BG2: Best weapon style for flail of ages?

taltamir

What is the best weapon style for a character that intends to use flail of ages?

I am thinking either single weapon for the double chance of a crit.

or 2 weapon for that offhand weapon that sets your strength to equal 25.

shield just doesn't seem useful to me. I can situationally use the shield that reflects attacks back at the attacker without the weapon style.

albinocobra

Crom Faeyr works wonders in the offhand.

Lord_Tansheron

Use one of the off-hand weapons that grant +1 attacks per round: Kundane, Belm, or Scarlet Ninja-to (only usable in that way via Use Any Item). The extra attack will always apply to your main-hand, and an extra swing with the Flail is much better than the double crit chance.

Crom Faeyr is a decent option as well, depending on your characters STR score. The lower it is, the better Crom Faeyr becomes. On average, one of the above-mentioned +APR weapons is better if your STR is 19 or more.

Also keep in mind the other party members; you might want to consider shifting weapons around in a way to get the most out of them.

taltamir

thanks

Southpaw

I'd just flail any left proficiency points into dw. Then dual-wield Flail of Ages and some other flail in the second hand and ferociously attack flailing my flails.
Flailing.
Flails.

SharGuidesMyHand

taltamir said:

shield just doesn't seem useful to me. I can situationally use the shield that reflects attacks back at the attacker without the weapon style.

Agreed.

Besides, missile weapons aren't nearly as big a problem in BG2 as they were in BG1.

karnor00

There are some pretty decent shields around. Extra AC never hurt anyone, and theres one with some very nice immunities (charm, sleep, hold, etc).

daven

I always use a shield just cos I like the look of having one on my guy. Usually use Flail of ages with Anomen until I get Crom Faeyr

ZanathKariashi

Except FOA is better in every way in then Crom...so I don't know why that would matter (part-clerics can easily self-buff themselves with DUHM to hit 25 str/dex/con with enough duration to last most of a dungeon on a single spell by the time you could craft Crom..and could instead give the 21 str belt and ogre gauntlets to other party mates...not that there's much else worth memorizing for 2nd level. And even then, they've got spell-slots to burn and can easily memorize 3-4 DUHM and still get some silences or whatever else catches your fancy). (and can hit every enemy in SoA except Kangaxx, and be upgraded to the strongest weapon in the game period in ToB). The slow effect is also extremely brutal due to no-save and working on everything.

Crom is only really worth using if you're Good (no +3 str from evil choices) and a Wizard Slayer (no str belts). Unless of course you're playing with random stats and might have a lower then ideal str amount, in which case it's probably worth it.

Lord_Tansheron

CF is a very good weapon, and certainly a competitor with FoA. However, @ZanathKariashi has the right of it: you need to carefully consider the benefits of its components as well. Depending on party setup, spreading the items around instead of combining them into the hammer may very well result in higher overall damage.

In a vacuum, though, Crom Faeyr certainly competes with FoA - its value diminishes with every point of STR you gain, however. Assuming you come in from BG1 with 19 STR, Crom Faeyr will deal more damage than FoA; however, as @ZanathKariashi pointed out, there are several more STR bonuses available in BG2/ToB. With 20 STR, FoA is already better.

That's only talking about CHARNAME, though. Your party members do exist, and may make good use of Crom Faeyr. But as I said before: you have to take the entire party into account for that decision, both their stats and their classes. Giving Crom Faeyr to a cleric, for example, is not the best idea, as its STR bonus is fairly redundant with Draw upon Holy Might. It's also less effective on characters with low APR, as the STR bonus applies to all attacks - more attacks equals more total damage added by Crom Faeyr.

This all sounds very complicated, but that's how it is. Optimization is a fairly complex process, and depends on many factors. You don't always have to be 100% optimal, though; when playing unmodded games, the differences may be fairly small and hard to notice. Just keep the general suggestions in mind (like the DuHM caveat), and you should be fine.

Nic_Mercy

Do keep in mind that DUHM only lasts 1 turn (as far as the spell description says). In 2nd edition ten combat rounds equal one turn. Ten rounds is long enough for a fight but not a whole dungeon on a single casting. For some people having that 25 str passively all the time might be worthwhile, even for a cleric or fighter/cleric type of character who has DUHM.

DUHM's effectiveness for str also depends on how high your base str is. If you aren't maxed out in str because you put stats elsewhere or didnt roll very high, then Crom as a str booster can surpass whatever DUHM might give you.

EDIT: And for anyone curious... even a dual wielding straight up single class priest of lathander can achieve 3 apr just using his spells and boon of lathander even without the benefits of an apr ohand weapon.

Lord_Tansheron

Of course, base stats always have to be taken into consideration. If you stats are low, then effects that set it to a specific value become all the more powerful; if they're high, you gain more out of flat point bonuses.

As for the duration, I don't think it's much of an issue. A turn is 60 seconds afaik, and while it's true that it can be annoying to re-buff, you rarely go through "a whole dungeon on a single casting"; why would you? There is almost no penalty to resting in BG2, not to mention that you can easily afford to just fill pretty much all of your lvl2 slots with DuHM as there are no other spells you consistently cast at that level.

These statements are always just generalizations, of course. Individual situations may vary depending on many factors, but we can't really go into every permutation or we'll never finish...

taltamir

My charname has a str of 20 and is a fitgher/mage/cleric. I plan on using flail of ages for him.
Rest of the party is (or will be) minsk, jehira, imoen, aerie, and viconia.

So, who do you think I should give crom faeyr to?

Lord_Tansheron

Probably Jaheira. She's the only one with grandmastery, and iirc druids do not actually get DuHM.

EDIT: Nvm, you need a mod for multi class grandmastery, don't you... hard to say in that case, it depends on the individual stats and I'm too lazy to look them up :P Sorry.

taltamir

I have that mod installed

Lord_Tansheron

If you have that, then it's very likely Jaheira is your girl. Extra attacks (from GM and being a fighter) scale very well with the STR bonus from Crom Faeyr. Can't druids use sharp weapons, too? I never play one, and I keep forgetting... if so, you can easily combine it with a +APR weapon for even more attacks.

ZanathKariashi

part-druids can't use warhammers.

just spears, scimitars, clubs, QS, slings, darts. Maybe daggers...been awhile.

Shogun_Named_Marcus

Lord_Tansheron said:

If you have that, then it's very likely Jaheira is your girl. Extra attacks (from GM and being a fighter) scale very well with the STR bonus from Crom Faeyr. Can't druids use sharp weapons, too? I never play one, and I keep forgetting... if so, you can easily combine it with a +APR weapon for even more attacks.

ZanathKariashi said:

part-druids can't use warhammers.

just spears, scimitars, clubs, QS, slings, darts. Maybe daggers...been awhile.

You're both right, just jumping in to remind everyone that Belm is a scimitar and also one of the +APR weapons, so you could get Jaheria to use that with Crom in the main hand. Have her throw some Iron Skins up and she's a beast.

ZanathKariashi

Except she can't use Crom because she's part druid and can't use warhammers.

taltamir

I am really disliking the class weapon restrictions in 2e
Thanks for the advice everyone

Shogun_Named_Marcus

ZanathKariashi said:

Except she can't use Crom because she's part druid and can't use warhammers.

Whoops. That's absolutely right.

Lord_Tansheron

Bummer Guess I would have known that, if I ever played druids! As if I needed yet another reason to dislike them...