5 Tips For Totally New Players

[Xavier]

Just 5 of the most important tips to help you all get started in Divinity, Original Sin 2, "or as I will refer to it, DOS2." I made this forum because when I started, I had no idea what was happening, and me and my friends had to wait through countless reloads and look at way too many tutorials before we knew what the hell was happening. "Keep in mind these are EXTREME beginner tips, if you understand armor systems, crafting, etc, move along."

Tip 1: Armor
In DOS1, there was no armor gauges, damage went directly through to health. This confused many DOS veterans. In DOS2, there are two different types of damage, and corresponding armor. magical armor, and physical armor. a spell, staff of magus for example, will deal magic damage. while a sword will deal physical. when you scroll over an enemy "or ally," you will be able to see a white bar "physical armor," and a blue bar, "magic armor," above the red health bar. in order to kill an enemy, you are going to have to reduce one "or both," of his two armor bars to 0, and THEN deal damage to his health. this confused the heck outta me before I understood it. This means that, in order to be 100% effective on the field, you are going to have to focus one type of damage on an enemy, "ex: your wizard and enchanter focus on the enemy to kill it with magic, while your knight and assassin target another." generally, an enemy will have weak spot, he may be resistant to physical damage with two hundred physical armor, but only have 5 magical armor. Use this to your advantage when evaluating a situation, and deciding how to engage. Statuses are also blocked by armor. someone with remaining physical armor cant be crippled, knocked down, etc. someone who still has magical armor can be shocked, frozen, lit on fire, etc. this means that after an opponents armor is destroyed, you can use status effects to disable him, and make him miss turns, in this game, a single turn can decide the battle. scroll over spells and abilities to see the type of damage they deal.

Tip 2: Elemental damage
In DOS2, there are a variety of different elemental damage types, fire, water, earth, air, electricity, etc. and, as any good game with elements, DOS2 has enemies that these are more effective against. before engaging, right click an enemy and click examine to see their resistances. "If you can get that close." If an enemy has a 20% resistance to fire damage, doing 10 fire damage will only do 8! meaning that you just lowered your damage efficiency. But, if said enemy has a -20% resistance to fire damage, that fireball scroll will do 12 damage! Some characters also have a resilience that uses that damage type to their advantage. "ex: bad guy A has a 150% resistance to water damage, that means if you deal 10 water damage, he will HEAL by 15 points!" While evaluating a battle, TAKE THIS INTO CONSIDERATION and use it to become a more efficient warrior.

Tip 3: Combos
The most powerful tool you have at your disposal in DOS2 are elemental combos. In no other game series can you soak your opponent in blood from the prior enemy, then freeze that blood, and then electrify the frozen blood so that he dies and falls into a puddle that is touching the last Enemy, which stuns the last enemy, opening him up to your warrior. Awesome. Do some research online, and experiment in game to see how different elements react, planning your character/team builds for combo frequency is the way to go. "ex: have a party consisting of a knight with geomancing powers, and a pyromancer, use the geos oil spells and the pyros flame to create terrifying infernos that engulf your enemies, and drop their magic armors faster than you can say KABOOM." combos are also a really god way to stack effects, if an ice spell only inflicts chilled, then maybe a wet opponent will be frozen instead when targeted.

Tip 4: Character builds
If it your first time playing DOS2, I would definitely stick with a pre-made character, like Beast, or Fane. Take some time to look at different builds online before making your characters, me and my team had to restart five different times before we found builds we could work with, and even those were flawed. this game is the hardest game on earth if you make rookie mistakes like spreading out your attributes, "stick to one or two attributes, finesse, strength, etc." having 3 tanks and no healers, or not allocating gear and gold based off of need. Think before you level up, my party takes about 15 minutes after every level-up to discuss options and what would benefit the party most. Remember, this is a TEAM game, talk to each other, and build the best party possible, not the coolest individual hero.

Tip 5: Strategy
If there is one thing I could say that I love about DOS2, it would have to be the pre-battle. sitting underneath a barrel, in stealth, and looking at every different possible outcome of different combos and strategies. before even thinking about an attack, look at the positioning of the enemies, "do they have healers that need to go first? any damage sponges we can push off to the side? any shared elemental weaknesses?" prioritize before proceeding. after that, look at the different vantage points. where do we want to be when the battle starts?positioning is everything, if your knight is standing right next to the enemy you were planning on exploding with the oil slick on the ground, it can destroy your plan, as you don't wan to fry your own teammate. Put fighters on the front lines, assassins shouldn't even leave stealth before they kill someone, put wayfarers at an elevation for CRAZY damage bonuses, and put mages in locations where they can see everything. most important thing here is to communicate. On last thing, look at who is coming up next in the turn order at the top of the screen. this will help you to recognize who to target for status effects. If you play your cards right, you may be able to pass entire battles without ever letting the enemy make a move, effects like petrified, knocked down, and frozen can, and will, save your life time, and time again. USE THEM.

Hope these tips helped integrate some new people into this growing community. I know I used some complex terminology, but as you play and watch countless videos and read even more forums, you will come to know them, and remember the golden rule of Divinity, Original Sin 2, SAVE OFTEN AND DONT BE AFRAID TO RELOAD. :D

[eben ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ]

In my opinion, the pre-made characters or the origin characters are more interesting, bcs of their own story. Some of them are quite amusing (at least for me). I like them better than building my own character.

[Winjin]

Originally posted by another:

In my opinion, the pre-made characters or the origin characters are more interesting, bcs of their own story. Some of them are quite amusing (at least for me). I like them better than building my own character.

you can change their builds, even the ones you encounter - you choose the class for them, and later, after Act I, you can change the stats as well.