19 réponses à ce sujet

[carnivorous]

I think I'm not using Jaheira properly. I've been told that she's supposed to be very good, but I  haven't really seen that yet. I  just gave her some random club and a shield, and the most useful thing she's been able to do so far is cast insect plague and heal party members (but I  can do that with potions anyways). Is she supposed to be a better tank later in the game, a better caster, or what? How is end game Jaheira used?

[Humanoid_Taifun]

You could arm her with a spear (the Impaler comes to mind) and have her go GWW on your enemies' behinds, or have her dualwield (with Belm +2 in the left hand!).



Shields are generally not very useful in BG2, and the only shields actually worth carrying around (in your inventory, not on your warriors) are the Shield of Reflection and the Shield of Harmony (if you don't have a cleric). If you are worried about her health, have her cast Ironskins (and maybe also Hardiness and Armor of Faith).

[Sparky The Barbarian]

Her summoning spells are her greatest asset. I never use her as a tank. If you're going to, give her the Shield Of Harmony, gauntlets or a girdle to enhance strength, and Belm - a Scimitar that grants a bonus attack per round.

[saros_shadow_follower]

In short, this is how it works:



Focus on giving Jaheira two-weapon style proficiencies ASAP. And a second star in Scimitars too. If you have TOB installed, make sure you clear Watcher's keep to at least the end of level 3. There you will find the Spectral Brand scimitar, which is gonna be Jaheira's main weapon for almost the entire game (use Belm off-hand as others already stated). And here is your offensive power. Use the mage spell Strength twice on her before start of battle to give her some decent strength. Your fifth-level slots should be occupied with Ironskin spells and occasionally - Chaotic Commands and True Sight. Your SIXTH level slots should be occupied with Wondrous Recall, and Harm. Wondrous recall will provide you with this: 'Chaotic Commands for the entire party and oh, I still have 2 Ironskin spells left'. Harm is best suited for Jaheira, since she will miss on far less ocasions than Anomen, Aerie or Viconia. In addition, there is the mid-game thing of using a combination of Critical Strike + Harm.



Which reminds me, that GWW is usually wasted on Jaheira. The HLAs she has to pick are some of the druidic ones(some of those are useless), Hardiness(only a couple of those) and Critical Strike(as many as possible).



In short, she's an excellent tank, able to wear heavy armor, which in combination with Ironskins is awesome, and can switch to Hardiness + Armor of Faith in case she's out of Ironskins, can buff party with important buffs like Chaotic Commands, can instakill powerful enemies via Critical Strike + Harm. I'd say, if you wanna have a summoner, pick Cernd instead. Jaheira is used as front-line fighter-tank.



Jaheira becomes really powerful at 6 million overall xp, when she reaches an important druid level, and she suddenly receives a vast amount of spell slots. Up to that moment, I advise you buying and using the Staff of Arundel for the additional spells only - not in combat!

[carnivorous]

Thanks for the suggestions so far! By the way, is it possible for Jaheira to hit 6 million xp if there are 6 people in my party? Please assume that Jaheira doesn't leave my party from the moment she joins it in Irenicus's dungeon (except during her quests of course). If it is, at which point in the game (roughly) would she hit 6 million xp? I do almost all quests (about 90%).

[Humanoid_Taifun]

Sparky The Barbarian wrote...
Her summoning spells are her greatest asset. I never use her as a tank. If you're going to, give her the Shield Of Harmony, gauntlets or a girdle to enhance strength, and Belm - a Scimitar that grants a bonus attack per round.

No shields for offensive characters, please. They vastly reduce their fighting potential. Also, the shield of Harmony only makes sense if you don't have access to Chaotic Commands. Since Jaheira is in the group, I'd say CC is not an issue.

saros_shadow_follower wrote...
Focus
on giving Jaheira two-weapon style proficiencies ASAP. And a second
star in Scimitars too. If you have TOB installed, make sure you clear
Watcher's keep to at least the end of level 3. There you will find the
Spectral Brand scimitar, which is gonna be Jaheira's main weapon for
almost the entire game (use Belm off-hand as others already stated). And
here is your offensive power.

I'm not disagreeing with you, however on a multiclass fighter it will take some time until all these proficiency points are gathered, so it usually is a good idea to have a plan for the time until then.
Clubs are a good idea if you want to dualwield, and fortunately at the same place where you can get Belm +2, there are some nice ones. (best ones in SoA)

Use the mage spell Strength twice on her
before start of battle to give her some decent strength.

Or equip her with a belt of giant strength for even better strength.
Dualwielding with Belm she will have quite nice APR, so the belt will not be wasted.

Which reminds me, that GWW is usually
wasted on Jaheira.

If you are dualwielding. If a spear is where your interests lie, then GWW is pretty much a requirement.
The Impaler is not a weak weapon. With an average damage of 16,5 (not counting strength or proficiency bonuses) it's one of SoAs best.
Still, since it requires both hands (and therefore makes use of Belm impossible), I prefer dualwielding too.

[Humanoid_Taifun]

carnivorous wrote...

Thanks for the suggestions so far! By the way, is it possible for Jaheira to hit 6 million xp if there are 6 people in my party? Please assume that Jaheira doesn't leave my party from the moment she joins it in Irenicus's dungeon (except during her quests of course). If it is, at which point in the game (roughly) would she hit 6 million xp? I do almost all quests (about 90%).

Very late. Generally, with a party of 6, I get ~7M XP per character.

[carnivorous]

Great. It looks like I might have to play with a party of 5 to get all the benefits of Jaheira. But then I'd lose character interactions. If I had to choose between fighting power and character interactions, I'd pick the character interactions. I guess I'll give up the spell slots. Honestly I wouldn't pick Jaheira if it was purely for the power, since she's a multiclass. In fact, if I made all 6 characters in my party, I would make them a lot differently than the way my party in the game is made right now. But, since I accepted less power for more interactions willingly, I also accept the same for Jaheira.



This is why all your suggestions for Jaheira have been very helpful. I feel confident at least that Jaheira can be a playable character rather than a huge liability! The consensus here seems to be to not use a shield on Jaheira, so no problems there. I guess I only have to decide between dual wielding and single wielding a two handed weapon now.

[saros_shadow_follower]

It's quite possible for Jaheira to reach 6 million xp at the end of chapter 6. However, it requires a very specific powergaming style of play, and also completing the whole WK. Also, it's possible if a character has completed BG1 + TOTSC and is imported into BG2. Such a character will have a starting xp of 1 million or maybe more, and will join NPCs at very high starting experience.

Modifié par saros_shadow_follower, 20 novembre 2010 - 10:57 .

[Humanoid_Taifun]

Oftentimes, multiclasses are more powerful than singleclass characters.
Good examples:
Fighter/Thief is effectively a normal fighter that can use any item and backstab for enormous damage.
Fighter/Mage can be played as an invulnerable fighter. Or, if you prefer, as a mage with more HP and the option to fall back on physical attacks (though in that case a dualclass would probably be better).
Cleric/Mage is better than any cleric because they can cast the clerical spells so much quicker.
Ranger/Cleric is a powerhouse and able to combine clerical buffs with Ironskins and warrior APR and HLA.
Fighter/Druid doesn't have access to clerical buffs (and they don't advance in their druidic abilities for most of the game), but other than that, they are still more powerful than any singleclass fighter.

Still, if you are unsatisfied with the classes of NPCs, just use the level1NPC mod.

[oyzar]

It should be said that you in no way need to powergame or optimize perfectly to complete the game, I used jaheira with gnasher(the +2 club that leaves splinters) and a shield for the first time i completed soa. Play with whatever combination you find fun.

[Morbidest]

I agree that shields are a general waste in BG2/ToB, although it's good cheezy fun to buy the shield of Balduran and tote it around just so you can kill up a dozen beholders at a time without working up a sweat. But for Jaheira, it's not a bad idea to give her more proficiency points in 2 handed weapons so that she can early on maximally use the +4 quarterstaff of rhynn (excellent for dealing with Kangaxx and other liches), then the +4 staff of nature (very useful in Hades), and then the +6 staff of the Ram in ToB (for the graphics, if nothing else). I agree that she's better as a 2nd line fighter in really tough battles in the sense that first have her cast things like insect plague, but once that's done let her start swinging away like crazy.
In my experience, only playing the first 2 floors of watcher's keep in SoA, Jaheira in a full party of 6 doesn't reach level 15 and get ALL those spells until about halfway into ToB. But then she's becomes Wonder Woman.  

[Chebby]

If you have certain tweaks installed f/d is an excellent m/c despite the lack of important priest spells that r/c would get. As for Johoora herself, in the vanilla game her HP isn't too desirable and since she uses the rule of only having a maximum of two * in her proficiencies, I'd say she isn't exactly a great fighter, unless you edit her with shadowkeeper or something similar.

I never really took her along, but Iron Skins is what, to me, makes the F/D class work, so theoretically if you threw some strength boosting item at her she'd smash face. One thing about her is that she kind of breaks the rules by having a raise dead spell. And some other spells, I don't recall...

Anyway one thing you'll do well to remember is that a LOT later on in the game ie the entirety of TOB, high AC characters will probably get hit all the time just as low/reasonable AC characters, so using her as a tank may be a bad idea by then, I guess.

[Humanoid_Taifun]

Chebby wrote...

If you have certain tweaks installed f/d is an excellent m/c

What is an m/c in this context? It's not a mage/cleric, is it?

since she uses the rule of only having a maximum of two * in her proficiencies, I'd say she isn't exactly a great fighter,

In the vanilla game there aren't that many advantages to 5 points when compared to 2 points. No reason why she shouldn't be able to do some major damage as is.

Anyway one thing you'll do well to remember is that a LOT later on in the game ie the entirety of TOB, high AC characters will probably get hit all the time just as low/reasonable AC characters, so using her as a tank may be a bad idea by then, I guess.

Actually, this makes her a better tank than Minsc, Keldorn, Korgan, Mazzy, Valygar, Sarevok or any other warrior. Keldorn, Korgan, Mazzy and Sarevok will take 60% damage.
Minsc, Valygar and Jaheira can easily reduce this by over 40% (to 35% damage taken) Minsc and Valygar would then equip the Defender of Easthaven (if you have it) - and only take about 15% damage. Jaheira casts Ironskin and takes none.
Of course, Haer'Dalis could do the same and not be afraid of a stray Breach. But then, Haer'Dalis is the best tank in the game (if you know how to use him), so it's kind of unfair to use him as the standard.

[Gate70]

m/c - multiclass?

[polytope]

I pretty much agree with Chebby, unless you tweak Jaheira's profficiencies she isn't a great fighter (quaterstaff and club AND sword and shield?) though passable, and she can damage sponge quite well with ironskins.

If you just want a summoner, I'd say a cleric is better than a druid for most of the game, (except totemic druids) particularly a muliclass. Aerial servants are good substitutes for fire elementals, and skeleton warriors are too useful against mages/beholders.

Modifié par polytope, 21 novembre 2010 - 05:53 .

[Chebby]

Yes, I meant multiclass. I was too lazy to type all that out. I forgot to mention the whole true grandmastery/multiclass grandmastery business when referring to her 'blips,' in the vanilla game the proficiencies don't mean too much past **. My previous statement still stands: at some point your armour class will be kind of obsolete, although someone else will need to confirm whether this is completely true, as I've never really gone through the game planning purely for AC.

[Humanoid_Taifun]

@Chebby It's quite easy to check for yourself with Shadowkeeper. Open a villain file, check his THAC0, add THAC0 modifiers (for strength) and take that against your AC.

Depending on where you are right now, Ctrl Q might do the job much faster of course.

[HoonDing]

I usually give her that +4 staff from Watcher's Keep that can be upgraded.

[Shadow_Leech07]

carnivorous wrote...

I think I'm not using Jaheira properly. I've been told that she's supposed to be very good, but I  haven't really seen that yet. I  just gave her some random club and a shield, and the most useful thing she's been able to do so far is cast insect plague and heal party members (but I  can do that with potions anyways). Is she supposed to be a better tank later in the game, a better caster, or what? How is end game Jaheira used?

In a party, to keep things short and simple, just concentrate on ironskins and insect plague with Jaheira. I wouldn't say she is very good, but she is solid and in the end that's what matters. Don't use a shield, just use belm with Jaheira. I'd avoiding picking the elemental form HLA unless there is no other choice. I've not really gone through very much with a F/D so you may never  even be in such a situation.