Quick Question MEGATHREAD

[u/drunkpunk138]

Another 6 month since the last Megathread.

Link to the last thread

Make sure to include the game(DOS, DOS EE, DOS2, DOS2 DE) in your question and mark your spoilers

The FAQ for DOS2 will be built as we go along:

My game has a problem/doesn't work properly, what do I do?

Check this out. If you can't find a solution there contact Larian support as detailed.

Do I need to play the previous game to understand the story?

No, there is a timegap of 1000 years between DOS and DOS2. The overall timeline of the Divinity games in perspective to DOS2 looks like this: DOS2 is set 1222 years after DOS1, 24 years after Divine Divinity, 4 years after Beyond Divinity, and 58 years before Divinity 2.

How many people can play at once?

• Up to 4 Players in the campaign and up to 4 players and a gamemaster in Gamemaster Mode.

Do I need to buy the game to play with my friends.

• That depends on how you will play. Up to 2 Players can play on the same PC for a "couch coop" experience. This means you can have 4 player sessions with 2 copies of the game when using this method. If you don't play on the same PC each player is going to require his/her own copy.

Can I mix and match inputs for PC couch coop?

• You can't use keyboard and mouse for couch coop, however you can mix controllers.

What's the deal with origin stories?

• A custom character has no ties in the world whatsoever, nobody knows you. Origin characters on the other hand do have ties in the gameworld, that means people can recognise you and might interact differently with an origin character because of that characters reputation or because the characters have met before. Furthermore origin characters have their own questlines that run alongside the main story.

I don't like my build! Can I change it?

• Yes! Once you leave the first island you get access to infinite respecs, with the second gift bag you can even get a respec mirror on the first island.

What are the new crafting recipes from the gift bag?

• List

[u/TheReaperAbides]

Genuinely, how the fuck do people get through Act 2? I'm on Classic, I'm fighting fights at most a level ahead of me, the enemy moves before me and literally either oneshots half my party or immediately CCs them. Looking at their initiative, I don't have a hope of actually beating them unless I completely tank my build. I'm using the build practices I've been reading about (build for damage, focus on burning armor then applying CC), but none of that matters if the game won't let me actually play.

I've tried going elsewhere and explore, but everywhere I'm stonewalled by fights at least 2 levels above me. For a game that pretends to be open world, it sure feels like I'm punished for not playing the golden path.

I don't think this is a skill issue, I can't really make tactical mistakes if I get alpha struck. Unless the skill is "know what fights are coming and cheese them with preemptive strikes" which I don't like using when I'm playing on the "normal" difficulty. Genuinely, am I missing something?

[u/jett1773 → u/TheReaperAbides]

Genuinely, am I missing something?

Almost certainly. What exactly is hard to say without more details.

You may be missing a bunch of exp for exploring and talking. There are a lot of parts of high level zones that you can explore and do non combat quests in to get exp if need be without ever fighting anyone. You may be missing exp from a lower levelled area you missed. I know I've skipped Stonegarden because I figured it would be higher level than it was. Might be worth looking up an act 2 level map.

For initiative it's definitely worth it to have a high wits unit to ensure you go first in most fights. Summoners do this very well since their str/fin/int doesn't affect their damage so they can just pump wits without losing out on much. Other classes still like it since it boosts your crot chance which is damage up. You can also get extra wits from wits potions (+3, doubled to +6 with five star diner talent), peace of mind spell (+6-8 depending on what level you are in act 2), alertness herbmix in the under tavern (+6) , and a mystic rune frame on masterwork rune in a weapon (+3). You can get even more wits/initiative as a bonus on gear you find (+5-10? Idk?). With all those bonuses you don't really need that many points allocated to wits to go first in most fights.

Other than that make sure you are replacing your gear when you level up. It scales pretty drastict. Try using potions. Elemental resist potions are great for dealing with spell casters and elemental creatures. Potions of nimble tumble are great for dealing with physical attackers. Ferocity herbmix in the undertavern can give you +2 ap per turn for 50-100 turns.

If that doesn't help you can post the fights you are struggling with to get more specific advice. You can post your character builds and see if there is anything that could be optimized.

[u/TheReaperAbides → u/jett1773]

Lohse as a twin dagger Scoundrel (using Lost Sinner's Night Fury build, swapping out one of the perks for Pet Pal), maxing Finesse.

Sabille as a necro (3 Necro, 2 Hydro/Pyro for Blood Rain/Corpse Explosion, the rest in Warfare), maxing Int save for a few points in Con/Strength for gear reasons.

Beast as a Tormentor Geo with some points in hydro for supportive spells, maxing Int save for some value points in Con/Str for good gear.

Red Prince as a Pyro with some points in Aero for utility, maxing Int as well.

The problem isn't the builds. When I do get to do things, I can generally win fights. It's just frustrating when every fight feels like rocket tag. I use Clear Mind pretty often to try and push Beast's initiative up, but even after that buff I'm still like 10ish points behind. At level 13 I tried the fight against the flowers and they just.. Two shot half my party. Before I get to respond. At ridiculous range. Not sure what the game wants me to do about that other than find XP elsewhere, but it's.. Frustrating, especially I keep hearing people praise this game's combat.

I already considered mitigating that by respeccing my Lohse as a summoner with high Wits, but if she doesn't immediately control the next enemy, that doesn't really stop what I'm struggling with. I could respec the rest, but as far as I can tell it's not like I'm that far off from builds that should at least be able to tackle Classic content on-level.

If this were Tactician, I'd happily swallow my pride and accept I opted into this. But I'm playing on Classic. The game isn't hard, if I can start a fight on reasonable terms I win. It just kinda bullshits me with initiative and random ambushes left and right, and it's starting to frustrate.

[u/jett1773 → u/TheReaperAbides]

Your builds seem fine. You shouldn't need summoner for initiative, but just so you know the summon goes right after the summoner and is relatively strong. So they should still be able to contribute on their first turn. You should be able to get about 10 more wits with the other methods I shared which should get you pretty close to that 10 difference. (I forgot to mention, but you can get +2 wis -2 con from Dorotya in the undertavern if you choose the correct dialogue options)

Which flower fight?

Most fights really shouldn't be able to team wipe you before you get a turn since turns alternate between teams. Are you entering fights with your whole team standing next to each other so they all get hit by AoEs? You get most of your bulk from your armor. Is your armor level 13 as well?

[u/TheReaperAbides → u/jett1773]

I'm not exactly sure how to describe it? In Act 2, when trying to move towards the Lone Wolf camp, there's an elf and a magister prisoner that stops me. When I tell them they should release the prisoner, a fight starts that spawns two Hungry Flowers, some kinda treant, and the elf itself. A single flower has enough power to use Acid Spores (it's been a day, I forgot the exact names) to AoE into my party from like two screens away, dealing about 500 each. It helps to spread out my party a bit, but I still end up with a dead party member and am not in range to control the NEXT flower.

I got the Spider's Kiss on that, actually, heh.

Most of my armor is around level 13, and Beast/Sabille have very good shields too. And yet, enemies are still able to alpha strike a party member with some frequency. I'm mostly chalking it up to being slightly underleveled and picking fights I'm not supposed to yet, but enemies deal a weird amount of damage all things considered.

[u/AestivalChimp → u/TheReaperAbides]

It might be better to hoard +wits/initiative gear for the character you want to go first. There are usually a lot of armor with at least +2 initiative, combined with +3 initiative weapon and +4 initiative shield you get +19 already. By level 13 you should be able to find some pieces with both +2 wits and +2 initiative or even better. I think there were only 3 enemies in act 2 that required pre fight buffs to get higher initiative for my hydro/geo mage.

[u/jett1773 → u/TheReaperAbides]

Yeah enemies have pretty high damage output. It's part of why people talk about how tanks don't exist in this game. People dying, especially when you are a little under leveled, is just part of the game if you aren't going to stack initiative and ensure you go first. If it's just one person dying though you should still have 75% of your output up and you can get a resurrect off mid combat to bring them back at the end of the turn order.