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| Thread: Divinity: Original Sin |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 · «PREV / NEXT» |
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Elvin
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
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posted January 05, 2016 05:36 PM |
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Enjoy. Fighter/mage, lone wolf walkthrough. At this point you can proceed to the last part of the game or teleport around and see the sights.
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H5 is still alive and kicking, join us in the Duel Map discord server!
Map also hosted on Moddb
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Salamandre
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
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posted January 05, 2016 05:42 PM |
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Thanks but something is wrong. The file has no extension then it weights 4 octets while my auto/quick saves are around 4 Mb each.
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Elvin
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
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posted January 05, 2016 06:33 PM |
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How about now?
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H5 is still alive and kicking, join us in the Duel Map discord server!
Map also hosted on Moddb
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Salamandre
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
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posted January 05, 2016 06:35 PM |
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The_Polyglot
Promising
Supreme Hero
channeling capybara energy
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posted January 05, 2016 11:18 PM |
bonus applied by Doomforge on 14 Jan 2016. |
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By popular demand I'mma be sharing 'OP Poly builds' (not my words) I'm a super slow typer and Elvin wants screenshots added too, so this will be a ready around tomorrow-ish
Stuff you should know
I successfully completed Divinity on Tactician mode - without using ANY potions - and I'm well into my second playthrough. I personally haven't played on Honour Mode yet, but my builds ought to work on that difficulty too, just don't be rash and DON'T MISCLICK. This is a serious warning, as enemy animations can and will interfere with targeting on occasion.(I'm gonna be addressing that later) One of those at a bad time can and often will result in TPK.
Game quirks
The environment is an asset. Use it. Earlygame there will be a LOT of battlefields where there will be strategically placed barrels of oil/water/natural but empty puddles. Later on, you yourself will be able to manipulate the environment practically at will. A well set-up field can save your butt, while a hostile field will make your life a living hell.
Most bosses engage in dialogue with one of your characters pre-battle. This is an ideal time for your other character to tweak the field a bit. There's at least one bossfight that can be cheesed through thanks to this.
Crime pays. While you generally should avoid killing merchants, keep in mind that on death, they drop most of their inventory except their gold. Especially lategame, this yields SNOWTONS of loot. Stealing has no penalty if you're not caught, and not getting caught is pretty easy. STEAL EVERYTHING THAT'S NOT NAILED DOWN. Pure profit! Earlygame, stealing and selling back things will account for 95% of your gold. Lategame stealing is overkill, but still fun. Focus on paintings, and gold cups/plates. More on the economy later.
100% immunities and effects dealing elemental dmg are weird. You can have 100% Fire resist, and still receive the Burning status that deals Fire damage that you won't resist, likewise with Poison resist and Poisoned status. Similarly, you can be immune to Burning/Poisoned and yet take fire/poison damage that comes from other sources. Therefore it is highly recommended that you pair a piece of gear making you immune to the effect on top of your 100% resist. Somewhat related to this, Fire resistance COUPLED WITH Immune to Burning is a high-priority combo that you should achieve on at least 1 party member. Fire is the most damaging school, AND there are lots of places that artificially restrict movement via otherwise lethal Lava surfaces. You can and probably will use an alternative method to get around Lava for most of the game, but having such a character is INVALUABLE.
Targeting surfaces instead of people is super helpful. Besides the supercheese chest-thrower build which exists only because of this, ranged builds benefit loads from it. Whenever you have visibility issues preventing you from shooting at your target, targeting the ground veeeeery close to the target so the red of the enemy is illuminated will still be possible, dealing the usual damage. On top of this, this method minimises misclicks due to animations.
Moving objects is a bit tricky, you have to click and hold near the edges of your target to make it work. Takes some getting used to, but will quickly become second nature.
NEVER leave gold in a container in your inventory. Due to a wonky party gold system, this can result in gold added to your inventory appear in the stack within the container instead, seemingly vanishing your gold. This can be expoited to your gain but I haven't idiot-proofed it yet. And besides, exploits aren't fun anyway. If your gold does disappear, stay calm and check your containers.
Reputation is only useful for your designated bartering character. Feel free to lose reputation with your other characters, there are no consequences whatsoever. Performing a dubious act will only lower the reputation of the character who initiated the action. If this leads to battle, the rest of your party will join in without losing reputation. That said, reputation has minimal effects on your game, feel free to roleplay.
Hit chance is capped at 100%. Stances or status effects will decrease your hit chance below 100% even if your character sheet says your hit chance would still be greater than or equal to 100% factoring in the reductions. Wands however never miss, even if your character sheet says your hit chance is less than 100%
The game is (primarily) line-of-sight. Consequently, denying that line of sight will do lots to protect your squishier characters. In several cases, appropriate and constant blocking of this will turn otherwise unwinnable situations to one-sided victories. More on this later.
Party composition
Foreword
I found that a party of 4 makes the game too easy. (You'll see what I mean, promise) Therefore I limited myself to dual Lone Wolf builds. This however, does not mean I couldn't build a strong 4-man team, I just choose not to. Consequently, this guide's leveling guide will first and foremost be geared towards Lone Wolves, as I have more hands-on experience with them. I can show both midgame and lategame Lone Wolf builds, I have a general idea of what should be possible at which level, etc
Elementary facts of life
There's not that much variety in D  S. Well-built mages will resemble every other mage regardless of specialization, rangers will be able to substitute mages almost seamlessly, while basically being long-range rogues, who will in turn be squishy versions of fighters, alias melee rangers. This takes away most of the inherent replay value. I suggest trying out each playstyle once, and going on a full playthrough only with those that feel the most fun.
Mages rule
As with Baldur's Gate, mages are very strong characters. The more mages in your party, the easier time you will have. One mage makes the game both infinitely more fun and infinitely more manageable, and you simply won't survive Honour mode without one. Two mages curbstomp everything except the final boss fight. THREE mages - one Lone Wolf, two Glass Cannons if I were calling the shots - laugh at puny attempts to momentarily inconvenience them. FOUR mages might as well be named the Apocalypse Quartet.
Mages have access to everything, elemental damage, mundane damage, healing, buffs, debuffs, summons(more on them later) environmental effects, even magical means of lockpicking! No other class can hope to match the mages' versatility, simply because Intelligence, the primary stat for mages affects all the elemental magics plus Witchcraft, for a total of 5 skill trees mages can pick and choose from without sacrificing Ability Points. Dexterity, which is the only other stat governing multiple skill trees, has 2 skill trees that have additional restrictions on them, unlike the mage skill trees.
Play to your strengths
Ideally, every party member should have a designated role that he can perform better than any other member of the party. Fighters, rogues and rangers are all excellent damage dealers - hands down fighters have the highest possible DPS from midgame onwards, but rogues and rangers have better range and defense - Rangers can also take on some mage duties if the need arises, thanks to their special arrows (more on this later) Mages can be either support or DPS, but a mixture of the two roles will invariably weaken the character. In addition, your party should always have a designated crafter/blacksmith, and a designated merchant-interface. You should always have at least one tank, for when you need someone to soak up hits. While a designated Politician is not strictly necessary, -I consider it a luxury - it does make your game easier if you have one. Their role is to reliably win debates with NPCs. Especially when going Lone Wolf, characters will have to take on multiple roles at a time. This is unfortunate, but an inalienable part of Lone Wolf gameplay - your characters will never afford to have such razor-sharp focus as they could in a 4-man party, despite what their wealth of ability points suggest at first glance. A 4-man party will be much more flexible, and will be able to outsource small but vital roles to henchmen who only join the party when their role is needed. This makes the game SO MUCH EASIER, you wouldn't believe!
Attributes
Strength
Primary stat for warriors, governs Man-At-Arms skill tree, increases carry weight, weight of items you can pick up, and how far you can move these items. Since carry weight limit is never a problem, and you don't need to invest in Strength at all in order to move things such as crates and vases, -for the odd character who does want to move heavy items, it is much more profitable to invest in Telekinesis rather than strength - everyone but fighters can forget about this stat. Fighters should aim for about 13 Strength total, including bonuses from gear. As you will see, this is plenty doable.
Intelligence
THE most powerful attribute ingame, for reasons discussed above. Primary stat for spellcaster mages. Governs elemental and Witchcraft skill trees, contributes to overall spellpower. Earlygame an INT value of 8 is enough, lategame go nuts.
Dexterity
Primary stat for rogues and rangers, governs Scoundrel and Expert Marksman skills, increases defence rating. I have yet to complete the game with a ranger or a rogue, so I'm not sure about the ideal late game value, but extrapolating from my experiences it shouldn't be that different from Strength for fighters. Your scout should make sure he has 8 DEX as soon as convenient, to take advantage of low-level scoundrel skills. Ideally, your scout should have 8 DEX by the time you reach Hiberheim, the first of many areas where low-level Scoundrel skills have a significant impact on your game.
Constitution
Governs max AP, and Health. Achieving the maximum AP with only 5 CON is no mean feat, and you will gain a lot of hitpoints from gear alone. If you play a Lone Wolf character, you will also benefit from a 70% HP increase. For this reason, you don't need to bother with CON at all when playing Lone Wolf, the HP and eventual CON bonuses you get from gear is more than enough.
Speed
Governs turn AP, initiative, and movement speed. For every 2 points of Speed, you gain a turn action point. Despite not governing any skills, I consider this the most important attribute, and the unofficial primary stat for wand-wielding mages. Simply put, you can never have enough speed. Items with Speed bonuses are rare and not as important as items with primary attribute or CON bonuses, because your characters should all have a high base Speed. You should always aim for the minimum required primary stat coupled with the highest possible Speed.
Perception
So useless, I had to be reminded to include it. Besides the fact that you can raise it via items and Burn My Eyes when you really need it (lategame I managed to raise it to 12 without having invested in it at all) SUMMONS HAVE PERCEPTION TOO. As luck would have it, the most accessible summon - the spider - also has the second-highest perception of them all. IF you need to spot something, which you never do during main quest stuff, just summon one! Even rangers can neglect this, as there are other ways to ensure accuracy (more on this later) 1% extra crit chance for each invested attribute point is a supremely bad trade.
Abilities
Weapons
Bow/Crossbow Choose one with your ranger and stick with it. My advice is to stick to bows until around level 13, when you unlock the ability to respec. The reason is that although weaker - MUCH weaker - bows can shoot more often, and earlygame 3 weak shots are better than 2 strong shots. Lategame, crossbows make your by then numerous Marksman skills better, and you will have enough special arrows to use those in tandem with your skills to shoot for less AP. Stay away from vanilla shots with crossbow as much as you can! Leveling your weapon takes priority over everything else until you reach rank 5! Target lategame AP is 12 for all rangers, regardless of specialty.
Single-handed/Dual Wield/Two-handed In theory, both onehanded styles should be equally viable. In practice, Dual Wielding is so strong, it not only makes single-handed obsolete, but it very nearly slams even Two-handed right out of the park. Not only does Dual Wielding have RIDICULOUS DPS, but the buffs you can place on a second weapon as opposed to a shield are that much better. Furthermore, critical chance is additive: You might find a twohander with a bonus crit chance of 15%, but you will still have more bonus crit chance if you wield 2 one-handers, each with a 10% crit chance. Obviously, if you're proficient in twohanders, it will still crit more, because the skill itself adds about 25% crit chance, but 2 weapons instead of 1 means extra status chances, extra stats, and extra crits... all this for 3 AP per swing. That said, due to the entirely different playstyle (skills have longer reach, damage range is ridiculously wide, so you will take more risks...) I won't say that twohanders are definitely weaker, just that comparing them to dual wielding is like comparing apples and oranges. Keep in mind that there is precisely 1 type of weapon that benefits from more than one weapon ability, which is the type introduced in the EE, the wand, with Wand working in tandem with Dual Wield. This is reasonable because as opposed to every other weapon type, you cannot improve wands' base damage either with blacksmithing or crafting.
Wand
Wands are in a peculiar position, because they were an EE addition, NOT part of the original game, and their haphazard balancing reflects that. As stated above, there are a couple of hardcoded disadvantages of wands that do feel on one hand, totally arbitrary, on the other, a halfhearted effort at best. Wands are hands-down the best weapon for earlygame, and the Inquisitor preset class, which not only comes with 2 wands out of the box, but features the two wands you'll most commonly use to interact with the environment is so much better than any other preset mage class, it's not even funny. Wands' innate 100% accuracy means you can disregard INT entirely till you have about 10-12 AP. In a dual LW playthrough you will unlock Dual Wielding 5 at level 7 at which point you will face a choice. You can either continue along the wand route by starting to raise Wand, exchanging an easy lategame for an easy midgame and a harder-than-usual lategame or you can begin to gradually lessen your reliance on wands and slowly start to take on a vanilla spellcaster role, having a harder time till you can finally respec at lvl 13, then ditching wands entirely. The reason wands are doomed to a sucky lategame is that the primary advantage of wands is their reliability, which traditional weapons won't be able to match early on. In order not to eclipse every other weapon throughout the entire game, the developers made sure once that advantage is gone, wands become sub-par after completely dominating early on. They still managed to kill the staff, the original mages' weapon of choice in OS, which was little more than stats-on-a-stick. Well, post-level-13 wands do the same as staffs were intended to do, the difference is, staffs are TWO-handed. Thus, there's no reason to use clumsy, melee staffs anymore because why limit yourself to one stat-on-a-stick when you can just as easily have 2? One way or another, wands irrevocably usurped staffs and the game's design will make sure you use them pretty much throughout the game if you're a mage. That's not a good thing at all.
One more thing about wands: they come equipped with 3 charges - or 4, if you take a particular talent - of a preset spell. On paper it sounds great, because if you want to use wands, you have to devote about two-thirds of your skill points to that pursuit, which doesn't leave room for much else, but these are unlike scrolls in the respect that they match the spells' actual AP cost, along with their prerequisites. All this means you will NEVER cast wand-spells willingly. Wands deal only elemental damage, so they disregard Armor Rating, another reason why they are flat-out better in Cyseal than other weapons. There are a couple of fights where this makes things a bit nasty, but usually there are ways around them. A good rule of thumb is that wands' stated damage and their actual damage, while lower, is much closer than other weapons', but as the game goes on and resistances get higher and higher, wands will actually get weaker as sources of damage. Again, the game itself is railroading you into both using them earlygame, then for all intents and purposes abandoning them lategame as anything but pieces of equipment granting various stat bonuses.
Defence
Armour Specialist
Needed to wear some really awesome endgame STR-based armors... Not a priority, but nice to have if you have an OMGWTFBBQ piece of gear to go with it. IMPORTANT: Crafted armors NEVER need Armour Specialist, and in 9 cases out of 10 they beat 'stock' armours. That tenth case, however is MEGA EPIC.
Body Building
Important stat from midgame onwards, 1 is borderline mandatory on all chars, as it enables you to take the Morning Person talent. An endgame value of 3 or more is recommended.
Shield Specialist
In my humble opinion, it is useless. Weapons have better enhancement options than shields, it doesn't work against magic, and doesn't help you deal damage to end the fight quicker. Nevertheless, you might like the playstyle of an impotent turtling block of meat SS is there to enable? I don't judge... too harshly  UPDATE: To avoid confusion: They add resistances to magic, BUT gear-based resistance is capped at 80%, which you can achieve without counting the shield slot. Therefore it is better to convert the shield slot into another weapon slot, which has more offensive enhancement options.
Willpower
Almost completely useless in a Lone Wolf run, but not fo r the reasons you think. The most dangerous statuses are, in order, Charmed, Feared, Stunned and Cursed... but you can make the two main characters immune to 3 of the 4 via Traits, and the remaining 1 via a piece of gear. Thus, you simply don't need extra saving throw chances against them.
Skills
Aerothurge
Notable spells: Bitter Cold, Teleport.
Recommended level: 1*
Overall school rating: 1/10
Teleport is an invaluable out-of-combat spell, one member of the party should learn it. Bitter Cold is a cheap, reliable earlygame CC-tool which can be handy early on. The rest of the school is utter garbage, except Storm, which is borderline useful. Storm, being a master spell, cannot justify a 4-point investment by itself.
*Due to how Respecialization works, you can learn any spell provided you meet the requirements, then after having learned it, reallocate your points needed to learn the spell elsewhere. You will receive an AP penalty(+2 for each level of Aerothurge under the recommended value) but you keep the spell(s). Gaming the system is possible for the nefariously inclined: As all Master-level spells have a recommended skill value of 4, you can go up to level 5 for the perk of memorizing an extra Master-spell, then respec, and only keep a skill value of 4. You will have both Master-spells at your disposal for 5 ability points less than intended. If your character is an allrounder mage, as is common in lone wolf runs, you can save up to 15 ability points in this manner. In theory, you could save even more if you master more than 3 kinds of magic, but your character would suffer.
THE LATEST PATCH AS OF WRITING THIS FIXED THIS LOOPHOLE
Expert Marksman
Notable skills: Riochet, Ranged Precision Stance, Ranged Power Stance, Rain of Arrows, Absorb the Elements.
Recommended level: 4 (for ranger chars)
Overall school rating: 6/10
Expert Marksman is a ranger skill first and foremost, and you'll find most of it geared towards a ranged character. You'll LOVE Riochet and Precision Stance, these are useful throughout the game. Since you won't be investing in Perception, assuming the Precision stance is standard protocol. IMPORTANT: As opposed to Man-at-Arms skills, both Ranger skills and special arrows HAVE 100% INNATE ACCURACY. If a target is somehow incapacitated - Frozen, Stunned, Knocked Down, Petrified, Slipping - all your attacks will gain an automatic 100% chance to hit, which is why Power Stance is useful; as soon as a status kicks in, you can switch and inflict terrible, terrible damage. KEEP IN MIND that incapacitating a target also grants pinpoint accuracy TO MELEE ATTACKS. This means that as soon as someone is out for the count, you can stack damage boosters on each other without regard to accuracy - Melee Power Stance, Raged, Oath of Desecration, BULLY... You might notice that while Crossbow shots cost 5 AP normally, firing special arrows have a fixed cost of 4AP instead. This, coupled with the fact that special arrows are cheap and plentiful - you can even craft a special arrow that is completely devoid of additional effects, just to cover all possible bases - means that eventually you'll be firing a mixture of skills and special arrows only, and LAUGH at folks who chose a bow because shots are cheaper that way and found it necessary to get perception to ensure 100% accuracy  UPDATE: Elvin tells me to note that the range of skills and special arrows is considerably smaller than vanilla shots and that the special arrows don't crit.
Ever since resistance-stacking got nerfed - in the original game, the resistances you got from gear were uncapped, so you could easily end up with 150%-200% resistances to multiple elements lategame from gear alone - skills like Absorb the Elements became more important. It is still possible to get your character to heal from all elements lategame, but now it requires a specific build and even then, you won't heal much. One of the necessary skills of that build is Absorb the Elements.
ATTENTION! IMPORTANT CRAFTING INFO!
CRAFTING 101
CRAFTING 102
Geomancer
Notable skills: Bless, Boulder Bash, Midnight Oil, Summon Spider, Tectonic Spray, Earthquake.
Recommended level: 4
Overall school rating: 8/10
Doesn't look like it at first glance, but this is one of two crowd-control schools. It has the best summon in the game, which is also the easiest to unlock, Summon Spider. Its immense size and considerable HP makes the spider the most tactically viable summon in the game. Sure it may not hit for much, but line-of-sight denial coupled with litres of oil liberally sprayed all over the battlefield via Boulder Bash and Midnight Oil - lategame even Earthquake, which is a gigantic, extremely reliable CC spell - means the field becomes hard to navigate and even then, there's the spider as the last line of defense. In Lone Wolf runs, the Spider is your best friend, scout, and near-permanent extra party member all rolled into one. I may not care for Erwan much, but this game converted me to arachnophilia. 
Bless is for when you need the fighters/rangers of the group to reliably hit. On a self-sufficient mage, it is worse than useless, but on a support mage it's good in earlygame and passable mid-to-lategame.
Tectonic Spray has a willpower saving throw, which is important because unlike most CC effects, you can combo it with Lower Willpower. You will most likely not need it past midgame, but until then it's very strong.
Note Geomancy's strong synergy with Pyromancy. Also note how much having a Fire-immune char also synergyses with both. In layman's terms:
Quote:
Of course you should fight fire with fire! You should fight EVERYTHING with fire!
Hydrosophist
Notable skills: Rain, Heal, Ice Shard, Piercing Ice Shard, Ice Wall, Hail Attack, Winterblast, Water of Life
Recommended level: 5
Overall school rating: 10/10
I cannot overstate how strong Hydrosophist is. If you have a caster, 1 point in Hydro earlygame is almost mandatory due to Rain and Heal, and then it's easier to justify further investments, when you have stuff like Ice Wall waiting for you. Early on, most of your battles will be about strategic rain casting, then electrifying the resulting water. Then, as you get 5 crafting and 2-3 Hydro Ice surfaces will begin to look more attractive... because Ice surfaces make your opponents slip. It's even better than electrifying water because you will have immunity to slipping by then on all your characters, so it's pretty one-sided. Ice Wall is HYPER-SUPER-MEGA-GIGA-ATOM-ROBOT AWESOME. It creates a large physical barrier, with ice around the edges, then after a while the barrier explodes and a huge ice surface is left behind. A well-placed Ice Wall spell can turn whole battles around. Not only does it make for an excellent choke point, you can force the AI to skirt its edges and BOOM! Mass Knockdown, ready for all your Bullies! Winterblast is all this and more: It creates an instant surface of ice AND it's one of the most damaging spells in the game.
Piercing Ice shard is in a peculiar position, as you cannot acquire it in the usual way, and by the time you do obtain it, master-level spells are just around the corner, but on a dedicated Hydro-only mage in a party of 4... the possibilities are endless. Water of Life is the one healing spell you can't mess up the timing of, a party of 4 definitely wants it.
Man-At-Arms
Notable skills: Battering ram, Whirlwind, Flurry
Recommended level: 5, more on this later
Overall school rating: 7/10
Man-At-Arms is a very efficient, but rather bland school. This is the 'Tank' skill tree. The only one for tanks, really. Rangers have the option to invest in scoundrel for when they get cornered and vice versa for rogues, mages can multiclass at least 2 complementing schools easily, while fighters get this one active skill. Most of the school is geared towards maximizing your terrible, terrible damage, with the most reliable long-range knockdowns in the game, Rage and Power Stance to be toggled after your opening Battering Ram... You have Whirlwind for when foes surround you, a multitude of stances to adapt to different situations... It's certainly strong, but much less flashy compared to other skillsets. Efficient, but not inherently fun. You basically wade in and spam attacks. No variety, no pressure to find just the right skill for any situation as with mages, you have your options forced on you - Man-At-Arms is unique in that you can learn ALL skills with a skill level of 5 - There is only an illusion of choice. Not that fighters aren't good per se, on the contrary they are ridiculously powerful, but so mindlessly, soul-crushingly BORING. Recommended for beginners.
The variety that IS available to fighters is that they can devote a proportionally larger amount of ability points to flavor schools. I tend to make my fighters the crafters/leaders of the group... Well, to be honest I always take Leadership on all my characters, but that comes with the Lone Wolf run; if you want leadership, you have to take it with both chars. If I were playing a 3 or 4-man team, fighters would still be the crafters/leaders, BUT that is not the only option; You can go Willpower/Bodybuilding to create a selfish asskicking machine with a point-and-kill interface instead. Why you will never deviate from these two types will be discussed later.
Pyrokinetic
Notable skills: Wildfire, Purifying Fire, Meteorstrike
Recommended level: 4
Overall school rating: 5/10
I'll have to preface this with a brief history lesson: Before the EE came out, Fire was OP as snow. Not so much because it is the most damage-oriented school, which it still is in the EE, but because resistance gains from gear were uncapped as opposed to now where you are limited to 80% resist from gear. (For comparison, on my first full playthrough I had amassed 150%-ish resist from gear alone, without consciously going for it... which was then gimped to 80% ofc)
Thus, the entire school was developed with this in mind, and while the EE took away a Master spell that created Lava surfaces, a lot of this still remains with skills such as Explode and Self-Immolation. For all intents and purposes Fire spells doubled as AoE healing, but the EE stripped the healing away except for specific builds who in turn cannot make use of Pyrokinetic fully. So Fire became obsolete earlygame and STUPIDLY POWERFUL lategame. Remember how I said that Storm alone does not warrant 4 points in Aerothurge? Well, Meteorstrike does. Pyro has a moderately useful haste spell and an average anti-status pseudo-cure spell but you don't strictly need either, you just take them because you have room for them lategame. Flare and Fireball suck balls; wands outdamage them easily for much less AP and potentially the same field effects. You don't need Pyrokinetic to turn the field into a fiery pit of hell if desire, but it does help a bit... LATEGAME. Early on, Pyro just suxxorz. Its only saving grace is Meteorstrike, which is kinda an 'I win'-button for most of your fights once you get it. BOOOOOOORING. 
Scoundrel
Notable skills: Haste, Walk in Shadows, Adrenaline, Winged Feet, Cloak and Dagger
Recommended level: 2
Overall school rating: 6/10
Scoundrel is an excellent non-INT-based support school, but its offensive skills suck. In particular, the Master-level skills fail to impress: Crawling Infestation needs an inordinate amount of time, Coup de Grace is redundant, Wind-up Toy is laughably bad... Shadowstep is passable but as the Adept-level skills are a bad joke, and Shadowstep is only just average, significant investment in this school is a bad idea. Use the powerful (and fun!) Novice abilities(and Cloak and Dagger) to flit around the field and backstab, backstab, backstab
Witchcraft
Notable skills: Oath of Desecration, Lower Willpower, Rapture, Soulsap, Summon Undead Warrior, Summon Undead Decapitator, Resurrect
Recommended level: 4
Overall school rating: 9/10
This school is so deliciously evil...  Oath of Desecration is a huge buff, Lower Willpower+Rapture is a combo you can depend upon, Summon Undead Warrior is to be your backup summon for when you don't have enough AP for the spider OR spider is already dead but you can't yet resummon, Decapitator is the designated mundane damage dealer of mage-heavy parties, most useful in fights where you are vastly outnumbered. Don't ever take resurrect, scrolls are just as useful and there's a LOT of them. My first playthrough, I played a resurrection-heavy pair of Lone Wolves, and I still had no less than 28 spare scrolls by the end, without consciously hoarding them. Soulsap is your friend in bossfights, and the key to bringing down the nastiest mofos quick. (One-turn-killing the Void Dragon, for example) Rest of the school is pretty much garbage, except perhaps Destroy Summon. There are a couple fights in which DS comes in very handy, but a ton of fights when it is useless... It's very situational is what I'm saying.
Note that Blood surfaces give Elemental Affinity bonus to Witchcraft spells.
Personality skills
I'm grouping these together, because they are luxury skills besides Leadership which is infinitely more useful and deserves a subsection of its own. Bartering, Charisma, Telekinesis... It's always nice to have some points in these, but rather than investing them, you're better off having the points come entirely from temporary gear that you reserve for specific situations. Telekinesis can get you extra loot... but only in a few areas, and most times even then you can figure out a harder alternate way to get it. It can make your life easier... but not by much. Bartering is always nice to have, but frankly, unless you set yourself extra limitations, you will never lack money for long no matter how you play. Charisma gets you plenty of extra XP... but as you can nearly always get an extra point just for situational awareness, and you can try charisma checks as many times as you're comfortable with, it's strictly a roleplay element how much you are willing to sacrifice in charisma points to save you time later on. Plus, even if you do invest in it, it's only ever useful on ONE of your two main characters and utterly pointless to take on secondary characters because they will never ever run a charisma check.
A short note on Leadership: you are advised to select character traits that result in both your main characters having 1 point in it, in Lone Wolf runs both your characters are advised to get at least rank 4 as soon as they maxed their specialty - so for dualwanders for example right after they max dual wielding at levels 7-8. In 4-man teams, the character with the highest amount of disposable ability points should aim for Leadership 4, preferably 6, and a secondary leader should get at the very least rank 2 in the skill. Will explain and elaborate later.
Nasty Deeds
... are collectively a bunch of useless roleplay-enhancing gimmick skills that aren't even worth the pain in my fingers to properly explain why they suck so hard. Nevertheless, I'll get around to it one day cause I am a masochistic b@st@rd, but in the meantime: STAY THE BLEEP AWAY FROM THIS HEAP OF GARBAGE. You'll thank me later.
To be continued
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Friend-shaped
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Galaad
Hero of Order
Li mort as morz, li vif as vis
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posted January 06, 2016 12:50 PM |
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Yessssssssssss
Meanwhile started 2nd playthrough in tactician mode, I'm sure Poly would redo all my builds but I'll let know how it turns out. After many thoughts and a few tests I finally settled for custom Inquisitor (dualwand future glasscannon, Pyro/Witchcraft)/Shadowblade(lone wolf, Scoundrel/Dual wielding).
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The_Polyglot
Promising
Supreme Hero
channeling capybara energy
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posted January 06, 2016 02:49 PM |
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Galaad said:
After many thoughts and a few tests I finally settled for custom Inquisitor (dualwand future glasscannon, Pyro/Witchcraft)/Shadowblade(lone wolf, Scoundrel/Dual wielding).
I'll get around to it in the guide eventually, just a quick note here: A dualwander mage is very different from a regular mage, he's a ranged character first and foremost, with only the most basic utility spells. Trying to force them to take on regular mage duties will not exactly ruin the character, but weaken them considerably.
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Galaad
Hero of Order
Li mort as morz, li vif as vis
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posted January 06, 2016 03:12 PM |
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Edited by Galaad at 15:14, 06 Jan 2016.
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Hm, things are going fine insofar but what would you suggest then? I am still enough early game to start over without it being bothersome if you think I went with what could become a very bad option later. I went very different from my first playthrough, where I had two-handed Man-at-arms Fighter with Air/Water Wizard (with rogue and ranger as henchmen).
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The_Polyglot
Promising
Supreme Hero
channeling capybara energy
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posted January 06, 2016 03:18 PM |
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Use your mage as a dualwander till around level 13, then respec him into a regular mage. The guide will explain in more detail.
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Elvin
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
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posted January 07, 2016 11:55 AM |
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I decided to restart too, as having two ranged characters(crossbowwoman, dualwander) did not hold my interest. Also tactician mode has very slow pacing which detracts from the experience. Some battles make it totally worth it for the new surprises but most are just painfully slow.
Currently running with male two-hander, female witchcraft/water/air dualwander, classic Wolfgraf and Baidotr. It is fun to support the team with only one spellcaster and rogues have enjoyable gameplay.
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H5 is still alive and kicking, join us in the Duel Map discord server!
Map also hosted on Moddb
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Galaad
Hero of Order
Li mort as morz, li vif as vis
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posted January 07, 2016 12:42 PM |
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Edited by Galaad at 15:59, 10 Jan 2016.
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Tactician mode is just too addictive, forces you to use anything around you and plan a bit, battles suddenly become much more fun and interesting. Just made the Lighthouse at level 3, was lucky enough to have a Frost grenade to delay the wolves, the ghoul slipped and knockeddown  , then classic destroy poison barrels + fire wand BAM BAM BAM, Shadowblade is freaking awesome and always critics on backstab, coupled with good amount of APs it looks like total death. Love rogues, Scoundrel skills might be my fav so far. Got a cleric henchman that will go Hydro and mostly have a supportive role.
Just noticed Perception influences chances for crit too, following Poly's advice for my dualwander mage with focus on Speed.
Edit @Poly: Thanks for the update about Perception
Edit2: Lol restarted over as I noticed traits influence. 
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The_Polyglot
Promising
Supreme Hero
channeling capybara energy
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posted January 10, 2016 08:07 PM |
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Sorry guys, RL issues attacked my free time, guide is not abandoned, just sleeping
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Elvin
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
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posted January 11, 2016 08:29 AM |
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Currently experimenting. Restarted a few times to eventually settle with dual lone wolf rogue and mage. Previous one was lone wolf two-hander with glass cannon mage and archer, heavily geared to bully combos. Sweet sweet damage. Rogue with mage support is squishier but also more interesting to play. We'll see how that goes on tactician mode.
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H5 is still alive and kicking, join us in the Duel Map discord server!
Map also hosted on Moddb
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Galaad
Hero of Order
Li mort as morz, li vif as vis
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posted January 11, 2016 02:38 PM |
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Edited by Galaad at 14:58, 11 Jan 2016.
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Hehehe, I really love Rogue/Mage combo, only my Rogue is lonewolf and I hired Jahan this time, he's not that bad after all, in fact he's even pretty good don't know why I ditched him on my first playthrough. So now I'm entering Northern Cave with Rogue/Dualwander-Mage/Mage, all lvl 5, insofar things are going very smooth.
@Poly: Sorry to hear that mate, hope things will get better and glad to hear your awesome guide is not dead, looking forward to read some more. 
Ps. What's the business with the Twin Dungeons? I don't understand.
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Elvin
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
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posted January 11, 2016 03:03 PM |
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Each gives you the elemental combination of the other. Just.. be prepared! When you press the combination in one dungeon somethinh happens on the other one
You should be fine in the cove at lvl 5. As a rogue the end battle should prove easier too.
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H5 is still alive and kicking, join us in the Duel Map discord server!
Map also hosted on Moddb
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Galaad
Hero of Order
Li mort as morz, li vif as vis
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posted January 11, 2016 03:55 PM |
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Hm, thanks for the hint.
Oops I mistyped, I meant Northern Cave not Black Cove, just finished Fabulous Five and SparkMaster, so lvl 6. 
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Elvin
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
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posted January 12, 2016 08:57 AM |
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I do not yet know if grenades are all that worth it but man, am I loving them They complement the rogue's adaptability and frail hp so nicely. They can offer some sweet control, especially with winged feet that make you immune to surfaces. You cannot always afford to start a battle with a stealthy backstab and I often use them mid-battle.
You can start the battle with special arrows first but wasting 4AP to later equip your daggers.. not a solution that thrills me. It would seem that I'll be picking pinpoint soon
PS good job poly, keep it up 
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H5 is still alive and kicking, join us in the Duel Map discord server!
Map also hosted on Moddb
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Galaad
Hero of Order
Li mort as morz, li vif as vis
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posted January 12, 2016 12:22 PM |
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Elvin said:
I do not yet know if grenades are all that worth it but man, am I loving them
YES!
It's a good thing you won't find that many so you have to use them when you really need them, otherwise it would make everything too easy. All my chars have some, one thing I tend to do a lot if enemies are vulnerable to fire is to send a poison grenade, then fire wand. It's so useful it even creates a smoke screen so shooters don't see you and have to loose AP turns for repositioning. The Pirate Bowmen can do nasty damage and I did a priority to block them, sometimes even with just a dazzle grenade. I have a thing for Frost ones too, not only it freezes but there is the slip, slip, knockdown, knockdown, , useful when surrounded.
I have to admit I miss playing with a ranger but the Rogue/Dualwander mage combo makes it totally worth it.
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The_Polyglot
Promising
Supreme Hero
channeling capybara energy
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posted January 12, 2016 12:47 PM |
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@Galaad:
Get crafting. In particular explosive grenades are super easy and cheap to craft in mass( empty bottle + oil > bottle of oil + fuse > explosive grenade), but the rest is doable as well.
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PandaTar
Responsible
Legendary Hero
Celestial Heavens Mascot
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posted January 12, 2016 03:20 PM |
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Divinity Community, then? =D
I'm thinking on buying this game as well, when next sale brings in some interesting discount, say, 95%. =D 20-33% shall do.
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"Okay. Look. We both said a lot of things that you're going to regret. But I think we can put our differences behind us. For science. You monster."
GlaDOS – Portal 2
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