Any good builds that are not outdated?

[TotalAbyss]

As the title asks is there any good builds that are not outdated. all the builds i find on youtube seem to be 3 years old. Are they still viable? Like the occult flameweilder mage.

Or the eternal warrior deathknight?

Mainly looking for a magic missile / fireball spaming build for a mage, And a 2 hander warrior
dpser and or a sword and board tank / paladin builds. That are update with the current patchs.

[Yojo0o]

For starters, ignore everything from Fextralife.

Beyond that, even ignoring Fextralife, most build guides are ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. This is a bad game to copy builds for. It's much better to simply pick the sort of character you want to be, invest in scaling stats for that build, and then either continue to specialize or diversify for utility as the need arises. Needs shift around depending on your playstyle and team composition, so locking into a predetermined build rather than considering each level-up and acting accordingly is a poor choice.

Wanna sling fireballs? Invest heavily into Intelligence and Pyromancy. Dip into other schools as needed. Also investing in Geomancy works well to create oil/poison surfaces to ignite.

Wanna be a two-handed warrior? Warfare is the single best scaling source for all things physical damage, so invest in that and Strength. A couple points in Polymorph allow you to continue growing your strength while also unlocking extra utility abilities.

[Spawnling]

1) Builds evolve. After act 1 you can respec all characters any time you want, so your goal is to get through act one, then you can swap to your actual build.

2) Thievery is op. Starting with it and getting a Shadowblade (also has it) makes life much easier

3) Watch this, it explains everything you need to know and if you do 10-20% of what is done in these videos you'll have an easy time on Classic:
"Divinity: Original Sin 2 DE | 4-Man Guide Run - Part 1"
by Manrithro

[TotalAbyss]

are fextralifes builds really bad? I took a likeing to his death knight build and i did make his occult flameweilder build. But I wanted to see if they where outdated as i said those videos are 2 to 3 years old.

[Chaoslink]

Originally posted by TotalAbyss:

are fextralifes builds really bad? I took a likeing to his death knight build and i did make his occult flameweilder build. But I wanted to see if they where outdated as i said those videos are 2 to 3 years old.

Yes and no. The issue with Fextralife builds is that they’re built from an RP mentality. On lower difficulties, they’re probably all fine. For Tactician, they’re not really optimized for ideal play and running too many of them can create issues.

For example, if you look up ranger builds there, the first thing you get is a ranger/summoner build. Mixing anything with summoning gimps the “anything” build heavily and if you try to build it alongside summoning rather than going full summoning and picking up the “anything” part after summoning is capped, the summoner part is equally gimped. You’ll be summoning incarnates that don’t do enough to be worth the AP while shooting foam NERF arrows rather than pointy ones (if following the ranger/summoning build that is).

So what you want to do is follow the builds close enough to get the gist while making sure you’re still adhering to important build concepts like never investing more than one damage scaling attribute in the same build or making sure than you always stack Warfare on physical damage builds, regardless of how that physical damage is dealt (archer/rogue/necromage).

I’d avoid strength based weapon and shield builds as well since tanking isn’t really a functional thing in this game. Same goes for dedicated healers for the most part as well.

My advice when players ask for build guides here is always the same. Don’t look for build guides, just ask those of us responding here already how to build the ideas in your head and we’ll work with you as you go to make sure your builds are optimized both from your vision of what the character should be as well as how the game works so you can keep your favorite ideas while tuning them for maximum effectiveness. We’re here for you. Use us.

[TotalAbyss]

I see,

Well I guess the characters i want to build are a

2 handed sword huge dpser.

And a fireball mage

and a paladin. Or maybe not a paladin since you said tanking is not worth it. :(

So how would i go about building those 3 characters stats skills abilitys classes and races?

[Kurosu]

People are for some reason over symplifying regarding Fextralife . Yes some of his builds ( its 1 person) are mostly themed and a few of them ( yes few) are not super strong .It is no coincidence that Ranger was the only example of the user above.

Instead lets focus on the good ones : Eternal warrior might be the strongest build in the game. It was his final build after dozens of others ( its a fixed version of his original death knight build ) It follows a principle that is true for this game : Offense is everything . Including Tactician difficulty . Another insane build is Blood mage. Google anywhere online, not a single person will say to you that blood Mage is a weak build. In fact its quite OP and should have been nerfed ( bear in mind blood mage is PHYSICAL damage in this game ) .

I haven't tested all of his build by the way since I got the knack of the game after my first playthrough and I no longer need guides.

There are no paladins builds in the traditional sense ( holy power etc) . Fextralife does have a build called frost paladin if that is appealing to you. I consider it very begginer friendly. If you use it , make sure to use nails.

As for your magic user , no matter if you use fextralife's builds , someone elses or your own, remember than fire synergises with Earth , and Hydro with Aero. They also sabotage each other ( warm and chilled status effect for example ) . So plan accordingly. Personaly I am a huge fan of Hydro and Necromancy.

Tanking is not a concept in this game , but there is something more important : CC. Crowd control win this game . The moment someone is out of armor or Magic armor , he is viable to Crowd Control . So you might not make a tank that draws " aggro" in the traditional sense, but you can make a CC monster.

My advice : Check Fextralife despite previous comments in order to get a glimpse/ idea of a build then adjust to your personal taste and judgement .

Check Eternal Warrior for 2handed reference , Frost Paladin or Jugernaut for a "tank" ( CC machine ) refference . I cant give advise for a fire mage since I never played one .

You havent mentioned a 4th character , but I suggest a finnese using one ( hey lets not waste the gear ) and ideally a ranged one since you already have enough melees. Focus on warfare ( physical damage up in all forms ) and Huntsman for elavation bonus and nice abilities . Use magic arrows if you want to deal magic damage.

FInal note : you can respec for FREE after chapter 1. The only thigns that are " stuck" are the skillbooks used on each character.

[Yojo0o]

Some fextra builds approach being adequate, that's the best I can say about them.

That "eternal warrior" build is nothing special. It's extraordinarily niche, for one. It's quite literally NOT offense-only, as you use up a considerable number of skill points to get enough necromancy to get the passive lifesteal for Living Armor. That's something that is worth CONSIDERING, sure, which goes back to my point in my initial response about being aware of your wants and needs as you level up and making decisions based on how your party evolves. If you don't NEED that Living Armor, which depending on your composition and/or playstyle you might not, then the build is fundamentally stupid. Just slap points into Two-Handed Weapon Style after Warfare is capped to continue scaling damage, bam.

Sure, Fextra's Blood Mage build is good. It's just a straightforward offensive necro build, there's nothing special about it. If you want to build a necromancer and understand where necro scaling comes from, your build will look something like that.

Frost Paladin makes me weep actual Jesus tears. It's godawful. So is Juggernaut.

[Senki]

Originally posted by Kurosu:

Instead lets focus on the good ones : Eternal warrior might be the strongest build in the game.

Not even close to being the strongest actually. It's close to the bottom. And yes he does have some good builds but even those are missing some important details. For example his blood mage doesn't mention anything about apotheosis and skin graft which more than doubles the build's power in late game.

His builds are mediocre at best when it comes to min/maxing.

[Yojo0o]

Originally posted by Senki:

Originally posted by Kurosu:

Instead lets focus on the good ones : Eternal warrior might be the strongest build in the game.

Not even close to being the strongest actually. It's close to the bottom. And yes he does have some good builds but even those are missing some important details. For example his blood mage doesn't mention anything about apotheosis and skin graft which more than doubles the build's power in late game.

His builds are mediocre at best when it comes to min/maxing.

Wait, his blood mage doesn't use skin graft/apotheosis? This is basic stuff. Wow.

[Senki]

Originally posted by Yojo0o:

Originally posted by Senki:

Not even close to being the strongest actually. It's close to the bottom. And yes he does have some good builds but even those are missing some important details. For example his blood mage doesn't mention anything about apotheosis and skin graft which more than doubles the build's power in late game.

His builds are mediocre at best when it comes to min/maxing.

Wait, his blood mage doesn't use skin graft/apotheosis? This is basic stuff. Wow.

Yeah, no adrenaline either. To be fair the guide is before the definitive edition so it's probably one of his first ones when he was still experimenting with the game.

[Chaoslink]

Originally posted by Kurosu:

People are for some reason over symplifying regarding Fextralife . Yes some of his builds ( its 1 person) are mostly themed and a few of them ( yes few) are not super strong .It is no coincidence that Ranger was the only example of the user above.

Given that I haven't looked at the builds much, its the only one I know about off the top of my head enough to speak about specifically. That said, I've seen many of the builds linked in various posts and not a single one of them has ever passed by me without criticisms aplenty. If the say 8-10 builds I have looked at all come off as mediocre at best overall, I can't imagine that its a coincidence that I looked at just the 8-10 worst builds offered by Fextralife. It tells me that most of the builds are mediocre, at least from an effectiveness standpoint. From a role playing perspective, the builds Fextralife offers are great. Those are two very different things though.

You could post just about any build on the Fextralife site right here and I guarantee that myself or anyone else here could break it down into one of two categories. Either the build is full of flaws to what works best in the game and therefore is ultimately going to make a run harder than it needs to be due to said inefficiencies, or it will be so basic and simple that it is in no way unique to how that build is expected to be played.

I'd break down the example of the blood mage, but that is already being done for me prior to responding as is.

Thus far, I really haven't seen a link to a build from Fextralife that was the best it could be. All of them use gimmicks that lower effectiveness for flavor and many teach newer players bad habits through this that ultimately make them struggle as they venture away from build guides and try their own builds. I've seen plenty of threads on the forum here that follow the basic concept of "I tried Fextralife builds X, Y and Z on my last run and this run I decided to make my own builds A, B and C but I'm struggling or simply can't progress because I get destroyed every fight. Can anyone help me?". I'm serious too, I've seen dozens of threads asking for help where their only prior experience was with Fextralife builds, and their own ideas were just as full of bad habits and things to avoid as the Fextralife builds are.

I'm not trying to say that Fextralife offers terrible builds necessarily. I'm just saying that Fextralife's builds aren't built for effectiveness, they're built for flavor. Something that new players shouldn't worry about until they understand effectiveness and can use less efficient builds and get by just fine. I'm sure I could make a team of any mixture of builds from Fextralife and beat the game on Tactician just fine. But I also have 900+ hours of experience to help me do that.

[SenMithrarin85]

The worst build I saw on fextralife was the "elementalist". Basically a mage that specs into every magic school. The memory needed is insane, which even with mnemonic, would gimp your INT stat for a long time.

Tidalist is another. Hydro has the least amount of damaging skills in the game.

Stormchaser is not a good idea until late act 1 at least, as your magic armour levels are far too low to avoid stunning either yourself or team mates. Lone wolf helps though. Plus, advising skills like suffocating touch is really bad. That skill is not much of a threat as melee enemies can still attack you and mages have enough armour to resist it.

The archer/summoner hybrid as mentioned above, is also a no-no.

[Chaoslink]

Originally posted by SenMithrarin85:

The worst build I saw on fextralife was the "elementalist". Basically a mage that specs into every magic school. The memory needed is insane, which even with mnemonic, would gimp your INT stat for a long time.

A build like this can work, you just invest into Poly once you have one or two in each magic skill so you can pump INT with the extra Poly points. You're still going to be a bit light on memory in the sense that you're only going to take some spells from every skill rather than all of them. You also have to consider swapping spells out depending on the fight and filling in the magic points you can't fully invest with gear since you'll want 1 in all four magic skills quite early. If you get a few lucky rolls, Nebora always sells a green ring with a +1 to a skill (typically) that can help. You do still trade INT for memory a bit more than your average mage, but you also gain that versatility to attack anything. Not the best build in the end, but it can work relatively well if you're not building a second proper mage and just getting that extra magic damage from hybrid builds like archers or sparking builds.

[Gullis]

I would not worry too much about it. You can make just about anything work, even on tacitican. Once you learn the game, its not particularly difficult. The general rule is to not mix up your strenght, int and finesse stats, pick and focus on one. try to have a even split between physical and magical damage, and try to not run builds that clash with each other, like pyro and hydro.

Don't confuse optimal with viable. A lot of people I know, tend to use broken ♥♥♥♥ like stacking worm tremor, adrenaline, chameleon cloak, and skingraft on all characters, then act like anything less is unviable. If you want to breeze through the game, this is fine. but if you are looking for more engaging, challenging and intense combat scenarios, I would advise against this

I grew tired of optimal builds, as they made the game a joke, and started focusing more on RP builds in order to spice the game up, and I find it way more enjoyable. I've tried some of the fextralife builds, like the battlemage and it worked well enough. If you want a typical sword and board paladin, just go for it. focus points into strenght, warfare and a bit of hydro/geo for healing/armor spells. Two handed will always be better, but If you want to use sword and shield. thats fine. Not optimal by any means, some would say straight up bad, but its more than good enough to beat the game. You can always change up things later, if you need to. If you are new, play on classic difficulty.

Ultimately its hard to recommend builds, since people are different, have different skill levels, and enjoy different things. some likes to RP, some likes to min-max, some likes the challenge, and some just wants to enjoy the story. I would advise you to just pick what you want, and go for it, If you find its not working, you can always ask for help later.

I know for my first playthrough, I just went with what sounded cool, and It never got so bad, I had to turn back.

[Qwesar]

Builds don't really matter. The game is easy enough on any difficulty where you don't have to min-max. Well fort joy can be a challenge on combat randomizer tactician mode. But once you get past that part. The game becomes a joke. The games difficulty isn't really finely tuned and it has the same problem of many RPGs where the beginning is actually the hardest simply because you have no gear/spells/consumables/etc. You could dump your points into any attributes or spells and it doesn't even matter. All attributes and spells are good enough to get you through the game once you know how to play.