Hi,

It's the second time I get into IA. The first time was hardcore (in v6) and I could not even go to spellhold.
I succeeded spellhold and the underdark and up to the chromatic demon in WK tower. I've not dig into the improved quest for the stronghold yet.

So, to the discussion. My question is on how to use pure spellcaster effectively.
I find difficult to make an impact with both my necro and auramaster.

Here is my party comp :

PC : Necro - Loyal Good (lvl 20)
Cernd : Auramaster lvl 21
Sibel : Thief (SB 9) / Cleric lvl 24
Minsk : Barbarian lvl 23 (whielding The Truth / Water Edge +4)
Mazzy : Champion of Avoreen lvl 23 (whielding the Cutthroat +4 + her base shield)
Jeheira : Avenger lvl 20 (whielding the staff of arundel +3)

For this run, I made it easier with :

- Removing the summoning limits
- Removing the limitation on +X protection items, so they can stack.
- APR from proficiencies are not limited to fighters (so +1/2 APR for Sibel and +1 APR for Jaheira).

For the next run, with more knowledge on the game, I'll keep the game base limitations.

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For now, if I had to rank my characters (from best to worst)

Sibel - S+ tier, all the way. Best tank*, best summoner**, best damage dealer***, best healer with greater restoration, best utillity with her cleric spells and high spell / lvl number.

* I use a shield and got -21 AC unbuffed. The iron skins procs are not controllable but she can tank one golem without problems and 2 when fully buffed. Her regen is good and she get 2 lvl 7 regen spell, but when the skins run out, she need to let Mazzy tank. She can even tank the 3xADHW that mages throw at her with the Magic Resistance spell and her low Spell Save.
** With Skeleton Warriors and Aerial Servants (whereas they are base game summon, so with sommoning limits, it should be another story)
*** Mazzy and Minsc are just starting to get better even with twice APR and it is just because there is lot of fight with dispell and Sibel have to stop to rebuff. Sibel fully buffed does 50+ damage/hit with 5 APR under improved haste.

Mazzy - S tier, great damage dealer (4 APR unbuffed with a shield), decent off-tank (-16 AC unbuffed + regen) when she get hardiness, resist most disabling effects for 15 rounds (basically almost the whole fight), decent utility whith her lay on hand for a fighter.

Minsc - A tier, great damage dealer, decent resilience (but cannot off tank well, his rage is 5 rounds and I often forget to refresh it + it has a mediocre AC and basically get hit every time). Most raised character He get targeted quite often.

Jeheira - S tier pre-spellhold, A tier post-spellhold just because there is a lot of dispell effects, but I don't play her well because I should get Mazzy to eat the dispell effects (I just don't know when it will happen).
Decent damage dealer, great utility, ok healer when it is necessary, great summoner, mediocre off-tank without a -1 to spell casting for her iron skin (+ she lacks the HP and AC), great utility. Second most raised character.

Cernd - B tier. What he does, Sibel just do it miles better. Mediocre off-tank, Mediocre summoner, ok healer (no greater restoration), almost non-existant damage dealer, good utility.

Necro - "Required for improved haste and dispelling mage protections" tier. Meatshield summoner in mid-fight. Returning Dart +3 with 9 THACO most of the fights.

So, you will ask, why are you not using your damage dealing spells ?

Basically, here is my reasoning :

In almost every fights, if an enemy is vulnerable to magic damage (fire, cold, you name it) without being magic resistant, it get basically detroyed with melee.
So, even if I use my spell this way, it barely contribute to the damage dealing.
And IA enemies are immune to most disabling effects.

When I read the forum, people put Necro PC and Auramaster in S tier. What am I doing wrong ?

I have one fight where my Necro shined, it is in the Windmaster fight (? I am not sure of the name, the air elemental in Firrgrag Dungeon) when she oblitared it whith 10 acid arrows under alacrity. Melee fighting was unsucessful in that fight.

There is lot of golem fights, so my pure caster seems quite useless in those fights, apart from the meatshield summoning. I've tried Fragmentation, but it is quite low damage.

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The fights I loved the most, up to now :

- The beastmaster. A low level fight that is really rewarding when you understand that you need to kite.
- The Twisted Rune. Harsh until I've micro-manage my positionning to dodge dispell effects. The most dangerous is the Beholder, that can dispell all my buffs, so I used my sommons to keep it occupied all the fight. I have no way to dispell it under invisibility + protection from divination. I finished it last. I had no way to dispell the lich, so I just eat all his spellbook, and countered it with elemental resistance refresh in mid fight + healing. The vampire needs to go down fast, I was chaining Breach until he died. He is too dangerous and target backlines. The mage whielding the staff of the magi did not do anything apart refreshing his protections that I chained Breached under alacrity (the necro was dispelling both vampire and mage). The swordman was devastating because I lacked firepower after the dispells, and I could not focus fire him because of a sudden golem apparition in my caster face.

The fight I hated the most, but I loved it at the end :

- The 5 Demons in the underdark. 5 kamikazes that dispell your protections and nuke you before dying. Hopefully they where not all loaded with 3xADHW, or I could not make it (just 2 of them if I remember, the other ones are incendiary cloud and 3xFireballs which are much easier resisted). I died so much on this fight.

The fight that suprised me the most :

- The cat with 9 lives (no spoil)

The ennemy that I hate the most : golem

I'll be Vagrant with a pure hatred for golems in the next run.

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Note : there is a problem with mages and summons off-screen. They don't use their spells to kill summons, so most of them are quite helpless when surrounded by summons and my characters are off-screens. Maybe it is because, Skeletton warriors are 90% MR so they find not worth to send a spell ? In that case, the mage should chase the character and not auto-attack the summons.

Same thing for the Beholders that auto-attack summons when my characters are off-screens instead of using his rays (I think it bypass MR, so it should work).

Maybe it would be a good development, to try and publish an auramaster strategy guide ( a little bit more advanced than the one linked ) as well as a Necro strategy guide.

SPOILER!


A general guide on how to use spellcaster effectively (my opinion, ofc.) would be amidst the following lines:

1. Stack up bonuses to the spellcaster who has the most devastating effect in the fight. This depends quite a lot on the fight / roles. And use alacricity to empty out your spellbook as fast as possible. There's an enormous difference in effectiveness between -3 and -5. In most cases -3 means you are a little bit effective while -5 means your like a demi-god power-wise.

2. Usually all enemies are vulnerable to something. Once you understand the vulnerabilities, then just make sure you have the correct spells memorized.

* vs. sahuagin use emotions + insect plagues (Cernd).
* vs. golems the best possible tactic *used to be* to just turn them into chickens. These days I'd say stack up rays of fragmentation, vampiric touches, llarloch's minor drains and hands of undoing. And just move the mage to the frontline, where it can also tank. That way it'll be able to contribute. Once your out of the afore mentioned, there's ofc. summons.
* vs. vampires stack fire damage causing spells; flame arrows (both your casters can do that), maybe sunfires, dragon's breath's and you can also try a prismatic spray and adhw or two. And of course negative plane protections (it's ranged so it's superbly useful for Cernd under alacricity to send out).
* trolls are vulnerable to acid and fire damage (and cold probably works also). So you pretty much pack your memorized spells with spells that cause elemental damage and dish away under alacricity.
* nature's fist's (Cernd) make raksasha's explode. it's very effective under alacricity.

3. There's numerous fights where Necro can solo by itself or to an extent. A prime example being the "clash of powers" fight in WK or the first part of it, to be more specific.

4. If you are using summons (or are fighting an enemy that causes damage to you with each hit you make) Cernd's "mass cure" - spell becomes insanely effective at later stages. It makes your crew basicly indestructible in so many fights. And you can reload with wonderous recall (under alacricity ofc.). Having effective mass cure also means that you don't have to rely on regeneration's that much, or that you have a backup plan.

5. Don't forget to buff your summons, especially the bigger ones. Then they are of much, much more use. A swanmay queen under 2x regen and IH is quite a beast. Ditto for Noble Spider. And use elemental resistances when necessary.

Hope that is of some use!

Thank you for your reply. There is lot of things I don't do with my casters, like I did not realised that vampiric touch can actually affect golems.

I think, I got discouraged with testing ennemy resistance. I've not tested all.

I probably lack the good stuff for my casters as well, the necro has -1 and Cernd has -3 to their spellcasting speed. And I should change all my spellbook for each fight.

Np! Yup, casters are very effective, though there are exceptions, but casters have a big role in almost all of he fights!

I did as well in the beginning. One can punch through with just H2H capabilities (and buffing those capabilities), but proper use of arcane/divine magic make the play-throughs much more fluent.



Yup. Changing spells from one fight to another is sort of mandatory .

Is that -1 from the Amulet of Power? If yes, you might want to use it on Cernd every now and then -> that way Cernd has -4 and is starting to be extremely effective. It's also worthwhile to max AC of spellcasters in numerous fighs, then those skins last much longer. Anyway, you'll find the stuffs at some point to drop those casting times .

Oh and there's of course so much information on what works vs. what in the journals & on the forum! If you get stuck, have a look or just ask away!

I've upgraded the Amulet of power for the necro, so now only the necro can wear it. But I've just found the robe of Vecna and the Wish spell, so the necro got -3 now. I guess Wish is OP, even if I've never used it in the base game.
There is probably stuff to unlock with it.

Allright! You'll probably find the next capabilities quite soon!

Wish is great. The base-game table works with full casters, though IIRC the double timestop + ia was omitted. Otherwise the standard table works for a single class caster. There's a lot that you can do with Wish, if you tinker with it for a little bit.

Yes, it could be handy. Pure spellcasters are not obvious to play. And I am a long time BG player here. As IA change some spells, the resistances etc, without in-depth knowledge they are hard to use effectively.