Does Wizard slayer suck as much as it looks like?
Fubby
Member Posts: 189
No maigc items aside from weapons and armour, for funky anti-mage passive.
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I'm not sure whether a WS becomes somewhat more effective if SCS is installed. Mages then have much better spell protections. So it may very well make a difference then.
For SoA/ToB when using the Greater Whirlwind HLA, a dual-wielding Wizard Slayer with max APR might also also induce spell failure before the target gets killed. But I've never tried a WS in BG2. Others can answer whether that is so.
His ten percent chance of spell failure works really well. He single handed killed the mage at the end of cloakwood mines.
WS class surelly should change, but seeing as BG EE doesn't fix a shit of the old game... i see this hardly happening.
The Mag. Res. of an wizard slayer should attempt to resist to any form of magic, be it friendly or not. The 10% chance of failure should be an activate hability not an permanent one. The restrictions to gear should be limited to other reasons, a WS should not be able to active items (charges or limited dayly usage) but shoud be able to use common items.
Maybe it's useful against dragons?
Sadly, I found out wizard slayer kinda sucks so I scrapped the idea and just made him a normal fighter who hates magic.
Either way, though - if you are fighting mages powerful enough to be a threat, and they put up their defenses, you will want to dispel them ASAP anyway. After that, you clobber them into the ground regardless of spell failure or not. Ignoring SS/MI in hopes that your WS will make them fail is not a very promising tactic. Not to mention that the WS fail only penetrates things like SS/MI and *not* things that actually prevent them from being hit, such as Protection from Magical Weapons (which is rampant in modded BG2).
There is a lot of discussion threads already about the detriments of WS; suffice it to say they are not good, and to my knowledge no argument so far has been brought up to convince anyone otherwise. And no, flavor or RP value is not an argument - flavor and RP can justify ANYTHING.
wizard slayer is the ultimate caster killer, a single turn of attacks(even with thrown weapons)
with greater whirlwind attack means 100% spell failure,this gets reapplied with each hit and the WZ will eventually reach 100% MR
if you are talking about early game,there aren't any misc magic items of note anyways,only the gauntlets that give +1 to hit +2 to damage
spell protections do no matter at all,all you need is a +5 weapon and a non magic weapon and it's over for casters,this applies to even liches and Irenicus quite effective vs ToB final boss too
and if you play him without a shield a kitten will die,he NEEDS shield or his AC will be something like a kensai's
also you MUST use Whirlwind Attack to ensure that the enemies will never have a chance to cast a spell
he's definately worth of 1/6 slots of your party,now if there are better choices for solo that doesn't matter,any single class(except sorc) is not the best choice for solo,as you'll probably need traps and some casting combined
i must copy paste that response...
ps:he also disables some misc abilities like beholder rays,vampire charms etc
If the enemy mage isn't immune to all weapon damage then they are going to get hit which automatically interrupts their casting. Plus a reasonably equipped melee class is going to be doing 15+ damage/hit which will kill them before spell casting failure becomes much of an issue. The only exception is if they have stoneskin up.
However many magical weapons add elemental damage which goes through stoneskin. Which again will prevent spellcasting just through the elemental damage caused.
So WIzard Slayers are useful against mages who aren't immune to non-magical weapons plus have cast Protection from Magical Weapons, Stoneskin and Immunity:Abjuration (to prevent an easy breach/dispel). That's a pretty tiny niche of usefulness compared to the disadvantages of the class.
And even then, a couple of fighters with non-magical weapons and whirlwind attacks (or just plain improved haste) can break through stoneskin in less than a round anyway and then beat the mage to a pulp with their non-magic weapons.
That said, Bioware GROSSLY underpowered that kit (and over-buffed the berserker beyond all reason...but that's a whole separate issue) from what it's supposed to do. No magical items at ALL, but every 3 levels the effective enhancement bonus of their equipped weapons/armor/shield increases by 1 to a max of +5 each (only applies to what they can hit (not damage) or all saves (yes...+10 to all saves at 15+ if they have body armor and shield equipped) (not AC), respectively), 50% chance per melee hit of dispelling magic equal to their class level, any target hit in melee must save or suffer a spell failure chance equal to their magic resistance for 5 rounds (doesn't stack, but can be extended). Magic resistance starts at 22% and increase 2% per level (1% above 20), but applies to both hostile and beneficial spells. Healing and damaging magical effects are only 50% effective (before saves). And at level 10 or above, once per day they can create an anti-magic aura for 1 round per 2/levels, that extends out 10 feet +1/level and moves with them that completely prevents all magic from working, negates all spells currently in effect (if the caster is equal or lower level then the WS, otherwise they get a save), and renders non-artifact items non-magical as long as they remain within the aura.
Any class can solo just fine (except the shapeshifter..it's do-able...but not in anyway fun or enjoyable unless you're a masochist), some just do it easier then others.
The wizard slayer solo isn't really hard...it's just boring since you're limited to literally just beating the enemy to death (without the huge numbers and frequent 1 hit chunking a Kensai has), with no magic items to use to spice things up.