What is the best racial enemy for a ranger?

Playstation420

Please answer honestly and this character is going to be an archer if that matters.

Dragonwizard

It is hard to choose, Beholder are for me the most annoying and difficult enemies when living longer than a few seconds (if you dont use a particular item) so killing them faster helps a lot. On the other hand there are really only two occasions I can recall where you have to fight them so maybe not the optimal choice.

Golems may be pretty good because most of them cannot be hurt by missile weapons at all so you will need to go melee with a blunt weapon anyway. In this case you cannot use your Archer talents so the added Thac0 and damage will help a ton to bring them down.

The only others I would consider are Vampire, Demonic, Mindflayer or Dragon:
- Vampires because of life drain and you have to fight quite a few pretty early on
- Demonic creatures are pretty tough and you will meet several in the later stages of the game
- Dragons are always a pretty hard fight if you dont know the mean tricks, so still a good option here
- Mindflayers... Well no sane person will fight them without "Chaotic commands" and then they are really no big issue, so I dont think they are worth to take, if you have any cleric in your party

All the other creatures are pretty seldom and/or no big issue to deal with so I would disregard them completely

DJKajuru

I picked Golems because they're usually resistant to damage (so +3 damage helps) and with their high strength and thac0 they can hurt you a lot, so it's better that you kill them fast.

ThacoBell

Its a fairly even toss up between Golems, Mindflayers, Beholders, and Dragons. So I'd say, which of those do you struggle against the most?

DreadKhan

I picked demons because you fight so damn many of them throughout the game, though not too many really early I admit. I also considered Vampires, but if you have immunity to level drain they aren't very tough, and a few items can make them downright easy.

I like using Ogres in BG1, but that'd suck in 2.

Michelle

I am not sure there are many enemies in some of those categories after certain points in the game that can cause much trouble. I like Demonic and Dragon, in some ways the daemons/fell in Watchers Keep are as bad as any dragon in the game so I always pick demons.

It depends on which battles you have trouble with though. Vampire battles can be hard in the beginning but after Saradush, does anyone worry about them anymore? Beholders in numbers are awful but does that even happen after the underdark? It is easy to choke point most of the big golems and the wannabe smaller golems are not a major concern for most. Mindflayers are all about not biting off more than you can chew unless you have no clerics or can’t use the Greenstone Amulet.

The dragon battles in ToB are hard but so are a few of the demon battles and there are many, many more demons in the game. Are there any non demonic/fell enemies on level three of Watchers Keep? Or the final fight with the two headed thug of the underworld? Anyway, that’s the way I go.

Balrog99

There are more demons than dragons. Make a Cavalier and have bonuses against both!

Edit: If there was a save bonus as well as attack bonus I'd say beholder would be the best. Beholders don't have great AC though so it's pretty much unnecessary to add to your attacks against them.

Quickblade

Weaksauce options:
Lycanthrope
Ogre (Better a BG1 thing)
Troll (Why?)
Umber hulk

Cheesable options (have this, and they're practically powerless):
Beholder (Shield of Balduran)
Mind Flayer (Chaotic Commands)
Vampire (Negative Plane Protection)

Powerful enemies:
Liches (not listed, also not sure if Demilich is included mechanically, they're actually a different race)
Demonic
Dragon
Golem

Usually I go with the first two.

Dragons are powerful, but there's very, very few of them, and you never run into them randomly

A list of ALL the dragons:
Thaxll'ssillyia
Firkraag
Adalon (If you're into that)
Nizidramanii'yt
Green Dragon in Hell Trials
Saladrex
Green Dragon in Watcher's Keep
Dolrassa and Ixthezzys (Dorn's ToB quest)
Yxtrazzal (Rasaad's ToB quest)
Draconis
Fll'Yissetat
Abazigal

I don't think you HAVE to fight any except Draconis and Abazigal and probably Nizi, all the others are in optional areas and/or you have to provoke the fight.

Golems are almost cheesable as pointed out, the powerful ones are large models and can get "stuck", and the smaller ones aren't usually too bad. Futhermore, they're basically dumb brute force fighting, so rough in melee but predictable to fight.

So that leaves demonic/fell and liches. It's a toss-up for me personally. Maybe a slight edge for Demonic/Fell since there's things like high level Clerics Turn Undead' or Mace of Disruption.

Grond0

Quickblade said:

I don't think you HAVE to fight any except Draconis and Abazigal and probably Nizi, all the others are in optional areas and/or you have to provoke the fight.

You don't have to fight Nizi either. There's an option to give him all your wordly goods - which can be pretty much nothing if you've already dropped them on the ground ...

If you're playing Siege of Dragonspear the choice of demonic becomes a lot more attractive in order to help in the battle against Belhifet.

Ihatememes

From a pragmatic/non-roleplaying perspective you meet more demons than all the other races combined.

2nd best choice I would say Dragons because they're hard to hit until you're high level with strong magic weapons. The other races can be a problem, but not because you can't hit them reliably.

ThacoBell

I think Dragons edge out demons because (at least for me) only very few demon encounters give me any trouble as is. While dragons tend to wreck me consistently.

sarevok57

Dragonwizard said:

It is hard to choose, Beholder are for me the most annoying and difficult enemies when living longer than a few seconds (if you dont use a particular item) so killing them faster helps a lot. On the other hand there are really only two occasions I can recall where you have to fight them so maybe not the optimal choice.

Golems may be pretty good because most of them cannot be hurt by missile weapons at all so you will need to go melee with a blunt weapon anyway. In this case you cannot use your Archer talents so the added Thac0 and damage will help a ton to bring them down.

The only others I would consider are Vampire, Demonic, Mindflayer or Dragon:
- Vampires because of life drain and you have to fight quite a few pretty early on
- Demonic creatures are pretty tough and you will meet several in the later stages of the game
- Dragons are always a pretty hard fight if you dont know the mean tricks, so still a good option here
- Mindflayers... Well no sane person will fight them without "Chaotic commands" and then they are really no big issue, so I dont think they are worth to take, if you have any cleric in your party

All the other creatures are pretty seldom and/or no big issue to deal with so I would disregard them completely

heh heh heh, i never EVER use chaotic commands to fight mind flayers ( seriously i really need to start using that spell haha )

next demiliches do not go under the lich catergory, so if you chose lich you will not get to hit/ to damage bonuses on demiliches

and that is the thing to think of about the racial enemy, what do you ACTUALLY need to hit and to damage on?

a lot of enemies are easy to hit, except for dragons and demons, any time im really seeing misses is when i fight these baddies, so im looking more at the to hit aspect

and then i choose demons because when it comes to the 2, there are just so many more demons in the game, and in general demons are annoying baddies to fight, so you want those suckers dead dead fast, the thing with dragons ( which is also a great choice ) usually more often than not, you have ample preping time to fight them, so you have all your buff spells on the up and up, but with demons sometimes they just put out of no where when you aren't ready for them, or they like to hang out in wild/dead magic zones in watchers keep, so that is why i choose demons

in bg1 dragons/demons is practically useless and hence i like choosing ogre but i dont know if the game lets you rechoose once you hit SoA and ogre in SoA would be terrrible, hell i think there is more dragons in bg2 than there are ogres you fight

Quickblade

sarevok57 said:

and that is the thing to think of about the racial enemy, what do you ACTUALLY need to hit and to damage on?

a lot of enemies are easy to hit, except for dragons and demons, any time im really seeing misses is when i fight these baddies, so im looking more at the to hit aspect

and then i choose demons because when it comes to the 2, there are just so many more demons in the game, and in general demons are annoying baddies to fight, so you want those suckers dead dead fast, the thing with dragons ( which is also a great choice ) usually more often than not, you have ample preping time to fight them, so you have all your buff spells on the up and up, but with demons sometimes they just put out of no where when you aren't ready for them, or they like to hang out in wild/dead magic zones in watchers keep, so that is why i choose demons

in bg1 dragons/demons is practically useless and hence i like choosing ogre but i dont know if the game lets you rechoose once you hit SoA and ogre in SoA would be terrrible, hell i think there is more dragons in bg2 than there are ogres you fight

I wasn't really considering it from a 'hit' perspective, but from a 'damage' perspective. At a high enough point, you'll hit everything anyways.

Sure, liches are easy to hit. But you want them dead ASAP.

sarevok57

im usually not to worried about liches because i always have the mace of (greater) disruption with me so they go down without too much of a hitch

Michelle

heh heh heh, i never EVER use chaotic commands to fight mind flayers ( seriously i really need to start using that spell haha )

next demiliches do not go under the lich catergory, so if you chose lich you will not get to hit/ to damage bonuses on demiliches

and that is the thing to think of about the racial enemy, what do you ACTUALLY need to hit and to damage on?

a lot of enemies are easy to hit, except for dragons and demons, any time im really seeing misses is when i fight these baddies, so im looking more at the to hit aspect

and then i choose demons because when it comes to the 2, there are just so many more demons in the game, and in general demons are annoying baddies to fight, so you want those suckers dead dead fast, the thing with dragons ( which is also a great choice ) usually more often than not, you have ample preping time to fight them, so you have all your buff spells on the up and up, but with demons sometimes they just put out of no where when you aren't ready for them, or they like to hang out in wild/dead magic zones in watchers keep, so that is why i choose demons

in bg1 dragons/demons is practically useless and hence i like choosing ogre but i dont know if the game lets you rechoose once you hit SoA and ogre in SoA would be terrrible, hell i think there is more dragons in bg2 than there are ogres you fight

I really want to know how you fight Mindfllayers then! Seriously, how do you do that?

Just a note:
Almost every ogre in BG2 is in Firkraag`s lair.

Liches are not really paragons of battle so I never included them. Hitting them is not hard IF you can hit them, I can't see how racial enemy helps in any way.

In the end that is the measure, how can it help the most. Vampires overrun BG2 so it will not be wasted there. Drow would be solid but... Okay, I want to petition to make drow an option. It is all about who I will be hitting, how many times will I be hitting them and how hard are they to hit. I am not big on math but really is any racial enemy more effective, numerically speaking, than demonic/fell?

Quickblade

sarevok57 said:

in bg1 dragons/demons is practically useless and hence i like choosing ogre but i dont know if the game lets you rechoose once you hit SoA and ogre in SoA would be terrrible, hell i think there is more dragons in bg2 than there are ogres you fight

_Nightfall_ said:

Just a note:
Almost every ogre in BG2 is in Firkraag`s lair.

Liches are not really paragons of battle so I never included them. Hitting them is not hard IF you can hit them, I can't see how racial enemy helps in any way.

In the end that is the measure, how can it help the most. Vampires overrun BG2 so it will not be wasted there. Drow would be solid but... Okay, I want to petition to make drow an option. It is all about who I will be hitting, how many times will I be hitting them and how hard are they to hit. I am not big on math but really is any racial enemy more effective, numerically speaking, than demonic/fell?

Well, by my above list, there's only 5 in classic BG2, 2 in Watcher's Keep, 2 in classic ToB, and 3 in EE ToB.

Five isn't a lot.

I prefer to concentrate on the damage aspect, but I consider it more on the factor of how threatening the enemy is, and how common they are.

Wormking

Vampire because umm.. well there are many of them?

sarevok57

_Nightfall_ said:

heh heh heh, i never EVER use chaotic commands to fight mind flayers ( seriously i really need to start using that spell haha )

next demiliches do not go under the lich catergory, so if you chose lich you will not get to hit/ to damage bonuses on demiliches

and that is the thing to think of about the racial enemy, what do you ACTUALLY need to hit and to damage on?

a lot of enemies are easy to hit, except for dragons and demons, any time im really seeing misses is when i fight these baddies, so im looking more at the to hit aspect

and then i choose demons because when it comes to the 2, there are just so many more demons in the game, and in general demons are annoying baddies to fight, so you want those suckers dead dead fast, the thing with dragons ( which is also a great choice ) usually more often than not, you have ample preping time to fight them, so you have all your buff spells on the up and up, but with demons sometimes they just put out of no where when you aren't ready for them, or they like to hang out in wild/dead magic zones in watchers keep, so that is why i choose demons

in bg1 dragons/demons is practically useless and hence i like choosing ogre but i dont know if the game lets you rechoose once you hit SoA and ogre in SoA would be terrrible, hell i think there is more dragons in bg2 than there are ogres you fight

I really want to know how you fight Mindfllayers then! Seriously, how do you do that?

Just a note:
Almost every ogre in BG2 is in Firkraag`s lair.

Liches are not really paragons of battle so I never included them. Hitting them is not hard IF you can hit them, I can't see how racial enemy helps in any way.

In the end that is the measure, how can it help the most. Vampires overrun BG2 so it will not be wasted there. Drow would be solid but... Okay, I want to petition to make drow an option. It is all about who I will be hitting, how many times will I be hitting them and how hard are they to hit. I am not big on math but really is any racial enemy more effective, numerically speaking, than demonic/fell?



skellies and improved/mass invisibility, or if im high enough level, the ULTIMATE in mind flayer killing technology which brings skellies to shame: invisible stalkers

invisible stalkers hit hard(er) and have loooooooooooooooow AC and are immune to all the whacky mind flayer effects, simply top notch, mind flayers will basically never hit them to do intelligence drain, and they fair up a bit better against the umber hulks