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[touch_of_the_void]

There are many topics about the best sorcerer spell picks, but what about the worst? Which spells would your sorcerer not be seen dead with? What spell selection would leave your sorcerer reading scrolls, shooting wands, chucking darts or indeed anything else to avoid casting something from memory?

At the TOB xp cap a sorc knows 5 spells from each level bar 8 and 9 where he/she knows 4. There are some obvious candidates for worst spells (Infravision, anyone?) but perhaps coming up with the worst 4-5 at each spell level is not so obvious.


Clearly
this is a subjective question and the answer will depend on many things
(party or solo, playing style, mods used, and so on) so I'm just
interested in any thoughts whatsoever.

EDIT: no idea what's up with the line breaks in that last paragraph

Modifié par touch_of_the_void, 27 mai 2011 - 05:10 .

[AnonymousHero]

I don't have a full set, but I do have a few of candidates for L2.

Know Alignment
Detect Evil
Power Word, Sleep (affects only creatures up to 20HP, i.e. maybe the goblins in Chateau Irenicus but nothing else of any interest in BG2.)

EDIT:  Formatting.

EDIT#2: Luck may not be that bad. It has some weird effects (apparently) which may reduce damage taken drastically.

Modifié par AnonymousHero, 27 mai 2011 - 06:51 .

[Thailog]

Hmm, let's see. I'll just list what I consider the worst possible picks and won't mention the non-desirable but somewhat useful spells. Assuming original game, without mods.


Level 1:

Infravision - simply pointless
Find Familiar - why learn a spell that you're gonna cast only once? Just use a scroll
Identify - Glasses of Identification and scrolls can cover all your needs
Armor - bracers of armor make this redundant
Protection from Petrification - rarely needed, and when it is, green scrolls can do the same thing
Reflected Image - nerfed version of Mirror Image, fairly useless


Level 2:

Luck - Worst. Spell. Ever. (without mods)
Detect Evil - if your really want it, get a paladin or use a scroll
Know Alignment - same as above


Level 3:

Clairvoyance - useless if you've played through the game at least once


Level 4:

Remove Curse - rarely needed and you can always use a scroll or go to a temple


Level 5:

Oracle - not a bad spell but True Sight trumps it in every possible way


Level 6:

Stone to Flesh - pointless as green scrolls can do this too


Level 7:

Mantle - inferior to Protection from Magic Weapons 95% of the time


Level 8:

Improved Mantle - inferior to Protection from Magic Weapons 95% of the time


Level 9:

Spell Trap - Staff of the Magi has got this covered
Freedom - rarely needed, and when it is, just use a scroll

Modifié par Thailog, 27 mai 2011 - 06:47 .

[AnonymousHero]

Spell Trap actually can be useful. It will let you do infinite recharging of spells (with the right combination of spell picks) so that you won't ever run out of casts.

[touch_of_the_void]

The Luck spell does indeed reduce the damage the target takes from magic and elemental damage (by one point per die, down to a minimum of 1). I think I would probably stick it in the worst 5 level 2 spells regardless, mainly for the duration.

The reduction in average damage taken per die varies like this depending on the die of the spell:

d4 (e.g. Magic Missile) - 2.5 -> 1.75 (30% reduction)
d6 (e.g. Fireball) - 3.5 -> 2.67 (24% reduction)
d8 (e.g. ADHW) - 4.5 -> 3.63 (19.4% reduction)
d10 (e.g. Dragon's Breath) - 5.5 -> 4.6 (16.4% reduction)

So you can see it has a non-negligible effect. Chant has the same effect and stacks with Luck to reduce rolls by two per die (down to min of 1 again).

Modifié par touch_of_the_void, 27 mai 2011 - 07:29 .

[touch_of_the_void]

Here are own my picks for 1st level spells (assuming you are just playing BG2 / ToB):

- Infravision
- Sleep (because of the HD limit)
- Find Familiar (agree with Thailog)
- Identify (ditto)
- Armor (ditto)

Other contenders included Reflected Image, Protection from Petrification, Shocking Grasp, Grease and Color Spray.

If you are playing TuTu as well... since Sleep is arguably useful for the first part of the game, I think I'd have Protection from Petrification instead (PfP obviously has its uses in BG1 but it's very situational and it can be provided by potions, the green protection scrolls or other party members). Possibly switch Armor for Reflected Image as well, not sure.

[saros_shadow_follower]

Here are some of my own 'worst' picks as additional (I agree with all listed above):

lvl 2 - deafness, ray of enfeeblement - the first one is obvious - only 50% spellcasting failure, allows enemy to save, the second one doesn't prevent the enemy target from moving as in 'encumbered: cannot move' message on a character due to weight limitations.

lvl 3 - minor spell deflection - useless compared to the higher level spell protections, also limited since it cannot protect vs 8th and 9th level spells. Also Spell Thrust - never used that one,(talking about a non-SCS install of course, I hear there it's pretty useful).

Lvl 4 - Confusion - excuse me, but this spell is idiotic; Otilulike's Resilient Sphere - cannot remember using that ever; Polymorph Other - same as before, although I hear some people like to turn dragons to squirrels, it seems impractical and useless; Secret Word - same as with Spell Thrust

Lvl 5 - Chaos - read Confusion; Monster Summoning III - there is a far better spell here called Animate Dead, which makes MS III useless, and besides the summoned monsters are too weak;

Lvl 6 - Carrion Summons, Summon Air/Fire/Earth elemental - all useless.

Lvl 7 - I don't know what kind of genius thought of the Summon Djinni/Elfreeti spells in the first place, but these spells are extremely useless. I mean, they would be even useless if they were 4th level spells instead of 7th.

Lvl 9: Energy Drain

[kenng]

I would object to earth elemental being useless, as I have personally used it to great effect in my own solo game. It basically gives you a strong tank with a long duration which can see you through the entire dungeon. Support with haste or other strong damage dealers (like skellies) as appropriate. Very useful in wide open spaces like the druid grove.

Also worth noting that the kuo-tuos in the kuo-tuo dungeon (underdark) cannot hurt it at all. I was able to clear the entire place with a single earth elemental (hasted), which would otherwise be very annoying for a solo mage (as they move fast and can see through my invisibility).

Identify may not be much use, but so are pretty much of the other 1st lv spells barring magic missile and chromatic orb. So you may as well take it. When you sleep at the end of the day, might as well spend those unused 1st lv slots to id any items. I once even took find familiar as well simply because there were no other useful 1st lv spells worth taking!

[Grond0]

Not sure what the problem with confusion is - I've used this spell extensively. Surely your own characters have been confused a few times to show you how effective this spell is - quite a common means of causing your party to kill each other.

[touch_of_the_void]

I am personally undecided on 4th level spells at the moment. I think there starts to be dependence on playing style, solo vs party etc. as I wrote in the first post.

My main issues with the mage versions of the elemental summoning spells is the fact that they aren't suitable for casting in combat due to the mental duel the caster has to go through plus the really annoying possibility for the elemental to go hostile. Also elementals in BG2 lack a lot of the PnP elemental immunities (e.g. to mind-affecting magic). Because of that I find Invisible Stalkers more useful because you don't have the mental duel and they have numerous immunities, even though in fighting terms they're arguably weaker.

So yes I can see a case for sticking the three elemental summoning spells into the worst 5 sorcerer spells at levels 5 and 6.

[Thailog]

saros_shadow_follower wrote...
Otilulike's Resilient Sphere - cannot remember using that ever

One of the places where people commonly use this spell is during Sarevok's coronation ceremony (in BG1) where the party has to protect the dukes against doppelgangers.

It's often easier to keep the dukes out of harm's way by casting Otiluke's Sphere on them.

[Grond0]

Thailog wrote...

saros_shadow_follower wrote...
Otilulike's Resilient Sphere - cannot remember using that ever

One of the places where people commonly use this spell is during Sarevok's coronation ceremony (in BG1) where the party has to protect the dukes against doppelgangers.

It's often easier to keep the dukes out of harm's way by casting Otiluke's Sphere on them.

I think this depends on your set-up.  I've tried it only for it to be treated as an attack - and attacking the dukes is not a good way to get through that battle.

[Incantatar]

Grond0 wrote...

Thailog wrote...

saros_shadow_follower wrote...
Otilulike's Resilient Sphere - cannot remember using that ever

One of the places where people commonly use this spell is during Sarevok's coronation ceremony (in BG1) where the party has to protect the dukes against doppelgangers.

It's often easier to keep the dukes out of harm's way by casting Otiluke's Sphere on them.

I think this depends on your set-up.  I've tried it only for it to be treated as an attack - and attacking the dukes is not a good way to get through that battle.

Yeah, i ended a noreload by trying this strategy. In vanilla it works iirc but not in TUTU/BGT.

@Topic
Some higher level spells unmentioned

-Flesh to Stone
-Disintegrate
-control undead
-prismatic spray
-bigbys spells
-symbol death/fear


Oh and i disagree that Chaos is a bad spell in Vanilla (or SCS). It's very effective against Beholder types and groups of humanoids.

Modifié par Incantatar, 30 mai 2011 - 06:49 .

[amanasleep]

Flesh to Stone is pretty good at high levels, because it is an instakill spell that bypasses most boss immunities to instakill effects.

[polytope]

1st level

Color spray, even against enemies who it would work on, Sleep works better - a shame as this spell is quite powerful in PnP.

Infravision is useless simply because the designers didn't implement the penalty you should take when fighting in darkness without infravision - otherwise this spell would be almost essential, especially for the underdark.

Shocking Grasp, close range, needs an attack roll and only around lvl 13+ does it start doing more damage than Magic Missile.

3rd level

Hold Person, clerics have got this covered, even for a solo sorcerer Web is a better choice.

4th and 5th level

Confusion is outshined by Emotion:Hopelessness, as a confused enemy may still attack you. Chaos has the saving grace that it bypasses globes of invulnerability - and a confused mage cannot cast spells, still, I wouldn't pick Chaos.

6th level

True Sight - for a party sorcerer anyway, still a good choice for soloing.

7th level

Prismatic Spray is not bad, imo, it can do up to 120 damage if the dice are in your favor and bypasses most spell protection.

8th & 9th level

The 8th level Bigby hand (no save against the hold) is better than the 9th level version, which is definitely one of the worst choices.

Meteor Swarm and Gate are not as good as the epic level spells you will start getting at this level, in fact Incendiary Cloud outdamages Meteor Swarm, making the latter really pointless.

[Gurkburk]

I vote for Powerword Kill to be the worst.

[Gurkburk]

I vote for Powerword Kill to be the worst.

[kenng]

I have used power word kill to great success....once in the entire game (there is a mage in the sarudash prison with apparently less than 50hp). So yeah, it would be useful for a mage, but definitely not a sorc.

[polytope]

kenng wrote...

I have used power word kill to great success....once in the entire game (there is a mage in the sarudash prison with apparently less than 50hp). So yeah, it would be useful for a mage, but definitely not a sorc.

I still think PW:Kill is a better choice for a lvl 9 slot than Energy Drain or Bigby's Crushing Hand.

Other spells a sorcerer shouldn't pick are the entire line of Symbol spells - the only decent one is Symbol:Stun, and clerics can cast that.

[Gurkburk]

If a PW:Kill kills the mage, then a dragons breath will do, unless mirror images, but since you use true sight, and enemie wizards rarely use SI:D dragons breath kills.

[kenng]

I recently tried out a solo sorc and here are my observations.

There is really only 1 1st lv spell I ever cast. Magic missile. I took friends and identify but rarely ever used them (there are more than enough scrolls of friends early on). Also, scrolls of find familiar come a tad late. I feel you don't really lose anything by burning a 1st lv spell known to find familiar so you can get one at the start of the game, even if you will cast it only once in the whole game.

[Gurkburk]

I tend to use Magic Missile, Shield (2 ac and immune to Magic Missile, awesome!), Prot from Evil (2ac and stuff versus evil aligned). Chromatic orb isn't that bad, you just have to cast greater malison and be lucky. But I tink the best lvl 1 spell is Shield, especially when soloing. Running around with -15 ac as a sorc is quite nice.

[Yrkoon]

Worst/ Most useless spells per level?  Good god, there's so many.

Lets see

Level 1- Magic missile 
Level 2- Mirror image
Level 3- Fireball
Level 4- Stoneskin
Level 5- A tie between Spell Immunity and Breach (my advice? skip both of them.)
Level 6- A threeway tie.  Really, Level 6 is a crap level for mage spells.   The worst of the lot is probably Improved Haste, Contingency and Mislead.  But dishonorable mention also goes to  Protection from Magical Weapons and Chain Lightning.
Level 7- Project Image
Level 8- Abi-Dalzim's Horrid Wilting.    Note: Although, you could, if you wanted to, make Spell Trigger the most useless  level 8 spell, depending on what you put in it. Loading it up with, say, Spell Immunity, Protection from Magic Weapons, and Mislead would make it absolutely worthless.  But Spell trigger doesn't make my list simply because you do have the option to make it awesome and overpowered by loading it up with 3x infravision (for example)
Level 9-  Ugh.  I'd rather not even go into details here.  Pretty much every  9th level spell in this game is garbage.  Pick one and its basically the worst.  Improved Alacrity, Timestop, Dragon's Breath, Summon Planetar,  Chain Contingency, Black Blade of Disaster.  You're not  helping yourself when you waste time casting any of these spells.

Modifié par Yrkoon, 01 juillet 2011 - 02:12 .

[BelgarathMTH]

Nobody that knows what they're doing would call Magic Missile or Mirror Image "useless". Sorry, but I really would be surprised if many people challenged me on that. And your analysis of high-level spells? Are you being sarcastic?

Here's what I use for my Sorc's spell list. They have all proven extremely "useful" in certain situations, and arcane casters are all about "you need me when...." situations:

1st Level: Burning Hands (troll killer),  Magic Missile, Sleep (for BG1, cannot do without. must pay for it by keeping there in BG2), Protection from Petrification (cannot do without in BG1 unless you want to skip maps and Durlag's Tower), doesn't matter, doesn't matter. Identify: can replace a bard, you need it in BG1 unless you want to pay lots of gold. The only 1st level spell that matters in BG2 is Magic Missile, and Identify if you don't want to carry a bard. Armor helps in BG1. Basically, everything but Magic Missile only matters in BG1.

2nd Level: Mirror Image (come on, it's the best defensive low-level spell, and gets better with levels), Acid Arrow (troll killer, another damge spell to put in sequencers). Web (great crowd control through at least early BG2, as long as you learn to place it.) doesn't matter, doesn't matter, doesn't matter. Blur can be good for FMs. Knock if you don't want to build your thief's OL.

3rd Level: Haste (it makes you useful to your party where you're usually not), Slow (for enemies who drink Oils of Speed), Flame Arrow (will be useful in Spell Sequencers, Fireball is not as useful as you think. 10d6, hurts your party worse than the enemy in most of BG2), Hold Person (to back up your clerics), Melf's MInute Meteors (a very overlooked, very powerful spell.) Dispel Magic and Remove Magic without compensating party members. You probably need Pierce Magic if you play solo.  

4th Level: Stoneskin, Emotion:Hopeless (take these first, no matter what!), Improved Invisibility (competes with the first two in urgency), doesn't matter, doesn't matter. Fit to style. Minor Spell Sequencer would give you a double Magic Missile. You probably need Globes and Secret Word if you play solo.

5th Level: Breach, Lower Resistance, Spell Immunity, doesn't matter x3. You need the Br and the LR to do your job. SI is a no-brainer. The rest is according to style.

6th Level: Protection from Magic Energy, True Sight (unless you're in a party with Keldorn and plan to always be.) Contingency. I can't see much else that matters here, except according to style. Mislead could help you survive solo. PfMW could be useful in solo, but very likely to get dispelled wo/ SI:Ab.
 
7th Level: Limited Wish (if you have good wisdom or lots of potions of insight), Projected Image (will help you get other spells cast), Ruby Ray of Reversal, fit to style. (spells like Prismatic Spray and Sphere of Chaos only if solo - they will hurt your party and get your party wiped way more often than they will help)

8th Level: Simulacrum (will be hard to get anything else cast without it), Symbol:Stun; Mantle, Maze, fit the rest to style

9th Level: Wish (if you rolled your character with high Wisdom or have a lot of potions of insight): Freedom (if playing a party), Imprisonment, Absolute Immunity (esp. for solo) or  Spell Trigger or Chain Contingency. Hard to go wrong.
.

Modifié par BelgarathMTH, 03 juillet 2011 - 03:15 .

[amanasleep]

I believe Yrkoon is pulling your leg. Except that he messed up by mentioning Chain Lightning.

At the risk of buying into your thread-jack (this is a thread for worst Sorc picks, not best), I would note that Mantle spells are terrible in Vanilla compared to PfmW, and it makes no sense for you to suggest them but exclude PfMW because it would get dispelled. So would they, and you should definitely run SI: Abj if you fear dispels.

Neither Prismatic Spray nor Sphere of Chaos affect the party, and therefore are worth taking only in a party since a solo Sorc can't risk taking spells that won't affect many enemies by ToB.

Don't know what you're talking about with Pierce Magic at M3, but you omit Skull Trap which is the king of that level in vanilla. Likewise you take MMM but worry about troll-killing at M1 and M2.

At M8 you mention neither Wilting nor Trigger (although you have that at M9 so I guess it's there somehow). S:Stun, Mantle, Maze are all generally inferior to PW:Blind and Wilting (and Pro Energy when Solo, because you can't afford the extra slots for all of those protections).

You should never have your Sorc know Freedom even in a party (have another mage memorize, or just use scrolls).

To atone for my participation in the thread-jack, here's my list of worst spells that people commonly think are good:

Chain Lightning: Terrible damage.
Feeblemind: Pointless. Will never get through a mage's defense, and you have Hold Monster and Domination at the same level.
Lightning Bolt: Impossible to use correctly, unless you are getting mass MGoI from Limited Wish.
Vocalize: Carry scrolls. Never memorize this. Amulet of Power when Solo.
Horror and Stinking Cloud: Inferior to Web and have save bonuses.

PS I love Luck. It can save you 60 damage when somebody drops a Sequencer: 3x Skull Trap on you.