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Divinity: Original Sin 2 Beginner's Tips
Tips To Survive
Divinity Original Sin II is a difficult game that eagerly punishes your mistakes in combat or even when talking to NPCs. With so many factors to consider as you explore, it can be tough to survive. To help newcomers to the series, we've gathered nine tips to know before you set off to Fort Joy, and into the world of Rivellon.
Be sure to check GameSpot often for our full review of Divinity: Original Sin II. The game is out now for PC, but it's been in Steam Early Access for almost a year. It's the sequel to our 2014 PC Game of the Year, Divinity: Original Sin, and it netted over $2 million from 40,000 fans on Kickstarter. It features over 1,200 characters, all of them fully voice-acted.
First Timers Should Pick a Default Class
If this is your first time playing, pick one of the Divinity's default classes. The game gives you a great amount of freedom in custom class creation, but it's also easy to mess up and create a character with a bad skill set if you don't know what you're doing. While there's a way to reroll your character later on, your early adventures will still be unnecessarily difficult if you make poor skill choices. Your safest bet is also to play with an Origin character, rather than a custom one, in order to get the benefit of playing through their story.
Be Wary of Playing as a Skeleton
Be careful if you want to role-play as a skeleton. While it's awesome from a narrative standpoint, it makes the game significantly tougher. Healing potions and spells hurt you, and you need to use poison to regain health. (If you do opt to be a skeleton, keep in mind that you can heal by having a party member deal poison damage to you.) In addition, friendly NPCs aren't used to the idea of a walking, talking skeleton, which means you have to wear a hood or shapeshift into a more normal form if you don't want to get attacked. The skeleton race is more satisfying to play for experienced players.
Save Often
We'll repeat that headline above: save often. Divinity is a challenging game; show that F5 key some love and make a liberal number of quick saves. Quick save before entering a new area, during combat, or in the middle of conversations. Some areas you explore contain hidden enemies that can ambush you. During combat, even when it seems like you're winning, the enemy can make an unexpected (and unfortunate) comeback. And conversations can go sideways in an instant, resulting in the person you were amiably chatting with suddenly hurling fireballs at you. Quick save as often as you can; you never know when your good intentions might wind you up in a terrible situation.
Acquire the Pet Pal Perk
When you're creating a character, you get the option to choose from a list of perks. What's most beneficial is largely dependent on the kind of character you want to make. But for first-timers, it's highly recommended to choose the Pet Pal perk, which allows you to talk to animals. The ability to communicate with beasts can often make your life easier, as it allows you to avoid tricky areas and uncover hidden secrets. For example, rats dwelling in dungeons and sewers can warn you about traps and ambushes hidden in the darkness. While Pet Pal takes up a perk slot, it's worth it. However, it's important to note that an early party member you meet also has the perk, so if you're planning to have them in your group, acquiring Pet Pal may be worth it.
Save Your Resurrection Scrolls
During the course of a 30-40 minute fight, your characters might go down a number of times, but being even one member down can make things significantly more difficult. Dead characters don't automatically return to life--when a character dies, the only way to bring them back is by using a Resurrection Scroll. This useful item can be hard to come by, but it's capable of quickly turning a tough battle around or bringing your party back to full strength. Make sure that every member of your party is carrying at least one at all times, and consider loading an early save and trying to avoid death if possible.
Manage Your Party
It's important to stay healthy in the world of Rivellon; danger is around every corner. When you gain new party members, they'll give you the option to manage their perks and abilities. While it's important to take a healer with you to keep your party topped up in combat, make sure to round out your other members with more exploration-focused perks, especially with the myriad traps, ambushes, poison plants, fires, and exploding vents that you'll come across during your journey.
Methodical Healer
Potions are good go-to healing items when trying to replenish health quickly, but it's best to save them exclusively for battle. When you're outside of battle, eat food instead, as some have bonus status effects that might help you. You can also use your party members' healing spells, provided you're patient enough to sit through their respective cooldowns.
However, the best way to heal out of combat is by using a bedroll. The ship that you start the game on has a few lying around, so make sure to take them all. When you use a bedroll, it fully refills your party's health, while also giving them the Rested status effect. Bedrolls are valuable items that you should always keep an eye out for when out in the world or when you're talking to traders.
Learn Your Spell Combos
A major part of Divinity: Original Sin II is your command over the elements. Take time to experiment with spells, abilities, and the environment, so you understand how to gain the upper hand during a battle.
Most abilities create some kind of effect, especially if you have specialist spell casters, like Pyromancers or Aeromancers. For example, water can be electrified, oil can be set ablaze, and fires can be turned to steam to block an enemy's sight.
Much of this knowledge comes from experience and experimentation, so don't be afraid to leverage quick saves and play around with your options. Before you know it, you'll be chaining crazy elemental reactions and creating cursed clouds of doomed blood that shoot lightning.
Having Trouble? Try Out Explorer Mode
Divinity: Original Sin II's world is dense, massive, and full of crazy things to discover. But if you find that the tricky combat system is what's preventing you from experiencing these things, then don't be afraid to turn the difficulty down to Explorer mode.
Classic mode can often be brutally difficult; however, Explorer mode puts the focus on navigating the world and talking to characters, discovering new details as you go. And once you feel more comfortable taking on combat, you can always switch back to Classic mode for a nice challenge.
More...
Divinity Original Sin II is a difficult game that eagerly punishes your mistakes in combat or even when talking to NPCs. With so many factors to consider as you explore, it can be tough to survive. To help newcomers to the series, we've gathered nine tips to know before you set off to Fort Joy, and into the world of Rivellon.
Be sure to check GameSpot often for our full review of Divinity: Original Sin II. The game is out now for PC, but it's been in Steam Early Access for almost a year. It's the sequel to our 2014 PC Game of the Year, Divinity: Original Sin, and it netted over $2 million from 40,000 fans on Kickstarter. It features over 1,200 characters, all of them fully voice-acted.
First Timers Should Pick a Default Class
If this is your first time playing, pick one of the Divinity's default classes. The game gives you a great amount of freedom in custom class creation, but it's also easy to mess up and create a character with a bad skill set if you don't know what you're doing. While there's a way to reroll your character later on, your early adventures will still be unnecessarily difficult if you make poor skill choices. Your safest bet is also to play with an Origin character, rather than a custom one, in order to get the benefit of playing through their story.
Be Wary of Playing as a Skeleton
Be careful if you want to role-play as a skeleton. While it's awesome from a narrative standpoint, it makes the game significantly tougher. Healing potions and spells hurt you, and you need to use poison to regain health. (If you do opt to be a skeleton, keep in mind that you can heal by having a party member deal poison damage to you.) In addition, friendly NPCs aren't used to the idea of a walking, talking skeleton, which means you have to wear a hood or shapeshift into a more normal form if you don't want to get attacked. The skeleton race is more satisfying to play for experienced players.
Save Often
We'll repeat that headline above: save often. Divinity is a challenging game; show that F5 key some love and make a liberal number of quick saves. Quick save before entering a new area, during combat, or in the middle of conversations. Some areas you explore contain hidden enemies that can ambush you. During combat, even when it seems like you're winning, the enemy can make an unexpected (and unfortunate) comeback. And conversations can go sideways in an instant, resulting in the person you were amiably chatting with suddenly hurling fireballs at you. Quick save as often as you can; you never know when your good intentions might wind you up in a terrible situation.
Acquire the Pet Pal Perk
When you're creating a character, you get the option to choose from a list of perks. What's most beneficial is largely dependent on the kind of character you want to make. But for first-timers, it's highly recommended to choose the Pet Pal perk, which allows you to talk to animals. The ability to communicate with beasts can often make your life easier, as it allows you to avoid tricky areas and uncover hidden secrets. For example, rats dwelling in dungeons and sewers can warn you about traps and ambushes hidden in the darkness. While Pet Pal takes up a perk slot, it's worth it. However, it's important to note that an early party member you meet also has the perk, so if you're planning to have them in your group, acquiring Pet Pal may be worth it.
Save Your Resurrection Scrolls
During the course of a 30-40 minute fight, your characters might go down a number of times, but being even one member down can make things significantly more difficult. Dead characters don't automatically return to life--when a character dies, the only way to bring them back is by using a Resurrection Scroll. This useful item can be hard to come by, but it's capable of quickly turning a tough battle around or bringing your party back to full strength. Make sure that every member of your party is carrying at least one at all times, and consider loading an early save and trying to avoid death if possible.
Manage Your Party
It's important to stay healthy in the world of Rivellon; danger is around every corner. When you gain new party members, they'll give you the option to manage their perks and abilities. While it's important to take a healer with you to keep your party topped up in combat, make sure to round out your other members with more exploration-focused perks, especially with the myriad traps, ambushes, poison plants, fires, and exploding vents that you'll come across during your journey.
Methodical Healer
Potions are good go-to healing items when trying to replenish health quickly, but it's best to save them exclusively for battle. When you're outside of battle, eat food instead, as some have bonus status effects that might help you. You can also use your party members' healing spells, provided you're patient enough to sit through their respective cooldowns.
However, the best way to heal out of combat is by using a bedroll. The ship that you start the game on has a few lying around, so make sure to take them all. When you use a bedroll, it fully refills your party's health, while also giving them the Rested status effect. Bedrolls are valuable items that you should always keep an eye out for when out in the world or when you're talking to traders.
Learn Your Spell Combos
A major part of Divinity: Original Sin II is your command over the elements. Take time to experiment with spells, abilities, and the environment, so you understand how to gain the upper hand during a battle.
Most abilities create some kind of effect, especially if you have specialist spell casters, like Pyromancers or Aeromancers. For example, water can be electrified, oil can be set ablaze, and fires can be turned to steam to block an enemy's sight.
Much of this knowledge comes from experience and experimentation, so don't be afraid to leverage quick saves and play around with your options. Before you know it, you'll be chaining crazy elemental reactions and creating cursed clouds of doomed blood that shoot lightning.
Having Trouble? Try Out Explorer Mode
Divinity: Original Sin II's world is dense, massive, and full of crazy things to discover. But if you find that the tricky combat system is what's preventing you from experiencing these things, then don't be afraid to turn the difficulty down to Explorer mode.
Classic mode can often be brutally difficult; however, Explorer mode puts the focus on navigating the world and talking to characters, discovering new details as you go. And once you feel more comfortable taking on combat, you can always switch back to Classic mode for a nice challenge.
More...