Mazzy Best Melee Proficiencies
craymond727
Member Posts: 208
Following the release of SOD, I'm planning to run through BG2 with a party consisting of CHARNAME Fighter->Druid, Neera, Anomen, Mazzy, Nalia, and Valygar (last two spots tentative). With this in mind, what melee weapon/style should Mazzy focus on? I've heard Halberds thrown around on the forums, as well as FoA (going to Anomen, most likely) and Bastard Swords, but I wasn't able to find any sort of consensus. I've never really played a character w/ Halberds besides Kivan in BG1, but wasn't sure if it was a good option, especially late-game in ToB.
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Daystar+Kundane for most of SoA, and Mask+ Angurvadal for ToB.
Just make sure that you don't sell off the Serpent Staff (from WK), since you need this to upgrade Ravager into the ultimate killer weapon.
As already mentioned, Daystar is pretty useful vs undead.
"The Ravager is one of the most amazing weapons in the whole game with a flat out 10% chance of instantly killing an opponent (no save)"
Just to re-emphasize this ... that's 10% chance of insta-kill per hit. The GWW skill gives a ftr 10 APR. With Grand Mastery in halberds, that's an almost guaranteed kill on every attack.
I just looked back at this portion of your initial post. If you aren't committed to the last two NPCs, then you have more flexibility. You can keep the short fighter equipped with short weapons
And Nalia will be your thief? You will need the rings of danger sense and lockpicking, and even then she will miss a few locks, but that's why the gods made knock spells. You can also dump her in favor of Imoen once you rescue her from Spellhold. Neera is good choice for a mage, I usually take her also, but she needs the robe of Goodman Hayes to be more reliable as a caster. Having her summon an uncontrolled demon instead of casting magic missile can be ... inconvenient. You can also give her more health total by pumping her con up to 16 via the Machine of LtM + the girdle of fortitude. The two effects combined give her another 20 HP.
For that matter, the girdle alone will suffice. (Depends on when you do WK; I did most of it in SoA, and gave Neera the extra 1 con at that time. Didn't have the girdle yet. If I had done WK in ToB, I might have given the extra +1 con to someone else)
From your proposed party, I'm guessing that Mazzy's role will be as your main front-row warrior. In that case, I recommend setting her up for dual-wielding, using an Axe as her main-hand weapon (eventually the Axe of the Unyielding), initially with a Short Sword in the off-hand (she already has that proficiency, and Kundane gives her an extra APR), then later (i.e. mainly for ToB) putting proficiencies into Warhammer and giving her Crom Faeyr in her off-hand. As an alternative to Axe in her main hand, Bastard Sword would also be a good choice (so that she can use Foebane in ToB), but I slightly prefer the Axe option ... whichever you choose, however, stick to that choice once you've made it (and get Grandmastery in it), don't waste proficiency points by spreading them around too thinly.
People recommending Halberds are right that someone in the party ought to be able to use them, for Wave from mid-SoA to mid-ToB then Ravager from mid-ToB to the end. However, in your party I'd probably give that proficiency to Valygar rather than Mazzy. Since he can only go as far as Specialisation (i.e. ** rather than *****), he can afford to spread his proficiencies a lot more than Mazzy.
In a different party than yours, someone might intend to use Mazzy as a second-row archer rather than for front-row melee - she's pretty darn good with that Short Bow. In that case, there'd be more of an argument for setting her up for two-handed melee weapons ... although I've personally always found it uncomfortably incongruous to equip huge two-handers on a shorty character.
Neera's a bit more fragile than some of your other mages; Nalia, Imoen and Jan benefit from their thief components. The fact that the Robe of Goodman Hayes actually drops her AC didn't help, either. I found her dropping too easily even with stone skin in effect; an extra bunch of HP did wonders for her survivability.