Div 2 Character build and skills thread

[RivianWitch]

Hmmm, I can't decide whether to go a 3rd tier into Wisdom..- it's only 6% more XP up from 4 %.. I'm lvl 12 at the moment.

Are there any grinding opportunities? Those nice little goblins don't seem to respawn… which reminds me - I heard someone say if you kill lots of bunnies you get a huge monster bunny who comes to take revenge <,<

[Corwin]

Don't waste points on Wisdom. You can use Charms and Enhancements for that.

[Davion]

Also, don't waste points on the healing spirit. It's always casting spells at enemies at the wrong time and often starts casting heals when it is too late.

Get heal though, great skill that I would call mandatory.

[RivianWitch]

Thanks for the tips, guys.

When I saw you can only summon one creature at a time, I decided to rather go for the damage-dealing zombie thingie.

Yes, re Wisdom - I just suddenly realised that those are very small percentages indeed...

The magic blast (the more powerful one, some way down) and "charm" I found to be good investments, though.
Fun to stand watching while your enemies kill each other. :biggrin:

[Corwin]

Charm is GREAT. You only have 1 creature to summon, but you can summon other things like a ghost and eventually a powerful demon as well as your creature who can become very powerful as well. Magic Missile is the best spell for damage early on.

[RivianWitch]

How the heck does one summon that creature that you build in the necromancer's cave with bodyparts that you pick up? I've built myself a creature, but the guy is not telling me how to actually summon the thing ? I'm about to face Amdusias in the Maxos temple, and I figured I might need all the help I can get….

Oh, hang on - I think i figured it out..- thanks! :blush:

[azarhal]

How the heck does one summon that creature that you build in the necromancer's cave with bodyparts that you pick up? I've built myself a creature, but the guy is not telling me how to actually summon the thing ? I'm about to face Amdusias in the Maxos temple, and I figured I might need all the help I can get….

The skull, it should be in your inventory.

[RivianWitch]

Thanks, azarhal - silly me had thought that I'd given the skull to the necromancer, you see.. :blush:

[Wulf]

For a challenge (and it can be extremely difficult at times) i'm playing as a pure archer girl with long blonde hair and silver eyes. Not using any summons or pets or helper skills and no magics - completely unaided (except per storyline helper characters, eg: Sassan etc') this calls for pure tactics and strategy. The game is carefully thought out in this respect and using tactical landscape advantage rocks, trees, uneven ground etc' is an absolute must - difficult, but the way i like it. Disappointed that i had to use a melee weapon on Amdusias, not for the want of trying could i find any bow advantage point against him but still, apart from this i'm going for max to the end with the bow if possible, the bow related skills obviously being crucial to all of this.

[RivianWitch]

Another silly question, but one I haven't figured out yet: can one heal your creature in some way or other? I'm un-summoning him at the moment, to heal him, but re-summoning seems to have a pretty long cooldown period.

[Myrthos]

I heard someone say if you kill lots of bunnies you get a huge monster bunny who comes to take revenge <,<
True. If I recall correctly you have to kill 24 lovely little bunnies for that ;)

Another silly question, but one I haven't figured out yet: can one heal your creature in some way or other? I'm un-summoning him at the moment, to heal him, but re-summoning seems to have a pretty long cooldown period.
As far as I know, you can't

[Corwin]

I was never able to heal my creature, so when his health got very low I'd just dismiss him while I took a short gaming break!! :)

[RivianWitch]

Bah about the healing your creature, -thanks for the input.

Re the bunny, I've seen videos of him now, and apparently he is almost indestructable.. - does anybody know of anybody who's managed to beat this monstrous little creature? 0_0

[Wulf]

Not met him myself but yeah, as this clip shows, you need a pet/summoned to take the focus from yourself…and the bow obviously, probably just on the edge of the bow stealth skill detection limit (where any further back stepping moves the character from focus)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtiJ6vn4Erw

...and you get an achievement award :)

[Maylander]

Generally, I prefer a "battle mage" approach: Melee + magic. How does that work out in Div 2? For example a character dual wielding swords, but supported by magic.. ?

[Wulf]

Not a problem, very briefly…

Generally skills can mix and match to your own liking, though you get only one point on level-up some skills require a certain level before another increase in the same skill…kind of makes you spread the skills a little. Wasn't too happy about this at first - you can hold skills allotment until required. Some skills are 'passive' and cannot be linked to the quick slots. Some offensive and such skills require the target to be highlighted and in view.
There a small video window which shows the skill in action prior to selection.

EDIT: One nice touch is that some skills can be adjusted down or removed (re-allocated) i believe but havn't tried this yet.

http://www.gamerevolution.com/screen/view.php?game=11715&screen=8

Skill tree…reading left to right in column mode (some further skills lower in the colums cannot be seen in this screen shot.)

Priest.
1 Summon undead. 2 Fear. 3 Charm. 4 Curse. 5 Life tap. 6 Summon demon.
7 Summon ghost. 8 Hide in shadows. 9 Summon mastery. 10 Blind. 11 Master herbalist. 12 way of the wise wizard.

Mage
1 Magic misile. 2 Mana efficiency. 3 Confusion. 4 mana leech. 5 Firewall.
6 Fireball. 7 Polymorph. 8 Magic blast. 9 Destruction. 10 Healing. 11 Way of the battle mage.

Warrior
1 Whirlwind. 2 Jump Attack. 3 Defensive posture. 4 Life leech. 5 Regenerate. 6 Death blow.
7. Rush attack. 8 Fatality. 9 Battle rage. 10 Bleed. 11 Thousand strikes. 12 Reflect.

Ranger
1 Poison arrows. 2 Ranger strength. 3 Ranger stealth. 4 Splitting arrows. 5 Explosive arrows. 6 Way of the ranger.
7. Ranger surprise. 8 Stun arrows. 9 Potion effeciency. 10 Evade.

Dragon Slayer
1 Mindread. 2 Wisdom. 3 Lockpick. 4 Encumbrance.
5 Unarmed expertise. 6 Single handed weapon expertise. 7 Dual-wielding expertise. 8 Sword and shield expertise. 9 Two handed weapon expertise.

[Corwin]

Battle mage is quite easy to build. You don't have to allocate points at level up and extra points are available throughout the game. 1 weapon and shield is probably better than dual wield, but it's a personal choice. Just plan ahead and check out what levels are needed for each skill increase.

[Maylander]

Sounds good! By the way - is it me, or does the priest tree sound more like a summoner tree? The only healing spell I can see is located among the mage talent points.

[Wulf]

You're not specifically bound to one class, even if you chose all the priest spells you could select the mage healing when it becomes available. On leaving Farglow, the start town, you must select one character class before you can leave eg: archer, mage, warrior. It seems that this selection influences further skill availabilities from all skill classes. So as you progress you could become a dual wielding mage with priest healing, there are endless combinations.

[crpgnut]

I'm a little late to the party but I'm playing a mage with a little melee. The really important thing for mages to remember is that magic damage on weapons also applies to every spell you cast. If you have a weapon that add +9 to magic damage, then your magic missiles will each do 9 more damage. Because of this fact, I chose dual wielding. Two weapons that together add 16 points of damage to every spell I cast is just too good to pass up. This is just my experience up to level 11 though.

[Maylander]

I finally completed Div 2. Played through it as a battle mage (like I suggested above). Basically, I focused on these skills:
- Dual wield
- Fireball (nice to have such an AoE when you're in melee)
- Whirlwind
- Rush Attack
- Summon Demon

Also had points in life/mana leech, healing and the healing ghost (helped me a lot early on, before I could get my hands on the actual healing spell at level 15).

Worked very well near the end of the game, but I struggled in the beginning because I wasn't specialized enough to dish out a lot of damage. The hardest fight, to me, was:

The Abomination Master that Sassan summons when you're in Laikan's cave to pick up a ring.

Going to try a ranger character now, focusing on explosive arrows (which is a great skill).

[crpgnut]

I play much slower than you, Maylander, so you'll probably finish several more playthroughs before I finish one, but I'm focusing on magic missile and mage blast for offense. I took whirlwind at the beginning, just to bash chests :D I'll take explosive arrows once I hit 15, but I see no reason for most of the ranger tree. I just keep starting over, which is always my hangup. I love the beginning areas of games. Did you ever increase your potion ability? I was wondering if that would ever prove useful.

Why Magic Missile? Because you can cast it every second and dual-wielding weapons with magic damage should allow you to do ridiculous amounts of damage. I was hitting for 100+ with every missile at level 14. That's without any enchants on the weapons other than what they came with. I'll use a dagger that does 0-1 damage melee if it has a nice magic damage bonus!

[Maylander]

Sounds cool! Will be doing a mage game after the ranger game, where I'll just go all out int/spirit (with a hint of vitality), with the following skills:
- Blast
- Missiles
- Fireball
- Mana preservation or whatever it's called (-50% to mana usage)
- Destruction
- Way of the Battle Mage (increase to magic damage)

Also, I'll take lockpicking and life tap/heal, for the sake of it. Should be a somewhat pure build.

All in all, I hear Explosive Arrow is significantly better than Fireball though, but since I intend to play a pure mage..

Edit: Might take the thing that stuns targets too. It could, potentially, be good when spamming missiles?

[crpgnut]

Ooh! Good idea! I never thought about that. If the stun works on magic hits, it'd be great. Some skills only work on melee hits, so we'll need to read the description. A one second stun with MM would be devastating :)

[Maylander]

From the Div 2 wiki:

Confusion:

"Enemies struck by a magical attack have a *% chance of being stunned for * seconds.

This subtle but powerful skill adds a special ability to other sorceries you cast: each time one of your spells like Magic Blast or Fire Wall hits an opponent, it has a chance of stunning that opponent for a while, stripping him of effectiveness in battle.

Opinion: Although quite spammy, it's good in combination with magic missile. Outside of that, you won't use spells often enough to make it worth the points. The stun won't work on any really tough enemies, but it can help lessen the damage from groups of normal enemies while you're magic missile spamming."

Seems decent for taking on packs of enemies, but worthless in boss fights.

[RivianWitch]

Hey, haven't any of you tried out the more fun spells? The funnest spell in the world, I found, has been "charm". If you pump that up, you can make some fairly strong opponent do your killing for you while you stand and watch from a distance, buffing your nails, eating your lunch, sorting your inventory..- until the spell wears off, in which case your creature and your zombie can always mop up... XD

[Maylander]

It has a drawback though, you get less xp per kill when they do all the killing, similar with followers/NPCs. Creatures and summoned pets do not reduce XP.

At least that is my experience, correct me if I'm wrong.

[RivianWitch]

It has a drawback though, you get less xp per kill when they do all the killing, similar with followers/NPCs. Creatures and summoned pets do not reduce XP.

At least that is my experience, correct me if I'm wrong.

CR**, I hadn't even thought of that… I've not had time for gaming for a while, been working and studying, but am hoping to have cleared my plate by the weekend; when hopefully I'll be able to jump back into Div again.

Thanks for the warning, Maylander, will confirm this for myself over the weekend. :(
Bah - it still is fun, though….

Well, so if this is the case, I'll put the spell on ice for now, and once I've accummulated a bunch more Exp., I'll pump it up again to have some more fun with it. Hooo well…. :( :p

[Wulf]

It depends on how you play....

Having the higher archer stealth skills enabled me to sneek quite close to the opponent without them knowing, then using 'charm' successfully on the selected would draw all its close aids into the furore, at this point you join in (from a distance as an archer) and your zombie friend would attack. This is where you "DO" attack and claim the XP of the charmed opponent for yourself. If you cannot quite manage this strategy you might lose out on just one potential opponent xp- not a great loss.

[crpgnut]

I've not gotten into the latter areas of the game, but nothing is surviving against the combo of magic missile, mage blast and fireball. I didn't invest any points in fireball at first but found items to give me 3 points in it. I added 2, and those three spells have been all I need for several levels. I wiped out the 3 dudes that are waiting for you in front of a big scary building and they never closed to within melee. Their boss shoulda hung around for the fight :D You can fire spells while jumping backwards so I can stay out of harms way.

[RivianWitch]

It depends on how you play….

Having the higher archer stealth skills enabled me to sneek quite close to the opponent without them knowing, then using 'charm' successfully on the selected would draw all its close aids into the furore, at this point you join in (from a distance as an archer) and your zombie friend would attack. This is where you "DO" attack and claim the XP of the charmed opponent for yourself. If you cannot quite manage this strategy you might lose out on just one potential opponent xp- not a great loss.

Hmm, there's a thought - does the exp come form the final killing blow, or per each point of damage done? If the former, one could make very evil use of a spell like this indeed…

If not, it could still be very useful in difficult boss situations where a bunch of minions really create a lot of nuicance value, and one can distract them in this way, while getting on with the boss. ( That is, if your spell is not strong enough to charm the boss himself - but if it is - even more fun… :biggrin: )

[Maylander]

You lose XP for every hit they do. NPCs are the same - every time an NPC hurts an enemy, you lose a part of the XP you would've gotten. The creature and undead/ghost/demon don't count, obviously.

Had a fairly easy time through it as a ranger, but I had to kite quite a lot. Still, I found it easier than a melee based character, but that might also mean that I'm simply more experienced now.

Will try out a mage game. Missile/Blast/Fireball + Destruction + Mana Something (reduces the amount of mana you spend) + Way of the Battle Mage + Lockpicking are the skills I will max out. Should lead to unparallelled damage output, but low survivability.

Looking forward to getting it past level 15 or so.