Current Events > ITT: I play Divinity: Original Sin 2 (ongoing spoilers)

(+) Yeah! (+)

Yeah, the PS4 version has been playing pretty well so far. No slowdown, no freezing or glitches... The loadtimes can be slightly long, but that's a minor issue.
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Shotgunnova posted...

Yeah, the PS4 version has been playing pretty well so far. No slowdown, no freezing or glitches... The loadtimes can be slightly long, but that's a minor issue.

Yep, larian handled both ports entirely themselves, not passed it off to someone else.

They're good Bros.

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Aren't you supposed to be able to position your characters one by one and ambush targets?

I just met that ship exploder mage on the beach and wanted to avoid the usual opening of "everyone gets smacked by multiple AoE attacks". So, I moved everyone around in sneak mode and had a nice encirclement...but then when the witch attacked, it was just her vs. my skeleton, and I got creamed. What's going on here?
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Shotgunnova posted...

Aren't you supposed to be able to position your characters one by one and ambush targets?

I just met that ship exploder mage on the beach and wanted to avoid the usual opening of "everyone gets smacked by multiple AoE attacks". So, I moved everyone around in sneak mode and had a nice encirclement...but then when the witch attacked, it was just her vs. my skeleton, and I got creamed. What's going on here?

That happens sometimes if the other characters are outside of the combat radius. I just take control of them and move them closer so that they join the combat.

Do you need to manually move them closer before combat or during?
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Such a good game.

Shotgunnova posted...

Do you need to manually move them closer before combat or during?

You can just switch to them during combat and control them as if nothing was going on. Doing this you can enter them into combat with the current party members fighting.

I almost beat that witch the first time I fought, so it should probably go better when her AoE stuff is less useful. Still, she gets three attacks per round, so that ain't great for me. Maybe I can abuse that blessing status from the lizard shrine somehow...it gives a lot of resistances, but the buff decays pretty quickly.

Anyway, trying to make my way through this gargoyle maze. I think I already might've screwed it up when I wasted a precious skull on a door that was completely pointless, thanks to these portals. Oops.
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There is often another path/trickery that can be used to get places. Many of those jump techniques can help with this, stuff like phoenix dive, tactical retreat, or just teleportation.

Also skills like adrenaline, flesh sacrifice, these can be used to gain more action points and pull a lot of stuff off early on. You pay the price later in that you lose those points in the next turn, but if you can finish off an enemy or two that would have otherwise been a headache, its very much worth it.

The assassin chick is doing pretty well with a bow now. Bought her some spellbooks back in town, so she might be ready to start taking on that witch. Might have to look into potion making tomorrow, too.
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Ahh, you can indeed switch to characters out of battle (like those sneaking) and have them enter normally. This should make killing that witch a bit easier.

Since I don't have a water mage, I was thinking about making my skeleton do Necromancy + Hydrosophist, since you can combine 'em to rain blood. That should combo well with his healing ability and "everything turns to poison" skill. Dude's going to be an annoyance on the battlefield...and probably to his own allies.
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Shotgunnova posted...

Ahh, you can indeed switch to characters out of battle (like those sneaking) and have them enter normally. This should make killing that witch a bit easier.

Since I don't have a water mage, I was thinking about making my skeleton do Necromancy + Hydrosophist, since you can combine 'em to rain blood. That should combo well with his healing ability and "everything turns to poison" skill. Dude's going to be an annoyance on the battlefield...and probably to his own allies.

Yup lol.

Playing as the skeleton origin story character provides some unique stuff, but is best left for a second run

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Skeleton has free lockpicking and poison healing, which is awesome. The second I saw that, I knew no one else would suffice.

Anyway, what happened yesterday... Well, I killed the beach witch and took back my swag hat. I assume she steals something precious from each type of class, and that's the main impetus for fighting her again, yes? (Well, besides the shipsplosion stuff.) I also did the quest for the teleportation gloves, which helped me explore a bit, like that lighthouse with the crazy electric fog inside it. It didn't really help me get past those shriekers at the mountain ruins, sadly. =|

I killed most magisters in town, including the dungeons and Kniles' workshop. I killed most of the ones patrolling outside, and saved one the good magisters when they were found. Killed most of the zombies in the swamp, outside of the one appearing with that giant dragon monster at Pigville. Might do that later, but it's not critical to me.

Right now, I'm at the armory. I killed the enemies in the courtyard, but then Red Prince drew too close to the second battle behind them, so I kinda ragequit. My dwarf dude sweet-talked the courtyard people into leaving (lol) and now I'm going to ambush the people fighting Gareth. I don't think persuasion XP is shared with the party, so I'm not too pleased with that outcome...but eh well.
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Shotgunnova posted...

Skeleton has free lockpicking and poison healing, which is awesome. The second I saw that, I knew no one else would suffice.

Anyway, what happened yesterday... Well, I killed the beach witch and took back my swag hat. I assume she steals something precious from each type of class, and that's the main impetus for fighting her again, yes? (Well, besides the shipsplosion stuff.) I also did the quest for the teleportation gloves, which helped me explore a bit, like that lighthouse with the crazy electric fog inside it. It didn't really help me get past those shriekers at the mountain ruins, sadly. =|

I killed most magisters in town, including the dungeons and Kniles' workshop. I killed most of the ones patrolling outside, and saved one the good magisters when they were found. Killed most of the zombies in the swamp, outside of the one appearing with that giant dragon monster at Pigville. Might do that later, but it's not critical to me.

Right now, I'm at the armory. I killed the enemies in the courtyard, but then Red Prince drew too close to the second battle behind them, so I kinda ragequit. My dwarf dude sweet-talked the courtyard people into leaving (lol) and now I'm going to ambush the people fighting Gareth. I don't think persuasion XP is shared with the party, so I'm not too pleased with that outcome...but eh well.

I meant fane, the one that's a potential party member. He's got his own possible ending thats unique to him, and some extremely cool insight into the lore and story, but works best as a second playthrough because he can radically change how the plot goes.


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I'm playing as Fane right now, yo. I just customized his face a bit to have sideburns and a fro or something, lol.

BTW, Shackles of Pain (3-turn damage transference) seems pretty sweet. I should get that...
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Shotgunnova posted...

I'm playing as Fane right now, yo. I just customized his face a bit to have sideburns and a fro or something, lol.

BTW, Shackles of Pain (3-turn damage transference) seems pretty sweet. I should get that...

Nice! Fane is the best character in the game.

Do you have any summoner users in your squad?

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I don't have any summoners, no. I think Fane has:

1 Warfare
1 Necromancer
2 Geomancer
1 Hydrosophist

Honestly, I'd like to make Fane a summoner, too -- mostly 'cause he has that cat familiar -- but it feels like his build will get too uneven if I did that. It'd be nice not to have to respec later. Is there a maximum amount of skill points (Warfare, Necromancer, etc.) I can get? Now that I'm finding skillbooks that have dual requirements, perhaps having 1 point in other magical categories might be more beneficial than not.
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Shotgunnova posted...

I don't have any summoners, no. I think Fane has:

1 Warfare
1 Necromancer
2 Geomancer
1 Hydrosophist

Honestly, I'd like to make Fane a summoner, too -- mostly 'cause he has that cat familiar -- but it feels like his build will get too uneven if I did that. It'd be nice not to have to respec later. Is there a maximum amount of skill points (Warfare, Necromancer, etc.) I can get? Now that I'm finding skillbooks that have dual requirements, perhaps having 1 point in other magical categories might be more beneficial than not.

The amount of skill points is only limited by the amount of quests you can do to level up. That's why I said a dual lone wolf run is easiest, your two characters get double the skill points.

Tbqh you've built fane right as it is, you've got the death knight build basically. Very good build for learning the game and having a good playthrough without too many headaches.

Summoning provides totems though, and imps/demons, those totems are given their own turn, fire automatically, and you can have multiple of them out at once, they also act as distractions. It's worth taking one point of summoner on one of your other people who can spare it, because of totems.

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I don't think I have any free memory slots on Fane right now, so yeah, I'd have to make someone else a summoner. Maybe Beast could do it, since he lacks things to do when his one long-range move is over. But yeah, I made Fane a Geomancer for the poison skills, and Hydrosophist to have the Raining Blood move, which gives a lot of synergy. There's also that Impalement move, which creates oil slicks to blow up.

A dual run seems kinda fun, but I'm not sure how that would go early on, given how squishy units are. (Totems must help with that.) Just looking at "scrub" enemies with 100+ armor and 100+ magic armor is insane. Sibella has been carrying her weight, though. She has a +35% height advantage boost, so she's the one who eats through armor as quickly as possible. I didn't make her a polymorph (she has some skillbooks for it, though) but with her Tactical Retreat skill, it helps out a lot.

Also, I was fighting on battlements earlier, and saw you can position crates and stuff to make impediments in bottlenecks. Is that a decent strategy for enemies who lack long-range skills? The dude I was fighting died afterward, so I couldn't see if he could bypass 'em somehow.
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Fane is my husbando.

Fane's been pulling his weight more than anyone so far. The poison healing helps, of course...

Anyway, I think I'm closing in on the end of Fort Joy events. I cheated my way through the gargoyle maze and looted Rex's armory, plus did the Trompdoy crap in the secret vault beneath it. I can go kill some shriekers with purging wands now that I've rescued Gareth from his foes.

Since I'm never coming back to this god-forsaken rock, it doesn't matter if I kill some townsfolk, right? I accidentally sold my Tyrant boots to the blacksmith, and ended up and some other townies for 'em. I heard from my goddess patron (or whatever) that some of the recruitable allies are the other gods' chosen ones, so me killing Lohse is hopefully a good move. Or should I reload and ignore the tyrant set stuff? I don't think finishing the quest even got me XP or anything, and I'm sure it'll be obsolete eventually, so...
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Whatever, I'm just gonna leave Lohse dead and continue on. Just killed High Priest Orivand and his ceremony of horrors, and I might go kill the enemies at that abandoned harbor (right near where the beach witch was). Dunno if you have to do that later or not, but I'm feelin' up to par, ever since I got that Worm Tremor skill. I have the Torturer trait, so all Fane's status effects pierce armor, hahahaha.
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If she wanted to live, she should've overlooked my larceny.

To be honest, if I restarted, I'd probably play as a summoner/mage type instead of the dude I currently am. I have brawler-cum-mages, but no pure mages so far, and it's kinda lame for a team composition. It'd be kinda fun to do a pure elemental mage, too, just to see what types of combinations I could cook up. Handing off all these fun spells to my other dudes kinda sucks. =|

Anyway, just got to the harbor, only to see that frost dragon killed all the shriekers for me. Kinda anticlimactic in a way, since I had to do all that crap for a Purging Wand. Well...maybe I can use it on Alexander and his goons instead -- there's about four of 'em. (I didn't forget to get that chest across the broken bridge either, haha. Got a sweet spear for Red Prince...but he doesn't have enough Finesse to use it.)
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lol @ this crap


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So, the drillworm -- in conjunction with all my flaming poison fields -- took out Alexander's creepy attendant and one of the swordsman, but the man himself didn't fall. Two of his lackeys (mage, archer) just hung around on a parapet, barely contributing. That was probably my fault, due to the poison and such, but now I'm left with those three and some damaged forces. It's pretty ridiculous that the archer can Tactical Retreat all the way across the map to heal its allies, though. That Nether Swap move is pretty annoying, too.

I might have to retreat, heal up again, then do a fair 3-on-4 fight afterwards. These enemies have ridiculous armor stats, though. I was hoping the Purging Wand would OHKO 'em somehow, but it doesn't seem like that's going to happen.
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Yeah that worm can be a bit tough on the higher difficulties. One tactic I would use is to retreat a bit and let the NPCs fight it out. For the most part they go for the worm, leaving you alone. Another tactic is to position your characters before battle in higher and more advantageous positions. I used to have a couple sneak up behind that one archer on the left side after entering the doorway depicted and then have a couple go to the right, there is an entry point all the way right to a higher wall of the overall arena.

If I have to do the last three enemies while they're fresh, I'm going to spam Blood Rain everywhere and turn it all into poison. At least, that way if I retreat, the poison fields stay and can do incidental damage while they (well, Alexander) walks around. I might also have to teleport Fane up to that archer area a bit, too. Once I get some continuous puddles everywhere, they're like a wet fuse for that "turn to poison" move, haha.

But yeah, I'll have to check if people who flee battle get all their armor and stuff restocked. Should also check into making middle-tier healing potions, too, since I don't have anything besides weak crap.
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Any good ways to cheese this Alexander fight? I want to try the "poison everything, hahaha" strategy, but if the dudes are just going to regen their armor at the same time, it seems like a waste of time.
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Should I get this on Gog or Steam?
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I'm playing on PS4, but it runs just fine. I wish Path of Exile ran as well...or had less glitches...and crashes...
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Welp, finally beat the Alexander fight. Wasn't as hard as I thought it'd be, mostly because I kept inflicting residual damage (poison, burning) on Alex, plus petrifying him and pinning him down. The "turn everything to poison/fire" strategy worked out rather well, and even made Alex waste several turns running the long way around to my group. That gave me time to murder the polymorph mage or whatever, haha.
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Okay, finished the burning pig mission, and now I'm finally on the ship home. Just have to figure out how to open these blasted doors. I gave Red Prince the 'Pet Pal' trait, so I know Dallis used some sort of book to control the ship. Somehow I doubt she left it lying around for everyone to find.
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Welp, got the ship to sail and fended off Dallis' attack. I got thrown into the Hall of Echoes, but I'm more worried about having to repeat the last battle if Sebille got permadeath (she was KO'd by the time battle ended). That dude spams Fiery Malediction, so I figured it'd be a suicide bomb, not just occasional fire damage, haha.
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Good, good... seBAElle is alive.
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Yeah, this area is pretty big so far. Just hearing about a lot of oil barrels already seems annoying, haha.
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Welp, exploring this main town right now. I actually ignored it to traverse the countryside, but found my way back eventually. Freed some fugitive dude in a barrel, then went to the arena and got bit by some werespider (+2 Intelligence in exchange for -2 Constitution). Not a bad trade, given how easy it is to heal with Fane. I need to get my Thievery up to start pickpocketing new spellbooks, though -- Lv2 ain't gonna cut it, I feel.
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Stood at the chicken coop area and teleported myself across the river, hoping I could rescue the gatekeeper for her kid. Turns out, she's a complete moron, and even after I've cleared a path through the basement and can get to the river, she wants to do a two-man crusade against these bugs. Welp, guess I'll just reset until I can get my whole crew across.
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That oil rig fight was the best fight in the game
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^ that fight pissed me off, lol.

I think I beat it my second try, but it went on a lot longer than I would have liked.

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So far my builds are like this:

Fane: Initially started as a magical 2H swordsman dude, but eventually quit with the strength stuff and focused on all schools of magic. (Mostly for a baseline in skills that require two schools.) I think I have a point in everything besides Polymorph, but I'll fix that later. Mostly he does Geomancer/Healing stuff. Has a high Thievery stat.

Red Prince: Mostly physical attacks and Pyrokineticist stuff, due to his flame breath. Nothing really that special about his abilities, although he does dabble in Geomancer stuff. Only while looking through his abilities do I realize Fortify is a Geomancer ability, so I should teach that to Fane later. Specializes in Bartering.

Sibelle: Ditched her daggers early on and started rocking the bow. She hasn't been as damaging as I'd have hoped in this new land, but she still carries her weight pretty well. In addition to things that play on her high Huntsman abilities, I took earlier advice to raise her Polymorph to LV2. She can also throw Worm Tremor for laughs. Specializes in Loremaster.

Beast: I keep raising his attacks, but since he's rocking one-hander/shield stuff, he's mostly for defensive measures. He knows a lot of air/lightning abilities, plus a few physical skills (like Battering Ram) I rarely use. I plan on giving him some better skills later, once I've stolen...I mean, found some skillbooks that've fallen off a wagon somewhere. And seeing the roads around here, there are lots of wagons to use, haha. Since he has an artificially high proficiency in water magic, I should teach him that Steam Bless (?) skillbook I found somewhere. Specializes in Persuasion.
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Been sneaking around this weird-ass graveyard for awhile. Found the chest in the flames that I can't open (telekinesis'd it out of the flames, though) and the ancestor elf tree. Also had a run-in with the dog who summons some gigantic troll to fight you. Still managed to creep into the crypt it was guarding, the one with all the petrified looters. Started killing them for loot while they were helpless, haha. Is that a good idea or am I missing some sweet quest? The bandit/necromancer chick dropped a Summon Bone Widow skillbook, so I'm okay with her turning into gravel.
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you can unpetrify them with the armor of frost spell, iirc.

and for the coffin, there's a key somewhere around there (I think somewhere in the mansion), but I ended up picking the lock

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Whoa, that dog automatically spots me when I leave the crypt? Guess I'll reload. =(
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Hmm, wonder what this red flag entails. I think on the map it said 'Brahmos,' but there's nothing there, even with Red Prince around. Maybe it's in that tomb below or something...


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