GameBanshee Forums

Okay, I want to know what you people think are the most indespensibe spells in this game. I am trying a Soc. for the first time and can't afford to buy stupid spells, so what do you absolutely need spell-wise (remember, wizard spells)?

Best spells by level:

Level 1: Magic Missile, Chromatic Orb, Grease, Sleep.
Level 2: Mirror Image, Horror, Aganzars Scorcher/Acid Arrow, Web
Level 3: Fireball, Flame Arrow, Icelance, Skulltrap
Level 4: Malison, Emotion Hope, Improved Invis., Stoneskin, Vitriolic Sphere
Level 5: Chaos, Lower Resistance, Animate Dead, Cone of Cold
Level 6: Chain Lightning, Mass Haste, Shades, Disintegrate
Level 7: Mord. Sword, delayed Blast fireball, Finger of Death
Level 8: Symbol: Hoplessness, Powerword: Blind, Horid Wilting
Level 9: Executioners Eyes, Wail of the Banshee, Mass Dominate.

You absolutely can't do without Symbol: Hoplessness, Mordenkainen's Sword, Malison and Wail of the Banshee.

Other spells' effects

I've been looking at some other spell and the Seventh level spell Seven Eyes seems preety cool. Also, for level three, the lance of disruption seems like it would do more damage that the ice lance. Thoughts?

Lance of Disruption does bludgening damage to anything in its path. This spell is a must have. Does massive damage to large partys.

Stinking Cloud-for some reason the Drow have a serious problem with this spell (Drow usually have low Fort. saves). Knocks them out cold really easy. You will run into drow quite a bit in this game. This spell also works well on Wizards and Sorcerors too.

Confusion-very useful when used after Malison and Redemption (Divine spell)

Cloudkill-I've killed entire parties of bad little monsters with this one. used with Stinking Cloud, Web, Spiked Growth, Spiked stones, malison and confusion. Just sit back and watch the fun.

J

My reason for choosing Icelance over Lance of Disruption is three-fold.

Firstly it has two effects, some cold damage and a Stuin effect. This is what you really want it for. A Stunned opponent is a sitting duck and easily killed. The Cold damage is really a bonus.

Secondly, it allows a fortitude save instead of Reflex. This means that rogues can't Evade it. On a sucessful Reflex save a creature with Evasion will take nothing from Lance of Disruption.

Finally, Lance of Disruption hurts your party too. Your Wizard/Sorc. should never be in the front lines, this means that any Lance you cast has to go through your own fighters who are in melee, hurting them too, just like Aganzaar's Scorcher. Icelance only its it's single target.

Seven Eyes is one I have toyed with as well. Looks ok and when cast by opponents it has served them well, you'd probably be better casting Improved Invisibility or Mirror Image instead for defense in general. Getting saved from one attack is good, but if you're getting hit at all, you're likely to need to survive more than 1 or two of the same type of attack.

You really want spells that drop opponents saves like Emotion: Despair and Malison. These will make any future spells much harder to resist. These become very handy late in the game, earlier on, hardly anyone saves anyway. Anyone with Doom, Malison, Emot. Despair and Recitation on them will almost always fail their save. If you do it correctly you can get all these off in one round then cast an area disabler like Emotion: Fear, Horror, Chaos or once you are in HoF mode, Wail of the Banshee!

I only skimmed through this thread, but I don't think anyone mentioned Melf's Minute Meteors. Possibly because no one but me likes it, but I find it very useful. It does bludgeoning and fire damage, so you're bound to hit with something, and you can hurl them very quickly, making them very useful against enemy spellcasters. Granted Magic Missile can fill the same capacity, but that spell maxes out at five missiles, whereas you get more meteors. I didn't check the cap, but I'm at 7 meteors right now.

Melf's Meteors

In BG2, Melf's Minute Meteors were perhaps one of the best weapons in the game because they ignored enemies spell resistance, but I don't see that in IWD2. On that note, however, I believe that there is a fourth or fifth level spell that produces improved Meteors, that do more damage or something to that effect.

No fourth level spell

Sorry for the misinformation. There is a spell called Morderikians Force Missles that are akin to the magic missiles from level 1. On that note, are these force missles any better than plain old magic missles?

I seem to recall a spell named: Greater Mallison , but i cant see it in IWD-2
and thats sad because it could turn the mage into a .... true GOD.
But i guess that if that spell would have been in this game, then the Mages
would have been to powerfull - but i still miss the spell.

in IWD2 it is called malisson...

Malision is the equivalent of Lesser Malison in BG2.

You can get the same net effect of Greater Malision (even better) by stacking spells like Malison, Doom, Emotion: Despair, Prayer and Recitation. Still, a Greater Malision giving -4 to all saves would be great at say 6th level or so in IWD2

that would be then unfair to the legion... if this game would have greater malisson..

I haven't seen Fireshiled mentioned, but I think that's very useful too, especially at the earlier stages of the game. I used it effectively at the Battle Square, ithelped a lot.

And Otiluke's Resilient Sphere is an excellent trick, too, I win many battles with that & Cloudkill combined

Do two Fireshield Stack? Can you have Red and Blue on at the same time? If so my Fighter/Wizard/Rogue is looking pretty nasty in the retribution department, two Fireshields and a Death Armour, while laying about with his Greatsword and Stoneskinned for fun! Can't wait to get these spells in place!

I'm not sure if two FSs of the same kind stack or not, but you can use red and blue together. This is what I do all the time when I get stuck in a middle of a nasty crowd

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...red, blue FS & death armor does stack !

...with a high level caster using them combined with MI & stoneskin in the middle of an enemy crowd is quite fun

btw. ORS-abuse (for a decoy) is a little cheesy


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It's not cheesy, I just pick the right spell at the right time I call it tactics

I remember seeing Iranicus casting both fireshields at the end of BG2. That looked awsome! He got all purple!

Have you never tried that?

Beside ORS, I find Acid Storm (Rain?) extremely useful. I gave my wizard extra points for acid damage, and a single Storm deals 60-80 dmg to each enemy Love that one