Can anyone explain the wild mage
Max_Damage
Member Posts: 48
What should you know going from standart mages to wild mages?
As far as i can tell they are a complete disaster.
As far as i can tell they are a complete disaster.
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The reason for this is because you have the ability of casting spells you don't even know, and also casting a secondary spell along with the spell you originally chose.
If you go to this link, it provides a table based on Rolls that tell you every Wild Surge that can/will occur http://baldursgate.wikia.com/wiki/Wild_Surge
So for example, if your original intention was to cast a Silence "15 on an enemy, and you happen to roll a 33, not only have you disable his casting abilities (unless he has Vocalize), but you've also unleashed a Color Spray on him and anybody around him, doubling, probably even TRIPLING the effect of what you wanted in the first place, causing even more havoc!
But as I've said, at the same time, it can also ruin you. But what's the fun of playing this game without some chance? I've been planning a playthrough myself and I've gotta say it sounds extremely interesting.
Time to get started on that.
Later in the game, Wild Mages are powerful because they essentially use their Lvl 1 spell slots for high level spells. Which is also quite powerful.
All that of course from the perspective of a single-class mage. A fighter/mage hybrid remains much more effective (if you want some fun and don't mind bending the rules, try Fighter -> Wild Mage dual!).
Wild Mages are basically a specialist mage (more spells per day) without the opposite school restriction that normal specialists like Dynaheir and Xan need to deal with. They pay for that with unpredictable wild surges.
If you are happy to reload every time a wild surge ruins your plans, then a wild mage is objectively stronger than a normal mage or a specialist mage. If you are playing no-reload, you should steer clear of wild mages, because some wild surges are game ending, like a fireball centered on caster in early BG1, or summoning a Pit Fiend inside a civilian zone, among others.
I play min-reload, having Neera as my only arcane caster for BG1 has conditioned me to be nervous about using mages in general, and I now have to remind myself in BG2 that Aerie's spells are totally safe. lol
You can manage the risk of wild surges to an extent. Chaos Shield helps, and I typically used Neera only for nuking packs of enemies with fireballs and disabling spells. I avoided using her to buff party members, and only ever cast self-buffs with Chaos Shield active.
The real key to a wild mage's power is the level 1 spell Nahal's Reckless Dowemer. When you cast NRD you can then choose any spell that is in your book and attempt to cast it, regardless of level or whether or not you can cast it normally. Casting a spell with NRD causes a wild surge every time, making it somewhat unreliable, BUT there is a catch! It is possible to make NRD work much more frequently. First of all we need to know how a roll on the wild surge table works. When a wild surge happens a random number is picked from 1-100 (1d100) and the corresponding wild surge effect is used. Pretty simple, but the catch is that some things can add to your roll on the wild surge table. Things like the Chaos Shield spells will add a certain number to the number you roll on the wild surge table. By using NRD you also will add your class level to the roll. The best part is that if the resulting number of your roll and the wild surge bonuses (1d100 + wild surge bonus) is 100 or over the spell is cast successfully without any random effects. So for example: You are a level 9 wild mage casting NRD while protected by a Chaos Shield. The Chaos Shield gives you a surge bonus of 15 and your level gives you a bonus of 9 so you add 24 to your roll on the surge table. Since any final result of 100 or over is a successful casting, you have a 25% chance of casting your spell without a hitch! This is about as high as your chance gets in BG1:EE but in BG2:EE things get really fun! Once you become able to cast level 7 spells you can start using Improved Chaos Shield instead of Chaos shield. That spell alone gives you a bonus of 25! There are also a couple of artifacts available from Neera's quests that give a bonus to your surges. Take a level 20 wild mage casting NRD while protected by Improved Chaos Shield and two magical items that each give a bonus of 15 to your wild surge.
This results in a total wild surge bonus of 75!!! A raw 76% chance of casting any spell you want that is in your book as a level 1 spell successfully! Add to that the fact that you can spam NRD castings as if you had Improved Alacrity and every other caster in the game gets blown out of the water!
Now that is a powerful wild surge! 5% chance to wild surge, then that is but one outcome among many. But damn...that could let you one shot almost anything.
Otherwise I'd say Wild Mages are not the absolute best. Often, NRD will have a wild magic effect instead of casting the spell you want, and though you can always reload, it doesn't say much about the class if your solution to its weakness is "reload." You can fix wild surges with reloading, but honestly, what CAN'T you fix with a reload?
A Wild Mage with NRD either casts Time Stop at level 8, or gets paralyzed for 10 rounds. In normal play, it's probably stronger on average than a normal mage. Without reloads, it's one of the worst spellcasters. And with the hot key trick, it is by far the single most powerful class in the game.
Anyways needless to say that I now stick with either generalist mages or specialist mages.
Specialist mage, with no spell school penality
Free alacrity, as nahal isn't affected by the 1 per round cast
very early high level spell
Countrary to other mage, continue to progress past level 20, as the highest he is, the better the roll.
Basically, when you are 25+ there's no more bad roll.
And if that's not enough, your number of level 9-10 spell is equal to your number of lvl 9 and lvl 1 spell, isn't that great ?
If there was no anti magic zone in the whole game, then entropiste would be the strongest class of the game, with no single other class being able to compete.
As for the problem as a wild mage, if you are with a party, you can just make the game as a support early (no spell, just wand and ranged attack)
If you are solo, you levelup so fast that you actually don't care of draw back, since the wands will allow you to reach a suficent level for you to cast without being in danger.
That takes 5,625,000 XP. What about the other 90% of the game, when every NRD is liable to kill you?
If you're playing a party, you won't reach that before late-game TOB. If you're playing solo, then can't just be a support character. You will need to use defensive spells on yourself, and those are risky.
I've played a solo Wild Mage in SoA. I can't tell you how many times I died because of a wild surge that paralyzed me in the middle of a battle. Can't tolerate random deaths? Sure you can use wands instead. So can an unkitted bard.
If you use the hot key trick, at a high level, then a Wild Mage is indeed the strongest class. But for the vast majority of the game, a normal Mage is going to be a safer option, unless reloads aren't an issue for you.
Level 1? Wild Mage casting level varies, and can only go up. Wild Mage is tougher.
Level 7? NRD rarely ever works, and you might scrape a 40% chance of success if you stack Chaos Shields. It's not a reliable option, more of an emergency spell. And wild surges can still wreck your party.
Level 15, another turning point for mages? That's an 90% chance of success with NRD, more or less. Finally, NRD is better than a normal spell, IF you use the hot key trick to stack your only 7th level spells with Chain Contingency. Without CC? A 60% chance. Without stacked Chaos Shields in a Spell Sequencer? A 50% chance.
Level 18, when you get 9th-level spells? A 95% chance, if you stack Chaos Shields, which aren't supposed to stack anyway (if dev intent is the law for you--it isn't for me). Otherwise, about 50%.
Level 25? Now you're unstoppable, if you manage your character well! Just like anyone else at 5.625 million XP. Of course, if you don't let yourself stack Chaos Shields, then you've only got a 60% chance of a successful NRD. Still not reliable.
For most of the game, NRD isn't very useful. Sure, you can reload until you cast your big NRD spell, but you can also reload until you make all your saves.
Wild Mages do well. But they're not that far ahead of other mages without using exploits.
Edit: Nope, still works apparently... I also apparently made an oxy-moron.
Yeah, that is only in BG2:EE that this happens so it has to be a bug.
You get the second one form the second to last boss in Neera's ToB quest. It is the Thayan Circlet.
DO. NOT. CAST. IN. PUBLIC.
Really, what are you gonna do if you get a Gate in Beregost, or a
Fireball:self amid Flaming Fist headcourters. Cast only at the enemies
(and do not ever buff the charname with a wild mage!)
This is just with Neera, by the way. I doubt anyone ever finished a
no-reload run with a Wild Mage charname:
Here are the odds:
there are about ~10/100 wild surges that act as "kill the caster" at
low levels (even at high levels, "Petrify:self" will usually kill you,
even if you might survive a fireball to the face then)
If you cast 1000 spells through a no-reload run, you will have about
50 surges and your survival chance throughout the run comes to about
0.5% -- yep, just half a percent, even if you play an otherwise
perfect game.
(0.1 chance of death per surge -> 0.9^50 = 0.0052 chance of surviving 50 surges)
I am curious though, the "fireball centered on self" does not appear to hurt the caster, or are there different versions of it? I'm pretty sure that Neera just toasted everyone around her when I had that surge. Also, do you get a save against the status effect surges? For example I am pretty sure that Neera has made a save vs Petrification recently... I might have missed an enemy casting that at her in the chaos of battle, but at the time I assumed it was just a lucky escape from a bad wild surge.
I take Neera for her quests sometimes and then drop as soon as I can, or if I feel like keeping her I'l EEkeeper her to a sorceress.
But both shield stack, so with your trick, you can actually do it by level 15
bad roll --> 10
10 + 15 + 3*25 = 100.
But anyway, with both shield, you are safe to bad roll pretty fast
(and earlier, you just need a robe against fire (they have so many of them in bg1) to survive the self cast fireball.
And only cast offensiv spell "early game".
So you are not useless for that long (countrary to a monk
Btw: with chain contengency + contengency you can use 4 (or 5) shield at once.
There's then a lot of way to combine both shield, so you have the best number possible, (so you can roll some awesome top number wild surge, and avoid every little one)
Btw2: table of wild surge
http://www.pocketplane.net/volothamp/wild.htm