Which boosts magic more? Intelligence or the spell school?

[SenMithrarin85]

Pretty late in the game now and unless I shave some points off of my spell schools, I can't level poly to get apothesis etc. Basically my question is, would the extra points into INT from levelling poly rather than say aero (for arguments' sake) offset the lower points in the aero school?

example would 38 INT and 4 aero outperform 35 INT and 7 aero? If not, would it come close or is the gap too big? I have points placed elsewhere into warfare for bouncing shield and took phoenix dive as the teleport to save having to level either hunts or scoundrel to 2 for their teleport skill. not sure how I could "optimise" further lol.

[iRaged]

Where are you in the game? Arx? Typically when you are in Arx, you will get point distributions into other spell schools from your equipment. Typically you want to aim for 2 in each school. If you want to abuse the system, you can use scrolls.

A Skingraft scroll costs 0 AP to use and resets all cooldowns. This is straight out broken with Elves and Fane.

An Apotheosis scroll is kinda broken. It doesn't take away 3 SP when you use it but it still costs AP to cast.

Every point into INT gives a an effective 5% boost. Points into spell schools typically give a 5% boost as well.

If your build focuses on one school then putting a point into the school will yield more dps for that school. If the build is multi element then perhaps the 1 point into int from poly will yield more DPS.
**See post below for the math.

Scoundrel needs to have 1 point for Adrenaline and Chloroform on any mage build. I really like Cloak and Dagger since it doesn't take away C.Cloak in your poly tree. Casting invisibility is so effective in Divinity to avoid damage. Thus, I like having 2 points into Scoundrel.

If you have points into Warfare, I hope you also got Challenge because that skill is busted!

[iRaged]

After some looking around

Damage = (Base Damage)*(1+Elemental Bonus%)*(1+Attribute Bonus%+Weapon Skill Bonus%+Misc Bonuses%)*(1+High Ground Bonus% + Crit Bonus%)


Since attribute bonus is additive with weapon skill and misc bonuses, if you have those bonuses in your build then 1 point into ele bonus will beat out one point into attribute bonus.

For example

Lets say you have 6 points into your ele school, 28 INT, and 2 into weapon skill bonus and take base damage to 100
(100)(1+0.05*6)(1+0.05*28+0.05*2)=325 damage

Lets modify this to have 8 points into ele and 26 INT
(100)(1+0.05*8)(1+0.05*26+0.05*2)=336 damage

So the take away is that if your build has weapon skill bonus and misc bonus then the 1 point into your ele school will provide more dps than the 1 point into Poly which gives 1 point into INT for that school only. If many schools are used, the point into INT would be better.

[LukanGamer]

Not positive since I use mods and don't min-max, but pretty sure some abilities scale more on 1 or other at times (maybe even some on character level though I think only mods not certain).
At Very least there some like Summoning that really benefit from leveling its school.

Also since you mentioned it there things like bouncing shield which works off the physical armor of the shield.

[Pyromus]

If you are building well, the magic schools will boost damage by more than INT will boost it. Technically, each point gives the same bonus, BUT you are able to cap out at +30 attributes and only +10 on each school. Since they are multiplied, increasing the smaller number will do more, so magic schools do more.

For example, your numbers of 38&4 vs 35&7. Each point gives a 5% buff of base damage, but the two bonuses are multiplied together. So it's as simple as 38 x 4 = 152 and 35 x 7 = 245. While you would need to multiply each of those by .05 and add to 1 to get your modified end damage, you can stop there for the sake of "which gives a better bonus" and see that more in the school gives more overall buff.

[SenMithrarin85]

Originally posted by davemytnick33:

If you are building well, the magic schools will boost damage by more than INT will boost it. Technically, each point gives the same bonus, BUT you are able to cap out at +30 attributes and only +10 on each school. Since they are multiplied, increasing the smaller number will do more, so magic schools do more.

For example, your numbers of 38&4 vs 35&7. Each point gives a 5% buff of base damage, but the two bonuses are multiplied together. So it's as simple as 38 x 4 = 152 and 35 x 7 = 245. While you would need to multiply each of those by .05 and add to 1 to get your modified end damage, you can stop there for the sake of "which gives a better bonus" and see that more in the school gives more overall buff.

I see. hmm...can't see how to integrate apothesis into my mage builds then. you can't get poly points from gear and any free points into their magics from gear could be lost on upgrading and their damage would take a big hit. Damn larian for making everything in this game counter-productive.

[Pyromus]

Apotheosis scrolls are easy enough. Most expensive part is the source orb. Just Orb + paper + puppet bead. The arx vendors have I think 2 people with regular bead supplies, the toymaker can sell them, and there may be some puppets you fight that have them.

[iRaged]

Originally posted by davemytnick33:

If you are building well, the magic schools will boost damage by more than INT will boost it. Technically, each point gives the same bonus, BUT you are able to cap out at +30 attributes and only +10 on each school. Since they are multiplied, increasing the smaller number will do more, so magic schools do more.

For example, your numbers of 38&4 vs 35&7. Each point gives a 5% buff of base damage, but the two bonuses are multiplied together. So it's as simple as 38 x 4 = 152 and 35 x 7 = 245. While you would need to multiply each of those by .05 and add to 1 to get your modified end damage, you can stop there for the sake of "which gives a better bonus" and see that more in the school gives more overall buff.

Your explanation is not correct but the conclusion is. Based on your logic, if each gives 5% and are separate multipliers then it wouldn't make a difference. Magic schools provide more boost because it is an independent multiplier that does not have any additives in its bracket. Attributes has additives in its bracket when damage is calculated. I explained this already above your post.

However, if the OP was making a mage that specialized in multiple elements to take full advantage of having many SP skills and abuses apotheosis then going INT will yield more damage overall since the point into INT will be distributed among all the skills. This is quite good since to go this route, you need Apotheosis thus you need Poly, and Poly gives INT points.

Yay for good game design!

[Pyromus]

Originally posted by iRaged:

Originally posted by davemytnick33:

If you are building well, the magic schools will boost damage by more than INT will boost it. Technically, each point gives the same bonus, BUT you are able to cap out at +30 attributes and only +10 on each school. Since they are multiplied, increasing the smaller number will do more, so magic schools do more.

For example, your numbers of 38&4 vs 35&7. Each point gives a 5% buff of base damage, but the two bonuses are multiplied together. So it's as simple as 38 x 4 = 152 and 35 x 7 = 245. While you would need to multiply each of those by .05 and add to 1 to get your modified end damage, you can stop there for the sake of "which gives a better bonus" and see that more in the school gives more overall buff.

Your explanation is not correct but the conclusion is. Based on your logic, if each gives 5% and are separate multipliers then it wouldn't make a difference. Magic schools provide more boost because it is an independent multiplier that does not have any additives in its bracket. Attributes has additives in its bracket when damage is calculated. I explained this already above your post.

However, if the OP was making a mage that specialized in multiple elements to take full advantage of having many SP skills and abuses apotheosis then going INT will yield more damage overall since the point into INT will be distributed among all the skills. This is quite good since to go this route, you need Apotheosis thus you need Poly, and Poly gives INT points.

Yay for good game design!

Those additives are more useful for weapon based damage when comparing warfare to say single handed or ranged for damage bonus. The fact that it is additive here only applies if you want to know if pyro or int will boost a fire wand's damage more. Not spells. The key feature is that if you build correctly, you will be having far more put into INT than any individual magic school. They all get multiplied together. Based on my logic, which is the game's damage calculation, the schools give more because you can only get 10, and will very likely have far more than 10 INT points invested by that time.

Go use a respec mirror to test it. Give a character 1 pyro, and 20 INT, cast flaming daggers. Then give him 11 INT and 10 Pyro and see that it does the same.

[iRaged]

Originally posted by davemytnick33:

Originally posted by iRaged:

Your explanation is not correct but the conclusion is. Based on your logic, if each gives 5% and are separate multipliers then it wouldn't make a difference. Magic schools provide more boost because it is an independent multiplier that does not have any additives in its bracket. Attributes has additives in its bracket when damage is calculated. I explained this already above your post.

However, if the OP was making a mage that specialized in multiple elements to take full advantage of having many SP skills and abuses apotheosis then going INT will yield more damage overall since the point into INT will be distributed among all the skills. This is quite good since to go this route, you need Apotheosis thus you need Poly, and Poly gives INT points.

Yay for good game design!

Those additives are more useful for weapon based damage when comparing warfare to say single handed or ranged for damage bonus. The fact that it is additive here only applies if you want to know if pyro or int will boost a fire wand's damage more. Not spells. The key feature is that if you build correctly, you will be having far more put into INT than any individual magic school. They all get multiplied together. Based on my logic, which is the game's damage calculation, the schools give more because you can only get 10, and will very likely have far more than 10 INT points invested by that time.

Go use a respec mirror to test it. Give a character 1 pyro, and 20 INT, cast flaming daggers. Then give him 11 INT and 10 Pyro and see that it does the same.

If your logic is based on the game's damage calculation then showing a sample calculation would give your explanation credibility.