Cursed blood etc.

[Flambeau200061]

I finished Fort Joy with relative ease, but Reaper's Coast seems to be another matter altogether. My lvl. 10 party is running into enormous difficulties here. I know to avoid the east, but even enemy groups with the same level are throwing a bunch of nasty spells at me that I can't counter, like cursed blood/water/fire, decay or atrophy. I know I can remedy the "cursed" status by bless, but that needs source which is almost nowhere to be found - unless you want to go back to Siva's house every time.
Also cursed ground really sucks as it's not displayed differently from normal blood etc. So I have to check what it is my folks are standing upon before I attempt healing and I have killed my own party a couple of times by "healing" them while decayed. Is there a mod that changes the visuals of cursed ground? That would be really helpfull. Also healing in general seems often useless in these kind of battles.
And: Is there a cure for atrophy? It's not exactly easy when your tanks and assassins can't use their weapons for two rounds.
Currently I'm stuck with Mordus' party (lvl. 12) as soon as the bugger transforms it's game over. Somewhere I read that cleaning up his basement (freeing his lich) would weaken him, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

[Chaoslink]

Atrophy doesn't really have a cure as far as I know. As for cursed blood, any cursed surface should look like it is full of worms and be moving about. Fortify will remove decaying and provide defense against it.

As for Mordus, the key there is to prevent him from transforming. Don't let him use his source vampirism against you. To prevent this, you need to make sure your magic armor is always intact to some degree as he will get it off should you not have any. Focus him and only him. Use worm tremor + torturer or spider legs and the enweb to hold the others at bay while you do so, or use rain (outside combat) to make the ground covered in water, then global cooling (a Finesse armor off the Dwarf bouncer to the undertavern has it if you don't have a hydromage) to create ice that should help keep them back.

The only other help I can offer beyond this would require me to know details about your characters and their builds.

[Flambeau200061]

Originally posted by Chaoslink:

Atrophy doesn't really have a cure as far as I know. As for cursed blood, any cursed surface should look like it is full of worms and be moving about. Fortify will remove decaying and provide defense against it.

As for Mordus, the key there is to prevent him from transforming. Don't let him use his source vampirism against you. To prevent this, you need to make sure your magic armor is always intact to some degree as he will get it off should you not have any. Focus him and only him. Use worm tremor + torturer or spider legs and the enweb to hold the others at bay while you do so, or use rain (outside combat) to make the ground covered in water, then global cooling (a Finesse armor off the Dwarf bouncer to the undertavern has it if you don't have a hydromage) to create ice that should help keep them back.

The only other help I can offer beyond this would require me to know details about your characters and their builds.

Great, thanks! I don't have spider legs, as I don't have a polymorph mage.
I have Lohse as a necromancer/summoner armed with a bow, Ifan as huntsman/geomancer armed with a crossbow, Beast as tank (shield/sword) with little magic and Sebille as assassin (double daggers) + some levels in pyro and hydromagic, all currently lvl. 11. I think Ifan is the only one capable of casting fortify.
Atrophy on Beast or Sebille is always a pain in the arse as they (Beast especially) are more combat focused. And: Fortify may remove decay, but if the char stands in a pool of cursed blood or poison, as soon as he moves he's got the stat again.
Problem with Mordus' gang is they are spread out and worm tremor will mostly ony get two enwebed, and they reduce all armor real fast. Besides Mordus even transformed when I had no source points, so ...? Also reviving characters rarely does any good in a fight if they're not high up the initiative ladder, as they revive with so little health as to be insta killed the moment it's the next baddies turn.
Generally speaking I think that even while I'm lvl. 11 most enemies at the same level are difficult at best and sometimes even impossible - like the troll summoning dog in the graveyard - and there's little chance to handle enemies just one lvl. above, something I really dislike when comparing this to Baldur's Gate, Pillars of Eternity or Dungeon siege. But then, maybe my build is just a little underpowered. Seems it requires a lot more diligence than other games.

[Chaoslink]

Oof. Well your problem might very well be your builds. Builds are probably 70% of the entire game really and while min/max isn’t required, you still want some sort of efficient build to be effective. I’ll post again in a bit with some more details on how you might adjust that team to help improve your fighting capabilities, but for now I’ll leave a few tips.

Don’t assume you need a “tank”. Tanking doesn’t work in this game like you’d expect, the best tanks are actually the squishiest in the group or use glass cannon to get the attention of enemies and rely on constant heals and armor restores to keep them going. Though most teams are better off without.

Same goes for healer. You want your support abilities available on everyone so you always have one available when needed.

If your character deals physical damage, stack warfare. It boosts all physical damage. You’ll get more from a point in warfare than scoundrel or huntsman in most cases.

Don’t split main attributes. Between STR, FIN and INT, you should only be using one. Be incredibly sparing with everything else, taking only as much memory as needed and small amounts of wits to control turn order. CON should only be used to meet shield requirements.

[Chaoslink]

So, Lohse is a necro/summoner. I’ll need details on that one as it’s not easy to see just what that means or how you’re using her beyond the summoning part.

Ifan is a huntsman/Geo. Not bad in concept, make sure you’re using Geo mostly as support and stacking only FIN. It’s okay if the earth spells don’t do good damage, they should be for support only. Archers don’t need many talents to be effective, I suggest getting torturer for worm tremor. Then just stack Warfare with less huntsman, as huntsman and warfare basically give the same boost, but warfare doesn’t require a condition.

I’ll also want details on Beast as there are a lot of possibilities for error here. What are his stats, skills and attributes, all of that. Again, remember you don’t want to mix two primary attributes, so he should be all STR or all INT. Taking both is going to make your damage really suffer.

Sebille as a dagger rogue seems fine, but I’m curious about those magic skills, which and why mostly.

Give me a bit more details and I can help mold this into a team that will tear through everything twice as much as you likely are now while keeping their basic concepts the same. Basically list out their attributes, talents and skills for me, alongside a basic idea of what you want them to do and I’ll offer you some advice to build them to do just that but more effectively so you can have an easier time of things.

Team building is my favorite part of the game and I have quite a lot of experience with it. My current team has been doing act two in reverse, starting at level 9 and fighting level 15 enemies and bosses. So I can definitely help. But I don’t want to play the game for you, so I’d rather offer advice and ideas on how to improve what you have to work effectively for Divinity and help you have an easier time and more enjoyable experience in the game.

[Flambeau200061]

Originally posted by Chaoslink:

So, Lohse is a necro/summoner. I’ll need details on that one as it’s not easy to see just what that means or how you’re using her beyond the summoning part.

Right, thanks! Here we go (in brackets: Stats from gear):
Lohse: STR 11 (14), FIN 14, INT, 15, CON 14 (16), MEM 17, WIT 16; SUM 7 (8), NECRO 2
Started out as Necro, but obviously she's mostly a summoner now. Can heal through gear.
Stats: 89/127/438 (Physical/Magical/Health)

Beast: STR 20 (21), FIN 11, INT 12, CON 19 (21), MEM 11, WIT 12; WAR 5, AERO 2 (3), 2H 3, PERS 2, 1H 2
Stats: 383/250/620

Ifan: STR 13, FIN 7 (20), INT 12 (13), CON 18, MEM 13, WIT 12 (13); GEO 5 (6), RANGED 4 (6), HUNT 2 (3). WAR 0
Stats: 106/131/474

Sebille: STR 12 (14), FIN 20 (21), INT 10, CON 17, MEM 14, WIT, 14 (15); DUAL 5, RETR 2, WAR 2 (3), HYD 2 (3), PYR 2; Restoration, First Aid
Stats: 110/99/469

While certainly better than my first build, which saw my group whipped all over Fort Joy, I suppose it's not quite up to Reaper's Coast. I've seen a lot of posts of people complaining about an intense difficulty spike in Act II and I guess it comes from the fact that the game - while at first glance similar to Pillars etc. - works somewhat different. If you experiment too much with multiple talents you are far sooner bound to fail than in Baldurs Gate or other games. And Divinity doesn't exactly take the player by the hand here. It's more like learning by failing ;-)

[Chaoslink]

Alright, first things first, you can probably do with dropping all that CON (yes ALL of it, save for shield requirements). I know it can be tempting to have it, but you'd be surprised just how much better off you'll be dumping that into STR/FIN/INT. You're quite spread out with your attributes. Losing the chunk of extra damage from having those points in other attributes can hurt. To help with survivability, get a point or two of hydro/geo/aero on one or two extra characters and pick up an extra fortify/armor of frost/uncanny evasion. The extra damage will go far towards CCing enemies faster and the extra armor restores will make up for the health loss. Armor is significantly more important than health. Health is largely irrelevant as long as you keep your damage and CC up.

Also, dual wield, two handed, single handed.... You're much better off putting those points into Warfare for damage. The damage boost from DW/1H/2H is additive, meaning it adds to the 5% you get from STR or FIN and adds that % to the base damage. Warfare is multiplicative, so AFTER the STR boosts the 5% per warfare is then applied to the extra amount. So the 5% per warfare is worth more damage in the end. The weapon skills are only worth it from gear or once warfare is already max. That, and you'll not need to have two different weapon skills on Beast as the Warfare is universal.

You might also benefit from spreading a few points of that Geo on Ifan into something else. There really isn't much reason to stack it unless you're making him into a mage. You also have a lot of random points in STR/FIN/INT when it isn't the primary. Probably better to have those in others.

Definitely get that summoning to 10. You get a decent boost to the incarnate's power at ten.

[Flambeau200061]

Originally posted by Chaoslink:

Alright, first things first, you can probably do with dropping all that CON (yes ALL of it, save for shield requirements). I know it can be tempting to have it, but you'd be surprised just how much better off you'll be dumping that into STR/FIN/INT. You're quite spread out with your attributes. Losing the chunk of extra damage from having those points in other attributes can hurt. To help with survivability, get a point or two of hydro/geo/aero on one or two extra characters and pick up an extra fortify/armor of frost/uncanny evasion. The extra damage will go far towards CCing enemies faster and the extra armor restores will make up for the health loss. Armor is significantly more important than health. Health is largely irrelevant as long as you keep your damage and CC up.

Also, dual wield, two handed, single handed.... You're much better off putting those points into Warfare for damage. The damage boost from DW/1H/2H is additive, meaning it adds to the 5% you get from STR or FIN and adds that % to the base damage. Warfare is multiplicative, so AFTER the STR boosts the 5% per warfare is then applied to the extra amount. So the 5% per warfare is worth more damage in the end. The weapon skills are only worth it from gear or once warfare is already max. That, and you'll not need to have two different weapon skills on Beast as the Warfare is universal.

You might also benefit from spreading a few points of that Geo on Ifan into something else. There really isn't much reason to stack it unless you're making him into a mage. You also have a lot of random points in STR/FIN/INT when it isn't the primary. Probably better to have those in others.

Definitely get that summoning to 10. You get a decent boost to the incarnate's power at ten.

Great, thanks again! So it's back to the Lady Vengeance for my folks.
I've bested Mordus meanwhile, this time by focusing just on him and he didn't transform either, so that went better than expected. However in the Cloisterwood, there's this witches spirit (lvl 15) and the undead lich (lvl 15) and they both whiped out my team in one round ... Now I'm looking where to get enemies that let me level up ... ???

[Chaoslink]

After Mordus and his area, the next natural stop is over in the graveyard. Stuff there is level 11-12.