Under-rated and over-rated mage spells

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Redrake:

I know that Disintegrate often destroys items, whereas Flesh to Stone rarely does (which is another reason why I choose Flesh to Stone over disintegrate).

Frankly, as a solo Sorc, I never need the equipment of people I turn to stone. *shrug*

I also forgot to mention what I think is a sorely under-rated spell, which I have used on a previous Sorc of mine. Cone of Cold.

I sequenced three of them, and tricked the Knights of the Radiant Heart to bunch together in the Temple District. *BAM*. The Order of the Radiant Heart is suddenly non-existant in Amn. What a pity...

[ September 04, 2006, 12:32: Message edited by: The Mountain Hare ]

 

Disintegrate always destroys items, (except a few quest ones) and Flesh to Stone makes the iventory of the victim unaccesible till the victim is cured. There is a neat trick:Cure the afflicted creature, it will have 1 HP:Finish it quick, you will earn the XP again and the loot will be yours. Flesh to Stone is cheesy this way so I avoid it, disintegration is a lot more scary and cool IMHO.

@Decados

Thanks for the vote of confidence, I like using English.

 

Using Cone of Cold to annihilate enemies carries the irritating disadvantage of destroying their items. Not so much of a problem with lower level opponents who carry little of value, but accidently destroying powerful items is a pain.

 

You may get the same effect using a Chromatic Orb. I was unlucky once and destroyed all the items on Glaicas, except for the flail head. Quest items are not destroyed.

 

I had no idea that Cone of Cold destroyed items. I use the spell a lot, and never noticed this. Does it happen regardless of difficulty level?

 

I believe so. The destruction will only occur if they are killed by the spell- hurting 'em with it won't affect anything. You'll know the spell killed them if they freeze blue and then shatter.

 

If the creature dies of any massive damage (which drops his HP way past down -10 I guess) it is a chunky death:ressurection is impossible, portrait is gone.

If it was normal damage, body is chunkified, pieces of flesh fly everywhere. Fire/lightning toasts the body very blackly. Cold, on the other hand, totally freezes the victim AND its inventory, which creates a frozen statue, which is shattered a few seconds later, destroying all inventory (except quest items), the effect is pretty same in Disintegration and Petrification. (though Petrification is always reversible unless the statue is shattered) Draining way down to level 0 also perma kills the target, it 'shatters' and is forever gone.

Note that Easy difficulty settings disable perma-kills in your party.

So use your cone of cold spells or frost wands carefully on enemies, less you shatter some nifty equipment.

 

Power word silence/stun are a godsend.

No save allowed, casts on a 1.

Hello Lich...cast Power word silence...in go the tanks. bash bash bash...dead!

 

Chelsea:

It's just a pity that many mages have a Vocalize or two up their sleeve.

 

And just how will they cast Vocalize if they are silenced?

 

Potions perhaps?

 

IIRC, Vocalise can be cast when silenced.

 

There's a potion for that? Damn, I really need to pay more attention, and start using other potions that just healing ones.

Maybe you're right, I've never tried it. You get silenced so seldom that I never bother to memorise Vocalise. And if I do, I just put on Amulet of power

 

Vocalize can be cast while silenced, which is of course, the whole point of the spell. No words are actually uttered to cast vocalize.

 

There are no potions of vocalise in BG2. There are some in IWD2, though. I do not remember an occasion when my main spell casters were silenced frequently, so vocalise is prety useless spell IMHO.

 

Silverstar speaks the truth- you don't get silenced all that much in BGII. The spell's main use would have been in BG, when you couldn't actually get it.

 

Chromatic Orb is overrated as well as bugged.

Overrated because it comes with a +6 to save.
If you use this you must expect that the target makes the save. Is that acceptable?
Yes, if you:
- reload when results are not to your liking.
- would win the fight regardless of the result.

Greater malison is usually tossed out as the universal panacea to all save spell problems, but if you manage to get GM in then why not follow up with something that does not allow such a huge save bonus?

CO is a good level 1 spell, but when would you chose to use that instead of a higher level spell? When you're out of other spells perhaps? Then remember the +6 to save, if you're out of options and have to rely on a spell that has such a massive save you're really in trouble.

Apart from early levels there is IMO no reason to memorize CO.


Bugged in that it "disregards magic resistance in its Stun, Petrification and Slay abilities. The Stun cannot be dispelled. The Blind effect's Armor Class penalty is applied to the caster rather than the target."
quoted from here - http://members.chello.nl/~j.vanthull/BG2SR/ArcaneSpells.htm#Level1
Fix here: http://www.baldurdash.org/SoAfix/FixedBG2ChromaticOrb.zip
This fix can probably be found here on SP too, but I can't find it fast enough.

 

@Earl Grey: There are people who killed Firekraag with the combination of one Doom and one Chromatic Orb.

I don't think it's overrated.

 

I agree...Finger of Death is without a doubt the most over-rated spell in the game.

I consistently see a lot of people making sorcerers and keeping FoD as a high priority spell. Which is just garbage, in my opinion. If you need to reliably get FoD to work, you have to set it up with Greater Malison, Doom and other save reducing spells. Waste of time! Just blast them with Fireballs, Cones of Cold, Sunfires and what not...you kill a whole bunch of enemies and not just one.

Underrated spell? Spider Spawn, Slow, Glitterdust...you may or may not consider these underrated but not many people use them in my experience. Oh, and the lvl 5 Cleric spells Champion's Strength and Righteous Might.

Champion's Strength is a GREAT buff to use with your caster Clerics like Viconia...just cast this on your tank and watch their THAC0 soar! (I mean drop... )Non tank characters like Jan Jansen (while backstabbing), Cernd (while shapeshifted into Greater Wolfwere), Anomen (he's only a lvl 7 fighter and all his proficiencies are messed up...& he cant cast it on himself) etc...all can use it for sure.

Oh, and Righteous Might is the grandaddy of all buff spells. It boosts your strength based on caster lvl, all the way up to 25 for 1 round per level, gives you bonus hitpoints equal to caster level and finally...MAXIMUM damage per hit! Its like a really long Kai. IMO Righteous Might is the BEST melee buff there is in the game.

 

Hey hey, I love Finger of Death. It is the coolness of one shot kills. And the spell is still very useful, even in my heavily modded, difficulty-enhanced game. Most enemies fail their saving throw miserably and they are gone in an instant. I love it and will defend it forever! Use it on high lvl clerics&thieves&bards especially, since their save vs spell is bad. Mages and high lvl fighters will have easier time resisting it though, after a GM, they are still in fatal danger: save vs spells at -6 penalty is no small thing.

Same goes for WoB. It is weak alone, but after a Greater Malison, a good portion of enemies around will fail their saving throw vs death magic at -4 penalty:mages are extremely weak to this spell as they suck at save vs paralyse/poison/death, and it bypasses all of their spell/combat protections, which is very useful! Clerics easily resist it though, since they excel at save vs death category. (divine health?)