Ranking classes in Divinity: Original Sin 2 is mostly meaningless because you respec freely at the start of Act 2 and can rebuild anyone into anything. What is worth ranking is the combat abilities, because those decide whether your party works.
And one rule sits above all of it: every character should deal the same damage type. Physical armour and magic armour are separate bars, crowd control only lands when the matching bar is at zero, and a mixed party strips neither.
Combat abilities
| Tier | Ability | Why |
|---|---|---|
| S | Warfare | Boosts all physical damage including Necromancer spells. Every physical build wants it above its own school. |
| S | Scoundrel | Critical multiplier plus the mobility skills that decide positioning. |
| A | Hydrosophist | Healing, magic armour restoration, and the freeze chain. |
| A | Aerotheurge | Teleport is the best utility spell in the game and stun follows freeze. |
| A | Geomancer | Physical armour restoration and poison, which heals undead. |
| A | Summoning | An Incarnate at 10 Summoning outdamages most characters for the whole early game. |
| B | Pyrokinetic | Strong damage, sets fire to ground you needed to walk on. |
| B | Necromancer | Good, but scales off Warfare rather than itself. |
| B | Polymorph | Free attribute points and the wings. Support rather than a build. |
| C | Huntsman | High ground bonus is real and situational. |
Talents
Lone Wolf is the single strongest choice in the game. Two characters instead of four, doubled points, higher armour. If you want the game easier, this is the button.
The Pawn is free movement every turn and quietly excellent. Executioner turns a good turn into a great one. Glass Cannon is spectacular and suicidal.
Party composition, which matters more than any of this
Four physical or four magic. Mono-physical is the more forgiving of the two, because early Magic Armour values tend to be higher than Physical.
A party split two and two will feel like the game is cheating. It is not; it is the armour system working exactly as designed and nobody explaining it.
Origin characters
Fane, Sebille, Ifan, Lohse, Beast and the Red Prince each carry unique tags that open dialogue and quest routes a custom character never sees.
Fane is the standout, because undead physiology inverts healing and poison and changes several encounters outright. Playing an origin costs nothing mechanically, so a custom character is the weaker choice unless you specifically want a blank slate.
Source spells
Apotheosis resets ability cooldowns. Skin Graft resets armour. Used together they produce the single most broken turn available, and most players who find that combination move up a difficulty afterwards.
Difficulty
Classic is comfortable and forgiving of a mixed-damage party. Tactician is where the armour rule above stops being advice and becomes a requirement, and Honour mode adds a single save file on top of that.
The Divinity: Original Sin 2 builds guide covers the armour system in full.
