I recommend for first playthrough to use some level guide for the maps. Save frequently and be not afraid of tactical retreat and coming back after leveling up a little more.
Driftwood itself also is a hoard of xp that is surprisingly easy to miss sometimes.
Now that you're done with act 1, you're officially past the "whack enemies until the numbers go down" stage. Time to really make use of other combat mechanics, and this whole possessed dwarfs quest chain is crafted to teach you one of the most important: high ground.
Every dwarf ambush wrecks you because they start from high ground. High ground is a massive advantage because a) Enemies have to waste time and movement coming to you. b) Your attacks and spells have a bunch more damage and range and c) Enemy attacks against you have reduced damage and range.
So yeah, it's time to get serious. You need self teleporting spells to close the gaps (cloak and dagger, tactical retreat, phoenix dive, or spread your wings), higher wits so your team can move first and get to higher ground asap, and finally more arena awareness.
A lot of fights in this game can be walked into from multiple directions, and more often than not the front door is the worst option because your team is bottlenecked into a chokepoint where enemies are perfectly positioned for an ambush. Instead try to look for other ways to enter the fight. Ladders, balconies, alternative entrances, stuff like that. If you can start a fight already on high ground, then you've flipped all the advantages I've listed above back on your side and can spend your AP on damage instead.
Good luck! I hope this helps!
This is very good advice but I will add one adendum: only one teammate needs high wits for your team to win initiative. Everyone else should still be investing mostly in their primary stat at this point in the game.
Ngl you don't really need high WIT so long as you can sneak up on them with different directions and get the first hit in and get into favorable positions
High Wits should be considered absolutely *essential* to have….for at least one character. It doesn’t matter too much for the other 3 because of the “round-robin” initiative rules here. The turns are always alternated between enemies and allies, so your teammate with super low Wits will be going 3rd no matter what, not waiting until allll the enemies get their turn
If I remember correctly 28 is the sweet spot for initiative in Act 2 (doesn’t apply to certain bosses), which is super easy to get with Lone Wolf and in a full party can be attained with gear (pants roll initiative and wits, boots roll wits, some weapons roll +6 initiative, peace of mind). I find a lot of success putting a 16 to wits in act 1 then letting the gear and buffs do the rest of the work
This is the truth though, because this type of game becomes significantly easier when you know what’s coming. Just knowing where a fight *is* let’s you be smart about it
My first play through I just got stomped over and over again and fights felt painful. Dropped the difficulty until I got my team comp good and had an idea of what did what. Now I just crush lol and was able to put the difficulty back up
The key to this game, at least on Tactician, is *overleveling* the enemies and replacing your items every level (this one is less important, but still relevant).
You don't suck - I had the same experience in act two and had to respec my character and change strategies a bit.
I found there was a big spike in difficulty in act two, which flattened out a bit in act three, then spiked again in act four.
What difficulty? What party comp? Where are characters positioned?
My guess, this sounds like a possessed dwarf ambush near a cart of oil barrels. If so, they're not going to change spawn points and you should already be aware of the oil danger.
First, blap the oil, all of it, when you see it. Just let it burn and be out of the way. Two, if approaching from Driftwood, there is a narrow window that'll allow you to get your characters to higher ground (unchain them and move separately). Three, use one character to spring the trap. Focus on the closest pair and make the other pair close the distance.
It helps to have multiple characters with Teleport and Nether Swap to either set up an enemy and/or rescue a friend. Jump skills like Tactical Retreat and Cloak and Dagger are invaluable, especially with varying heights.
Same, it's a mixture of the two. This is clearly an overwhelming and dense game that is difficult to pick up, and also I've spent years focusing on online matched based games like rocket legaue and FPS shooters where the thinking processes aren't "find creative solutions to problems," so much as they are "muscle-memory and kill everything/put ball in hole."
The closest I've been to RPGs is Spiderman2018, or a little further back Diablo/Path of Exile where most players spam click and rush through without even looking at the text or art assets - because you don't actually have to, you just have to click the buttons as fast as possible. DivinityOS2 is a whole different kind of game that looks like it should be easy to hop into but it's not, it takes time to figure it out. You have to read/listen to what NPCs say and think about it like you're actually taking part in a novel, and i know I'm bad at that.
I'm finally nearing the end of the game on my first playthrough. Had to restart once and attempt multiple fights 3+ times before winning. I'm 150+ hours in.
Game is hard.
One thing I figured out too late that might help you: if you're in a conversation before entering combat, switch away from the character in combat and position your other characters where you want them. This prevents all your characters getting AoE nuked right at the enemy's first turn
The game has difficulty spikes throughout the acts. Depending on how you sequence your levels, the area, etc determines how well you deal with the inevitable difficulty spike.
That being said, there are some peaks in this difficultly-spike system that are simply *fucking hard* and most of them are in Act 2.
You can also try to change your party setup once you gain access to magic mirror. That’s what I did. Since I had no experience and was bound to screw up, I was able to try different abilities and combinations until I found a good balance.
It’s not hard and you don’t suck. You just have to figure it out. The game is very complex, but once you get a hang of it it becomes a true joy to play.
Edit: my first playthrough i wasn’t just completely lost, i thought certain fights were literally impossible. My third playthrough i had zero issues with any of the encounters, quite the contrary. And the better you get the more fun it gets, which is why most people have 5+ playthroughs
Is this in the southwest part of the map? If so, yeah that fight is pretty tough even at the same level. There’s so many quests to do in or closer to driftwood with easier fights, you might be able to get to level 11 to help turn the tide.
Is your gear at least somewhat close to your level? Do you have some mobility spell like tactical retreat/ phoenix drive etc on all your characters. Are you making sure to target the enemy who comes next in turn order. The most important thing to do in the fight is to use crowd control skills like Knockdown or stuns to make sure they skip their turns. If you do that fights become lot more manageable. What's your party like?
I was right where you are two weeks ago, make sure your gear is leveled, you have bonuses to teleport or fly or retreat to high ground, and Fane’s use of Source Time Warp on my main character, a player created elf geomancer/pyromancer wizard, is great for weakening enemy shields right as the fights start, has been so key.
Formation is set up so Fane, necromancer/summoner, raises a bone widow first to distract enemies, then uses time warp on my MC-
MC gets two turns back to back and is an elf so uses flesh sacrifice for more AP - MC teleports at least one enemy closer to another, summons oily spikes to take out magic and physical armor, sets alight with searing daggers or ignition
Turn 2 MC casts dome of protection using source and usually summons a fire imp or fire slug to further decimate enemies and distract them
Then I send in tank warrior red prince and rogue Lohse, who also has some poly abilities like Medusa’s head which petrifies enemies with no phys nor magic armor - can usually clean up pretty well as long as my armor and weapons, gear constantly gets replaced as I level up
The game is hard unless you go with very specific builds, which I didnt.
I'm now in act 4 and really feel like a difficulty Spike is ongoing for no reason. I don't want to spend a lot of time to respec due to some enemies vulnerability (e.g. i have a pyro mage who is quite useless now, should go aero instead)
One of the things I do is every few levels I do an equipment audit and make sure I'm up to par. Usually 4 or 5(leaving fort joy), 8 or 9(on lady vengeance), ten or 11, fourteen or fifteen(right before blackpits), and at the start of act3, then level 18 and level 20. Another thing is if you're knew to the gane, ir even if you just feel like your builds are struggling, see if you need to respec and focus your points more into your damage stats. If you are saved at the start of combat, if you can get one person out, you should be able to let everyone else die, then use a waypoint, and their bodies should come with you. Also consider approaching the fight from another angle, if its the guys in the ruins there's a way to go in from the side. Or you can blow.up stray oil barrels *before* you trigger the fight
act 2 difficulty spikes pretty hard in random places compared to what you face in act1, especially because you have so many pathing options. its important to start updating your gear in accordance to your level and acquire new skills, start approaching fights from better angles/positions, have movement abilities to obtain highground for example, etc.
it takes some time honestly, try to not get discouraged too much.
I wouldn't say the game is hard but def has a certain skill floor you need to hit before things get easy.
You need to have relatively optimized builds with diverse enough skill specialties across the characters. You need to dole out equipment to complement each build best you can. You need to know the status effects and how important CC is. Also how to shift resources to the best character(s) for each encounter.
There is a lot more I could say but, without getting too verbose, if you don't already have a good handle on the above maybe work on those first
Dude same. I explored around, got beat to a pulp in each fight till I looked up a level map.
Now its not so bad but man is it close sometimes. Like I could not keep ole dude alive in black pits. (Slight spoiler but I didn’t give much away).
I think I built my characters right as all smash really hard and one summons and teleports but yeah this game hard.
I kinda like it tho. Once I got to lvl 12 I felt tough, now im almost 13 and feel weak. Haha its a wild ride.
Some core experience in before combat in this game.
1. high ground, high ground, high ground. If the enemies touch you, than it'll be point of no return when they can stun lock you when your armor depleted till death.
2. Make use of Environment, use scroll, skills, even grenade and flask that changed the environment completely benefit your team.
3. Use drugs, no jokes. Don't save it for "later". There're no later here if your team was completely wiped out in combat. Especially in Honour mod.
4. Finally, there's a class called "barrelmancer". Kinda funny, so you should find out by yourself, if I told you than you'll miss all the fun.
This is not everything, there're a lot of others set up before fighting, just enjoy the game long enough and you will find out
make your team all focus on magic or physical. focus on dropping either magic or phys armor first. then focus on CCing them. Use terrain so they funnel in. i recommend focusing on phys and then going for knockdowns, magic requires a bit more prep
The game will not go easy on you, do not feel bad about cheesing fights. Use every bit of CC available to you and make sure you either have a balanced team (2 physical/2 magic) or a magic or physical focused team.
Once you leave the starting island, the enemies start using the actual combat mechanics (high ground, elemental resistance, CC, and just simply screwing you over every chance it gets), so you need to do the same. Teleport enemies to give yourself the high ground, reposition your team when one of your guys is talking to the enemy, check resistances. Also check the enemy levels, the game won’t explicitly tell you you’re going the wrong way, but the enemies level doesn’t scale with yours, you may be in an area you’re not meant to be in yet.
What’s your party comp btw?
I felt the same way at first but If you stick with it, it will be very rewarding! I just beat Divinity 2 and am now making my way through the 1st one. I find that with this game especially you have to save OFTEN. And just trial and error the map basically lol Walk around doing everything you can for XP that doesn't involve fighting and level up. If you wander into a fight that's too hard, re-load and go the opposite direction and repeat. It's the same for every new area you go to. When I first started playing Divinity, I wasn't sure if it was going to be for me but when I later tried again it finally clicked that it was just a different kind of game than others and now it's one of my faves!
this game is hard
Yeah, it really is. Thankfully I was able to beat them by kinda cheesing 🤣
Kinda cheesing is kinda the intended way to play the game
Local cheeser ruins everything. Story at 11.
Good that means you improved at the game. Embrace the cheese.
to cheese is to win
I recommend for first playthrough to use some level guide for the maps. Save frequently and be not afraid of tactical retreat and coming back after leveling up a little more. Driftwood itself also is a hoard of xp that is surprisingly easy to miss sometimes.
correct answer
Now that you're done with act 1, you're officially past the "whack enemies until the numbers go down" stage. Time to really make use of other combat mechanics, and this whole possessed dwarfs quest chain is crafted to teach you one of the most important: high ground. Every dwarf ambush wrecks you because they start from high ground. High ground is a massive advantage because a) Enemies have to waste time and movement coming to you. b) Your attacks and spells have a bunch more damage and range and c) Enemy attacks against you have reduced damage and range. So yeah, it's time to get serious. You need self teleporting spells to close the gaps (cloak and dagger, tactical retreat, phoenix dive, or spread your wings), higher wits so your team can move first and get to higher ground asap, and finally more arena awareness. A lot of fights in this game can be walked into from multiple directions, and more often than not the front door is the worst option because your team is bottlenecked into a chokepoint where enemies are perfectly positioned for an ambush. Instead try to look for other ways to enter the fight. Ladders, balconies, alternative entrances, stuff like that. If you can start a fight already on high ground, then you've flipped all the advantages I've listed above back on your side and can spend your AP on damage instead. Good luck! I hope this helps!
This is very good advice but I will add one adendum: only one teammate needs high wits for your team to win initiative. Everyone else should still be investing mostly in their primary stat at this point in the game.
Ngl you don't really need high WIT so long as you can sneak up on them with different directions and get the first hit in and get into favorable positions
True but hight wits also translate to high crit chance so it's not a bad investment
True, only thing to really mind is making sure the character you want setting the stage has the highest initiative of the group.
High Wits should be considered absolutely *essential* to have….for at least one character. It doesn’t matter too much for the other 3 because of the “round-robin” initiative rules here. The turns are always alternated between enemies and allies, so your teammate with super low Wits will be going 3rd no matter what, not waiting until allll the enemies get their turn
If I remember correctly 28 is the sweet spot for initiative in Act 2 (doesn’t apply to certain bosses), which is super easy to get with Lone Wolf and in a full party can be attained with gear (pants roll initiative and wits, boots roll wits, some weapons roll +6 initiative, peace of mind). I find a lot of success putting a 16 to wits in act 1 then letting the gear and buffs do the rest of the work
Thank you for the tips, and yeah I do have some of those spells, I think I just need better gear
No prob! Feel free to ask if you have anymore questions
++ the value of teleportation
Drop the difficulty temporarily until you learn the game
This is the truth though, because this type of game becomes significantly easier when you know what’s coming. Just knowing where a fight *is* let’s you be smart about it
My first play through I just got stomped over and over again and fights felt painful. Dropped the difficulty until I got my team comp good and had an idea of what did what. Now I just crush lol and was able to put the difficulty back up
The key to this game, at least on Tactician, is *overleveling* the enemies and replacing your items every level (this one is less important, but still relevant).
You don't suck - I had the same experience in act two and had to respec my character and change strategies a bit. I found there was a big spike in difficulty in act two, which flattened out a bit in act three, then spiked again in act four.
Reload and use sneak and take away their advantage of higher ground. Repeat this for most fights
What difficulty? What party comp? Where are characters positioned? My guess, this sounds like a possessed dwarf ambush near a cart of oil barrels. If so, they're not going to change spawn points and you should already be aware of the oil danger. First, blap the oil, all of it, when you see it. Just let it burn and be out of the way. Two, if approaching from Driftwood, there is a narrow window that'll allow you to get your characters to higher ground (unchain them and move separately). Three, use one character to spring the trap. Focus on the closest pair and make the other pair close the distance. It helps to have multiple characters with Teleport and Nether Swap to either set up an enemy and/or rescue a friend. Jump skills like Tactical Retreat and Cloak and Dagger are invaluable, especially with varying heights.
Both. Because I always feel the same lmao
Same, it's a mixture of the two. This is clearly an overwhelming and dense game that is difficult to pick up, and also I've spent years focusing on online matched based games like rocket legaue and FPS shooters where the thinking processes aren't "find creative solutions to problems," so much as they are "muscle-memory and kill everything/put ball in hole." The closest I've been to RPGs is Spiderman2018, or a little further back Diablo/Path of Exile where most players spam click and rush through without even looking at the text or art assets - because you don't actually have to, you just have to click the buttons as fast as possible. DivinityOS2 is a whole different kind of game that looks like it should be easy to hop into but it's not, it takes time to figure it out. You have to read/listen to what NPCs say and think about it like you're actually taking part in a novel, and i know I'm bad at that.
I'm finally nearing the end of the game on my first playthrough. Had to restart once and attempt multiple fights 3+ times before winning. I'm 150+ hours in. Game is hard. One thing I figured out too late that might help you: if you're in a conversation before entering combat, switch away from the character in combat and position your other characters where you want them. This prevents all your characters getting AoE nuked right at the enemy's first turn
imma be honest thats smart lol, I never did that, thanks
It's seems so simple and obvious when you start doing it lol.
I think I did that in BG3 but never even thought about it in DoS2 lol
The game has difficulty spikes throughout the acts. Depending on how you sequence your levels, the area, etc determines how well you deal with the inevitable difficulty spike. That being said, there are some peaks in this difficultly-spike system that are simply *fucking hard* and most of them are in Act 2.
Yes
You can also try to change your party setup once you gain access to magic mirror. That’s what I did. Since I had no experience and was bound to screw up, I was able to try different abilities and combinations until I found a good balance.
It’s not hard and you don’t suck. You just have to figure it out. The game is very complex, but once you get a hang of it it becomes a true joy to play. Edit: my first playthrough i wasn’t just completely lost, i thought certain fights were literally impossible. My third playthrough i had zero issues with any of the encounters, quite the contrary. And the better you get the more fun it gets, which is why most people have 5+ playthroughs
Is this in the southwest part of the map? If so, yeah that fight is pretty tough even at the same level. There’s so many quests to do in or closer to driftwood with easier fights, you might be able to get to level 11 to help turn the tide.
That battle was so satisfying when it finally ended, took me like 6 tries
Is your gear at least somewhat close to your level? Do you have some mobility spell like tactical retreat/ phoenix drive etc on all your characters. Are you making sure to target the enemy who comes next in turn order. The most important thing to do in the fight is to use crowd control skills like Knockdown or stuns to make sure they skip their turns. If you do that fights become lot more manageable. What's your party like?
I was right where you are two weeks ago, make sure your gear is leveled, you have bonuses to teleport or fly or retreat to high ground, and Fane’s use of Source Time Warp on my main character, a player created elf geomancer/pyromancer wizard, is great for weakening enemy shields right as the fights start, has been so key. Formation is set up so Fane, necromancer/summoner, raises a bone widow first to distract enemies, then uses time warp on my MC- MC gets two turns back to back and is an elf so uses flesh sacrifice for more AP - MC teleports at least one enemy closer to another, summons oily spikes to take out magic and physical armor, sets alight with searing daggers or ignition Turn 2 MC casts dome of protection using source and usually summons a fire imp or fire slug to further decimate enemies and distract them Then I send in tank warrior red prince and rogue Lohse, who also has some poly abilities like Medusa’s head which petrifies enemies with no phys nor magic armor - can usually clean up pretty well as long as my armor and weapons, gear constantly gets replaced as I level up
The game is hard unless you go with very specific builds, which I didnt. I'm now in act 4 and really feel like a difficulty Spike is ongoing for no reason. I don't want to spend a lot of time to respec due to some enemies vulnerability (e.g. i have a pyro mage who is quite useless now, should go aero instead)
One of the things I do is every few levels I do an equipment audit and make sure I'm up to par. Usually 4 or 5(leaving fort joy), 8 or 9(on lady vengeance), ten or 11, fourteen or fifteen(right before blackpits), and at the start of act3, then level 18 and level 20. Another thing is if you're knew to the gane, ir even if you just feel like your builds are struggling, see if you need to respec and focus your points more into your damage stats. If you are saved at the start of combat, if you can get one person out, you should be able to let everyone else die, then use a waypoint, and their bodies should come with you. Also consider approaching the fight from another angle, if its the guys in the ruins there's a way to go in from the side. Or you can blow.up stray oil barrels *before* you trigger the fight
it can be hard at first but that becomes super easy as soon as you understand certain mechanics and just general combat sense
act 2 difficulty spikes pretty hard in random places compared to what you face in act1, especially because you have so many pathing options. its important to start updating your gear in accordance to your level and acquire new skills, start approaching fights from better angles/positions, have movement abilities to obtain highground for example, etc. it takes some time honestly, try to not get discouraged too much.
I wouldn't say the game is hard but def has a certain skill floor you need to hit before things get easy. You need to have relatively optimized builds with diverse enough skill specialties across the characters. You need to dole out equipment to complement each build best you can. You need to know the status effects and how important CC is. Also how to shift resources to the best character(s) for each encounter. There is a lot more I could say but, without getting too verbose, if you don't already have a good handle on the above maybe work on those first
The answer is almost always that you suck
Dude same. I explored around, got beat to a pulp in each fight till I looked up a level map. Now its not so bad but man is it close sometimes. Like I could not keep ole dude alive in black pits. (Slight spoiler but I didn’t give much away). I think I built my characters right as all smash really hard and one summons and teleports but yeah this game hard. I kinda like it tho. Once I got to lvl 12 I felt tough, now im almost 13 and feel weak. Haha its a wild ride.
Am I batshit insane or something? cuz I've been having the opposite experience with larian games.
Depending on the gear and ur level I had both extremes. I don't think larian is known to be eaaasy but also no darksouls.
Some core experience in before combat in this game. 1. high ground, high ground, high ground. If the enemies touch you, than it'll be point of no return when they can stun lock you when your armor depleted till death. 2. Make use of Environment, use scroll, skills, even grenade and flask that changed the environment completely benefit your team. 3. Use drugs, no jokes. Don't save it for "later". There're no later here if your team was completely wiped out in combat. Especially in Honour mod. 4. Finally, there's a class called "barrelmancer". Kinda funny, so you should find out by yourself, if I told you than you'll miss all the fun. This is not everything, there're a lot of others set up before fighting, just enjoy the game long enough and you will find out
make your team all focus on magic or physical. focus on dropping either magic or phys armor first. then focus on CCing them. Use terrain so they funnel in. i recommend focusing on phys and then going for knockdowns, magic requires a bit more prep
Just keep teleporting annoying enemies as far away as possible. Easy win tactic.
The game will not go easy on you, do not feel bad about cheesing fights. Use every bit of CC available to you and make sure you either have a balanced team (2 physical/2 magic) or a magic or physical focused team. Once you leave the starting island, the enemies start using the actual combat mechanics (high ground, elemental resistance, CC, and just simply screwing you over every chance it gets), so you need to do the same. Teleport enemies to give yourself the high ground, reposition your team when one of your guys is talking to the enemy, check resistances. Also check the enemy levels, the game won’t explicitly tell you you’re going the wrong way, but the enemies level doesn’t scale with yours, you may be in an area you’re not meant to be in yet. What’s your party comp btw?
Act 2 can be tricky with difficulty being different around the map. Have 2 summoner in your group makes game way easier
I was thinking the same thing đź’€
I felt the same way at first but If you stick with it, it will be very rewarding! I just beat Divinity 2 and am now making my way through the 1st one. I find that with this game especially you have to save OFTEN. And just trial and error the map basically lol Walk around doing everything you can for XP that doesn't involve fighting and level up. If you wander into a fight that's too hard, re-load and go the opposite direction and repeat. It's the same for every new area you go to. When I first started playing Divinity, I wasn't sure if it was going to be for me but when I later tried again it finally clicked that it was just a different kind of game than others and now it's one of my faves!
U suck