Soul Reaver +4 possibly the best 1vs1 weapon?
johntyl
Member Posts: 400
I don't know why this sword is so little talked about, as compared to Carsomyr or the Silver Sword for example. It's such a powerful sword!
Soul Reaver +4
"Each hit makes the target receive a cumulative 2 point penalty to their THAC0, lasting 20 rounds."
CUMULATIVE 2 point penalty! And for every successful hit, not even a percentage to hit! That means that if you were to land a hit on an enemy 10 times, that's a cumulative 20-points penalty.
Now, if you still have some doubts on the prowess of this weapon, let me illustrate for you through the following battle. I was just at the Suldanessellar and had to face off the black dragon. I sent in my MC, a fighter-thief, wielding a Carsomyr and Soul Reaver as its secondary weapon. I set a Time-stop trap and when the battle started, time stopped and I activated Greater Whirlwind Attack. I began with Carsomyr to dispel any defensive spells and switched straight to Soul Reaver. The rest was just watching Nizidramanii'yt scratched at the air
And then I decided to take a breather as Nizidramanii'yt fanned the air around me with his talons.
And I had enough of his hot air and down he went
Soul Reaver +4
"Each hit makes the target receive a cumulative 2 point penalty to their THAC0, lasting 20 rounds."
CUMULATIVE 2 point penalty! And for every successful hit, not even a percentage to hit! That means that if you were to land a hit on an enemy 10 times, that's a cumulative 20-points penalty.
Now, if you still have some doubts on the prowess of this weapon, let me illustrate for you through the following battle. I was just at the Suldanessellar and had to face off the black dragon. I sent in my MC, a fighter-thief, wielding a Carsomyr and Soul Reaver as its secondary weapon. I set a Time-stop trap and when the battle started, time stopped and I activated Greater Whirlwind Attack. I began with Carsomyr to dispel any defensive spells and switched straight to Soul Reaver. The rest was just watching Nizidramanii'yt scratched at the air
And then I decided to take a breather as Nizidramanii'yt fanned the air around me with his talons.
And I had enough of his hot air and down he went
9
Comments
Also works great against Adamantine Golems, I always found them problematic to deal with (Silver Swords procs are too far and between when their Save vs Death is 5 or less...).
But I still don't understand the argument against it. Is it not better for the enemy to not hit you at all, as opposed to a slightly quicker battle but a higher damage intake? If you look at my fight with the black dragon, he was virtually not landing any hits at all. The damage I got was in fact from his summon insects spell.
Edit: Yes, Carsomyr suffers from the same flaw to an even greater extent. I find that I rarely use either weapon not because they're bad but simply because no one can wield them.
The reason we don't hear so much about it is probably simply that most players spend most of their time playing on the Good side, and the Soul Reaver is useless for Good characters. Maybe that's true for LoB difficulty where enemies take a great deal of hitting, but the effective duration is ample for other difficulty settings - two turns is enough time to kill anything, if the enemy is wasting his time on useless misses. I'm pretty sure that I've had numerous runs (on Core rules) in which no enemy, from Candlekeep to the Final Battle of ToB, has lasted for as long as two turns - mostly not even two rounds.
The particular advantage of Soul Reaver is when enemies can hit your frontliners very hard and very fast, potentially killing you before you've had time to kill them ... whacking them with Soul Reaver slows their successful-hit rate, and that turns the fight in your favour for long enough that you can kill them first. Try it against a dragon - they're a soft target once they can no longer hit you reliably.
Well that and Stoneskins.
But yeah, the first problem remains and is an inherent weakness of non-damage effects. It really would have to be worth sacrificing the extra damage from whatever alternative weapon setup. Whether or not it IS worth it is ultimately up to the individual player. Way too many variables involved to make a useful blanket statement.
For instance just like this sword Answerer +4 is amazing weapon that basically works very well Soul Reaver if you get second party member to use it. It will lower enemy AC which will further allow more hits from both weapons. It also lowers enemies MR which will also be great enabler for your mages.
Other notable weapons for LOB mode (long fights give value to those)
foa+3/4/5 - slow with no save, -4 ac and thac0 penatly which combines soul reaver and answerer effects in single hit, removes haste from mobs!
blackrazor - level drains and heal, haste
gram sword of grief - level drains
ravager - one hit with no save, super powerful
Ixil spike - long stun works nicely with GWW and greater malission/doom on enemy
staff of the ram - stun and good damage
celestial fury - same as ixil just shorter duration, can get 8 attacks per round (2 offhand) with IH, no need for GWW way earlier than ixil in game
Did I miss anything?
But yes currently running my 6man custom LOB/SCS/Ascension trillogy and one is F/M planned for this setup. 400+ hp here I come
But you will only get Foebane +5 late in the game. So what are your weapon choices in the interim?
As to choices mid game, for long swords there is plentiful of weapons, Daystar now hits as +4 as far as I understand and you get it at start of ch2.
Other are Foebane +3 and few others are also available in WK from ch2 start. Foa+3 is available early in ch2. If you are stronger celestail fury is also ch2.
And maybe the most OP weapon for F/T once HLA´s are available:
The Chaos Blade from Haer'Dalis
Dex-Drain will kill most enemies in just one round. Combine it with Time Stop Trap for even more fun...
And touche for AoU+5, great weapon. I like to switch between FOA and this for my DD.
personally I like the silver sword with it's 25% chance of making the enemy save vs death at -2 or die, you would be amazed at who and how often the sword will one shot baddies
I distinctly remember one time when I carefully prepared (fully buffed up, etc.) for a battle with a dragon, then stepped forward and triggered the fight ... and the dragon died at the very first blow, failing its save against a vorpal hit. I felt rather let down - no satisfyingly heroic victory after an epic battle, it never even got its defences up, all that buffing felt rather wasted when it just fell dead in the first second of the fight!