High level abilities

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What do you think the best ability is (including the spells) and why?

 

I like greater whirlwind attack -- because I like attacking things? Well, you usually get to kill someone in one round unless they are very tough. For Aerie and Anomen (when he is not fighting) I like Storm of Vengeance -- primarily because it looks cool; also it does some damage to all enemies.

 

For Fighters, "Greater Whirlwind" rules. Also at least 2x "Hardiness" is a must as it has an excelent duration. "Critical strike" is nice but I find it does less damage per turn than "Greater Whirlind" unless you already ,somehow, have over 5-6 attacks per round. To bad can't use them both simultaneusly... "Smite" is no good since it pushes enemies away and with a fighter you don't want that ok?
For Clerics, it seems no ability is extremely powerfull thus you need to compine many. "Storm of Vengeance" is nice for killing hordes of low level monsters or interupting enemy spellcasters, "Implosion" is excelent for dealing super damage to 1 enemy, even if he makes a saving throw, "Summon Deva" is one of the best Summonings (after Elemental Princes and Planetars). I haven't tested the other abilities but I think protection skills are not as usefull for a priest (well, that depends on your combat style).
For Mages, "Comet" and "Dragon's Breath" are the best. Just throw a Dragon's breath in the middle of a horde of tough fighters and watch the screen clear!! Other skills such "Summon Planetar" are nice, but since they have to compete the elite 9th level spells or other skills and you'll never have enough 9th lvl spell slots, they aren't worth it.
For Druids, "Summon Elemental Prince" leads and "earth/fire elemental transform" follows since they don't need any valuable spell slots.
Rangers abilitie(s) (I think they only have 1 extra ability than fighters) suck, so they'd better use the same as fighters.
If anyone knows anything about high lvl thief abilities please tell me because if your main pc is not a thief you can't acces them.

 

Hmmm; I always found the Planetar summoning much more useful than the stratospheric damage spells like Dragons Breath and Comet.
A planetar + a few skeleton warriors can take out liches without breaking a sweat. Sendai was spanking me quite harshly until I called in a planetar.

For pure damage, Sebastian the Conjurer always finds TIme Stop/Improved Alacrity plus judicious use of the space bar much more devestating than big fat nuke spells (I suppose when he levels up a bit more he can combine dragon's breath/comet with the above tactic, although Im not sure it'll be entirely necessary). Yaga Sura fell instantly to a salvo of magic missiles/acid arrows/chromatic orbs and returned only to be sliced up by Sarevok's Greater Whirlwind attack.

In terms of priest spells I like Energy Blades for Viconia. The rest are just for aesthetic appeal as far as I'm concerned.

Now; the ability I really love is Use Any Item. Haer'Dalis whips more buttocks than ever with the introduction of the helm of the rock to boost his already good resistances, Monticello's cloak to make him even better at duel wielding the tasty swords that litter TOB and Viconia's otherwise useless Symbol of Talos (she changed alignment) to bump his strength up another notch.

Thats about it. So far not much has stood in my way as far as Throne of Bhaal is concerned; I may have to bump up the difficulty level next time as some of these high level abilities are a bit silly in their excessive power. Mind you, I havent met Demogorgon or Draconis (sp?) yet...

 

Use any item. I think I'm going to try and give Haery a certain Holy Avenger sword...
(and yes, I know that it's not the best weapon for him)

Other than that, Greater Elemental Summoming is my favourite.

 

Improved bardsong and use any item ability

 

use any item! jan with holy avenger... hehe if not that.. then storm of vengence for the little purple clouds!

 

Fighters get useful but no astounding abilities (greater whirlwind and hardiness are pretty useful)
Paladins can get Summon Deva (as an ability, the summoning is almost instantaneous)
Ranger are like fighters (they get track, whoopee(twirling finger in air with with a sarcastic snort) but I think they should get something like the Paladins ability to summon Devas).
Monks don't need anything but their get the fighter pool.

Clerics get Summon Deva

Druids get summon greater elemental

Mages get summon Planetar

Thieves get Use Any Item (by far the best ability) (assassinate is useful too)

Bards get Use Any Item

Use any item makes bards sooo much better in TOB that they were in SOA.

 

"Energy Blades" is my No.1 and all time favorite.

My solo Ranger/Cleric can whoop any non-mage ass in no time without any high-level abilities. He gets into trouble with the Uber-protected Mages, Demogorgons, Sendais and stuff like that.

a) Energy blades have 9 attacks per round, it means that it will remove the Stoneskin of a lvl 18 mage in one round. You can say that it is easier to use Breach, but the mage is also protected by Spell Trap, Mantle and God Knows what else. So you have do dispel the protections to be able to dispel the protections to dis... erm, I get carried away.

b) Together with taking off Stoneskins (1d10 physical damage per blade) it has 1d10 Lightning damage (which gets through the stoneskin). If a person is protected by Spell Trap (or else) it will consume 7 spell levels (in case of a R/C it is a 7th level spell) of the abovementioned Spell Trap per hit (63 spell levels per round).

c) Two sets of Energy Blades killed the Demogorgon for me.

For the thief you need only one ability - UAI. In fact I even tried to create an unbelievably strong char: Swashbuckler -> UAI -> Dual Class -> Mage.

In my other ToB games my chars sometimes get their first High-level ability earlier, than 3,000,000 exp. I still have no idea how the system of distributing high-level abilities work. So I figured I might be lucky and get the UAI at lvl 22 (instead of 24 which is 3,080,000). In that case I would be able to dual after 2,640,000 exp (thief lvl 22) and have 5,360,000 left (24 lvl mage possible).
If you don't get the UAI at lvl 22, it is no use to dual after 23 (2,860,000) or 24, since you will never regain your first class.
Well, I was not lucky and didn't get it, and the idea of creating an awesome char (120+ in almost all thief skills), with AC and to-hit and to-dam bonuses (Swashbuckler), with all magic (including lvl 9 and 10) and having the UAI (helmets, shields and every weapon) didn't work out.

What I did was dual him to a fighter - I will not spoil for his stats yet.

Which brings us to fighter abilities. Greater Whirlwind is the best. Now I've read somewhere on the boards about Sarevok with a Ravager +6. I have a better idea - Sarevok Dual-Wielding Upg. Axe of Unyielding and BlackRazor, with Greater Whirlwind.
Which gives us Deathbringer+Stun+LevelDrain+Decapitate at 10 attacks per round. :stoned:

 

I liked Greater Whirlwind in combination with Hardiness. Kick ass.
Summon Planetar, Deva, and the Elemental Princes were extremely useful.