weapon choices
jesterdesu
Member Posts: 373
What are peoples go to weapons across multiple playthroughs? Do most just go for the most powerful, or are there more role-players?
I tend to be the latter... Axes and spears for any rangers, small pointy things for thieves etc.
Interested to hear any other ideas people have.
I tend to be the latter... Axes and spears for any rangers, small pointy things for thieves etc.
Interested to hear any other ideas people have.
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Comments
Once I've decided my end-game weapon, I'll fill in what I'm wielding on the path to get there. Sometimes that's pretty simple, (Maces = Stupifier in BG1, rush to IMoD in BG2, finish with Storm Star in ToB). Other times, it's a circuitous route. (For a club run, I'd probably just start in BG2 and head to Trademeet for Blackblood and Gnasher off the bat.)
That's for my Charname. NPCs all have their set end-game weapons that I'll give them pretty much every time I bring them. Keldorn gets Carsomyr, Korgan gets Axe of the Unyielding and Crom Faeyr, Haer'Dalis gets Belm and the Scarlet Ninja-To, Nalia/Imoen/Jan get the Tuigan shortbow, etc.
The only ones who usually aren't set in stone are Valygar and Mazzy, who can put pips in whatever good weapons aren't already spoken for. Well, and Minsc, but I don't bring him much anymore.
For example, even though Celestial Fury is hands down the single most overpowered weapon in the entire SoA I've never once used it, because I am simply not a fan of katanas.
At the same time, I will gladly put pips in Warhammers in BG knowing full well that Ashideena/Crom Faeyr await me in BG/BG2.
Or recently I had this dilemma: I was planning a solo F/M/T Elf character. The melee weapon was obvious(Long Swords, gotta have that nearly-inconsequential +1 ThAC0 bonus!) but I ended up training in Longbows instead of Shorbows. Yes, shortbows are objectively better(Tuigan, Gesen) but I just couldn't get over having one +5 weapon(Angurvadal) and one +4 weapon(Gesen).
Other than that I use all the weapons there are, but that's just because I play way too much.
I do have a strong aversion of using Bastard Swords in SoA (they're pretty good in BG1, since if you have BG2Tweaks/BG1NPC Project you can get Kondalar (is that the correct name?
I mean the Bastard Sword +1, +3 vs Shapeshifters) as soon as you want, and honestly you don't need more than that in BG1), because they're not only crappy, but it takes ages to get at least a decent one.
For ranged weapons, I prefer the high ApR, low speed factor ones—which means no slings nor crossbows. Sometimes I rarely pick slings, but I only usually do so in BG2. Crossbows are pretty good, except for their terrible Speed Factor, so I usually avoid them, but sometimes I pick them because they're actually pretty good and cool so why not.
And for weapon styles, I favour dual-wielding, but in BG1 I usually stick to a shield even if I'm putting my points in Dual-Wield (well, at least until Chapter 5). Sometimes I pick up Single-Weapon style with my Thieves, but only if they can backstab, because honestly it's a pretty useless skill besides that. Two-handed weapon style whenever I play a character that uses two-handed weapons, or again, I want to improve my Thieves' backstabbing skills.
Secondly, even mages can use throwing daggers, making them supple indeed.
I think they are great thief ranged weapons if you have high strength.
Daggers: Can be used by mages
Scimitars: With the same skill, can get slashing and piercing dmg type (ninjato = piercing)
Katana: High dmg, but rare.
Longswords: Elf THAC0 bonus
Bastard swords: Slightly higher dmg than longswords, but cannot backstab.
Two handed weapons: Higher dmg, two handed weapon skill increase threat range
Blunt weapons: Deal blunt dmg, usually the best dmg type considering what can resist it and what cannot, can be used by priests
Clubs: Low dmg, but can backstab
Staffs: Low dmg, but can be used by all classes and only twohander that can backstab
Bows, crossbows and slings: Gets double magic THAC0 and dmg bonuses (launcher + projectile), lightweight
Crossbows: Higher dmg lower speed than bows
Slings: Low dmg, but dmg stacks with strength
Darts: Shit dmg and the magical kind is rare and expensive, but have +2 APR, extremely low speed and many interesting variations such as stun darts
and finally
Throwing axes and daggers: VERY heavy (until you find Thors hammer type rebouncing) and VERY expensive (again until Thors hammer) but gets both dex and str THAC0 bonuses, and str dmg bonus, PiPs also stacks with non-throwable melee variety.
If you patch that 'bug' you unwarrantly cripple them!!! Consider that all launchers gets double THAC0 magical bonuses and are much more plentiful AND have interesting variations, such as arrows of piercing.
The only weapon that sucks through and through are spears, they have nothing going for them. Patch spears instead...
So, my choice of weapons unfortunately usually comes down to the APR of class+weapon choice and since I very rarely play fighters that's usually bladed weapons.
But yes, no more str/dam THACO stacking for thrown weapons, which was admitted as a bug and removed.
One thing to note is that the 2 returning daggers in SoA both have 2 APR for melee or ranged, but cannot be equipped in the off-hand. Again, a great feature for a mage or thief as it gives them basically a +2/+3 bastard sword speed weapon. For a dual-wielder firetooth the dagger paired with another speed weapon in the off-hand works even better.
For me 3 specific daggers redeem the weapon class: dagger of venom in BG, and the 2 returning daggers in SoA. Not as powerful/useful as say the long swords but still respectable for certain builds and especially for proficiency starved classes like thieves.
Just because some dev somewhere thinks it's a bug, doesn't mean it was wrong;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serendipity
I personally like roleplaying unorthadox. I like playing my characters in a way they are "not meant to be played". My sorcerer is a frontline tank whacking people in melee, my barbarian on the other hand is a glass cannon on the backlines.
Giving a heavily armored warrior a puny dagger while the slender rogue gets a massive clumsy weapon is also appealing to my warped backward-roleplayng brain
Even if for some unknown bizarre reason we have to compare a Two-hander at a pointless disadvantage of one less pre-buff... the benefits of two handed magical property cheese would still make me give a slight edge to the Two-hander.
Now I am not saying you cannot powergame a warrior with DW/single weapon/sword+shield. All I am merely saying is they will (in general) be inferior late game to two-handers most of the time. Therefore if you are a hardcore powergamer then at the very least you should have a decent and specified reason to justify not using a Two-handed weapon (e.g like my example when I used the off-hand purely for negative plane protection).
On a side note... way too many items in BG2 are cheese, I strongly recommend ZMisc for anyone playing SoA/ToB
Though this thread isn't just powergaming, it is also what do you roleplay. Hope it doesn't get hijacked too much
There's still tons of reasons to use throwing daggers, though. Throwing Daggers and Darts are the only weapons that give mages more than 1 APR, with Darts setting APR to 3 and therefore being better for low-strength mages and Daggers getting a strength bonus to damage and being better for high-strength mages. A 19-strength mage (after Tome) with throwing daggers is a beast in BG1.
In BG2, throwing daggers are the most damaging throwing weapons in the game, (getting 2d4 base damage; throwing axes only get 1d6 base, which is less than their melee counterparts). The highest ranged damage dealer, outside of a heavily buffed slinger, is actually a Kensai with Fire Tooth, a +3 returning throwing dagger. He actually does more damage than any Archer kit can do with any launcher/ammo combination under the sun.
Further, Daggers, (and Axes and, to a lesser extent, Hammers), are notable because it's the only proficiency that boosts both a ranged option *and* a melee option at the same time. (This opens up the cheese that makes throwing daggers and throwing axes usable by classes like Cavalier and Kensai that are supposed to be unable to use ranged weapons in the first place.)
tl;dr- throwing daggers are rad for tons of reasons that have nothing to do with the (erroneous) +1/+3 THACO boost they got from 18/19 strength.
Impaler: 16.5 damage per hit
Ixil's Spike: 9.5 dph, on a failed save adds 25.5 damage over 3 rounds and stuns
Staff of the Ram: 18 dph (mostly blunt), 15% of the time will knockback and stun
Carsomyr: 12.5 dph, (18.5 vs CE creatures), 50% magic resistance, dispel magic on hit
Gram: 11.8 dph (including the poison proc), 5% magic resistance, enemy must save with -4 or be drained one level.
Ravager: 11.5 dph, +10.5 if an enemy fails a save vs. poison, 10% chance of killing outright
The only thing Impaler and Staff of the Ram have going for them is raw damage. The problem is that both of them deal less damage per hit than Flail of Ages (19.5) and Club of Detonation (18.0), and that's not including the Club of Detonation's 5% chance of dropping a Fireball, too. (Not sure what level the Fireball is, but assuming it's 10d6, that's 35 extra damage with no save, 17.5 extra with save, multiplied by the number of enemies in the area, so consider it at least an extra damage or two per hit on average.)
(Crom Faeyr could also belong here on a list of "most-damaging weapons", depending on what your strength is without it. It deals 13 damage per hit plus whatever marginal bonus you get from having 25 strength instead of what it would be otherwise; if your starting strength is 21, Crom Faeyr will average as much damage per hit as Staff of the Ram.)
Moreover, CoD, FoA, and Crom all deal blunt damage, the best damage type, and the added elemental damage lets them hit through stoneskins. SotR also deals blunt damage, but in terms of damage output, the knockback is a huge drawback; there's nothing worse than triggering Whirlwind, knocking back the enemy with your first attack, and then having the WW expire while you're chasing the enemy down.
So we can rule out Impaler and SotR immediately; they are directly inferior to 1-handed weapons with single-weapon style in pretty much every way that matters. (Staff of the Ram does retain a special niche as the most-damaging weapon in the game while backstabbing, where the knockback is much more of an asset as well.)
Ixil's Spike is also mostly about the damage. In order for it to match FoA in damage per hit, enemies will need to fail their saves 40% of the time which... they aren't going to be doing in ToB. (Yes, Ixil's Spike also has the advantage of potentially stunning, but Flail of Ages will slow enemies, and its slow isn't dependent on saves.) Also: piercing damage, doesn't hit through stoneskins. So let's rule out Ixil's Spike as directly inferior, from a powergaming perspective, to FoA+5.
Gram is an interesting one, because the -4 malus on the saving throw means enemies will fail it a decent amount of the time. Level drain does a lot of interesting things that are hard to directly quantify, but mostly it's going to amount to a HP/THACO reduction. If we count HP lost to level drain as extra damage, maybe Gram's DPH in expectation rises to 13 or so. Still substantially behind Flail of Ages. Yes, the THACO reduction (and various other benefits) from Level Drain is also useful... but all of those benefits combined probably don't do as much to hinder an enemy as FoA's slow does by itself, and FoA's slow is not dependent on a failed save. And since you're draining one level at a time, it's not like it's realistic for you to use level-drain to kill enemies that should be unkillable. So again, directly inferior to a 1-hander.
(Alternately, if you really want to compare Gram to a level-drainer, the one-handers offer Blackrazor. There's a 15% chance of draining four levels in one go with no save offered; that's an average of 0.6 levels drained per hit, which Gram can't match unless enemies are failing their saves 60% of the time, which... they won't be. Ignoring the level drain, Gram deals ~4 more damage per hit than Blackrazor, but Blackrazor also packs immunities to charm and fear, health regen, and every time the level drain triggers you get a massive 20-point heal, +3 strength bonus, and haste effect. Advantage: Blackrazor.)
So when you say "as far as powergaming is concerned Two-handed weapons are superior to one handed end game for warriors/swashbucklers", what you really mean is "the only two-handers that can compare to one-handers from a powergame perspective are Ravager and Carsomyr, the former of which is undeniably one of the best weapons in the entire game, and the latter of which is great but limited to Paladins, Swashbucklers, F/T multis, and F>T duals (which can't get Whirlwind attack unless you're doing something *really* crazy like dualing at level 20+)".
Even Ravager isn't head and shoulders above the best 1-handers, though. Axe of the Unyielding has a comparable vorpal chance, deals 2 fewer damage per hit, and loses the poison damage on failed save... but gains massive health regeneration and a +1 constitution and +1 AC bonus. It's not quite as good as Ravager, but it's not far behind. And more importantly, it's generally believed that AotU is not quite as good as FoA+5, Foebane, etc, either, (though it's not far behind).
You say that AC is irrelevant in ToB, but that's not necessarily true. If you can get near the cap (-24 AC, easily achievable with, say, a Swashbuckler), then AC becomes very relevant. Most of the non-boss enemies, even those very late in the game, will hit you less than 50% of the time with -24 AC. In this case, a 5-point AC difference (between, say, 19 AC and 24 AC) results in a 25% lower chance of being hit.
Because of the way AC works, this doesn't just result in a 25% damage reduction. If your chance to be hit falls from 75% to 50%, that's a 33% damage reduction for you. If it falls from 50% to 25%, that's a 50% damage reduction for you. And since 1-handers are essentially unambiguously better than their non-Ravager / non-Carsomyr 2-handed peers, adding that huge damage reduction without losing any attacks makes the disparity even greater.
(To put actual numbers to this: Elite Fire Giants have an effective THACO of -9. With an AC of -19, they'll hit you 55% of the time. With an AC of -24, they'll hit you 30% of the time. Going from -19 to -24 AC is functionally equivalent to a ~45% reduction in incoming damage from Elite Fire Giants.)
(This ignores AC modifiers, such as those granted by girdles or the specific type bonuses offered by Full Plate, as well as the THACO malus granted by, say, Improved Invisibility. Stacking these on top of your -24 base AC lets a Swashbuckler render even Elite Fire Giants unable to hit on anything but a critical, which is not the slightest bit irrelevant.)
(Also, AC isn't the only purpose of shields. See also: Shield of Harmony.)
You also kind of glided past all the benefits you can get from using a specialized weapon in the offhand, but those are... pretty relevant. Even if 2-handed weapon X was marginally better than 1-handed weapon Y, getting 25 Strength from Crom Faeyr in your offhand could *easily* be enough to negate that edge. (The difference between 22 strength and 25 strength, say, is +3 THACO and +4 damage on every attack. Was the 2-hander +4 damage better to begin with? Probably not.)
And this doesn't even mention the special level of broken that is Defender of Easthaven. A Barbarian with DoE + Hardiness can gain 80% damage resistance. A Paladin, Ranger, or Fighter/Cleric can gain 85%. A Dwarven Defender can gain 90%. Again, thanks to the way damage resistance works (like AC), this is a substantial increase in survivability; Comparing an 80% DR Barbarian to a 60% DR Barbarian (say, wielding a 2-handed weapon), the 80% DR Barbarian takes half as much damage. An 85% DR tank takes 43% as much damage as a 65% DR tank. A 90% DR Dwarven Defender takes a third as much damage as a 70% DR Dwarven Defender.
So, in this case a one-handed weapon is doubling or tripling these classes' survivability. And it does so in a way that leaves it free to be paired with, I don't know... Foebane. Which, when under the effects of Whirlwind Attack, will hit up to 8 times per round and add 4 extra hit points to your total per hit, up to 32 extra HP per round. Using the Dwarven Defender as an example, an enemy would need to deal 320 damage per round to overcome that kind of defensive power. Try matching that with a two-hander.
(I haven't mentioned Foebane much because it doesn't offer as direct of a comparison, but it easily belongs in any discussion of the most powerful weapons in the game. 14 damage per hit, 4 of which is the rarely-resisted magic variety, and it adds 4 HP per attack, making it phenomenal both offensive *and* defensively.)
Finally, you completely dismissed the Improved Haste / Critical Strike comparison because it requires two buffs while a 2-hander with Whirlwind only requires one, but my understanding of "powergaming" is not that it's "achieving the maximum amount of power you can with only one buff". My understanding is it's about achieving the maximum power possible, full stop. So yeah, IH + Critical Strike vs. Whirlwind seems like a relevant comparison.
(Further, even if you want to go with "one buff only", Improved Haste lasts twenty times as long and there's opportunity cost to consider; since you don't have to devote 80+% of your HLAs to whirlwind to maintain maximum damage output, a dual-wielder with Improved Haste is free to take things like Hardiness or Greater Deathblow.)
And of course all of this is looking at the single snapshot of time that is the very, very end of the game, which ignores the fact that 1-handers really trounce 2-handers throughout the entire course of the saga, when AC is crazy-important, APR are hard to come by, and warriors don't yet have HLAs to create parity between all weapons.
Anyway, long story short, one-handers are *by far* the better option from a pure powergaming perspective than two-handers, which pretty much just boil down to Ravager (which is great, but not especially greater than top-tier one-handed counterparts) and Carsomyr (which is really limited in terms of who can use it, and which can be largely replaced by just having a bow and Arrows of Dispelling handy on switch).
From a pure powergaming perspective and ignoring caster weapons (Staff of the Magi, obvi), I'd say the end-game meta is all about getting as many items equipped as possible between FoA+5, Crom Faeyr, Foebane, Axe of the Unyielding, Blackrazor, Ravager, Carsomyr, Defender of Easthaven, Scarlet Ninja-To, and Belm, with possible consideration for Club of Detonation (if you have good resists, don't use a lot of summons, or can live with the potential for friendly fire), The Answerer (for debuffing particularly tough bosses), Staff of the Ram (for backstabs), or Gesen's / Fire Tooth (dagger) / Erinne Sling for specialized ranged builds. (With the newer patches, Fire Tooth also makes a great mainhand weapon for APR-starved warriors like Swashbucklers and Bards.)
75% of those are one-handers. And even if we want to rank them against each other, I'd take Foebane / Flail of Ages mainhand, Defender of Easthaven / Crom Faeyr / Belm / Scarlet Ninja-To offhand over Ravager or Carsomyr as the most powerful possible weapon setup anytime.
My point wasn't "everything that seems wonky is a bug", though. My point is "as the people who introduced the behavior in question, Beamdog is fully within their rights to rule about whether strength granting a THACO bonus on throwing weapons is a bug".
Beamdog didn't introduce the ability for Kensai to use throwing daggers, though. That's from vanilla BG2, so for all we know it could be intended behavior; at the very least, it was widely-accepted behavior, as it made its way through numerous patches and to my knowledge never wound up in the common Tweakpacks and Fixpacks modders released to address perceived issues with the game, (like erroneous spell stacking).
Example A:
"Hey beamdog, since that last patch throwing daggers are getting a THACO bonus from strength"
"Wow, thanks for the heads up, totally didn't intend for that to happen, let us fix it really quickly."
Example B:
"Hey beamdog, classes that can't use ranged weapons being allowed to use ranged weapons with a melee component is one of the oldest and best-known behaviors in the game, having made its way into pretty much every guide and writeup of the kits in question and also spawning numerous Throwing Kensai builds and much debate about whether they're better than Archers, the other range-specific kit."
"Yeah, no real need to change that."
I am enjoying the consistently strong damage from my +1 or poisoned throwing daggers current in SoD with a dwarven 19 strength bounty hunter. They are excellent thief/mage ranged weapons if one has 19+ strength.
I like daggers, darts n clubs, cause they make satisfying thumps bips and bops in the ol noggin. I esp like the mod that changes the types of animations for sears and clubs to better reflect how they would be used to attack (tweaks Ant. I think).
Shoot, I ususally when taking Shar Teel, keep her throwing daggers for a missile weapon. Not like high level fighters cant do well without prof. in a weapon if needed every now and again.
@SomeSort has got me beat on my response I think
@Aerakar Oh yeah, I was soooo glad they added those particular daggers in SoD.
I was really hoping that wouldn't happen hence my use of spoilers, keeping explanations short/math free and reminding people of the "roleplaying" part of OP's post. Oh well since that failed miserably I might as well just roll with it.
Impaler+Ram staff vs Flail of ages+Club of detonation comparison
[spoiler] I am not really sure why you are choosing the Impaler or the Staff (or a pure class warrior for that matter) if you merely want raw damage but meh lets roll with it.
Those numbers are highly misleading as both the flail and the club use elemental damage to make up for their damage shortfall which is sub-par to physical damage. Also the debuffs provided by the club and flail are (none and slow respectively) are completely inferior to the debuffs provided by the Impaler and staff.
The 5% Club of Detonation fireball averages to a insignificant 1.75 fire damage per hit. Not only is this completely insignificant but it may be more of a hindrance than a help unless you have purposefully niche tanks to drop nukes on.
You will find more often than not that the designers purposefully give one-handed weapons elemental damage bonuses. I suspect this was to weaken them and give some additional incentive for two handed[/spoiler]
Crom Faeyr vs ....all?
[spoiler] There is nothing truly noteworthy to benefit much from blunt only. Golems are sort of meh at this stage of the game. The (crappy) damage through something particular like stoneskins isn't worth the drawback of elemental damage. Stoneskins really shouldn't be a problem at this stage of the game.
I actually remember Crom Faeyr getting a lot of criticism for warrior class having no decent properties other than strength. This in many ways will pale in comparison to Two handed weapons with decent on-hit properties. Crom Faeyr's true power comes from being a offhand barely used per round weapon or as a weapon of choice for a NON-warrior.[/spoiler]
Why the hate for Impaler and Staff of the Ram?
[spoiler] Not at all.
Knockback isn't a drawback at all since the people using Staff of the Ram will be using it for it's intended knockback/stun. Even if you are obsessed with Whirlwind you can still use it with Staff of the Ram to devestating effect. The only difference is you have to be a little more smart about it. Nothing is more satisfying then perfectly timed enemy ping pong near walls with added stuns to boot. Again not at all
The impaler (and every other two handed weapon out there) it's power lies in its properties. The ability to deal a combat breaking pinning attack at two handed range greatly overshadows a minor elemental bonus to damage per round and a slow at close range that the Flail of Ages provides.[/spoiler]
Two Handed Gram Grief (my weapon of choice) vs Backrazor and the ...flail of ages again?
[spoiler] No the Level Drains end up being much more usable when it counts than a mere slow (and most other debuffs out their). Infact the Debuff from Gram Grief ended up being so devastating that I ended up using it instead of Carsomyr on my single class playthough.
You will notice the slow more since gibbing enemies in 1-2 hits won't really show much for the Grief. However weak mobs are not the time to use Grief, it's time to shine is against hard high HP bosses where level drain stacks really count. A slowed boss is still deadly, a level drained boss ends up being useless (especially the final boss) Yes if you need defensive bonuses than Blackrazor is good for the offhand (hence my argument that powergaming dual wielding for a specific reason such as you really need the extra defense)
Your assumption about Grief's level drain is wrong though it will proc ALOT (even on some of the hardest bosses the game provides). Though I will admit Grief's unexpectedly great performance surprised me too.[/spoiler]
The relevance of AC
[spoiler] I was being simplistic about AC because unlike you I didn't want to completely hijack the thread with an essay... but that river has been crossed now.
The importance of AC is purely dependant on your playstyle. However it is safe to say that regardless of style the importance of AC tends to go down as the game gets closer to the end. Even with MAX AC the enemy will still have a fairly good chance of hitting you.
Sure a 45% average damage reduction is nice, but their are many more means to reduce damage by this stage of the game (better ways that don't leave you vulnerable to a big hit). Also we are assuming the fights even last long enough for the AC to really matter. Fights tend to end much faster with stronger Two handed debuffs
AC is more relevant with Zmisc combined with a HP increasing mod/difficulty as fights tend to drag out with less damage/cheesiness. But even then it still isn't necessary at all. Pretty sure I mentioned this "using shields/dual weilding for specific property reasons. AKA niche[/spoiler]
Defense vs Offense? ....defense in disguise?
[spoiler] You are comparing defensive bonuses to offensive bonuses. This isn't really quantifiable (mind you I can easily match that survivability with Gram's grief on anything worthy of a challenge
Yes the offhand is great for defensive purposes. I thought this was obvious (again this is something I mentioned). I powergamed my character dual wielding specifically for a defensive bonus. If you have no specific reason to use a shield, dual than you should default to two-handed.[/spoiler]
Powergaming stategies and how to improve theorycrafting
[spoiler] Unfortunately that isn't scientific (which is what powergaming really is... mathematical and theoretical analysis implementing strategy?)
If you want a decent comparison then all variables need to be the same. Why can't the Two hander have x2 buffs? Did he fail a charisma roll or something?
Furthermore I did answer just incase you REALLY want to go on the gimped comparison (in which I still gave the edge to two-handed for general purposes) All warriors are free to take hardiness and Greater Deathblow their is no shortage of HLA's so this point is irrelevant.
Yes a wizard buff lasts a lot longer than a pure fighter's buffs does. Improved Haste isn't the only way to improve a character though. Two handers can also benefit from certain pre-buffs last time I checked?[/spoiler]
Miscellaneous
[spoiler] No it was something I mentioned twice. Powergaming should be done with dual weilding if you have a specific plan in mind. Such as being a low strength warrior with a strength increasing weapon in the offhand. Yes which is why I clearly specified END GAME That's pretty clunky. Switching arrows on a need by need basis to do what a two hander can do effortlessly?
I can understand the logic with trolls (barely), but that's as far as ill go with that it shouldn't be necessary. If that's how you personally prefer to play than sure.
I believe in the vanilla version of the game their was mention that Two handed weapons were purposefully made powerful to make up for their downfall in numbers.[/spoiler]
So long story short you are completely wrong in some of your assumptions. The most noticeable one was your assumption of anything not Carsomyr/ravanger being inferior. Two handers definitely does NOT just boil down to those two weapons and I have no idea where you came up with that. Their are many more options for a two hander to play around with (especially the underated Grief Gram).
A Two handed power comes from its actual abilities, not an extra 5 points of damage giving powergamers a number high. The logic of number crunching reminds me of NWN where hardcore gamers try to crunch numbers coming to the conclusion that Handmaiden is the best stocked weapon. The number crunches forgot a variety of factors that contradict that conclusion entirely. They dismiss many double weapons as being the worst even though they can end up being the best in many circumstances.
This is one of the many reasons why many powergamers (including myself once upon a time) struggled transitioning to PnP. Looking too much at numbers and not at other factors usually equals a weaker character.
Honestly, you can get 24 STR without any buffs (23 if you're not a Half-Orc), and crushing damage is the best type of damage in the whole series (unless you're fighting jellies, which are the only enemy that should be attacked with slashing weapons unless I forgot again what their resistances were). Highest damage per hit and least variation of damage done when comparing it to the average as well (since it's just 1d6 in the end), besides having the lowest speed factor and its crits being the most damaging in the game (which happen 10% of the time thanks to it being a thw).
With that said, I fail to see how a discussion of powergaming and numbers amounts to a hijack of a thread about how people pick their weapons. I'm pretty sure "powergaming" is a perfectly valid answer to how people sometimes pick their weapons.
Impaler+Ram staff vs Flail of ages+Club of detonation comparison
[spoiler] The beauty of Flail of Ages' rainbow damage is precisely that no matter what the enemy is resistant to, FoA+5 will still tag it with something. Sure, the massive elemental damage isn't getting doubled by criticals, but criticals represent a 10% increase in a weapon's physical damage per hit, (assuming Two-Handed Weapon Style or Single Weapon Style for a doubled critical range), and even if you factor those in FoA comes out ahead of SotR or Impaler. (Ignoring the fact that (A) lots of enemies are immune to criticals, and (B) the FoA user can, if he's so inclined, actually use critical strike. A 100% critical rate on 7-12 damage is almost as good as a 10% critical rate on 14-22 damage, and the extra +10 elemental damage on top of that is just cake.)
Club of Detonation's fire-heavy damage type is a major bummer, for sure, especially given the prevalence of fire resistances. On the other hand, the fireball only adds an "insignificant 1.75 fire damage per hit" if there is typically only one enemy around at a time. If there are, say, five enemies... then it's an average of 8.75 extra damage per hit. (Really, more like 4.5 or 5 extra because most enemies will be making their saves, and you could even further reduce that because of how common fire resistances are, etc.) But I'm not really going to die on a hill for Club of Detonation, which is a very niche weapon.
Also... the slow on FoA is inferior to the stun on Staff of the Ram? If you say so. Tons of stuff is immune to SotR's stun. Virtually nothing is immune to FoA's slow. If it acts like the spell version, it grants -4 AC, -4 THACO, and cuts enemy APR in half. (It also dramatically slows mage casting speed, which goes a long way towards defanging them.) You mention later that you don't care what weapons do against trash mobs, who are all cake, you care what weapons do against bosses. Well, FoA's slow wrecks bosses a lot more than SotR's stun.
[/spoiler]
Crom Faeyr vs ....all?
[spoiler] I remember a lot of the criticism of Crom Faeyr in vanilla BG2, too... back when it just dealt 2d4+3 damage. (I'm unsure whether the +5 electrical wasn't around back then, or if it was merely undocumented. I do know that if Crom had it listed, it would have been a much more popular weapon.)
If you're going for max damage with single-weapon style, FoA is your choice. If you want to go for pure damage and also maximize the physical component, Crom is your choice. I'm not holding Crom up as the be-all, end-all one-handed weapon-- I've already professed my love for Foebane-- I'm just using it as a damage comparison against the top damaging 2-handers.
[/spoiler]
Why the hate for Impaler and Staff of the Ram?
[spoiler] Sure, there are situations where you can Whirlwind with SotR. Against extra-large enemies like giants there will be no knockback. (There will be no stun, either. Flail of Ages' slow works just fine, though.) If you can pin an enemy against a wall then you can go to town, which can be tricky to consistently set up in larger melees, where you're more likely to be left spreading your damage around, (which is ineffective).
For niche uses, SotR is perhaps the best weapon in the game for a solo character because of its kiting abilities. With a speed factor of zero you can attack enemies immediately upon them entering your extended range, then step back with your boots of speed and repeat as necessary. That kind of aggressive micromanagement is overkill in party play, though, and not really practical when you have five other party members you have to keep alive, besides; fights become more about ending them quickly than dancing around damage for ages. I'm assuming you meant Ixil's Spike, here. (The Impaler is the +3 spear where pretty much all it has going for it is massive piercing damage.)
But okay, let's say Ixil's Spike is all about the "stun on failed save", and enemies fail their saves often enough in ToB for this to be an amazing effect. (I've personally found it useful, but not amazing.) Celestial Fury has the same thing going on-- save or stun. Granted, Celestial Fury uses a different save. Celestial's Save vs. Spell will be favorable against fighter/priest types, while Ixil's Spike's Save vs. Death will be more useful against Thief/Mage types. (I'd generally argue stun is more useful against the former than the latter.)
The point is that there's a 1-hander with a comparable effect and people... stop using it midway through ToB because its effect starts lagging in power too much. But the two-hander with a comparable effect is amazing because of its effect?
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Two Handed Gram Grief (my weapon of choice) vs Backrazor and the ...flail of ages again?
[spoiler] A slowed boss is half as deadly as an unslowed boss. Is a boss with a couple levels drained half as deadly as a boss without a couple levels drained? I'm skeptical, but hey, even if it is, Gram is still inferior to a one-handed weapon. Just a different one. Why on earth would you ever put Blackrazor in your offhand? The amazing part of Blackrazor is the proc. So you want it hitting as often as possible so it can... actually trigger the proc.
Look, even if level drain is the single most amazing effect in the history of videogames, Blackrazor will drain more levels per hit than Gram against any enemy with a save vs. death of 8 or lower... which is pretty much all of them in ToB. I don't know exact enemy saves, but I believe by ToB they average around ~5, with boss saves being lower.
If an enemy can't be damaged by +3 weapons, then sure, use Gram. That'll mostly be... Ravager, I guess, (can he even be level-drained?) Maybe the Mariliths who accompany Demogorgon, but I'm pretty sure old Demog himself can be hurt by +3 weapons. The demilich in WK. Maybe another 1 or 2 enemies I'm forgetting.
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The relevance of AC
[spoiler] Winning games involves dealing fatal damage to your enemy before they can deal fatal damage to you. Doubling the time it takes an enemy to deal fatal damage to you doubles the time you have available to kill them. That's pretty useful.
AC declines in effectiveness, sure. AC is really only something you're going to strive for on dedicated builds, (usually Swashbucklers or Blades), sure. But you said shields were useless and AC became irrelevant, which... no. Even going from -10 AC to -15 AC will reduce your incoming damage. And if one-handers are competitive with two-handers to begin with, that additional damage reduction only adds further value. Yes, you briefly mentioned it in passing. You also called shields worthless.
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Defense vs Offense? ....defense in disguise?
[spoiler] Yes, it is obvious that using a shield or second weapon gives you a defensive bonus. And since 1-handed weapons can keep pace with most two-handed weapons OFFENSIVELY, too, that defensive bonus is why 1-handed weapons are the better powergaming choice. This is obvious.
The reason I compare offensive and defensive bonuses is as I said earlier: winning BG2 is when you kill your enemies before they kill you. Things that help you win are things that increase the speed at which you kill your enemies or decrease the speed at which they kill you. This is the essence of powergaming, doing everything we can to skew both sides of that equation in our favor as much as is humanly possible.
[/spoiler]
Powergaming stategies and how to improve theorycrafting
[spoiler] I'm super happy, 100% thrilled to compare 1-handers and 2-handers with all variables the same. Feel free to give the 2-hander Improved Haste, as well! That's the point, if the 1-hander has Improved Haste, it ceases to gain any further benefit from Greater Whirlwind, leaving it free to use the mutually exclusive Critical Strike, instead.
A 2-hander with Improved Haste, however, still gains further benefit from GWW. Much further benefit, in fact! Which means the 2-hander is forced to trigger that GWW despite the presence of Improved Haste if it wants to keep up with the 1-hander offensively. And as soon as it triggers GWW, it loses the ability to trigger Critical Strike.
This is all variables being equal: a 1-hander dual-wielding setup with Improved Haste and a 2-hander setup with Improved Haste. The 1-hander comes out way ahead because it can use Critical Strike and the 2-hander can't. (Or rather, the 2-hander can if it chooses, but it sacrifices 3-4 APR to do so.)
Yes, there are a lot of other offensive buffs the 2-hander could apply. But the 1-hander could apply those same buffs, so they don't change the calculus either way! Improved Haste is the one exception, the thing that the 1-hander can benefit from and the 2-hander cannot, (or, more specifically, the one-hander can exploit IH to benefit from Critical Strike and the 2-hander cannot). That's parity. That's all variables being equal. If a 2-hander is relying on Greater Whirlwind as his primary source of offense, he's either going to need a dozen greater whirlwinds or he's going to need to rest after every encounter. I usually plan on having around 6.5m XP by end-game in ToB, which would translate to fighter level 34, at which point he has 15 HLAs. If you have 15 HLAs, and 12 of them are devoted to Whirlwinds, that doesn't leave a lot of room for other choices.
Two-handers can benefit from tons of other buffs. Can you give me an example of a single buff that a 2-hander can benefit from that a 1-hander couldn't also benefit from to the exact same extent? Because I can give you an example of a buff the 1-hander benefits from and the 2-hander doesn't: Improved Haste. (Specifically, Improved Haste + Critical Strike in leiu of Greater Whirlwind.)
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Miscellaneous
[spoiler] I'm not sure what you mean by "specific plan". Is "deal as much damage as possible" a specific plan? Because if so, dual-wield. Is "Be as survivable as possible" a specific plan? Because if so, dual-wield. I mean, I could just as easily say the opposite: dual-wielding is the better powergaming choice generally, and you should only use 2-handed weapons if you have a specific plan in mind, such SotR kiting or pairing Ravager with a dozen Whirlwind attacks. Yes you did, and I felt it was important to draw attention to that specific mention, because in my opinion not only are 2-handed weapons not clearly superior end-game, they're clearly *inferior* early-to-mid game. You talk about maneuvering with Staff of the Ram to pin enemies against the wall before triggering your Whirlwinds and yet object to something as simple as having a bow in one of your quick weapon slots as "clunky"?
(Ignoring the fact that the very nature of powergaming involves embracing sometimes-clunky things in order to maximize total power.)
Arrows of Dispelling are super-easy to use, especially in 2.x where you don't even have to go into your inventory screen to switch weapons, you can totally have a dual-wielding and ranged setup in your quick weapon slots at the same time. See a mage who casts something you want to dispel, switch to your bow, fire an arrow at the mage, switch back to your weapon and move on with your life.
Hell, with arrows of dispelling, you don't even have to *walk* over to your target like you would with Carsomyr. And you can hand dispelling duties to a thief or a bard who isn't contributing as much in combat, anyway. In many ways, it's even lower-maintenance. I believe you're thinking about a reference to katanas, not two-handed weapons.[/spoiler]
Actually now that I think of it... I have no idea what is expected of us. I take back any criticism I gave about hijacking, from now on I will just play along with whatever happens in any thread from now on. EEEEK! Sorry about some of the spelling/grammar/name errors it was typed with speed early in the morning. "Gram grief" lol
Has anyone here ever given up on a BG series game in frustration and never played again because DPR or points allocation or whatevs was sub-optimal and the game impossible to complete?
Thought not. So just play the game, envision your charname, and choose proficiencies accordingly. Srsly.
Yeah I don't think their is any hope for people like @SomeSort and I. Personally I always spend more time theorycrafting wizard maths for a video game then actually playing it. PnP is even worse 20 hours a week for 2-3 months researching books and memorizing rulebook-lawyer-speeches just for a few small hours of playtime. The worst one I can think of is Path of Exile it's been over 6 months I refuse to play it again until I feel like I have Frankensteined a masterpiece.
Playing... so overated! *back to the whiteboard*
With respect to @Teo_live and @SomeSort I have also researched the heck out of ideas for backgrounds on characters, particularly with PnP.
It just has to feel right so I can understand both points of view, although while mine will not be on the weapon theories and 'math stuff', but motivations and personality. I can certainly understand the desire/need to work the details to death, so to speak(hehheh). Sometimes it just has to feel JUST right. I think the longer I have played the game the more important this can become to keep my interest fresh.
I say to each their own as everyone needs whatever game it is to provide satisfaction and enjoyment. We all are different to a certain extent.