God DAMN Divinity II is addictive

[ManjuShri]

Ranger is rather underwhelming so far, it's simply point and click. Will give it a chance for a few more hours before respeccing however.

 

[Average Manatee]

Booting it up again, going to play as a ranger instead of mage this time. Any tips?

Easiest build in the game. Way Of The Ranger + Splitting Arrow and Explosive Arrow plus whatever else you like.

How quickly can you kill the final boss of Flames of Vengeance with this?

A pure warrior can finish the fight in under 10 seconds.

Killing something with a fully pumped up Splitting Arrow is measured by time taken to run up to the enemy + time taken to press the skill button. Firing 15 arrows in one shot, all doing full damage + buffs, is ridiculous. It also recharges in something like 3-5 seconds.

Explosive Arrow is just a nuke spell thats something like 2x as deadly as what mages have, 2x less expensive, and recharges several times faster.

 

[Admiral jimbob]

Is splitting arrow basically NWN-era Isaac's Missile Storm? Thinking of rolling Ranger when I replay myself.

 

[DraQ]

Killing something with a fully pumped up Splitting Arrow is measured by time taken to run up to the enemy + time taken to press the skill button. Firing 15 arrows in one shot, all doing full damage + buffs, is ridiculous. It also recharges in something like 3-5 seconds.

Don't forget that ranger builds typically have high crit chance on top of that.

And in terms of buffs you will usually have WoTR up when using bow.

Hideous, hideous amount of damage.

Is splitting arrow basically NWN-era Isaac's Missile Storm? Thinking of rolling Ranger when I replay myself.

It's basically shooting a number of extra arrows (up to 15 I think) at once, preferentially aimed at different targets, but perfectly capable of hitting just one if the range is very close or there aren't enough targets.

Other than that they behave like normal.

Check out the skill vid in the menu to see how it looks like.

 

[abnaxus]

Don't forget that ranger builds typically have high crit chance on top of that.

What do you mean? Do bows have higher base crit chance? AFAIK dexterity doesn't increase crit chance, it increases crit damage along with ranged damage and ranged DR.

Dual-wielding swords can easily get 100% crit chance with enchanting and Death Blow skill.

 

[DraQ]

I may be wrong, I'm not an expert on Div2 mechanics, and I've occasionally been wrong even about games I do know well.

Quoting particularly psychotic Wiz8 PC voice commenting on friendly fire:
"Accidents *will* happen".

 

[thesoup]

In the final boss fight, I had my creature and my demon + a random demon I charmed. Bitch was pretty resistant to magic and she healed herself nonstop on top of that. Her health went down quickly thanks to my mob and spells + WotBM. Her health dropped to half and I finished her off with Fatality which I had almost maxed out from all the extra skillpoints which I didn't really need. I didn't actually expect Fatality to work on a boss.

How did you guys defeat Ba'al in the Hall of Echoes? He was a tough one because he could kill me with one overpowered Magic Blast. Luckily, I was able to cast it before him, paralyzing him for 3-4 seconds, and finish him off in the next 3 hits. It took a while, though, because his Magic Blast and the Memory Eaters around me would usually gang rape me.

 

[DraQ]

Her health dropped to half and I finished her off with Fatality which I had almost maxed out from all the extra skillpoints which I didn't really need. I didn't actually expect Fatality to work on a boss.

Fatality is underrated. Yeah, it doesn't give as much bang for your buck as maxing out something that actually deals damage - magic blast, magic missiles, thousand strikes, etc.

What people don't realize is that fatality often allows you to instakill target before it even starts healing itself meaning it doesn't *need* to give you more damage per use.

 

[abnaxus]

You get so many free skill books in Flames of Vengeance that it is impossible not to max out most of your warrior skills. Not to mention the uber warrior set gives +5 to a couple of warrior skills.

Final boss: rush attack + thousand strikes + fatality. Done. Lulz.

But you can also build a ridiculously powerful melee creature with Fatality 15. I've had it happen for said creature to finish off bosses.

 

[sea]

In the final boss fight, I had my creature and my demon + a random demon I charmed. Bitch was pretty resistant to magic and she healed herself nonstop on top of that. Her health went down quickly thanks to my mob and spells + WotBM. Her health dropped to half and I finished her off with Fatality which I had almost maxed out from all the extra skillpoints which I didn't really need. I didn't actually expect Fatality to work on a boss.

How did you guys defeat Ba'al in the Hall of Echoes? He was a tough one because he could kill me with one overpowered Magic Blast. Luckily, I was able to cast it before him, paralyzing him for 3-4 seconds, and finish him off in the next 3 hits. It took a while, though, because his Magic Blast and the Memory Eaters around me would usually gang rape me.

Both of them were quite difficult for me. I played a pure mage with basically nothing boosting HP, and I could only stand to take a few hits at most through most of the game. However, having maxed-out fireballs and magic missiles meant I could usually spam my way to glory while my summons tanked. Winning the boss fights was basically just a matter of constantly running and dodging attacks while taking pot shots every few seconds - make a mistake and you're dead. In retrospect, it would have probably been smarter to focus more on defense.

 

[DraQ]

Final boss in DKS is quite resistant to magic so I guess she'll be relatively easy for characters focusing on physical damage and hard otherwise.

 

[Phelot]

The General Raze fight might be the worst boss battle design to ever make it into a video game.

 

[thesoup]

Is that the one with healing tanks or whatever? I beat him in 5 seconds on hard and I didn't even have fatality then.

 

[DraQ]

The General Raze fight might be the worst boss battle design to ever make it into a video game.

I kind of enjoyed most of the "worst battle designs" in Divinity 2. They were often frustrating and definite bumps on the difficulty curve, but they were beatable and more satisfying than if the curve was progressing smoothly.

Divinity 2 reminds me of the old times when the game could bend player over and rape him in the ass without warning, and still be considered good and enjoyable, because the player would man the fuck up and beat it rather than crying and running back to mommy/gamefags/command console/gentler and dumber game with overt level scaling.

 

[abnaxus]

The General Raze fight might be the worst boss battle design to ever make it into a video game.

"I am legendary Hiems, winter itself, come to freeze your soul!"

Divinity 2 has the best trolling dialogue options ever.

 

[Phelot]

Is that the one with healing tanks or whatever? I beat him in 5 seconds on hard and I didn't even have fatality then.

I suspect it has to do with particular builds. I don't recall having trouble with him my last playthrough. It was mostly the tedium, not difficulty. Those stupid spawning armor dudes would block me from getting to him in time or the damn timer on the lever would run out.

I kind of enjoyed most of the "worst battle designs" in Divinity 2. They were often frustrating and definite bumps on the difficulty curve, but they were beatable and more satisfying than if the curve was progressing smoothly.

Divinity 2 reminds me of the old times when the game could bend player over and rape him in the ass without warning, and still be considered good and enjoyable, because the player would man the fuck up and beat it rather than crying and running back to mommy/gamefags/command console/gentler and dumber game with overt level scaling.

Well, now that I beat him (almost immediately after making that post ) it doesn't seem that bad, but it is still a tedious boss, not difficult. I like difficult, not tedium.

The General Raze fight might be the worst boss battle design to ever make it into a video game.

"I am legendary Hiems, winter itself, come to freeze your soul!"

Divinity 2 has the best trolling dialogue options ever.

Heh. Yeah, that's the choice I made. Dragon Terror Patrol or whatever it is is still my favorite. Larians got a good sense of humor that carried over from Div1.

 

[DraQ]

Well, now that I beat him (almost immediately after making that post ) it doesn't seem that bad, but it is still a tedious boss, not difficult. I like difficult, not tedium.

Tedium is when you slowly whittle down someone's obnoxiously large HP buffer.

A boss that simply reliably heals back to full health unlimited amount of times isn't tedious because he can't be defeated by putting in a lot of time, nor does putting in a lot of time makes your situation any better.

 

[ManjuShri]

Well, now that I beat him (almost immediately after making that post ) it doesn't seem that bad, but it is still a tedious boss, not difficult. I like difficult, not tedium.

Just killed him an hour ago to complete the Ulthring set, I remember him being more trouble on my first playthrough as a mage. Just entered Aleroth now after finding the ship pieces which is probably my most disliked part of the game although not as bad as the first time once again.

Onto Ba'al now, who gave me lots of problems before.

 

[abnaxus]

A lot of fights were made harder since Larian fixed the retarded level based damage.

Zagan fight is probably toughest, since it involves an enclosed space, dragon form and a shitload of flying enemies.

Ba'al has a deadly magic blast capable of one-shotting.

Dragon Terror Patrol, as retarded as they are, are pretty difficult as well. Archer with explosive arrows, one sorcerer with magic blast and two powerful melee fighters capable of instaraep.

 

[Tel Prydain]

I really wanted to love this... wanted to so badly. But the damn thing seemed so floaty that I couldn't force myself to play it.

 

[ManjuShri]

Yes they were the hardest fight, almost killed one second after the battle begins but I ran away into a tower and picked them off one by one. Ba'al was actually disappointingly easy this time around, either rangers are extraordinarily overpowered or I botched my mage. Second hardest fight was the Divine and Zandalor in the dream sequence, died a few times before using the pillars to my advantage.

 

[thesoup]

The Zagan fight was a clusterfuck. Not really hard per se, but "WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?" hard. Bhaal was piss easy first time around, but freaking hard the second time when my creature died and I was instaraped by like 10 memory eaters and Ba'al's instakill magic blast.

Dragon Terror Squad was surprisingly hard. They went down eventually with some jumping around and kiting, but that did take a few reloads. They were so silly I underestimated them.

Divine and Zandalor was piss easy, though. I was running around, seeking cover so they can't shoot me with arrows or magic, charmed two random guys and slowly killed everyone. Didn't die once. Had the fight been in an arena like the second fight vs Ba'al, I'd probably be seriously fucked.
I can't stress enough how vital charm was for me. I wouldn't have won a bunch of battles without it, particularly the one vs dragon slayers before you enter Maxos' temple and vs four level 14 skeletons in a 5x5 locked room in that temple (was level 10 in that first fight and 11 in the second).

I'd rank Amdusias as the hardest fight in the game.


Also, what the hell happened to Maxos? I never found out anything about that. Is he a character from the first game?

 

[abnaxus]

Maxos disappeared centuries before Divine Divinity. In Flames of Vengeance Behrlihn mentions he knew him and Bellegar is probably from the same time as well.

 

[DraQ]

The Zagan fight was a clusterfuck. Not really hard per se, but "WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?" hard.

Zagan (in DKS) was actually the only fight I'd consider genuinely badly designed. You get stuck on the geometry a lot, even starting the fight in a semi-stuck state and have to fight HORDES of enemies in a very confined space.

As a dragon.

Also, what the hell happened to Maxos? I never found out anything about that. Is he a character from the first game?

There is a sarcophagus on Sentinel Island containing remains and note from "M." asking to be buried in the shadow of the Tower.

Doesn't *have* to be Maxos, but it's not improbable.

 

[abnaxus]

Also, what the hell happened to Maxos? I never found out anything about that. Is he a character from the first game?

There is a sarcophagus on Sentinel Island containing remains and note from "M." asking to be buried in the shadow of the Tower.

Doesn't *have* to be Maxos, but it's not improbable.

I played the game several times but never found that. But that is why the game is so awesome.