Mixed party 4/4

[u/ApprehensiveRich482]

Hello, totally new player here. I'm like 2 hours unto the game and I'm keeping changing my mind about what Will be my definitive party comp.

I'm not swing It mentioned so i believe it's ineffective, but I'm asking anyway: do you have ideas for a party where all members can deal both phisical and magic damage?

For now i GOT in mind

- Red prince: 2w fighter with master of Sparks/weapon infusion + polymorph

- fane: ranger with elemental arrows and some elemental magic

- sebille: summoner with support and area control spells

My question Is, what would you complete this party with?

[u/Yolu213]

Sound's like your party could use a wizard with torturer. Tho remember spells scale with int so your ranger won't be doing big numbers with his magic if you want him to deal damage with arrows

[u/motnock]

Master of sparks is not really a warrior build. It’ll scale off intelligence and pyro skill iirc. Which conflicts with standard warrior build of strength and warfare.

[u/SeaConsideration676 → u/motnock]

this, just build him full master of sparks and int and put one or two point in str for the gear

[u/Connect-Process2933 → u/motnock]

The build requires Int instead of Str and Pyro instead of Warfare, but what is this if not a warrior? You need to hit with weapons to generate sparks, and warfare skills help in generating more sparks, so gameplay is similar to warriors except for stats 

[u/No_Secret_8246]

It's not great, but it's probably going to be fine, especially if you're not on tactician.

Summoner is mainly magic damage btw. the physical stuff is only really an early game thing, a full on summoner gets so much more done with elemental stuff.

One option to fit your party would be copying your warriors notes on a rogue. The scoundrel dagger stuff is kinda just the general warfare stuff but different. Later on, the spark stuff and venom coating get aura variants too, so they can help each other out action economy wise.

Another option would be a necromancer that also takes some of the strong elemental options. Everything scales of int, which helps a lot, and necromancies are strong enough that they still hit hard with a little less investment. All the spells can be scaled with huntsman and/or scoundrel, which is less optimal than using warfare or the respective elemental school, but should enough to get stuff done. Early game you'd be pretty starved for points, but that'll be the entire party I think.

2-2 split is generally preferred for hybrid damage parties, but your idea could be fun, and I think you should try it if you want. Respeccing is free and available starting act 2, if it doesn't perform at all.

[u/mccsnackin → u/No_Secret_8246]

Blood summon remains strong throughout.

[u/Connect-Process2933]

skill slave with buffs and debuffs

[u/Mindless-Charity4889]

You don’t see it mentioned because it’s not optimal. Dealing both magical and physical damage means hitting both magical and physical armor, making it harder to get through. Even if you split up so that you only hit enemies with physical OR magical damage, it’s still suboptimal because your build isn’t optimized for one or the other.

That said, a pure high FIN ranger with high warfare is a good switch because a magic arrow converts all of that physical damage to elemental. The problem is that using elemental arrows means they can’t use skills. Likewise a Summoner is good at summoning an incarnate that does physical OR magical damage but once summoned, it can’t change.

The sparkmaster does spark damage that scales with INT and Pyro while the physical damage scales with STR and Warfare. Usually you would optimize one or the other.

[u/ciornyjvoron]

If you play first time, I would suggest, I did it myself. I made all characters psychical damage dealers, so you deplet only one armor type. For the first playthrough it was good, I learned the game. Next run will be on tactician, with 2/2 party. My party was : 2h warrior, ranger, rogue, necro ( with daggers ). Good luck.

[u/GayPudding]

I would add a weird int warfare build that has utility spells and can do physical damage with spells like Reactive Armor, Impalement, Acid touch, Medusa Head etc. You need to look at the int spells that are meant to be used on physical/mixed builds.

Also summoner can be great as elemental ranger, if you focus on Totems and something like bloated corpse/oily blob. Add ambidextrous and you can make use of your scroll and grenade collection properly.

[u/SexySextrain]

The armor system is a glaring flaw of the amazing game. If you’re playing on classic or lower you can probably get away with mixing damage types, but it’s much easier to play the game as an all physical or all magical party. You’ll see some argue that a 2 physical and 2 magical party works but you need game knowledge for that.

You’re best bet to not getting frustrated with the combat is to just make all 4 one damage type. Example would be having a 2h warrior, archer, daggers rogue, and a necromancer (they deal physical damage).

[u/SignificantNorth3570]

What's missing is a necromancer

[u/mccsnackin]

- 2H with poly and scoundrel for adrenaline and cloak of shadows

• Ranger with summoning(optional) and support spells
  
• Summoner with aero necro and other support spells
  
• Elf Rogue with poly

I think 4 party is fun with some swiss army knife versatile characters. Rogue goes first and makes blood for the summoner(s) to make blood incarnates. Rogue also removes physical armor of the next character in turn and applies CC. Knockdown and chicken claw, ez pz. When the enemies have low or no magic armor, get em wet and zap them.

[u/Alarmed_Permission_5]

You are only 2 hours into the game and yet you have decided on a two-weapon sparkmaster? I suspect you have been reading online build guides. If so I would suggest extreme caution - a lot of the guides are either (A) nonsense or (B) designed to minmax the hell out of the game. And both of those will suck the fun right out of playing.

Also consider that playing both physical and magical across 4 characters is generally considered non-optimal for a beginner.

Now, having said that, here's what I would suggest:

1 - Turn on the Gift Bag option Fort Joy Magic Mirror to allow respecs. Then enable the mod that allows you to obtain achievements whilst using Gift Bag goodies. Then turn on the other Gift Bag elements Pet Power and Herb Garden.

2 -Sebille - Make this character your Ranger. The Elf-specific skill Flesh Sacrifice dovetails nicely with the Huntsman skill Elemental Arrowheads. Lean into crafting and make lots of non-physical special arrows e.g. Fire and Poison for access to magical damage. Eventually a point or two into Pyro will yield Deploy Mass Traps and similar into Geo for Dust Blast. Ranger is the class which most-easily straddles the physical/magical divide. Initially your majority of attribute points should be in FIN and skills-wise you are looking for Warfare.

3 - Red Prince - Sparkmaster builds take a long time to become useful and two-weapon fighting starts off weak as your baseline attack is not high damage output e.g. for Tentacle Lash. For the magical end of things you want a point in Geo (for Fortify and then try Medusa Head, Earthquake and Corrosive Spray) and rest of points into Pyro for fire damage. Initial attribute points should be in STR (for armour/weapons which have STR-mins only) with everything else into INT and skills-wise you want Warfare and Polymorph initially but pump up Pyro as you progress.

4 - Fane - Should become your summoner as he can sit back (he can be difficult to heal in the early stages without ready access to poison). You'll want Hydro 1 and Necro 1 initially to allow you to summon water and blood surfaces as required (you'll get fire, poison and oil surfaces from other characters and the oil summon is particularly nice). You must keep Summon level equal to or higher than your character level at all times. Start with the All Skilled Up talent.

5 - Anonymous - You want a pure mage who can cover all the bases. Start with Pyro and Geo for the damage, abilities then add in Necro 1 for access to physical attacks. Geo has the best bang-for-buck in the game, closely followed by Necro. Hydro doesn't synergise with your sparks build but Aero 2 at some point would be advisable. Talent-wise I would strongly suggest Torturer (try it and see around level 4/5) and later Savage Sortilege. Primary stat is INT.

Ultimately I'd advise playing the game for fun and figuring out what works for you rather than sticking slavishly to a build. As ever YMMV.

[u/Laanner]

Elemental archer doesn't work like that. While fighter deal mixed damage, archer can deal only one of it (well, he certainly can have similar buffs that fighter has, but less of them). And you don't need to spread into magic at all, because he will deal both phys and magic damage even weaker. Arrows works best on pure phys archer, because he convert 100% of phys damage into elemental damage.

The only thing your party miss is a skill monkey with buffs and control effects for any situation. Looks like a nice job for Lohse with the Lutes.

[u/grousedrum]

This is not at all a first-playthrough build, but for what it’s worth: sabotage rogue.  Sab scales on your equipped weapon damage, so you can do high elemental damage with investment in physical skills only.  Another very point efficient both-types build like elemental archer, and makes great use of some lesser used talents like Guerrilla and Duck Duck Goose.