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Divinity seriesDivine Divinity: Am I playing wrong?(7 posts)(7 posts)
(7 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted November 04, 2018
I'm level 13, at the point where I have to get back to the castle via the sewers. I'm mostly spec'ed for mage. I've prioritized intelligence, but leveled other stats to 20 for a little extra health and minimum equipment stats.

My play style amounts to about 2 minutes of combat until magic and health run low, then rest. Often having to wait because I already rested to soon to do so again. Potions help extend this but they're limited in supply and I prefer to save them for critical fights.

I don't see much use in most of the skills. I spam meteor strike, but the rest of the magic skills seem useless, none help against hoards of enemies, trying out the summon skills showed them to be useless. I have guarding aura which helps a bit, and the one that boosts armor. But the crowd control spells that slow, freeze or debuff enemies last for so short a time they're again mostly useless. It's also terribly inconvenient to try to use multiple spells because even with hotkeys they don't case the spell, just switch to it, so in the thick of battle it means I have to pause, switch to cast guarding aura, pause, switch back to meteor, 15-20 seconds later repeat the process.

Do I just need to stick it out to higher levels for better skills? Or is my play strategy flawed? Have I missed something? I really want to like this game, I like the loot loop, the combat style, but it's just so stop & go it gets tedious. Thanks for any pointers!
Post edited November 04, 2018 by promethean.576
Posted November 04, 2018
I'm not experienced playing mages in Divinity, but I doubt it gets much better. Okay with more intelligence you have more mana and thus cann keep casting for longer, but iirc there are not many area efect spells and those don't help once you are surrounded.
In case you didn't know, eating bread or meat heals (I think) 20 hit points and gives a short boost in strength. I think there was also one type of food that restores mana but I don't recall which one. (Gamebanshee has an equipment database for Divinity, you can look it up there)

Anyway, playing as a fighter is easier because when you fight you don't tire as fast as you loose mana when casting spells. Plus bows and crossbows have unlimited ammo. And of course you can use your mana to cast healing spells so you can endure longer.
Posted November 05, 2018
There are decent area spells later on but mana is always a problem. At some point, mana regenerates on it's own. I'm surprised that you feel summons spells as useless as I swore by them. They kept the bad guys occupied while I used spells (and bows when mana ran out). The bonus at being a mage is you use much less red solutions (healing). I had a tough time with mages early on - really needed a sword early on - but by the end, I had an easier time smashing through the lesser enemies. One does have to learn which spells work best on which enemies, though.
Posted November 05, 2018
I managed to break through a bit, realized I could pack straw into a hay bed in my inventory and rest on-site, though rapid mana run down still meant I'd have to wait a few minutes, doing nothing, until I was allowed to rest again. The skeleton wall summons proved useful eventually. I thought I was making good progress, enjoying the game, until I hit Josephine at the Elven Burial grounds.

I seriously don't understand how this "boss" fight managed to pass the sniff test of legitimate (or fun) game design. I've read all the how-to guides I could find for defeating her. I killed all of the dwarves. With a mage build, she can one-shot me with her hell spikes, straight through the aura of protection spell. Summons last, literally, less than 3 seconds against her, so no distraction at all. Recommendations to curse her and then freeze her I found useless-- no amount of cursing made her vulnerable to freeze.

I know there's other methods to beating her that I don't have the right build for, and frankly at this point I'm so turned off from the game I've disengaged from the story and any sense of fun, so I'm not about to spend a few more hours trying to level enough to change my build in a direction that might help in this fight, because even then it seems like this fight is "hope you get lucky" and split-second pause pause pause pause process I just don't enjoy. That wasn't the game I'd already enjoyed, with some challenge, for more than a dozen hours. It wasn't a rage quit. It was really just a rational "Nope. Nope, that's not the game I started playing."

Before I quit though, I decided to at least beat her, by cheating. I used a save editor, a literally bumped all of my stats to over 1000. Roughly equivalent to a little under level 800. It was still a tough fight, lasted a few minutes and lost half my health.
Post edited November 05, 2018 by promethean.576
Posted November 05, 2018
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promethean.576: I managed to break through a bit, realized I could pack straw into a hay bed in my inventory and rest on-site, though rapid mana run down still meant I'd have to wait a few minutes, doing nothing, until I was allowed to rest again. The skeleton wall summons proved useful eventually. I thought I was making good progress, enjoying the game, until I hit Josephine at the Elven Burial grounds.

I seriously don't understand how this "boss" fight managed to pass the sniff test of legitimate (or fun) game design. I've read all the how-to guides I could find for defeating her. I killed all of the dwarves. With a mage build, she can one-shot me with her hell spikes, straight through the aura of protection spell. Summons last, literally, less than 3 seconds against her, so no distraction at all. Recommendations to curse her and then freeze her I found useless-- no amount of cursing made her vulnerable to freeze.

I know there's other methods to beating her that I don't have the right build for, and frankly at this point I'm so turned off from the game I've disengaged from the story and any sense of fun, so I'm not about to spend a few more hours trying to level enough to change my build in a direction that might help in this fight, because even then it seems like this fight is "hope you get lucky" and split-second pause pause pause pause process I just don't enjoy. That wasn't the game I'd already enjoyed, with some challenge, for more than a dozen hours. It wasn't a rage quit. It was really just a rational "Nope. Nope, that's not the game I started playing."

Before I quit though, I decided to at least beat her, by cheating. I used a save editor, a literally bumped all of my stats to over 1000. Roughly equivalent to a little under level 800. It was still a tough fight, lasted a few minutes and lost half my health.
She wasn't the only one. It's an unfriendly game for a first playthrough - lots of things that can only be learned the hard way.
Posted November 08, 2018
certainly
Posted December 04, 2018
First things first. Always remember to combine health and mana potions to the supperior restoration potions. Also if you need more mana use some very large charms (+100 mana), the same with health (and resistance to elements). If you want to cheat your way try boss fights (at the risk of not getting the exp) invest into Deadly Gift and let the traps do the work for you. You can also use some items as weapons for example you can find a cave full of barrels with poison and you can carry them (if you have the strength) around and trow at enemies (or even ally :P) they do some area damage over time and also poisons the target. About the summons - they are just a distraction, try to maybe charm something for a better helper or i do belive you can use aura of command with the resurection spell to make a monster follow you (or was that a bug??). And for combat do remember that Hell Spikes is a area affect spell that do not need line-of-sight, so just hide like a coward, (build yourself a fort from boxes), set traps just in case and hell spike the enemy to death (unless they can use it too then just trap and run like crazy :)). I hope i helped.
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Divinity seriesDivine Divinity: Am I playing wrong?(7 posts)(7 posts)
(7 posts)