Guardian Angel boosts this even more, as allies redirect their damage onto you, which gets redirected again onto your marked target. Charge in, mark the biggest, nastiest foes, then use Provoke to get its attention – every meaty strike it lands takes a chunk out of its own vitality. Shackles of Pain is the X-factor here – it marks a target, causing it to take all the damage that you do. Why hurt your enemies when they can hurt themselves… by hurting you? It makes sense when you try it, believe us.

Key skills – Shackles of Pain, Death Wish, Provoke, Guardian Angel.

Main skill categories – Warfare and Necromancer.

Attribute priority – Constitution, Strength, Memory, Intelligence.

Late-game additions – Ice Breaker adds an extra step to your freezing combo, exploding icy surfaces to deal extra damage, and Closed Circuit creates electrified clouds in a circle around you, giving you more resources to play with. Also consider taking a Pyromancer along to neutralise the deadly pools of electrified water and ice with a fireball once you are finished with them. Ranged teams with good magic armour and magic armour regeneration do well with this build in their lineup, as they can resist and avoid the harsh AoE status effects. Consider spending some points into Polymorph and Geomancy as well for some extra survivability. Picking up some healing and shielding skills, like Restoration and Armour of Frost, will help keep your teammates safe from your status storms. Pressure Spike provides cheap and useful AoE damage and a way to keep fires under control. Use Rain to get your enemies moist, then use Global Cooling or Electrical Discharge to either freeze them solid or zap them into submission. The Weather Machine build is specifically designed to keep your opponents struggling to mobilise with lingering ailments, most prominently Frozen and Stunned.

Learning how to use status effects is a direct path to success in Divinity 2.

Key skills – Rain, Hail Strike/Global Cooling, Electrical Discharge, Pressure Spike,.

Main skill categories – Hydrosophist and Aerotheurge.

Attribute priority – Intelligence, Memory, Constitution, Wits.

Divinity 2 source skills