Anomen's usefulness

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I have to break a spear in favor of Viconia's turning ability: She doesn't destroy undead, but control them!!. One of the things I amuse is to control one lich. You can use his spells to cast hell upon others or even destroy himself!! .

And, another thing pretty funny: Viconia's undead ability scares paladines. You have to see Keldorn running from her!!

 

Anomen... In my opinion is the most useful NPC in the game... So he's whiny in the beginning, but so is Luke Skywalker and Frodo Baggins but they turned out alright! Hehehe... Plus, he's got pretty good spell casting, his turning ability is great AND who can fault a female PC for falling for the charming knight! Plus, I installed the FWs FlirtPack mod, and he's so sweet. Maybe it's because I'm a girl

 

Anomen is also good to have at the start of the adventure since he seems to always start with a lot of experience points. He is the first one you can get out of Irenicus lair and typically has 600000 experience points vs around 250000 for Minsc, Jaheira, yourself, or the traitor

 

I can't deny the power Anomen's got. With his ability to heal and restore the party along with being one of the best tanks in the game he'll always be in my ideal party.

 

First of all, yes I do like Anomen. While I tend to play multi-class characters, I will take a dual-classed character any day over a single classed character. It is true that I wrote he loses those proficiency slots, but I didn't mean that to be a damnation upon him, only something that would have made him more powerful initially. I think fighters start with 4 proficiency points, and then get an additional one at level 3 or 4 and another at level 6 or 7. So basically, Anomen could have had 6 more proficiency points than he has. He tells a story that he drove a spear through a wyvern (or some other beastie) to save his party once, so I guess he had proficiency in spears.

Anyway, to answer Skywind's question about Anomen's quest, I think you're talking to the wrong person. Sir Ryan comes to talk to you, but he's the first paladin you meet when you walk through the front door. The head honcho guy of the Radiant Heart is standing in front of a throne further inside the Radiant Heart - he's the one you need to talk to in order to take your test.

SIDE NOTE: Wow! I now know of at least two people (excluding myself) who have read my guide.

 

I've read it... How Haer Dalis ended up with an eighty... I have to say that really surprised me... I only use him if I'm running a neutral party... Anomen on the other hand is in ALL my parties... except the first one I played when I did'nt know how to resurrect people and I got him killed... it was actually kinda funny...

 

@Aldeth,
Yeah, I was wrong, didn't really remember who that guy was.

Oh! Anyway, I solved my problem. I CluaConsole Sir Ryan outside Radiant Heart to start the quest again and went in, finding that it works!

 

While Anomen is quite good to have in the party, I personally prefer Aerie for a good- or neutral-aligned party. The ability to mix arcane and divine spells makes up for the lack of levels due to her multi-classing.

 

For some strange reason I am totally incapcble of playing BG2 without Annoy-me... I just can't help it! They should have made more romances.

And Shura is efinitely right... "obscely powerful" is definitely the correct expression.

 

I tried using Anomen already for many quests, and find that well.... the only different between him and Viconia is that in battle when I do not want my cleric to cast spells or he/she run out of it, if that cleric is Anomen, he will goes melee, but if that was Viconia, she will start using her sling.
So Anomen certain deal a lot more damages than Viconia. But Viconia has plenty of dooms to cast.
Well... now my opinion is that both of them are equally powerful.

 

IMHO, the only thing that makes any of the NPCS "useless" is lack of imagination on the part of the player. Of course, some of them are better than others, etc. And just because Anomen isn't suitable EVERY conceivable party combination doesn't make him useless.

I have one group led by a male halfling neutral good swashbuckler, accompanied by Keldorn, Valygar, Anomen, Aerie and Nalia. Anomen does a great job accompanying me in the second rank, able to run into melee with the front line, cast spells, or help protect the back line.

I have another group led by a female human neutral good cleric//thief, accompanied by Minsc, Mazzy, Anomen, Yoshimo/Imoen, and Nalia. Anomen again does an excellent job with me in the second rank.

My evil group (Edwin, Viconia, Korgan and Sarvok with a male halfling neutral evil thief and a Bhallspawn male human neutral evil bard) has no room or use for Anomen, although perhaps CN Anomen might sub for Sarevok instead of the Sarevok "clone" I use until I can get into the pocket plane.

My neutral group (Jan, Yoshimo/Imoen, Fleur d'Elise -- er, Haer d'Aelis, Cernd, and Jaheira with a male elven true neutral fighter) has no room for LG Anomen, although I suppose CN Anomen could join in place of Imoen, but that would seem to leave us a little weaker mage-wise.

IMHO, the top REAL reason some people see Anomen as "useless" has more to do with his annoying personality than anything else. And part of the problem there is that even after he passes his test, even though his dialogues actually indicate that his personality is more pleasant, he still uses the same soundset, which is still chocked full of annoying comments. Heck, they came up with a separate soundset for Edwina, why not Sir Anomen too?!

 

I agree buck naked... there should be a seperate sound set for LG Anomen... I like to turn Anomen CN just because I like that sound set better... I hate the "What is it now?" comment...

 

Anomen is cool with me!

I actually started the thread about Sarevok today because, if Sarevok was required, Anomen would have been the dude who got the boot out of my party. And I just did not want to do that.

True, I join the legion of folk on this board who think he is very annoying. But as someone else already stated, he does get better as the game progresses (despite some constant annoyances, a la "What is it now?" as Tionne recalled).

From a combat perspective, I find his versatility to be first rate. I have him with 3 proficiency slots in War Hammer (preparing him for Crom Faeyr), already has 2 slots for Mace, and I gave him 3 slots for Sling and Bullets.

He is useful in:

1) melee combat vs anyone, especially undead weilding the Mace of Disruption and Amulet of Power.

2) ranged combat, because of his high natural strength, combined with 3 pro slots for sling. How many folk in the game can have 3 slots for anything?

3) Turning Undead

4) Spell casting of any kind! He ranks with the best of them. Bolt of Glory, NPP, Sunray, Chaotic Commands, man I just don't see a better 6th man for my party.

From a role playing standpoint, my PC is a paladin, and I joined the order like a month and a half (game time) after he did, so I'm sure he likes being under my leadership (whereas Korgan most definately wouldn't!)

His usefulness is more than is annoyance, and despite the fact that I already have Aarie (I rank her 2nd most important to my party) and Jaheira (4th most behind Minsc), I still like having Anomen around, because he more often than not, always comes up big when I need him the most.

 

I actually find him pretty good. I previously wouldn't believe this when others had said so, but now things are different. I started a new game a while ago with a summoner as the protagonist (a sorcerer that has nothing but summoning and anti-summoning spells + boosting/protecting spells to help the summoned monsters fare better), and Annoymen, Jan, Nalia, Cernd and Valygar as NPC's. While in the beginning Anomen felt completely useless, soon after Cernd came in and I made him concentrate on healing while Anomen came a complete frontline fighter with all spells put to support this, this all changed. Now, while Anomen still isn't all that good as a simple fighter, his priestly spells make the battle completely different. Things such as undead have little chance against my party, and the boosted defense against monsters in general does have very positive effects as well. While he's not better than Minsc for example, he's not much worse either. Just different.

Somehow I see Anomen very differently from before anyway. For some strange reason, he no longer apppears the weak whiner of the group. Rather, the more realistic one. A simple human who has had to fight his entire life for what he wanted to believe in, and succeeded despite the hard road. Rather than seeing him as a whiner, I see him as a 'person' that is not yet finished, but on the last stretch.

 

Foradasthar that is very perceptive! I don't think I noticed his attributes as in depth as your post just did.

Anomen has truly had alot of drama in his life. Your post brings to light what Bioware seems to have been thinking when they made Anomen.

His father and him had a strained relationship seemingly from the start, and that could've provoked him to, from a young age, look up to the Order so much, because they try to stand up for what is right and just.

Oh yeah, someone pointed this out earlier on this board, and I use this also for Anomen. Put the Gaunlets of Dexterity on him, and his stats go to:

STR: 18/52
DEX: 18 (previously 10)
Wis: 16

Quite excellent for a Fighter/Cleric!

 

Yeah!

Anomen is a very in depth character, and most people who enjoy the role playing aspect of the game as well as the fighting tend to understand Anomen... even if they still don't like him. Thone of Bhaal completely changed my thoughts on him... I would accually love to see a BGIII and expand on the epilogues... then Anomen could grow as a person and prove that he his completely useful... and not annoying!!!!

 

Personally I dig the guy. He's my second favorite character, Minsc being #1. I just love the Keldorn/Anomen thing...

 

I use Anomen in my party and frankly he is a very good NPC with very good variety on cleric spells and a very good turn undead ability at high levels. I like him a lot (not as a character but i avoid talking to him). And i prefer him over Aerie and Viconia because he is able to go to melee without the fear of death hanging above him.

 

I like versatile characters too. Anomen is arguably the most versatile NPC in the game because his spellcasting and his melee fighting are both deserving of A-1 ranking.

I don't have him as my official cleric. Instead I carry him, Jaheira and Aarie all as permanent members of my party. As each one of them have a 2nd class that they are very good at also.

Never really tried having Viccy in my party....but this is Anomen's board, so lets praise (or diss) Anomen!

 

Viccy's not bad... but the whole dual class thing with Anomen makes him more worth while...