I'm looking for some build recommendations

[Bilateralrope]

I played this game for a few hours a few years ago and don't remember why I stopped. Everything I've heard tells me I'll probably enjoy it. Now that I'm going through my backlog, it's time for me to give it another go. The only issue is that character creation tells me that I'll enjoy myself more if I can follow a party build someone else has figured out.

Here's what I'm after in a build:
- Something that requires more thought in battles than move into attack range and use the same sequence of abilities every time.
- Minimal consumable use unless it's a tough fight or something has gone wrong*.
- Quick battles if I'm playing intelligently.

Does anyone have suggestions ?

*If you look at how many hours I've played of the XCOM games, you'll understand that I don't mind things going horribly wrong due to RNG.

[Wovan]

Originally posted by Bilateralrope:

- Something that requires more thought in battles than move into attack range and use the same sequence of abilities every time.

Uh... What? To be successful is to have a good repeatable procedure.

Either go easy mode so you can do different stuff freely, or go challenging mode so you have to think outside the box. If tactician/honor is not challenging enough, get EpicEncounter mod.

Otherwise, an AP build style makes fight end quicker with barely any need for consumable if you are doing well.

[SympliKrazi]

I started, but havent finished the game myself.
Did a little bit of research found found this.

https://www.tihie.com/divinity-original-sin-ee/1-power-build-ranger

This place has a general walkthru of the game. I didnt do much reading of everything this site has to offer, I just focused on 4 character builds and how to play them. It's a decent start until you figure out leveling system works, imo.

[Bilateralrope]

Originally posted by Wovan:

Originally posted by Bilateralrope:

- Something that requires more thought in battles than move into attack range and use the same sequence of abilities every time.

Uh... What? To be successful is to have a good repeatable procedure.

Either go easy mode so you can do different stuff freely, or go challenging mode so you have to think outside the box. If tactician/honor is not challenging enough, get EpicEncounter mod.

Otherwise, an AP build style makes fight end quicker with barely any need for consumable if you are doing well.

For the XCOM games, I found there was a mostly repeated procedure. But there were always things to think about. Where to position your units, if now is a good time to use a limited use or long cooldown ability, etc.

For card based strategy games, there are some where you have to constantly think about the best way to use the cards in your hand.

That's the minimum of what I'm looking for and it will probably depend on difficulty setting.

[Hunting Doska]

IDK if it's good, but build that carries me through tactic mode:
1. General caster with all elements (water/air priority for crowd control, pyro for dmg, geomancy can be ignored)
2. Marksman crafter/lockpicker/pickpocketer with array of elemental arrows
3. Lone wolf on both
This way you can have a lot of AP (enough for 2-4 shots and 2-4 casts per turn), means to craft combat resources (and gear for sell), full elemental coverage and a lot of crowd control via terrain change/stuns/charm
And you can always rethink your tactics in case of lack of certain resource, bad terrain or enemy resistances - can't stun lock the horde of undead? Just burn them as quick as possible, charm marksmen for provocation of those which survive.

You do need lots of consumables though. I don't think that it's a problem though.

[Bilateralrope]

Originally posted by SympliKrazi:

I started, but havent finished the game myself.
Did a little bit of research found found this.

https://www.tihie.com/divinity-original-sin-ee/1-power-build-ranger

This place has a general walkthru of the game. I didnt do much reading of everything this site has to offer, I just focused on 4 character builds and how to play them. It's a decent start until you figure out leveling system works, imo.

I'll probably go with this build unless someone suggests something else.

[Highrule -1]

Those builds are absolutely terrible. On the flip side, those are basically the only builds that have written guides for in this game.

Pick your poison I guess.

[Degenerate]

Originally posted by Highrule -1:

Those builds are absolutely terrible. On the flip side, those are basically the only builds that have written guides for in this game.

Pick your poison I guess.

Instead of being negative you could help

[Highrule -1]

Help how? I did mention that this game has a dire lack of actual build guides, so I'm not sure how I can help. Best I can do is keep repeating that those four builds suck whenever they're brought up.

[Bilateralrope]

Originally posted by Highrule -1:

Those builds are absolutely terrible. On the flip side, those are basically the only builds that have written guides for in this game.

Pick your poison I guess.

Could you please elaborate on why they are bad.

[Highrule -1]

Ranger

Bad skill picks;
-Vampiric Arrow (useless, you should never pick this; pretty sure Larian overlooked this skill and never fixed it)
-Vampiric Touch (pointless on a bow character)
-Lower Resistances (semi-melee range, needs int stacking to get high % of working)
-Destroy Summon (this is useful in one or two encounters early game, but after level 5-6 you'll never need to use it again)
-Summon Armored Undead Decapitator (costs WAY too much AP for a ranger, hard pass)
-Summon Ice Elemental (costs WAY too much ap for a ranger, hard pass)
-Cleansing Water (another "you just never use this" - skill)
-Ice Shard (way too expensive in terms of AP for a hybrid character)
-Regeneration (amount healed relies on INT stat, a hybrid will heal a lot less than an INT main)
-Mass Slow (you should just never pick this one either, no matter the character)
-Infect (nothing in the game has high enough hp to warrant spending 6 AP on this skill)
-Malediction (skill might sound good, but you'll almost never end up using this because there are better choices, especially on a dps like a ranger)

You could also make a case for Teleport due to the 7 AP cost, but the skill has no INT requirement for working and only needs one point in Aero to spec, so it's fine as a back-up skill. A ranger, however, should never be using this.

Bad skill-not-picks;
-Ice Wall. Best Hydro adept skill, only challenged situationally by Water of Life (which the build also ignores btw). Good aoe freeze chance, blocks enemy vision/path, causes ice to spread when it breaks down so that enemies can slip on it too. This is a skill that has a use in almost any situation imaginable. That site has a party setup, three characters with Hydro, but none have this skill.
-Water of Life. Boosts Constitution by 3 for every ally ally inside its cast range. CON boost gives both +max hp, and effectively heals as you get +3 CON's worth of 'heal' as well. Having this on just one party member is fine, but the party setup in question has ZERO MEMBERS WITH THIS SKILL. Out of three builds that get master Hydro, none have this super team-boosting skill. I can't strain enough how dumb this is.

Any other Adept Hydro skill is FAR behind these two in terms of usefulness. For the third time, I can't believe none of the three builds on that site that spec in Hydro have these skills picked...

-Cloak and Dagger. This is the movement skill you want to have on your ranger. Being able to instantly move anywhere at a 15m radius gives you a ton of options to either run or find a better place to shoot from. Only costing 4 AP, this is the best support skill you can get.

There's also Wind-Up Toy, but it's not necessary and somewhat difficult to use. Personally, I'd always grab this for a ranger as well.


Bad Talent picks;
-Far Out Man
-Stench
-Sidestep
-Glass Cannon
-Elemental Ranger

Far Out Man is for casters. A ranger picking it is a joke, even if it's a hybrid ranger. As a ranger you'd prefer not to be close to enemies in the first place, so picking a Talent that is most efficient for short-range spells is just....

Stench and Sidestep by themselves aren't bad, but then we got Glass Cannon. Glass Cannon lowers your max HP by 50%, so having some slight extra mitigation like Sidestep/Stench becomes meaningless. You're better off picking Morning Person, Five-Star Diner, All Skilled Up, Bigger and Better and probably some other ones I can't remember to boost your offensive potential rather than these two. Vice versa, if you want to keep the mitigation, then get rid of Glass Cannon and replace it with something else. Also, Glass Cannon with Far Out Man is just....

As for Elemental Ranger, I might be wrong here since it's been a good while I last had this talent, but I'm pretty sure this only works with normal attacks, not with special arrows or skills. And throughout the game, 99.9% of the time you should be using special arrows or skills with a ranger, so...

Bad Attributes;
-Perception. You never spec into Perception, ever, on any character. The only use Perception has is for detecting traps and secrets; in fights it's completely overshadowed by Speed stat. For trap detection you can use Light Stepper (Talent), keep some +PER items on you that you can change into, use Burn My Eyes for PER buff and/or use PER potions for +1-3 PER, depending on its quality.
-Speed. No SPD on a Glass Cannon character. You want to stack SPD because it gives you Initiative to get before any enemy does, to ensure you don't die before your turn and that you can position/stealth yourself when starting a fight in bad position. It also gives you extra AP, and you want as much AP as possible as a Glass cannon to make sure that you can deal the most damage possible on your turn.

Being a hybrid Glass Cannon automatically lowers the effectiveness of a character because you need to spec into two main stats (main stats being STR, DEX, INT) rather than just one + SPD.

Calling this "one of the most powerful builds in game" is complete bs. Any pure ranger or pure mage will be more powerful than this. Pure STR characters don't have that much aoe capability, so technically this build is stronger than them; considering a single-target situation though, a pure STR character is stronger than this.


Was going to talk about the other builds as well, but tbh this took too much writing already. The "Dual Wielding Grenade Wizard" - build would require an even bigger wall of text, because that build is literally relying on nades to function; nothing else, NOTHING ELSE about that build is positive. If you remove nades from it, it would become complete trash. Grenades in this game are super OP; the tankiest character I've ever ran with was a grenadier with zero skills, no spells, no Man-at-Arms, no Scoundrel, no Expert Marksman and it still contributed to damage through nades alone on top of being borderline immortal. That's how stupidly OP nades are, and that's an example of how nades can make any build that would be utter trash without them, look great.

[Hedgehog]

Originally posted by Highrule -1:

Ranger

Bad skill picks;
-Vampiric Arrow (useless, you should never pick this; pretty sure Larian overlooked this skill and never fixed it)
-Vampiric Touch (pointless on a bow character)
-Lower Resistances (semi-melee range, needs int stacking to get high % of working)
-Destroy Summon (this is useful in one or two encounters early game, but after level 5-6 you'll never need to use it again)
-Summon Armored Undead Decapitator (costs WAY too much AP for a ranger, hard pass)
-Summon Ice Elemental (costs WAY too much ap for a ranger, hard pass)
-Cleansing Water (another "you just never use this" - skill)
-Ice Shard (way too expensive in terms of AP for a hybrid character)
-Regeneration (amount healed relies on INT stat, a hybrid will heal a lot less than an INT main)
-Mass Slow (you should just never pick this one either, no matter the character)
-Infect (nothing in the game has high enough hp to warrant spending 6 AP on this skill)
-Malediction (skill might sound good, but you'll almost never end up using this because there are better choices, especially on a dps like a ranger)

You could also make a case for Teleport due to the 7 AP cost, but the skill has no INT requirement for working and only needs one point in Aero to spec, so it's fine as a back-up skill. A ranger, however, should never be using this.

Bad skill-not-picks;
-Ice Wall. Best Hydro adept skill, only challenged situationally by Water of Life (which the build also ignores btw). Good aoe freeze chance, blocks enemy vision/path, causes ice to spread when it breaks down so that enemies can slip on it too. This is a skill that has a use in almost any situation imaginable. That site has a party setup, three characters with Hydro, but none have this skill.
-Water of Life. Boosts Constitution by 3 for every ally ally inside its cast range. CON boost gives both +max hp, and effectively heals as you get +3 CON's worth of 'heal' as well. Having this on just one party member is fine, but the party setup in question has ZERO MEMBERS WITH THIS SKILL. Out of three builds that get master Hydro, none have this super team-boosting skill. I can't strain enough how dumb this is.

Any other Adept Hydro skill is FAR behind these two in terms of usefulness. For the third time, I can't believe none of the three builds on that site that spec in Hydro have these skills picked...

-Cloak and Dagger. This is the movement skill you want to have on your ranger. Being able to instantly move anywhere at a 15m radius gives you a ton of options to either run or find a better place to shoot from. Only costing 4 AP, this is the best support skill you can get.

There's also Wind-Up Toy, but it's not necessary and somewhat difficult to use. Personally, I'd always grab this for a ranger as well.


Bad Talent picks;
-Far Out Man
-Stench
-Sidestep
-Glass Cannon
-Elemental Ranger

Far Out Man is for casters. A ranger picking it is a joke, even if it's a hybrid ranger. As a ranger you'd prefer not to be close to enemies in the first place, so picking a Talent that is most efficient for short-range spells is just....

Stench and Sidestep by themselves aren't bad, but then we got Glass Cannon. Glass Cannon lowers your max HP by 50%, so having some slight extra mitigation like Sidestep/Stench becomes meaningless. You're better off picking Morning Person, Five-Star Diner, All Skilled Up, Bigger and Better and probably some other ones I can't remember to boost your offensive potential rather than these two. Vice versa, if you want to keep the mitigation, then get rid of Glass Cannon and replace it with something else. Also, Glass Cannon with Far Out Man is just....

As for Elemental Ranger, I might be wrong here since it's been a good while I last had this talent, but I'm pretty sure this only works with normal attacks, not with special arrows or skills. And throughout the game, 99.9% of the time you should be using special arrows or skills with a ranger, so...

Bad Attributes;
-Perception. You never spec into Perception, ever, on any character. The only use Perception has is for detecting traps and secrets; in fights it's completely overshadowed by Speed stat. For trap detection you can use Light Stepper (Talent), keep some +PER items on you that you can change into, use Burn My Eyes for PER buff and/or use PER potions for +1-3 PER, depending on its quality.
-Speed. No SPD on a Glass Cannon character. You want to stack SPD because it gives you Initiative to get before any enemy does, to ensure you don't die before your turn and that you can position/stealth yourself when starting a fight in bad position. It also gives you extra AP, and you want as much AP as possible as a Glass cannon to make sure that you can deal the most damage possible on your turn.

Being a hybrid Glass Cannon automatically lowers the effectiveness of a character because you need to spec into two main stats (main stats being STR, DEX, INT) rather than just one + SPD.

Calling this "one of the most powerful builds in game" is complete bs. Any pure ranger or pure mage will be more powerful than this. Pure STR characters don't have that much aoe capability, so technically this build is stronger than them; considering a single-target situation though, a pure STR character is stronger than this.


Was going to talk about the other builds as well, but tbh this took too much writing already. The "Dual Wielding Grenade Wizard" - build would require an even bigger wall of text, because that build is literally relying on nades to function; nothing else, NOTHING ELSE about that build is positive. If you remove nades from it, it would become complete trash. Grenades in this game are super OP; the tankiest character I've ever ran with was a grenadier with zero skills, no spells, no Man-at-Arms, no Scoundrel, no Expert Marksman and it still contributed to damage through nades alone on top of being borderline immortal. That's how stupidly OP nades are, and that's an example of how nades can make any build that would be utter trash without them, look great.

damn, would like to see that granade without skills build, looks interesting.

[Bilateralrope]

Originally posted by Highrule -1:

Ranger

Calling this "one of the most powerful builds in game" is complete bs. Any pure ranger or pure mage will be more powerful than this. Pure STR characters don't have that much aoe capability, so technically this build is stronger than them; considering a single-target situation though, a pure STR character is stronger than this.

Thanks.

[Wovan]

Originally posted by HonoréDeBalzac:

damn, would like to see that granade without skills build, looks interesting.

It really is as easy as said. I pretty much take this route whenever I gave up trying EpicEncounter-mod fights.

[Hedgehog]

Originally posted by Wovan:

It really is as easy as said. I pretty much take this route whenever I gave up trying EpicEncounter-mod fights.

wanted to try 2 lone wolfs. one only granades no skills, second one only special arrows and no skills (can use scrolls) but I cant start without at least pick 3 starting spells so one point is always wasted in one skill :/

[Bilateralrope]

After some googling, the only other build I can find is this guide. The comments from Highrule -1 about the other build mean I'll be changing a few things on those builds.

I'll probably be going with MC ranger/scout, MC leader mage, Jahan mage and Madora warrior. Calling grenades OP gives me another reason to try and avoid them.

It will be a day or two before I get a chance to start these characters, so I'm open to other suggestions. Especially suggestions for companions.