Mazzy > Sarevok?
Klorox
Member Posts: 927
By level 21, she's got ***** in a melee weapon (I suggest halberds). There's no shortage of STR enhancing items in this game (especially if you don't plan on constructing Crom Faeyr), and has amazing saving throws.
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So I'm not sure this one really makes much of a difference. I think I'd side with Mazzy here purely because I get more say in what weapon she takes as far as proficiency points go.
By the time you find Sarevok, Mazzy has 2-3 more levels than him, at the very least comparable STR with a girdle of giant strength, and a few useful paladin-like abilities. On the other hand, Sarevok has the deathbringer assault and a part in the storyline, and a natural high strength so you can pass that girdle on to someone else if you need to.
Mazzy is the better archer, you can be sure about that. She simply starts with more pips in ranged weapons and it would take too long to turn Sarevok into an archer, for limited returns. If you want a tank then it doesn't matter who you pick really.
However, Sarevok has two things going for him. First is Deathbringer Assault and the other is the fact that you can dual-class him into a Thief or a Mage. If you skipped Watcher's Keep in SoA, bought and kept any non-essential scrolls for all your mages and if you didn't go on a spell memorization spree before he joins you, then you should be able to jumpstart his leveling and ultimately get back his fighter abilities around the second half of ToB. Earlier if you play with a smaller party for a while.
If you could get Sarevok in SoA, I'd say say Mazzy would be the superior choice.
I could see Mazzy's greater flexibility with proficiency allocation as others have indicated, and her modest advantage in whole party resilience, maybe making her fit a broader range of concepts though.
On the whole, I'm not sure there is a huge difference between any of the warrior archetype NPCs by the time ToB rolls around. Maybe put an asterisk next to Keldorn though because of his usefulness against spellcasters.
And her dual at lev 13 would be easier then his dual, faster and whith a lot of time to enjoy the completed dual, while he will be nerfed half of the time.
I tried Sarewok a few times and I was never satisfied, for 3 reasons.
1-usually when I reach ToB my parties have a level of power and optimization so hight that he has very few to add, is underpowered and have to be babysitted.
2-I find the Deathbringer Assault far less usefull that how is supposed to be, as every powerfull effect whith a little chance to trigger. Often when it trigger the enemy is a weak one, or is already badly iniuried so it make a little difference but when is needed, at the beginning of a tought fight, seems to never trigger. Maybe is just my bad luck.
3-he doesn't meet the minimum requirements of the 1rst and 2nd principles of my PWGaming doctrine.
Anyway you are right, it can't be done.
But my point was mainly "i will feel less guilty", a way to express my impression that he is more a PWgamer dream then an ordinary NPC.
ALL the other NPCs have some point of force and some weakness, some good stats and some not so good, he don't have 3 WIS and CHAR only because he has "unrollable" stats.......
Now you get my point?
Also, i generally only play the strongest NPC's (Korgan, Edwin, Keldorn etc) and when i get Sarevok in ToB, even if though he's got less experience, he is still a major force to be reckoned with. Are you using Silver Blade on him before you upgrade Gram or Ravager? Silver Blade makes a lot of encounters trivial, it's special even bypasses mage spell protections IIRC.
tl;dr Sarevok is insane and definitely worth recruiting. I wouldn't dual him though, it would be a waste of his potential.
he is powerfull and worth recruiting, if compared to mazzi and keldorn or even korgan that is considered by many the stronghest fighter of SoA. No other NPC has stats comparable to his stats, I don't know about your main stats, but he has just 1 point less in DEX than the perfect stats for a fighter able to dual both to mage or thief. He seems more something rolled by a player then an npc.
Then I say that I was not satisfied whith him, and that seems to be contradicting. But in my PWgaming way I am also not satisfied of mazzi, keldorn or korgan, sometimes in TOB I have Minsk or Jaheera, just because they was the companions of my first runs, and I have to babysit them a lot. Noone of this NPC's has the power that I need, they have few ways to defend themselves and few APR. I usually make myself my fighters in a multiplayer and import the save in single player. 2 of them are enough. And at top level they are, or can become, untochable both in mlee and by magic and have 20APR each. Then I add a couple of NPCs, not fighter type, that i feel really OP and my party is ready to go. I don't aim at the 160APR a party can legally have, but I want POWER!
This is my way and only in this way I can feel mr ToB underpowered, compared to the NPC fighters he is OP.
Have fun creating your own bloody fireworks show, especially in throne of bhaal when fighters really toughen up against magic.
Aside from amazing saving throws, Mazzy can heal, haste, remove fear and cast special str on herself.
Really only thing Sarevok has is Deathbringer assault. And frankly I only had it seen on an enemy that was going to die from that hit or the next anyway. Or was stoneskinned.
Sarevok brings the dual class potential and raw power of a PC. He's the only NPC on par with your PC in terms of raw power. He can be a Mage or Thief, and both are powerful. Mazzy only has better Saving Throws, which aren't to be scoffed at but Sarevok is simply better for the power gamer. She's certainly well worth a spot in any good playthrough, or if you just want to use her. She can replace every fighter not named Sarevok or PC
And yeah, i don't recommend dual Sarevok, ever. You spend over half of ToB with a useless toon and when he gets his original levels back, u will have little to no fighter HLA's. And if you dual him to thief, you can't even backstab with two handed swords, u need to a whole new proficiency. There is also 0 advantage for UAI just to use Carsomyr, since Gram or Ravager are better weapons at that stage.
Don't forget that you can also get grand mastery with a dual-class fighter/thief as long as you save those proficiency points. If you really want him to him to get grand mastery with a thief weapon, you can level squat (leave him as a level 3 thief) and just cart him around in Watcher's Keep and the first half of ToB until he reaches 1.8M XP total. If you really want him to get his levels back by early ToB, you can either camp somewhere and force-spawn ambushes or you can "solo" most of Watcher's Keep while letting him stay stealthed. If you maximize XP, he should get back his fighter levels by the time you reach Demo.
I personally prefer just carting him along for the first half of ToB. It just makes sense for me, especially since he usually gets back his warrior abilities around the time he changes alignment.
And bending the rules is not the only way to make BG2 easier, there are ways that respect the rules, like playng on insane but sliding down when levelling up so having the cartoons whith a relevant HP boost.
There are mods that bend the rules, making things easier, more difficoult, more balanced or only different and most of the players doesn't feel guilty about modding their game. and there are ways outside the mods, like using EEkeeper. Or the simple self allowing or forbbidding the use of some tactics or items.
Unless a player choose to play BG2 "as it is", no mods, no tweaks, no cheese, no everything else there is nothing wrong in bending the rules to make the game more enjoyable to our personal taste.
As long as the player is aware of the effects of the changes he make.
There are tons of legal things that trivialize the game more than having mazzi dual or multi, even if in vanilla she doesn't have the stats or race to do it.
You'll get Fighter HLAs. You won't get but 2, WW and GWW, but let's be honest those are the only ones you want. ToB is short and linear. If you 2 man exp grind and spellbook erase cheese with a Mage as your PC he'll have his fighting skills back shortly after Chapter 8+WK believe it or not. I see nothing wrong with the spellbook cheese because it's a mechanic hardcoded into the game, maybe not hardcoded but it's there.
There's 0 advantages of Carsomyr in the hands of a Fighter, Sarevok, with UAI rather than a Paladin, likely Keldorn? Keldorn, who hogs up items like Gauntlets of Dexterity? As opposed to Sarevok who doesn't need Dexterity/Strength/Constitution enhancing items? Let's not forget Keldorn's incapable at getting along with Viconia, the best Cleric in the game, and since we don't like "bending the rules" we shouldn't be using "ease of use" mods because that's not how the game is supposed to be played. The real advantage is removing Keldorn from your party. He's a gear hog, a hypocrite, and he doesn't play nice, which leaves you an open spot for someone more useful. There's plenty advantages you're just looking at things from a 1v1 perspective. Lest we forget there is a thing called Black Pits where you can fight hordes of enemies with your BG parties, so it's not only relevant towards the story/coregame alone.
Who actually backstabs in BG anyways? Might be fun, but I could never be bothered with it in an SCS playthrough. Anything I want to backstab I can't due to instant spell protections or they're immune. "Oh yay I backstabbed "Beggar"," yea sorry not for me. You'll pick up backstabbing capable weapon proficiency's as a Thief... you'll be able to backstab if you've a hankering for unsatisfying chunks on trash enemies.
SCS bends the rules a lot. Extremely minor buffs, allowing multi-classes to specialize in weapons/non-humans can dual class, do not alter it's difficulty in any way. They simply give you the party/experience you want without having to choose NPC x over NPC y, mostly. I prefer not to do this since my desired party is already in the game as is.
Then, you go into this random segway about how Keldorn is an item hog, and Carsomyr is much better used on Sarevok, as if i ever stated that i use Keldorn in ToB or that Carsomyr is a mandatory weapon to use. I do neither of those things (i do use Kel + Cars in SoA though).
Basic WW HLA is bad, so you're left with just one useful fighter HLA. If you don't care about backstab, then what's the point in dualing to a thief? Just spike traps? You're better off getting Jan as a thief for that. And dual to mage, yeah sure, protections are nice to have. But you know what else is nice? Having a bunch of Hardiness/GWWs/Critical Strikes to use in the Melissan battle. Also, you can protect him just fine even if he's a pure fighter. Chaotic Commands/Death Ward and he's good to go.
Really, try him as a pure fighter, he might surprise you.
PFMW, Mirror Images, SI, Spell shield, Stoneskin and last but not least Simulacrum for a potential 20APR (and you have only 1 helm and shurely someone other that can use it) are what make a high level multi or dual F/M something very very special........
And no other cleric or mage can give those to a toon, he has them or he miss them, a lot.
OTOH, if you're not actually playing a fighter/mage then the closest you're going to get to that is Haer' Dalis, and Haer is really a lot better off spamming MMM + Offensive Spin + images with songs instead of trying to melee in late game.
Combined with the lack of a good warrior-type thief (scouting, illusion removal, stealing, detect traps/open locks for even more XP, traps, able to reach 5+ APR, UAI) there's plenty of good reasons why someone would want to dual Sarevok.
But if you read what @elminster wrote you see how party composition and player style affect the Mazzi or Sarewok choice or dual or keep single class him.
What you say, what I say, what @vish say and what everyone else say is true according to his personal premises but can be wrong according to the ones of others.
My tipical ToB party of 4 or 5 toons can have whith a little prebuffing and summoning 60-80 APR whith the boost of 1 o 2 HLA bard songs, so I really don't need a DPS machine, that for some other party can be a Godsend. And this in the legal not cheese at all, no mislead clones singing version. In the full cheese has a potential of several K HP x round, phisical damage only, plus tons of magic one. Full cheese, but tested and worcking.
You and I have no interest in dualling S. , for our good reasons, vish and @Nuin have, for their good reasons, and elminster don't care about it, as most of his fighters just have the job of distracting enemies before his mages do the real thing, and he has his good reasons.
I wish only that everyone is frendly and polite toward everyone else, calling a long and scattered rant someone else reasoning doesn't seem so polite to me.
But my knowledge in english language has huge limits so I may be wrong, and in that case I apologize.
If Sarevok dual-classes, Sarevok will be vastly weaker than any other character for half of ToB. For the other half, he will be slightly stronger.
I don't think it's worth it unless you're in Nightmare mode, where the XP bonuses are so much larger, or maybe Ascension, where the last battle is a major jump in difficulty compared to the other encounters.