Div 2 Character build and skills thread

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:



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

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 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!

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?

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

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.

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

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.

Originally Posted by 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.

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….

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.

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 You can fire spells while jumping backwards so I can stay out of harms way.

Originally Posted by 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.

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… )

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.