Honour mode strategies discussion

[Kaph-]

I decided to do my first blind playthrough on honour mode. I know it is risky, but I played a lot of DOS1 and I did a lot of reading on DOS2. 

 

I went double undead with lone wolf.

First one is an Eternal warrior (https://fextralife.com/divinity-original-sin-2-builds-eternal-warrior-death-knight-perfected/)

Second one is a custom scoundrel with necromancer and geomancer. Geomancer is mainly to heal (with poison) and fortify.

 

I believe I am halfway act 1 so far and it is working "ok". I had one or two fights that I was close to losing because both characters got CCed and one died. I guess I need to better manage my physical armour. I don't have problems with magical armour thanks to the Living armour talent.

 

What strategies are you guys using for honour mode? 

[Yadilie]

Doing blind run through with a friend.

 

My two characters

Lohse - Warfare Archer (Yes, Warfare. Warfare is far superior to Huntsmans when it comes to straight damage. Get the Huntsmans you need for your skills but beyond that Warfare. My damage was noticeably better after I respecced into it.)

Judeline (Custom Dwarf) - Warfare with a little Geomancer for shield buff and going into Necro for Shackles of Pain+Taunt strategy

 

Friends characters

Fane - Summoner/Necromancer Warrior

Sebille - Scoundrel/Warfare/Necromancer (Since his Sebille gets pounded so badly he's gonna go Shackles of Pain as well.)

 

It's worth putting some points into either Warfare or Huntsmans just for their teleport abilities, especially Tactical Retreat. I mean, they're 1 AP which is crazy good for how far you can jump when you're in High Ground.

 

Overall we're halfway through the second Act and it's been going well besides for the last huge ass boss fight. Thankfully it's really easy to get rich in this game with super high Lucky Charm and Bartering. If you can get to Act 2 then you get free point by point respeccing at any time. Can't open a door? Just move all your Civic abilities into Lockpicking and come back and redistribute them back to normal. Unlike Div1 you don't lose all your learned skills when you take away all your Combat Skills as well.

 

Also I can not stress this enough. LUCKY CHARM. This is by far the best ability in the game. Up at level 5 you will get Legendary armor pieces from any container. Combine that with Bartering and well we're at 30,000ish gold with really nothing else to buy at the moment. This beats the old crafting system for making money.

Edited September 4, 2018 by Yadilie

[Kaph-]

I was under the impression that lucky charm wasn't very good because, in my memories it wasn't great in DOS1, but I will have to try that! I might need to start a new game to do so. I realised that I'm missing so much because lone wolf has no effect on civil abilities.

If you stack the lucky charm skill on one character, does it apply to the entire party or do I need to loot everything with that specific character?

 

Also, you are right concerning warfare, its the best skill to improve physical damage output, unless you play a dual wielding melee class, in that case I think the dual wield skill is better because of the additional dodge percentage.

[Yadilie]

Everyone shares Lucky Charm. It's really good at the beginning of the game because you can find 100-200 gold piles quite a bit.

[Kallume]

Needless to say, I played DoS a lot... so, after playing a little bit of DoS on Classic, I jumped right into an Honour Mode game with the intention of using a Lone Wolf build that I have read so much about. It was suggested to go Conjurer to start as the summons were decent. I picked up Iban as a Wayfarer and died on the Crocolisks, then again on the Void Turtles (really, really early in the game). I could have reached level 3 by farting around town, but opted to attempt these fights and got annihilated. 

 

I will be attempting again over the weekend.

[Kallume]

Well snap... Eternal Warrior and Sanguine Bowman are a crazy good combo. I have had two deaths on Lone Wolf and only one close call (due to lack of planning). If you're getting stuck on Honour Mode, I recommend these two builds. With Lone Wolf, the only adjustment is that Lone Wolf is chosen first, then all of the recommended talents afterwards. Note that at time of posting, I have down-patched to leverage the gold-glitch from the physical copy... There have been a couple of encounters where a "free" Invisibility Potion have really helped.

[dtc1731]

I created 2 characters by logging in as a guest with the second controller.  I made an archer #1 and a 2 handed warrior #2.  Both with lone wolf.  Stick to either magic damage or physical damage.  Obviously I picked physical.  Get the perk executioner asap.  Also get adrenaline (scoundrel tree) right away.  For #1 Put most of you points into ranged, warfare, and scoundrel,  distribute to any other minor skills and perks as you see fit.  For #2 put most of you points into warfare, scoundrel and 2 handed, then distribute as you see fit.  Getting the Idol of rebirth (mid game) and crafting Ashen idols of rebirth is handy in case of an accidental death.  You will also want the teleport skills from the Archer class and the warfare class for combat movement.  At end game you want to have a high critical chance from gear and a high critical multiplier from Scoundrel.

 

Finally if you have are having a good run but die from bad luck or poor strategy, just dashboard, close application, and start from your last save.  You have to be quick though.  I beat honour mode like this without too many problems.  Had to dashboard a few times when I didn't plan for a fight well enough.

[machaesthetic]

I haven't played Divinity OS 2 yet, but I have played the first. How does co-op work? In the first game, you start with two players and it supports up to two player co-op, so basically you just either control both or each player controls each character, so that's pretty straightforward. However, in the second game, since you can play with up to four players, does the game still start you with four characters if you play solo? And if it doesn't, isn't this a pretty massive advantage early in (where the game is typically hardest) before you build up your party? Is there any kind of difficulty scaling to offset this?

Edited January 7, 2019 by StealthMonkey43

[Kallume]

On 1/7/2019 at 1:57 PM, StealthMonkey43 said:

I haven't played Divinity OS 2 yet, but I have played the first. How does co-op work? In the first game, you start with two players and it supports up to two player co-op, so basically you just either control both or each player controls each character, so that's pretty straightforward. However, in the second game, since you can play with up to four players, does the game still start you with four characters if you play solo? And if it doesn't, isn't this a pretty massive advantage early in (where the game is typically hardest) before you build up your party? Is there any kind of difficulty scaling to offset this?

 

A great question @StealthMonkey43. @dtc1731 indicated a great little tip in their post above. When you start the game, get your first character set up, then log in to another profile. This will allow you to launch the game with two characters (either custom or set character [they have background + quests]). As soon as you gain control of your characters, drop out of the game with player 2. Now you are playing solo with 2 characters instead of 1. This also allows you to set up two Lone Wolf characters right away, whereas, if you wait to acquire another party member normally, they have set skills until you can modify them during the Act 1 / 2 interlude. 

 

To further answer your question, you can set up "Party Formation" in the Options menu. This will allow you to assign P1 1-3 characters and P2 1-3 characters (or if online, up to 4 players). You can get a 4 character party almost immediately after starting Act 1. In fact, you can get a full team without getting into any combat in Act 1 (save for the introduction chapter). If you are running Lone Wolf, then use the method that I reiterated above from @dtc1731. 

 

For your last question about difficulty offsetting, no. Honour Mode doesn't care if you play with one character or 4, it is the same difficulty. If you run with 4 characters, they will be very squishy. In fact, many guides describe your characters as "Glass Cannons". I hope this helps.

[Maverick6146]

Will play as lone wolf void any companion trophies?

 

plus why is it more squishy for a 4 player party? Is it because no lone wolf trait or any game mechanisms that punish parties with multiple characters?

On 2019/1/9 at 2:47 PM, Kallume said:

 

A great question @StealthMonkey43. @dtc1731 indicated a great little tip in their post above. When you start the game, get your first character set up, then log in to another profile. This will allow you to launch the game with two characters (either custom or set character [they have background + quests]). As soon as you gain control of your characters, drop out of the game with player 2. Now you are playing solo with 2 characters instead of 1. This also allows you to set up two Lone Wolf characters right away, whereas, if you wait to acquire another party member normally, they have set skills until you can modify them during the Act 1 / 2 interlude. 

 

To further answer your question, you can set up "Party Formation" in the Options menu. This will allow you to assign P1 1-3 characters and P2 1-3 characters (or if online, up to 4 players). You can get a 4 character party almost immediately after starting Act 1. In fact, you can get a full team without getting into any combat in Act 1 (save for the introduction chapter). If you are running Lone Wolf, then use the method that I reiterated above from @dtc1731. 

 

For your last question about difficulty offsetting, no. Honour Mode doesn't care if you play with one character or 4, it is the same difficulty. If you run with 4 characters, they will be very squishy. In fact, many guides describe your characters as "Glass Cannons". I hope this helps.

 

[Kallume]

1 hour ago, Maverick6146 said:

Will play as lone wolf void any companion trophies?

 

plus why is it more squishy for a 4 player party? Is it because no lone wolf trait or any game mechanisms that punish parties with multiple characters?

 

There are no companion trophies this time around. The only caveat I'd caution is play with at least 2 party members. And make sure one is a recruited character. There's a trophy (Chosen) where you party members have to agree to let you ascend. If you don't have another party member or you don't have a recruited character (i.e. you created two characters yourself / with another person), the opportunity does come up, voiding the trophy. 

 

Per your LW question, LW characters get more armor and more health. Damage on Honour/Tac doesn't change between party sizes; ergo, you can either survive a couple hits on LW but may die in 1-2 hits without. The trade off is there are only two of you so the enemy may focus you instead of having two targets.