if the great Ceno is enjoying this then this must be a very good game… too bad my money is reserved for Grim Dawn. gotta buy this one day when I have a real job, cuz 40 bucks is way too much for a pleb :rolleyes:
I’m really enjoying myself. Didn’t especially like the first one, though.
The game is much better that prequell.
Game is slow ramp.
need to seek out gear and have a good group combo.
in my fourth restart I had a good group combo and classic feels good now.
soon to leave island for act 2.
Its way better than the first, its very well done.
enjoying the voice acting.
When i restarted campaign, Tactician of course, to play solo instead of co-op I have been enjoying it a bit more as well. I also noticed that the huge amount of armor/health that I had to cope with in co-op was gone. Instead of 114armor and 170hp at lvl3 the opponents now had 60-70armour with 120hp. That is odd, but then again DoS2 has been very buggy. To the point you have to restart to get things to work properly again.
For those who haven’t bought the game, but are planning to… I suggest you wait a few weeks till more patches have been released.
======
My single player experience was different from the co-op. Huge in part due to a different group setup.
One handed weapons are too weak to quickly take down physical armor from opponents. Making tanks in the early game pretty frustrating to play. That is why I went with a Lizard Knight which starts with a 2h weapon. Through early quest rewards you can keep the damage output high enough. And the extra fire breath is just really helpful. Later in the game I’ll gradually switch to sword/board. I’m not planning to invest in the 1 handed mastery, but instead thinking about retribution/Perseverance for the tank build.
The 2nd melee is Beast as Battlemage. He too can use warfare abilities. With charge you have mobility and chance to knock opponents down. He can cripple and then switch to Aerothurge with lightning attacks. Which take down magical armor down fast as well. Making him a dual wielding tempest that can switch roles depending on necessities.
Third character is Lohse. I just can’t ignore my twisted waifu. This time around I choose her to become a conjurer. The totem helps to take down armor and do some extra damage each turn. But the other summon is the real force. It takes the damage type of the surface you summoned it on. So I examine opponents to see their weakness. Then throw a grenade followed by the summon on the created surface. And damn does that summon do damage. It tears through stuff so fast even at early levels. The water type also gets restoration spell in case you need extra healing, earth gives taunt so really diverse. No idea which second class I’ll add to it later. She can keep summoning totems to the point there are 3 on the field, but besides that she has down time and no real spells yet to fill that gap.
Fourth character is Sebille as the Enchanter. She basically heals, creates rain and does some attacks that are granted by the staff and not her class.
Seeing you only need 2 points in Polymorhp in order to get the flight ability… I’m thinking of grabbing it for at least 2 of my characters alongside their main classes.
===Abilities===
So far each character has their own role within the group.
-The Lizard Knight naturally has Persuasion/Barter. Took away barter so he’s more of the Persuasion type. Great for when you get into those rock/paper/scissor and other dialogue things. Can solve issues in different ways besides fighting then.
-Beast has Thievery and takes care of locks. You can also use Fane since undead don’t need lockpicks, but still need thievery.
-Lohse has natural Bartering so I just keep increasing that. She is the one that does all the selling/buying from merchants for extra coinage.
-Sebille has natural Loremaster. Something that is VERY important. Once you get a magnifying glass this character can identify magical items. Loremaster also lets you examine opponents so that you know what they stats/weaknesses are. This information is automatically spread across the party. So everyone can use examine and the game tells you that Sebille shares the info. Really nice, because in DoS:EE we had to read up the info to one another. Really important information during battles.
====Tips====
Early on in the game you don’t have a lot of money. And often you’re taught by games to buy cheap gear to fit all slots. In this game… Do NOT do that. to make money I simply picked up everything on the ship and the beach…and everywhere else I went. No matter whether it was just a shell, a bucket or a twig. Even the, seemingly, pointless 1 gold items have some use.
When in Ft. Joy find the richest merchant. Or a wealthy merchant that sells skillbooks of the class you actually use. You might find 4 merchants with reasonable money and skillbooks you want, but only choose 1 and not all 4. The reason is that its a good idea to raise reputation with that 1 merchant. The higher the rep x your persuasion or barter skill = better prices. Simply give all your 1-3gold items to the merchant. Give it and don’t charge a price for it. Take the loss, because it invest in reputation for when you sell your high priced items. So don’t sell your 15+ gold items untill you have 80-100 reputation with this specific merchant. When you do sell you make more money and that helps to get the better skills once you reach lvl 4…and trust me. You want those skills asap.
Second tip is to not rush Ft. Joy. Explore and do the simpler quests first. Help the inprisoned elf in the kitchen. You can solve this quest line without any combat. You can enter new areas, get the exploration xp, then leave the area again. On the pallisade of the encampment you find Magister Yarrow. Speak with her and grab the Yarrow flower just outside the the area. The Migo quest involves no fighting either for some nice rewards. Then start with a simple fight with the gamblers on the walls. Follow it up by going into a nearby cave too collect some quest rewards. Then take on the Alligators for the Teleportation quest. It’ll give you a pair of nice gloves with teleportation. Which is a nice spell to use in combat, but it has another great use. Search around the map near a broken “bridge”. A chest is up high and you can only get it by teleporting it down to you. There is another chest near where you find Fane in a hidden alcove. These chests, combined with some quest rewards, is all you need to equip your party members. And of course some bucket helmets for your melee chars hehe. LAter you can sell these items for nice coinage. If you go up the vines near Fane, through poison, you climb up. There is another fight with Void Turtles down the road for more XP. Quite an easy fight as well if you use water to kill the smaller ones almost instantly. Now you’re ready to go back into the cave with the elves, do some small quests depending on the party members you bring. Find another chest on a ledge up above. Fight some frogs.
Tip three is to craft. You’ll find wooden sticks, stones etc. You can craft axes and toy crossbows. You can sell these to get some gold from that 1 vendor you’ll be raising reputation with. 12-15g a piece is nice to start with.
That should you get started well in the first 3-4 levels. I had around 1500g before spending it on skillbooks at lvl 4. Merchants reset once an hour and adjust inventory to your level. So once you hit lvl4 they sell the better skills for your classes.
Is support class viable as main character (Cleric, for example)? Or just stick to generic mage/tank?
Btw, thanks for the tips, Gibly.
Im in love with junkie scavenger(necrofage?) elf-girl. She is the embodiement of anti-drug propaganda 
Due to armor mechanic its better to build phyz-only or magical-only squad. I prefer 2 thugs+2 2H masters. 2 of them pick summon, 2 healing
if you start as cleric or enchanter you can get through the tutorial. the ship has voidwalkers as opponents, but they don’t have armor. so long you use default attack you should be able to still deal with them. Once you hit the island of Ft Joy just grab the other party members asap. My advice there is to turn 1 of them into a conjurer, another into perhaps bow or backstabber with the last being melee/tankish. But you don’t have to go full tank, even battlemages and such should be able to do the job.
On tactician, even on the ship, some minor tactics are adviced against the voidwoken battle. You vs 2 of them. I just brute forced it and died rofl. So keep the distance close so they can’t rush at you, making you fall over and giving them extra attacks. Other then that you should be fine against them.
Especially as a Cleric which still has some melee abilities as well as … life sucking/leech abilities. Enchanter would be a bit more challenging, but doable as well.
When playing on Tactician the AI is unforgiving. In the co-op play the opponents always went straight for the squishy casters of my friend. So we quickly lost our heal/support making battles more difficult since you’re 1 man down real fast. You can somewhat get by this by creating watery surfaces around you and turning it into ice. Everyone trying to get to you will most likely slip and fall. Armour doesn’t prevent falling on ice and slowing from oil.
On lower difficulties you shouldn’t have that problem. And knowing opponents go straight for your casters in the back does allow you to position melee/summons in such a way that you can get in Opportunity Attacks for free.
Also the early game loves throwing fire at you. Fire is EVERYWHERE. Opponents throw oil to slow you then shoot an arrow in it to make it explode. Barrels get broken and turn to fire due to a brazier that was next to it. Frogs doing poison, which catches fire due to torches nearby. As an enchanter, or anyone with Hydrophosist as class, grab the Rain spell. It douses flames, shortens or sometimes even completely removes burn status DoT. It also turns fire into a fog in which you can hide so that archers and casters can’t see you. Letting you focus on melee opponents for a few rounds without having to worry about ranged.
Should be viable later on but would have issues at the beginning. You can respec in Act 2, so perhaps start as something else?
Basically everything before and including Flenser is very difficult for more niche characters. After that you can diversify a bit, though the witch is probably the hardest fight in Act 1 so you likely want a solid party comp by then.
True. Early game you shouldn’t get too specific with your build yet. Start with some default safe setups and diversify from that as well. Just as how I got my 2hander melee and gradually turn it into a tank. That my enchanter has basic support and still do some damage while grabbing proper CC/Damage skills later on. Start with basics and specialize in that before spreading out.
How far counts as Act 1? My quest log already mentions Act 2 and i haven’t gone past all the Magisters yet. The ones in the same area with the phylacteries/soul jars. Which is still… only 5 hours in. 14 hours if you play co-op with my slowpoke buddy that wants to smell each flower you come across hehe.
That’s Chapter 2. 
You’ll know when you hit the second act, don’t worry about that.
You’re likely about to fight Flenser (if you haven’t already). Have fun with that.
Was flenser the houndmaster in the bottom of the magister keep near the cells? I killed him in two attempts solo. Took 6 attemps co-op and still didn’t beat that fight there.
Negative. Kniles the Flenser is a far, far worse fight. My party had to cheese it on classical difficulty. If you try to non-cheese him on tactician…good luck.
TFW the witch is harder still
This game is freaking amazing, even better than the first which I also really enjoyed.
Some tips since it seems like people are having issues:
1hd/Shield: It’s true these guys aren’t going to be the biggest damage dealers in your party but they are far from useless, and do have some awesome abilities. They of course are excellent meat shields, and have great CC skills. Battles stomp can knock multiple enemies down for a round, and so can bull rush. Shield throw is a great damage skill and hits multiple enemies as well, and once you find a shield with high armor the skill actually does really good damage. Taunt is another good CC skill that can help keep pressure off of your squishy characters.
AoE: Not sure why the person was finding these types of skills more trouble than they are worth, but it should be easy not to hit your own party members. Each AoE has a radius/outline you cansee before casting. Any characters (friendly and enemy) that are in the danger zone their outline will highlight showing exactly which characters will be effected. Simply be aware of who is in the area of effect. The one caveat is keeping an eye on any elemental/etc surfaces characters are on. For instance, if you cast a fireball and only the enemy is highlighted, but you also have a friendly nearby and everyone is standing in a poison surface, even though the fireball will only hit the enemy it will also ignite the poison surface and the friendly will get hit with that. Positioning is important, as is understanding how each spell effect (fire/poison/water/electricity/etc) interacts with each other.
Physical/magic armor: Another thing to keep in mind is using elemental/CC effects are awesome (knockdown/shock/burning), but these are blocked/resisted if the enemy has the matching armor. So you can shock a puddle under an enemy, but they will most likely resist if they have a large amount of magic armor remaining. Same with knockdowns if they still have physical armor left. You need to wear down enemies corresponding armor before CC’ing is really effective.
Teleport: You find gloves early in the game with this spell, but you can also learn it too. My advice is to make sure you teach at least one character this skill as it’s one of the best skills in the game. Not only is it useful in combat since you can teleport enemies away from squishy characters or put multiple enemies close together before nuking them all, but it’s immensely useful in non-combat situations as well. There’s a ton of secrets and treasure you can get by using it to get to otherwise inaccessible areas.
Mobility skills: You should also give each party member one Mobility skill. For instance escape skill for hunter, phoenix dive for tank, teleport, etc. These are very useful and allow you to quickly move out of harms way or gain the high ground for your archer (bonus damage).
Gold: If you are feeling pinched money wise invest in bartering and always have that character sell/buy. It’s a pretty substantial amount you save/gain. Also, look out for not only weapons/armor/gems to sell, there’s a lot of light items with good value. Gold cups,plates, and even the paintings on walls fetch a good amount of gold.
Positioning in general: If you find a fight really tough, prior to entering battle un-link your characters (drag their portrait down) and individually position each character prior to battle to get the best advantage you can. Put ranged characters high on platforms, put your melee/tank in areas to block enemy movement, and generally don’t stick too close together so that enemy AoE’s hit multiple characters. Also, don’t just run into battle you can actually cast a spell or shoot an enemy before combat even is initiated and get a small advantage.
Defensive spells: As mentioned above about enemies magic/physical armor, your characters have the same resistances. Don’t just heal your characters, if you see a friendly get their magic armor depleted, cast ice armor (or whatever it’s called) to replenish it. Use shields up if you are a tank, or fortify to give them back physical armor. This not only in practice kinda gives them more health in a sense, but it helps them resist CC or other effects like burning and shock.
Trading: Trade with characters you talk to, even non traders. Often, and especially if they are more important NPC’s, they will have all sorts of awesome items including unique items and skill books. Even early in the game there is a ton of opportunities to skill up your characters.
On stream we beat him non cheese on tactician
3 hours 25minutes in. 2nd attempt of the fight we did it.
After playing throught the first chapter a few times on Tactician I think that I got a nice understanding of mechanics. So theorycrafted a party I’d like to start my proper singleplayer playthrough on. Gonna be funsies. Not super min-maxed, but still funsies.
Haven’t played the original one, only completed 20% of Divine Divinity (first game in the series)
How much is this game’s story dependent on those two? Also, how is the Turn Based Gameplay? Is it XCOM like or something different? Also I see GM mode, what’s that (don’t kill me)?
I know simple searches would do the trick, but I’m feeling lazy :p:p
Story takes place in another era. I think 1000 years before the first. So you don’t have to know the other games since this is pretty much the first one chronologically.
Turn based combat, especially on Tactician, is pretty challenging. I’d say it is slightly easier then Commander in Xcom 2, but more choices/options skills wise that can make fights diverse and more interesting. You don’t use a cover system for defence. But there are ways to mitigate attacks. Making it rain on a patch of fire generates smog that obscures vision. Perfect to hide in from ranged attackers. Oil slows melee opponents getting to you…and you can set it on fire. You can create lots of interesting synergy between skills and environment that way. It isn’t j ust skills, but also items, scrolls etc.
Character building is pretty open and diverse as well. After 50-60 hours in I am just now starting to grasp mechanics decently enough. You actually need to invest in multiple “classes” to get skills with nice synergy. You definately need to be patient and invest the time. It is quite an unforgiving game. Learn about the basics of crafting and gold making for example.
Itemization not decided on yet. You get nice looking loot regularly enough. At lvl 5-6 we got our party equipped almost fully without spending gold on it. But you can craft some basic gear to fill slots. In the previous game it was weakly done if you ask me.
This is what I have in mind for my real start…
So it’s something I need to put far on the back burner. Time investment of this sorts is something I can’t afford for now 
Well, the things you described do have my interest piqued so i’ll definitely try it sometime
Thanks for the post 
Id say on Tactic+IM this game is harder that X-com Longwar2 on legend+IM. Almost every battle can result in team-wipe and restart.
Btw, what’s the gamemaster system? Is it something related to D&D rule-set?