Melee weapon choice

[Hellstorm901]

Which is best to go with?

1 handed + shield
2 handed
Dual wield

[Gunslinger]

shield if you want more armor and the ability to get it some back
2 handed if you want to hit hard
dual wield, has i know down now i think so if you want that then dual wield

[Hellstorm901]

I heard people saying Dual Wield was useful for rogues using daggers which makes sense but is there any practicality of it for melee who use swords?

[Niteshade]

Originally posted by Hellstorm901:

I heard people saying Dual Wield was useful for rogues using daggers which makes sense but is there any practicality of it for melee who use swords?

Would also be curious about this as well, can't decide if i want my melee battlemage going into combat with a 2h sword or dual swords

[Deathstar699]

I know this is a very late reply but let me help break it down for you.

1 handed + sheild offers low damage but decent versatility, shields and armour buffs are broken in divinity as it can make you harder to CC.

2 Handed has higher damage, and some of the best 2 handers in game are easy to access. However you will lack defence in a lot of ways which means you will need to sub into geomancer or Hydromancer to generate the defences you need as crowd control can mess you up. I did however do my 2h lone wolf playthrough with Sebile who had not too much of an issue as she can break out of crowd control.

Duel wield is amazing but you have to pay attention on if your weapons are finesse or Strength scaling. You attack twice with your basic attacks which means you can drill through armour faster, but Divinity is a game where crowd control is important, so if you drill through the enemy's armour with autos you might not have enough ap for knockdown skills. Unless of course you are a rogue and you backstab. Although personally the fact that rogues get access to warfare skills is broken and the only reason normal duel wield isn't as good as Dagger duel wield.

If you are playing a battle mage, lizard race and a staff will work best. Staffs do purely elemental damage so you will need to have one of each element to swap to which can make them harder to use, but they can also like all other melee weapons benefit from warfare skills such as battering ram and so on. You need to max however the element you are working them with, Pyromancy+Aerothurge is often the best course with them as both benefit more from being closer rather than further away.

[Senki]

Originally posted by RIP Hellstorm901:

I heard people saying Dual Wield was useful for rogues using daggers which makes sense but is there any practicality of it for melee who use swords?

You can buff your swords with poison coating and sparkstriker. It's pretty good since it will apply twice if you dual wield. It's not as strong as daggers/two handed but it's a very viable build either way.

[Chaoslink]

Physical with a side of magic you’d use two weapons. High physical damage you want a two handed weapon. If you want to deal low damage and stack a redundant amount of armor that really has little tactical value, go weapon and shield.

Very much, I do not recommend a weapon and shield build. Not with strength anyway. If you really want a melee and shield setup, dagger and shield is far better. Otherwise, shields belong on mages with wand/shield.

[EolSunder]

yea i don't like weapon/shield warriors either, you need a specific set of skills/build for your tank to actually tank since enemies are programmed to go after weaker members. warrior damage is bla anyway either with 2 handed or dual weapons, but at least you can do some ok warrior/mage builds like throwing in some other physical based areas (necromancy, polymorph, etc). Not too bad. More "fun" than useful since if i want to pump out damage physically id just make an archer.

Yea the game really doesn't balance stuff very well, where mages with shields outshine wands/staffs, archers over warriors, etc. Really on my archer team I just have 1 up front strength based tank warrior just for carrying stuff and being the battle test dummy to draw fire while my real damage dealers kill stuff.

[Onifans]

2 handed is king. I generally dual wield if i just want stats (like on my necro) easy way to get early crit. But for pure damage 2h is the best way to go. The benefit of DW though is just before your turn ends you can equip a shield just for the increased M/P armour. OR when you unequip a weapon you get a free knockdown.

[Chaoslink]

I'd note as well, physical armor is the lesser important of the two types. Dodge spells are cheap on AP cost and easy to get and they completely negate nearly all forms of incoming physical damage. Its much harder to mitigate magic damage in a similar way, meaning you need to have magic armor to compensate. This makes stacking strength armor and a shield very redundant. This is one of the reasons I'd recommend a Finesse build counterpart to any Strength build. Finesse armor has less total armor, but that more balanced set of values is worth it.

[Player 2]

ah here we go another thread that make people talk ♥♥♥♥♥ about tank.

the thing about shield build is you not relly on your weapon to do damage. invest on constitution and use spell that don't need attribute scaling. shield throw can deal fair amount of damage as long as it stay at ur level. shackle of pain is your best friend, combine it with self damage spell like last rite, reactive armor, bloated blob explosion, etc. get fortify, bonecage, deflecting shield for a massive reactive armor effect. you can also use aoe/chain attack from other character to target your shield guy while shackling for double damage. get skingraft to replay the combo. late game you can also use overpower from warfare to strip enemy armor easily if you need it.

get full retribution, potentially can reach 90% damage reflection probably even more, that is ur high constitution for. there is alot of way to make enemy attack you like triggering their attack of opportunity or huntsman overwatch.

while there is no reason to use tank in lonewolf. but its very viable in 3/4 guy run (atleast after fort joy). give you a better chance to survive when ♥♥♥♥♥ happen, vs boss its can be your mvp cause their high damage can backfire to em.

[Player 2]

as for 2 handed or dualwield. there is no reason to do dualwield other than for spark fire and more crit chance probably

also wtf OP is from 2017 lol well

[Chaoslink]

Originally posted by Player 2:

ah here we go another thread that make people talk ♥♥♥♥♥ about tank.

the thing about shield build is you not relly on your weapon to do damage. invest on constitution and use spell that don't need attribute scaling. shield throw can deal fair amount of damage as long as it stay at ur level. shackle of pain is your best friend, combine it with self damage spell like last rite, reactive armor, bloated blob explosion, etc. get fortify, bonecage, deflecting shield for a massive reactive armor effect. you can also use aoe/chain attack from other character to target your shield guy while shackling for double damage. get skingraft to replay the combo. late game you can also use overpower from warfare to strip enemy armor easily if you need it.

get full retribution, potentially can reach 90% damage reflection probably even more, that is ur high constitution for. there is alot of way to make enemy attack you like triggering their attack of opportunity or huntsman overwatch.

while there is no reason to use tank in lonewolf. but its very viable in 3/4 guy run (atleast after fort joy). give you a better chance to survive when ♥♥♥♥♥ happen, vs boss its can be your mvp cause their high damage can backfire to em.

Thing is, all of those same spells that don't scale off attributes, are equally as good on builds that DO have damage attributes as they are on a tank build. The tank portion of the build offers nothing inherently valuable in the end. The higher armor isn't really that high, as I mentioned the strength armor makes your physical armor value redundantly high and CON stacking is just a waste.

There is in fact an aggro/threat system in the game. You know what makes a character less likely to be attacked? High armor values. High health values. High Retribution. Active Shackles of Pain. Everything a tank build needs to be good, actively makes the enemy less likely to want to attack them. Like, hooray! you can now reflect 90% damage baseline. Now to figure out how to get the enemy to actually attack you...

Tank builds offer nothing valuable that other builds can't also offer and more. There's just no justifiable reason to gimp yourself with low weapon damage just to have the shield. If you build it for RP reasons or something, it can be viable, but overall a sword and board tank in this game is definitely in the bottom 20% in terms of how good the build is.

[Player 2]

Originally posted by Chaoslink:

high hp mean you have no worry to get multiple damaged. like last rite almost have no effect to full constitution, compare to no cons it willl bring you close to death. and yes that no attribute scaling ability also can be use for other class but is it worth it tho? there is no reason to dump full lot of spell in 1 character since you only have 4 AP for each round. they can just focus on their own thing

the thing about shackle of pain and retribution is you have to do self damage. you cant just blindly hope enemy will attack you eventhough they still do that. be creative there is alot of thing to make them attack you, like i said above you can purposely triggering their attack of opportunity or huntsman overwatch, only need 1 AP to move. do aoe attack reactive armor, corpses explosion, bloated blob explosion, etc. you can use other character as well to do chain/aoe attack on shackle caster and target for double damage. get unstable talent if all of those thing still not enough.

Originally posted by Chaoslink:

I'd note as well, physical armor is the lesser important of the two types. Dodge spells are cheap on AP cost and easy to get and they completely negate nearly all forms of incoming physical damage. Its much harder to mitigate magic damage in a similar way, meaning you need to have magic armor to compensate. This makes stacking strength armor and a shield very redundant. This is one of the reasons I'd recommend a Finesse build counterpart to any Strength build. Finesse armor has less total armor, but that more balanced set of values is worth it.

also that is not actually true. finesse armor is just mediocre. probably better in story mode. in tactician its better to focus either on intel/strength. get strength armor for weapon user to negate athropy. get intel armor for spell caster to negate silence.

[Chaoslink]

Originally posted by Player 2:

Originally posted by Chaoslink:

high hp mean you have no worry to get multiple damaged. like last rite almost have no effect to full constitution, compare to no cons it willl bring you close to death.

Yes.... and a res scroll costs no HP at all. I leave act one with 80+ res scrolls and need maybe 3 by the end of the game. Last rights is meh anyway. Free res. Yay. It isn't expensive to get res scrolls and if you're that worried about it, you're dying too much anyway.

Originally posted by Player 2:

and yes that no attribute scaling ability also can be use for other class but is it worth it tho? there is no reason to dump full lot of spell in 1 character since you only have 4 AP for each round. they can just focus on their own thing

I genuinely don't understand your point here. You can use these spells on other builds. If you can, why wouldn't you? What is the advantage of using these spells on a shielded character as opposed to a non-shielded character? Memory isn't a bad investment.

Originally posted by Player 2:

the thing about shackle of pain and retribution is you have to do self damage. you cant just blindly hope enemy will attack you eventhough they still do that. be creative there is alot of thing to make them attack you, like i said above you can purposely triggering their attack of opportunity or huntsman overwatch, only need 1 AP to move. do aoe attack reactive armor, corpses explosion, bloated blob explosion, etc. you can use other character as well to do chain/aoe attack on shackle caster and target for double damage. get unstable talent if all of those thing still not enough.

Yes. Dealing self damage. Thing is, shackles is a single target spell that already requires the enemy to have no physical armor to apply. Typically, that means the enemy can already be locked down by CC and that enemy isn't a huge threat at that point. Shackles is really only good for burning enemy HP down on bosses or other really high HP enemies or removing aggro from vulnerable characters.

I'd also note that getting any reasonable amount of Retribution takes a lot of investment. Without gear, 50% reflect is the max and that's 10 skill points right there, pretty much half the skill points you get. To reasonably acquire spells to use in the meantime, this means you won't have max Retribution until more than halfway through the second act.

Friendly fire again, is only dealing bonus damage to the shackled enemy. Most AoE that'll benefit is magic damage, which is dealing magic damage to an enemy with no physical armor. Might as well be dealing physical damage instead right?

Consider the damage you can deal with this setup. Now imagine the damage other builds can do. With good setup, you can pretty much end entire fights in a single round.

Like, I get it, players find tank builds interesting or fun and you probably found it effective. However, comparatively to other builds, they're still bottom tier.

Originally posted by Chaoslink:

I'd note as well, physical armor is the lesser important of the two types. Dodge spells are cheap on AP cost and easy to get and they completely negate nearly all forms of incoming physical damage. Its much harder to mitigate magic damage in a similar way, meaning you need to have magic armor to compensate. This makes stacking strength armor and a shield very redundant. This is one of the reasons I'd recommend a Finesse build counterpart to any Strength build. Finesse armor has less total armor, but that more balanced set of values is worth it.

also that is not actually true. finesse armor is just mediocre. probably better in story mode. in tactician its better to focus either on intel/strength. get strength armor for weapon user to negate athropy. get intel armor for spell caster to negate silence. [/quote]
Strength armor might have higher total stats, but the highest stat is the lesser important armor if you're using mitigation properly. Coming from someone who quite their only ever Classic run for Tactician and never went back and who likes to fight battles with enemies much higher level than my own characters, Physical armor is very much the lesser of the two types. Dodge, specifically from the Uncanny Dodge spell or Dodge Aura will pretty much completely negate the need for physical armor. I have mage builds without shields that will negate more physical damage incoming from the enemy than your tank can absorb, simply by not taking the damage at all.

Finesse armor is very much better than Strength, just to get that higher magical protection, even if the total armor is lower. If we're talking about characters wielding shields, this is even more true as shields already sport high physical protection anyway. You want that magic armor. I'm not really big on dipping into STR/INT if your build doesn't already, just to get the armor type. It isn't really worth it unless you're after a specific unique item for something like a resistance build.

Focusing on an armor type just to avoid single status effects is silly too. There's not really that many cases of atrophy or silence to worry about. You want it exclusively to avoid CC and honestly, you're better off not being hit at all. The best way to not get hit? Lock the enemy down with CC before they can attack in the first place. You need massive damage outputs to achieve that and having a tank with few offensive capabilities isn't going to help with that.

I mean, the ideal/optimal party is all INT builds with a mix of Geo focus and Necro focus characters. If you mix anything else in there, the only option is an archer. That's simply how the meta of the game works. INT is better than Finesse which is better than Strength and Ranged is always better than Melee. Its just baked into the game as there's no penalties for using ranged attacks in melee range and ranged don't have to use AP to close gaps to attack like melee do. The best physical damage build is the Necromage simply because they get all the advantages magic has without the downside of resistances (which isn't as big a downside as people make it out to be).

Now, is it fun to run the most optimal party? Not really. However, my point in mentioning it is that there's not a single aspect of a tank build that fits into that meta.

Are tanks viable? Yes they are.

Can they be fun to play? Yeah, for sure.

Are they good? No, not in the slightest. Just about anything else is better.

That's my point here. I'm not arguing the viability of tanks. I'm simply stating that, compared to other options, there is always a better alternative to pick.

I do recommend that new players avoid tank builds as they typically only make your run harder, especially when you don't know the mechanics to really use them.

[Player 2]

Originally posted by Chaoslink:

for last rite its not about the revive but for self damage

yes you can shackle and self damage with other character but it will not survive without constitution. with the right gear you can maxing retribution and get 2 of necro and warfare (1 for other maybe for more support) just after fort joy. before that if you really want a tank then summon i believe is the best option.

CC is not everything. there is alot of other play style you can do other than that. from my tank perspective, i have 1 guy take all the damage the other can just yolo full raw offensive till die. just get cameleon cloak nothing to worry about

as for armor its not really a matter whatever you choose. you can get disabled no matter how max ur armor. the thing is weapon user not really care about getting silenced. the same with spell caster with athropy