What do you gain from buffing?

Remove all ads!

After waiting impatiently for my cleric to finish her casting of Bless, and fuming at the fact that the effects of the buff last only slightly longer than the spell takes to cast, I started to wonder: What do I gain from all this dicking around? I don't seem to be killing anything quicker.

On the other hand, I noticed that haste turned all of my party members into lean, mean killing machines.

This motivated me to transfer my stats to Excel, and calculate the average damage my fighter/cleric would inflict over 5 rounds (Bless lasts for 6 rounds, but you're usually spending one round closing the gap with the enemy) with and without that +1 to attack rolls offered by bless.

The difference? Approximately 5 damage for the duration of the buff (5 rounds). Wow.

There are some other things to consider. For instance, it is a multitarget buff. So if all of your other party members are attacking, Bless gives you +30 average damage overall.

But given that you usually aren't attacking for all of the 5 rounds in which you are blessed, and that some of your party members (ie. mages) will have a lower damage output than a fighter/cleric, saying that you gain a +30 to damage is optimistic, at best.

Then I altered the values to account for haste, and within 5 rounds you would deal an extra 38 damage.

Given that Haste's duration also increases with level, even a multiclass mage could easily caste a Haste that lasts 14 rounds, which equates to about 106 extra damage for one character (note that Haste is a multitarget buff). Also remember that Haste allows you to move quicker, hence close the gap between monsters quicker and get more hits in while the buff lasts (unlike Bless).

This then raises the question: Is Haste a 'better' spell than Fireball?

Pro arguments:
- Haste has a greater total damage output

- Haste allows for more flexibility in damage output (haste a fighter who deals cold/electrical/fire damage)

- Haste will not hurt your party members.

- Saving throws and magic resistance are no longer relevant

Con arguments
- Haste has a lower damage rate

- Haste does not harm multiple enemies

- Your PCs become fatigued once Haste wears off.

Where am I going with all of this? Well, I think it's accepted knowledge that Bless is going to suck harder than Haste, given that Haste is a higher level buff. I guess I'm just trying to put buffing in perspective. Should I cast bless before every battle? Probably not. Should I fill my third level slots with Haste, or Fireball? I'm leaning towards the former, although Fireball is better (tactically) in some instances.

 

Well, to be honest, I never bother casting Bless. I'm the kind of guy who tries to get through as much battles as possible without casting spells. Even if half my team consists of casters they usually end up using bows or slings.

That said, the times when I do cast buffs, I go over the top and use about every spell available to me. But Bless? Don't think I ever used that past 2nd level, where the slight bonus might come in handy. Remove Fear and sanctuary are much better spells to have prepared (in addition to all those Cure Light Wounds).

I usually prepare only one of each buff, although I sometimes make an exception for Haste, which is arguably the best buff out there. If I have multiple casters, they all have at least 1 haste prepared, with the rest of the slots going to either Fireball or other buffs.

 

Upon re-reading the spell description for Haste, I discovered that it doesn't give you an extra attack per round. It *doubles* your attacks per round, which translates to double damage for the duration of the spell. Holy beejesus, no wonder my cleric/fighter tears through enemies when hasted!

 

Another reason why pure-class fighters are king in this game. Have a sturdy dwarf with grandmastery, Haste him and you won't know what happened. Rangers are also good for this as they already have an extra attack per round, so that's 2 over the fighter.

That said, due to the mass of enemies and difficult tactical situations in this game (compared to BG), I favor debilitating spells over damaging ones. A combination of Web, Slow and Turn Undead means your enemies are helpless against the relentless assault of your hasted fighters.

 

Yes, I'm starting to regret not having a pure fighter that can get grandmastery in a certain weapon. Grandmastery in Baldur's Gate II sucked, while the cleric buffs kicked ass. The reverse is true in Icewind Dale.

 

Actually, I prefer clerics in this game as well. A pureclass (or multi in a smaller party) cleric with a high enough Turn Undead can take on half of the game by herself. I remember my first playthrough I was using 2 clerics as well, they utterly destroyed the Vale between the two of them.

Even though BG and IWD have the same engine, they favour completely different styles and strategies. I don't think I've ever used Turn Undead in BG, but it rocks in IWD. Same for Agga's Scorcher, the large amount of enemies in IWD means that spell usually ends up filling almost all my lvl 2 slots.

 

Turn Undead doesn't seem to do much for me. It takes forever to kick in, is often not successful, and when successful the undead run away for a couple of seconds before returning to attack my party!

I've also noticed a big fly in the ointment for Haste. The fatigue that occurs after Haste wears off is very intense, resulting in a *-7* to hit. I've found a way around this, however. If you cast a *dispel magic* just wears off, you don't suffer the fatigue effect.

 

How efficient turn undead is depends several things. A multiclass cleric in a normal game who gets only half the cleric XP he's supposed to get won't be able to turn many undead later in the game.

A pure or dualclass cleric gets cleric XP faster, if you play "very easy" or "insane" difficulty with HoW installed you get double XP, so a pure cleric in a party 4 at insane or very easy difficulty has three times more cleric XP than he's supposed to have and wipe out nearly all HoW undead with ease on the other hand.