Useless spells (are they really useless?
Cowled_wizard
Member Posts: 119
Hi, this is my first post, if played bg1 and 2 many times and i wanted to try something a bit different.
There are tons of spells that i NEVER use, and almost never hear about. Im hoping some experts here can give interesting ideas on how to use any of the spells on this list:
Level 1: Blindness, Chill touch, Colour spray , infravision , reflected image , shocking grasp, spook
Level 2: Deafness, detect invisibility , ghoul touch , glitterdust , luck , power word sleep ,
Level 3: Detect ilussion , minor spell deflection , slow , spell thrust
Level 4: Contagion, Enchanted weapon , Icestorm , Otilukes, Polymorth other, polymorth self , Teleport Field
Level 5: Conjure lesser elemental , Hold monster , Oracle , Shadow door ,
Level 6: Carrion summons , Desintegrate , Flesh to stone , Wyvern Call , Conjure elemental , Invisible stalker
Level 7 : Cacofiend, Control Undead , Limited wish (repeatable) , Mantle , Prismatic spray , Sphere of caos , Summon djinni , Summon efreeti
Level 8: Bigbys Clenched fist , Power word: blind , Summon fiend , Symbol: death , Symbol : Fear, Symbol : Stun
Level 9: Bigbys Crushing Hand , Energy drain , Gate, Meteor Swarm
Some of these spells have some use, but there are other spells on their level with better results.
There are tons of spells that i NEVER use, and almost never hear about. Im hoping some experts here can give interesting ideas on how to use any of the spells on this list:
Level 1: Blindness, Chill touch, Colour spray , infravision , reflected image , shocking grasp, spook
Level 2: Deafness, detect invisibility , ghoul touch , glitterdust , luck , power word sleep ,
Level 3: Detect ilussion , minor spell deflection , slow , spell thrust
Level 4: Contagion, Enchanted weapon , Icestorm , Otilukes, Polymorth other, polymorth self , Teleport Field
Level 5: Conjure lesser elemental , Hold monster , Oracle , Shadow door ,
Level 6: Carrion summons , Desintegrate , Flesh to stone , Wyvern Call , Conjure elemental , Invisible stalker
Level 7 : Cacofiend, Control Undead , Limited wish (repeatable) , Mantle , Prismatic spray , Sphere of caos , Summon djinni , Summon efreeti
Level 8: Bigbys Clenched fist , Power word: blind , Summon fiend , Symbol: death , Symbol : Fear, Symbol : Stun
Level 9: Bigbys Crushing Hand , Energy drain , Gate, Meteor Swarm
Some of these spells have some use, but there are other spells on their level with better results.
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http://www.gamefaqs.com/pc/258273-baldurs-gate-ii-shadows-of-amn/faqs/11588
some are just more effective then others.
Though the alignment detecting spells aren't far off (it's used in exactly 1 quest, and otherwise is mostly just for see if Holy wrath/Word will do something to the target).
Blindness is one of the best low to mid level disabling spells in the game (sleep beats it at early game, but since sleep doesn't work against anything greater then 4 +3 HD, blindness is more reliable to use vs named enemies). Renders archers and mages helpless, and greatly reduces the threat of melee enemies, especially if you use ranged weapons as you can kill them effortlessly. The lack of a save penalty hurts it vs high lvl stuff, but can still be useful if you have other save debuffs.
Glitterdust is an AoE blindness (party friendly) that ALSO includes a save debuff that stacks with GM and doom, for a huge -10 save penalty.
Slow is just plain nasty. Reduces the enemy's swing speed to 10, -4 hit/ac, and slows them to a crawl. Also have a -4 save penalty so it's pretty likely to work, even vs higher level stuff without other debuffs. Less useful in BG2, since the FoA has a no save, single target version, but it's still a nice spell, just not as good as it could've been.
Spell thrust is ok...but there just aren't many situations for it.
Polymorph Self's mustard jelly has 100% resistance to magic, hits as +3 blunt and target must save or be slowed. There other forms can be useful, but none of them can approch that level of utility.
Enchanted weapon is pretty nice if you're a newbie and don't know where any good stuff is, since it gives your melee characters access to some +3 weapons in a pinch, but due to BG2's Monty-haul-on-Crack nature it's not as good as it should be.
The elementals can do a lot of damage if micromanaged, but they aren't as efficient as the druid versions and might turn on you (though it's only a 5% chance). The lesser version deals more damage then a skeleton warrior but lacks the latters MR and damage resistances, so unless you're an illusionist, stick with skeleton warriors.
Wyvern's call is similar. The Wyverns are pretty squishy but their wyvern poison is ridiculously nasty and if micromanaged can deal a ton of damage. Crawlers are similar, but instead of damage dealers they make excellent support troops to disable strong or dangerous opponents. Invisbile stalkers are just a tough summon, nothing really special about them aside from that.
The demon summing spells aren't very good, in the sense that you can't control them and don't get any xp for them, but they can be pretty strong summons if you don't mind that issue and remembered to protect the whole party from evil first, they're also not vulnerable to summon killer spells, which can be useful.
The genie and Efreet are ok-ish...they're basically just extra spellcasters you can summon with a couple ok spells and ok-ish damage. (Both spells would be much better if they had their 5% chance of summoning a Royal Djinn/Efreet with much better spellcasting (up to 8th for the Djinn, 9th for the Efreet) (including the Royal Efreet having 1 cast of Wish).
And the summoning limit indirectly nerfs summoning spells in general. Creating a huge army to throw at the enemy is not only a valid tactic, that's supposed to be the Conjurer and Necromancer's MO.
But Symbol spells are nice, but you have to keep in mind they affect targets based on current HP.
Though a couple spells are held back due to shoddy implementation.
Meteor swarm is held back by the fact it doesn't even resemble what the spell is actually supposed to do (it's basically supposed to be Minute Meteor's on crack. Except it only summon 8 large Meteor's to hurl that deal 10d6 damage each (no save or MR) and explode into 5d4 fireballs on impact (save for half, MR can negate).
Same for energy drain...the first part is correct...but any enemy dies as a result of the spell due to either health lost from levels dropping or their level reduced to 0 is supposed to be re-animated as an undead under the caster's control.
It also comes down to what you picked as your class, do you exploit broken mechanics, Cheese, what difficulty you play on and if you reload or not.
Some specialists can't use the more popular spells, but have other stuff that is almost as good to keep them from being useless. (this would be much more apparent if BG had proper PnP benefits/penalties for Specialists, or at least proper opposed schools, like my personal version does).
You also may be forced to make due without certain spells if you fail to learn them and can't find another scroll.
Most Touch Spells I find to be relatively useless since they require a melee attack, with a mages usually low STR...
Hold Undead, maybe against Vampires, but everything else that is considered undead that it might affect usually can be dealt with relative ease... Specially if you have a cleric who can Turn Undead...
Teleport Field feels more like it would just be a general annoyance rather than of any actual use.
Velehal not everybody plays with upgraded difficulty. I have, but i dont find it particularly fun.
A interesting way to play could be Fighter-mage using touch attack spells... from ghoul touch at low lvl to black blade at very hide.
Lvl 8 Power Word Blind is the 2nd best spell of its level (Spell Trigger is better). No save and quick casting speed means the most dangerous enemy is disabled at the start of the battle. Make sure the enemy has its magical resistance reduced to 0 first.
Lvl 8 and 9 Bigby's Hand are very powerful spells. The lvl 8 version is better since there is no save at the beginning, while the lvl 9 saves at -4 at the first round but does slightly more damage. The hold effect may work up to 4 rounds, but the held enemy gets a save every round. Bigbys are powerful because almost all enemies in the game (including Ravager and the final boss Melissan, but not dragons, monks or Balthazzar) are NOT immune to this spell). However the short duration really weakens this spell to extremely situational battles. Also, it's trumped by Power Word Blind.
Any advice ?
One trick was polymorph into spider via poly self spell, this gives a huge number of attacks/round. Use a minor sequencer (you can't cast spells while polymorphed but can use sequencers)on self:strength+ghoul touch, you now have an absurd amount of attacks/round, good strength and a paralysing touch. Haven't tried in bg:ee though, don't know if it is nerfed.
Spook is also interesting. It gets save penalties that increase with caster level. Fear is also an effect that stops a most enemies casting. Lower resistance + Greater Malision + Spook is a good opening attack against Dragons. While feared they don't cast a lot of spells, but will still melee.
Technically, the correct choice should've been to add the missing effect, instead of changing the description, since it really is supposed to have a -4 save penalty and remove invisibility. That's why the glitterdust blindness only lasts a mere 4 rounds, instead of the normal blindness duration.
(and it's not like it was hard to fix...copy from GM, paste to GD, change the duration/save type to match the blindness effect. Finished.) (though my version goes a step further and is completely PnP accurate, with the visual effect sparkles and dispel invisibility persisting for 4 rounds +1 per level (the dispel repeats at the beginning of each round similar to true-sight), while the blindness/save debuff only applies on the initial cast for 4 rounds).
All they did was correct the description which erroneously referred to a saving throw reduction.
Any ideas on prismatic spray or sphere of caos?
Yeah i didnt consider spook as bad precisely because of saving throw. I also didnt know slow had a -4 to save.
And once again agree with zanathkariashi: glitterdust should have -2 to saves, meteorswarm SUCKS, implementation is terrible (and they probably wont fix it), but the one spell i would really like to see fixed is energy drain... so much potential wasted...
Slow is awesome due to the natural -4 save penalty. Useful for BG1 and most of Shadows of Amn. Starts to be less useful in Throne of Bhaal - THAC0 is so high compared to AC that almost all attacks are auto-hit anyway and more and more enemies start saving.
Polymorph Self had some great utility - the mustard Jelly form for mage battles, the Flind form for killing Trolls, and the Spider form for that sexy poison damage. Essential to the few melee-wizard builds out there, and still fun for wizards who want to dabble - or just have something to fall back on when they're looking low on spell slots.
Teleport Field is one of the best level 4 spells - or one of the worst - depending on your party composition. It offers NO SAVE which makes it amazing. It is party-friendly, and multiple casts stack over an area. It's the ultimate anti-melee enemy tool - drop a few of these on an area and enemies without ranged damage options will charge towards you only to keep randomly appearing somewhere else. However, if your own party has a lot of melee in it, it isn't as good for the same reason - enemies keep getting randomly teleported so your guys will have trouble getting close and whacking them before they are teleported about.
Power Word: Blind was ridiculously good in vanilla BG2, one of the best level 8 spells. Blindness is an incredibly powerful effect, and PW:Blind offered NO SAVE and had a tiny AoE around the target. Awesome.
And Glitterdust is already amazing; adding a save penalty would be way too much. It already acts as an AoE Blindness and Detect Invisibility in one spell, and you want it to do Greater Malison too?
I am currently experimenting with new spells this play through. A lot of reading is involved.
I don't want to HEAR anything about nerfing legitimate spells, until all the incorrectly implemented and overpowered crap is taken care first.
The main issue with that is that Skeleton warriors are even better at mind-flayer killing (they're both 8 HD creatures too). They hit harder, have MR, and are immune to everything the Stalker is plus some, but are a spell lvl lower (and don't cost you a potential casting of IH to memorize them). The only slight advantage Stalkers have during the 3 levels between getting 6th lvl spells at 12 and hitting 15.
Invisible stalkers though are useful for a Illusionist who doesn't want to have to deal with Elementals or micromanage crawlers/Wyverns.
The stalkers are supposed to have a permanent improved invisibility which I have yet to notice them having.