Good just starting tips?

[Sircool]

I know there's a tab filled with stuff like this, but just wanted to start a fresher thing. Anyone have any good tips on what skills/talents what ever is in this game to pick when starting or leveling? I'm completely over whelmed by it all because i'm only used to playing less hardcore rpgs, but this has my interest piqued. That and crafting is throwing me through a loop in trying to understand it all. Anyone know any preset tips or videos explaining it all?

[MrFrengLitch]

Ugh it's quite difficult to tell you what are the recommend abilities. We need to know what classes you want to play.

But anyway, usually you want to put points into your main attribute (strenght for tanks, dex for rogues and int for mages) and then speed and/or percepetion/constitution. And then you want to stay into 3 or 4 categories of abilities (ex: bow/expertmarksman/geomancer).

The talents are hard to say, because we'd need to know your classes.

Spell wise, you want good combos (like oil/fire or water/electricity) and if needed summons/buffs/debuffs.

And from there you should be good to go. You could go even deeper than that but at that point it's really difficult to choose what to pick. Which is why many people restarts a lot (including me).

[Woland]

Depends a lot on the game mode you're playing. Requirements will be different on Tactician and lower difficulty modes, as well as Lone Wolves.

Generally you want to start with a heal though, which would be Hydrosophist, the rest doesn't matter that much, as long as it's some decent damage source (Midnight Oil, Boulder, Flare are all decent starters).

Initially there're a lot of skeletons, so piercing and slashing damage might not seem that impressive (which you do notice with dagger-classes).

You want a decent variety of attacks, just in case something is immune to certain attacks. Having a good variety of elements available to you also allows you to manipulate the environment better. This can be achieved through magic schools, ranger special arrows, grenades and possibly barrels (oil and poison does have a great effect) found in the world.
Control effects are also very useful (most of them makes it so attacks have a 100% chance to hit, as well as damage increase from Bully talent), as well as summons and buffs.

I wouldn't want to spoil anything else for you, part of this game's charm is finding out stuff for yourself, experimenting with new skills, classes and combinations. Also I'd advise against watching those guide videos for character building, most of them are quite outdated in terms of balance (such as sneaking with Guerilla, Leech and a few other tactics which have completely changed).

[darkflemish]

Pitty we can't do a poll here about which two classes everyone choices at the beginning.

A poll I started now: http://strawpoll.me/5864163

[76561198034396398]

this may help http://guides.gamepressure.com/divinityoriginalsin/ it's for the previos game but i think it's still helpful,it took me 3 playthoughs on the original one to get my characters right

[Josip Broz Tito]

I would say this.
In the first chapter many enemies are skeletons and zombies. Skeletons resistant to slash and pierce, so dagger rogue and archer will suffer a bit. Zombbies heal from poison.
Generally speaking - you cant go wrong with pyromancer and a warrior with some sort of mace. Also even 1 point in Water magic will be very much helpful, rain and light healing are very good spells to have from the start.

[---=*3p1cPWN3R2013*=---]

My favourite starting skills are:
Regeneration (heals a lot), freezing touch (nothing better than your enemies doing nothing) and rain (improves freezing and electric stun) for one character.
Other character should take electric jump (stun enemies), teleportation (one of the most powerful spells in the game and useful for puzzles) and flare (to explode poison when needed).

[[F@KeR*]]

Originally posted by darkflemish:

Pitty we can't do a poll here about which two classes everyone choices at the beginning.

A poll I started now: http://strawpoll.me/5864163

knight wizard

still change their skills
you should only chose the classes for their starting items (2handed sword platearmor etc.)
and then look what you think you need or what you want to do.

[Surface Reflection]

I would say you should start with some of the premade classes as they are until you get familiar with the system. Just make sure you have one character that can heal. A warrior type has "heal wounds" ability and the water elemental mage has healing. In the first city you can get a warrior, a wizard, a ranger and a thief-rogue companions. - But you can take only two of them with you. -
Dont play on tactician mode, the default difficulty will be plenty hard for you until you learn what to do.
Eat food and see what buffs each food item brings.

Have one character with higher Perception to discover stuff around, one character with Pet talk talent so you can talk to animals. Have one mage with fire spells.

Crafting takes time so there is no way to just get it quickly. Especially now that its changed from the original system. You can dicover combinations yourself by trying different stuff out or by finding recipes in books. Its not something you cannot play without. Plenty of good loot around. Especially in the first city.

Thats it.

[Sircool]

Originally posted by GrunterXCI:

Ugh it's quite difficult to tell you what are the recommend abilities. We need to know what classes you want to play.

But anyway, usually you want to put points into your main attribute (strenght for tanks, dex for rogues and int for mages) and then speed and/or percepetion/constitution. And then you want to stay into 3 or 4 categories of abilities (ex: bow/expertmarksman/geomancer).

The talents are hard to say, because we'd need to know your classes.

Spell wise, you want good combos (like oil/fire or water/electricity) and if needed summons/buffs/debuffs.

And from there you should be good to go. You could go even deeper than that but at that point it's really difficult to choose what to pick. Which is why many people restarts a lot (including me).

I'd prefer to have the two charcters I can make be two-handed warrior and dagger rouge, but looking at what's been said so far, dagger rouge might be bad choice.

Add to that, is there duel weilding that I might've missed or is it old school one weapon type only?

[EarJuice]

If you didn't get any healing ability with your main chars then get your butt to the mayor's house, go upstairs and hire the mage in the library. Rape the town for as many goods as possible. You can have one char talk to NPC while the other sneaks around so that they are stuck in position. Paintings and gold ♥♥♥♥ is great. I bought books so my chars could get a few more spells. I regret taking the advice of others not to play hybrids so I can get max dmg and spells. If you want a battlemage, then just play one. As others have said just play classic mode first if your rusty or unsure and get a feel.

[Rad-Icarus]

Balance, balance, balance.

- So far I've found a Hydroposist (Water skilled mage) to be indispensible. Having rain and regeneration has carried my party through some difficult areas.

- Press (Y) in conversations with almost everyone to see who is a merchant. I ran around for so long with garbage skills because I didn't know who sold the skillbooks.

- Grenades! have a character take the skill that makes them precise with grenades and use them as a cheap, low action point method to control the battlefield.