black pits 2 is hard as %&$%
meowzor
Member Posts: 37
it is so hard, omgwtf, I had to play on novice just to get past the tier 1 drow party
my party is
Fighter
Inquisitor
conjurer
cleric/mage
cleric
shadowdancer
I'm considering restarting the game and swapping the shadowdancer for another tank, man are thieves useless or what?
my party is
Fighter
Inquisitor
conjurer
cleric/mage
cleric
shadowdancer
I'm considering restarting the game and swapping the shadowdancer for another tank, man are thieves useless or what?
0
Comments
In Soa or Tob they are good, though
Basically a pure mage is not very useful because you will find that most enemies are highly resistant to magic or are unaffected by spells up to level 7 or more or have tons of spell protections of high level which they can renew a lot of times.
The only kind of mage that will be very useful is a dualed warrior(12)/mage, but that s only once you get past 4M exp once you have level
9 spells.
I advice you change one of your mage for a fighter ( I would advice Barbarian or DDef as you will need a tank)
As always, thieves are not useless, but pure thieves are useless. You might want to dual them (Shadowdancer Warrior is good). As for the subquests:
There are not so many things you will need to pickpocket and all locks as openable with 24 STR (potion sold by Bellowgulp or Crom Faeyr you can get later on as a battle reward).
However, if you consider starting over, be sure to still have an inquisitor. They become very, very handy in later battles
The Drow battle, and the one just after them, are certainly the hardest battles for a long time.
Good luck
I would definitely go for sorcerer rather than pure mage
Basically, if you don't use their Hide in Plain Sight ability every round to backstab someone every round, you're going to waste their potential.
I included a Swashbuckler in my party, on my Black Pitts 2 playthrough. The first time I've ever used one, and I was actually very impressed. She kicked some serious arse!
By the end of the game, her AC was so high she put my main tank to shame! And hit for hit she was my most damaging party member by far! They even gain access to Whirlwind for more carnage!
THACO is pretty low compared to other front line DDs, however it is more than sufficient against most enemies, and when you are up against particularly well armored enemy, Use any Item and spell scrolls can really bump it up! A fully buffed thief can be a combat monster! (Yes you read that right 300+ HP!)
I've enjoyed the class so much I recently started a swashbuckler solo game (BG1, SoA & TOB).
Use any Item > Improved Haste > Tensers Transformation > Time Stop = Great times! (Especially dualling with Belm and Kudane for a whopping 9 attacks per round!)
Also, is this a troll topic? I'm honestly asking. Because you know..
As you pointed out, a solo sorcerer can deal with BP2, meaning you certainly do not need a fully operational 6 men team till very late into BP2.
But I don't get why this would be a troll topic. A lot of people managed to defeat improved Irenicus as a solo PC. Does it mean the fight is easy?
well I dont know the game inside out to solo it rofl.
@meowzor I believe the "metagame-correct" time to dual-class Kensai=>Mage is lv9, when you get a proficiency point. Waiting until lv13 creates an ultimately stronger character, with an extra 1/2 APR, but it would take a very long time to complete the process without cheating, so is not generally worth it.
The latest you can dual them would be 21, that would get you to level 22 mage with max exp.
Dual that Shadowdancer when you get to lvl 13. 13 gives max. backstab and a fighter is easy to get to lvl 14. If I recall correctly, the first 2 fights will get your Shadowdancer to lvl 14, after which the next 3 fights will get a fighter to lvl 15. Notice that you have to have min. 15 Charisma to dual.
As for thieving skills, put 95-100 points into Find Traps and Pick Locks and everything else into MS and HIS. Remember that you can boost these numbers with gear and potions.
Next up is the cleric. Don't use a pure cleric. I would've made a berserker first, then dual him/her into a cleric. The zerk starts at level 10, so you can dual right away. Build them into a big mean melee machine. FoA+Crom Faeyr is recommended.
The main spellcaster should be a sorcerer. Saves you a crapload of money, not having to buy scrolls each time they level. I would go with a Dragon Disciple, just for the extra survivability. One less spell per day is not a big deal with arena fighting. The right spell choices are the key but that's better described elsewhere.
One more thing I would change. I would never use a pure fighter. Not that there's anything particularly wrong about it but there are so many better classes to take with you. Monks are awesome in BP2, they dont need any gear which saves money. A Blackguard would also be interesting though never tried one. A Fighter/Mage is great, also a Thief/Mage, which would free up skill points for your Shadowdancer as well. But if you take F/M or T/M, the Mage/cleric becomes redundant as you don't need 3 mages. A Fighter/Druid would be awesome with this.
Inquisitor and Mage/Cleric are solid choices. The Inquisitor is useful all the way with 2-handed swords and/or Bastard swords although, unlike @Arunsun , I don't think an inquisitor is absolutely necessary. I've completed BP2 many times without them.
A Mage/Cleric doesn't suffer from the same problem a pure mage does, which is buying scrolls. M/C doesn't need to buy scrolls in order to be useful since you always have the divine spells to fling around if you can't afford scrolls. The same thing applies to any multi, imo.
Shadowdancer lvl 14 -> dualled into a fighter (a vanishing backstabber that can hold their own)
Berserker lvl 10 -> dualled into cleric (divine-buffed melee beast, need I say more?)
Dragon Disciple - Your main spellcaster
Inquisitor - Great frontliner, great utility-spells
Mage/Cleric - Your main healer and party-buffer, try not to pick spells which are dependant on level.
(or a druid of some sort, if you take a F/M or T/M as your sixth party member)
The last slot is optional since you have all your bases covered.
Monk, Archer, Blackguard, F/D (I'd prefer dualing) or F/M, T/M if you decide to not use a M/C. I would go with melee but you can also go for a ranged character.
And finally, some general advice. First off, you almost always need a screen of summons. Planetars and Devas are awesome. Skeleton Warriors are great tanks, and so are Aerial Servants. Elemental summonings are your 2nd best bet after the celestial summonings. Animal and Monster Summonings are not that great but can do in a pinch. The other mage-summons are not worth their spell-slots, imo.
Don't summon Pit Fiends (the Gate-spell), the arena is small enough that those fireballs will hit your party as likely as the enemies. They will also turn any other summons hostile. I once lost that Umberhulk-fight because my Planetar turned hostile on me.
Against enemies that have high MR, like the drow, buff your own party. Chant, Bless, Haste, Defensive Harmony, PfE 10-Radius. Chant and Haste have the biggest impact, use those first. After summoning some fodder first, ofc.
Btw, once those drow start dropping, the spiders can easily be killed with ADHW. As for the other fights, refer to enemy-specific tactics. Illithids and Vampires fall before Chaotic Commands, golems to overwhelming defense and everything else pretty much to overwhelming offense.
Don't buy any +1 weapons btw, they become useless pretty fast. Spend your money on quality rather than quantity.
As @Yannir made a quick BP2 guide, I'll try and make one myself, mostly about the picks I like
The average team I pick for BP2 is usually composed of:
An inquisitor: solid frontliner + Speed factor 1 dispel is a fantastic tool if you want to hit a perma-protected
A sorcerer: solid spellcaster, need no item to be reliable, will cost very low money
A druid: druids are, like sorcerers, very solid spellcasters. Basically, their elemental summoning HLA (the improved one) combined with a planetar or a deva will single handedly win quite a few fights
A monk (Dark moon monk most of the time): mobility is a very, very useful thing in BP2. A monk has a decent damage output, is overall difficult to lay down (Mostly DMMonk with their mirror image), is highly resistant to magic (he ultimately has 100% only with his base MR and the MR from Cloak of Balduran which you can get in the drow fight).
A Barbarian: he is my frontline tank, and becomes a real beast once you reach tier 3 thanks to defender of easthaven. This + hardiness is awesome. I would chose Dwarf as a race (Many enemies use grand malison so the extra saving throws are never too much)
The last member of my team depends on the playthrough. Kensai(13)/Thief is a decent choice for example.
Just one tip: if you want to level up one character, go to Stiv the Wrangler, fight his wyvern, and once it is near death quickly pause the game, reform party to remove every one except the one you want to exp. Everyone will come back in your team shortly after. I mostly use it when I want to dual at low level (namely Kensai lvl 13, because you will be 12 after first fight)
1 sorceror
1 cleric
4 monks
Monks are pretty awesome. High magic resistance, low AC, plenty of attacks. They hit hard and require very little equipment to be effective. This lets you save up for items you really want rather than buying less spectacular gear just to equip everyone.
Build for cleric (you can get a nice part of it through fight reward)
Robe of Vecna that comes after fight 404
And STR belts for your monks
Meaning you will have like 400k of unused gold, kind of a waste
That said, using the Inq's Dispel Magic can get problematic in close quarters since it will also likely dispel any party buffs you have going. It can also unsummon your summons, if I recall correctly. So be careful using it. This is also why I always have Remove Magic on my sorcerer.
Dispel magic won't unsummon anything. And even if it will indeed dispel some of your own buff, I can assure you that a protection-less enemy mage that cannot cast spell for another 5seconds is a dead mage. Even if you spells some of your own buffs, these would most likely be on your warriors (because they should be the only ones close to enemy team) and except for IH, they need not tons of buffs to do their things (even without IH they are still decent of course).
Remove magic is great, but here the small calculation that led me to think Inq's dispel magic is better.
You will, to optimize the dispel/remove magic, cast it right after the enemy mage started casting a spell, to get the largest possible strike span.
As a mage, you will need 3/10 of a round to cast your thing, + about 1sec and a half for it to go to your target (considering you will likely be about max range). Add to this a short reaction, and a possible need to walk to get in range, and that's a total of about 3.5-4seconds for your remove magic to take effect. Meaning your strike span will be about 2 seconds before the enemy casts another spell.
Inquisitor is melee and his dispel magic is cast as speed factor 1. This + reaction time is would be about 1second before dispel magic takes effect. Which means 5sec strike span, which is an awful lot for the enemy mage.
This is mostly a playstyle-difference, actually. Whereas you have straightforward warrior-types as frontliners, I use buffed up R/C's and F/M's as frontliners as well. They rely on buffs to be effective. This is why Inquisitors don't make it to my party most of the time.
Hint: nothing beats Sanctuary, over and over again