Dual Wielding Options With Minsc?

the_sextein

In the past I used FOA+5 and Crom Faeyr for the damage but the free action from FOA is limiting and Minsc has lower hit points than my other front liners so he seems to struggle more with SCS on insane difficulty. I could just not upgrade FOA to +5 but I was thinking maybe I should use Foebane or the Defender of Easthaven instead of FOA and keep CF for the strength bonus. He wouldn't have as much damage without FOA but improved haste would counter that so I am thinking I should choose something to replace FOA that might help Minsc be more tanky. Does this sound like a good line of thinking or am I off base?

My main character will be a FMT pure blood elf that dual wields since the last time I played as a FMT I used two handed swords with a half elf. I will be dual wielding scarlit ninjato with either Spectral Brand or Andgurvadal. I have not decided yet. Spectral Brand seems to have more passive abilities but with a pure elf Andgurvadal will have a +1 to hit and with the elf damage bonus it will have the same damage as spectral brand with a slight speed bonus and the strength being set at 22 is fine because my elf will not be able to go over 22 strength anyway. Then again the called shot and morty sword abilities from the spectral brand are cool too but I do have casting ability so I really don't need the morty sword though it would still be welcome.

What do you guys think? What are some of your favorite dual wielding combos and how you do you think Minsc should be dealt with when the difficulty is cranked all the way up? What would you do if your main character is dual wielding and so is minsc and you are playing insane SCS? I am set on using Minsc next time because I am going to use the canon party for my first SOD play through.

[Deleted User]

I often just use Crom Faeyr as a main hand on Minsc since its damage is so good and pair it with a speed weapon. Foebane is a good option if you need some extra HP, though.

Arunsun

Basically the combos I use for Minsc or Dorn (they are much of the same in my opinion, except one is evil et the other is good) are:
Foebane+CF: huge damage output and decent sustain
CF+DoE: less damage, more sustain
Str belt+Foebane+DoE: insane sustain, makes you nearly invincible even in insane, still decent damage, and you can give CF to someone else (Why not your main character?)

the_sextein

Kaigen said:

I often just use Crom Faeyr as a main hand on Minsc since its damage is so good and pair it with a speed weapon. Foebane is a good option if you need some extra HP, though.

I thought about using a speed weapon like belm but with the amount of damage he was taking the last time I played through with him was pretty bad and I had to pull him out of many fights or babysit him to keep him going. I think protection is probably going to be more useful than all out damage with the difficulty options I am using. Balancing out the damage output with the level of protection is what I am not sure about.

the_sextein

Arunsun said:

Basically the combos I use for Minsc or Dorn (they are much of the same in my opinion, except one is evil et the other is good) are:
Foebane+CF: huge damage output and decent sustain
CF+DoE: less damage, more sustain
Str belt+Foebane+DoE: insane sustain, makes you nearly invincible even in insane, still decent damage, and you can give CF to someone else (Why not your main character?)

I will consider it, thanks. I want to backstab with my character so I will use a backstab weapon to start but I could easily switch to another one hander to do the majority of fighting. I have considered giving foebane to my main character but CF would be useful as well. CF would give my main character more damage but it kind of looks silly swinging a hammer and a sword together and it would weaken Minsc overall. I have not used DOE with Misnc so I don't know if that will be enough to sustain him. I don't think foebane would be enough on it's own. I have given Minsc CF in the past so that he has some stand out damage. I don't think he could keep pace with my character's 10 attacks and Seravok's two handed damage while using a protective off hand weapon unless he has the 25 strength and I want to give my best strength belts to Seravok and Jahiera. I am starting to think maybe CF in the main hand and DOE in the off hand would be best for him. Give the ravager to Serovok and the staff of the ram to Jahiera. Another weapon I have been looking at is the axe of unyielding. It looks like it has some nice benefits when it is dual wielded. What do think about the axe of unyielding? Is there any other options you can think of that I should consider?

Arunsun

Foebane is certainly not enough in insane on its own indeed; I recently made a solo no reload core rules Barbarian run, I must say that once I had Foebane, DoE and Hardiness I was unkillable, i litterally never went lower than 50% my base HP. It might not be that effective in insane but Minsc should still become a human panzer equipped with this, if you cast armor of faith. However with CF main hand instead of Foebane you can still survive for a very long time in melee, even more so if you have a Cleric/Druid to support you and heal you.

By the way, what's your cannon BG2 party?
PC, Imoen/Yoshimo, Jaheira, Minsc, Aerie, and Sarevok once you get to ToB?

the_sextein

Minsc will have DOE and his HLA abilities but I am not not sure about trading the outstanding 25 strength hit and damage of CF for Foebane. I will continue to think about it.

I use Imoen, Yoshimo, Jaheira, Minsc and Sarevok. The extra character to replace Imoen/Yoshimo is up in the air. I usually choose Nalia since she is close to Imoen in style when Imoen is away and the other characters are Melee oriented so having a second magic user when Imoen comes back is nice. Edwin doesn't really fit my party. I have considered utilizing Carsomyr with the paladin(can't remember his name) but I really don't need any extra melee in my group. I usually feel bad peeling him away from his family anyway.

I don't really like Aeri and I have never really utilized healing while in combat. Jaheira usually fills the roll of summoner and healer while playing backup fighter. Imoen and Nalia bring magic and long range support with short bows. My character, Serevok and Minsc rush the enemy with all out melee barrage and being a FMT my main character can add magic support as well.

Nalia is one of the first characters I run into in BG2 and her castle was my stronghold for my first few runs of the game. Lately I have been using the thief stronghold with the multi class characters I have been using and I am not dead set on using Nalia but I do think she balances the party nicely. I suppose I could trade her up for Aeri or Viconia in order to get the Cleric benefits thrown into the mix. Before Sarevok is in the group I usuaaly keep a slot open and give each NPC some time with the group so I can do the NPC specific quests.

Skatan

the_sextein said:

I have given Minsc CF in the past so that he has some stand out damage. I don't think he could keep pace with my character's 10 attacks and Seravok's two handed damage while using a protective off hand weapon unless he has the 25 strength and I want to give my best strength belts to Seravok and Jahiera.

Just my 2 cents: If your CHARNAME and Sarevok are your main damage dealers, then speccing Minsc for sustainability wouldn't be a bad idea. Creating a party where different party members fills different roles is usually better than maxing the pure damage output on every one. So even if Minsc is lagging behind in damage potential, think about whether or not the party composition benefits more with him having a high damage mitigation instead of damage output.

the_sextein

I agree, and plan to trade FOA for DOE at the very least. I have no experience with DOE on Minsc so I am not sure if it will be enough. I don't want to get rid of CF unless it's really necessary. I started to lean toward equipping my main PC with CF but I don't think it will work well with my proficiency progression and I do think CF gives Minsc that extra bit of power to allow him to stand out on his own. I did all the calculations and Foebane would still be a great weapon to use with him though. I might just try out DOE and see how it goes. If he needs a little more staying power then I will swap out CF for Foebane. I appreciate the the comments, if you guys can think of anything that I might be overlooking then let me know.

If my main character cannot get 3 pips in two weapon fighting style with 2 pips in scimitar by the time I get Montilo's Clasp then I might as well swap out scimitars altogether and just dual wield two +5 weapons at 8 attacks per round. By putting proficiency points in war hammers I would have to either lose the scimitar specialization or the katana specialization. Scarlet is not going to hit during SOA even if I do have scimitar specialization but it could hit +3 enemies in TOB IF I have the abilities ready. If I give up Katanas I will lose out on one of the best backstab weapons and all around damage dealers of SOA. I think I would rather leave CF out and use Katanas in SOA and then push 10 attacks a round with dual scimitar's in TOB. I could use Spectral brand which is a +5 to hit that does 1D8 +5 +1D6 Cold Damage and Scarlit Nijato in the off hand at 1D8 +3 +1D6 Poison and 1 extra attack a round. That is what I am currently thinking. I could max out both hammers and scimitars but which ever one I choose to max out last would not be ready for prime time until the very last 5% of the game. (Remember how slow FMT fighter progression will be.)

My main character will have a natural 22 strength anyway and by using CF to get Minsc to 25 I can then use my belts on Seravok and Jahiera which will increase everyone's damage. CF would push my main characters damage output up to another 30 points but I would have to give up the extra attacks or the Katana which I don't think is worth it personally. If Minsc absolutly has to have that extra 5-20 healing power of Foebane on top of DOE then I guess I will discard the mighty CF. I would hate to do it, parting with FOA is going to be hard enough as it is. I might equip the +4 version of FOA on Imoen but I can't remember if she is allowed to be proficient in Flails or not. I think the staff of the magi will be good for Nalia.

Arunsun

I'll just bring some basic maths to help you realise how powerful damage reduction is if properly stacked:
When Minsc is level 20(3,6m exp, end of a completionist SoA run with a full party), he has 132HP, 145with pale green ioun stone.
If you use Hardiness, DoE and armor of faith, he gets 80% resistance to physical damage.
Basically, a ToB enemy deals 15-20 damage per hit in core rules, thus 30-40 in insane. With Minsc resistance with the aforementioned, it is down to 6-8, let's say 7 average. That means he can tank 20 blows with his HP pool only.
Typically a random enemy will have 3 APR, meaning he can effectively, and won't always hit, let's say they hit 2 in 3 hits, which is about right. You will be able to tank 5 (a typical war party) of these enemies for 2 full rounds with no other source of regeneration. Bringing in Foebane and GWW, you will have 8 Foebane attack, effectively adding 32 HP per round, which means you will be able to tank them for an extra round. If you have a Priest and cast Regeneration, it is another 18HP per round, which is huge as well. Cumulating this and that you can tank for a huge amount of time, even in insane, even large groups of enemies.
As a comparison, a level 20 fighter with 18 Con (Sarevok for example) will have 173HP. With hardiness only he will be able to tank 8hit which is less than half what Minsc would tank.
If built the same way, Dorn is even better because he can equip the Silver Dragon Armor which is ridiculously OP (Heals for two HP everytime you are hit, even in insane it makes you invincible if properly buffed)

the_sextein

Thanks again Arunsun. So you think DOE probably needs some back up? I have never used it so I wouldn't know. Maybe I will use CF in SOA and then switch to Foebane as soon as I go to watchers keep and see how things go. If I determine that I don't need it I could always go back. I don't know if I will have the proficiency progression needed to do that though. I guess I should just use Foebane with DOE and see how things go. That fight on level one of watchers keep is an absolute bastard with everything pushed to the max in SCS on insane. I won't be going there during SOA that is for sure. So I will be putting work into bastard swords without any real payoff in SOA.

I get what you guys are saying about keeping people alive being more important than damage output. The more people in the fight the more spread out the damage will be and the easier it will be on the whole party and a little damage is better than none at all.

Jaheira has iron skins and Nalia, Imoen, and my character have stoneskins and mirror images. Combing the ring of mirroring and boots of gargyle with Seravoks hitpoints usually works pretty good and hardiness can be thrown into the mix as well. Minsc is my one sore spot so I will push the protective side of things as far as need be to keep him going. I was just not sure how much I needed to sacrifice in order to keep him in good shape. I was hoping DOE and hardiness could get the job done alone so that I might utilize CF being how great of a weapon it is. Thanks again for your help.