If you want to make Wish a little less unpredictable... You'll need a high Wis score... You could always play a Necromancer, you'll sacrifice Illusion school but have as a secondary stat requirement 16 Wis.
Top Tier: -Improved Alacrity: 5/5 -Summon Planetars: 5/5 -Dragon's Breath: 4.5/5 (20d10 fire damage and ignore MR) -Summon Dark Planetars: 4.5/5 -Energy Blade: 4/5 (Fighter Mage can combo with other HLA)
Mid Tier: -Comet: 3/5 (10d10 damage and save vs spell stun)
I feel like I'm missing something with DB. Any difficult enemies seem to be immune once you get it, and if you want to take out a bunch of weakies why not use something lower down the line?
Top Tier: -Improved Alacrity: 5/5. This one makes timestop almost unnecessary. Requires the robe of vecna though to reach its full potential -Summon Planetars: 5/5. Amazing summon. They can solo SOA by themselves. Still very useful in TOB but don't expect them to kill everything in sight -Summon Dark Planetars: don't know. never used the spell. Don't see why it should get a lesser grade than summon planetar
Mid tier : -Dragon's Breath: 3/5 good to slaughter drows. Apart from that, there is much better use of a level 9 slot (because fire damage is so bad) -Energy Blade: 2.5/5 very strong MMM. But really for a level 9 spell i don't see the point. As a FM you have anyway 10 attacks per round with crazy damage. For a pure arcane caster, your thaco is crap and you'd better spend your time and slots casting another timestop
Crap tier -Comet: why would you memorize that?
Sorcerors picks : all obviously
On level 9-10 spells, here is what i used over the course of the game
summon planetar : all the time on
timestop : every "difficult" fight (mages, bosses) improved alacrity : every "difficult" fight(mages, bosses)
Shapechange : roughly 5 times. Mostly to kill very powerful ennemies (WK level 5, draconis,...) chain contigency : less than 5 times. Mostly against time stop immune ennemies Dragon breath : 4-5 times. Each time there is a lot of non fire resistant ennemies
energy blade : once, just to try and to confirm its useless comet : once, by mistake.
What makes Planetars a shit is that they script attacks enemies instead of waiting tillit casts the spell, so they attack enemies even if they are casting a spell, I think that they need a new script Dragon's Breath is one of my favorite, there are many Fire immune creatures, but Poison is there for those enemies >:D
Against protected ennemies, just use time stop shapeshift. During the time stop you should be able to ear the brains of 2-3 ennemies, no matter how powerful they are. And you get to keep the loot.
I have an innate aversion to transforming into an illithid and sticking my tentacles into someone's brains through their nose and ears.
I've used fallen planetars. As far as I can tell they're the same except their clerical spells have their alignment switched. Eg. get unholy word instead of holy word and stuff. Which basically makes those spells useless as you aren't fighting good aligned enemies 99.999% of the time
comet is better than dragon's breath because of enemies' fire resistance in tob. both are kinda crap however. abu dalzim is better.
energy blades is very good for cleric/mages and deserves 3/5.
energy blades is of course more useful than both comet and dragon's breath.
Umm, how is comet better than dragons breath? Comet too does fire damage IIRC. Dragons breath has both more damage potential and ignores magic resistance. DB wins easily, IMHO.
There was a mod that changed comet to do crushing damage and ignore mr. Now that made the comet a very very powerful tool to use against anything that does not have stoneskin active. (10d10 area effect blunt trauma, no save, no magic resistance)
Regarding needing high Wisdom: Potions of Insight are terrific, think of them as a spell component for a Wish spell. I know we've moved on from L7 but when I cast Limited Wish, I don't need an 18 to get my +2 full plate armor (that I can sell for 30gp wtf?) I don't have too much experience with Wish but I do stock up on potions of Insight and don't plan on having less than 18 wisdom when I cast.
Many of my BG1 characters come in with 22 wisdom. You'd think there would be unique options for such godlike wisdom scores
@lunar yeah a long time ago i used a mod that makes it do half crushing and ignore mr. it's been stuck in my head ever since...
edit: i also always maze that guy. one of the most challenging fights that you stumble upon by complete chance, probably the toughest (i'm not counting the liches because you need to nose to encounter them; twisted rune is almost impossible to stumble upon accidentaly)
Comments
Top Tier:
-Improved Alacrity: 5/5
-Summon Planetars: 5/5
-Dragon's Breath: 4.5/5 (20d10 fire damage and ignore MR)
-Summon Dark Planetars: 4.5/5
-Energy Blade: 4/5 (Fighter Mage can combo with other HLA)
Mid Tier:
-Comet: 3/5 (10d10 damage and save vs spell stun)
Top Tier:
-Improved Alacrity: 5/5. This one makes timestop almost unnecessary. Requires the robe of vecna though to reach its full potential
-Summon Planetars: 5/5. Amazing summon. They can solo SOA by themselves. Still very useful in TOB but don't expect them to kill everything in sight
-Summon Dark Planetars: don't know. never used the spell. Don't see why it should get a lesser grade than summon planetar
Mid tier :
-Dragon's Breath: 3/5 good to slaughter drows. Apart from that, there is much better use of a level 9 slot (because fire damage is so bad)
-Energy Blade: 2.5/5 very strong MMM. But really for a level 9 spell i don't see the point. As a FM you have anyway 10 attacks per round with crazy damage. For a pure arcane caster, your thaco is crap and you'd better spend your time and slots casting another timestop
Crap tier
-Comet: why would you memorize that?
Sorcerors picks : all obviously
On level 9-10 spells, here is what i used over the course of the game
summon planetar : all the time on
timestop : every "difficult" fight (mages, bosses)
improved alacrity : every "difficult" fight(mages, bosses)
Shapechange : roughly 5 times. Mostly to kill very powerful ennemies (WK level 5, draconis,...)
chain contigency : less than 5 times. Mostly against time stop immune ennemies
Dragon breath : 4-5 times. Each time there is a lot of non fire resistant ennemies
energy blade : once, just to try and to confirm its useless
comet : once, by mistake.
Dragon's Breath is one of my favorite, there are many Fire immune creatures, but Poison is there for those enemies >:D
I think like Vangoat says they're basically the same but with slightly worse spells, though its been a while since I played evil(years)
energy blades is very good for cleric/mages and deserves 3/5.
energy blades is of course more useful than both comet and dragon's breath.
There was a mod that changed comet to do crushing damage and ignore mr. Now that made the comet a very very powerful tool to use against anything that does not have stoneskin active. (10d10 area effect blunt trauma, no save, no magic resistance)
Many of my BG1 characters come in with 22 wisdom. You'd think there would be unique options for such godlike wisdom scores
yeah a long time ago i used a mod that makes it do half crushing and ignore mr. it's been stuck in my head ever since...
edit: i also always maze that guy. one of the most challenging fights that you stumble upon by complete chance, probably the toughest (i'm not counting the liches because you need to nose to encounter them; twisted rune is almost impossible to stumble upon accidentaly)