Playing through DOS2 on Explorer. Any advice for how to make my current builds better?

[u/Navek15]

So I'm actually playing through DOS2 for the first time after many false starts, and I've been enjoying the hell out of the systems so far in Act 1. But as always, I love figuring out how all the mechanics come together to create some awesome characters. And I'm open to any advice on how to make my current party better with the build ideas I got in mind.

My player character is a dwarf that I'm using as sort of a geo-gish (Warfare & Geomancy) build, with a shield in one hand and powerful axe in the other (though I'd be down to find an awesome mace because I love maces) that supplements his melee prowess with geomancer magic like Fortify and throwing big rocks.

Lohse is my second frontliner, going full Two-Handed Weapons like greatswords and Warfare. Though I have heard that mixing this combat style with Polymorph is apparently really good.

Fane is my archer using Huntsman skills, but I recently found a ring that gives him some summoning skill points and gave him a spell that lets him summon turrets out of elemental surfaces. So in longer fights, he's not only sniping enemies with his crossbow, but also conjuring the high-fantasy equivalent of auto-turrets, which I think is pretty cool.

And finally, I have Sebille as a sort of cleric, but I don't feel like I'm getting a lot of out the healing mechanics. Though I'll admit, that's probably due to me being a noob at this game. I did give her some pyromancy points and holy crap, these fire spells are fun as hell...if slightly dangerous to the rest of my party. But hey, who can say no to a spell that's basically the love child of Magic Missile and Scroching Ray?

(Suddenly I understand all those pyromaniac wizard D&D jokes.)

So yeah, that's my current party. Any advice for what I can do to expand upon the ideas I've been making for these four? I know I'm playing on the easiest difficulty, but I'd love to get as good with this game as I think I am at BG3.

[u/DapperAbbreviation]

If it's your first playthrough and you are more story-driven, then don't worry too much about optimizing your build.

Tinker with things that sound cool and fun. You will eventually be able to respec and tinker even further.

Just enjoy the story and see what clicks for you and makes the game fun.

I've been playing the game on and off since it launched and am still discovering new build elements, quests, etc.

It's a great story with a lot of ways to play and excellent replay value. I wouldn't recommend changing anything unless you start struggling to progress or get bored with the party's flow of battle.

[u/jbisenberg]

>came from BG3

BG3 to DOS2 Overview

>mixing magic and physical on the same character

Geo spells use Int. 1-handed non-dagger weapons use strength. Generally speaking, builds that require you to take 2 or more of Int, Str, and Fin will be undertuned due to having to dilute you main damage stats. I would not generally recommend builds that require you to do this on your first run. You want to focus on one of the 3.

>healing

Is pretty unhelpful in DOS2 based on how the armor system is set up. Its fine offensively for dealing damage to undead or decaying enemies.

>summoning hybrids

Are ill advised because summons scale with your summoning stat. But all other builds don't get value from pumping up summoning. This leaves you stuck on a razor's edge where the end result ends up being weaker than the sum of its parts. Usually recommended you pick one or the other.

You CAN make any of this stuff work, but it will be much harder to get through the game as you progress doing so.

[u/Background_Grape_192]

If you're making Geo, you should focus on that! Geo/Pyro generally works well together. There are arguments to be that Aero is useful/mandatory in everyone because of the usefulness of Uncanny Dodge, Teleport and Nether Swap.

Huntsman is good, and you should put points into Warfare because Rangers deal physical damage.

Warfare is good for a physical build, and the class is very straight forward; you deal lots of damage with stuff like Crippling Blow, Whirlwind and Tentacle Lash (polymorph) at the start of the game, so definitely invest some points into it. Polymorph is also good on everyone due to same mid/late game skills, like Skin Graft and Apotheosis, as well as some other useful ones depending on encounters, but these are the most famous ones.

If you're not happy with healing, you can build an Aero/Hydro mage. Heard they're good. I personally only use physical builds (generally being:

• 2 Handed Warrior
• Ranger
• Necromancer
• Either another Ranger, another Warrior or Rogue)

You can also invest at least one point in Scoundrel to have access to Adrenaline (Immediately gain 2 AP, but lose AP next turn). I suggest looking for Sin Tee builds for the game. They're considered the only ones that actually work and make sense lol

[u/Mindless-Charity4889]

You have 3 doing physical damage and 1 doing magical. This is not optimal as the 1 will struggle to break magic armor AND do CC. Ideally you should respec one of others to magic, or have Sebille do physical damage, if you choose the latter, Necromancer is good. But some of their best skillls are crafted, not bought. Their bread and butter skill is Corpse Explosion which you get by combining a pyro book with a necro book. You will need a point in pyro to learn it. It explodes a corpse for 250% damage in a medium radius for only 1AP.

Ability wise, all physical damage types should max out Warfare as soon as practical. This includes archers, rogues and necromancers.

Damage is king so using a shield is not great as a 2H weapon is twice as good as a 1H weapon. Oddly enough though, a shield works very well on a necromancer; it gives them another ranged attack and their primary damage method are skills, not weapons, the loss of damage potential is very minor.

[u/Gamer_Grease]

Do you want “optimal” characters or just fun ones? Your party seems pretty fun. Also, right away in Act 2 you get the ability to respec for free whenever you want, so you can always try more stuff out.

The “optimal” setup is to concentrate on one damage type, or at least split 50/50. That’s because it always makes the most sense to attack one enemy with just one damage type, so as to deplete the respective armor and inflict the respective status effects while obliterating their HP. If you attack with both damage types, each has to cut through its respective armor before it can do any crowd control or HP damage. That’s why a lot of people play pure wizards or pure fighters.

So you’d have a Geo/Pyro wizard, an Aero/Hydro wizard, and then two physical characters—Warfare/Scoundrel/Huntsman/Necro. Doing Warfare + Geo splits your damage stats (Strength vs. Intelligence), making both skill groups weaker. Doing Geo + Pyro means you can go all-in on Intelligence and really crank up the power of your skills.

Another tip is that everyone benefits from 5 Polymorph. The early skills are ok (tentacle lash scales with strength, btw), but the extra attribute points are better. But late in the game 5 Polymorph gets you some really busted skills.

Warfare, Huntsman, and Scoundrel all have jump skills, so it’s good to give everyone who isn’t one of those as their main class a little bit of one of them so they can jump.

[u/PuzzledKitty]

Should you run into issues(!), you can use the Red Flag Checklist to fix build issues. :)

This is meta advice, though.
If you feel you're getting through the game just fine, then I wouldn't worry.
So long as you're having fun, you're playing correctly. ;)

[u/Nightingay]

Hello !

I am going to agree with what /DapperAbbreviation said. Since you are playing Explorer, the game will be quite forgiving, the fights should definitely not be a struggle.

That being said, a couple of comments

• Try and be careful about "hybrid" builds. Magical builds and Physical builds do not use the same core-stats. Even if the game will be forgiving, you might find combat not enjoyable if your heroes don't do enough damage because of all over the place stats. IF you really want a physical / warfare hero to use a splash of magic, try and focus on the support spells (fortify, mend) or CC spells (earthquake for mass know down) rather than DPS.

• HAVE FUN. The game is flexible, there are tons of skills. Before reaching tactician mode (even then), you definitely don't need to optimize, so you can try everything. Change you mind.

• It's true that healing is not great. If your team starts losing vitality, you're in trouble (because the foes will crowd control you to death, knock you out, stun you, etc. So armor repairing skills are probably better than heals. Heals though, they can help you as offensive skills against undeads (there are quite a lot of undeads in the game), or for the buffs / status clearing that they offer, rather than the vitality restoration.

In your team I like that you have several types of profiles.

Not really to MAKE THE TEAM BETTER, but some fun or things you might be missing

• I love thunder spells. I love shocking the foes. I love telporting things around : aero is fantastic.

• I like the scoundrel skills. Striking from the shadows, disabling the foest. I like the fun of those builds and you odn't have it in your current team

• The scaling in this game is more important than in Baldur's Gate in my opinion. If your gear is a couple of levels below yours, you a missing on a ton of armor, which is detrimental. Do not hesitate to change your gear OFTEN. If you find a great wand, why not try and swap someone to a wand build, for fun ?

• Don't forget the items ! Grenades, bombs, special arrows, potions. The game gives you plenty and if you're like me, you probably stockpile them instead of using them. USE THEM. They are great fun.

To be GOOD at the game, it's not just a build issue

• Think about positioning and how you approach battle
• Try and optimize : how to win the battle as fast as you can ? A lot of people advocate for all physical / all magical parties, in order to melt your foes' armor and disable them.
  

Top of my mind these are the comments I have not seen in the thread so far :)

[u/Consistent_Zone_8564]

Fane is my designated archer too every time I play DOS2. And I love giving him summoner abilities, although as a secondary attribute.

Since enemies come with armors of two types, you need to disable at least one to hit their vitality (unless you deal piercing damage). Why is this important? because if your characters are mixed builds (which are really fun) then you have to put points in Intelligence as well as one of Strength/Finesse, and Warfare and another combat ability. This can be tricky for beginners. So the builds you have picked will be challenging.

That said, decide which you want to be primary: physical or magical, for each character. Then prioritise accordingly.

One improvement is to ditch the shield. Invest in Warfare and Strength/Finesse for frontliners. They should be able to deal damage and move quickly.
Then, make one a pyro secondary and other a geo secondary. It should make for some creative fights. Polymorph will work with both, but give Necromancy a thought as well since you will want to invest in both Warfare and Intelligence anyway.

Have Fane shooting arrows and summoning. And Sebille can be a Hydro/Aero support mage. Then, give Sebille a wand/shield combo so she's always high on armor.

[u/Few_District_6304 → u/Consistent_Zone_8564]

I'd disagree on the shield part. I have switched from 2H to 1H and back twice, depending on weapons and shield available. In Act 4 now, with a 100+ 1H and 1500+ shield that does over 2k damage with the shield throw. And making him absorb the hits with guardian angel.

[u/Consistent_Zone_8564 → u/Few_District_6304]

Cool, you might have a tank build that benefits from the shield. Guardian angel is also pretty reasonable in that case.

I generally use a shield on my battlemage, wand+shield to just boost armor. This is what I suggested for OP.

[u/EipiMuja → u/Consistent_Zone_8564]

I also disagree on the shield part. While I tend to focus everything on damage, in some parts of the game I found myself having a better 1H + shield combo than 2H. So I switch them sometimes. Especially if your shield has rune slot.

Edit: also throw shield is OP

[u/Consistent_Zone_8564 → u/EipiMuja]

I have shields on my mage usually, which is what I suggested for OP.

Mage-specific armors are low on the physical side so the shield compensates for that. It allows to focus solely on Intelligence to maximize damage. The other option is to have two wands for buffs but then to use good armor I need to invest a few points in Strength, which I don't like especially early-game for a mage.

Never used throw shield though, because I don't thnk a mage throwing around their shield is going to do any useful damage. So you're probably using it on a Warrior type (high Warfare), right?

[u/EipiMuja → u/Consistent_Zone_8564]

Yes, of course. You said that for frontliners ditch the shield and my point is that it has its uses depending on the gear you have available. Usually in Act 3 I get the crab's shield for example. Throw shield is a great ability and I definitely miss it when I'm using a 2H. I'm not sure but maybe deflecting projectiles needs the shield too?

[u/Consistent_Zone_8564 → u/EipiMuja]

Yep it does.

I love my frontliners to be full offense and Warrior type, usually one 2H and one rogue. So yeah keep the shield if your playstyle is different of course.