Who to take: Valygar or Cernd Options

[Mohina]

I started a IA game recently and i'm so far enjoying it. I've never tried IA before, but i have played vanilla BG2 extensively as well as SCS, Ascension and Tactics. I'm following Raven's recommended quest order. However, the time comes to make a tough decision. I'll be off for Spellhold soon and i'm certainly planning to pick up Imoen. Tbh: i can't imagine a game without Imoen, with her being such an integral part of the plot. Besides: i love sorcerers
My party consists of:

protagonist: sorcerer
custom made berserker
custom made multiclass fighter/thief
custom made ranger->cleric
Cernd
Valygar

Obviously, i need to drop someone from my party. The choice is between either Valygar or Cernd. In a vanilla game or Tactics i would prefer to keep Cernd, since he's quite a powerful spellcaster and spellcasters rule late game there. Besides, it never hurts to have an extra healer. However, the consensus on this forum seems to be melee is more useful than spellcasting in endgame IA. I'd appreciate any advice on this from veteran IA players.

Mohina

[LZJ]

I would suggest that you keep Valygar. Auramasters are great spellcasters in the correct hands, but you will probably find that warrior HLAs become increasingly important later on as certain enemies are very hard to hit and most offensive spells would prove useless against them.

Also, I am not too certain that you should take Imoen since your protagonist is already a sorcerer... Nalia may be a better choice with her upgraded ring and her wider spell selection... but 2 sorcerers can indeed be very powerful if you choose the right spells.

This post has been edited by LZJ: Jan 28 2009, 12:52 PM