DoT Build Viable? Any Recommendations?

[Valdorian]

Just picked the game up last night and am completely new. Normally I enjoy making DoT builds that focus on stacking as many different DoT's as possible on a target. Is that kind of thing possible and viable in this game? I've done some research and read that DoT builds suck, is that still true? Any build recommendations?

[LukanGamer]

Spectre class & the Pyro Rework & Void Knight are good mods for that. Otherwise best you can do is combo a lot of poision and fire I suppose (like maybe poision + fire wand for ease).

Otherwise I guess someone assume someone more expereinced at trying to make that build would be required.

[Chaoslink]

There's only three, burning, poison and bleeding and they definitely don't do enough damage to make a whole class with. You can create a surface and cloud the enemy can stand in too, but you'll still have to use spells to deal direct damage too. DoT alone won't cut it. A pyromancer is the closest thing to what you're looking for.

[Stabbey]

A build which relies only on DoT is a bad idea, as it is in any game where burst damage is favored in combat. Enemies do a lot of damage, you do not want to let them hang around for several turns while you wait for them to be whittled down.

[Godwoken Dovahkiin]

You can make a DoT build but it wont do damage like Chaoslink said. Its ok for early game though, maybe mid game too. Get the Toturer talent, which makes you apply some status effects without having to lower enemy magic armor/armor. You can stack bleeding, burning, entangle, poisoned and suffocate. There's also acid but that only destroys armor overtime and doesn't synergize with the other DoTs since they are either magical or piercing damage, and rupture tendons that wont synergize with entangle because it does damage on enemy movement and entangle snares.

You can try it out and have fun, the DoT stacks are kinda fun. I recommend Bull Horns or mosquito swarm for the bleeding, Ignition for burning, Contamination for poison, worm tremor for entangle, vacuum touch/aura for suffocate. Get creative, use flesh sacrifice, adrenaline and haste for the extra AP, and have others use teleport to clump enemies.

[Dixon Sider]

Dots are a bonus effect to damage. In a way everyone specs for dots. You should maintain all dots not resisted by the enemies. I have a dedicated dotter with torturer always. If you can keep dots on every enemy the total damage is massive

[iRaged]

Originally posted by Valdorian:

Just picked the game up last night and am completely new. Normally I enjoy making DoT builds that focus on stacking as many different DoT's as possible on a target. Is that kind of thing possible and viable in this game? I've done some research and read that DoT builds suck, is that still true? Any build recommendations?

DoT's can be done but you are looking more for area damage than anything else. If you want DoT's then play DoS1 cuz Fire DoT's along with poison skills = LOts of Explosions.

DoTs in DoS2 are mainly used to lower resistances, not do heavy damage.

[PK_Ultra]

DoTs suck in this game because of the armor and CC meta. But it can work tho as a tertiary strategy. You'll need that skill that lets you dish DoTs through armor. But besides fire, poison, and cursed fire, you're not doing much DoTs. Its really about stripping armor and CCing enemies to death. But check the Guides section and look for Swordmage/Pyro builds that use master of sparks.

[iRaged]

In higher difficulty in the game, most enemies have mobility skills which prevent them from walking and taking DoT damage like they did in DoS1.

[Terror13]

Torturer, Blood Rain, Ignition, Contaminate, 3 ap, insane aoe in one turn, 30-40 dmg a turn aoe minimum before any added stats.

[Pyromus]

If you use the giftbag mods, you can get a bit more mileage out of it, but as others have stated, the base game doesn't give much reason to play a DoT centric build. You can certainly have one character in the party run some aoe dots, but once they're applied, reapplying them doesn't add more damage.

Now, the gift bags can make a rogue or dual wielding melee build take advantage of dots. There is a Talent in the gift bag mods called Sadist, which deals extra poison/fire/pierce damage if the enemy is hit with a melee attack while poisoned/burning/bleeding. So a character with 2 melee weapons can combine one with poison, and one with oil (gift bag needed for the second one) to get fire and poison damage. Then the torturer talent to set effects through armor. Then bull rush in for bleed damage, and you have 3 dots in a medium aoe that increases the damage of all your melee attacks. Still not an ideal build, but can be a fun one.

[cl656]

I have only seen RPG builds around dots in action rpgs games where kiting is a thing. Never heard of it in a game with turn based combat and limited actions.

[Chaoslink]

Originally posted by cool-dude:

I have only seen RPG builds around dots in action rpgs games where kiting is a thing. Never heard of it in a game with turn based combat and limited actions.

Theoretically you could do it using a team that goes invisible or plays dead to let the ticks do their full rounds, but ultimately there are better ways to take down enemies in this game. The turn skipping nature of invisibility or playing dead though does somewhat simulate the kiting that you mention.

[Keijo]

How does the damage formula for dot effect even work? Burning effects definetely do more damage on lvl 14 than lvl 1. I noticed that early in the game i could go reckless with my mage and noone ever had any issues but now I can actually burn my own party to death.

[Pyromus]

Originally posted by Keijo:

How does the damage formula for dot effect even work? Burning effects definetely do more damage on lvl 14 than lvl 1. I noticed that early in the game i could go reckless with my mage and noone ever had any issues but now I can actually burn my own party to death.

The damage scales of off whoever applies the dot. If a mage with 10 pyro sets the ground on fire, it will deal more than if a warfare based lizard with 0 pyro breaths fire on the ground. The dots applied via burning and the dots from walking through the effect both scale on pyro in that case.

[wiggles]

I've gotten a lot of bang out of playing with a mixture of these two builds: https://fextralife.com/divinity-original-sin-2-builds-tectonic-sage/ and https://fextralife.com/divinity-original-sin-2-builds-scourge-wizard/. The combination of the Torturer and Elemental Affinity talents along with Contaminate and Worm Tremor I've found very effective. With Torturer, Worm Tremor (which entangles) goes through armor, so after you pop that you can rain down other DoTs and AoE spells on immobilized enemies. Once I got Tactical Retreat for my mage, used Contaminate less often since you can often jump into oil or poison on a lot of tactical maps. This party also had a specialized pyro melee mage to double down on burning and use Spontaneous Combination for individual kills and be the primary magic damage dealer in undead fights.