Best level 8/9 abilities?

[pmchem]

What abilities do you all think are "worth it" to singleclass just to get that skills at L8/9?

 

I enjoyed some monk skills back in v1.0 but they have since been nerfed.  Is anything up there a game-winner now at veteran or PotD?

[baldurs_gate_2]

Monk: PL 9 - Whispers of the Wind

Wizard: PL 9 - Minoletta's

Barb: PL 8 - Heart of Fury, PL 9 - Retaliation

 

Recently i played a SC Monk and WotW is still the ****. Imagine if you play in a party and not solo, it's even better.

[Frog Man]

One important non-spell advantage - a single class character casts at a higher power level, so even lower level spells pack more of a lunch on a single class.

[Verde]

Do scrolls scale with PL? Bc for the reasonable amount of 15 Arcana you can nuke the **** out of everything, among other powerful spells.

 

For that reason, I'm wondering if Wizard multi is the way to go, but I'm not sure about the PL scaling.

Edited February 1, 2019 by Verde

[Marigoldran]

Ciphers can do everything wizards can do, but better as Cipher damage spells are Foe Only.  

Edited February 1, 2019 by Marigoldran

[Enoch]

Ciphers can do everything wizards can do, but better as Cipher damage spells are Foe Only.  

They can't open combat by chain-casting their 5 best spells. 

 

(Among many other things.)

[Marigoldran]

But most of those spells hit your allies too.  Also aggros like crazy.  

 

And Ciphers can cast their 5 top spells reliably within 7 seconds of fight start AND they can do that again shortly thereafter.  Granted, Bloodmages get spells back, but Ciphers get their spells back by doing damage to OTHER people instead of themselves.  

 

But to go back on topic:

 

Druid: Great Maelstorm.  

 

That spell is OP.  

Edited February 2, 2019 by Marigoldran

[MountainTiger]

Priest PL 8 is great; PL 9 is split between the lame (Lashing Vine isn't attractive as a PL 7 Druid spell) and the sweet (Call of Rymrgand does everything you want in an AOE spell except hard CC).

[thelee]

For everyone - Prestige. I think chanters get the lamest PL scaling of any class, but even then Prestige is worth it and is only available for single-class. Even martial classes will like it, monks and rogues especially.

 

Monk specifically both Whispers of the Wind and Inner Death are good (the latter empowered and comboed with Empowered Strikes - basically an instakill for most normal enemies, and a hugely punishing attack on most bosses, whiel whispers of the wind can still be stupidly metagamed).

 

I think you might be implicitly focusing on martial classes, because I think all casters have AL8/9 spells that are exceptional without much thought. I think compared to martial classes in fact, casters are more "worth it" to go single-class, due to how spellcasting resources work (you get dedicated AL8 and AL9 casts, whereas martial abilities have to compete with lower-level abilities for the same resource).

 

As an illustration, some samples of great caster abilities from 8 and 9 (not an exhaustive list, but really just to show how easy it is to find great high-level abilities):

wizard

AL8 Caedabold's Bow - the bouncing terrify effect that triggers on each hit basically lets you stunlock two enemies the entire time you have this up (provided no resolve resistance)

AL9 Petrification - another thread brought to my attention that people might not know that "Petrification" is a pseudo-tier 4 affliction, which means even bosses and megabosses that merely have dexterity affliction or body affliction resistance will still get "Paralyzed" instead of being resisted down to "Immobilized". The perma-petrify/paralyze effect at near death still works on bosses/megabosses, which is basically an instakill if you can land it. (A blood mage with backup healing can probably just lock down the hardest fights in the game by repeatedly casting this and an average of three blood sacrifices to replenish the AL9 cast... or have a cipher backup who will just buff you with brilliant)

 

priest

AL8 Hand of Weal and Woe - damages and heals every second not every tick, which means even your squishes will be able to facetank the hardest enemies in the game with this, all while you clear out non-fire-immune trash mobs trivially.

AL9 Magran's Might - at last check, each projectile (spaced out every couple seconds or so) interrupts on hit, so not only are you stripping the enemy of all buffs with each hit but you are basically keeping them stunlocked the entire time.

 

chanter

AL8 "eld nary" upgrade - you get a crap ton of extra bounces. if you roll a bellower you can get +6 or +7 PL bonus and clear out most enemies by yourself.

AL9 "They did sing a song of carnage fair" - animated weapon is already a sick summon, and this gets you an additional weapon (with an Arcane Assault ability)

 

druid

AL8 avenging storm - metagamable for lots of damage

AL9 great maelstrom - stupid amounts of aoe damage

Edited February 2, 2019 by thelee

[Boeroer]

Barbarians:

- Instrument of Boundless Rage (bit too expensive) +

- Heart of Fury (Carnage doesn't stack) +

- Blood Surge (supergood with Blood Thirst and the roars or Instrument oBR) ++

- Barbaric Retaliation (great with a high AR setup) ++

- Driving Roar (1 rage for masssssive dmg and CC) +++

- Dazing Shout (1 rage for good dmg in a huuuuge AoE and CC) ++

- Shape Ward: Blood (stacks with Steel Garrotte and Old Siec) +

 

Rogue:

- Gambit (with high crit rate and dual wieldig no cost) ++

- Vanishing Strike (invisibility doesn't break: 100% Backstabs all the time) +++

 

Druid:

- Avenging Storm (Blunderbusses or Hand mortars: phew!) ++

- Pollen Patch (jeez the healing!) +

- Great Maelstrom (try Fury with Deltro's Cage + Voulge: +5 Power Level; in theory a Fury with all 4 PEN talents should get +5 PEN with it on top) +++

 

Wizard:

- K's Freezing Rake (Illusion that does dmg? Sign me in!) +

- Meteor Shower ++

- Missile Salvo (only really great with Empower) +

- M's Piercing Sigil (so strong if you are doing melee) ++

- Cloak of Death (same, unf. doesn't stack with Piercing Sigil) ++

 

Chanter:

- Song of Carnage (those weapons are strooong) +

- Eld Nary's Curse (scales beautifully with Power Level and Chanters get Sasha's Singing Scimitar...) +++

 

Ranger:

- Whirling Strikes (also works with mortar/ranged weapons with a melee one info the offhand) ++

- Heartseeker (barely...) +

- Imbue: Death (multiple procs of Death Ring with jumps) +++

 

Priest:

- all (except the summons and Crowns, but nothing too exiting) +

- Spark the Souls (with a Beckoner in the party) ++

- Sigil of Rymrgand (I love that pull effect) ++

- Hand of Wael and Woe (tick is 1 sec and it heals on tick while damages foes on tick) ++

- Sigil of Eothas (healing + dmg = no brainier. I use it in every encounter) ++

 

Fighter:

- Clear the Path (very powerful with AoE effects on weapons, works with ranged weapons if you put a melee one in the offhand) +++

- Clean Sweep (same)

- Chopping Wood (with the above - think Karabörü...)

 

Paladin:

- Devine Retribution (works with summons) ++

 

Monk:

- Resonant Touch (game breaking with AoE weapons) +++

- Whispers of the Wind (best with AoE weapons and Resonant Touch, PL scaling is great plus invisibility/Stalking Cloak) +++

- Razor's Edge (stacks with everything) ++

- Empowered Strikes (currently doesn't work with Whispers otW - if fixed +++) +

- Inner Death (see Empowered Strike) +

 

Cipher:

- Shared Nightmare (AoE gets so big - best with Beguiler) ++

- Death of 1000 Cuts (bosskiller, stacks with Combusting Wounds, way better than Disintegration) ++

- Driving Echoes (very helpful for casters) ++

- Time Parasite (stacks with itself,got up to 175% speed) +++

- Reaping Knives (Soulblade and Ascendant laugh their arses off) ++

 

General:

- Prestige (in most cases very nice, also see scaling of Transcendent Suffering and everything that adds jumps or projectiles with PL) +

 

I can't emphasize enough how good the Barb's PL9 shouts are combined with Blood Surge and Blood Thirst. Also Monk with Whispers of the Wind + Resonant Touch. Fighter's Clean Sweep or Clear the Path are superexploitable with weapons that have AoE effects or proc off many hits (Karabörü, Engoliero, Mortars, Powder Burns, Blinding Smoke (Hand Mortar), Amra, Scordeo's Edge etc.)

 

The ratings are heavily influenced by what I like/how fun it is to use. For example Whispers of the Wind is not only great but also superfun to watch. Avenging Storm as well (but breaks your frame rate).

Edited February 2, 2019 by Boeroer

[thelee]

- Resonant Touch (game breaking with AoE weapons) +++

fun thing about resonant touch is that you can break carefully scripted encounters. bosses and megabosses frequently have health triggers, and with enough resonant stacks that you activate at once you can just blow through their health at once and bypass all sorts of health-triggered abilities. did this with the SSS boss, the BoW boss, and have read about someone doing this with Dorudugan.

[Boeroer]

That's quite fun and satisfying as well. But the downside is that it takes a lot of time to build up that many charges. I guess that's the reason the satisfaction is so high at the end.

 

I find it exceptionally good with AoE attacks. In my case hand mortars of course (but I guess it also works with the cone from WotEP or Karabörü's crit-cone or Engoliero's Ghost Blades etc.). Since it's flat dmg it gains so much more by using it with multiple hit rolls. Whispers of the Wind + Resonant Touch + AoE is just... crazy. And the best part: you can do it over and over again because it's both fueld by wounds.

[Elric Galad]

How does Gambit works with dual mortars ?

Do you get the refund as soon as you get at least one crit per hand ?

 

How many PL do one get with Maelstorm and Chronoplastic Staff ? (since Maelstorm has all these keywords...)

[Boeroer]

Internally you get tons of guile from crits, but when the attack is done it is "cropped" to 4 max (2 per shot I believe).

 

You can observe that when looking at the multiple hits Gambit produces with Hand Mortars. Gambit grants bonus damage based on remainging Guile. During a mortar attack the guile seems to jump to enormous hights which means absurd dmg bonuses like +260% (that was common against lowish defense enemies) for some of the attack rolls. I mean I guess that's what's happening. Can't explain those dmg bonuses otherwise.

 

So, yeah - you get back Guile with AoE crits (and jumps) as well.

 

Also Sun & Moon gives you two chances to get back Guile.

 

I haven't tested WotEP.

 

Chromoprismatic Staff & Greater Maelstrom: I suppose all four, but I didn't test.

 

It may also be that each dmg type only gets its dedicated PL bonus. This is the case with Sun and Moon for example, where one head gets PL/ACC bonus from fire PL/Ring of Focused Flames while the other does not.

Edited February 9, 2019 by Boeroer

[Verde]

I may take a screenshot of that Boeroer haha. You should put that into a guide!

[pmchem]

great stuff in this thread, thanks for all the replies so far (more are welcome!)