Hi,

I am just starting original sin with a buddy of mine and I want to get the character creation right, so I dont regrett it halfway through. Therefore I am wondering if I understand the coop mode correctly.

Do we get a total of two companions, so the whole party will be 4 players?

Do we have full control over the companions, the same way we have over our main chars?

If that is the case my plan is to get the two companions (and no henchmen) - the knight and the wizard - and than choose a backstabbing rogue myself and my buddy will play some kind of caster. I first wanted to make a two handed warrior but if one of the companions is already a knight with man to arms skill a rogue might be more fun.

Does this plan make sense :-) ?

Yes, as long as neither main character takes the Lone Wolf talent.

You have full control over how you developer the companions, and what they do in combat. They have their own personalities / conversations / comments on events, and if you tick them off too much they can leave the party (if they will talk to you, you may be able to bribe them to come back).

Either another knight or a rouge would be fine. If you take Jahan and let your friend recruit Madora, then you'd each have a mage and melee character. While a rouge can certainly be effective, even if you went with another knight you'd likely developer them a little differently.

Backstabbing is a nice attack but there are times when you really don't want to be standing next to the target… some kind of a Ranger/ Rogue hybrid with a bow & dagger has better all-round combat serviceability.

Put witchcraft on Jahan asap or your buddy takes it on the start , and use oath of desecration on your rogue :P (+50% damage)

A ranger / rogue has more survability though , i agree.

allright, I think I am just gonna stick with the shadowblade that I started and add backstab as soon as possible, I looked at the skilltrees (wichcraft, aerotheurge and scoundrel) and although its probably not a beginnerfriendly class, I think I can do some fun stuff with it, if I give it some thought.

well many players picked the talent which heal when a character bleed (was nerfed in the latest patch) and the talent which heal with poison. (but the character can't be healed normaly).

After having said tthat; personnaly i didnt take those talent and went with the hard way :

actually

i use scarlet has a ranger / mage (not really for damage except for spell combinations small fireball + poison = boom ^^) with spider / wolf + plenty of buffs + ranger stances / barrage & ricochet -> works well in normal (don't think in hard i would have picked this combinaison).
However i could have used the fire arrows + poison arrows for same result as mentioned above (problem is = it's not possible to craft fire arrowhead :/ )

roderick is a cleric with shield (the % of blocking o_O) = man at arms + healing spells and backup users in water magic

added withcraft to Jahan, the lvl 11 summon is quite good (except vs fire)

Madora , all the way in man at arms for the moment = massive damage.

the result isn't optimized that's for sure , but at least i have challenge, i recently put Glass canon on Scarlett & Jahan = this is so much more easy.....

I agree the amount of debuff my front line take in its face is..... no comment.

secondly mage are unbalanced in another way, you can craft any spells but you can't for & archer, warrior , rogue skills . Considering you can respect your character = the trade off is loosing every skills : I won't respect a rogue / warrior or an archer = because some skills are impossible to get through vendors even in your homestead. -> that's a game flaw ihmo and why it's impossible to craft those skills is beyond me.

My first playthrough (still on it) I made a Witch and a Ranger from the start. The opening battles my witch would cast midnight oil then my ranger would shoot . a fire arrow into it to set the enemies ablaze.

I then recruited Madora for a two-handed tank. As soon as Hall of Heroes opened (fairly early in the game) I hired a level 1 cleric named Clarissa (or something close to that). I used the trick to get her from lvl 1 to my lvl (4) and she has become a very important member of the team. She's focusing on barter and lucky charm, so she handles all the openings of containers and the bartering, and hydro/healing spells. She is also a badass support warrior behind Madora as she has heavy armor , shields, and crushing clubs. She also came with pack mule talent ....

I went to the orc camp at prob too early a lvl (4) and they destroyed me try after try until I discovered a great strategy to win when you are up against very hard battles - I found Clarissa could pick up oil barrels in her inventory. So now, I separate her from the team, sneak as close to the enemy as I can, drop the barrel, then become visible to draw the enemies towards me - especially the main boss/shamans etc. Then my ranger hits the barrel with a fire arrow and BOOM! Hardest enemies dead in one shot. Then its just a matter of beating the weaker minions.

Now to your question:
For my next playthrough I'm planning on creating a lonewolf Rogue to advance his abilities asap, and a wizard focusing on aerothurge spells mainly so I can teleport my rogue (hidden) behind enemies for backstab. My rogue will be the head of the party for all interactions, and I will be able to recruit or hire one more member. I have not decided yet who I want for the 3rd. If a fighter or cleric, I will hire one from Hall of Heroes. If a Ranger or another Wizard, I'll recruit the ones in the town. It's going to be a hard decision.

Anyway, for your co-op I would recommend having one of you go lone wolf to powerup faster, and end up with a 3 party team, but this is just theory as I havent tried it yet.

Looking at the date of your initial post though I imagine you've already played and finished your co-op game ;)