. So the vitality aspect of mortal blow sucks as there might just be only "final bosses" that have lots of HP to make this ability worthwhile in comparison to the plant that at present just uses one SP and deals lots more dmg than that ability and can be used in various ways (even as cannon fodder because of the huge amount of HP).

Edit: And yes, the fact that summoning also buffs non-summoner-summons is broken as the "normal" acid spores of geomancers needs 2 SP and does considerably less dmg. I even would say that skill of the geomancer does the same dmg as mortal blow, so it is not so much about the skill "acid spores" itself but the buff the artillery plant receives from summoning which indrectly buffs the dmg of "acid spores". I am sure no geomancer would love the fact that a summoned creature does with its skill almost double damage than he can do with the same skill whereas the geomancer even needs to spend more SP.

overall, i think incarnate is much, much more useful. he can do all kinds of magical damage, can CC with a battering ram, has a ranged attack (unlike the widow), and has a lot of armor with infusions. widow's huge HP doesn't solve the armor problem, since she'll just spend all her lifetime incapacitated. she's still useful if you need a quick damage burst or a teleport though.
as a side note, summons don't just soak aggro anymore, since the AI will always ruthlessly target your most vulnerable character, and it will be the summon only if your PCs are really tanky or inaccessible (or if it's the widow, due to her low armor).
P.S. one useful trick is to enter fights with a pre-cast summon, this way you can re-cast it without a cooldown.

i asked this in another thread (in more detail) but what was the balancing decision behind making necromancy summons scale with summoning level instead of necro level?

increasing necromancy level doesn't make any of the necromancy spells more potent. it's only your character level + int + (interestingly) warfare for physical dmg spells. increasing necromancy only makes you heal more % when doing physical damage (perhaps because they wanted to make it different from the elemental damage schools)

that comes across as kind of shitty, limiting the kinds of characters that necromancy is useful for. there goes any hope i had of making a damage-oriented necro mage

I'm not sure anyone is saying game balance is easy, but I should only really speak for myself, and my problem is these are all valid criticisms that I echoed through alpha, beta and more recently, in another thread. To see the game released as-is, following a relatively balanced Divinity: Original Sin Enhanced Edition and leaving much of the same feedback beforehand is frustrating admittedly.

The problem is two-fold.

The first problem is the new armor system (which is actually where most of the balance issues throughout the entire game probably come from, but that's beyond the scope of this post and is probably beyond fixing at this point, short of some massive game overhaul; Divinity Original Sin 2 Enhanced Edition, in other words, but I digress).

Anyway, the new armor system significantly diminishes the value of crowd control and lowers your ability to maintain control over the battlefield. The easiest way to counter this then is to simply overpower enemies, and the best way to overpower enemies is to increase your available action points usable toward overall damage per round, so you can nuke individual enemies by focus firing them.

Now if we were to stop right here and call it a day, some people might think that's okay. Personally, I dislike this type of system greatly and much preferred how combat worked in the first game, but that's me.

However, your ability to maintain control isn't only dependent on your capability to deal damage and quickly remove enemy units from the battle. You also need to control your enemies' ability to deal damage to you, so you don't get blown up, since recovering is also much harder than in the last game.

So what is the best way to increase your overall damage output and mitigate overall incoming damage without CC? Summoning. This is the most effective way, by far, to increase your available action points usable toward damage and increase your overall survivability on the battlefield. By increasing the amount of attackable units on the field, you increase your overall health pool, lower your chances of receiving multiple negative status effects at once on any one unit, and increase your overall flexibility to deal with RNG.

For these reasons alone, Summoning is the best skill, but then throw in the scaling it provides per point, and it is game-breaking. Game-breaking as-in Ifan's Source wolf Ifrit can almost deal as much damage with its Bite attack for two action points as Sebille can with Flesh Sacrifice (which provides a damage boost) followed with Backlash (guaranteed critical hit), Throwing Knife (critical hit), Adrenaline Rush, Sawtooth Blade, and a normal backstab attack (critical hit) combined for a total cost of seven action points.

I realize this comparison seems "unfair" or some may argue it "gets better" later on when the massive stat inflation from gear kicks in, except that it doesn't. Ifan's wolf (or any summon, for that matter) is bonus damage. A truly fair comparison would be Sebille later on with massive stat inflation -versus- Ifan's wolf -plus- Ifan with massive stat inflation -combined-.

I dont know if we're playing the same game, because for me, the ennemy never never focus my summons. The only thing that damage them are Aoe or ennemy out of range from my other guys.
Maybe that's because i'm playing in tactician (yet a bit lowered by a mod coz it was insane for a 1st run).