The level of customization possible in Divinity: Original Sin 2 is staggering, whether you want to focus on a smooth-talking teleporter with a ton of skills, an undead soldier who knocks down all enemies, an archer who summons corpses, or nearly anything else you can imagine.
In this guide, we're going to go over four epic Original Sin 2 builds with vastly different focuses, from a stealth assassin to a masochistic necromancer who revels in taking damage. With any of these builds, you could either co-op or even potentially solo your way through the game.
Rogue Assassin Build
With this build, you always want to be positioned behind an enemy for backstabbing and generally avoiding detection. On the attribute side, Finesse is probably a better idea than Strength. Don't discount Wits though, as you get a bonus to initiative and critical chance. For your ability points, you want to put your points into Scoundrel for the critical bonus, and of course Stealth for the sneaking.
On the skills, Adrenaline is a must for getting enough action points to kill with a backstab in one turn. Throwing Knife and Backlash also lets you deal backstab damage, while Chloroform can knock out an enemy at the end of your turn without breaking stealth.
If you go for a secondary ability beyond Scoundrel, oddly enough Polymorphing can be helpful, since it lets you fly around and avoid terrain or remove all negative status effects quickly. The Polymorphing skill Chamelon Cloak gives you two turns of pure invisibility without breaking stealth. Warfare isn't nearly as useful as you'd think, since many of the associated attacks aren't helpful for backstabbing and Scoundrel already gives you a bonus to Finesse-based attacks.
Pros
So long as you pick skills that don't break stealth and you have a weapon that benefits from the high Finesse, you can essentially cheese your way through any combat by staying hidden and then quickly backstabbing or knocking an enemy unconscious before they react. Getting items early that provide teleportation abilities will be a must so you have maximum mobility.
Cons
You will generally have lower armour ratings, since you are focused on staying hidden, meaning that status effects will hit you more often. The game is also a good deal slower and more tense if you are always sneaking and having to pay attention to line-of-sight cones.
Rogue Assassin Build
Solo Masochist Necromancer Build
Put either two points into the Necromancer skill, or one in Necromancer and one in Warfare for the bonus damage. When you level up, place your combat points into Retribution. For your weapon, you probably want a big two-handed weapon that does the most base damage possible with devastating criticals.
From the Necromancer side, you absolutely want the Bloodsucker ability, which lets you heal from the ever-present pools of blood on the ground. You may also want to invest in the Leech talent to automatically heal from blood sources if you aren't going the solo route. Mosquito Swarm is another one that both deals damage and heals. If you are mixing Necromancer and Warfare instead of straight necro, either Crippling Blow or Battle Stomp is the way to go.
Pros
Your idea here is to always be healing yourself while reflecting damage back to the enemy. Every point in Necromancer means you automatically heal damage when you deal it, and each point in Reflection increases the amount of damage you automatically deal back to anyone who hits you. In other words, just walking around getting damaged in combat lets you both kill and heal.
Cons
With the Necromancer skill, your vitality only heals when dealing damage directly to enemy vitality, so any enemy with high physical / magical armour will prevent you from healing.
It also takes several levels for the bonuses from Necromancer and Retribution to actually hit useful levels (starting at a measly 10% and 5% with only one point each at first level). However, this can be overcome by taking the Lone Wolf talent instead of Leech.
With Lone Wolf, each skill point is effectively doubled, which halves the amount of time for those skills to reach useful levels. Despite the name, Lone Wolf actually lets you bring along one companion in addition to your main character while still retaining all the benefits of the talent.
Necromancer Skills
Paladin Build
Divinity Original Sin 2 Builds
Your archetypal holy knight, this build revolves around battlefield control. You should be dealing out decent damage, knocking down opponents for control frequently, and then healing your party when necessary.
Hydrosophist and Warfare should be your ability picks, giving access to healing and armor boosting spells, in addition to the bonus to straight damage. For skills, your starting picks should be Restoration and Armour Of Frost (which removes negative status effects) -- and your Warfare pick should probably be Battle Stomp, since it gives battlefield control and doesn't affect allies like most area effect spells.
On the weapon front, either sword and shield combo or a two handed weapon focus compliment the build. Index of little things season 2.
Pros
The Paladin build is excellent for your main character because it overcomes a lot of the weaknesses of the five other origin companions. While you won't be flinging fireballs and creating poison clouds, you can gain easy battlefield control and ensure the rest of the party doesn't go down in flames. There are a lot of combos you can do with other party members as well by first creating wet conditions using your Hydrosophist abilities and then creating electrified areas.
Cons
Outside of combat the build isn't nearly as useful, since a simple bedroll you can grab directly at the beginning of game in the ship prevents the need for healing items outside of battle. You also won't be the stealthiest.
Taking the Lizard class for this fire build is a decent idea, since you get the Dragon's Blaze bonus ability to breathe fire. However, you may want to go with Undead instead, since they heal damage from poison, and you will frequently be creating poison clouds.
Your attributes should be focused on Intelligence for bonus spell damage and Memory so you have a broad range of spells to use and are never in a situation with all your skills in cool down. For abilities, of course you want Pyrokinetic and Geomancer.
On the skills, Ignition is less useful than you'd think because it does damage around you, which can hit allies and of course set off oil puddles and end up hurting yourself or other friendlies. Fossil Strike pairs well with Searing Daggers to create a fiery battlefield -- and for maximum map controlling damage, don't forget Poison Dart creates a poison cloud.
For a twist, instead of Pyrokinetic, switch over to Summoning but keep Geomancer. Now pick Conjure Incarnate instead of Searing Daggers. If you summon your Incarnate in a poison cloud, he will deal tons of poison damage to your enemies for you, essentially acting as a bonus free companion.
Pros
AoE is the name of the game here, as you set large swathes of the battlefield on fire or fill it with poisonous vapors. Dual-wielding elemental wands is a great idea so you can deal bonus damage to fleeing enemies who are on fire or poisoned. Even when you aren't hitting, you will still be dealing damage due to everything being on fire.
Cons
It's incredibly easy to end up damaging your own team here with all the area fire and poison effects, and you don't have much of anything in the way of healing or physical armour.
Undead Wizard
These are the four best Divinity: Original Sin 2 builds we've had the most luck with playing through the campaign and dominating in combat. What's your favorite build, and what combos would you recommend for getting through different acts of the game?
If you're looking for more tips on this huge fantasy game, be sure to checl out our full list of Divinity: Original Sin 2 guides to get the most out of your roleplay.
Divinity: Original Sin 2 is an exceptional RPG, but that doesn’t mean mods can’t make it even better. With its robust editing tools and intuitive Game Master mode, expect to see lots of tweaks, new features and entire campaigns in the future. We’ll be updating this list over time, but we’ve already found plenty of helpful mods. Here are the best Divinity: Original Sin 2 mods so far.
Free pet pal
Steam Workshop | Nexus
The pet pal talent is objectively and irrefutably the best ability in the game. Giving you the power to talk to critters, it’s an endless source of jokes, hints and hidden quests. By not picking it, you’d be missing out on many of the adventure’s greatest moments. This mod simply makes it a free ability, so you can use it straight away without being forced to pick between it and one of the many other handy talents. You’ll be able to blather away with Rivellon’s chatty animals to your heart’s content. An update to the mod also makes it affect everyone in your party, not just your character.
Expanded party size
Steam Workshop | Nexus
Original Sin 2’s companions are all worth bringing along on your journey, adding elaborate personal quests to your journal that span the game and providing plenty of roleplaying opportunities. Unfortunately, with the maximum party size of four, you’ll have to leave at least two of them behind. The expanded party size mod, not surprisingly, lets you take all of them with you. There are some minor UI and dialogue issues, but nothing game breaking. Combat will be a bit unbalanced, however, so you might want to consider a higher difficulty.
Infinite spirit vision
Spirit vision lets you strike up a conversation with ghosts, opening up new ways to solve quests. It’s basically pet pal with spectres. Unlike pet pal, however, it’s an ability you have to cast, and it doesn’t last forever. This makes it easy to forget that there could be several more characters floating about. Infinite spirit vision keeps it on all the time, effectively making it a passive ability. If you’re in an area that’s haunted, there’s no faffing required, and you’ll notice right away. The original mod has vanished from Steam and Nexus, but this newer one comes with an expanded radius so you’ll see ghosts that are further away.
Origin and racial skill books
Steam Workshop | Nexus
Several skills in Original Sin 2 are exclusive to specific races and character origins. It’s one of the few restrictions in what is an otherwise very flexible, classless system. The origin and racial skill books mod makes these skills unlockable in the same way as all the others by turning them into skill books. This includes pet summons, so you’ll be able to make a custom character that can control Ifan’s wolf and the Red Prince’s dragonling, but it doesn’t include the abilities granted by Fane’s Shapeshifter’s Mask. The skill books can be found in specific book shelves. The mod is no longer being updated as of December 2017.
Artificer and Bard skills
Steam Workshop | Nexus
This mod adds a whopping 50 new skills to the game. They can be mixed and matched with other skills or used to create Bard and Artificer characters. The Bard skills call to mind its D&D counterpart, revolving around buffing and debuffing, but the cherry on top is the weaponised lute you can get your hands on. Artificer skills are based around messing with items, like duplicating potions and cursing objects, handy both in and out of combat. Both of these skill sets are great for support characters.
Tempest skills
Spears are kind of weird in Original Sin 2. They’re finesse weapons, but unlike daggers and bows, they don’t have any skills specifically associated with them . Unless you download the Tempest skill pack, that is. This mod gives spears piercing damage, bypassing armour, and also introduces ten spear-based skills that run the gamut from simple jabs to summoning an intimidating barrage of spears.
Chronicles of Divinity map collection
Steam Workshop | Nexus
If you’d rather kick off a campaign without building every single map yourself, the Chronicles of Divinity map collection adds 12 new maps for GMs to throw into their games or tweak to their heart’s content. The collection includes a dingy pirate’s cove, an ancient Elven forest and a prison filled with lava. More maps are being added, including an alternate version of Fort Joy. The maps all come from the in-development Chronicles of Divinity mod, an unofficial expansion to the main game that introduces new classes, quests and the ability to sail around in your very own ship.
Combat sneak
Steam Workshop |Nexus
By reducing the AP cost of sneaking in the middle of a fight down to two, the combat sneak mod makes stealth a viable combat tactic. At 4 AP, it's normally too expensive to make it all that useful. You'll still need to watch out for archers who might spot you, of course, and you'll want to take advantage of cover and stay out of the red view radius while you're sneaking up on your targets or getting out of dangerous situations. This mod is particularly useful if you take the Guerilla perk, which increases damage by 40% when attacking from stealth.
JRavens GM Toolkit
Steam Workshop | Nexus
While the GM mode comes with a mountain of assets—everything from incidental props and window dressing to ships and castles— you can never have too many toys to play with when you're building your very own campaign. This toolkit expansion adds hundreds of items, both entirely new and stuff that Larian created but either didn't finish or left out of the final version. It also makes the maps larger and more customisable, letting you remove previously fixed elements like rocks and trees. Particularly handy are the empty maps that allow you to create custom areas for your campaign without the need to make them on the separate editor. The mod is still in development, but its creator has been fixing bugs. They recommend starting a new campaign rather than using it in a pre-existing one.
Void Knight
Steam Workshop | Nexus
Another new class mod, Void Knight introduces a slew of skills that combine martial and magical attacks that debuff any unfortunate enemies that get in their way. There are skills for strength-based warriors, including knockdowns, charges and leaps, but these are joined by magical abilities that summon shadows and transform the caster into a void dragon. It's a broad set of skills, but the void mark system lends the class some cohesion. Certain attacks apply a void mark on enemies, cursing them and reducing their resistances, and when the number of void marks on a target hits four it empowers that skill. How to recover deleted data in tally 9. You’ll be able to make a Void Knight in character creation, but you can also pick up the skills from a vendor in Fort Joy and, later, on the Lady Vengeance.
Crafting overhaul
Steam Workshop| Nexus
If you’ve found the perfect set of armour but hate the colour, or if you desperately need to craft a sword in the middle of the woods, then the crafting overhaul mod has you covered. Along with more than 1600 new crafting recipes and over 550 new items, it introduces armour dyes, unique craftable gear, fancy elemental weapons and extra conveniences like portable crafting stations and bags. And you’ll also be able to get your hands on the grisly corpse harvester: a weapon that lets you harvest parts from the corpses of your fallen enemies. And why would you need body parts? To craft new items, of course. I suspect Fane’s a big fan of this nasty piece of kit.