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THIS is why the Daystar is one of the best weapons in BG

SharGuidesMyHandSharGuidesMyHand Member Posts: 2,586
in General Discussion (Spoiler Warning!)
image

The picture says it all.

Comments

  • CrevsDaakCrevsDaak Member Posts: 7,155
    Actually, what I really like from this sword is that it hits as +4, it's usable by evil, and as SionIV said, easy to get.
    Btw: I never scored so much damage with that spell (can't recall it's name).
  • GallowglassGallowglass Member Posts: 3,356
    Ah yes, that's what the Sunray spell does to undead who fail their (second) save v. spells. (The first save v. spells is for the blinding effect.) For some reason it appears to be implemented as "does a gigantic amount of damage" instead of the quieter "undead destroyed" effect of (say) the Mace of Disruption, but the intention seems to be the same as "undead destroyed". And of course, Sunray is an AoE spell ... but on the other hand, you can keep on using the Mace of Disruption (or Azuredge, or later disruption weapons) as many times as you need, whereas Daystar only gives you one Sunray per day. However, with a little luck, once per day is usually all you need!

    Even when you've used up your Sunray (or the enemy made its save), Daystar remains a good weapon against undead - its extra damage against undead is pretty good, and especially against undead with high physical-attack resistance (such as demi-liches) because they *don't* resist the extra damage. So, if you have to face a demi-lich in melee, Daystar (which strikes as a +4 weapon in EE - I've tested this tactic) is a viable option. I killed the WK demi-lich with it in my last completed run, for example.
  • JurisJuris Member Posts: 113
    edited May 2014
    Agree. Bodhi is also quite explody :). And, it's one of the only ways to hurt Kangaxx (+4 vs evil)
  • LathlaerLathlaer Member Posts: 475
    edited May 2014
    Since it hits as a +4 weapon and does double damage against undead, it is arguably the best longsword in SoA (which is infested with both evil and undead enemies), somwhere in the league with Blackrazor which has this ridiculus disadvantage of being almost unusable in the vanilla game.

    Seriously, whoever thought it would be fun to add a sword literally for one battle in the game was truly a genius.

    But Daystar? I love this sword. After installing Item Upgrade I'm having serious trouble putting it away, even for ToB.
  • DreadKhanDreadKhan Member Posts: 3,857
    In vanilla bg2 it definately hit as a +2, so thats a big change. To be honest, anytime I could even equip it, i carried it for Sunray. Not unlike the silencing sword, ALSO from a tomb.

    coincidence?!?
  • SionIVSionIV Member Posts: 2,689
    Too bad it looks horrible when your character wields it, the one reason i won't use it for fighting and only use it for it's special ability once in a while. Same thing with the Sword of Balduran.
  • GallowglassGallowglass Member Posts: 3,356
    DreadKhan said:

    In vanilla bg2 it definately hit as a +2, so thats a big change.

    Agreed, and that's why I specifically drew attention to the fact that it hits as +4 in EE. It's now much more useful against the tougher sorts of undead.

    Against the demi-lich in WK, what I did was send in Rasaad alone (and not even buffed), who had natural 78% MR and wore the Ring of Gaxx and Kaligun's Amulet to raise it to 98% MR, so the demi-lich's spells were useless unless he got very lucky (which he didn't), and armed Rasaad with Daystar (and he conveniently had a proficiency in Longsword). Rasaad hacked the demi-lich to death in just two or three rounds, taking no damage at all. Easy. But the relevant point is, Daystar was hitting a demi-lich, so it must be striking as +4.
  • CrevsDaakCrevsDaak Member Posts: 7,155
    Gallowglass said:


    Agreed, and that's why I specifically drew attention to the fact that it hits as +4 in EE.

    Or in BG2 with the G3-BG2 Fixpack :D
  • SionIVSionIV Member Posts: 2,689
    Lathlaer said:

    SionIV said:

    Too bad it looks horrible when your character wields it, the one reason i won't use it for fighting and only use it for it's special ability once in a while. Same thing with the Sword of Balduran.

    What, you don't like the golden pulsating blade? I actually like it. Looks nice when you wield it with the Blackrazor. As if you held night and day in your hands :)

    It's just too flashy and over the top for me, i like the normal sleek blade better :)
  • SCARY_WIZARDSCARY_WIZARD Member Posts: 1,438
    edited May 2014
    SharGuidesMyHand said:

    The picture says it all.

    Whenever that happens, my head plays the "really intense beheading" sound from the Highlander series. You know, the "swing" followed by a clap of thunder.
  • DreadKhanDreadKhan Member Posts: 3,857
    Gallowglass said:

    DreadKhan said:

    In vanilla bg2 it definately hit as a +2, so thats a big change.

    Agreed, and that's why I specifically drew attention to the fact that it hits as +4 in EE. It's now much more useful against the tougher sorts of undead.

    Against the demi-lich in WK, what I did was send in Rasaad alone (and not even buffed), who had natural 78% MR and wore the Ring of Gaxx and Kaligun's Amulet to raise it to 98% MR, so the demi-lich's spells were useless unless he got very lucky (which he didn't), and armed Rasaad with Daystar (and he conveniently had a proficiency in Longsword). Rasaad hacked the demi-lich to death in just two or three rounds, taking no damage at all. Easy. But the relevant point is, Daystar was hitting a demi-lich, so it must be striking as +4.
    Wha?? MR stops Imprisonment?!? Well i'll be... learn some new stuffs, eh? Before you needed immunity to the school, prot from magic scroll, or perhaps prot from undead. Their was a great dearth of ways to actually fight a demilich!
  • CrevsDaakCrevsDaak Member Posts: 7,155
    @DreadKhan‌ yes. But only the Demilich one, the other bypasses MR.
  • QuartzQuartz Member Posts: 3,853
    Haha, I've forgotten how epic Daystar and Blackrazor are. I need to make a character who dual-wields 'em or some crap; last character I had who did that was a Mage/Thief (I was like 9 at the time, ok?) so he couldn't actually hit anything with them hahaha!

    @CrevsDaak You mean there's something half-way fair about Demi-Liches?

    What.
  • elminsterelminster Member, Developer Posts: 16,317
    CrevsDaak said:

    @DreadKhan‌ yes. But only the Demilich one, the other bypasses MR.

    Weird. I looked over all of them in Near Infinity and all of them are labelled "bypass resistance"
  • CrevsDaakCrevsDaak Member Posts: 7,155
    @elminster‌ yep, looks like you are right, I haven't checked before.
  • GallowglassGallowglass Member Posts: 3,356
    @elminster, @CrevsDaak: Yet nevertheless, Rasaad's MR successfully resisted the demi-lich's version of Imprisonment (as well as his other spells). No, I don't know why, but it did work. Maybe it's a bug?

    If it hadn't worked, then I'd have buffed my protagonist (a Cleric/Illusionist) with Death Ward and Spell Immunity: Abjuration, and then walked in and bashed him with the Mace of Disruption +2 (which strikes as +5 and therefore works against demi-liches ... in the same run, in fact, the MoD+2 made the fight against Kangaxx anti-climactic by luckily one-shotting him as soon as his demi-lich form appeared). However, my experiment with Rasaad and Daystar worked, so I didn't need to resort to the more orthodox tactic. (The reason I tried the experiment was because I'd just come out of the fight with Saladrex next door, so I'd have needed a rest to prepare buffs for the more orthodox way of tackling the demi-lich ... I wasn't really expecting it to work so easily, I just thought "While I'm standing here, I might as well test a couple of possibilities".)
  • elminsterelminster Member, Developer Posts: 16,317
    @Gallowglass are you running any mods? I've now tried against a regular demilich and even with 88% magic resistance its failed to work for me 5/5 times. Kangaxx uses the same form of imprisonment (spin788.spl).
  • GallowglassGallowglass Member Posts: 3,356
    @elminster: nope, no mods at all. So I guess there's something buggy about either Rasaad or (more likely) about the WK demi-lich.
  • elminsterelminster Member, Developer Posts: 16,317
    The WK demi-lich is just a regular demilich file. I also tried fighting him with Rasaad and I'm still getting imprisoned.
  • GallowglassGallowglass Member Posts: 3,356
    edited May 2014
    @elminster: just loaded an old save from that run and tested it again, watching carefully what happened. Hmmm, the WK demi-lich didn't actually attempt Imprisonment at all! I thought he had done so when I tried it during that run, but it was probably late at night so possibly I wasn't watching sufficiently carefully. What happened just now was that as soon as Rasaad entered, the demi-lich fired a Spell Trigger to cast Protection from Energy, then cast a Demilich Howl (which Rasaad's MR resisted - maybe that's what I saw being resisted during the actual run, rather than Imprisonment), but by then Rasaad was in melee distance and the demi-lich switched to melee (at which he is of course useless and kept missing), and Daystar killed him in the fourth round of combat.

    Maybe this means that the fault is in the WK demi-lich's script.
  • elminsterelminster Member, Developer Posts: 16,317
    edited May 2014
    Yea the demilich probably won't try to imprison you unless you are a distance from it. It also likes to fight up close (for whatever reason). Kangaxx (demilich version) and it share the same script.
    Post edited by elminster on
  • GallowglassGallowglass Member Posts: 3,356
    So, again it turns out to be the case that elaborate precautions and complex strategies aren't necessary so often as some people assume: just-charge-right-in-and-kill-it works even against a demi-lich!

    (But against Kangaxx, it's obligatory to have your whole party in the room with him, so more care is required.)
  • elminsterelminster Member, Developer Posts: 16,317
    edited May 2014
    I was actually wrong about the script thing (them using the same script). The script for Kangaxx looks to be a lot simpler, so it could simply be the case of the regular demilich script not working right (because it does seem rather reluctant to use imprisonment).
  • DreadKhanDreadKhan Member Posts: 3,857
    Vanilla kangaxx definately was cool with imprisoning characters in melee. He was very much a 'prepare or die' enemy... unless you managed to get set up so he could only see an enraged berserker. Such a cheeseball fight!

    Does mace of dis +2 strike as a +5? I was under the impression it bypassed demilich resistance becsuse according to 2nd edition it and vorpal swords can bypass while less than +4.
  • GallowglassGallowglass Member Posts: 3,356
    DreadKhan said:

    Does mace of dis +2 strike as a +5?

    The in-game description (in EE, changed from vanilla) says so, yes. (And I've used it, and it does seem to behave as advertised.)
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