Inquisidor x Wizard Slayer
Raduziel
Member Posts: 4,714
So, who's the ultimate wizard killing machine?
We won't add Carsomyr or Bala's Axe into this thrend, because it would be unfair with the WS to say the least.
Inquisitor have bonus in saving thrown (for being a Paladin), a very effective Dispel Magic, True Sight (for naughty Mislead and Improved Invisibility and Shadow Door), and can wear tons of gears.
Wizard Slayer have a natural MR, natural Miscast Magic at will (and with ranged weapons), can achieve Grandmastery in every weapon, have all the ready-to-go gear (helmet, shield, boots, weapons and armors), can be of any alignment (may not be a big deal if you're more a power player then a roleplayer), can be of any race (gaining shorty save throws or starting with 19 Strenght/Constitution), don't need to spend stat-points in Charisma and Wisdom, advance level faster and are able to Dual-Class.
A little help?
IMHO the best of both world would be a Dwarf Inquisitor. But it is not an allowed combination.
We won't add Carsomyr or Bala's Axe into this thrend, because it would be unfair with the WS to say the least.
Inquisitor have bonus in saving thrown (for being a Paladin), a very effective Dispel Magic, True Sight (for naughty Mislead and Improved Invisibility and Shadow Door), and can wear tons of gears.
Wizard Slayer have a natural MR, natural Miscast Magic at will (and with ranged weapons), can achieve Grandmastery in every weapon, have all the ready-to-go gear (helmet, shield, boots, weapons and armors), can be of any alignment (may not be a big deal if you're more a power player then a roleplayer), can be of any race (gaining shorty save throws or starting with 19 Strenght/Constitution), don't need to spend stat-points in Charisma and Wisdom, advance level faster and are able to Dual-Class.
A little help?
IMHO the best of both world would be a Dwarf Inquisitor. But it is not an allowed combination.
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The Inquisitor attacks that problem directly by dispelling the very things that prevent you from landing your hits.
That being said, if you do account for dual-classing a WS->Thief is possibly better since UAI can lead to silliness.
The wizard may be protected by PfMW, Improved Mantle, Stoneskin, Mirror Image, if you "hit" him, you apply the miscast.
A WS using Darts can work wonders from BGEE to ToB IMO.
But, yeah, the Dispel Magic is a nice card to have in the sleeve. If the WS had something like this there would be no point in this thread.
The way I see it, the best leverage of the Inquisitor isn't the Dispel Magic, but the True Seeing. Mislead can be a big problem for an opponent.
PS: If I dualed a WS into Thief the only thing I would pursue with UAI is Carsomyr (mix it with lots of points in Detect Illusion). Best of both worlds.
There's also the issue that if you play with SCS, many spells are scripted to ignore spell failure, making WS a whole lot worse.
so if you just have a WS vs wizard and an INQ vs wizard, the INQ will do it much faster
yes its nice that the WS provides spell failure on each hit, but once the INQ hits level 10 more than likely his DM will dispel all the wizard spell protections and in a round or so the wizard will be mince meat
while the WS on the other hand still has to fight through protections ( stoneskin, mirror image and the like)
and INQ have true seeing, which is very very important because if an enemy is invisible, the WS cant do squat against it, if it cant see it
now with this all being said, you will more than likely have team combinations that can counter all this good stuff, but if you were to have a play through with WS and then one with INQ you will notice that the INQ definitely gets the job done faster, and also that dispel magic works on your team as well, to help get rid of all that whacky charm/confusion/ paralyze load of nonsense
and even when it comes to "who can survive better" I would still say its the INQ, mostly because the INQ can kill the enemy spell caster so fast that the spell caster will not become a problem, and WS take AGES to gain enough MR to make it worth while that its not really all that great
the irony is, there are other classes who can survive mages better like monks ( with their noticeable MR and good saves) and even the berserker/barbarian because of their rage abilities that make them immune to charm effects which are very common amongst enemy casters
in my opinion INQ survive better than WS also because they can wear way more beneficial items that either make them immune to certain effects or can give them considerable MR without a hitch
WS is just a neat concept if you want to try something a little different ( in fact it was the very first class I played, the first time I played SoA back in 2000) but when it comes to enemy spell caster crushing, the INQ will do it better every time
But if we are talking about Mages in general, then I think the Wizard Slayer is a lot better then it's Paladin counterpart.
Dispel Magic? Spell Immunity : Abjuration.
True Sight? Spell Immunity : Divination.
Physical attacks? PfMW which prevents most elemental damages and Carsomyr's dispel.
Technically, a Mage can render himself immune to everything an Inquisitor can do, it's just that the AI isn't good enough to do it. Sure you could use mundane bolts with Firetooth to disrupt the Mage's spellcasting through PfMW, but the Mage could PW : Blind you instantly.
The Wizard Slayer on the other hand has more Magic Resistance, better saves by 3 points if he is a Shorty, and he can applies his Miscast Magic reliably. If the Mage casts PfMW, switch to a mundane weapon and apply 100% spell failure in a round, or if he casts Mantle / Improved Mantle / Absolute Immunity use a better weapon and apply 100% spell failure in a round.
The Wizard Slayer's Miscast ability is 25% per application, not 10%. I think it was @semiticgod who discovered this.
Still I totally agree that if you are doing a Baldur's Gate playthrough, the Inquisitor will be a lot better than the Wizard Slayer but I think it's related to the game and not the classes.
The Wizard Slayer has a distinct advantage, but only if it is dual-classed or is not a solo character. Wizard Slayers can apply spell failure as an area effect using Fire Seeds. This bypasses all weapon immunities, all spell protections, all forms of invisibility, any level of magic resistance, and offers no saving throw. As @Gotural said, the spell failure is in fact 25%. I took a Wizard Slayer->Thief in my last no-reload run, and she single-handedly destroyed every single lich in the game, at very low levels, by combining Fire Seeds with Vhailor's Helm and applying 100% spell failure against invisible and fully buffed mages in a single round. A Wizard Slayer can do that at level 7, no matter the circumstances. An Inquisitor might not be able to do that in SCS, even at epic levels.
I've heard Fire Seeds referred to as cheesy, but we can't say Fire Seeds, conceptually speaking, shouldn't apply spell failure when we don't even know why Wizard Slayers can apply spell failure in the first place. It was widely regarded as a bug that Wizard Slayer arrows didn't apply spell failure. A Fire Seed is a weapon just like an Arrow of Fire or the Firetooth crossbow.
If you have SCS installed, it is also not true that if you hit a mage, he or she is already dead. SCS mages will re-cast Stoneskin and PFMW via spells, spell triggers, and contingencies--Carsomyr and Dispel Magic will debuff intelligent mages very easily, but also only temporarily. Wizard Slayer spell failure lasts for many rounds (five to 10 rounds, depending on your install), and therefore shuts down a mage even if they restore their buffs.
It is also not true that many SCS mages cast uninterruptible spells--if any do at all. After taking a Wizard Slayer from Chateau Irenicus all the way to the Throne of Bhaal, I did not see a single SCS mage cast a spell despite spell failure. SCS scripts don't rely on uninterruptible spellcasting; they use buffs to avoid disruption. Only dragons, celestials, demons, and djinn are immune to spell failure, and that depends on your install options. For normal mages, only spell triggers and contingencies can fire despite spell failure.
Normal mages and liches, even Kangaxx, do not get uninterruptible spells if you're playing SCS. If they do get such spells, those spells are so rare that you can go through the entire game, and play every quest (as I did), without seeing a single one.
The Wizard Slayer is a silly character conceptually (being able to use magic armor but not magic rings doesn't make sense). The Inquisitor is easier to use. And in most situations, the Inquisitor can do more. But in SCS, a properly-managed Wizard Slayer can take on any mage in the game at any level, and an Inquisitor cannot do that.
Fire Seeds are limited in number unless you use a trick to make them last after resting (drop them on the ground, put them in an Ammo Belt), and since they have no proficiency, it's harder to reach high APR with Fire Seeds. The advantage is that anyone can use them, and they're easy to get.
Jan's flashers are party-friendly and apply a nonmagical stun effect, but in EE they can only be used by Jan, and in vanilla only Chaotic Neutral gnomish Illusionist/Thieves or thieves or bards with Use Any Item can use them. The Item Revisions mod can make EE flashers usable with UAI, but IR also limits crossbow APR to 2 or 3 even if you're a fighter. They're absolutely wicked, if you can use them.
The Scorcher Ammunition and Frag Grenades set APR to 5 and give a +10 bonus to THAC0, but they're only available in ToB when you get the Big Metal Unit, and they are also not party-friendly. Notably, the Scorcher Ammunition strikes twice, so on-hit effects like Wizard Slayer spell failure and Called Shot effects also apply twice.
Arrows of Detonation are non-party friendly, but availability is a problem. In BG1, you can get tons of them, but in BG2, you're basically limited to a single Arrow of Detonation, as a random drop. If you have Item Revisions installed, however, you can buy a small number from several vendors, and there are 5 of them in Spellhold.
AoD being rare is not a problem. For what I remember, it's not crucial to give this effect in area, only in a few battles.
But it's good to know that I can hold this card under my sleeve.
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/45838/the-revenge-on-harpell
As for the topic, trick question. The ultimate mage slayer is another mage.
That said, between the two, the Wizard Slayer cannot kill mages as efficiently as the Inquisitor, because the Inquisitor can wear the cloak of reflection, become imp. invisible with a ring, and generally use all the other methods to survive to actually cause harm to the target, can use Wands of Spell Striking to breach PfMW, potions of firebreath to disrupt them, cloaks of Melf's to tear through their wards, and rings of fire resistance to survive MR ignoring dragon's breaths.
The Wizard Slayer 9 -> Thief, on the other hand, can not only do all of those things and more, they can also wear Human Leather, Purifier, Hinjo's Doom, Ring of Gaxx, Seldarine Amulet, and with 5% Lum's and 10% Hell Trials get 104% MR, have timestop traps, and can wear a cloak of non-detection to hide undetectably nearby. The only thing necessary to beat mages is time, and a whole lot of those buffs last less than a few minutes each, so it's simple and effective to wait them out while they can do nothing but wait for their own demise.