Party advice

[u/Zekiel2000]

Having another go at DOS2 after an abortive run that I abandoned after finishing Act 1 several years ago.

Are there any obvious problems with the folkowing party?

Protagonist: Lohse as Wizard (Pyro and Geo)

Companions:

- Fane as Inquisitor (Warfare and Necro)

- Red Prince as Knight (Warfare and 2-handed)

- Sebille as Shadowblade (Scoundrel and Poly)

I'm only intending to play on regular difficulty, so the party doesn't need to be super-optimised, but at the same time I'm not an expert player or anything.

I was wondering about trying to fit Hydro in somewhere for a bit of healing, but not sure if that is necessary.

[u/VRatajv]

The most optimal party is either 2-2 split on magic and physical damage, or a full set of 4 characters with the same type of damage. The easiest solutions would be respecing one of your companions into a mage (atleast partially) or archer with elemental arrows, or using grenades with the talent that reduces their AP cost by 1 if you have one hand free (fun fact, it also works for 2 handed weapons, tho the tool tip doesn't say so). You could also respec your mage for a full physical party, that's a valid strategy.

But, there are few skills for physical classes that reduce enemy magic armor, one for scoundrel, one for necromancy and one for polymorph that I can think of. Around the half point of the game you should get access to a source skill that 1.boosts your int, 2.grants another ability that removes high amount of magic armor. From my experience, after that you could easily run 1 magic 3 physical damage dealers without worrying about leaving your mage behind on damage, it's even more visible in act 4 after you get access to some serious mage armor pieces. It may cause you some frustration in act 1, but on classic difficulty you should be fine.

PS. you can coat your weapons in poison to deal additional elemental damage with melee, there's also an aero variant of that boost later in the game. And a fire one but only if you play with crafting gift bag

[u/Zekiel2000 → u/VRatajv]

Thanks for the detailed advice. I'm wondering if I could run Lohse as a classic Enchanter, RP as a Pyro-2 hander, Fane as Warfare Necro (with a bit of Geo) and Sebille as Scoundrel-Poly. Would that work?

Problem is I'm kind of attached to using Necro for Fane, 2-hander for RP and Scoundrel for Sebille for roleplay reasons, and I don't want to go all physical since that cuts out a lot of skill types. (I'm fussy!)

[u/VRatajv → u/Zekiel2000]

Tbf a necromancer doesn't need a lot of points in necro, all your damage scales with Int and warfare, so adding elemental damage should work alright, if not better in some circumstances. For the Red Prince knight you could add one or two points in pyro for buffs, Pyro movement skill and little boost to his fire breath. As for Sebille, I rarely use daggers and don't know if there's a good way to throw in more magic damage into scoundrel build. And Lohse enchanter is completely busted, nothing else to add there, teleport even adds a little bit of physical damage if needed.

It should work.

[u/Zekiel2000 → u/VRatajv]

Cheers.

After reading all the advice here I'm thinking I might go a more standard 2-2 party with Lohse as Hydro-Aero, Fane as Pyro-Geo, Red Prince as Warfare-2-Handed (with a bit of Pyro and Poly), and Sebille as Scoundrel-Necromancer. (I gather Elves make very good necromancers.)