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Shadowdancer/Fighter Build

iNtuiNtu Member Posts: 37
Ok, so I've deleted my guide for a time being, until I buy the latest BG2 :)
Post edited by iNtu on

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  • ArunsunArunsun Member Posts: 1,592
    edited June 2016
    Was running by, I turn my head for a second and then a huge wall of text knocked me out for a while...

    I'll read the whole of it tomorrow but here are the headlines:
    I usually dual at level 9 and take only HiS/MS as thieving abilities. With Elvenkind boots (foundable early in one of Hexxat's quests) and night's gift I hardly ever fail hiding. The downtime is much less long (500k vs 1,5M XP), and I don't find backstab multiplier to be worth the extra downtime. The main aim of a Sh=>F in my mind at least is being able to reposition and having an extra solution to escape if melee gets too tough.

    I usually dual-wield as well. Having something like Belm offhand and a good main hand weapon will provide more DPR than a staff, even taking frequent backstabs into account.

    I don't usually bother taking pips in ranged weapon, though you may well consider picking some in shortbows (Not another ranged weapon, Tuigan bow, Tansheron's Bow and Gesen's bow are all shortbows) if you want a backup solution.
  • iNtuiNtu Member Posts: 37
    Yes, I did play Sh9->F with dual weapons in BG+SoD, but since you haven't read it all, there is an explanation to why I could not do it in BG2, I simply can't swap between duals and bow, so I'm left with a choice of 2H Weapon or Single-Handed weapon. As for bows, I wrote that I go for grand mastery, I personally use Tuigan.

    Of course, I can just go with dual weapons without a bow, I just don't want to =)

    Boots of Speed for me is the way to go, so I have to compensate on that with my own points into MS, and they allow me to quickly get some distance away from mobs after backstabbing, and then it allows me to use a bow from range, everything just plays into my hands this way.

    Also, I am not a tank with uber AC and I play solo, there is no time for me to stand around slashing with my duals while being surrounded by melee mobs, in which case I must move away from receiving so many attacks and damage.

    So comes the logical conclusion -> If I'm moving, then I'm not slashing with my duals, then I'm not doing the DPR that you've mentioned, so I might as well just use a single weapon and get -2AC bonus at least, or go with 2H Staff of Ram =) and so Backstab x4 does come in handy, and so does the whirlwind too.

    And I did test slightly lower MS/HiS and I was not too happy about it, failure to hide in plain sight at daylight became more frequent.
  • ArunsunArunsun Member Posts: 1,592
    To sum it up:
    You want a melee weapon that can be swapped quickly with a bow, which means no dual wielding.
    You want to play a hit&run style, whether it be backstab and run or arrows and run.

    Did you consider using another ranged weapon? Daggers come to mind: you can get boomy dagger very early, and then get Firetooth+3, they get STR bonus, decent APR( base 2), and they are one handed. STR bonus will actually give you better damage (both per hit and per round) than shortbows.
    This won't enable dual wielding, but it does enable the using of shields (if your melee weapon is one handed) and thus a much bigger bonus to AC. And they are better for hit and run, because they will have one less APR than Tuigan.
    The only downside is that a select few enemies will require +4 weapons to hit.
    Here's the list, I might have forgotten one or two:
    Kangaxx (Demilich form)
    The other Demiliches
    Demogorgon
    Lesser Demon Lord (Demon Lord in Ust Natha)
    Death Shade (From the deck of many things)

    The last two of them can, of course, be avoided without losing any loot/exp.

    Demiliches including Kangaxx can be taken care of with Slayer form if you are playing without SCS etc...
    Which leaves Demogorgon. You can avoid the fight as well though you'll lose a bit of experience (which should not be a problem if playing solo).

    That's the only alternative solution to shortbows worth considering IMHO.

    Now as for your melee weapon,
    The only two-handed melee weapon you can use to backstab is quarterstaff, and they really do not shine until you get Staff of the Ram (which is not that easy to get). Which means it's an heavy investment of pips for a very lategame using only if you plan on taking grandmastery and using it as your main weapon. On another note, enemies that are immune or very resilient to slashing damage are immune to backstabs (Golems) which means you may as well take another crushing weapon to get access to crushing weapons. Since these are tech weapons, used for specific situations, taking, say, flail of ages would be a decent option.

    If you still want to backstab with that weapon, clubs are actually rather nice, with the very good Blackblood+3 being available early with no hard fight. And they are one handed. They should not be used as a main weapon to backstab however, their base damage being too low for that.

    You have a couple of decent choices for your main weapon:
    Katanas: Mainly for Celestial Fury, though katanas kinda fall off lategame, Hindo's Wand of Restoration being rather bad as a katana. Celestial Fury's still good lategame though.
    Scimitar/Wakizashi/Ninja-to: Usuno's blade is available early and a very decent option to backstab, and Spectral Brand is an awesome lategame weapon.
    Longswords: Namarra as your main early weapon, Angurvadal as your main lategame weapon, Daystar/Equalizer/Flame tongue/Adjatha as tech weapons.
    Aethernaut
  • PteranPteran Member Posts: 388
    Umm...didn't the easy swapping between range and dual wielding come about with 2.0? You should have no more issues in your BG2 game.
    YamchaJuliusBorisovjackjack
  • YamchaYamcha Member Posts: 486
    @Pteran this is correct. And I'm loving it!

    About getting more then 255 pts in HS/MS - is this still an issue with the enhanced edition ?
    For me not much of problem. I dualed the other way around: Fighter[7]->Shadowdancer
    Enough points for getting locks and traps and maybe illusions close to 100
    My fighter level is still inactive, but I distributed my points:

    3 Short Sword
    2 Short Bow
    --
    1 Scimitar
    1 Dart
    1 Single Weapon Style

    I'm filling the spot for the party rogue, Imoen dualed to mage at lvl 3 (only pickpocket skilled) and Safana is helping me out in the meantime. So I'm not 100% focused on combat.


    Have you found any cool uses for Shadowstep yet ?
    JuliusBorisov
  • ArunsunArunsun Member Posts: 1,592
    Dualing TO a kit is not possible without editing the character, which I believe the OP does not want to do.


    Shadowstep is pretty good if you need to reposition or failed to Hide at a critical moment. Besides that you are so limited in what you can do that no, it's not very useful.
  • iNtuiNtu Member Posts: 37
    @Arunsun Thank you for your input, I found it very helpful, but I personally just love bows, I'm stubborn and don't want to go for dagger/shield =/.

    But that's why I wrote here, kinda hoping someone would read it through and point out to me things I did not see or forgot about, or simply was blinded by my own habits of playing.

    I think I've suffered enough :) I'm gonna replay BG2 after updating it, continuing with duals+bow from my BG/SoD import and edit my 'guide', because it has been rushed.

    My BG2 gameplay was a bit a frustration to me, and going the quarterstaff route did annoy me.
  • FinnTheHumanFinnTheHuman Member Posts: 404
    @yamcha, re cool uses for shadowstep. One i've found is for soloing quickly regenerating characters.
    If you shadowstep inbetween backstabs the creature doesn't get a chance to regenerate. If i recall correctly, i used it to kill Bohdi. I wonder about Kaurog though, I don't think i noticed the technique until BGII.

    Here's the technique.
    The first two backstabs don't cost any shadow steps and should be able to come in pretty quick succession. Every additional backstab will cost a shadow step and will occur instantly--in effect--as all the time waiting between backstabs will be done in the shadow realm.
    1. When hidden, get in postion and start detecting traps.
    2. Wait until hide in shadows ability to becomes active again. (shadow dancer should still be hidden but leaving shadows)
    3. Backstab
    4. Hide in shadows.
    5. Repostion if necessary
    6. Backstab (no waiting this time)
    7. Shadowstep
    8. Repostion if necessary
    9. Near the end of the shadowstep, HiS should become active again. When it is, hide.
    10. repeat from step 6 until creature death or all shadowsteps used up.

    Another technique is to "instantly" dispell illusions. Shadowstep and start detecting illusions, (assuming you have points in the skill). Even with 100 points though, the dispellment is not instant. So you spend your time in the shadow realm looking for illusions. By the time you return, that enemy mage's improved invis and mirror image should all be gone.

    If you find these two techniques useful, you might wait until level 10 to dual, as you will get an additional shadowstep.
    ArunsunYamcha
  • YamchaYamcha Member Posts: 486
    @FinnTheHuman
    You can try to dispel illusions once per round (you can actual see the ticks when casting true sight). The invested points are just for checking against the difficulty of the illusions and don't change the frequency at all. Same goes for detecting traps.
    Arunsunjackjack
  • ArunsunArunsun Member Posts: 1,592
    edited June 2016
    Yamcha said:

    @FinnTheHuman
    You can try to dispel illusions once per round (you can actual see the ticks when casting true sight). The invested points are just for checking against the difficulty of the illusions and don't change the frequency at all. Same goes for detecting traps.

    Just clarifying a couple of points:
    "Trying to dispel illusion" event, much like Turn Undead, happens once a round. These two abilities are rather unique when compared to other abilities that do something once per round because they use a timer that does not depend on when they were triggered, one that's running at all time and checks every 6 seconds (every round) if they are turned on.

    Let's say your timer is at 35 seconds when you start using Detect traps/illusions. So, next time it hits a multiple of 6, the detect traps/illusions will trigger. In our case, that's when it reaches 36, it checks these events, which means the first attempt will occur one second after it was triggered. Now if your timer is at 31 seconds when you start using Detect traps. It will then check these events when it reaches 36, which means the first attempt will occur 5 seconds after it was triggered.

    This explains why sometimes detecting a trap is almost instant, and sometimes it seems quite long.

    Now concerning detect traps and detect illusions, their score do not mean the exact same thing.
    When using detect traps, every round, you'll try to detect traps. Each trap has a difficulty level, and if your detect trap has a score higher than or equal to that difficulty level it will be detected. If it's not, it won't work, even if you stay one hour next to a trap trying to detect it.
    When using detect illusion, every round, you'll roll a d100, and if your score on that d100 is inferior or equal to your Detect illusion skill, you dispel illusions within sight range, and you dispel all of them. (I've actually never tried to dispel illusions on several enemies at once so there might be one d100 per enemy, I'd have to double check). But there is no "difficulty check" related to this or that spell, or the level of the wizard, and you might very well dispel any illusions even of a very high level mage in one round with 5 points in that skill, if you are lucky enough.


    I'm not sure I am very clear in that last part so I'll sum it up:
    How it works. Roll d100. If score is inferior to Detect illusion score, dispel illusion.

    How it DOES NOT work. If detect illusion score is superior to Mirror Image Difficulty , dispel Mirror image.if detect illusion score is superior to Mislead Difficulty , dispel Mislead. If...
    There is no such Difficulty thing when using detect illusion (but there is one when using detect trap)
    YamchaFinnTheHumanjackjack
  • MoonheartMoonheart Member Posts: 520
    edited June 2016
    Honestly, I agree with Arunsun that you don't need much the backstab multiplicator. Sure, it is fun to have... just, it doesn't work on 90% of the ennemies that are already difficult to start with.
    So, you only need to get your MS/HIS as high as it doesn't fail.

    As the OP, I do prefer the boots of speed than the boots of elvenkind, and also, I like to make the SD level a multiple of 5 to optimize it with the gain of Shadowstep charges, so personnaly, I dual SD10 => Fighter

    For weapons, I go for daggers because they have both a very good ranged weapon (fire tooth) and a very good endgame melee weapon (dagger of stars)
    Cumulative Shadowstep, Hide in Plain Sight, Dagger of Stars and Cloak of Whispers is like turning every opponent crazy with your blinks

    Shadowdancers are like Ninjas anyway, and everyone knows that Ninjas are Real Ultimate Power
    Aethernaut
  • FinnTheHumanFinnTheHuman Member Posts: 404
    @Yamcha @Arunsun

    Thanks for the clarifications. I didn't know exactly how the detection timer worked so that was new to me. Since my point was so thoroughly clarified, i wonder if my point was lost. The point is that the shadowstep gets rid of your thief standing around for up to 6 seconds waiting for that dispell to trigger, while the enemies can continue buffing/casting area effects.

    Assuming 100DI, by the time the shadowstep is over the illusion is dispelled and the thief is ready to take another action, melee or magical. From the opponent stantpoint, illusions are dispelled instantly and your ninja keeps coming on.
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