Part 20: Final Bosses - Divinity: Original Sin Guide - IGN (2024)

It's been a long journey, but you now know the truth of your main enemy's motivations. Now that you found Zandalor and he's gone to the Homestead, the portal to the final area of the game is open. As Zixzax warns you, the portal one-way: the moment you step inside, you're not coming back. It's recommended that you do have a final hard save outside the portal just in case.

Preparation

Preparing for the final battles may take a while. If you are at least Level 21, the battle will not be overly difficult, though it's long and a test of endurance. This is your absolute final chance to make adjustments and buy gear, so there are a few things you can do to increase your odds of surviving.

First, consider going to The Hall of Darkness in your Homestead and respec your characters. You won't need any Crafting or Blacksmithing anymore, and it's unlikely that you'll need Loremaster either (although the final fights are in two parts, and the first part tends to drop very high quality but unidentified jewelry). Given that Moloch only charges 1000 gold for a total respec, it's worth the nominal fee.

Remember that only your Source Hunters can respec; Jahan, Madora, or anyone you hire from the Hall of Heroes is stuck with what they've got. If you respec, favor defense over offense, especially Willpower. Although the fight is going to take a while either way, it's going to take much longer if you keep getting stunned, burned, blinded, cursed, or worse. Just be warned that if you do respec, you'll need to rebuy your skill books.

Next, make sure someone on the team can cast Fire Shield. Go around to the various shops (including those in the Homestead). The higher the level of the mage's Pyrokinetic, the better, because you'll want to be able to cast the shield on every turn. Other shields are useful but not as necessary. Fire offense is useful too, though water-based offense (especially icicle spells) will help out more. Your best bet is a mage who can use fire and water equally well so he can spend most of his turns shielding and healing.

Stock up on Resurrection Scrolls and make sure everyone in the party has at least three. If a mage has Glass Cannon, he probably recovers enough action points per turn that he can use a Resurrection Scroll at the start of any turn without having to roll over action points. If you have a mage like that, give him all the remaining Resurrection Scrolls. Consider giving him at least a dozen.

Potions are unlikely to be necessary in the final area, except for healing potions for emergencies. Even then, you should be relying on mages for healing. Don't go too crazy with resistance potions (even though the following screenshot shows just that). The final fight is so prolonged that the minuscule durations of the potions won't make much of a difference. Having a few in case of emergency isn't so bad, but you won't need an entire alchemist's cabinet in your backpack.

However, if you have an archer, do stock up on every special arrow you can get your hands on. Charming arrows will make things much easier, and freezing arrows will be able to inflict significant damage to basically everything you're going to have to deal with. You absolutely cannot have enough: you might consume as many as 40 or more charming arrows if your ranger is good at using them to keep control.

Finally, give your gear one final check. All non-mages should be carrying Tenebrium weapons, the stronger the better. Even if your weapons aren't primarily Tenebrium, consider giving them Tenebrium bars so they get the effect. Your enemies will have high defense, but Tenebrium does direct damage and won't be as heavily affected. Your front-line fighters should also be equipped with fire defense, even at the cost of a little armor rating. The Weresheep armor will give a very high fire defense especially when stacked with rings, and if you have over 100% fire resistance, fire will start healing you. This will make the final battle much simpler.

Once you're ready, follow Zixzax to the portal and walk through.

Speaking to the Conduit

As you enter the final area, you'll see two switches on the ground flanking stairs. Your Source Hunters must stand on these switches; companions are irrelevant. Once they do so, Leandra makes an appearance.

At the end of the conversation, if you collected the Soulforge Repair Ritual from Cassandra, you can choose whether to attempt to repair the soul forge. If you choose to repair it, it will make the first fight here significantly easier.

Regardless of how the conversation goes, you'll be permitted to proceed. You'll reach a plaza of sorts that features the God Box in plain view, and you'll speak to The Trife. After the conversation, Astarte will teleport in, and you'll be engaged.

First Battle: The Trife

The Trife's opening move will be to summon some friends. If you did not repair the soul forge, his allies will include Death Knights. You'll need to use the Death Knight Bane and other similar tactics as you did in Part 18 to beat them. If you did repair the soul forge, his allies are essentially weaker versions of him.

This is not the only time Trife will summon allies. It takes a lot of action points for him to do so, but his void companions are fairly strong. If you focus all your time attacking the allies, you won't be doing much damage to Trife himself. If possible, one front-line member of your team needs to do nothing but attack Trife. The other front-line member should change targets as convenient and necessary. Your back line should prioritize taking out the summons unless you feel like you're not doing enough damage to Trife. Regardless of who is attacking what, your mage should be casting Fire Shield on the front line. Don't ever let the front line fight without their shields on.

Trife can suffer damage from fire attacks, so you can hit him with pretty much everything you've got. Trife also can suffer from most status ailments, though his resistance to them is pretty high. Still, if you have a fire-based mage who can cast Smokescreen, you may as well try casting it against any summons and Trife himself. You might get lucky.

Meanwhile, Astarte will help you out. It's difficult for her to die, as she'll cast a heal on herself if her hit points drop a little low. However, she usually spends her turns directly helping you out. She may bless you increase your hit chance, deal direct damage to the enemies, curse the enemies, or cure your party's status ailments. If she has to heal herself, it means she's doing something technically less useful. As such, try to keep her healthy; consider her one of your team, and if she starts taking hits, heal her so she can concentrate on buffing you. Even if she attacks, her damage output is likely much better than anything your party can do.

Trife doesn't change his attack pattern, even as he gets low on hit points. He favors fire, and he's susceptible to freezing, so you may want to consider casting a Rain spell to ensure the battlefield stays relatively clear. It's not necessary, especially if you can keep up with Fire Shields, but it may help out.

Once Trife goes down, you'll need kill any of his remaining summons. You'll then have about one minute to heal up, collect and identify loot, and reequip. Don't stray past the God Box until you're ready. Consider another hard save here. When you're ready, approach Astarte or walk past the God Box to the northeast.

Final Boss: Void Dragon

The Void Dragon is your final challenge. He has a huge number of hit points, very strong defense, high evasion, and powerful offense. Worse still, he'll summon void creatures to help him out just as The Trife did.

The Void Dragon's main weakness is that he doesn't move. It's difficult to surround him, thus negating the chance you can get flanking damage. However, it does limit the range of his attacks: if you know where to step, you can avoid much of his damage. We'll demonstrate in detail in a moment.

Tactically speaking, this battle should be conducted similarly to The Trife. At least one front-line fighter needs to get in the dragon's face and do nothing but attack him. Prioritize whichever front-line fighter has higher Strength, since she'll have a better chance to hit. The other front-line fighter should either attack the dragon as well or float around and attack targets as necessary. The back line needs to stay away from the dragon and attack targets as they arrive.

Astarte tends to stand in the northwest edge of the garden. This puts her out of range of the dragon's attacks, although she won't be able to reach the southeast with her own attacks. Still, this isn't a bad position. Enemies can spawn in from all sides of the garden, so if Astarte and your back line stays to the northwest, it allows you to hold the area while defending Astarte as necessary.

Astarte's blessings are practically required because of how difficult it is to hit the Void Dragon on normal difficulty. Unless many things go your way, without Astarte's blessing, you'll be lucky to see a 50% chance to hit. As such, you'll want to keep Astarte safe and healed so she casts her blessings more often. If Astarte complains about “feeling the Void's grip” and needs to heal herself, consider changing something so you can keep her more healthy.

It's easy to lose control of this battle if you allow the summons to overwhelm your back line. In the opening rounds, have at least one front line attack member attack the summoned creatures closest to the back line as they make their way forward. There is no limit to the dragon's summons however, so don't get too caught up in attacking them. Attack them if they're in the way while always moving forward with the front line.

If you have a ranger or witch, charm enemies at every opportunity. The summoned void creatures have low willpower and almost always fail at a charm save. Charmed enemies tend to run straight for the dragon, which helps you out in multiple ways. Charmed enemies will tend to have a higher to-hit chance against the Void Dragon than you probably do, and it gives the dragon something to focus on other than you. The dragon tends to attack whatever is closest to it and prioritizes charmed allies over your own party, and will generally kill a charmed enemy before he recovers and starts fighting you again.

Meanwhile, your mage with Fire Shield should cast that spell constantly. The back line (including the caster himself and Astarte) probably don't need it if you can keep control of the battlefield. However, the front line absolutely needs those Fire Shields at all times. If that's not possible (due to needing multiple shields on the same round), Fire Shields are preferred, and Ice Shields should be a last resort, but any shield is better than no shield. Because the dragon prefers fire himself, if your front line is specced or geared to defend against it (or even heal from it) while stacked with Fire Shields, the Void Dragon will be unable to cause much damage to them.

The Void Dragon casts more than fire however. His physical swipes are powerful, but not nearly as strong as his magic. He can use fire, poison, and electricity attacks, and when he does, he'll blast them out in a long cone. You'll have to be ready to suffer poisoning or stuns occasionally, but the dragon uses fire about twice as often as his other elements combined.

This magic cones are of predictable side and length. His fire and poison cones can be cast in any direction and go a specific length; the instant you see that length, you can move your back line forward so they're just outside that range. You can see this in the below screenshot. Notice where the two circled party members are standing relative to the dragon, the poisoned ground, and the black smoke cloud.

The very edge of the poisoned ground and black smoke is the absolute farthest the dragon's poison and fire attacks can reach. As long as the back line is to either side of the God Box and that far back, the dragon cannot hurt them.

However, the dragon's electric attack is a much longer strike. Its cone is narrower, but it can extend back past the God Box. Still, if the Void Dragon chooses to use an electric attack, he always aims down the middle. It seems the attack is a counter in case any of your party is “hiding” behind the God Box, though it may still hit your front line if they're stationed in front of him.

Due to the dragon's electrical attack, do not cast Rain for any reason. Although Rain can be paired with an ice attack to temporarily freeze the Void Dragon, it brings too much risk. If it's raining, and if the dragon electrifies the ground, a huge amount of ground can suffer and many of your party members will be stunned. Not only is the risk too great, but as long as you keep those Fire Shields on your front line, the fiery ground doesn't matter. Note that even though the graphics seem to imply that there is rain, there won't be any unless you cast it.

Once you have your pattern down, you just need to repeat it until the dragon goes down. Any hit you do will only inflict minimal damage, but anything is better than nothing, and the Void Dragon does not heal himself. Astarte tends to ignore the dragon and prefers to attack his summons if she attacks at all, so it'll be up to you. Mages can use ice-elemental spells for some moderate damage and guaranteed hits, but never attack if it will cost you a turn at applying a Fire Shield or a heal. It's a battle of attrition, and if you gamble wrong and start losing control, it'll be easy for the dragon to turn things around.

When the dragon dies, all of his summons explode and will not damage you. No loot will drop; loot is unnecessary. Astarte will give you a final conversation, and you will be taken to the credits roll! There is no New Game + or any other post-game content, so after the credits, you will simply be returned to the title screen.

Congratulations on beating Divinity: Original Sin!