What build is the ultimate sling user.
Mangamancer
Member Posts: 17
consider all stages of the game (early/mid/late game)
This is my thought ( please correct me if I'm wrong )
- Elf Archer single class. Early archer bonus is small and you can't be more than specialized in sling.
Would have huge bonus late game but not the best early game.
(and such monstrous Thac0 will probably be an overkill late game any way.
- Human Archer dual to Cleric. Cleric has great self buff spells
but high level archer has huge bonus anyway so this build doesn't make sense.
- Half-Orc Fighter. Would be Great at the beginning of SoA before you get your hands on
Girdle of Strength. 19 Str deals a lot more damage than 17 Str (halfling) and a bit more than 18 Str.
He will reach grandmastery in sling at level 9. At that point he will probably be a bit better than
an Archer of the same level. More HP from 19 Con is also nice to have.
He also levels up faster than an Archer.
- Halfling Fighter. Similar to the above , deals less damage in the beginning but has better thac0.
become clearly better once you get Girdle of Strength. Also shorty bonus saving throw.
- Half-Elf Fighter/Cleric. Kinda like fighter who trade weapon grandmastery for cleric buffing spells
and has the drawback of leveling up slower
- Half-Orc Fighter/Cleric. Similar to Half-Elf Fighter/Cleric. Trade 1 Dex for 1 Str ( doesn't matter later on ) and 1 Con.
- Human Fighter->Cleric. Seems to have great potential. Can reach grandmastery. If dual at Fighter level 21
will be strictly better than Fighter/Cleric, likely a real monster late game. But dualing at lower level ( like 13 )
will be much more practical.
- Human Paladin. worse than Fighter/Cleric because spells are cast with lower caster level. Gain levels
not much faster than Fighter->Cleric. Certainly worse than Archer.
This list is made with an assumption that if you can cast buff spells/abilities often enough , you can compare them
to natural bonus.
Please share your opinion on which one is the best among these guys. or even better , if you know of another effective build for this.
I'm not really looking for a build to play. This is more like a thought exercise , to try to understand the game better.
This is my thought ( please correct me if I'm wrong )
- Elf Archer single class. Early archer bonus is small and you can't be more than specialized in sling.
Would have huge bonus late game but not the best early game.
(and such monstrous Thac0 will probably be an overkill late game any way.
- Human Archer dual to Cleric. Cleric has great self buff spells
but high level archer has huge bonus anyway so this build doesn't make sense.
- Half-Orc Fighter. Would be Great at the beginning of SoA before you get your hands on
Girdle of Strength. 19 Str deals a lot more damage than 17 Str (halfling) and a bit more than 18 Str.
He will reach grandmastery in sling at level 9. At that point he will probably be a bit better than
an Archer of the same level. More HP from 19 Con is also nice to have.
He also levels up faster than an Archer.
- Halfling Fighter. Similar to the above , deals less damage in the beginning but has better thac0.
become clearly better once you get Girdle of Strength. Also shorty bonus saving throw.
- Half-Elf Fighter/Cleric. Kinda like fighter who trade weapon grandmastery for cleric buffing spells
and has the drawback of leveling up slower
- Half-Orc Fighter/Cleric. Similar to Half-Elf Fighter/Cleric. Trade 1 Dex for 1 Str ( doesn't matter later on ) and 1 Con.
- Human Fighter->Cleric. Seems to have great potential. Can reach grandmastery. If dual at Fighter level 21
will be strictly better than Fighter/Cleric, likely a real monster late game. But dualing at lower level ( like 13 )
will be much more practical.
- Human Paladin. worse than Fighter/Cleric because spells are cast with lower caster level. Gain levels
not much faster than Fighter->Cleric. Certainly worse than Archer.
This list is made with an assumption that if you can cast buff spells/abilities often enough , you can compare them
to natural bonus.
Please share your opinion on which one is the best among these guys. or even better , if you know of another effective build for this.
I'm not really looking for a build to play. This is more like a thought exercise , to try to understand the game better.
0
Comments
Priest of Lathander (for the +1 APR innate ability) 10 -> Fighter would be my build of choice.
First off, both of these can get greater whirlwind. That makes APR a non-issue in the endgame.
Second, the dual cleric->fighter will reach a higher fighter level, but at very high level that won't do much except raising thac0. Both of these builds will reach such a high thac0 that this will matter very little.
So that leaves the dual with +3 damage from grand mastery.. and little else.
In return, a multi f/c gets:
- A much easier levelling path: no downtime and you're not gimping your HP like the dual does
- way more cleric spells, importantly including more castings of Righteous Magic
- HLA's from both classes, so they can not only throw rocks but also summon a deva
So if you want to build a strong sling archer in practice, I highly recommend going for a f/c. They are easier to level, can sustain their top damage over multiple fights because of extra castings of righteous magic, are much more versatile and the Deva alone deals more additional damage than that +3 bonus.
As for race, it matters little in the long run, but a halfling does get a little +1 thac0 with slings, so I guess you could go with that for style.
But if dual at level 10 he probably have very few cast of Righteous Magic.
It might not be that important though. Aren't bullets deal 1d4+1 damage, so you only gain up to
3 damage in the "maximum damage" part of Righteous Magic right? DUHM grants both Str and Dex and has many more cast per rest, so you might be fine using mainly DUHM.
So Fighter/Cleric inability to reach grandmastery wouldn't mean much late game when you have multiple GWW.
So, is the conclusion something like this.
Early game: Half-Orc Fighter.
Mid game: ???
Late game: Priest of Lathander->Fighter.
- APR: archers get greater whirlwind, too, so you're looking at 10 apr in both cases
- grand mastery: +3 damage for the dual c/f
- righteous magic: +1.5 damage per shot (sling bullets have very little spread)
- strength bonus: the archer can wield Crom Fayer in his offhand: no difference then
archer flat damage bonus > 4.5 damage / shot, so the archer wins
For levelling, the archer should start out with bows / xbows and only switch to slings once they get greater whirlwind. Plenty of profiency points to spread them.
edit: in response to your last post, I think it looks as follows:
early game: fighters are the best at slings up to 1.6M exp because they are ahead in APR
midgame: in the 1.6M-3.6M exp range, the cleric>fighter dual is sling champion
endgame: at 3.6M exp, the archer gets his second HLA (=greater whirlwind) and starts to dominate
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/63666/a-comparison-of-ranged-attackers-in-bg2/p1
Priest of Lathander/Fighter is indeed Nr. 1, even Nr. 1 amongst the entirety of ranged weapon users, but only for a relatively short time.
Off hand you can only use a shield iirc.