Coran is not only the best archer in the game. He is also most likely the best NPC out there. He contributes to the group greatly, he have two quests linked to him, he have racial bonuses to both melee (long sword) and ranged (long bow) weapons, he is also a thief which gives him even more utility, and he can backstab.
Coran is actually not that bad at melee despite his strength. Kivan is not that much better. His strength is at the low end beween 18/01 and 18/00. It barely gives any bonuses. Coran's thief skills are more useful than Kivan's stealth and strength. If you give Coran a magic longsword with elf racial bonus of -1 his thac isn't far off of Kivan's in melee. I think the strength/melee argument is poor. Useually you have your range/utility characters and your melee fighters. It's rare your range characters will melee if you plan things correctly.
Coran is actually not that bad at melee despite his strength. Kivan is not that much better. His strength is at the low end beween 18/01 and 18/00. It barely gives any bonuses.
I had several times where Coran was actually better off shooting his bow at point blank and suffering the penalty over pulling out a sword. I think that qualifies as "bad" at melee.
If you give Coran a magic longsword with elf racial bonus of -1 his thac isn't far off of Kivan's in melee.
Most of us like to develop Kivan towards a different weapon than Halberds. I typically make him use Two-Handed Swords. This gives him the same racial bonus, but of course you are left with no more pips so you can't put it in a weapon style. Coran can put a pip in One Weapon Style though, which is pretty awesome. Another approach for Kivan at this point is to put two pips in Scimitars and have him run around dual-wielding Drizzt's Scimitars. Beast.
Coran's thief skills are more useful than Kivan's stealth and strength.
Completely irrelevant. I like his thieving skills too. I think Coran is an awesome Fighter/Thief, and an awesome character ... but this is completely irrelevant to the discussion at hand.
My PC Archer is better than both, with 18/00str,18dex,18con, I can outdamage either of them and still do pretty good with a longsword of spear.
Everyone is forgetting that kivan has trolls as a racial enemy, thats gotta count for something, trolls can be nasty, having a racial enemy is reason enough to have a ranger.. or 2.
Coran is actually not that bad at melee despite his strength. Kivan is not that much better. His strength is at the low end beween 18/01 and 18/00. It barely gives any bonuses.
I had several times where Coran was actually better off shooting his bow at point blank and suffering the penalty over pulling out a sword. I think that qualifies as "bad" at melee.
If you give Coran a magic longsword with elf racial bonus of -1 his thac isn't far off of Kivan's in melee.
Most of us like to develop Kivan towards a different weapon than Halberds. I typically make him use Two-Handed Swords. This gives him the same racial bonus, but of course you are left with no more pips so you can't put it in a weapon style. Coran can put a pip in One Weapon Style though, which is pretty awesome. Another approach for Kivan at this point is to put two pips in Scimitars and have him run around dual-wielding Drizzt's Scimitars. Beast.
Coran's thief skills are more useful than Kivan's stealth and strength.
Completely irrelevant. I like his thieving skills too. I think Coran is an awesome Fighter/Thief, and an awesome character ... but this is completely irrelevant to the discussion at hand.
It's rare your range characters will melee if you plan things correctly.
Right, but I prefer for my characters to be versatile. That's just me, and my post didn't imply "you have to play like me or you suck," sooooo...
+1 to thac and +3 to damage is not that great of an advantage. Especially considering said character will hardly ever using melee unless you are doing something wrong. Elf doesn't get a racial bonus for two handed swords. Only for longswords. One thing I didn't mention is that fighter/thief can backstab. This combined with their detect traps actually makes their stealth ability half useful.
I still don't understand why you posted such an enthusiastic argument and then say it's just my opinion so don't bother to argue with it. The reason for message boards is to talk about this kind of thing. Mostly we were talking about which is the better archer, but then you said Kivan is more useful to have along because of his stealth and strength. I was just pointing out that is not the case at all. You have no problem saying Kivan is more useful because of his melee abilities, but when I mention Coran's advantages like thief skills it's irrelevant.
+1 to thac and +3 to damage is not that great of an advantage. Especially considering said character will hardly ever using melee unless you are doing something wrong. Elf doesn't get a racial bonus for two handed swords. Only for longswords. One thing I didn't mention is that fighter/thief can backstab. This combined with their detect traps actually makes their stealth ability half useful.
I still don't understand why you posted such an enthusiastic argument and then say it's just my opinion so don't bother to argue with it. The reason for message boards is to talk about this kind of thing. Mostly we were talking about which is the better archer, but then you said Kivan is more useful to have along because of his stealth and strength. I was just pointing out that is not the case at all. You have no problem saying Kivan is more useful because of his melee abilities, but when I mention Coran's advantages like thief skills it's irrelevant.
Elves get a bonus for Long Swords, Bastard Swords, Scimitars, Two-Handeds ... I'm not sure if it's intended but it's true.
Good point. I dunno. I don't think the two should even be compared in the first place, so that's probably why I'm being a hypocrite. A Ranger is not the same as a Fighter/Thief, I think we both agree on that. Which is why they shouldn't be compared ...
The thing about Kivan is that you can pick him up literally immediately, and he's already pretty much a BAMF. Coran comes later, and while he's pretty awesome, you have to give him Gauntlets of Ogre Power/Big-Fisted Belt to make him truly amazing. That said, once you do that, he's far, far better than Kivan. Although I also enjoy giving Kivan my Strength Tome rather frequently, so there you go. ...And Coran the Dexterity Tome. Yeah.
Coran is awesomesauce^2. he's hard to beat even with an archery specced charname, and impossible if you're going for fun stuff, aka multi/dual.
and sling-wise, Monty shoots a mean one, but he pretty much screams "I really like to poke around the internal organs of people with my blade, stick your sling up your ass", so I prefer Yeslick with dex gloves/str belt for these kinds of activities. (as an added benefit, that way I can have two clerics, without both being forced into melee with both to be effective)
also, out of all people, *Alora* is the one that seems VERY murderous with darts. (+2 luck)
Everyone is forgetting that kivan has trolls as a racial enemy, thats gotta count for something, trolls can be nasty, having a racial enemy is reason enough to have a ranger.. or 2.
It's ogres. he hates ogres.
I am currently running with both and the reason why I brought up Kivan's strength and his ability to tank (and more importantly to haul the heavy crap around) is due to the fact that I don't have a tank in my party. It's my skald, kivan, coran, safana, branwen and neerra. My skald and branwen tank but if i need something with a higher thaco, I put away kivan's bow away and have him charge ahead while my skald drops back and starts singing Clint Eastwood by the Gorillaz.
I prefer him for two reasons: you get him earlier than Coran (he can be your first buddy besides Imoen!) and I love Rangers way too much. I have played through the game with a stalker, currently playing through with a beastmaster, and would like to play through with an archer in multiplayer. Coran is very cool, but I almost always have a thief by then or an archer by then. He is second choice for sure.
All of the above is negated for an elf archer CHARNAME, that is what I prefer.
Coran is technically a better archer than Kivan. However I typically prefer Kivan because Kivan is a more versatile character due to his high Strength.
This is basically how I see it.
I voted Coran because the question was still "best archer," but Kivan is the best NPC in BG1 IMO (with Coran #2).
IMO, Minsc doesn't become a good archer until BG2, when he gets an extra dext point.
Mazzy is probably the best archer in the entire BG series IMO.
Of course, my female elven archer, with 19 dext & elven bonus for longbows, is better than all of them. ;-)
And according to BG1 and BG2...it just wasn't shown on the character sheet and took digging into the files to prove it existed.
Coran is better. He's also MUCH more powerful in melee then Kivan. Coran is also FAR more versatile. Yes, Kivan is a better pack-mule..but that's really all he has going for him. The difference between them is minor, yet Coran can hit x3 backstabs, which is WAY more then Kivan can do in 1 round of melee. And if you happen to drink a giant strength potion or wear that cursed str belt or use the ogre gauntlets, Coran will blow him away...even at equal str, Coran will do more damage per round. Kivan has a slight advantage against enemies that can't be backstabbed...but why backstab those, when Coran could just use his illegally superior ranged damage.
Basically..if you're lazy and hate micromanagement, then sure, Kivan is better in melee (though still worse in ranged)...though you can't fault their superior competition just because you don't want to play a class-combo properly.
Backstab is overrated. It is one attack that MAY do over 30 damage in one attack if it hits. It is good against mages, that don't have any protections up, so ones that can be metagamed against but besides that everyone else will be left standing with Coran in light armor swinging away with a lower AC and THAC0 than Kivan can obtain tanking. I guess you can spam invisibility pots to get more backstabs in, but that can be considered cheesy.
Okay. Enjoy your Swashbuckler then. I know I don't.
Can't play a Swashbuckler as much as I'd like the bonuses they get. I just can't play a thief without a backstab. I took a Swashbuckler through the entire game once and with UAI and casting level 9 spells off of scrolls they are beasts, but I just hate not having backstab on a thief.
Backstab is overrated. It is one attack that MAY do over 30 damage in one attack if it hits. It is good against mages, that don't have any protections up, so ones that can be metagamed against but besides that everyone else will be left standing with Coran in light armor swinging away with a lower AC and THAC0 than Kivan can obtain tanking. I guess you can spam invisibility pots to get more backstabs in, but that can be considered cheesy.
I just finished the game with my 3 zerker/10 rogue (I removed the level cap) and I backstabed Sarevok for 75 damage (which is much much more then 30 damage). Not sure how backstab became overated.
With high stealth I do half the dungeons in the game only with my rogue. I bring the rest of the group only against really tough enemies. I plan the same for Coran in my current game. He will own things with his bow, and he will go stealth and own things with backstab. He will have the boots of speed so he will be able to reteat and shoot the enemies, and maybe even go past corners enter stealth and backstab again.
I vote Khalid - because he's the only one out of the top three or four whose personality I can tolerate for long periods of time. His earnestness is adorable, and his interactions with Jaheira are cute.
hahaha But who is THE BEST ARCHER anyway?
Khalid is; he's the only one left after I've been forced to dispose of the other two >:}
Everyone has their favorites I guess. I never had any problems with Khalid's morale breaking in combat, and he seemed like a nice guy - kind, decent and benevolently paternal, which considering that Baldur's Gate should have been subtitled "Daddy Issues: The Video Game" is a nice change of pace.
In general, I find that women tend to be more tolerant of Khalid than men. There's a commentary on gender dynamics in there somewhere, but I'll leave you to mull *that* over on your own.
Backstabbing is king in BG1...almost nothing is immune to it, and it deals a TON of damage in a round (especially if you drink a giant potion of some sort or use str increasing items), when other characters, due to lack of attacks, just can't put out that much (and since you seem to hate cheese, you won't have everyone packing the good bow ammo that was removed in BG2 due to how brokenly powerful it is, so their damage will be pretty mediocre). Not to mention, a MultiClass F/T actually has more thac0 then a pure warrior-type when Backstabbing, due to the +4 to hit bonus, when attacking from stealth/invisibility, so you're damn near guaranteed to hit mages and thieves, and more likely to hit chain and above wearers then a plain warrior is.
Using potions isn't cheesy at all. They're in the game (and in limited quantities), you bought/found them fair and square, and it's completely your choice how best to use them (and the enemy certainly has no problems quaffing invisibility potions and Face-stabbing you). Same with rings. And you technically don't even need them, as boots of speed, haste, or potions of speed can easily allow you to hit and fade repeatedly, if you have a half-decent MS or stealth skill level.
Sure if the game was like PnP, then yeah, BS would be MUCH less useful since you can only backstab a target once per battle and only if it isn't aware there's a thief about. But it's not, so OP backstabs are the norm.
Backstab is overrated. It is one attack that MAY do over 30 damage in one attack if it hits. It is good against mages, that don't have any protections up, so ones that can be metagamed against but besides that everyone else will be left standing with Coran in light armor swinging away with a lower AC and THAC0 than Kivan can obtain tanking. I guess you can spam invisibility pots to get more backstabs in, but that can be considered cheesy.
I just finished the game with my 3 zerker/10 rogue (I removed the level cap) and I backstabed Sarevok for 75 damage (which is much much more then 30 damage). Not sure how backstab became overated.
With high stealth I do half the dungeons in the game only with my rogue. I bring the rest of the group only against really tough enemies. I plan the same for Coran in my current game. He will own things with his bow, and he will go stealth and own things with backstab. He will have the boots of speed so he will be able to reteat and shoot the enemies, and maybe even go past corners enter stealth and backstab again.
Hey I removed the level cap and casted timestop with my fighter/mage and totally owned the last battle. The 30 damage is with Coran with a long sword. As I said, I am running two thieves in my party atm. I have seen them backstab for just 15, 9 and 12 damage and having to rush an archer (Kivan) up to save them since it didn't get the job done.
I said it was overrated. Yes you can have your party hang back while your thief owns the one monster standing there and I do that Monty all the time when I play especially early game. But imo it is not a reliable tactic unless you are cheesing it with cheata boots and invisibility pots.
And I do love my swashbucklers. Swashing cleric is amazing. It is how I play the game. you can play however you want. It won't change my opinion and I am not here to change yours.
I backstabbed Sarevok for 90+ damage with the staff of striking and grand mastery in staves, Berserker 6 / Thief 9. I don't remove level caps.
Taking him to badly injured making finishing him off trivial.
Find another way to hit Saverok for 90+ damage before he gets to move. Not saying you have to use it or its the only way to play, but it is in no way overrated.
I don't walk around backstabbing each monster that would get boring and cause me to leave my party behind as you said, but if I scout ahead and there is a group I'm going to have to fight I have an instant kill on their mage.
Backstab is overrated. It is one attack that MAY do over 30 damage in one attack if it hits. It is good against mages, that don't have any protections up, so ones that can be metagamed against but besides that everyone else will be left standing with Coran in light armor swinging away with a lower AC and THAC0 than Kivan can obtain tanking. I guess you can spam invisibility pots to get more backstabs in, but that can be considered cheesy.
I just finished the game with my 3 zerker/10 rogue (I removed the level cap) and I backstabed Sarevok for 75 damage (which is much much more then 30 damage). Not sure how backstab became overated.
With high stealth I do half the dungeons in the game only with my rogue. I bring the rest of the group only against really tough enemies. I plan the same for Coran in my current game. He will own things with his bow, and he will go stealth and own things with backstab. He will have the boots of speed so he will be able to reteat and shoot the enemies, and maybe even go past corners enter stealth and backstab again.
Hey I removed the level cap and casted timestop with my fighter/mage and totally owned the last battle. The 30 damage is with Coran with a long sword. As I said, I am running two thieves in my party atm. I have seen them backstab for just 15, 9 and 12 damage and having to rush an archer (Kivan) up to save them since it didn't get the job done.
I said it was overrated. Yes you can have your party hang back while your thief owns the one monster standing there and I do that Monty all the time when I play especially early game. But imo it is not a reliable tactic unless you are cheesing it with cheata boots and invisibility pots.
And I do love my swashbucklers. Swashing cleric is amazing. It is how I play the game. you can play however you want. It won't change my opinion and I am not here to change yours.
I was one level above the cap. Hardly the aquivelent for a 9th level spell.
I used a quarterstaff +3 to backstab. Its really odd that you are doing so little damage with backstab. Maybe the srength bonus to damage is a big factor here. My character had 18/95. With the gloves you can even get better with your npc rogues.
Also. I can't see how potions, and boots or any other item is cheese? I am not doing anything that abuse the game or the AI. The enemies go after me, but they are slower. My thief jump behind the corner and hide in the shadows were the enemy can't see him. Few seconds later the monster pass over the corner, see nothing, but my thief already flanked it.. to me it sounds like the way a thief should be.
If you don't want to use the tools the game give you then don't. But you can't say its cheese, unless you are doing something abusive like stacking Drizzt on an island and such. Go Ironman mode and do the game with normal gear. Maybe it will be more fun for you.
And that is what I am pretty much saying. If I am running my own rogue, then yes backstab would be more potent. If I am running Coran (who this arguement is really about) and Safana and keeping to their canon weapons its overrated to compare backstab damage to melee damage.
And try your tactic in BGII. It's fix because mages, who have access to things like see invisibility, true sight and glitterdust ACTUALLY use it (well truesight atleast). So it is a limit on how the AI deals with the situation.
And the timestop comment was more of a sarcastic response... I wonder if you can console a scroll of time stop into the game...
The cloak of non-detection protects stealth or item-based invisibility from all of the above. The only enemies it doesn't work well against are the ones immune to backstab, that can see through it innately without dispelling it...and well...haha..that's what traps are for.
Of course you recruit him later than Kivan, but basically, in terms of opportunity of character development is just Khalid with a more dexterity. Khalid can have three *** in Bows and be stronger than Kivan (you can give him a dex tome).
Khalid has more advantages (more hit points, opportunity to tank). With the strength gloves he is a beast.
So that's why the best solution is to take Coran (archer with his thief abilities) and Khalid (opportunity to make him both a good archer and a tank).
Kivan is an average archer and average warrior (the strength bonus does not bring much damage compared with a 18/00 bonus).
Comments
14 = +0 THAC0 +0 Damage, 120 lbs
Yeah, okay bud. Completely insignificant.
I had several times where Coran was actually better off shooting his bow at point blank and suffering the penalty over pulling out a sword. I think that qualifies as "bad" at melee. Most of us like to develop Kivan towards a different weapon than Halberds. I typically make him use Two-Handed Swords. This gives him the same racial bonus, but of course you are left with no more pips so you can't put it in a weapon style. Coran can put a pip in One Weapon Style though, which is pretty awesome. Another approach for Kivan at this point is to put two pips in Scimitars and have him run around dual-wielding Drizzt's Scimitars. Beast. Completely irrelevant. I like his thieving skills too. I think Coran is an awesome Fighter/Thief, and an awesome character ... but this is completely irrelevant to the discussion at hand. Then why are you even talking to me? Right, but I prefer for my characters to be versatile. That's just me, and my post didn't imply "you have to play like me or you suck," sooooo...
Everyone is forgetting that kivan has trolls as a racial enemy, thats gotta count for something, trolls can be nasty, having a racial enemy is reason enough to have a ranger.. or 2.
I still don't understand why you posted such an enthusiastic argument and then say it's just my opinion so don't bother to argue with it. The reason for message boards is to talk about this kind of thing. Mostly we were talking about which is the better archer, but then you said Kivan is more useful to have along because of his stealth and strength. I was just pointing out that is not the case at all. You have no problem saying Kivan is more useful because of his melee abilities, but when I mention Coran's advantages like thief skills it's irrelevant.
Good point. I dunno. I don't think the two should even be compared in the first place, so that's probably why I'm being a hypocrite. A Ranger is not the same as a Fighter/Thief, I think we both agree on that. Which is why they shouldn't be compared ...
The thing about Kivan is that you can pick him up literally immediately, and he's already pretty much a BAMF. Coran comes later, and while he's pretty awesome, you have to give him Gauntlets of Ogre Power/Big-Fisted Belt to make him truly amazing. That said, once you do that, he's far, far better than Kivan. Although I also enjoy giving Kivan my Strength Tome rather frequently, so there you go. ...And Coran the Dexterity Tome. Yeah.
and sling-wise, Monty shoots a mean one, but he pretty much screams "I really like to poke around the internal organs of people with my blade, stick your sling up your ass", so I prefer Yeslick with dex gloves/str belt for these kinds of activities. (as an added benefit, that way I can have two clerics, without both being forced into melee with both to be effective)
also, out of all people, *Alora* is the one that seems VERY murderous with darts. (+2 luck)
I am currently running with both and the reason why I brought up Kivan's strength and his ability to tank (and more importantly to haul the heavy crap around) is due to the fact that I don't have a tank in my party. It's my skald, kivan, coran, safana, branwen and neerra. My skald and branwen tank but if i need something with a higher thaco, I put away kivan's bow away and have him charge ahead while my skald drops back and starts singing Clint Eastwood by the Gorillaz.
All of the above is negated for an elf archer CHARNAME, that is what I prefer.
I voted Coran because the question was still "best archer," but Kivan is the best NPC in BG1 IMO (with Coran #2).
IMO, Minsc doesn't become a good archer until BG2, when he gets an extra dext point.
Mazzy is probably the best archer in the entire BG series IMO.
Of course, my female elven archer, with 19 dext & elven bonus for longbows, is better than all of them. ;-)
Don't know if it's a bug or not :-\
Coran is better. He's also MUCH more powerful in melee then Kivan. Coran is also FAR more versatile. Yes, Kivan is a better pack-mule..but that's really all he has going for him. The difference between them is minor, yet Coran can hit x3 backstabs, which is WAY more then Kivan can do in 1 round of melee. And if you happen to drink a giant strength potion or wear that cursed str belt or use the ogre gauntlets, Coran will blow him away...even at equal str, Coran will do more damage per round. Kivan has a slight advantage against enemies that can't be backstabbed...but why backstab those, when Coran could just use his illegally superior ranged damage.
Basically..if you're lazy and hate micromanagement, then sure, Kivan is better in melee (though still worse in ranged)...though you can't fault their superior competition just because you don't want to play a class-combo properly.
With high stealth I do half the dungeons in the game only with my rogue. I bring the rest of the group only against really tough enemies. I plan the same for Coran in my current game. He will own things with his bow, and he will go stealth and own things with backstab. He will have the boots of speed so he will be able to reteat and shoot the enemies, and maybe even go past corners enter stealth and backstab again.
I kill Khalid every chance I get.
In general, I find that women tend to be more tolerant of Khalid than men. There's a commentary on gender dynamics in there somewhere, but I'll leave you to mull *that* over on your own.
Backstabbing is king in BG1...almost nothing is immune to it, and it deals a TON of damage in a round (especially if you drink a giant potion of some sort or use str increasing items), when other characters, due to lack of attacks, just can't put out that much (and since you seem to hate cheese, you won't have everyone packing the good bow ammo that was removed in BG2 due to how brokenly powerful it is, so their damage will be pretty mediocre). Not to mention, a MultiClass F/T actually has more thac0 then a pure warrior-type when Backstabbing, due to the +4 to hit bonus, when attacking from stealth/invisibility, so you're damn near guaranteed to hit mages and thieves, and more likely to hit chain and above wearers then a plain warrior is.
Using potions isn't cheesy at all. They're in the game (and in limited quantities), you bought/found them fair and square, and it's completely your choice how best to use them (and the enemy certainly has no problems quaffing invisibility potions and Face-stabbing you). Same with rings. And you technically don't even need them, as boots of speed, haste, or potions of speed can easily allow you to hit and fade repeatedly, if you have a half-decent MS or stealth skill level.
Sure if the game was like PnP, then yeah, BS would be MUCH less useful since you can only backstab a target once per battle and only if it isn't aware there's a thief about. But it's not, so OP backstabs are the norm.
The 30 damage is with Coran with a long sword. As I said, I am running two thieves in my party atm. I have seen them backstab for just 15, 9 and 12 damage and having to rush an archer (Kivan) up to save them since it didn't get the job done.
I said it was overrated. Yes you can have your party hang back while your thief owns the one monster standing there and I do that Monty all the time when I play especially early game. But imo it is not a reliable tactic unless you are cheesing it with cheata boots and invisibility pots.
And I do love my swashbucklers. Swashing cleric is amazing. It is how I play the game. you can play however you want. It won't change my opinion and I am not here to change yours.
I backstabbed Sarevok for 90+ damage with the staff of striking and grand mastery in staves, Berserker 6 / Thief 9. I don't remove level caps.
Taking him to badly injured making finishing him off trivial.
Find another way to hit Saverok for 90+ damage before he gets to move. Not saying you have to use it or its the only way to play, but it is in no way overrated.
I don't walk around backstabbing each monster that would get boring and cause me to leave my party behind as you said, but if I scout ahead and there is a group I'm going to have to fight I have an instant kill on their mage.
I used a quarterstaff +3 to backstab. Its really odd that you are doing so little damage with backstab. Maybe the srength bonus to damage is a big factor here. My character had 18/95. With the gloves you can even get better with your npc rogues.
Also. I can't see how potions, and boots or any other item is cheese? I am not doing anything that abuse the game or the AI. The enemies go after me, but they are slower. My thief jump behind the corner and hide in the shadows were the enemy can't see him. Few seconds later the monster pass over the corner, see nothing, but my thief already flanked it.. to me it sounds like the way a thief should be.
If you don't want to use the tools the game give you then don't. But you can't say its cheese, unless you are doing something abusive like stacking Drizzt on an island and such. Go Ironman mode and do the game with normal gear. Maybe it will be more fun for you.
And try your tactic in BGII. It's fix because mages, who have access to things like see invisibility, true sight and glitterdust ACTUALLY use it (well truesight atleast). So it is a limit on how the AI deals with the situation.
And the timestop comment was more of a sarcastic response... I wonder if you can console a scroll of time stop into the game...
Of course you recruit him later than Kivan, but basically, in terms of opportunity of character development is just Khalid with a more dexterity. Khalid can have three *** in Bows and be stronger than Kivan (you can give him a dex tome).
Khalid has more advantages (more hit points, opportunity to tank). With the strength gloves he is a beast.
So that's why the best solution is to take Coran (archer with his thief abilities) and Khalid (opportunity to make him both a good archer and a tank).
Kivan is an average archer and average warrior (the strength bonus does not bring much damage compared with a 18/00 bonus).
Kivan is just left in the woods, rotting to die.