That is of course the crux of the matter. It's not about what's POSSIBLE, it's about what's efficient. Of course you can make various things work, somehow. You can have your single class unkitted mage tank, if you really want to - but the thing is that something else would be BETTER. Of course, in the end what you do choose depends on your own, personal preferences. And that's totally fine, but I think the discussion of what is more or less efficient still has merit for people that want to be informed before they make that own, personal choice.
Okay, Ber to C makes more sense, I must have misread. Regardless though, Clerics sre better at offense buffing imho, wizards by far at defensive.
Could you elaborate on that? What defensive Mage buffs are there that make them better "by far" than Clerics? Is Stoneskin better than Shield of Entropy in a game where you face extraordinarily large amounts of enemies, meaning you get hit a lot, meaning skin charges get consumed quickly? Are Protection from Normal/Magical Weapons with their short duration that good in HoF where fights take a long time to finish? Seems questionable to me, to be honest.
I don't agree spell damage is even remotely less efficient in HoF, its the fastest way to clear out large groups, you just can't do it with 1 or 2 AoE damage spell. 4 or 5 skull trap per round hitting a group of enemies is very big total damage, which is great as long as nobody has regeneration, and most enemies do not. You don't have to agree, but neither do I with you. I remember hearing that spell damage was 'worthless' in IWD2 HoF, but I also found it extremely effective there too. AoE magic is hands down the easiest way to deal with groups of enemies imho, including spamming Chaos, Web, Skull Traps, etc. Summons sre the easiest way to deal with very small groups. Ymmv! We can disagree.
@bob_veng sorry, but better single handed weapons exist. Thats tops for Swashbucklers, Blades and low level duals. Higher level fighters don't need a bonus attack, and they can use other harder hitters. Did the fix thst put in Benorg's Truth go into IWDEE? It replaces one of the 2 duplicate Celebrant's Blades. Its pretty damn beefy, as is the Axe of the Minotaur. *shrug* Love those sweeping statements with no basis you make.
And ffs, really? Dual a 7th lvl Kensai??? Wth are you smoking? Unless its an RP only choice, thats straight up bad vs Berserker, and arguably not better than Vanilla fighter. You are giving up useful equip slots and options for the same damage boost a Berserker gets along with HEAPS of immunities and can use any gear??
@DreadKhan imo that +15% slashing resist makes it the best weapon alongside the defender +4 mace which is mildly better and can be worn in the offhand anyway. all other high-enchantment weapons have is pretty mild bonus damage
no reason to go to level 13 apart from small hitpoint boost and okay thaco boost but thaco will be absurdly high with bufs. waiting till 13 is good only for soloing or for a reduced party without great buffing. it's better to have higher mage level so you could have more high-level spell slots
edit: just to note that i'm omitting anti-undead weapons from the equation
edit2: actually, i forgot about +1.5apr grandmastery. that renders +apr weapons unnecessary and since crushing damage is better, it's better to go with mace grandmastery. there's a +apr mace anyway for that tenth attack. for this reason it's better to wait till 13. ok i admit i was wrong.
There were other better resistance weapons then 15% slashing though, and a 13th lvl figter doesnt need the extra attack. Heck, the Warhammer Defender is better than the morningstar for a shield. The stun effect from the two uber axes are much better than the 1/2 apr bonus for a fighter.
If you're dualing a kensai out before 13, just go Berserker. Its better. Kensai is probably best pure with all the DR equipmemt you can find. You can probably manage better than 50% DR vs everything, and just use spells to boost AC if desired.
I don't agree spell damage is even remotely less efficient in HoF, its the fastest way to clear out large groups, you just can't do it with 1 or 2 AoE damage spell. 4 or 5 skull trap per round hitting a group of enemies is very big total damage, which is great as long as nobody has regeneration, and most enemies do not. You don't have to agree, but neither do I with you. I remember hearing that spell damage was 'worthless' in IWD2 HoF, but I also found it extremely effective there too. AoE magic is hands down the easiest way to deal with groups of enemies imho, including spamming Chaos, Web, Skull Traps, etc. Summons sre the easiest way to deal with very small groups. Ymmv! We can disagree.
Unless 5 members out of 6 do 10 atk/round and no one can be hitted since you can pull basically the whole IWD 1 with invi 9" since 99,9% of enemies don't have true sight, so all the mobs will aggro your tank anyway.
Sorry, but I don't think you are right. I had the sorc with skullgrasp and all the chain spells to spam it in one or two rounds but honestly, even if I have tried this tactic didn't look effienct at all.
Sorcerer as damage dealer is not efficient even in BG2 with enemies with "normal" hp, go figure in HoF.
And I'm NOT saying sorc are bad. They are GREAT in HoF. So many buffs before any other spell user, cc, debuffs and yes... A bit of burst. But that's not the main point of the class, srly.
If you are talking about cc like chaos and friends, then I can agree, even if they are not needed to be honest if your party is a dual class based beast with 10atk/round.
In the end, I have found this game way more boring then BG. Pre buff like a beast, go town (in invi ) pull the pack of mobs and kill them so fast that in the end you will not feel the difference between normal and hof mode.
I'll try another run banning sorcerer, since when I had 6x improved haste per rest the game was over and VERY boring.
I think we need better difficult mods to make the game more "hard" for who is used to play modded bg. Adding hp at packs of trolls and giants is not a solution if you will have 2m exp so early and min/maxed characters anyway.
Well, half a round can mean 4 or 5 guaranteed hits, and no risk to the attacker during that time. Not getting attacked is better than DR generally imo. Hence Mislead abuse. Stun is less helpful vs mobs though.
DR weapons and gear on a Kensai later game is sounding really effective actually.
Comments
@bob_veng sorry, but better single handed weapons exist. Thats tops for Swashbucklers, Blades and low level duals. Higher level fighters don't need a bonus attack, and they can use other harder hitters. Did the fix thst put in Benorg's Truth go into IWDEE? It replaces one of the 2 duplicate Celebrant's Blades. Its pretty damn beefy, as is the Axe of the Minotaur. *shrug* Love those sweeping statements with no basis you make.
And ffs, really? Dual a 7th lvl Kensai??? Wth are you smoking? Unless its an RP only choice, thats straight up bad vs Berserker, and arguably not better than Vanilla fighter. You are giving up useful equip slots and options for the same damage boost a Berserker gets along with HEAPS of immunities and can use any gear??
imo that +15% slashing resist makes it the best weapon alongside the defender +4 mace which is mildly better and can be worn in the offhand anyway. all other high-enchantment weapons have is pretty mild bonus damage
no reason to go to level 13 apart from small hitpoint boost and okay thaco boost but thaco will be absurdly high with bufs. waiting till 13 is good only for soloing or for a reduced party without great buffing.
it's better to have higher mage level so you could have more high-level spell slots
edit: just to note that i'm omitting anti-undead weapons from the equation
edit2: actually, i forgot about +1.5apr grandmastery. that renders +apr weapons unnecessary and since crushing damage is better, it's better to go with mace grandmastery. there's a +apr mace anyway for that tenth attack.
for this reason it's better to wait till 13. ok i admit i was wrong.
If you're dualing a kensai out before 13, just go Berserker. Its better. Kensai is probably best pure with all the DR equipmemt you can find. You can probably manage better than 50% DR vs everything, and just use spells to boost AC if desired.
...yeah that mace & warhammer sound like the way to go. damage resistance is incredible in IWD.
Unless 5 members out of 6 do 10 atk/round and no one can be hitted since you can pull basically the whole IWD 1 with invi 9" since 99,9% of enemies don't have true sight, so all the mobs will aggro your tank anyway.
Sorry, but I don't think you are right. I had the sorc with skullgrasp and all the chain spells to spam it in one or two rounds but honestly, even if I have tried this tactic didn't look effienct at all.
Sorcerer as damage dealer is not efficient even in BG2 with enemies with "normal" hp, go figure in HoF.
And I'm NOT saying sorc are bad. They are GREAT in HoF. So many buffs before any other spell user, cc, debuffs and yes... A bit of burst. But that's not the main point of the class, srly.
If you are talking about cc like chaos and friends, then I can agree, even if they are not needed to be honest if your party is a dual class based beast with 10atk/round.
In the end, I have found this game way more boring then BG. Pre buff like a beast, go town (in invi
I'll try another run banning sorcerer, since when I had 6x improved haste per rest the game was over and VERY boring.
I think we need better difficult mods to make the game more "hard" for who is used to play modded bg. Adding hp at packs of trolls and giants is not a solution if you will have 2m exp so early and min/maxed characters anyway.
DR weapons and gear on a Kensai later game is sounding really effective actually.