Under-rated and over-rated mage spells

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Does anybody ever use the wish spells. I've found both to be entertaining and useful at times. Especially the restore spells(with high wisdom of course).

 

Wish is truly powerful, if you have 18+ WIS. Otherwise, it is rubbish. It can still be rubbish even with 20+ wis, but chances are low. Just let your PI cast it for you! (from the scroll, ofcourse, if we are still talking about SoA XP cap. )

 

16 wis is already perfect for the spell and you can always have another party member with high wis (like Aerie) do the talking.

 

^Ofcourse, once you get the taste of cheese (by using wish scrolls via PIs) you can let another party member with decent WIS to speak to the genie. Err, isn't this fixed by a patch? Or was it a fix? Baldurdash?

 

I like Ray of Enfeeblement, especially in combination with slow.

I enfeebled the Shadow Dragon once. Imagine a dragon with 5 strength! It should have collapsed under its own weight.

At least the creature wasnt mysteriously immune to the effects, which often is the case in IWD2.

 

Teleport Field is a very underrated spell. Casting it makes it almost impossible for any creature to get more then 1 or 2 hits against the caster. It constantly teleports people around the caster, seemingly reguardless of how good the enemies saves are.

You can just cast it and start firing away without any fear of getting hit.

Another spell that I haven't heard a lot about is Nature's Beauty. The range is short, but it's permanent blindness with no saving throw.

 

Finger of Death is for single but strong foes (like dragons). Wtih one or two lower resistance, they fall easily.
Cromatic Orb works just fine for me, so I have one memorized all the time to stun a hard fighter when I have to fight another party. Doesn't get them every time, but naturalizing the hostile party's tank surely make it worth.

 

Chromatic Orb = Highly overrated.

If you want to handicap your opponent, why not just cast 'Blindness?' It doesn't have the ridiculous +6 to save.

 

The Orb is indeed useless if used without Greater Malinson + Doom. This way, the saving throw bonus is negated.

All of the Cloud-type spells are underrated. With the proper Protective spells and Invisibility(SoTM), a single mage can wipe out entire groups of enemies using, say, one incendiary cloud. Every one here states how powerful is the PW: Blind, but I more often use the Incendiary Cloud, actually.

Shapechange is a greatly underrated spell. Indeed, in the new form the spellcasting is blocked, yet the special abilities are not. Meaning that in the new form, Spell Sequencers still can be activated. The Iron Golem form is immune to all magic, the Greater Wolfwere has an amazing regeneration rate, and the Minflayer kills each tough enemy in several blows.

Another great and underrated spell is Delayed Blast Fireball. These can be used to set enormous damage traps which can elliminate most of the enemies in a tough fight.

All of the protective long-lasting spells(Prot from Fire, Cold, Acid, Electricity and especially Magic Damage) are highly underrated and mostly not used. Which is a big mistake, since these save lives more often than not and allow the usage(even in a party) of Area effect spells such as Skull Trap, Sunfire, Incendiary cloud and so on.

The PW: Blind is actually overrated, because this spell is party-unfriendly, meaning more often than not that you will blind someone from your own party with it.

 

saros:

But why not simply use an equally debilitating 1st level spell, which does not have the bonus to save?

I mean, sure, Chromatic Orb *can* be debilitating. But so can 'Blindness', and it doesn't give a bonus saving throw! Hell, even 'Charm Person' gives a better odds of success.

I agree 100%. Incendiary Cloud is fantastic, although I usually don't pick it due to Horrid Wilting doing the same thing. I often pick Ice Storm for my Solo Sorc.

Element protection spells are only useful for particular strategies. For example, if you intend to use fireballs (or want to buff fire elemental summons so that fire damage heals! ), Prot from Fire is good.
If you intend to spam Ice Storm, Prot. from Cold is good.
Lightning Bolt = Protection from lightning.
Cloudkill = Prot from Acid

Prismatic Spray has always kicked ass for me. I've wiped out dragons, liches, and hordes of evil giants with a Greater Malison + Prismatic Spray.

 

Well, first of all, Cloudkill deals Poison damage. Unless you have patched and fixed the game and use items like Ring of Gaxx, Prot from Poison green scroll or Periapt of Proof vs Poison(or Imoen, she has innate poison immunity) Cloudkill will deal damage to you.

Death fog, being 6th lvl spell(i.e. harms liches), with stable 8 damage per round, acid damage, will be best used with Prot from Acid.

The elemental protection spells are very useful in any situation. This doesn't mean that I would waste even a single Sorcerer slot on some of the elemental protective spells. Yet, with PI and scrolls gathered throughout the game, my Sorcerer solo is constantly buffed with such spells, since they:

- are great for triggering traps. Most of the traps deal damage, and Mirror Image is somewhat unreliable(especially for a solo-insane-noreload)

- help to use without problem the most useful spells like Skull Trap(sorry but fireball is crap), Incendiary Cloud and Death fog. Ice storm is a nice spell...only one problem. If you kill an enemy via Ice damage, some(if not all) valuable items are lost. Prismatic spray had one option of "Disintegrate" - so again my greed prevents me from using it. And besides, once I get the Mordenkainen's sword and Projected Image, I have no free slots on lvl 7 anymore.

- help with enemy elemental damage weapons and spells, which are quite abundant and sometimes surprising. For instance, every high-level mage or lich simply loves to use Abi-Dalzim's Horrid Wilting. On Insane - one of these means death. And since I prefer the long-lasting prot from Magic Energy buff instead of SI: Necromancy, I am always safe from enemy ADHWs. Or , for instance, the Kuo-Toan priests use Unholy Blight, which deals quite a lot of Magic damage on everyone. Again, PfME helps.

 

The valuables being lost thing will only occur as a result of massively damaging the enemy and getting below something like -10 hp. One effective way of doing this is 3 cone of colds in a contingency. Since Ice storm deals (relatively) small amounts of damage over time, your enemy will likely die before they are able to get down to whatever hp level invokes the chunking thing. I've never experienced item loss with ice storm. Also of note is that all items will be destroyed or none at all.*

[edit]*I just realised that quest items may be immune. Can someone confirm?

 

Yes, quest items are immune. No matter what you do, Disintegrate, Freeze, shatter, they will be safe.

 

So Now I have a doubt,

Powerword kill or Finger of death which is better?

 

Nahal's Reckless Dweomer!!

No kidding guys, that one is a game-changer in almost every brawl. No matter the outcome!