Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity - Original Sin - General Some Talents are still crap

Hello everyone. I've been away for a while, I put so much time into the beta that it burned me out on the game for a couple months. Even now I'm only just halfway (or maybe almost done?) Hiberheim. But there are some things that I don't need to have finished the game to be certain of, and it's that some of the Talents in Original Sin are crap.


The first problem is that there aren't enough Talents. When I gain a new Talent point, I rarely get excited think "yes, now I can get that one I've had my eye on...", I instead think "hmmm... I guess that one will do." In part it's because of the mix of positive-only and positive-and-negative talents that makes the tradeoff unappealing.

A lot of Talents are locked off behind achieving Rank 5 in an ability, but there are much fewer available at lower ranks.


Demon and Ice King
These are crap because they are the ONLY Rank-5-required Talents to have a negative consequence (except Elemental Ranger), and it's one that outweighs the positive one.

Demon is bad because of the water resistance penalty. Ice King is bad because of the Fire Resistance penalty. You invest that many points into a specific ability AND need to spend one of the five talent points you get ever, it should not have such a dangerous downside. Burning is damage over time, and often, it's not that threatening to an enemies health pool, whereas you usually take damage in spikes, and an extra 25% damage will be a lot more lethal to you than the burning will be to an enemy.

For Ice King, since you have to be in melee range for the attack to go off, an enemy who is Chilled is not going to suffer from the movement penalty in a noticeable way. So you're trading off a bigger vulnerability to fire damage spikes in exchange for being able to do 10% more water damage to an enemy in melee range. What kind of tradeoff is that? A pretty poor one.

And again, these are the ONLY Rank 5 skills which have a penalty associated with them (other than Expert Marksman, and there the penalty is accidental). That's crap design.

Suggested Improvement
Demon would be okay if you removed the penalty. I've got a better idea for Ice King though: Water in this game is associated with healing, so what if Ice King gives you a 25% chance to completely neuter a water-elemental attack, and then heal for 50% of the damage it would have dealt. That fits the theme.


Elemental Ranger
Elemental Ranger is a good idea ruined by crappy implementation. It's a chance to inflict a damage type on an enemy standing in a surface, but the big problem is that you have no control whether it goes off or not.

If it's a fire-healing enemy standing in fire, you are helping the enemy. Because you have no control over when this talent goes off, it is just as often going to be unhelpful as it is helpful.

Suggested Improvement
The idea is fine, but the implementation needs to be completely changed.

It should grant you a new skill in the Expert Marksman category (or Special - in case Expert Marksman is boosted by +items):

Elemental Hit - This is a Stance, which you can toggle on or off. It (maybe) increases the AP cost per shot by 1, and inflicts a damage type on an enemy standing in a surface (it does the same thing the talent does). This is much better because it gives the player control over when to use it or not, because there are LOTS of times when you do NOT want to use it.


Five Star Diner
As pointed out in the recent twitch stream, food is of questionable use mid-battle, and doubling basically nothing is still basically nothing.

Suggested Improvement
Something that improves food. I liked the idea of food being a percentage heal instead of a flat number. The "Tales of ..." series uses percentage-based healing items very successfully.


Walk it Off
Interesting, but the duration penalty to helpful status effects (to me at least), outweighs the benefit of the negative status effects, since helpful status effects already tend to have shorter durations than negative ones.

Suggested Improvement
I'd lose the penalty. If that makes it too good, than perhaps it could also require Bodybuilding 2-3 or Willpower 2-3 (can you do either/or conditions for Talents?)

But really though, with only seven Talents you can take all game long, if just removing the penalty makes that one too good... I think the solution is to provide the player with a larger variety of Talents. More Tempting talents makes choosing harder without needing to pile on downsides.

The first 3 are hard to defend, but the last 2 ones can at least be debated. 5 star dinner provides 178 health and 2 strength with a simple dinner, produced without crafting out of plentiful and/or very cheap stuff. That is the equivalent to a large health potion and a medium strength potion combined. It would be worthwile considering IF health potions would not be available in abundant quantities (I mostly SELL them after Cyseal).

And walk it off depends very much on play style, it can be worth a ton of gold for a glass cannon character at character level 7 in magic enemy crossfire e.g. But as soon as you learn crowd control I agree - it is basically worthless.

Regards,
Thorsten

Fair points, I'm playing basically a no-crafting run because I rarely do crafting in any game, and this game has so many items I don't really know where to start. I don't even know how to make that simple dinner item.

I am not playing with a glass cannon, that is correct - but even if I were, I still think that losing 1 turn of buffs in exchange for 1 fewer turn of debuffs is even at best (and hence, not worth taking over another Talent).

And I am playing with glass cannons all the time but rarely buff my characters - the mages have enough to do with crowd control and mass destruction

Regards,
Thorsten

Ice King and Demon are both garbage, agreed. Your changes sound like they'd make them feasible. I like your fix for elemental ranger too, but does the stance have to increase AP cost too? I feel like they damage increase would have to be significant to outweigh the additional AP cost. If you have 9 AP and quickdraw, are 2 elemental attacks better than 3 normal attacks. Perhaps the math would say yes for certain enemies, but intuitively I see it being unlikely for most situations. But then, it could be kind of overpowered with 0 AP cost, as it would be a significant damage increase without any downside at all. It is at least kind of interesting now how you have to think your attacks through, but it's just not versatile enough to make up for the times it limits you.

Perhaps the stance could require a 1 AP activation and deactivation cost, but not increase attack costs? So you would still have to make a good decision of when to use it or you'd waste AP. Also, perhaps this stance could stack with the other stances?

A question about five-star diner: does it double the negative effects of a food item as well? If something gives you -1 speed normally, will it give -2 speed with five star diner? If so, that should change, because then it makes certain food items even less desirable. I do think five star diner would be a good talent if, like Thorsten said, healing potions weren't so common. Perhaps giving their heals a flat percentage would help make food more useful for hardier characters. Not sure what percentages would be best. 10% by default, 20% with the talent? Some foods would have different percents I imagine, but that ballpark range might be good.

I wanted to add that archery traits are incorrect and incorrectly applied.

People who think 100% CHANCE TO HIT something, means an automatic hit are totally wrong.
People who think 100% ACCURACY means an automatic hit, are wrong.

A person who can throw/shoot something with 100% accuracy, all of a sudden does not stop being able to throw/shoot something with 100% accuracy just because a target is behind a wall, out of view, or has a 0% chance to be hit. 100% accuracy skill remains active at all times regardless of where a target is.

You can also have a 100% chance to hit something and never actually be able to hit it a target.

So in order for this to be correct here is how it would have to be:
Since dexterity increases CHANCE TO HIT with Ranged based weapons, someone having an 11 in Dexterity with a target directly next to them on the map, the target should read as having a 100% chance to be hit.

Demon, and Ice King are extremely underwhelming; imo, Weatherproof is also too situational to be worth taking. However, Elemental Ranger and Walk it off can be utilized without too much effort.

In my first complete playthrough (on hard), my Archer with Elemental Ranger talent was my main damage dealer. It was really easy change the element that someone was standing on; it was already my mages job to hit the enemy with an element that they were weak to. The only elemental that you should have a problem with is fire; and even then, a late game Archers does way more damage than Elemental Ranger heals them for so it's not something that needs to be changed at all. On the flipside, all humanoids bleed and give you free damage without even trying. If you look at the uptime of this talent vs the downtime, I'd say it works in your favor about 60% of the time without even trying, and about 80% of the time if you center your party around your Archer. If you compare that to the "average talents" (elemental affinity, Arrow Recovery, Sidestep), I'd say this Talent is far better than average; I'd go as far as to say it is just as useful as Far Out Man (since any spell you cast when your target is not at max range is a waste of Far Out Man).

Walk it off is a very good talent IF you don't want to put any points into Willpower and Bodybuilding. A decent substitue for sinking points into defenses stats when you want to make a pure damage warrior or rogue.

All in all, most talents really aren't worth taking and should just use your talent points to trade for ability points/stat points. Which also brings up another point that I don't even want to get into right now...

I don't care what anyone says or thinks, archery sucks in this game. and no one is going to tell me any different. I don't believe for one second anyone does good damage with an archer.

Even with a dexterity of 13, all I was getting was a 49% chance to hit an enemy that was directly next to me on the battlefield, which it should have read 100% chance to hit because I had a 13 Dexterity and he was directly next to me.

Other than the game is broken, there is absolutely no reason to show a 49% CHANCE TO HIT a target with a dexterity of 13, especially an enemy that's right next to you on the battlefield.

And because of that stupid chance to hit crap being the way it is, you always run out of arrows.


Archery just plain sucks that's all there is to it.

And don't give me that shit about I must have done something wrong...A DEXTERITY OF 13 with only a 49% chance to hit..is game error

So 6 out of 10 times it will help you, and 4 out of 10 it will hurt you. Not exactly a ringing endorsement. :p

Kidding aside, I see your point... but that is not an argument against my idea of the Elemental Hit Stance that the player can toggle to choose when to use it or not. (Maybe it doesn't need an extra AP cost though, since it is supposed to be a Rank 5 perk.)




I don't disagree that one fewer turn of negative status effects would be a nice perk to have. It's just that I can see so many downsides to having one less turn of positive status effects that it just doesn't seem worth it.

I have to agree that a number of talents don't seem worth taking. That wouldn't be so noticeable if there were more to choose from. (Although yes, just having more Talents wouldn't fix the problem of some of them sucking.)

Now that I think about it, Walk it off is also super situational. The way people view the talent and where it should be used aren't as clear as it should be and could definitely use a change. Its kind of a trap that I fell for:

My very first game I picked up Walk it off on my Tank because the name of the talent just screams "put me on a tank." A few levels later I got earth shield on my mage which also screams "put me on a tank." After realizing how much AP I was wasting reapplying earthshield and that eventually I would put points into willpower and body building, I just started a new game.

I really like the suggestion for elemental ranger (implementing it as a stance that uses +1 action points is fine with me). The only reason I am not even considering taking that tallent is because in my mid-game experience so far, enemies tend to have plenty of "stuff that heals them" sitting on the ground around them... making my elemental ranger an agent of the enemy. The stance would make this a useful skill.

[quote=tx3000] I don't care what anyone says or thinks, archery sucks in this game. and no one is going to tell me any different. I don't believe for one second anyone does good damage with an archer.

Even with a dexterity of 13, all I was getting was a 49% chance to hit an enemy that was directly next to me on the battlefield, which it should have read 100% chance to hit because I had a 13 Dexterity and he was directly next to me.

Other than the game is broken, there is absolutely no reason to show a 49% CHANCE TO HIT a target with a dexterity of 13, especially an enemy that's right next to you on the battlefield.

And because of that stupid chance to hit crap being the way it is, you always run out of arrows.


Archery just plain sucks that's all there is to it.

And don't give me that shit about I must have done something wrong...A DEXTERITY OF 13 with only a 49% chance to hit..is game error

[/quote]

Land a status effect on the enemy that lowers their evasion, or use accuracy stance, or bless.

bless or accuracy increase will move you to a 80% hit chance. Disabling Status effect will make hit rate ~100%.

A friend of mine does the highest dmg in the party with his ranged weapon char.

Yup. A good legendary or self crafted bow, enhanced with elemental/tenebrium, lost soul and a bowstring, on a character with high bow skill and quickdraw - boy, this is some serious damage PLUS easy crowd control PLUS a range of special arrows as a counter to everything and anything.

Regards,
Thorsten

Five-Star Dinner:

Some games use food to give small attribute boosts for a long period of time, 20-30 minutes.

I believe this would be the way to make food at least a bit useful.

Cooking is a cool feature but in this game is nearly pointless, sadly.

I have played around elemental ranger today and i noticed the following:

It seems that shooting enemies that bleed their own element doesn't deal extra damage to them.
I shot an earth elemental that was standing on top of ooze , and i dealt no extra earth or poison damage to him, its like the trait is canceled in that case.
Then i went and tested it on the snow wardens, they bleed frost around them, and again after i shot them there was no bonus water damage dealt, so i didn't heal them.

A nice thing i did notice is that if u shoot enemies that stand on a pool of blood, u deal extra shadow damage to them.
Maybe its only me but it seems elemental ranger doesn't proc elemental attacks which the enemy is healing from them,it simply doesn't add any kind of damage at all.
i haven't tested it on fire-immune opponents, since they are so rare to come by anyway, and the only ones that comes to my mind right now are the fire demon, but il see if the same can be said against a fire immune enemy.
Also the extra damage is quiet big....50 extra elemental damage at level 11, on a crossbow that deals up to 120 damage...pretty big difference.
Also if u weave an elemental attack before normal attack, say, shooting frost arrow at a fire elemental and then follow up by normal hit, causes major damage.
Honestly, the amount of enemies that u encounter in the game that bleed their element anyway is rather small.
Demons are rare, elementals as well, and the only area that is inhabited by most of these is hiberheim, rest of the game is about goblins, humans orcs and animals.
i don't count the cyseal zone because elemental ranger usually comes to play at level 11, which is when u start venturing towards hiberheim.
This is the first time i tested this talent myself, i never picked it in my other 2 playthroughs because of the huge negatives from players, but now my mind has really changed over this one, its really good, i really don't understand the hate train on this one.
besides, it works ever better with crossbows.

A note: More enemies are healed by an element than those which also bleed that same element, so it's not just enemies that bleed an element which are affected by it.

But more to the point - if that is the case, and built into the code is already a safeguard to prevent healing of an enemy via Elemental Ranger, than I suppose no change is needed to it. But how many people never took that talent because they didn't know that? This may be a lack of information causing confusion, and all it would have taken is a short post from a Larian guy to clear that up.

There is definitely a lack of information about this skill, proven by the results i got from my early testing so far, it really seems that people are staying away from this talent due to un cofirmed facts and rumors. Il post more hard facts as i progress further through my 3rd playthrough.

also, enemies that are healed by an element, but do not bleed it have no effect on elemental ranger in that case, since then u have full control on what u want to place under their feet.

I dispute this, as a lot of different reactions and interactions can create surfaces. Enemies can create surfaces as well, elementals dying creates a surface, etc. Sometimes a character who can create or negate a surface has another urgent use and can't. Surface creation is not always under "full control" of the player.

True,
I probably over-stated that term.
My general meaning was that those enemies do not cause trouble when they bleed in any case when regarding to elemental ranger.

I thought of an idea to replace Demon with.


Demon - Pyrokinetic 5 Required - "Never make a deal with a Demon. It always costs more than you get."

• Maximum (NOT CURRENT) Fire Resistance is increased by 40% (new cap is 120%).
• -60% to Air, Water, Earth, and Poison Resistances
• Fire Resistance can no longer be boosted past 120% even with potions or buffs.

The idea behind this Talent is to allow a dedicated fire user to boost their fire resistance past 100 percent, so they can make better use of the spells that explode on themselves. Fire magic can now potentially heal them for 20%. This does NOT affect their current resistances, it only increases the resistance cap.

At the same time, though, they suffer a pretty big hit to all other elemental resistances, making this build chancy against most other foes. If Larian still thinks this is too good (because of rubies?) and REALLY wants to make it risky, maybe lower the cap the other resistances to 40%.

(I suppose we could call it something else, like "Volatility", but since Demon is pretty shit as-is, you may as well just replace it entirely.)

How does this sound?

EDIT: Maybe -60% to current resistances is too much, alternatively you could just lower the resistance cap to 50% for the others?