Divinity: Original Sin 2

Divinity: Original Sin 2

180 ratings
Honour Build - Second Sun (Elemental Archer)
By Lost Sinner
★ Build made for any Elf, Human or Undead Human. This build is meant for 4-man party experience.

♦ My other works:
• Definitive Honour Builds: link
• Honour Walkthrough: link

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✖ Artwork by: Yang J
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★ Showcase Video
✎ Stats Progression
  • Level 1: 13 FIN, 1 Huntsman, 1 Scoundrel, Glass Cannon
  • Level 2: 16 FIN, 1 Poly
  • Level 3: 18 FIN, 1 Warfare, Arrow Recovery
  • Level 4: 20 FIN, 2 Warfare
  • Level 5: 22 FIN, 2 Huntsman
  • Level 6: 24 FIN, 1 Pyro
  • Level 7: 26 FIN, 3 Warfare
  • Level 8: 28 FIN, 4 Warfare, Torturer
  • Level 9: 30 FIN, 1 Aero
  • Level 10: 32 FIN, 2 Aero
  • Level 11: 34 FIN, 5 Warfare
  • Level 12: 36 FIN, 6 Wafare
  • Level 13: 38 FIN, 7 Warfare, Executioner
  • Level 14: 40 FIN, 8 Warfare
  • Level 15: 12 WIT, 9 Warfare
  • Level 16: 14 WIT, 10 Warfare
  • Level 17: 16 WIT, 1 Ranged
  • Level 18: 18 WIT, 2 Ranged, Hothead
  • Level 19: 20 WIT, 3 Ranged
  • Level 20: 22 WIT, 4 Ranged
  • Level 21: 24 WIT, 5 Ranged
If the requirements already met with the help of your gear, respec the attributes or combat skills and relocate them elsewhere where it could yield more benefits like getting more Ranged so you can eventually maxed out both Ranged and Warfare in the end.

It isn't heavily required but if wanted, you can also run a synergy build to raise the Archer damage potential: Elemental Conjurer

Keep in mind that if you have been stocking or stealing plenty of special arrows, you can swap Arrow Recovery out and take other damaging talent instead.

♦ Academy Lessons:
  • Lesson in Con: +5 CON / -5 INT
  • Lesson in Wit: -5 CON / +5 WIT

♦ Spider Kiss Talent:
  • Dragon +2 WIT -2 CON

♦ Civil:
  • Thievery 1st → Sneaking 2nd
✎ Equipment
♦ Gear:
  • Look out for gear with Warfare, Scoundrel, Wits or FIN, Belts have a rare chance of having Ranged so keep an eye out for them.

  • Use Rings with Wits, Warfare or Scoundrel, elemental side stats that comes along like Pyro / Geo / Hydro / Aero are also appreciated.

  • Use Weapons with +Huntsman, +Ranged or +Finesse, preferably one with critchance and a runeslot. If the bow comes with a bonus elemental damage, it would be also appreciated as it stack/apply on top of every special arrows.

♦ Runes:
  • Amulet: Flame Rune (+4/5/6% Critchance)

  • Armour Venom Rune(+7/9/11% Poison Resistance)

  • Weapon: Masterwork Rune (+11/13/15% Physical Damage)

♦ Frames:
  • Amulet: Mystical Flame (+1 Pyro)

  • Armour Power Poison (+2/3 FIN)

  • Weapon: Mystical Masterwork (+2/3 WITS)

♦ Eternal Artefacts:
They can't be REMOVED once plugged and they are also LIMITED, so only use when you know for sure that piece of gear is going to stick for a looong time.
  • Neck: 10% Fire Resist, +2% Crit, +5% Dodge
  • Head: +2 Finesse, +1 Huntsman
✎ In-depth Details
  • Ideal Party Initiative Order: pre-buff Peace of Mind to control party initiative if needed.
    3rd place or 4th place: executioner role, finish off weak enemies and save arrows with minimum consumption.
    1st place: strong initial striker, ideal to take out high threat enemies or set up hard CC on them.

  • Poison Upgrade: combining any poison source + any weapon to get extra poison damage on the weapon. They stack / apply on top of every special arrows.

  • Arrow Recipes: Any Arrowheads + Arrow Shafts = Respective Arrows
    General Vendors: usually have a small number of arrow crafting materials each reset.
    Ranger dedicated Vendors: always have a huge stock of both crafting materials and special arrows each reset.

    You can either trade using a high Bartering character with 100 invested attitude towards that NPC (Corbin Day sticks around so he's ideal NPC for investing)
    or
    Steal all of them per character each reset, a high Thievery character can easily clean the vendor's entire wares & gold each resets.

  • As of now, both Elemental Ranger talent and Fire Brand ability do not apply / stack on top of any special arrows, so they are not included in the build unless changed in the future.
    (28.9.2018 -date)

  • Special Arrows scale with weapon damage, so naturally the Ranger is still a very strong physical damage dealer. In cases where targets are actually a lot more vulnerable to physical damage than elemental damage, you can still choose to gun those down with regular attacks/skills or use knockdown arrows instead.

  • Necrofire and Blessed Arrows: start appearing at level 16.
✎ Abilities Setups
✦ Early Game (1~8)
  • Elemental Arrowhead: use on a surface to get bonus weapon damage based on the surface elemental.
    Note: any surface will always stack / apply on top of every special arrows.

  • Adrenaline: Gain 2 AP for this turn but lose 2 AP on the next turn (a tradeoff), use it when you need to confirm a kill to trigger Executioner talent or just simply want to finish off some high threat targets.

  • Chloroform: deal magic damage and apply Sleeping to vulnerable target, hard CC that target for a turn if they don't take damage.
    Sleeping always tick first before damage overtime status, meaning even if target are poisoned, burned,.. they will still lose a turn by Sleep.

  • Cloak: hide and protect yourself from enemy.

  • Enrage: +100% critchance, also apply Muted so make sure you use other buffs first before Enrage.

  • Tactical Retreat: a mobility / jumping skill, also apply Hasted that +1 AP Recovery.

  • Ignition: with Torturer talent, it's an ideal and cheap spell to set up Burn debuffs on nearby enemies, giving them a -15% Fire Resistance
    Fire or Poison Arrows also can straight up apply Burned / Poisoned status on enemies as well.
    If your bow have Fire elemental damage bonus, using Poison Arrow will have a chance to apply both Poisoned & Burned status at the same time.

  • Bleed Fire: apply another -20% Fire resistance on top of Burn status, use as replacement for the Spellsword when Ignition is covered.

✦ Mid Game (9~15)
  • Venom Coating: apply Poison damage to your weapon, it's better to have other synergy character buff it for you. While not necessary required, it can increase your special arrows damage output notably.
    Bonus damage from Venom Coating stack / apply on top of every special arrows.

  • Teleportation: teleport target to a desired spot, use it to gather enemy close together, setting up to nuke them down with your special arrows AoE.

  • Nether Swap: switch spot between 2 targets, if your party melee already engaged close combat. Use it on your ally and one another enemy, to both get your friend out of harm way and teleport enemy close to eachother, ready to be nuked down with AoE.

  • Ballistic Shot: a good long range attack which damage increased the further the target, can quickly one shot and take out squishy enemy.

  • Shocking Arrows: they are single target only, apply Shocked per attack if enemy is vulnerable, you can set target up with one Wet arrow beforehand then folllow up with Shock arrow after. Use it to stun a target if wanted, otherwise Static Cloud has much better uses.

  • Water Arrows: AoE arrows, ideal for damaging arrows with Water damage and set up soft status Wet, reducing targets Air/Water resistance and making them more vulnerable to CC. Do not set Burn if you are planning to CC them.
    Wet + Chilled = Frozen
    Wet + Shocked = Stunned

    Tips: If the bow have bonus Shock damage, when shot with Water arrow, it will have a chance to apply Wet + Shocked status at the same time if target was vulnerable, allowing you to one shot CC enemies. This will also backfire if the bow has bonus Fire damage, targets will always get Warm despite using Water arrows...

  • Static Cloud CC Arrows: It's an AoE, that apply Stun right off the bat given enemies are vulnerable. With enemies gathered near together using Teleportation or Nether Swap, you can first soften their magic armour using any special arrows, preferably Water arrows as they apply Wet, reducing targets Air resistance. Then finally send a Static Cloud arrow their way to apply Stun.
    Enemies are stunned by the Static Cloud are likely to get Shocked status by the Cloud after they clear their Stuns. Meaning another quick Wet arrow can easily set them all up CC-ed again, potentially chain CC enemies to death.

  • Freezing CC Arrows: apply AoE chilled, can be setup and used the same way Static Cloud works. Set enemies up with Wet then shoot Freezing arrows, although Static Cloud is still better and more recommended. Not only it left a Shock Cloud behind but it also doesn't conflict with Fire that much, except a slight damage reduction, you can still dishing out damage when enemies are Stunned. Chilled/Freezing on the otherhand can be ruined by Fire.

✦ Late Game (16+)
  • Peace of Mind: Critchance and Damage boost, replaces Enrage.

  • Challenge: Mark an enemy, if the target dies within 2 turns then your character will receive bonus Armors and +20% Damage boost for a turn.

  • Flavor picking the rest however you want: as the character gain more memory slots on higher levels
12 Comments
last fat roll 27 Oct, 2023 @ 12:17am 
Academy Lessons are found in the Academy of Act 3, before you speak to the giant floating robot (The Eternal Arbiter). There is a room in the Academy with a long table and many chairs. Use spirit vision to reveal NPCs, then talk to them. Each one of them increases a specific stat but decreases something else.
IHaze on Spotify 2 Aug, 2023 @ 8:37am 
What are academy lessons?
zrom 19 Feb, 2022 @ 12:32am 
Thanks a lot Lost Sinner!! I figured I can just use a ring with geomancer yesterday. Really excellent and detailed guides. I'm just a little overwhelmed as it's my first play through and i'm using 4 of your guides for my party :)
Lost Sinner  [author] 18 Feb, 2022 @ 1:45pm 
[2] Although it's not entirely necessary required (optional) as mentioned in the same section, due to action econmy, you would miss out an attack that could have put down enemies during the same turn.

But still worth noting as it increases your dmg output notably if you already do something to put yourself in odd AP during the same turn, might as well cast it so no AP is wasted or incase you have a support member in the party to buff the AoE version.

*Glass Cannon character starts every round with max AP, any unused AP will be wasted.
Lost Sinner  [author] 18 Feb, 2022 @ 1:45pm 
[1] This build suggest to work better (though not necessary) with another build in mind in the "Stats progression" section.

If you were to use Elemental Conjurer in conjuction with this, Venomous Aura will be the spell to support the Archer. It's has similar buff but with an AoE radius for allies nearby instead.

Venom Coating is the self-buff version, i mention about having gear with Geomancer on them are appreciated in the Equipment section. You'd only need 1 Geo bonus from gear to learn and use the skill.
zrom 18 Feb, 2022 @ 12:57pm 
I'm confused as to how to use Venom Coating, what does it mean to better have a character with synergy use it? I gave this skill to Fane while Ifan is my archer, he can't buff Ifan b/c this skill only works on the character that has the skill. Plus here in this build, the character has no geomancer skill in order to learn the skill....what am I missing?
BoxMageOfOld 6 Nov, 2018 @ 2:29am 
Sorry didn't mean this build but all 4 for the party this build is meant for
BoxMageOfOld 6 Nov, 2018 @ 2:29am 
I would say you should recomend the odinblade pyro overhaul for those looking for mods to use with this build because it fits like a glove!!!

For your fire fury you get the flame blades, your whole party stacks scorch reducing fire resistance further, a weapon enchantment spell that gives fire damage on auto attacks, and some nice fire support spells like the fire version of blood sucker that devours flames around the target healing them and putting burning out.

This mod alone made this build so much more fun than it already was due to the synergie.
Nautilus 12 Oct, 2018 @ 7:03pm 
Fantastic work, do you think a Tanky Wizard is a possible build to play? Either lonewolf or 4 man.

Cheers!
blackmore80 1 Oct, 2018 @ 6:50am 
This build may use also Deploy Trap and Deploy Mass Trap, they are scales from level and pyrokinetic. Deploy trap is a good skill in the beginning. While Deploy Mass Traps can be used in the middle and and game, and utilies source spells, that that build lacks, espessialy if it is not Fane.