training questions
FrdNwsm
Member Posts: 1,069
Two questions. MC has trained in 2 handed weapon technique, halberd and two handed sword. Recently it occurred to me that dual wielding combined with greater whirlwind might be even more destructive. So far MC has only 1 pip in katanas and none in dual wielding. Which is better to train in as far as reducing THACO? Dual wielding clearly is more flexible as it doesn't restrict you to one weapon type, but it's likely that he will use katanas for this, having Celestial Fury and Hindo's Doom. On the other hand, more pips in katana will aid THACO, in case I want to use a katana combined with a shield for better AC. Still, I am leaning toward getting dual wielding skill first. Comments?
The next is regarding my wizards. Neera had the choice between Alacrity and a damage spell. She picked Dragon Breath. It seemed to me that if Alacrity is a spell, then using a spell slot to speed up casting other spells might be redundant; I mean, that's what Time Stop is for. Unless you can combine the two? Use Alacrity, then cast two more spells fast, with the second one being Time Stop?
The next is regarding my wizards. Neera had the choice between Alacrity and a damage spell. She picked Dragon Breath. It seemed to me that if Alacrity is a spell, then using a spell slot to speed up casting other spells might be redundant; I mean, that's what Time Stop is for. Unless you can combine the two? Use Alacrity, then cast two more spells fast, with the second one being Time Stop?
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Comments
You can combine Improved Alacrity and Timestop. Which means that while under Time Stop you can cast a lot of spells all at once (without your enemies being able to respond). Especially if you are wearing the Robe of Vecna and Amulet of Power (since combined they lower casting times by 5).
Two-handed weapons eventually go up to +6, whereas one-handed weapons cap at +5, and dual-wielding incurs a THAC0 penalty in the off-hand (unless you equip a cloak to cancel the penalty, at the cost of removing whatever other cloak you'd have been wearing) ... so to this extent, there are some THAC0 advantages to two-handing.
On the other hand, you get THAC0 bonuses from increased STRength, and if you dual-wield a STR-boosting weapon in your off-hand, then your main-hand weapon also gets the THAC0 benefit of the increased STR ... which can be a lot, if you have Crom Faeyr (25 STR!) in the off-hand. (So, for example, in my current run, I've got Korgan dual-wielding with an unbuffed THAC0 of -15 with both hands, and hitting the max of -20 when I buff up.)
However, THAC0 is only one detail of the comparison between two-handing and dual-wielding. You also have to take into account attacks-per-round, damage-per-hit, and critical hit ratio. (There are some people who are particularly obsessive about APR and fail to take the other factors into account sufficiently, so unfortunately there are some "mathematical proofs" which are actually garbage.)
The comparison is also greatly affected by which High Level Abilities your character currently has available. If he's two-handing, then Greater Whirlwind Attack is the killer ability. If he's dual-wielding, then Critical Strike (combined with a cast of Improved Haste) is likely to be better, although not necessarily so (e.g. if the opponent is immune to critical hits by wearing a helmet).
Also, many weapons have bonus effects which are particularly useful against particular enemies, so in the end it's actually a rather situational matter, because the best weapon(s) for the job depends upon who you are and who you're facing.
All in all, both two-handing and dual-wielding are perfectly viable ways of killing your enemy pretty efficiently, and most of the time the difference in effectiveness is not really significant ... this is by design, because the devs deliberately intended that the choice would not be dramatically unbalanced in favour of only one style. Probably your best option, if the composition of your party allows it, is to have different members of the party fighting in different styles, so that you can take advantage of all the best weapons.
Building up your proficiencies in dual-wielding, and suitable weapons with which to do it, takes a lot of levelling ... since you're already a long way into the game, you'll probably have finished by the time you'd be good at it! Instead, since your protagonist has already gone down the two-handing route, you'll be fine sticking with it. I'd therefore suggest investing his next proficiency points in Quarterstaffs, because some enemies are resistant (or even outright immune) to sharp attacks, yet vulnerable to blunt attacks.
Give dual-wielding a try in a future run. It's good fun, but works best if you've built your proficiencies for it from the start, rather than trying to switch styles mid-game. Oh YES, you can (and should) combine the two. Cast Time Stop first, then Improved Alacrity within the stopped time ... casting the IA uses up part of your stopped time, but then you can unload a whole pile of spells in the remainder of the stopped time, instead of only a couple of spells. Especially if combined with cast-accelerating items (Robe of Vecna, Amulet of Power), because then a lot of quick-casting spells become instant-casting spells which use up no further time to cast, so you can cast as many copies as you can memorise, and then switch to casting something else still within the stopped time. Improved Alacrity is a relatively minor (but nevertheless useful) benefit outside of Time Stop (because it temporarily lets you cast continuously instead of once-per-round), but it's absolutely devastating, a key tactic in the late game, when used inside a Time Stop.
In the particular case of Neera, however, although TS+IA is still a good tactic, I generally favour the Robe of Goodman Hayes rather than the Robe of Vecna ... minimising the risk of unwelcome wild surges is a big benefit for a Wild Mage. And you've usually still won the battle when the smoke clears after your Time Stop, even without the speed advantage of Vecna. (Usually I have a second caster, so the other one can get the benefit of the Robe of Vecna instead.)
Oh yes, she has that robe, of course.
Well, GW with a good halberd is certainly effective. But wouldn't double wielding + greater whirlwind produce 20 attacks per round? 20 sounds better than 10.
Also note that you can use dual-wield and Grandmastery combined with a +1 APR offhand weapon (Belm, Kundane, Scarlet Ninja-tô) to get 5 APR, then use Improved Haste to double that to 10 APR - giving you maximum APR for a much longer duration than GWW, and freeing up use of other abilities in conjunction (like, say, the Critical Strike HLA). This may not work for every character of course, and is contingent on having enough casts of Improved Haste available.
Hah! I had no idea; my whole plan was to get enough dual wield and katana pips to get 20 APR using Greater whirlwind. Good thing I found out before wasting that training. Thanks.
1st you cast TS, then IA. IA has a casting time of 9, so it would've taken one round out of your 2,5 rounds of TS. But with RoV, that actually becomes 0,5 rounds. You still have 2 full rounds to dish out spells. Now, with RoV, a spell that normally has a casting time of 5(like Dragon's Breath) now has a casting time of 1. Which means instant-casting. Now, if you enable auto-pause once a spell is cast, you could basically fire off 20 Dragon's Breaths because of IA's bact-to-back spellcasting while time is still standing still, and they all hit simultaneously when the TS runs out. Even without RoV, you can still do this with Magic Missiles or Chromatic Orbs.
Just a theory, I don't think anyone could fire 20 back-to-back DB's. You simply run out of spells. With Wish-resting you could replenish your spells mid-combat but that does take some time and effort.
On the whole, I agree ... it's a very powerful tactic, but most of the time I don't find that I need to bother using it. In my current run, I think I've used TS maybe 3-4 times, but I suspect that I've had runs in the past where I might not have ever actually cast TS!
One time I definitely used it in the current run was the arena battle in Neera's ToB quest - certainly not essential there, but there are so many enemies that it's simpler just to splat them with major magic than laboriously hack them down piecemeal.
Also, good point about some of the EE fights. Some of those are pretty hard compared to the original game, and while I don't know that I've used the full combo on any of them, there are a couple that might warrant it.
Of course, different people have trouble with different things. I've never had much trouble with Balthazar, for instance, but I understand a lot of folks here find him one of the hardest enemies in the base game. I do often have trouble with Abazigal, though, even though he's generally considered pretty underwhelming, and I find Sendai to be a speedbump at best. So I can totally understand your not finding Draconis as difficult as others do. These things are not the same for everyone.
As for different party compositions, that certainly could cause variations. I have, for example, become seriously dependent on MC's berserker immunities. Level draining undead? No problem; go berserk and whirlwind them into oblivion. I've used the Slayer exactly once, and that was just as an experiment for comparison purposes. A different MyChar would need to develop totally different tactics, and probably use Slayer form a lot more.
I don't think you would end up using Slayer much more than you have now, even if you picked another class. There's always multiple ways of dealing with circumstances. It may entail more planning and prebuffing, though.
"I don't think you would end up using Slayer much more than you have now, even if you picked another class. There's always multiple ways of dealing with circumstances. It may entail more planning and prebuffing, though."
Well, I picked a berserker way back in BG1 because it seemed cool. I didn't realize the ramifications at the time, since I could only do it once a day, and had no prior experience with the game. But playing to this point, I can say that the berserker has to be one of the easiest and yet OP classes to play.
Easy: Plan of action is nice and simple. Go crazy, pop a whirlwind or get improved haste, kill 'em all.
OP: Look at the immunities you get while berserk. Maze, Imprisonment, charm, confusion, fear, life drain all bounce right off. Toss in extra HP, better THACO and AC as added perks. What's not to like? Makes the other fighter kits look silly by comparison. Wizard Slayer? There's a joke kit! Kensai isn't much better; a plain vanilla fighter would be better than either, IMO.
Closest comparison I can think of would be a high level Blade. Good defense, good offence, and a bunch of arcane spells thrown in.
So yes, some other class would entail more thought and preparation.
A berserker does everything better than a fighter except ranged weapons but that s not what you want a fighter to do anyway.
Wizard slayer is a joke indeed
I wouldn't count Kensais out. Shield Amulet drops the AC to -8.
I have. Yes you can get to high level with one, you can do that with anything, probably even a wizard slayer, despite the weaknesses. The ACs for Kensai and Berserker are comparable, but then at high levels AC is almost irrelevant; things can hit you anyway. Damage done is almost comparable also, when you throw in HLAs. My major damage infliction right now is not due to going berserk, it's using abilities like Greater Whirlwind. Kensais can't use stuff like the Helm of the Rock, but much of that sort of gear is secondary. You can get magic resistance and what have you from other items.
IMO, the main advantage of the berserker over the kensai is survivability. The berserk state makes you immune to something like half of the most common attacks, including some of the most devastating ones (mainly those of the mental variety). Maze, imprisonment, life drain, fear, confusion, dire charm, feeblemind, stun, sleep and hold all just bounce off.