Glass cannon, why is it so good but so god awful that you'd rather use something else?

[Pandie]

I've been doing a solo run on divinity 2 (Got rather sick of my friends not playing with me so I finally decided to push a solo run) I've got a full team of origin characters cause I want to be deep in lore while having at least some form of difficulty (Classic mode) Fane is one of the characters I chose on my journey, For a team I decided to use glass cannon, which I really enjoy using. At a point I decided to use glass cannon, which turned out to work really well on this necro/summ combo I'm doing with him However an issue arised the more I used it.

Glass cannon seems to have a tendency of slapping a big fat target with a sign to the AI saying "Hey this guy is using glass cannon you know what that means!" Everytime right on the start they go for the debuffs on them immediately, lighting him ablaze, silencing him, shackle of pain. etc. (hilariously he didn't die at all in most of these encounters)

So a serious question comes to mind. What makes glass cannon so worth it? I would feel it would be but the main issue is the AI immediately know they have it so they go for them immediately most of the time. I wanna know what would be best for fane in my current build I have for him and your opinion on the matter.

[LaserGuy]

You basically need to stealth/invis your character into every battle. Otherwise it's pretty crippling except right at the beginning of the game.

[[SOTI] IKilled007]

They can be cannons without being glass. Get that magic resistance way up.

[Pyromus]

Originally posted by Buff:

They can be cannons without being glass. Get that magic resistance way up.

The main issue is that GC characters get CC'd very easily. No amount of armor or resistances will help that. Your method of super high armor on a glass cannon is actually one way to make a tank style character work, but I don't think that's what the OP was going for.


To the OP, as stated by laserguy, chameleon cloak, chanterelle, invis potions, and evasion will be very helpful. Either bringing the glass cannon in after the start of combat, or making them slow for the other members to have time to cure cc would help. But you're experiencing the glass half of the glass cannon.

[Edstyles]

Mhm you got invis i supose that would help. Maybe you could get some use of smoke cover. Stench. Guerilla. Cryogen ? Dunno seems like a few choices. I never use glass Canon tho. Id play lone wolf if i wanted that op playstyle.

https://divinityoriginalsin2.wiki.fextralife.com/Smoke+Cover

[Chaoslink]

The extra AP without lone wolf makes it powerful. You simply have to use things like range, smoke, invisibility, disengages or post-initiation engagement to avoid being targeted. Your Glass Cannon should have abilities like this, as well as avoid being a part of the fight when it starts. engage from outside the battle.

[Pandie]

so from what it sounds it seems likt it works the best with assasin type characters. Alright that's very good to know, thanks for the tips guys.

[Chaoslink]

Not really, it fits the best with any class that benefits the most from high AP. Mages are the first thing that comes to my mind. Elemental affinity to reduce spell costs and GC to give more AP. Mix with other AP boosting effects and you'll wreck. You use invis and such just to avoid incoming damage.

[Panic Fire]

Perseverance + Retribution + Glass Cannon makes a nearly perfect tank ironically. Throw on Walk It off, Unstable, Comeback Kid, and Morning Person to round it off.

Glass Cannon makes nearly all enemies target the character. Constantly Hitting it with CC moves. (even if its already cced)

Walk It off reduces the CC time by 1 turn down to 1 turn.
Retribution will return enemy dmg back to them for each attack they use on the character.
Perseverance will return armor and magic armor after each CC expires (which will be faster because of Walk It off)
Comeback Kid insures the character continues to stay up continues the enemy attacks on it.
Unstable works as a last defense severely injuring or killing nearby enemies if all else fails.
While Morning person allows you to reset the entire tank trap with one res scroll.

Stat points should primarly go into Con and what ever armor stats you want to roll. Wits is also nice as it allows your character to throw off some skills and move around on the first turn.

Then you can throw the rest of your combat points into either warfare for more hp (via the picture of health) talent or Leadership so that your walking punching bag can actively benifit the rest of the team as well.

[F.O.A.M]

and thats the problem with the talent glass cannon, its fun to use but the ai knows the second you have it. every enemy will go out of their way to cc lock you in some shape or form. its impossible to use without being cced. you get to act 1 turn max then you are out for the rest of the combat. ive tried to use mods to make the enemy loremaster skills lower so not every enemy in the game knows you have it but none of them seems to work. its a shame but thats how it is

[Pyromus]

Originally posted by moffatt:

and thats the problem with the talent glass cannon, its fun to use but the ai knows the second you have it. every enemy will go out of their way to cc lock you in some shape or form. its impossible to use without being cced. you get to act 1 turn max then you are out for the rest of the combat. ive tried to use mods to make the enemy loremaster skills lower so not every enemy in the game knows you have it but none of them seems to work. its a shame but thats how it is

No. Read up. Invis, dodge, basic fortify+AoF, and other methods negate it's downside. Hell, act 1 gives a stun immunity necklace and a freeze immunity helmet to get rid of two common cc effects. By late game, there's armor with stun immunity, boots with kd immunity, and several freeze immunity items. Just know what to expect and it's very easily countered.

[Chaoslink]

Originally posted by moffatt:

and thats the problem with the talent glass cannon, its fun to use but the ai knows the second you have it. every enemy will go out of their way to cc lock you in some shape or form. its impossible to use without being cced. you get to act 1 turn max then you are out for the rest of the combat. ive tried to use mods to make the enemy loremaster skills lower so not every enemy in the game knows you have it but none of them seems to work. its a shame but thats how it is

Its only a problem if you use them like normal characters, initiating with the team and ending turn in vision. If you avoid this with out of combat initiation and end turn without being vulnerable to attack, it isn't nearly as bad. The character build matters too, as some builds really aren't suited for GC.

[ItsReLLiK]

I was Lohse as a summoner and I took this. Literally the worst talent in the game unless you put it on some sort of character that can dodge or be untargetable. I ended up getting charmed at the start of almost every single fight and i had to go to the boat and drop it. The AI just knows and targets you 100% of the time for it.

[Chaoslink]

I mean, that's the idea. You're supposed to gain power at the cost of vulnerability. So you have to cover that vulnerability with protective or evasive spells. If used well, its very potent.

[T-man]

Originally posted by Panic Fire:

Perseverance + Retribution + Glass Cannon makes a nearly perfect tank ironically. Throw on Walk It off, Unstable, Comeback Kid, and Morning Person to round it off.

Glass Cannon makes nearly all enemies target the character. Constantly Hitting it with CC moves. (even if its already cced)

Walk It off reduces the CC time by 1 turn down to 1 turn.
Retribution will return enemy dmg back to them for each attack they use on the character.
Perseverance will return armor and magic armor after each CC expires (which will be faster because of Walk It off)
Comeback Kid insures the character continues to stay up continues the enemy attacks on it.
Unstable works as a last defense severely injuring or killing nearby enemies if all else fails.
While Morning person allows you to reset the entire tank trap with one res scroll.

Stat points should primarly go into Con and what ever armor stats you want to roll. Wits is also nice as it allows your character to throw off some skills and move around on the first turn.

Then you can throw the rest of your combat points into either warfare for more hp (via the picture of health) talent or Leadership so that your walking punching bag can actively benifit the rest of the team as well.

Exactly this, sadly.

Glas-Cannon, imho, is a paragon example of all the problems in dos 2.
This post describes nicely how the mechanics in the game hamper eachother and create an awful OOC meta that even infects the remaining aspects of the game.
It may start with problems like the described glass-cannon situation, goes on with the teleport spamming that pretty much destroys any form of phalanx/positioning play or the "armor" system itself whose inflexibility and dependancy on damage cripples character variety horribly, but doesn't stop there... once again, sadly.
And that doesn't even count in extremely immersion breaking elements like enemies having often 5x higher stats than neutral world NPCs, or the cheaply made script events like fthe insect abduction in act 2... and so on.
I really had high hopes of the game after DOS1. But seeing after a 1 year break from the second game all they do is release a sequel with all the shortcomings carried over, and the promising aspects even more reduced, also in concept (!), makes me feel like I did with beyond divinity many years back: betrayed. Regretting that I backed that game.

How is the saying... "fool me once, shame on you, but fool me twice...". Yeah... This time I'm burying my affection for Larian for good.

[StevenXu]

Let’s do a simple calculation.

A) 4 man without glass cannon, the AP for full round u can spend is: 16 = 4 * 4

B) 4 man with glass cannon the AP is: 24 = 4* 6

C) 4 man without glass cannon, but one of character in your team been cc, AP is: 12 = 3 * 4

D) 4 man with glass cannon, but half of your team been cc. So AP is: 12 = 2 * 6

In conclusion, 16,12 without glass cannon, 24, 12 with glass cannon. Glass cannon wins.