As it was mentioned before this is not a beginner friendly guide. It was made for people who understand basics and more or less familiar with the game. If you have recommendations/notes/criticism on the pacing, edit, structure of the video, let me know. Also, I've been thinking about making a video for people who want to beat the game on Honor difficulty. More specifically, what to remember so that you won't lose dozens of hours due to a simple mistake. Another video about all skills in the game, maybe a tier list. And another video about cool mods, which you can get from a steam workshop. In any case, thanks for watching and take care. Edit: New video about death traps for Honour difficulty is here: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-AvJXRG7DVj4.html
@Nazatur not sure if ur still reading comments but I could use some help. Basically early act 2. The enemy difficulty jump seems huge. I'm outnumbered most fights n they often hit for 100+ dmg. I'm hitting 40+. Didn't play part 1. Basically came from BG3. I feel like I'm missing alot n using stuff wrong.
@@tom2gunzbombadil689 yo, ye it's understandable since act2 is huge and it's easy to stumble upon high lvl enemies. As a rule of thumb it's better to explore w/o fighting as much as possible. Since visiting new places grant xp which can be crucial in early act 2. You can try to explore Driftwood, then run around map avoiding combat. I know it sounds counterintuitive but if it's your first playthrough you might now know how to optimize your builds/what to avoid etc
@Nazatur im lv 9 or 10 I think. N yeah, act 1 I got pistol whipped in the witches cave n in the fort's one room where they're removing the source from the elf chick. Came back later beat them. Jst seems like every fight in act 2 has pushed me to the limit. But videos sound like I should be rolling thru fights. Last night the graveyard fight with the 4 warriors went well until they all back to life even stronger and literally jst wiped my party. N the other cave with the skull where u get separated was jst pathetic. That cave would be a challenge as a group. But split up was a blood bath. How tf is 1 character gonna beat 4 enemies at 1 time... n evidently that's part of the lohar quest. Also MONEY.. ive gotten most of my new gear by bartering away stuff I find. Gold jst isn't much of a option. Never had more than prob 5k.
Thank you! Although I think It's more of a guide for the advanced players who finished the game at least once, cause it shifts the attention of players from exploring everything by themselves, and sort of focuses on the things that are quite important, but those things can also remove the "magic" of discovery and experimentation from the game.
Just started playing this masterpiece a week ago, already beat the DoS1 EE so i already understand the basics (even tho quite a lots of things changed from Dos1, ehem AP) so your guide is really2 helpfull, thanks!
I like to use Summon totem on my glass canon summoner to 'donate' 2 AP to my character with the execution talent. This works because killing a friendly target also triggers executioner. I'll just place a totem near the enemies just before my next character fireballs / shield bounces / Ricochets to kill the totem and damage the enemy and gains back 2 AP from killing the totem. Obviously this only does anything if the character with execution can't kill anything else that turn, but on some boss fights this can really be a life saver.
Yeah it's a good strat. You may also summon an oil blob either when you have Elemental affinity talent or by using a scroll while having Ambidextrous talent. Both options will reduce blob's cost to 1 AP. Its' hp is very low and you can easily detonate it with other skills to get 2 AP back and it could be done by the same character. Other low hp summons might also work (like wind-up toy for example).
First of all thank you for the guide. It was easy to digest, and hearing you struggle to say multiplicative was hilarious! I have issues with pronunciation of some words myself.
Very well done, just like your first video in this series. Looking forward to more as I recently got into the game myself. Finally on Act 3 but I restarted so many times since August just trying to understand and build correctly in Fort Joy xD
Thanks for the good words! The game is definitely worth it. You can make next playthroughs a bit more challenging or different, just take a break in between. Also dos2 has a very good modding community on Steam, so you can always install some mods if next playthroughs will feel the same.
Many people have very similar experiences to you. I didn't beat the game until my 3rd or 4th restart. Now I feel much more competent with the systems and the game is even more enjoyable
Interesting, I am also in the same boat. I am on my third or fourth try and the last try was the longest one, roughly 40 hours before I stopped again and that was 2 years ago. So now I have this cool mixture of knowledge and not remembering details. I also feel the same @J Thompson, the game is a lot more fun once you have a good understanding of the basics. The second playthrough might be more interesting than the first, depending on where your focus as a player lays. For me mechanics are at least as important as good writing, and mechanics are more enjoyable the seocnd time.
Ambidextrous is the most underrated talent. Granades become 1 AP no cooldown spells. Get torturer aswell and TPs on your group to AOE root, blood, poison and burn all enemy turn 1. Best on an elf for added DMG and action point.
Yeah I didn't want to dive into talents too deep in this video. The next one will be about talents, but with that said, it will be subjective cause some talents will shine in certain builds where as the same talents will be utter garbage in other builds.
This and your other dos2 guides are really great. Any chance you'd make a guide to use full crafting? I have all these crafting materials and not sure what to make with them or just sell.
You can break AI even further with chameleon cloak by using stealth. Use cloak -> walk out of enemy vision cones -> save 4 ap and go into stealth right before the invis runs out -> now you can wait any amount of turns you want, i.e. for your abilities to recharge and yes, it does include cloak so in many fights you can just loop this forever (go in, unload your full combo, go invis into stealth and repeat). It's basically cheating, but you can do it.
Play Fane Solo and get an extra tun then adrenalin flesh sacrifice then skin graft and go invisible GG skip those turns till you have enaugh AP points and do the same stuff again.. if you need 1 more round to finish enemy use dodge ability or play death xD breacks the whole game
About joining a fight from outside of combat : With your characters that are outside of combat, instead of going for your highest damage abilities, use abilities that 1) you don’t use often in combat because of their AP cost so that your cheaper abilities are not on cooldown when you enter combat ; 2) setup for the next character cc abilities (applies wet or shock, destroys armor, etc)
Jump skills are so important that I often have two of them on one character, especially if you're doing lone wolf (1 or 2 characters). For a rogue build, there's also Backlash, which partly functions as a jump skill. Having effectively three jump skills with the Warfare and Scoundrel ones isn't excessive for a character very dependent on positioning. And with invisibility, there are some actions that don't break it, so the turn after casting, you can spend part of your AP, then end your turn, to have extra AP the turn it ends. Alternatively, be invisible after using Adrenaline, and skip the turn you lose AP anyway. If your enemies have better buffs than you, this can also run out their duration.
The easiest playthrough I had is when I had all spellcasters who each had teleport and tactical retreat. At the start of the fight just jump somewhere up high or just far away. Whenever the enemy gets close, you have 4 teleports to send them back where they started, all nice and clumped together for multiple aoe spells.
Automatically used most of the things shown. Cannot even imagine how anyone is playing without delay turn or repositioning before the battles. Without proper positioning, simply walking onto the outlaws in the Arx suburbs is an insta-wipeout with the pyroclastic eruption. The skin graft scrolls are new though. Did not know you can use them many times per battle. The skillbook allows only 1 use per battle.
I have some notes here. 1. "Maxing HP is redundant". Well, killing things fast is great indeed, but so do enemies. ikd what's going on on normal difficulty, but on Tactics mages usually capable to wipe your character in a single turn, regardless of all that armour you've stack up during the entire game. Especially if you dare to fight an enemy 2+ levels higher than you. Investing into HP in early game is pointless indeed (you get like +2HP per point, it's ridiculous), but in the midgame and later - I think it's worth that. 2. "Potions will eliminate the need to use frost/stone armour". But potions don't negate the effects already applied to a character, do they? Again, armour usually is lost extremely fast, and you anyway get all that effects on you. So having a choice of crafting a scroll or a potion, I'd prefer a scroll. 3. And just a my sad experience about delaying a turn. The issue is that character quite often doesn't live up to their delayed turn) You act right now, or you'll get focused (or one-shotted) on enemy's turn. Which really spoils the feeling of a tactical game, as for me.
In my opinion there are too many variables, which will highlight advantages or disadvantages of different approaches. You can play on honour or not, you can have 4 characters or only 1,which will drastically shift the focus from certain aspects of the game. 1)For example, the problem with scaling hp is that if you're solo, you need to do everything: doing damage, tanking damage, crowd controlling etc. Yes, you'll add decent amount of hp, especially later on, but if you lost your armour as a solo character, you'll most likely be chain CC'd and eventually killed. 2)About the potions: I specifically said that the potions will eliminate the need to use fortify and frost armour in terms of armour restoration, I haven't said anything about preventing CC. Besides at the beginning of the potion section I mention the solo runs. I guess it was just poorly communicated by me, cause what I wanted to show is that solo players shouldn't ignore potions and rely only on fortify/frost armour. And well there's also one of the most broken talents: "five star diner" which will definitely help a lot. 3)About delaying, again there are too many variables to consider. What is the party composition, do you prebuff with skills and potions and thus highly likely survive the delayed turned, do you positions yourself in a way which will make AI lose as many points as possible, do you play a melee or ranged character (cause this has a huge effect on the flow of combat), do you know most of the encounters well or not (this helps you to anticipate their move cause you know their skills,stats etc.) Sadly there won't be an ultimate way to make everything right and I might miss certain aspects of the game, cause well it's subjective. But with all of that said, thank you for a good portion of criticism. It's needed to create a better product in the future.
Bravo! Sophisticated approach that tied broader concepts to examples perfectly, especially discussion of the AP Economy. Otherwise, you hit all the key notes: positioning, Teleport/Swap, gap-closing, Executioner, the Classless system, breakdown of Combat Ability points, I could go on and on. The only particular disagreement I have, and I must stress that it's entirely subjective, is revealing the Skin Graft scroll! I think you could at least warn the kids that crafting these *will* effectively end the game 😉😉.
Thank you! Yeah initially I wanted to add everything in 1 video but later decided to split the most essential stuff into 2 videos. Beginner's qol and advice without pushing towards certain playstyle video and this one. About the skin graft scrolls tho: I did put it into the cheese category + I hope that this video will be watched by people who have finished the game at least once or have basic understanding of combat. Hence mentioned it both at the start of the video and in the description. But tbh I think people will understand how broken and op skin grafting and invis with solo are, after a couple of fights. And it's up to them to use or not :) But thanks again for the good words, hopefully it'll help more players.
Can you do few instructions on what to do and where to go for some nice gear after leaving fort joy, i got dumped into some stinky harbor full of fish and market thats expensive i cant buy anything :/
Uh that could be a tough one, cause currently I'm working on several videos. The next one should come out next week. Guides for each act will probably be released in a few months. But general tips: have at least one character who maxes out Lucky charm, to have a chance getting extra gear from any containers like barrels, crates, chests etc. You can drink any alcohol to temporarily boost it by 2 points. Pickpocketing is also an option, if you don't mind from the rp perspective of course. Another option is to ask during the streams on my twitch channel, but different time zones could be a problem.
Don't forget kids! If you are invisible and are outside the enemy's line of sight, go into sneaking, and they still won't know where you are! They will continue to stand around doing nothing
Might be a bit late to get a response, but just curious from the damage formulas: a wand or staff attack would count as a "weapon skill" rather than a "magic skill" right?
If I remember correctly, yes. Cause if you level up dual-wielding and get duo wands and try to attack your damage output will increase. (dual wielding damage only affects weapon-based attacks). But keep in mind that sometimes UI in dos2 lies to you: elemental arrows are NOT benefitting from pyro, geo etc., despite the UI saying otherwise. For example, you might level up Pyrokinetic, hover over the fire arrow on your skill bar and see that damage is bigger now, but it's a lie. So who knows if there are other things like that. P.S. Grenades are considered magic attacks.
@@Nazatur Yeah arrows are really funky. I have an archer on my full magic comp team but they scale everything physical and just use elemental arrows. I think geo stacking for venom coating could add damage, but at that point prolly just huntsman or scoundrel is better I'm guessing.
Informative guide. Thanks. Although: often enough, when i use cameleon cloak, the ai just casts an AOE wehere my character stands and therefore my cloak is useless. am I doing smth wrong?
When you do invis + delay as a solo character, it usually works most of the time. The trick isn't gonna work if you have more than 1 character. Although as you mentioned, sometimes AI actually tries to scout for invis even when you're solo. I'd recommend to experiment a bit with it in different fights.
+ it can be connected to a cone of vision of npcs. If you have both invis and you're outside of their cone of vision, they should definitely skip their turn. So a very legit way to do so is when you have some decent distance between you and opponents without leaving the fight, then you hit invis and it should work. Edit: some enemies won't give a damn tho so I'd say it all comes to the experience and "feeling" it ig
Hey I know this video is rather old by now (by RU-vid standards anyways), I happened to come across the fact that you see a lot more info when hovering over statuses and such and I was wondering how one would gain access to that kind of dev information as I believe it could be useful for debugging a mod list, is it some form of launch command for DOS 2?
Sup, I'm using dos2 mod launcher to navigate through the mods easily. On top of that it has a lot of features. The extra info comes from enabling developer mode in the "Preferences" -> "Script Extender" section, if I'm not wrong.
@@Nazatur Oh that's a feature in the mod launcher? That I didn't know, sick, thanks for the quick answer, also I really liked your guide, though I didn't need to see it for myself as a veteran player it was still a good watch, keep it up!
09:10 On tactican and higher difficulty AI starts looking for you while you are invisible by casting AOE skills such rain, blood rain and other invisibility breaking affects if character have one
I feel like you must just be missing some fights by not exploring enough or by accident because there should be plenty of combat encounters throughout the game. What act are you currently in if your in Fort Joy prison Act 1 at the beginning there should be up to and around 20 Different combat encounters without leaving the prison roughly depending on where you go what quests you do and dialogue checks lowering or increasing your encounters?
"I have my incarnate walk into the battle"x4 ... Most powerful you say?... You can even buff them while they're in combat and you are not. Around a corner, or from high above far away. Undead the character for extra breathing room. Savescumming rings and lucky+drunk character finds for +summoner skill and skilled up talent I get my four characters to skill 10 summoner by level 4. Summoner is the most OP skillset for this reason. In ever single fight if you know how undead works.
This guide is more suited for people who want to beat highest difficulties like tactician or honour. If you're new you don't actually need the info here.
This and your other dos2 guides are really great. Any chance you'd make a guide to use full crafting? I have all these crafting materials and not sure what to make with them or just sell.
Thanks, yeah I've been busy a lot with irl stuff + editing my next video about talents. It will be by far the longest one for sure. I'm planning to release it this week and then start the work on the video about crafting. That video will take 3-5 weeks to make. If you can't wait until that time, then there's a text guide with all recipes for dos2. I think if you google it, you'll see a link to a steam page "Complete crafting tables 700+ recipes".
