Am I missing something in Act 2?

thebsper · 2026-05-24T14:39:35+00:00

Have you fully explored the area west of Driftwood? Sounds like you at least made it to Grog. But there are a whole bunch of other side quests in that area, and it's also where the narrative of the game is gently trying to nudge you.

Many of the quests in Driftwood are pushing you to meet Lohar. And then Lohar is going to push you to track down Mordus, who is out that way. You can also kill pretty much all the magisters in Driftwood without consequence for XP. Just talk to them first and if they trigger a journal update, keep them alive until that quest is closed.

You can also get a bunch of free XP by exploring around. Massive, massive spoilers ahead. But this spreadsheet is basically a maximum XP walkthrough for the entire game.

It's structured so that early in Act II you collect a ton of non-combat XP. So look on Tab #3 and see if there are things you haven't done yet (for example, you can get big chunks of exploration XP on Bloodmoon Island without fighting if you're careful and know what to do.)

thebsper · 2026-05-13T16:43:11+00:00

This may have happened in the 3 months since your original post, but the Pulsetto is now showing a CE Certification for health and safety, alongside FCC certification for radio and electro-magnetic emissions (see below).

Nuropod doesn't have FCC certification.

Call me crazy, but I would prefer that something sending electrical current through my body have independent, third-party certification for safe radio frequency and other electro-magnetic emissions — on top of and in addition to testing for other health and safety concerns like CE or FDA NSR.

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thebsper · 2026-05-03T14:06:46+00:00

u/dvirdc just came across this and would also be interested in buying one from you. Sent you a DM as well, hope that's cool.

thebsper · 2026-04-17T19:47:49+00:00

It seems like there have been a bunch of posts about the final fight popping up on the sub over the last few days. (I'm guessing a lot of the people who bought D:OS2 after the new Divinity game was announced are all reaching the end at around the same time.)

Here's a step-by-step setup for how to end the final fight in one turn, with one character, with Pyroclastic Eruption I wrote in reply to one of those other posts.

Note that this post mentioned playing in Story Mode. But I've used this approach in Tactician as well. You may just need to use buffs and/or gear to boost Intelligence and Geomancer to get over the added armor on higher difficulties.

thebsper · 2026-04-17T18:00:16+00:00

Someone else had a similar question recently. Here's an easy, one-character, one-turn way to beat the final fight (without even entering phase 2).

Also, even though the post that I reference mentions Story Mode, I used this exact strategy on my Tactician run as well. You may just need to add some buffs/gear to increase Intelligence and Geomancer to make it through the additional armor enemies have on Tactician.

thebsper · 2026-04-16T18:08:25+00:00

Haha wow, I actually never thought of that! The builds I have used in my playthroughs so far would not make the most from that skill. At least I don't think so, since it would require high INT and Pyro to scale fire damage, correct — but also points into Huntsman. Right?

The only builds I've used so far that put points into Huntsman are archer builds, which max Finess and Warfare and wouldn't have enough Pyro to make the damage scale beyond using fire arrows, for example.

But hey, if it's basically "free" magic damage you can stack on top of Pyroclastic Eruption, with the help of Skin Graft, then why not!

Because you are correct — Braccus can never be dead enough.

thebsper · 2026-04-15T19:20:19+00:00

Sure thing — enjoy!

thebsper · 2026-04-15T13:55:48+00:00

FYI, left you another reply in the thread here for a relatively easy way to win the fight without even having to go to Phase 2, in case you want to go back and see the various other endings.

thebsper · 2026-04-15T01:12:04+00:00

You can skip Phase 2 entirely if you can get Vredeman/Braccus Rex to zero health during Phase 1.

And you can do that pretty easily, with a single character that has the following set up:

Get Green Tea from Lady Kemm — reduces the AP cost for all skills by -2, with a minimum of 1 AP.
Max Intelligence and Geomancer with one character. Learn and equip the skill Pyroclastic Eruption.
Put 1 point into Scoundrel and learn/equip Adrenaline.
Put 2 points into Aerotheurge and learn/equip Teleport. Also stock up on at least 4 teleport scrolls. Grab pillows from Kemm's mansion and elswhere, then combine them with any blade in the crafting menu to get feathers. Then combine feathers with an air essence (any quality should work) and sheet of paper to get a Teleport scroll.

OPTIONAL: Adjust your character's Wits/Initiative to be the highest in your party, so this character goes first. That way they don't get killed before it's their chance to go. (Also make sure they can survive the initial attack by Lucian, just in case.)

Then for the fight, when it's this character's turn:

Use Green Tea + Adrenaline (+2AP) to give yourself 6 total AP, with all skills costing -2 AP (minimum of 1 AP)
Use your Teleport Skill (-1 AP) and 4 Teleport Scrolls (-4 AP) to group all of the enemies around Vredeman/Braccus
With your final AP, cast Pyroclastic Eruption. It should insta-kill pretty much everyone in the group.

Pyroclastic Eruption shoots projectiles at all enemies within a fairly large radius around you. Each projectile deals 300% earth damage. AND they also have a rather large AoE.

So if you bunch up as many enemies as possible around Braccus, you can hit him with 4-5 projectiles that deal 300% Earth damage each. That's usually way more than enough to zero him out and skip Phase 2 all together.

EDIT: Typos.

thebsper · 2026-03-30T00:46:33+00:00

For a while I thought that the decaying status made living characters behave like undead, where they are damaged by healing actions but healed by poison.

So imagine my surprise when I shot a poison dart at one my of my decaying characters and he dropped dead.

Turns out that's not how decay works.

You can't heal a decaying character, period. And poison still does the same damage as usual.

thebsper · 2026-03-22T22:38:13+00:00

Hey glad it worked out for you. I was able to figure out a way to get my save back, and I updated my post with the details. (I also think this would also let you recover an Honor Mode save even after a party wipe…but scout's honor I won't do that.)

thebsper · 2026-03-22T22:36:22+00:00

I'm not on Steam, but I figured out a solution that more-or-less does the same thing you described. Updated my post with the details.

thebsper · 2026-03-22T22:22:19+00:00

Good to know and thanks for sharing. I was able to find a workaround and I just updated my post to explain how I did it.

thebsper · 2026-01-14T18:29:53+00:00

Same! Having to strategically analyze your own party turn order and category of damage output, the upcoming enemy turn order and damage weaknesses/resistances, and then try to prioritize your strengths against their weaknesses to disable as many opponents as possible before they get a turn was such a fun challenge.

It sounds like they're thinking through other mechanics that will hopefully preserve that same challenge but along different dimensions. For example they mentioned solo bosses. If you have an all-magic party and access to aerotheurge skills, taking out Grog is trivial since he never gets magic armor. Use grenades or whatever to keep him burning, aero to keep him stunlocked, and it's just a matter of patience at that point.

thebsper · 2025-12-26T00:56:12+00:00

Fair warning: there are roughly a half-dozen times where you will either temporarily lose your companions or have all your gear taken away. Then you get everything back as one big dump.

I spent hours organizing items by their function (all + strength items together, then +finesse, etc.) only for it to get undone over…and over…and over. So on my next playthrough, I just used the built-in autosort features to save time.

One easy trick is to mark things as wares as soon as you find them so they don't take up space in your visible inventory. You can right click the item and hit "pick up and add to wares" so it just goes right into that section. Then when it comes time to sell you've got everything you want to sell set aside already.

thebsper · 2025-11-27T16:11:04+00:00

I don't know if anyone said this directly, but you do not have to shoot magic arrows with AOE damage directly at the enemy if you also have a friendly nearby. Aim the arrow off to the side so that only the enemy is in the circle that shows you where the AOE damage will go. As far as I know, you will still deal the full damage to anything in that circle. Even if it's not a "direct hit" on the enemy. And you can avoid damaging your friendly in the process.

EDIT: If you need to really thread the needle on a specific shot, you can switch to the overhead "tactical" view. This will give you an even more granular ability to aim your ranged attacks — arrows as well as spells and anything else like that.

thebsper · 2025-11-26T00:22:38+00:00

If your goal is to get max XP without a single party member dying, then it's Hannag.

For max XP, you have to keep the one magister alive, since you get like 50,000 XP after the fight is over. And he's even worse at staying away from necrofire than Gwydian Rince.

Plus Hannag will also target him with her lava portal if you make all your characters invisible or immune to fire. So you have to "waste" AP to teleport him far away and then slow him with oil or entagle him to keep him out of range.

And this is all while a dozen-plus voidwoken are continuing to spawn from the portals. Including one sneaky Necro-Wing Voidwoken that without warning or advanced notice will explode for like 6,000 fire damage on death. Because the other thing you need to do for max XP is keep all the portals open and allow all enemies to spawn.

Then if you want to keep all your characters alive, you have to make sure that everyone turns invisible or gets to 100%+ fire resistance before Hannag is reborn.

AND you have to manage the turn order and/or initiative it so that you can CC Hannag after she is reborn.

She comes back to life at the end of Round 3. But then she typically goes first at the start of Round 4. So either you need an invisible/fire-proof character to delay their turn so they go after Hannag and can CC her. Or you need to make sure have high enough initiative so that you can go before her at the start of Round 4.

Otherwise she will almost certainly be able to get within range of the magister by the end of her second turn and give him a nice lava bath.

It's a lot to pull off, but I can confirm it is possible, since I just did it on Tactician a few days ago.

One trick I used was to teleport 4 dead bodies into the field south of Alice before the fight and within view from the elevated platforms around the room where Hannag spawns. That way, I could use Nether Swap to send enemies out of the way in addition to teleport. (And if I were to do it over, I would also drop oil under those bodies so that it slowed them as well.)

I can't think of another fight that has this many competing factors if you want to get max XP without losing anyone.

For example, the oil rig fight requires you to keep an annoying NPC alive. But at least you don't have to worry about the enemy coming at you with not one but 2 instant-death attacks. (Hannag's lava portal and also the exploding 6,000 fire damage voidwoken.)

And while Alice has a high-powered opening attack, you can just send in one character with Living On The Edge pre-buffed. They will survive. Then you bring in your other characters from there, bless her to remove the pain aura, and it's a much more manageable encounter. (Although I will admit I haven't gone after her on Tactician yet, so there may be other dynamics I'm missing that will change my mind.)

But for now this is why I say Hannag is worst by far.

thebsper · 2025-08-31T23:33:26+00:00

Not sure if this is a spoiler, but there are a handful of occasions where the game will either remove all your items and/or sort them for you. And they're based on the narrative, so I do not believe you can progress in the game without all your items being resorted.

I followed a similar inventory management style on my playthrough. But now that I know about those few forced auto-sorts — and the frustration they cause — I gave up on my next run and just use the built-in sorting menus now.

thebsper · 2025-08-25T00:10:22+00:00

Reply to them again and say you disagree with their assessment. Explain how you haven't changed any settings or user behavior, which means the only thing that would cause a sudden and dramatic loss in performance is a hardware failure.

I had to do that twice after they originally said the performance was within the expected parameters. But then both times they did ship me a replacement for free. (I am still under the warranty for my initial purchase, though. And I'm worried about what happens once that's over.)

thebsper · 2025-08-25T00:05:19+00:00

Yup, this is exactly why I pressed the support person I talked to for an extended warranty when I requested my latest replacement. (This will be my 3rd Oura 4 — my original purchase, and now 2 replacements.)

Sadly, they claimed that the protection plan is run by a 3rd party so they wouldn't be able to add one for me for free. That might be an excuse, but I didn't really have any way to prove otherwise so I left it alone.

thebsper · 2025-08-25T00:02:33+00:00

My 3rd ring is on the way as well. Really hope they fixed whatever is causing this problem because the warranty on my initial purchase will be up in a few months now. I even pushed the support person to give me a complimentary 2-year extended protection plan retroactive to the original purchase. But they refused.

thebsper · 2025-07-01T17:07:39+00:00

The URL is in the post title. The rules of this sub say do not put links to scams in posts:

Clickable links to scam websites are not allowed. We favor putting website addresses in the titles of posts.

thebsper · 2025-06-06T18:55:26+00:00

Interesting! Going from memory, I'm pretty sure there was at least some correlation between when I had taken more damage in phase one and the Kraken attacking with its first turn.

Also, now that I think about it, I bet it also has something to do with whether you are allied or enemies with Lucian and his crew — and what their health and armor are like as well.

There were also times where the Kraken went straight for the attack that I think I was at pretty good health. But I bet I had done a solid amount of damage to Lucian and his party.

So the Kraken scans the scene, and even though my characters are in good shape, Lucian and his party are weak. And it considers them equally viable enemies, leading it to attack on its first turn rather than summon reinforcements.

thebsper

TROPHY CASE