Underutilised weapons

vangoat

So after you've been through BG2 a number of times, it gets a bit boring using celestial fury, flail of ages, frostreaver/azuredge every time.

Does anyone have any weapons that they like to use for flavour/roleplay reasons?

I recently started an undead hunter specialising in quarterstaves and crossbows. There are plenty of crossbow options available early and the Staff of Rynn +4 and staff of striking are both great and do a good amount of damage.

The Harbinger +3 sold in Ust Natha always looks cool (5% chance of fireball on hit), pretty easy to get 100% fire resist from equipment.

Jhor the bleeder looks like it could be good, 2 damage per round for 5 rounds, although only +2 enchantment.

The dragon's breath halberd is pretty nice as well, possibly better than the stupid Wave which you have to assemble

Askarn

I've got an odd fondness for Impaler.

+3 Spear with an extra +10 damage, so its basic damage is 14-19. You can get it in the Sahuagin City. Spears are fairly meh on the whole and its not really great enough to devote a whole character too, but damn, it hits hard.

vangoat

ooh yeah that's a good one!

i never usually have anyone with a spear proficiency to use it though

half orc kensai with spear grandmastery and 19 strength sounds good

jackjack

Daggers! Oh how I long for a dirk, or a main gauche, or a stiletto!

Skaffen

I was thinking of starting a similar thread along the lines of "B-Team" weapons which are actually good but just that little bit worse compared to the A-grade "stars" available at the time. You keep them around and don't sell them like the 90% vendor thrash that you find but somehow they never leave that bag of holding after all...

Prime example for me is the Storm Star mace, really good once upgraded to +5 but somehow I never have a mace wielding character - the ones speccing for blunt will go for FoA and Crom and if someone has some profs in maces it's only fallback for Disruption vs undead. The proccing needs hits so it's also not suited for offhand where I often keep the improved disruption for the energy drain protection. In the end Stormie always stays in my bag.

Another early example is Gnasher. 8 DoT is nice but you get Blackblood immediately afterwards with great rare acid damage and +3 instead of 2. So I keep Gnasher around if I have Jaheira (who else ever specs for clubs?!? ) to disrupt casters but once I face the casters and have her around I just insect plague them anyway...

sarevok57

I recently had a play through ( when bg2ee first came out) where I had a paladin who's soul purpose was to not use carsomyr ( because that just gets boring after awhile) so I chose katana, bastard sword and mace as my starting weapons ( this was also on the basis that I was going to run to brynnlaw right away) so I used mace of disruption for the first time, and it is actually quite useful, it strikes as a +3 weapon, and it obliterates undead baddies ( even liches) and when you upgrade it, it gives immunity to level drain and hits as a +4 or +5 weapon ( don't remember which, but it can affect demi-liches when upgraded) so mace was a neat proficiency, then when I got to the underdark I started using bastard swords ( because there is where 3 of them finally make an appearance in the world, and I eventually wanted to use the purifier/ foebane in ToB) so I tried jhor the bleeder first, and one thing I found out was that beholders were immune to the bleeding damage which I thought was lame, and infact I believe that bleeding damage is actually poison damage ( not tested though so I could be wrong) but that was the first time in over a decade that I used bastard swords in bg2, so that was a nice change of pace ( and then of coarse I got the blade of searing from the ust natha shortly after) and I remember back in the day when I played barbarians quite often I would on purposely choose spear proficiency just for impaler, that +10 piercing damage per hit was just awesome, but recently I've been playing a game where I have a fighter thief using two handed swords, and I run off to spell hold right away to get imoen and when I came back I made the vorpal sword, and in my opinion for bg2 ( minus ToB) it is probably the most fearsome weapon, every hit has a 25% chance of making baddies save vs death at -2 or die instantly, and it affects anyone, so for bg2 actually ( minus ToB) the vorpal sword is my favourite weapon, plus just the lore behind is pretty cool as well

Lathlaer

^ Dat sentence... o_O

WebShaman

^ yeah, ditto! O_o

ryuken87

Ibratha is a weapon I barely see mentioned but I use it on almost every single playthrough. I never equip it but just keep it in a quickslot for its Mirror Image ability. I guess it's value has slightly decreased in the EE due to that ring from Rasaad's quest.

Corvino

Usuno's Blade from the top of Watcher's Keep is one of the best weapons that no-one uses. It's +4, has elemental damage and is available in Chapter 2. And it never gets mentioned, probably because druids can't use it and Spectral Brand is better.

Similarly I've never used the Dwarven Thrower hammer from the Trademeet merchant. I'm tempted to run a Dwarven F/C through to get some mileage from it.

vangoat

Corvino said:

Usuno's Blade from the top of Watcher's Keep is one of the best weapons that no-one uses. It's +4, has elemental damage and is available in Chapter 2. And it never gets mentioned, probably because druids can't use it and Spectral Brand is better.

Similarly I've never used the Dwarven Thrower hammer from the Trademeet merchant. I'm tempted to run a Dwarven F/C through to get some mileage from it.

druids can't use usono's blade? how come? my avenger/fighter with grandmastery in scimitars would love to pick that up

i've got a dwarven defender atm still using the dwarven thrower in the underdark. it's pretty nice, the only thing is i have to keep switching it out if i want to dual wield hammers for melee.

kryptix

It's a wakizashi not a scimitar.

vangoat

ah, i thought they all counted the same because it's the same proficiency type

Corvino

Druids can only use scimitars, not Wakazashi or Ninja-to. A bit of a silly distinction, but the game holds you to it.

Taear

Corvino said:

Usuno's Blade from the top of Watcher's Keep is one of the best weapons that no-one uses. It's +4, has elemental damage and is available in Chapter 2. And it never gets mentioned, probably because druids can't use it and Spectral Brand is better.

I specifically went to Watcher's Keep early, thinking it was a Katana. I think if it was, it'd get a lot more use. It's just part of a specialisation that you're not going to take unless you're a Druid and as you say, Druids can't use it.

Corvino

I actually often take Scimitars on multiclasses to use Belm - it makes quite a bit of sense for Fighter/Thieves who can backstab with Usuno's as well.

While high-even scimitars are a bit rare, there's now a +3 one in Dorn's quest and Belm is just great.

bbear

The Equalizer: It's late and outclass by many other weapons. Since most enemies are evil, you can use it as a means to detect alignment of enemies.

vangoat

anyone try dual wielding belm and kundane, since you can get them both pretty early? (well, SCS planar prison is pretty hard)

elminster

Foebane. It gets mentioned but not as much as the other weapons. Also its description currently doesn't accurately reflect what it actually does bonus damage against (which probably isn't helping the situation).

kryptix

elminster said:

Foebane. It gets mentioned but not as much as the other weapons. Also its description currently doesn't accurately reflect what it actually does bonus damage against (which probably isn't helping the situation).

Foebane is great I always use it at least a bit in most play throughs on resistant guys like abazigal etc...

abacus

Purifier...
Needs LG to acquire, shares it's upgrade item with Carsomyr, and a generally unpopular weapon type...
I'm rigging my current Cavalier up to use this, purely because I never have before.

Edit: And Mana Bow... Because it's a longbow, and therefore has no late-game ammo, and can't hit big nasties. Really wish you could put the Bowstring of Gond on this to allow unlimited +4/+5 ammo (already possible with crossbows, shortbows & slings, so hardly game-breaking).

Taear

I'd agree totally with Equalizer and also throw in the Wave Halberd. Sure it's nice, but you have to go to the Shaugin city, you have to follow the "evil" path to get it and when you get it out, the person you've probably got using two handed weapons is going to be using a sword!

I've given it to Dorn this game just so I get some use out of it.

Corvino

Halberds generally get overlooked. Dragon's Breath and the Wave are both +4 but I've rarely heard of someone building a character around them.

The Ravager halberd in TOB is the only one that seems to get people excited.

Serpion

Corvino said:

Halberds generally get overlooked. Dragon's Breath and the Wave are both +4 but I've rarely heard of someone building a character around them.

The Ravager halberd in TOB is the only one that seems to get people excited.

Halberds are two-handler. In fact you will loose very nice options like belm/kundane or something else. Damage of any two-handler weapons is not good (Spear is great example of it! 1d6 damage for two-handed weapon? Better use katana with 1d10 one-hand weapon!). So two-handed weapons should have very good boosts, other wise it useless

abacus

Corvino said:

The Ravager halberd in TOB is the only one that seems to get people excited.

Instant (no save) death will do that...

Corvino

Two-handed swords are still popular though, @Serpion. Not just for Carsomyr either.

2-handers are less popular with people who metagame though, I agree. A pity really, as there are some weapons out there.

Taear

Corvino said:

Two-handed swords are still popular though, @Serpion. Not just for Carsomyr either.

2-handers are less popular with people who metagame though, I agree. A pity really, as there are some weapons out there.

I tend to just have ONE character using two handers. It doesn't help that so many classes can't use edged weapons and suchlike, usually you'll only have two or three characters who can use halberds at all!

abacus

Halberds (two handers in general) make a decent melee selection for a ranged specialist (archer/similar) as you don't have to go into the inventory to load an off-hand or shield.
They also have greater reach, so they allow a squishy character to hide behind a tank and dish the pain over their shoulder (Dorn behind Korgan for example).

element

short sword of mask is one i've always liked, yeh its not amazing comparatively but its available literally as soon as u can move around the map.

I just like short swords they are unfortunately underwhelming power wise but they just make sense to me as an adventuring weapon and they fit Halflings so well I really like them. Plus theres a bunch that have quite cool bonuses

Taear

abacus said:

Halberds (two handers in general) make a decent melee selection for a ranged specialist (archer/similar) as you don't have to go into the inventory to load an off-hand or shield.
They also have greater reach, so they allow a squishy character to hide behind a tank and dish the pain over their shoulder (Dorn behind Korgan for example).

I did give my Ranger a halberd, but the times he used it were pretty few and far between. I guess it just seems a shame that you spend so much effort making the weapon and in reality it's pretty awful. I'd say the same for the Equalizer too.
To me, you shouldn't hunt around for bits for what is going to be your backup weapon!

OneAngryMushroom

No one ever mentions Soul Reaver, Gives an enemy a nice cumulative -2 THAC0 per hit so I like softening up hard hitters like dragons or the like with it.

Heartseeker bow can do some insane damage for a short time if you combine it with an Archers Called Shot and it's +7 THAC0 bonus

Rod of Smiting can Kill Admantium golems in one shot.

Dragons Breath and The Wave have already been mentioned.

Dragon Slayer and Daystar are both great long swords