i do not understand why you hate wizard slayer's that much,the fact is if you whirwind once against a target all he has left is autoattacks,also wizard slayers are way better with sword shield and whirlwind not that damn scitmitar everyone considers to be that good, dual wield is mostly for dispatching thrash mobs and armor class DOES matter,each point is 5% dodge,you might be used to have like 70% and in tob it falls to 30% due to higher enemy Thac0 but that doesn't make it useless. you only loose 2 items that matter:ring of gaxx and the gauntlets, str is no issue as you can either wield Angruavadal or Crom Faeyr, or with tomes and the evil choice in bhaal's tears reach a natural 22(23 if half-orc), also if you use sword and shield you have the ranged option with trowing weapons. also apart from the 35% dodge and the +1 saving throws(endgame) shields make you (almost)immunue to ranged weapons
Stop hating the wizard slayer pls, he kills wizards just fine and is only a tiny bit behind the vanilla fighter in non magic fights.
oh and start using shield! belm sucks! whirwind for the win!
Well, the standard Wizard Slayer of BG is kind of weak... The penalty of not using magic items besides Armor and Weapons (...and boots, might've been an oversight by devs or intentional) for 1% magic resistance per level isn't really worth it. And the spell failure is kind of ignoreable since if you're a fighter and you are able to hit the mage in melee, he is pretty much already dead.
The greatest threat that mages have (at endgame) is their ability to resist/immune the majority of things you throw at them.
Consequently, relying on actually hitting them in order to gain an effect is a very bad plan, while dispelling them so you actually do get to hit them is a very good plan.
I think that makes it fairly obvious which class is better...
Personally I've come to like the Inquisitor a lot in heavily modded games on Hard/Insane difficulty, as letting mages live can spell death quite quickly. I've tried to make Wizard Slayers work, too, in various combinations - and so far, I've failed to find any use for them. Ironically, their best ability seems to be their magic resistance, but even that is not worth their innate downsides, and the downside of not being whatever other class you would be instead.
If you can hit a mage, they're pretty much dead already. You only really land hits once all the invisibility, mantle, immunity etc has worn off.
This means that a lot of on-hit effects are merely overkill - one you are actually able to get them the fight's pretty much over. They don't contribute to the initial part of the fight, which is the most dangerous.
Thus the Wizard Slayer's on-hit gives you a coup-de-grace on a dying foe, while the Inquisitor allows you to level the playing field a lot earlier in the fight.
I think people are forgetting that even if you can't "hit" the mage, the spell failure will still be applied. Even with Stone/Ironskin, a spellcaster is vulnerable to the Wizard Slayer. He's not entirely useless, at least.
Personally, I am a bit surprised that no one mentioned this weapon from Durlag's Keep; Bala's Axe. It's the weapon I use with my Wizard Slayer and it's great from RP perspective, not to mention quite effective in destroying spellcasters.
There's also a new axe in BG:EE that is great for a dual-wielding Wizard Slayer:
The Golden Axe + 1 which has a 10% chance to cast Dispel Magic on the target on a successful hit.
It's just my speculation because I haven't tried a WS yet, but in BG:EE I think a Wizard Slayer 3/Thief as follows would give an Inquisitor a run for his or her money as a mage -killer:
At WS 3/Mage 5 (a mere 10,000 XP):
Axe +++ Two Weapon Style +++ Dagger + Single Weapon Style +
2.5 attacks per round dual-wielding Bala's Axe and the new axe
(Note: WS's can be Hasted although from a RP standpoint it seems kind of contradictory.)
So regardless of weapon each successful hit reduces the enemy mage's chance to cast by 10%. And then each successful hit from Bala's Axe causes Miscast Magic, i.e., 80% chance of spell failure, and each successful hit with the Golden Axe +1 brings 10% chance of casting Dispel Magic on target. Bala's Axe also grants the wielder one casting of Dispel magic per day.
THAC0 main hand: 11 THAC0 main hand: 13
and backstab multiplier x3 using the Dagger of Venom.
Now that SCS:EE is released (beta) I think it's going to be interesting to see how an Inquisitor stacks up against a WS against enemy mages that buff and cast smarter. When I do eventually get around to trying this WS build the party is going to include an Inquisitor, and it'll be interesting to see each character compares. I'd use this WS 3/Thief versus a regular WS, though.
I think the really problematic mages don't arise until BG2; now I haven't actually played SCS1 yet, but simply from the levels available in BG1 I'd say that at worst these mages will spam Stoneskin and various CC effects, which isn't even close to as dangerous as what mages do in BG2.
Bala's Axe is certainly a nice weapon, but if anything, it's an argument AGAINST wizard slayer because it effectively gives their ability to any other class (like, say, an Inquisitor? >_>). Also, I'm not sure about this, but since Bala's Axe doesn't have a "+X", does that mean it pierces Protection from Magical Weapons?
Bala's Axe is enchanted, although the source of the enchantment is not known (it sounds like the enchantment must be divine from the item description's backstory.) It also confers the ability to cast Dispel Magic once per day. It doesn't confer any other bonuses, eg, nothing to hit or damage. It's 1d8 (slashing).
Umm, welcome, necromancers? I have no idea what I was thinking over two months ago when I posted in this topic, and I no longer have any interest in it. If you find this discussion interesting, then enjoy. I need to find the settings where I can turn off notifications for threads I started!
I think people are forgetting that even if you can't "hit" the mage, the spell failure will still be applied. Even with Stone/Ironskin, a spellcaster is vulnerable to the Wizard Slayer. He's not entirely useless, at least.
This is partially true.
For stoneskin and iron skin this is right. Spell failure is applied even with these protections.
However, a wizard slayer does not apply spell failure to protection from weapons, mantle, etc. In that case, the wizard slayer can do nothing but run away until the protection is gone if he can't find a weapon that would work.
inquisitors are more suited for quick killing mages while they may or may not manage to cast spells
wizard slayers(with wihirlwind attack) can shut down any mage in a single round with 100% spell failure,it might take a couple of rounds for the actual kill as you may have to wait for his protections to fade,but 1 round and the mighty wizard is demoted to a sucky fighter
overall i believe that if the target is a single wizard(no matter how powefull) the wizard slayer is more reliable while for multiple wizards the inquisitor works better
wizard slayers(with wihirlwind attack) can shut down any mage in a single round with 100% spell failure,it might take a couple of rounds for the actual kill as you may have to wait for his protections to fade,but 1 round and the mighty wizard is demoted to a sucky fighter
Implying that you actually hit the mage? Afaik WS will not apply failure if the hit doesn't connect, i.e. because of Protection from Magical Weapons, Mantle, or similar effects. If it does, chances are you are already killing the mage - 10 attacks really should be all it takes. The only time where you hit, but don't do damage, is through Stoneskin - and even then, any elemental damage on a weapon would still do damage, AND interrupt spellcasting, meaning the mage is already dead anyway.
Wizard Slayer's effect occurs if you HIT the opponent, not if you DAMAGE the opponent. If Mantle prevents you from hitting him, fine. But if Stoneskin takes the damage, you still get the spell failure debuff.
I think the Inquisitor is one of the most powerful kits in the game, so it's not much of a contest. Soloing Sirines for 2000xp each right at level one is awesome.
Did you seriously just copy/paste that from playithardcore without a word? Not cool man, not cool.
And there is no "simply put" in that argument; if you go by RP concerns, there is no discussion of anything, because you can just circumvent arguments with RP reasoning. Pointless to even talk about it. If you like it, if it makes sense for you, you can do ANYTHING.
@tyranus you can solo sirines with any class anyway, because they don't attack after charming you
If you get charmed and you're the only member in the party, the game checks it as no players in the party and triggers an auto-lose.
He may be talking about a solo party member with the rest of the party safely out of battle range (with AI turned off) - I used to do that with Kivan all the time.
i actually meant both sending a solo in with the rest of the team safe and actually soloing with a 1 man party, didn't realise that when a solo is charmed the games ends...that's harsh
i actually meant both sending a solo in with the rest of the team safe and actually soloing with a 1 man party, didn't realise that when a solo is charmed the games ends...that's harsh
Indeed - especially since your chances of surviving the charm spell are excellent in most cases should you be allowed to play it out.
@mjs Usually when I play, I go solo, saving Mellicamp and killing Temple Sirines until I hit level 4, THEN I go and get my party. There's a reason why every other DnD based RPG to date has started you at level 3+.
EDIT: Temple Sirines. Rolling Inquisitor lets you take on the Cave ones easily. +1 Constitution tome off the bat, thank you.
@mjs Usually when I play, I go solo, saving Mellicamp and killing Temple Sirines until I hit level 4, THEN I go and get my party. There's a reason why every other DnD based RPG to date has started you at level 3+.
EDIT: Temple Sirines. Rolling Inquisitor lets you take on the Cave ones easily. +1 Constitution tome off the bat, thank you.
Did you just say your Inquisitor kills the Temple Sirines to get started?
Comments
Stop hating the wizard slayer pls, he kills wizards just fine and is only a tiny bit behind the vanilla fighter in non magic fights.
oh and start using shield! belm sucks! whirwind for the win!
there i said it and i already feel better.
There this mod, http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/12697/mod-bgee-kitpack-v1-62-3113/p1
Included in there is a more powerful Wizard Slayer kit.
Consequently, relying on actually hitting them in order to gain an effect is a very bad plan, while dispelling them so you actually do get to hit them is a very good plan.
I think that makes it fairly obvious which class is better...
Personally I've come to like the Inquisitor a lot in heavily modded games on Hard/Insane difficulty, as letting mages live can spell death quite quickly. I've tried to make Wizard Slayers work, too, in various combinations - and so far, I've failed to find any use for them. Ironically, their best ability seems to be their magic resistance, but even that is not worth their innate downsides, and the downside of not being whatever other class you would be instead.
This means that a lot of on-hit effects are merely overkill - one you are actually able to get them the fight's pretty much over. They don't contribute to the initial part of the fight, which is the most dangerous.
Thus the Wizard Slayer's on-hit gives you a coup-de-grace on a dying foe, while the Inquisitor allows you to level the playing field a lot earlier in the fight.
It's the weapon I use with my Wizard Slayer and it's great from RP perspective, not to mention quite effective in destroying spellcasters.
It's just my speculation because I haven't tried a WS yet, but in BG:EE I think a Wizard Slayer 3/Thief as follows would give an Inquisitor a run for his or her money as a mage -killer:
At WS 3/Mage 5 (a mere 10,000 XP):
Axe +++
Two Weapon Style +++
Dagger +
Single Weapon Style +
2.5 attacks per round dual-wielding Bala's Axe and the new axe
(Note: WS's can be Hasted although from a RP standpoint it seems kind of contradictory.)
THAC0 main hand: 11
THAC0 main hand: 13
and backstab multiplier x3 using the Dagger of Venom.
Now that SCS:EE is released (beta) I think it's going to be interesting to see how an Inquisitor stacks up against a WS against enemy mages that buff and cast smarter. When I do eventually get around to trying this WS build the party is going to include an Inquisitor, and it'll be interesting to see each character compares. I'd use this WS 3/Thief versus a regular WS, though.
Bala's Axe is certainly a nice weapon, but if anything, it's an argument AGAINST wizard slayer because it effectively gives their ability to any other class (like, say, an Inquisitor? >_>). Also, I'm not sure about this, but since Bala's Axe doesn't have a "+X", does that mean it pierces Protection from Magical Weapons?
For stoneskin and iron skin this is right. Spell failure is applied even with these protections.
However, a wizard slayer does not apply spell failure to protection from weapons, mantle, etc. In that case, the wizard slayer can do nothing but run away until the protection is gone if he can't find a weapon that would work.
wizard slayers(with wihirlwind attack) can shut down any mage in a single round with 100% spell failure,it might take a couple of rounds for the actual kill as you may have to wait for his protections to fade,but 1 round and the mighty wizard is demoted to a sucky fighter
overall i believe that if the target is a single wizard(no matter how powefull) the wizard slayer is more reliable while for multiple wizards the inquisitor works better
I think the Inquisitor is one of the most powerful kits in the game, so it's not much of a contest. Soloing Sirines for 2000xp each right at level one is awesome.
http://playithardcore.com/pihwiki/index.php?title=Baldur's_Gate:_Classes_and_Kits
something might be outdated in this page... but overall it's a good source
And there is no "simply put" in that argument; if you go by RP concerns, there is no discussion of anything, because you can just circumvent arguments with RP reasoning. Pointless to even talk about it. If you like it, if it makes sense for you, you can do ANYTHING.
i actually meant both sending a solo in with the rest of the team safe and actually soloing with a 1 man party, didn't realise that when a solo is charmed the games ends...that's harsh
EDIT: Temple Sirines. Rolling Inquisitor lets you take on the Cave ones easily. +1 Constitution tome off the bat, thank you.
No no no, evil my characters do. My Inquisitor feels no problem with killing the ones blocking his path to the Constitution tome