Essential Characters

[Evilbones76]

Hi guys, I have restared this game twice - I'm awful, awulf at these types of game. I always get to the Griff fight and find I have the wrong party setup. Could you please let me know of a party setup that will help with this fight.

I shall follow it to a T.
Thanks.

[mimizukari]

romance butter, also, wait til ur level 4... at level 3 the fight will be very very hard.

[wanchope]

Hello Friend. My team, I do not know if it is the best, but it is varied and I advance in the main story. Some fight causes problems but I'm overcoming it.

The red prince as melee to 1 hand and shield / man of arms / geomante (low).

Ifan - As well as Archer / Hunter / Picaro.

Fane - Pyrotechnic magician / Geomant / Polymorph.

Adelia - Hydrosophist Magician / Invocation / Airborne (low).

I hope I can be of help.

A greeting!

[Evilbones76]

Thanks guys, I shall give it ago with the above list.

[Ptolemy]

A few optimization points:

Focusing one damage type- physical or magic will keep you from having to break both armor types, which is essentially giving the target more health to chew through and saves against CC. Splitting 3-1 is the worst, 2-2 is better, 4-0 is arguably the best.

Levels- Pick your fights. You shouldn’t have to fight anyone over your level, though it’ll be easier to do so later in the game. Find another quest or different mobs to kill then come back.

Equipment- It’s important to have equipment suited to your level to give you the armor you need to avoid CC and death. This will only become more important as the game goes on. Thievery, Lucky Charm, and Bartering will all help you here and I’d recommend having each character max a different one. Generally the 4th civil is Persuasion on your main.

Skills- You’ll get access to skills pretty evenly through the game, a little front-loaded. It can be expensive, but there are some fantastic skills for clearing armor and locking down your targets. Battle Stomp is probably my favorite in the game for AOE damage and CC. Teleport is invaluable as well.

Which brings us to
Positioning- most fights in DOS 2 will be layed out to give the enemy an advantage. Don’t fight on their terms. Start at an edge so they have to come at you one at a time, move your other characters around before ending combat-initiating dialogue, don’t let their archer get high ground on you.

Most importantly
Have fun. You don’t need to do all of these to do well in combat. If they’re harshing on your style, do your own thing.

[Ashera]

Originally posted by wanchope:

Hello Friend. My team, I do not know if it is the best, but it is varied and I advance in the main story. Some fight causes problems but I'm overcoming it.

Adelia - Hydrosophist Magician / Invocation / Airborne (low).

Who is Adelia? What is invocation and airborne? o.O

[Ptolemy]

Originally posted by Ashera:

Originally posted by wanchope:

Hello Friend. My team, I do not know if it is the best, but it is varied and I advance in the main story. Some fight causes problems but I'm overcoming it.

Adelia - Hydrosophist Magician / Invocation / Airborne (low).

Who is Adelia? What is invocation and airborne? o.O

Its probably a translation issue. Invocation=summoning, airborne=aerothurge,
Adelia... maybe Lohse?

[Viper]

You don't have to fight Griff. There is a way to progress through the story without doing so. Also a way to save the guy who took his fruit.

[Robin of Spiritwood]

The Griff fight is hard at the start because of the number you face. It causes us to lose a couple useful merchants too. So maybe skip that option?

Suggest you split the party into 2 teams.
Leave 2 bowmen and a fighter by Stingtail to protect him. Go talk to Griff with the 4th.

Opt to "sell" Stingtail out in conversation. Switch to the team of protectors. It's a double-double cross.

[Evilbones76]

Great tips guys, thanks.

[Dralek]

I wouldn't follow Ptolemy's advice of focusing one damage type, or at least, do it throughout the whole game. You're fine with going through Fort Joy focusing on Physical since Magic needs levels to get on its feet along with grabbing better spells, but you don't need to focus on one damage type in order to succeed (Plus Physical CC is a bit more reliable to pull off than magic CC, since you use one ability to knockdown someone, whilst a mage has to use two abilities in most cases). Maybe in Tactician difficulty since the enemies have insanely high armor, but not for Classic or Explorer modes. After all, enemies will have a mix of Magic and Physical armor, and you likely won't CC an enemy Knight in one turn if you don't have any magic to go through his weaker magic armor.

I don't really have any tips on roles for your party since it's all up to playstyle, though I do have a few tips;

Lizards make great wizards. Their racial ability of the conal fire AoE scales off INT, and if they're focused in Pyro/Geo and have Elemental Affinity, you can pretty much use their racial ability as a free AP discount.

Humans make good rangers and okay wizards, their additional initiative and crit chance can help if you get savage sortiledge for magic crits, and rangers work on crits to maximize damage anyway.

Dwarves make good physical tanks with Warfare skills, since they have a bonus to Constitution and they can at least make use of Petrifying Touch if the wizard has burned through their magic armor.

Elves are pretty much the jack-of-all-trades race, since their racial trait basically fits into many builds. Summoners can use Flesh Sacrifice to pull up blood totems and incarnates, Necromancers can reduce the cost of their spells WHILE gaining AP, and Scoundrels can do more backstab damage. Also they can gain skills by eating body parts.

Edit: Undead can make good Scoundrels, more because they spec into thievery and they can use their bony fingers to pick locks as an infinite lockpick. Can't forget about the spooky skeletons!

[Ptolemy]

Re: Dralek

It’s true that you don’t need to go 4-0 to have a successful party. I hear 2-2 is lots of fun to play. I made the mistake of going 3-1 though and Red Prince spent so much time burning through magic armor, he never actually contributed to the fight.

One problem with magic (on Tactician at least) is the resistance to magic damage types which you don’t see for phys.
There’s also the difference in which mobs have more of which armor. A tanky knight may have a lot of armor, while a mage will have lots of magic armor. You want to take out the most threat as quickly as possible, so clearing the mages low armor easily works out nicely.

Good point on the racials. No one else touched on that important aspect.

[Hobocop]

Lizard's racial breath weapon doesn't scale off INT, only character level and Pyrokinetic skill. It's good as was mentioned before for setting up Elemental Affinity with Pyro Mages, but it also remains decent even for physical damage specialists to help strip magic armor or set up surfaces if needed.