WTF Tactician difficulty? Super unbalanced, any tips?

[Justin_760]

In Fort Joy it was a blast, challenging but manageable. Now that Ive reached Reapers Coast its completely fallen apart. Most battles are seemingly unwinnable. Ive tried a hundred different tactics and even followed guides for specific fights, to no avail.

The numbers are just off. Enemies have at least 1000-1500 health, 300-600 armor and are doing 150 damage per hit. I Only have 300 health and 200 armor on my best party members. The result is each enemy needing at least 20 attacks done to them to kill a single opponent, yet mine die in 3 hits. Not to mention most encounters have me outnumbered.

Anyone have tips for this? I figured Id just be able to over-level my characters but I cant because literally every encounter in this act is completely mopping the floor with me. Am I doing something wrong, or is it just super unabalanced?

[Soth]

I am having the same struggle - the reason they have so much higher health and damage is that they are probably between 2-3 levels higher than you. You need to seek out the easier quests first to level up before going to those areas. IMO this is a bit of a design flaw in the game, as I found it difficult to locate appropriate level quests when I was level 9 in driftwood.

[LaserGuy]

Here's a few tips:
-Make sure you are only taking fights at your level. Even one level higher will be very challenging; two levels higher is suicidal unless you are very experienced or are cheesing the fight pretty badly. The differences in strength you're experiencing makes me think this is probably the issue. If the enemies are too high level for you in one area, try a different one.
-Make sure your equipment is at or near your level. A level 9 character with level 6 gear is not going to be very effective.
-Use shields on your casters. You can easily double your armor with a fairly standard shield. Don't do dual wands or big staves.
-Do lots of quests. There's plenty of fairly easy quest XP in Driftwood proper. Afterward, head West and clear out the area near Wrecker's Cave, then North through Cloisterwood and back to the fields.
-Tactics, tactics, tactics. Don't start battles from bad positions. Fight from high ground, fight spread out. Fight in places where the enemy party gets separated or has a hard time reaching you. CC your enemies and don't let them get up. Don't fight fair.
-Optimize your builds. Strip out excess points in Wits, Memory, and Con, and max out your primary fighting attributes. Load up on warfare for your physical damage dealers; use polymorph to boost Int on your casters.
-Don't be afraid to use your source skills. There's a fountain in the Meistr's house. Drop a teleport pyramid there and refresh as often as you need.

[Star Paladin]

Ya, Reaper's Coast gave my friend and I a terrible time at first. We almost quit the game. But, luckily, we found a map on the net. Just a simple map of reapers coast that only shows numbers on it. Numbers that represent the levels of enemies in that area. Find that little gem, and it will really help with the entire area,

[Singrave]

there are people who beat the game solo with various builds.

your party is meh, not the balance.

[danbjp]

Originally posted by lameover:

there are people who beat the game solo with various builds.

your party is meh, not the balance.

He hasn't discussed his build.

OP
To do well in Act 2, you need to do all the quests in Driftwood and stonegarden; there are tons of quests in those places; as @Laser said, you should talk to everyone in the town, including animals in driftwood with the petpal talent to lvl - animals can give you quests and some other helpful stuff.

The more side-quests you do, the more you'll be at the correct lvl.
On my last Tac run I was struggling at lvl 13, and when I put into google - stuck at lvl ... 11 12 and 13 came up; that's because most players don't do enough quests in driftwood/ stonegarden. Sometimes you can get xp from just taking on a quest, and doing a lot of sidequests adds up. Explore everywhere as you gain xp from that too.

Are you stealing? Get thievery up to 6-8.
An NPC - June near the Tavern has lost her purse - pickpocket her for some +2 thievery gloves.
Try pickpocketing everyone, except the square; as some random npcs have a lot of cash.

The higher your lvl the more coin they will have to steal.

Then you'll be able to afford gear for you whole party, and try and upgrade gear every lvl; with mass stealing on multiple chars, you'll be able to afford good gear.

GL

[Chaoslink]

OP, it all comes down to team comp. Give us your setup and we can get to the root of the problem.

[Praise the Sun]

I digress but, is sparkling swings fire battlemage viable in tactician difficulty ? Not lone wolf, regular 4 man playthrough. I don't see a way of being effective with this class. You phoenix dive in, whirlwind and die without getting a kill. How would you play a character like this in tactician ?

[Chaoslink]

Originally posted by SloppySeconds:

I digress but, is sparkling swings fire battlemage viable in tactician difficulty ? Not lone wolf, regular 4 man playthrough. I don't see a way of being effective with this class. You phoenix dive in, whirlwind and die without getting a kill. How would you play a character like this in tactician ?

Glass Cannon, stay out of combat at first, have your other characters weaken the enemy first, then jump in with top initiative, take two turns in a row and let loose. Use dodge and invisibility for survival.

[Qiox]

Originally posted by Justin_760:

In Fort Joy it was a blast, challenging but manageable. Now that Ive reached Reapers Coast its completely fallen apart. Most battles are seemingly unwinnable. Ive tried a hundred different tactics and even followed guides for specific fights, to no avail.

The numbers are just off. Enemies have at least 1000-1500 health, 300-600 armor and are doing 150 damage per hit. I Only have 300 health and 200 armor on my best party members. The result is each enemy needing at least 20 attacks done to them to kill a single opponent, yet mine die in 3 hits. Not to mention most encounters have me outnumbered.

Anyone have tips for this? I figured Id just be able to over-level my characters but I cant because literally every encounter in this act is completely mopping the floor with me. Am I doing something wrong, or is it just super unabalanced?

You forgot to tell us what level you are. Very hard to comment when the problem could be any of the following:

- missed too much content in act 1 and arrived in Driftwood underleveled
- wandering off outside the city of Driftwood in the wrong direction
- didn't do any of the quests in the city of Driftwood itself to level up before heading out into the wilderness


I typically get off the boat and start act 2 anywhere between level 10 to 10 and a quarter.

I typically get 1 full level of xp in the city of Driftwood itself, then leave town and head West.

[Artcake]

This game is unbalanced garbage. If you do not play it EXACTLY the way the devs intended you to, you will have to restart from scratch. There are points in the story where you cannot even backtrack because you are forced into a new map without any warnings, so if you are not ready, tough ♥♥♥♥, start all over and lose your 30+ hours of progress.

This is just bad design, not clever or innovative.

[danbjp]

Originally posted by BlackRabbit:

This game is unbalanced garbage. If you do not play it EXACTLY the way the devs intended you to, you will have to restart from scratch. There are points in the story where you cannot even backtrack because you are forced into a new map without any warnings, so if you are not ready, tough ♥♥♥♥, start all over and lose your 30+ hours of progress.

This is just bad design, not clever or innovative.

It's one of the best RPG i've played, and it's perfectly balanced. I've never seen such incredible loot scaling. Path of Exile, Diablo 3 and others have poor gear during late levels. The battles are awesome as is the overall game design.

devs did an amazing job.

It's a masterpiece IMO

[Qiox]

Originally posted by BlackRabbit:

There are points in the story where you cannot even backtrack because you are forced into a new map without any warnings, so if you are not ready, tough ♥♥♥♥, start all over and lose your 30+ hours of progress.

It is actually just a question of you not paying attention to what the game tells you.

[Nagash]

Just go ranger speced into ranged and scoundrel and watch stuff die from the safety of your sniper perch

[Chaoslink]

Originally posted by BlackRabbit:

This game is unbalanced garbage. If you do not play it EXACTLY the way the devs intended you to, you will have to restart from scratch. There are points in the story where you cannot even backtrack because you are forced into a new map without any warnings, so if you are not ready, tough ♥♥♥♥, start all over and lose your 30+ hours of progress.

This is just bad design, not clever or innovative.

I mean, without any form of supporting argument this is nonsense. The game literally puts a big point of no return window on your screen that tells you that you are moving to the next act and you cannot go back. Saying it offers no warnings is like complaining a game flagged with early access all over with a screen you have to click the "I understand" button to get past the early access warning doesn't label itself as early access. You clearly just skipped past it and got mad at some point and are blaming the game unfairly for your own mistake on that one.

And you don't have to play it exactly as the devs intended. At all. You have to do the acts in order, but thats about where that ends. I do act two in reverse, starting in the level 15 areas as a level 9 team. I guarantee that wasn't intended. But I do it.

[Warfare]

With all my love for Divinity 2, this game has a terrible balance on Tactician. For Joy is ok, Driftwood started well, but then became easy. And then till the final battle, it was just terribly easy. The only way to entertain yourself is to gee some difficulty increase mod.
Sure, it's much better than in the first one. There since Act 3 you just cast few skills and everyone dies. Final boss dies in 2 turns. Still, the improvement is not so big.