Anomen or Jaheira?

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I'm trying to decide who to swap out for Mazzy. Either Anomen or Jaheira.
My party consists of:
F/M/T
Anomen
Minsc
Valygar
Jan
Jaheira

I know Jan is an obvious choice but I just love the little guy

 

I don't think Jan is such an obvious choice at all.. aside from your F/M/T, he is the only arcane caster in your party at the moment. He's also the only NPC thief in the game whose skills continue to increase.
Personally, i would use replace Valygar - even though he's a pretty great character with a nice kit and good stat's, since i simply like mazzy more then him, and she can replace him as a frontline fighter just fine, but that's personal preference.

If i had to choose between Jaheira or Anomen, then Anomen is arguably the best NPC you can have along, but only if you manage to complete his personal quest through the good route so he becomes part of the order of radiant knights. this gives him a nice stat boost to his wisdom as well. His personality is kind of condescending, and something you might get tired of quickly, but overall the cleric spell list is just better then the druid one.
If i was roleplaying an evil character i'd probably finish his quest in the bad/chaotic way, which does not give him a stat boost, also making him prone to randomly attacking your party members so i'd probably ditch him for Jaheira (or more likely Viconia) eventually.
I'd pick Jaheira over Anomen if i was planning on going through her romance.
Other then that she doesn't have much going for her - she's not bad, but not great either.

 

Same. If had to pick someone to swap out for Mazzy, it would be Valygar or Minsc.

If I absolutely have to swap out Anomen or Jaheira for Mazzy, I'd let Jaheira stay. Jaheira is a better healer (Summon Woodland Beings), can raise dead NPCs (Harper's Call) and, most importantly, can cast Ironskins/Stoneskins. At the moment the only other character who can do that (and who likes staying at the frontlines for extended periods) is your FMT. That's a recipe for disaster considering your other two warriors are (ideally) not the tanky type.

Anomen can't possibly keep up with having to heal so many warrior types for early/mid-game, and late game you can just use the Rod of Resurrection for heals.
If you let Jaheira stay, don't forget to have someone else get blunt weapon proficiencies. Also, as DMC pointed, you'll want to avoid direct combat with the undead until you get the Amulet of Power.

 

Both. They're both annoying little c***s and largely unnecessary.

 

I can't remove Minsc or Valygar. Both favorites and I love Minsc's battle cries. Boo's too
And Valygar must stay not only because he's my favorite NPC but because he has a little banter with Mazzy
So there stands the dilemma of Jaheira or Anomen

"Anomen can't possibly keep up with having to heal so many warrior types for early/mid-game, and late game you can just use the Rod of Resurrection for heals."

Jaheria's "call woodland beings" looks cool. I've never used it before. I've always overlooked it. Considered it weak because the dryad is really squishy.

I'm going to put this game on hold and start a female character to see if I can get the romance with Anomen. Anomen looks better to me after taking into consideration all the suggestions and info you all have provided. Thanks Anomen can turn undead which is very nice and he get's some spells Jaheira doesn't like flame strike and slay living. But Jaheira gets a couple of her own too.

 

I normally go with 2 Warriors, 2 Priests and 2 Wizards. One of the Warriors is an Undead Hunter, immune to level drain. Both Priests are Clerics, One of the Wizards is a Sorceror and the other is a Mage/Thief.
Various kits for new classes exist, they transcend the usual class boundaries.
Original BG2 had the Geomantic Sorceror, a Sorceror who could cast some Druid spells. That Kit does function for the EE games but a dozen files currently need to be manually re-written.
My post "Level 1 NPCs mod for the Enhanced Edition" gives links to discussions of changing an NPC's class and kit in mid-game.
There are whole new collections of Kits that are currently being developed, Blood and Tome for Wizards.

 

Call Woodland Beings is the druid's signature spell at early-mid game, and quite possibly the most powerful spell in the game at the time you get it. The nymphs summoned can cast enchantments normally only available to level 9 casters or better (multiple times, too) but druids can cast it as early as level 7. The nymphs can also cast Mass Cure.
Combine nymphs with Entanglement and you can beat humanoid groups like Mencar Pebblecrusher and co. as early as the moment you escape from Irenicus' Dungeon.

 

Male or female? I tend to keep personnel based on interactions and the romance interactions are generally the best. If you are not in a romance then I think Jaheira's dialog is better than Anomen's. But both plotlines are good.

 

Insect Plague is also a good Druid spell...

 

Longer term Anomen is definitely the stronger healer, and as the game progresses those heals will become more critical. He'll be putting 100% of his XP into the cleric class, and getting spells like Heal and Greater Restoration much, much earlier than Jaheira (do druids even get Greater Restoration?). Greater Restoration is a game changer, and having several of those in your back pocket is great to have.

I'm with dropping one of the melee characters as well. My usual recipe is to make sure I always have a primary and back up healer, along with a primary and backup arcane caster.

Another option is to turn someone like Minsc into a dual class Ranger/Druid using Shadowkeeper.

 

I don't know what game you're playing, but in a game like BG2, where your power grows exponentially and the enemies have zero chance of keeping up, heals get less important with time, not more.

 

I guess Improved Anvil was one of my more recent play throughs of BG2, which results in the exact opposite situation you describe. But even with more tame difficulty enhancing mods and higher difficulty levels those extra heals can often be vitally important in the later game.

 

I've gone through SCS with zero healers. Anything more than that usually includes cheating enemies or fights changed into puzzles or glorified rock-paper-scissors encounters, which doesn't interest me in the least.