Avgrund, Foebane, or something else, for Mazzy 'BA' Fentan?

Ziva75

This is my first time using her, and I have to say, I like her so much that I may even NOT take Sarevok in ToB. I'm a big ME fan and hadn't known that she was VA by Jennifer Hale. That and the idea of a hafling paladin is just awesome. Especially in a game where you're not supposed to be able to have hafling paladins.

But I'm torn in regards to what weapons I should give her.

CHARNAME: Cavalier, Carsomyr
Minsc: FoA, Belm
Mazzy: ?????, Kundane
Jahiera: Impaler, that spear spike weapon....
Imoen: Mage
Neera: Mage

I'm kind of torn between the Avgrund and the Foebane, but if anyone has any other suggestions (even two-handed), I'd love to hear them. Curious how other people use her.

Also, (spoiler free) is there any noticeable rp with Mazzy in ToB? For Sarevok, there was significant RP... but not so much with other companions IIRC.

Jarrakul

Foebane is fantastic, imo. The problem is it's a bastard sword, and until you get it, there aren't that many good bastard swords. If you go with longswords, you end up with the slightly inferior Angurvidal, but you also get Daystar (and a million other longswords) for most of BG2.

Maces are also a pretty good bet. They have solid options in BG2 proper (the Mace of Disruption especially), can hurt clay golems, and the Storm Star in TOB is one of the most fun TOB weapons, in my opinion. Nothing quite like the occasional free chain lightning (which, remember, is party-friendly) to soften up groups of enemies.

elminster

FYI Jennifer Hale also voices Dynaheir in BG1. Just something to think of next time you play it

If you are looking to go two-weapon style then you may want to hold off for now and leave her with a shortbow. Foebane is certainly a good choice. Angurvadal is tougher to acquire.

If you don't care too much about the the other party members having some of the strength boosting items then there is also Crom Faeyr to consider as well.

JuliusBorisov

Ziva75 said:

Also, (spoiler free) is there any noticeable rp with Mazzy in ToB?

There's not much on this front in ToB.

Gallowglass

There are plenty of good axes in the game, and you've no-one else using them, so I'd give her Axe proficiency.

fanscale

There is blade of searing +3 in Spellhold. should be able to reach that.

Jarrakul

Er, the Blade of Searing is actually in the drow city. A decent bit farther in the main plot, that.

Grum

I tend to stick to shortswords. I gave her the sword of Mask and the bow of Gesen. With ***** in both of those, she can put out some decent damage (an inventory full of nothing but +3 arrows with that shortbow is pretty good). The nice thing about that sword is that when an enemy does close with her, she switches to the sword, does good damage with it, and can entangle the foe. Then she just takes a few steps backwards and keeps firing arrows at the immobilized enemy. Given her proficiency, it seems like the blade is made for her.

Gallowglass

@Grum - the Gesen Bow will automatically fire +4 electrical arrows if you don't give it any ammunition. Except when your enemy has high resistance to electricity, you'd be better off giving it no ammunition instead of all those +3 arrows!

@Ziva75 - your question deserves a fuller answer than my previous brief comment.

My typical development for Mazzy is to give her *** in Axes, Hammers, Short Swords and Two-Weapon Style (as well as the ***** in Short Bows with which she starts, obviously). Then equip her with Crom Faeyr +5 in her off-hand (because 25 STR gives her terrific THAC0 and damage) and eventually the Axe of the Unyielding +5 in her main hand (vorpal hits, +AC, regeneration - a terrific weapon!) This build has useful flexibility for swapping around various weapons when appropriate for particular enemies or particular bonus effects - I find this flexibility more useful than the extra 1/2 APR from grand-mastery in a single weapon. Earlier on, she can use speed weapons (such as Kundane), but later in the game, other bonus effects of off-hand weapons (such as 25 STR from Crom Faeyr, or damage-resistance from Defender of Easthaven if you give her Flail proficiency instead) become much more useful than an extra attack or two from Kundane (because +2 weapons often can't hit ToB enemies).

Sometimes, especially if I have other dual-wielders in the party, then I'll use Mazzy mainly as an archer, but going sword-and-shield when she's in melee. By not spending points on dual-wielding proficiency, she can (eventually) reach grand-mastery in two melee weapons (preferably a blunt to complement her initial Short Sword proficiency), which helps flexibility. Of course single-wielding sacrifices APR, but a good shield cuts your enemy's hit-rate as well, so it's not as disadvantageous as some people assume (and especially not at high levels when you've got Greater Whirlwind Attack to max out your APR when it matters) ... and some shields also have useful bonus effects.

Grum

@Gallowglass,

When you don't have ammo the bow fires painfully slow. When you have ammo, it hits with the ammo and then adds extra electricity damage, which pushes your damage up immensely. The only time I ever fired it blank was when the enemy was immune to +3 weapons.

elminster

Gallowglass said:

@Grum - the Gesen Bow will automatically fire +4 electrical arrows if you don't give it any ammunition. Except when your enemy has high resistance to electricity, you'd be better off giving it no ammunition instead of all those +3 arrows!

The +3 arrows give both a damage bonus (1d6) and a Thac0 bonus (+3) to your attack over just using the Gesen bow without ammo. Unless you are facing an enemy that is immune to your ammunition its better to fire with some kind of ammunition.

Gallowglass

@Grum, @elminster - good point, I was forgetting that it adds the electrical damage even when using physical ammo ... so yes, using ammo makes sense. The rate of fire ought to be the same, though.

Grum

Gallowglass said:

@Grum, @elminster - good point, I was forgetting that it adds the electrical damage even when using physical ammo ... so yes, using ammo makes sense. The rate of fire ought to be the same, though.

The rate of fire *should* be the same. But the pure electricity shots have a different animation and move much slower. It ends up doing less damage because of that.

elminster

Grum said:

Gallowglass said:

@Grum, @elminster - good point, I was forgetting that it adds the electrical damage even when using physical ammo ... so yes, using ammo makes sense. The rate of fire ought to be the same, though.

The rate of fire *should* be the same. But the pure electricity shots have a different animation and move much slower. It ends up doing less damage because of that.

Sorry nevermind. Misread what you had written

elminster

Gallowglass said:

@Grum, @elminster - good point, I was forgetting that it adds the electrical damage even when using physical ammo ... so yes, using ammo makes sense. The rate of fire ought to be the same, though.

Standard arrow has a 60 for speed under its projection. By comparison the no-ammunition lightning attack of the gesen bow moves at 20.

Gallowglass

Hmmm ... so first shot will be a delayed strike due to slow flight. But still the same number per round ... so it's rather like the Speed Factor of a melee weapon, which affects when during a round the first blow lands but not how many strikes there'll be by the end of the round.

Jarrakul

All this talk of my very favorite weapon. Yeah, the Shortbow of Gesen has a lower projectile speed when it's unloaded, but I've never noticed any reduction in shots per round. That's still pretty annoying, though, as high-level archers are otherwise some of the best characters in the game at disrupting spells. With the unloaded Shortbow of Gesen, the delay makes it harder for them to do that at long range.

Also, I know I've mentioned this before in several places, but it bears repeating that the unloaded Shortbow of Gesen can hurt enemies that are normally immune to missile damage. Just in case you needed another reason to love the thing.

Genryu

Personally I've always preferred using Mazzy as a ranged character.

My weapon of choice is usually the extremely underrated Tuigan Bow +1. With Improved Haste and 5 pips in shortbow, she may as well be armed with a machine gun hitting for a whopping 10 attacks per round! It might not be the hardest hitting weapon out there, but that DPS adds up!

I'll usually arm her with a second harder hitting weapon, that I can switch to if my Tuigan becomes ineffective.

semiticgoddess

There's a weird inconsistency between how the game introduces Keldorn and Mazzy. Right after you get Keldorn, you get to see him wade through that Web trap in the Unseeing Eye cult lair with ease, demonstrating his usefulness right off the bat. Five minutes after Keldorn joins the group, you know he's a keeper. But Mazzy's primary weapon, a short bow with nonmagical arrows, is useless in the dungeon where you find her. It explains why she was captured, but it gives the impression that she's dead weight.