Help me build a party

[Fozzforus]

Maybe the 8th or 9th time is the charm, right?

I have tried several combinations of the characters and I'm missing how you're supposed to synergize stuff with your party. I have gotten up to end fight before leaving the first island, but that's about it.

What suggestions do people have for a party for standard difficulty?

[Xaphnir]

This[docs.google.com] is a list of things to not do with your builds, and one or more of these reasons may be why you're struggling

[Fozzforus]

Thank you

[Chaoslink]

Thh he at link is pretty excellent at telling you what to avoid. It did get one thing wrong, potentially, by saying an aggro system doesn’t exist. I do believe one does, given the Stench talent exists, but the way it works still leads to the same conclusions the author made, tanking doesn’t work and the enemy will focus targets like you would, high damage squishy targets first.

If you want to pick four build ideas and share them here, we can confirm for you where your points should go. The guide did an excellent job telling you what not to do, but not so much what you should do.

So tell us a basic concept of what each character plans on doing, what weapon setup they’ll have, what skills you’ll take, attributes you’ll focus and talents you want. Imagine you have about 12 skill points and 24 attribute points to spend just to give an idea. This would be roughly what you’d have by level 10.

[Chaoslink]

You can use this, https://divinity-2-planner.riovir.com/en/character/1/edit?data=v3-1,1,s,3_,2_,_,_,,T,s,_, , to put them together as well if you like. It allows you to use a mockup of the in-game character sheet to set up your characters. I'd recommend picking level 8 to show what your builds will look like ending the first act, or level 12 to show what they'll look like mid act 2, where things really start to scale and matter. These levels will give us enough of an idea as to what your builds will look like as they come online while leaving room for expansion.

[icepac]

Originally posted by Xaphnir:

This[docs.google.com] is a list of things to not do with your builds, and one or more of these reasons may be why you're struggling

While I absolutely agree with this I do not follow it as I find it brings way to much rigidity in the gameplay. I mean following this means you should max Warfare on every char that have physical dmg capabilities. While true, it's boring...

The first part is what you 100% need to pay attention to (Core strategy). My strategy is to use sneak attack to wipe out most of the physical armour of usually 2 foes. The thing with sneak attack is that it happens outside of the order bar. So if your high Wit char has physical CC (chicken, knockdown...) then he can start the fight disabling up to 2 foes...
I also like to split my dmg between physical and magical so that I can FF armour down. I get away with lower dmg rating because I typically start every fights with 2 foes disabled before they can even attack once.

Downside of my group is you need to strategize most fight and place your sneakers which is a lot of micromanagement and that is typically frowned upon :)

But I find I have a lot of fun doing that and once I figure out my strategy things go very smooth and easy.

The point I am making however is there are myriads of valid builds apart from what is suggested. But you need to respect the fundamental principals stated in the Core Strategy part of that document.

My 2 cents

[Chaoslink]

Originally posted by icepac:

While I absolutely agree with this I do not follow it as I find it brings way to much rigidity in the gameplay. I mean following this means you should max Warfare on every char that have physical dmg capabilities. While true, it's boring...

While I can agree on the rigidity part, Not really understanding the issue with Warfare. What is it you'd take otherwise? Warfare simply is the best damage for the skill point option you get. There isn't too much worth taking over it.

[icepac]

Originally posted by Chaoslink:

While I can agree on the rigidity part, Not really understanding the issue with Warfare. What is it you'd take otherwise? Warfare simply is the best damage for the skill point option you get. There isn't too much worth taking over it.

This is quite exactly what I mean. If you're min maxing then there is no alternative to Warfare for a physical build.
If you are not min maxing then of course you can go with pretty much whatever you want, as long as you 'make it work'...

Now say you are not min maxing but you still want to play at Tactical level (which I believe is the problem some players have) then you need to find a way to still be competitive while not having max dmg stats. Because of my playstyle (using stealth attack) I don't need to have warfare on all of my guys. So I can have a Scoundrel or a Hunter with a Mage skill.

The advantage of not having Warfare everywhere is of course flexibility : I can FF both magical armor and physical armor... I also have access to a lot more utilities

The only thing I find that I wouldn't be able to change is that my highest Wit char needs to have CCs and you can't play defensively (heals and protect) or at least I haven't found a way to do it.
But I believe that outside of that there are many alternative that don't require min maxing...

Question for you : Would you agree that Warfare is OP ? I mean if a skill is a must-have on 50% of ALL builds, that's the definition no ?

2 cents

[Chaoslink]

I wouldn't really go so far to call Warfare OP, I'd just say that the character creation system as a whole needs a full overhaul. Between Warfare, Summoning, Constitution, the Defensive and Weapon skill sections.... There are too many major issues with it that I'd argue everything else is weak. If you were to change things like giving Weapon skills their own "spells" and buffing some other stuff, Warfare could be very balanced as is. Its just that other stuff is unnecessarily weak by comparison.

[phenir]

Look to mods if you want different balance. There's little point in discussing what ifs at this point in the games life.
For example, Epic Encounters (yes again). Part of the balance changes is making each school's skill improve only its own skills. So if you want to be an archer, you stack huntsman. Not just because it increases your damage, but also because having a higher skill level lets you infuse more source into skills (any huntsman skill anyway). Not that you need to stack one of the school skills.
My strongest dps in my current playthrough is one that is stacking singlehanded. Because sucker punch does more damage, and gives damage bonus to your next skill, based on your singlehanded skill and sucker punch resets its cooldown (2 times with 10+ singlehanded) so you can use it multiple times per turn. He doesn't have more than 3 points in any other skill and still consistently does tons of damage. But he can't infuse more than one source point at a time which means he can't really burst an enemy for cheap ap-wise when someone investing in a school could do a 3 point infusion and blow up an enemy. That takes 3-4 turns though so the consistency he brings is really nice.

[grape cough syrup]

I'm playing DOS2 for the first time right now (playing on balanced) and I am using:
MC - Hydrosophist / Pyrokinentic / Aerothurge - basically this character is the healer and CC utility, but also has points in pyro for big dps and some points into aero for teleportation and some other stuff there, made this character a wizard at setup screen
Red Prince - 1h weapon + shield tank, pretty self explanatory
Ifan - 2h weapon juggernaut, does tons of damage, asked him to be a knight I think it was when he first joined the party
Lohse - another caster in my party, she offheals with 3 points into hydro right now while the bulk of her points are in pyro and geomancer, with 2 points into aero for teleportation

Just like DOS1, my strategies in this game relies heavily on using both mages to heal and damage, while controlling the battlefield with teleportation and oil barrels.

I am by no means a crpg master, but I've played DOS1, DOS2, DA:O and DA:I using two mages + 1h/shield fighter + 2h weapon fighter and it generally feels pretty good to me. Only downside I see is it can be pretty rough to start with two casters when you don't have a big inventory of spells and are relying on Staff of Magus and basic attacks for damage while waiting for spells to come off CD, so it might be a good idea to swap a mage for a ranger if you are struggling and then put the mage back in when you get some spells rolling.

The only crpg I finished on Tactician was BG3, where I used a similar party of 1h weapon/shield tank paladin, 2h weapon champion, lightning sorc MC and life cleric healer with great success. I subscribe to the 1h shield tank + 2h juggernaut + caster + healer meta so I would recommend that you do something similar.

[Fozzforus]

That hard part about this game is that its system is completely unlike anything else. It almost as complicated as 3.5e, but totally different. It deliberately subverts your normal ideas about how to compose a character and party. Tank bad. Heals bad. Variety bad. All one damage and lots of teleports. Pet pal over everything.

AHA! I have it. All wind magic party.

[grape cough syrup]

I feel like these games are ez mode if you have two mages to teleport stuff around (move enemies where you want, drop oil barrels where you want) and pick up all the oil/ooze barrels you find and keep them in storage for times when you need them. Just set the entire battlefield on fire with oil barrels/geo oil spells/pyro spells and melt everything.

Giving Phoenix Dive to your 2h weapon monster is very fun too. Hydrosophist and Pyrokinetic are inverses I feel like, so there is a balance between lighting everything on fire and casting Rain and freezing everything that is fun too.

[Yojo0o]

Originally posted by Fozzforus:

That hard part about this game is that its system is completely unlike anything else. It almost as complicated as 3.5e, but totally different. It deliberately subverts your normal ideas about how to compose a character and party. Tank bad. Heals bad. Variety bad. All one damage and lots of teleports. Pet pal over everything.

AHA! I have it. All wind magic party.

Variety is great, it just means you need to be a bit more tactical in your attack focus and positioning. A 2/2 damage type split is better than a full-physical or full-magic party in terms of being able to tackle any enemy equally well, having a good spread of available magical items, and not running into issues like not having enough AoE to handle major endgame battles. Full physical is just a faceroll option, it's not necessarily the best option.

Pet Pal is entirely optional. It's just for added flavor and a bit of extra XP.

[Chaoslink]

Originally posted by grape cough syrup:

I feel like these games are ez mode if you have two mages to teleport stuff around (move enemies where you want, drop oil barrels where you want) and pick up all the oil/ooze barrels you find and keep them in storage for times when you need them. Just set the entire battlefield on fire with oil barrels/geo oil spells/pyro spells and melt everything.

Giving Phoenix Dive to your 2h weapon monster is very fun too. Hydrosophist and Pyrokinetic are inverses I feel like, so there is a balance between lighting everything on fire and casting Rain and freezing everything that is fun too.

Mages are definitely strong. The only thing about your team setup that would be holding you back a bit in this game in particular is the sword and board tank, it’s definitely advised against in DOS2 as it does nothing good that you can’t get from another build that offers the same benefits and much more. There’s no reason to ever use a shield on a character that uses their weapon to attack. Your mages actually act as better tanks if they had shields. You’d breeze through combat faster if you had an archer in place of the sword and board. That said, it doesn’t mean you can’t win while using a tank. They can still contribute, they’re just not as good as basically anything else you could slot in.

[grape cough syrup]

Originally posted by Chaoslink:

Originally posted by grape cough syrup:

I feel like these games are ez mode if you have two mages to teleport stuff around (move enemies where you want, drop oil barrels where you want) and pick up all the oil/ooze barrels you find and keep them in storage for times when you need them. Just set the entire battlefield on fire with oil barrels/geo oil spells/pyro spells and melt everything.

Giving Phoenix Dive to your 2h weapon monster is very fun too. Hydrosophist and Pyrokinetic are inverses I feel like, so there is a balance between lighting everything on fire and casting Rain and freezing everything that is fun too.

Mages are definitely strong. The only thing about your team setup that would be holding you back a bit in this game in particular is the sword and board tank, it’s definitely advised against in DOS2 as it does nothing good that you can’t get from another build that offers the same benefits and much more. There’s no reason to ever use a shield on a character that uses their weapon to attack. Your mages actually act as better tanks if they had shields. You’d breeze through combat faster if you had an archer in place of the sword and board. That said, it doesn’t mean you can’t win while using a tank. They can still contribute, they’re just not as good as basically anything else you could slot in.

Thanks for the info. If tank is indeed as bad as you say, I would probably end up just giving my tank a 2h weapon and run two juggernaut-type characters. I will try that out very soon actually.