@@maomaeramnon3870 If I'm playing through BG1 first, I somewhat agree with you, as Sleep is op in BG1. But your sorcerer can easily get a wand of sleep from Thalantyr as well. In BG2 and TOB Sleep sadly does nothing while Blindness and Spook never really cease to be decent spells.
Can't argue with the majority of choices here. One essential Icewind Dale spell that deserves a mention, if you are playing with those spells, is the level 4 spell: Emotion Hope. It's a party wide buff of +2 to saving throws, damage, and hit roles, that lasts 1 hour. That's an essential buff IMO. Hard to say where it fits for a sorcerer preference among the other great level 4 options, but definitely wants to be somewhere in your party at least.
Oh, I definitely agree. I always have both positive emotions on my party pretty much at all times. But since it's something you usually cast once per rest I always leave that for my mages to memorize.
I think it’s important to mention the rng nature of remove magic and how it interacts with your and your opponents level. With the low leveling rate of sorcs I find it pretty inconsistent and much better on a bard.
I agree. On a bard it is much better because they gain levels a lot faster. However, I can tell you that having someone (in this case the sorcerer) be able to have a lot of remove magics available, in addition to the ones your other party members might have is always a valuable asset in my opinion. At the start of SoA and even in BG1 remove magic will not be a great bet on something to use, but mid SoA and later it becomes pretty consistent. If you are playing against, let's say, a very high level spell caster, you would be better relying on your other anti-magic defense tools but more often than not, a remove magic or a spell sequencer with 3 of them takes care of a whole lot of problems. And naturally it will be very effective against a lot of other enemies as well.
Many thanks for the thorough guide. Appreciate you consider spell picks you have for the majority of your play-through vs total spell picks you get at the very end of the game.
Great guide. could I give you one idea for future content? Dav has covered alot of stuff in hus channels, but one thing i never hear him mention is a guide for strong enemies for scs. I would love to see a strategy breakdown for the ravager, Irenicus, the 5, watchers keep, basically any of the big bads. I know how to beat them, scs, insane, no re road not so much. would love to see a guide on strong enemies. Ps also no one seems to have a good guide for installing mods and where to find all mods. I wish someone would do this so we could get more people to try scs and other content.
Hi, thanks for the feedback. Future content will also be about making other playthroughs of different games, not strictly infinity engine games. I will however upload anything Baldur's Gate related if I think it could be useful/fun for you guys. My current BG2 playthrough is now ongoing in Throne of Bhaal so you can see how I deal with those tougher opponents there, but I get that people also like to have something more self-contained and only showing the fight, could be something interesting to do sure. Regarding mod installation guide, I've seen some good guides out there. Do you feel that those are outdated?
@@CoredumpedGaming yeah I would love to see a breakdown guide for ee versions and how to install and what goes with what. But even if it was just teaching someone how to install scs and why would be good enough. It took me like 3 days to figure out one mod to cast in armour with no penalty. But just an idea no need to pursue it. As for a self contained guide to help with the harder enemies and what to expect and what to use to win for scs insane would be great. But I can figure it out on my own. Was just thinking it could be a decent guide idea that no one else has done (besides written form)
have you seen the walk-through by mivsan_nt? he plays with scs and ascension and has INCREDIBLE knowledge about the game. he came up with lots of innovative strategies for many of the boss fights, highly recommended
One reason to bump up incendiary cloud to a higher priority is that even though characters like Korgan can't become immune to dispel, there is a ton of gear in bg2 that provide fire resistance and its very easy to have 2-3 characters completely immune (or even absorbing) fire damage. And if you're a dragon disciple, you can put on a fire resistance ring (or protection from fire + spell immunity abjuration) and create a space where you will heal like half your total hit points per round for a turn. Kinda broken against anything that doesn't blow away the cloud effects (dragons and most clerics).
You make very good points and indeed incendiary cloud is super powerful. My main issue with it is that it is a cloud effect which can sometimes be inconvenient because I may be standing in it with some character that gets dispelled suddenly and he just gets one shot instantly (especially if stacking clouds and playing with double damage on) and the fact that fire is the most commonly resisted element. If people are aware of it though and position properly the spell is very very good though.
Thank you :) For divine spells there are clearly spells better than others but is not usually such an issue as with a sorcerer given that you always have access to all of them at any time and can swap them in and out to experiment.
Blind is one of the most powerful effects in the game for a very long time. Not only spellcasters btw, enemy fighters also can't see you and won't attack you unless you go up against them in melee, so you can basically blind a fighter and then just kill him from range and he can't fight back (he may wander around aimlessly though which is sometimes annoying to chase after :p)
I personally think the level 2 Resist Fear is essential. Its an aoe, which means itll effect all party members, and negates all the fear/intimidation effects when fighting draconic and demonic enemies. A must have imo
Good Guide. The Sorcerers I played could not live without Glitterdust, AOEInvisiblity, Animate Dead, Mordenkains Sword. Depends on the play style I guess.
Thank you! All the spells you mention are very very good. The reason why I don't usually include them in my sorcerer is because in a full party I leave those spells for companions (with the exception of Mordenkainen's sword). Glitterdust and AOE Invisibility are very important but I find that I never need many casts of those spells so I have my mage companions memorize them (Jan for example). Animate dead I always leave to my clerics (and this is basically one of the most powerful summons in the game). Mordekainen's sword is something that I pick up as a last pick for the level as I don't usually rely on summons that much, this one I would say is play style dependent, if you like using summons, then definitely go for this one. If you don't have companions capable of casting said spells, then they would become a much more serious consideration to take on any sorcerer.
God I loved the way spells worked in this game, stripping defences off your opponent was actually fun. Stacking buffs and debuffs. 5e and the concentration mechanic ruined it but I understand why they went that route. At least we still have pathfinder
Yup, totally agree with you. The way magic works in bg, the mage battles, having to work through defenses in order to be able to hurt them I think is the best implementation of a magic system in any game to date. 5e is still cool, but is very simplified and taking away this complexity does make me a bit sad, although like you said, I get why they did it. It probably makes more people in general happy but the few of us who loved the intricacies of this system sad :( Pathfinder will also come to the channel one day, I also love those games, though they feel, at least to me, more like "buff to high heavens and just break through anything in your way with brute force" than the finesse of Baldur's gate. Still, it feels really good to beat those games :D
@@CoredumpedGaming Hah, yeah that's pretty spot on for pathfinder, you can make nigh unkillable blender gishes that take days to buff and ends a fight in under a min. Great stuff man, I look forward to future pathfinder or even bg3 content!
@@domokun845 both of them will come to the channel :D And yeah, blender is quite accurate lol once I got nok nok the first time I played the game, it was like suddenly I had received godlike powers ahah little dude just shreds through everything. As for the buffs you are 120% correct on that, and it can become quite tedious, but there are some really great quality of life mods for pathfinder that pretty much automate your buffs. The one for kingmaker is not very good to use, but works, the one in wotr is very cool, saves a LOT of time, definitely recommend checking them out. It's called bubbles buff bot
@@CoredumpedGaming Oh nice, I gotta check that out. I pretty much burned out on WOTR due to the endless buffing I had to do for my dual kukris wielding magus trickster. Also my framerates were chugging since it's been a while and my cpu is def throttling my fps
@@domokun845 yeah, buffing manually gets very tiring after a while xD I was trying a crusader dwarf mounted on a boar for shield bashing (it's like my fantasy dream ahah) but it doesn't work very well :(
fantastic review! i like your use of spells i selected different spells but you made me appreciate spook alot more thanks. i like using Horror as an early level 2 spell especially combined with web is just cruel on low level enemies haha :D
Thank you very much! Horror + Web seems like disabling overkill ahah But I can imagine how funny/chaotic it would be to just have scared opponents running around like chickens getting webbed all the time :D
@@Altiar253 Ah, then you are in for a good time! Sorcerer is always useful, but once you get Project image and some higher level spells... You'll feel like a god :D
As much as the Sorcerer is fun to play, I prefer to roll a fighter (++ in shields fighting style) and then dual class to mage at level 2. Purely to be able to equip helmets, shields, and certain 1H weapons that work well on a mage and otherwise would be unusable. Helps so much in BG1 with survivability if playing solo or in a small party. The only thing I don't like is that the character model remains looking like a naked fighter when equipping robes...that drives me a little crazy TBH :)
Definitely a very cool and useful option! I know what you mean regarding the character model, when that happens to me I use EEKeeper to change the model of the character. I do that in basically all my */thief classes, I like the hoodie too much :D
You can also use the avatar morphing script component from Tweaks Anthology to change your avatar anytime you want in game if you can use mods in your game.
my general spell picks for sorcerer, with one being solo, the other being party. Overall it's pretty close to yours, though the idea of sorcerer picking detect invisibility as one of their spells is actually pretty interesting-would have been very nice against stuff like BG1 sirines and such, as well as other late game encounters that have mages spamming improved invisibility or thieves using potions of invisibility to try and backstab you. I think I've seen most people ignore it in favor of just waiting for true sight at level 6, or using planetar/infinite spells book instead Solo LoB Sorcerer Spell list (damage and buff focused rather than debuff focused) 1-Blindness, Magic Missile, Protection from Evil, Identify, Chromatic orb 2-mirror image, knock, invisibility, blur, resist fear 3-Skull Trap, Haste, Protection from Fire, Slow, flame arrow?, //Minor Spell Turning (to prevent stuff like hold traps-may instead go with slow) 4-Stoneskin, Improved Invisibility, Greater Malison, Spirit Armor, Farsight 5-Breach, Spell Immunity, Lower Resistance, Spell Shield, Chaos/Feeblemind? 6-Death Fog, Improved Haste, Prot From Magic Wea., Mislead, True Sight (former-Protection from Magical Energy, use spell immunity: Necromancy instead) (True Sight-planatar has or use book of infinite spells) 7-Project Image, Mordenkainen's Sword, Ruby Ray, Spell Sequencer, Spell turning 8-Abi-Dalzim's HW, Incendiary cloud (Spell trigger?), power word blind (-formerly pierce shield, may need if needed to deal with ravager and other similar enemies), Spell Trigger (pierce shield?) 9-Time Stop, Chain Contingency, Wish, Imprisonment (spell strike wand, staff of magi for spell trap) Party Insane Sorcerer Spell list (debuff focused) 1-Shield, Magic Missile, Blindness, Identify, Chromatic orb 2-mirror image, knock, invisibility, blur, resist fear 3-Skull Trap, Slow, Haste, Protection from Fire, flame arrow 4-Stoneskin, Improved Invisibility, Greater Malison, Spirit Armor, Farsight 5-Breach, Spell Immunity, Lower Resistance, Feeblemind (Spell Shield?), Chaos 6-Death Fog, Improved Haste, Prot From Magic Wea., Mislead, Protection from Magical Energy (Contingency/True Sight?) (True Sight-planatar has and use book of infinite spells) 7-Project Image, Mordenkainen's Sword, Ruby Ray, Spell Sequencer, Spell turning 8-Abi-Dalzim's HW, Incendiary cloud, pierce shield, Spell Trigger 9-Time Stop, Chain Contingency, Wish, Imprisonment (spell strike wand)
Nice thorough lists. My reply will mostly be focused on the party list as it is the one in which I have more experience, though I will say your solo list seems very solid. Also, are you playing without IWD spells or do you just not consider them for your sorcerer? 1. In a party do you feel the need for identify? Granted that for BG1 it can be useful but I find that you can easily identify things by either just paying for the service or using baeloth. 2. Why knock here? Do you usually not play with a thief in the party? 4. Farsight - interesting, I think I've never even ever cast that spell before :p any particular reason for this? I can see it being useful if you want to guide summons around the map while you stay behind. Any other cool use you have for it?
@@CoredumpedGaming playing without the IWD spells since I try to keep the mods as minimal as possible-only using the gibberlings 3 tweak pack to mod a few settings. I played with the IWD spells (and a decent number of other mods like extra areas and NPC companions) a ways back, but that install got messed up or forgotten or something, and the saves were lost, so when I started up again I didn't bother finding all the mods I'd been using and just went with the tweak pack. I also don't use SCS or other difficulty mods, so that probably affects some spell pick weights and whatnot. A general trend I've seen people hold is trying to avoid redundancy when possible, or use an item substitute if it's available-like the spellstrike wand instead of taking the spell itself, and possibly using summoned planetars or book of infinite spells for true seeing (and using that only instead of earlier invisibility busters like detect illusion or invisibility-you can also just hold onto some scrolls of those spells to cast it when you need them, but that might be much more important for SCS fights where more mages, thieves, and enemies in general use invisibility). It's also why i've seen people skip animate dead as a level 5 spell despite the level 15+ skeleton warriors it summons being absolutely phenominal summons with their very good durability, resistances, immunities, and absurd 90% magic resistance as well as 8 hour duration, but mordekainen's sword beats even that skeleton warrior in everything aside from summon length 1-indentify was the lazy pick after getting the level 1 spells that are most vital-blind, shield (though the shield necklace also works instead), and magic missile. It really did help a lot in BG1 though when you're struggling for money, or don't want to spend 100 gold per identified item at the shop-even the most expensive room at an inn only costs 8 gold, and it's probably done after some adventuring so doing that also refreshes your spell lists and gets you some healing in, which is more important in BG1 than BG2 since there are regen rings and other gear around. Spook can be nice even late game, but i never bother casting it since there are usually a lot of other options, and if i'm going for a single target disable spell i'd rather attempt either the paralysis wand, polymorph wand, or a blind spell since those are far more crippling and last longer than 3 rounds. Still, having it as a quick heavy save penality panic button to make an enemy spellcaster bugger off for a few rounds is no small feat for a level 1 spell. I also don't use baeloth (or evil companions in general-i usually run good/neutral parties and characters) much since their whining at high reputation, or outright deserting at highest reputation, annoys me and I don't feel like having to micromanage reputation to keep them from going into a tizzy and running away like divas. When I do use them, it's usually only temporarily for their quests, and usually early game so I do it before I get the reputation high from questing for shop discounts. Baeloth (and Edwin) are definitely probably some of the most powerful NPC companions in the game for arcane casting, but their personalities irritate me and the reputation management thing is an annoyance. Still, it is something that can be planned around for, like one thing being doing all the EE companion quests in BG1 at chapter 5 when you can get them all done at once, and even if you're at max reputation you can do something like kill shandalar (after doing the ice island quest of course-lots of stuff and exp from that quest, and a boatload of exp and valuable items from shandalar himself-just gotta make sure you've got lots of hasted minions and the paralysis charge hits him, then nail him with lots of arrows and magic missiles. Obviously this is only on a run where you allow reloads, or are feeling particularly reckless and willing to risk a no reload run to shandalar failing that save against the paralysis wand) to tank your reputation to be able to grab dorn and do his quest. Then you can do some reputation tricks with grabbing viconia and baeloth as well to really tank your reputation to like 6, and get the cheaper donation rates for raising reputation - not too high though, unless you don't care at all about being able to use them again if they permanently desert from high reputation. Still, getting like 6 reputation points to get to 12-14 reputation from temple donations lets you get up to 18-20 reputation when you fire dorn, viconia, and baeloth, and get any few remaining points from some quests in the city itself, or quests you've saved to turn in and get the rep boost from them. Knock-hmm, that might be a mistake choice accidentally copied over from the solo list, I have messed around with them both a lot. Still, having it isn't entirely useless in case your thieves have been gibbed, or spent points in the wrong areas and you don't have thief potions to make up for it. Much better to pick a different spell like resist fear or melf's acid arrow though instead of knock. Farsight-basically to have as a fallback option if I *really* need to heavily cheese some really annoying enemy group or boss-summon a flood of monsters, project image/vhailor's helm, etc. and having it be farsight instead of wizard's eye since wizard's eye can be detected and killed, which usually would be the case for something that would warrant that level of heavy cheese since most of those foes can see through invisibility. Not sure if I ever will use it, but it's there as a kind of 'nothing else at this level really needed, so could be a fun option' For a few picks that are a bit out there-web is absent because it's usually overkill if you aren't playing on LoB mode (the LoB mode run I am doing uses web all the time though), and while you can use the ring of free action as an easily swappable item to let your melee characters go into the web without issue, having to micromanage that usually isn't worth the hassle unless you truly need the stopping power multiple webs give you. Death Fog over death spell, since death spell's kill effect is basically worthless on LoB mode with the absurd +13 levels all enemies get (dispel/remove magic also being similarly worthless in LoB mode), though the slay summon effect still works at least, and the level 6 acid damage without save lets it be useful against liches. Probably the one I'm really most unsure about is pierce magic vs pierce shield, especially on the solo sorcerer since I don't remember if the ravager basically needs something like pierce shield to be able to have a reasonable chance at killing as a solo sorcerer
For a solo run I can definitely see the value in avoiding redundancy as every little bit will help or even be really necessary and you only have a limited number of picks. For a party run it's much less of an issue honestly as you can easily spread spells between your companions, especially if you have a mage with you to complement your sorcerer list. Animate dead for example I would never pick on my sorcerer because I can have the same spell as a level 3 spell on a cleric which will be able to dedicate a lot of spell slots to it easily. The swords are a different beast though and definitely worth taking. Just the fact that Animate dead skeletons can deal with swarms of beholders makes them an invaluable spell for me, not to mention just being extremely good against pretty much anything in general. I understand your other points, just wanted to mention that even if you pick all evil companions (not saying you're doing it wrong by taking good characters btw, this is all personal choice and roleplaying) you can still reach maximum reputation without paying at the temple. In fact I think at times I'm even forced to do some evil stuff to lower my reputation so that my evil companions don't leave the party :p As for web, that will *always* be in my mage spellbooks and sorcerer learned spells. It is *the* spell for BG1 I think, just takes care of so much for you and even in BG2 can still have great value. Granted that if you play without SCS, this choice as well as other spells of course may not have as much value. Spell defenses and anti-spell defenses spells are not nearly as important in a non-SCS run. As for the ravager, I think you're right about him needing pierce shield, but I've never done him solo so can't give you much advice there. I typically take pierce magic just because I can sequencer it for some fun. I wouldn't really consider it a "mandatory" spell since secret word does basically the same thing where it counts.
@@CoredumpedGaming evil companions- The 'using the temple to regain reputation' thing was specifically referring to that trick of killing someone like shandalar in chapter 5 so you can recruit dorn, do his quest, and then afterwards regain your previous reputation with minimal gold cost. It isn't needed, but can be useful if you've already done most of the quests that give reputation outside the city itself by that point, I also just find it kind of funny from a mechanics point since you're getting some good will by cheap donations, then taking a drow/blackguard to tank your reputation a bit more, and then getting a bit more cheap goodwill, then booting the drow and blackguard to get a huge increase of reputation. Another factor of the trick is being able to push you back to 20 reputation without needing to do quests since normally you're only able to get up to 18 reputation with donations (and it's super expensive for the last few points). Yeah, having to do occasional stupid evil stuff is part of what makes keeping evil companions satisfied so annoying, with many people saying they wished there was some kind of evil temple/bard service that you could pay to reduce reputation a bit so you had more control over it without having to do stupid stuff like occasionally murder random innocents or get caught stealing and try bribing the guards Web-yeah, it is definitely one of the most oppressive spells in BG1 for it's spell level and how long it lasts, as well as how lethal being held is, and since you can stack multiple webs that's almost a guarantee that almost everything that isn't immune will be held, and you can even throw in a greater malison to really make it shut down everything. An annoyance with it though is since it lingers for so long it prevents you from saving or resting until it goes away (same thing for most cloud spells), and it can trip you up and catch you if you aren't paying attention (and the party AI is feeling super stupid and wants to get the party members killed by having them run into melee for no reason). It really is worth taking in most cases, even as a solo sorcerer, but I kind of have a grudge against the spell since web is so bloody annoying to deal with when it happens with traps or enemies casting it (as well as being a bit contrarian and not wanting to use a spell that's on basically every 'recommended' list, since it's possible to go without, unlike stuff like mirror image, blur, stoneskin, and protection from magical weapons) For pierce magic specifically-part of what makes it stand out is it's the lowest level anti magic spell that can affect liches, which are immune to breach which is otherwise the go to anti magic spell for most enemies (assuming you aren't using SCS or other difficulty mods). Triple pierce magic in a sequencer definitely is a fun toy to use against stuff like liches since it absolutely wrecks their magic defenses and magic resistance
Yep, I also dislike the way you have to handle reputation in the game if you're playing with evil companions but not necessarily being an evil psycho murderer to everyone you find. Seems like that type of gameplay/roleplaying was a bit overlooked. It's not a major problem but it definitely feels silly to at times just having to murder a random innocent bystander just to keep your companions. You're right about web being annoying in that situation as is the case for any non party friendly aoe effects but I find it still worth using, especially since there are a few ways to make yourself immune to it (but I agree that especially early in BG1 if you aren't careful with movement and positioning it's also an easy way to get yourself killed). Same thing with cloudkill, it's just so good that I put up with the annoying lingering effect afterwards. Makes me miss selective metamagic that you have available in pathfinder WotR or even just the dismiss effect "cantrip" that just adds so much quality of life for those cases.
Question about chain contingency(9th level spell); you suggested stringing together 3 Horrid Wiltings contingent upon spotting an enemy. In theory this sounds great but in practice does this often get used up killing some low level mooks? The way I've been using contingencies is to create them, then delete the contingency out of my memorized spell slot (the contingency itself is still stored) and then rest and make any minor tweaks to my spell selection, effectively giving myself a number of extra spells per day stored in the form of contingencies. A bit of cheesing, but still nothing compared to the similacrum cheese (that I've read about/seen guys like you and Daveorn talk about) which I haven't even made an attempt to learn yet.
What you do with the contingency (use them then remove from memorized spells) is perfectly fine, assuming you are a wizard for this effect naturally. It is an intended game mechanic as far as I know so I have absolutely no problem with it. As for your question, totally depends on when you use it. I would only really setup such a contingency if I know I'm going to be fighting something heavy, so if you expect your next encounter to be something you want to nuke into oblivion ASAP then you would setup this contingency. If you just have it on by default then yeah, an angry squirrel looks at you sideways as you traverse the wilderness and he and all of his ancestors get evaporated :p I normally have a defensive chain contingency setup to walk around the world and such. 3 horrid wiltings only for something very intentional.
I kinda disagree on the Remove Magic assessment when playing with SCS/Ascension. The problem is that it works from the level difference (50% base chance with -10% per level difference in enemy favor and +5% if the difference is in your favor). And most dangerous spellcasters in SoA/ToB are higher level than your party by quite significant margin. Remove Magic basically works only on unnamed mook casters and not that often.
That's true for early SOA, but later on not only is it very effective against multiple enemies (as usual) but it can also dispel very high priority targets, assuming they are not buffed with SI: Abjuration naturally. I've used remove magic on Irenicus (the last fight of SOA) and successfully dispelled him multiple times. Of course this is more powerful on a bard, which gains levels much faster, but it is still very very strong on a sorcerer. Especially if you like to queue 3 of them in a Spell Sequencer. But you are right that earlier in the game, you shouldn't try to dispel kangaxx with this :p
Yeah, I would give the argument the best dispeller is actually PC inquisitor paladin or get Keldorn with Holy Avenger. Just need to be careful with placement so you do not end up dispelling your own buffs (but if the party somehow gets under the control of the spell or charm then slap with Keldor's dispel or holy avenger to face knock them out from spell control). Remove Magic is friendly for sending parties in and dispelling enemy buffs without fearing your own buffs being removed.
The other consideration is that a Bard is better than a wizard at remove magic. If you take a Bard, then that's one of the best things about them. It's also tricky, because you are so often fighting mages a higher level than your PC (liches etc...), and remove magic is not so reliable. Well, if they are lower level than you, then it's probably not a very difficult fight anyway.
@@CoredumpedGaming bom saber que existem portugas a fazer videos deste tipo e por acaso gostei do conteudo vou tentar jogar reiniciar novo jogo no baldur' gate 2 com os spells que recomendaste.
41:43 improved haste is agonizing :D I would like to add mislead is also one of my favorite spell's is very good in practice than in theory, combo with improved invisibility because its instant and eats one action
Oh, mislead is a god tier spell lol The reason why I don't add it to the list is that it can be abused so much to the point of trivializing most of the game, and for that reason I don't like it and don't use it. Extremely effective spell though.
For 6th level I always pick death spell as my first choice. Sure it’s not very useful in difficult battles but it’s convenient when you meet a large group of trash mobs
Death spell is a top tier spell for sure. It's just something I delegate to my other mage(s) in the party as it's a spell you don't usually cast more than once or twice in a fight.
44:00 That's not entirely accurate. PfMW protects against weapons that are 'magical'. In game engine terms, this parameter is separate from a weapon's 'enchantment level'. Weapons that are 'magical' usually have an enchantment level of 1 or more but not always. There are weapons with enchantment level 0 that are nevertheless 'magical'. For example, arrows of dispelling and Bala's axe. These will be blocked by PfMW despite having no enchantment bonus.
Dude no invisibility 10 foot radius mention? In bg1 and you have baeloth on your team, is very powerful. You can sleep anywhere, get pass cloakwood ambushes, and great to position and ambush any boss. Heck it's great against every ambush from all the bounty hunters. Sure you could invis everyone with lvl 2 invis spell. But you lose out on it being a oh shit button. I forgot about the wolf of ulcaster fear spell. I had baeloth cast it. It got off everyone was dead except my MC basically. He was running around afraid, but he was invis. Ressed everyone and kept moving. Pretty handy for a no reload run.
Invis 10 foot radius is an amazing spell. Just not something I would give my sorcerer for a full trilogy run as you don't really cast it that often. I would rather have another mage in my party memorize it.
@@CoredumpedGaming yeah I agree with a full run. But baeloth getting it in bg1 is awesome sauce. I'm not sure a reliable way to get it in bg1 for a standard mage.
Just getting into older crpg's like baldurs gate (i have a bit of experience from DoS1 and BG3 and have played the intro dungeon of bg2 before playing bg1). currently around nashkel mines. havent watched the video yet but from my experience, Chilled touch ia surprisingly useful, especially if you actually have a str stat. I say this because i had chosen both chilled touch and chromatic orb. although i expected chromatic orb to be useful (and expect it to be in bg2), i ended up using chilled touch way more because one use of the spell lasts for several small battles or part of one longer one. admittedly it is risky and relies more on the safety net of savescumming (although im kinda still a noob so i mean what strategy for me dosnt require savescumming when 1-2 sling hits kill you) but its a constant source of damage when someone else is there to distract the enemies and doesnt last only one "use." This niche usability probably falls off in BG2 but for early game, im seeing its uses; it gave me a fun time!
First thing: if it was fun for you to use and you made it work, go for it! Finding cool and interesting things to beat the game with is a lot of the fun :D In terms of general efficacy though, chill touch is not something I would ever recommend. Like you mentioned, the fact that you need to cast that spell, send in your pretty much naked character into melee, TRY to hit an attack with your horrible caster THAC0 to deal a bit of damage, when you could have cast for example Sleep, which is also a level 1 spell, that would disable every enemy in the area instantly and then your fighters just kill all sleeping enemies for free, makes the spell not very useful in general. Or even just magic missile, which can never miss, scales with levels and deals very decent damage. This is not to say, of course, that you can't play around with the spells and discover what works for you and what you think is fun! Enjoy playing these amazing games :D
I'm honestly glad and kinda surprised the video wasn't just a 10 second screen that said "Play a Mage instead, lol". Because that's usually the advice given when the matter of Sorcerer pops up in these games. (and most versions of D&D prior to 5th edition)
Really? People tell you that? That's kind of weird and inconsiderate in my opinion. I love sorcerers and I prefer them over mages (especially if we're talking about a Dragon Disciple). Both are extremely strong choices but the only time I would try to point someone more to a mage would be in the case of a new player that doesn't know the spells yet since playing a sorcerer you get locked to your choices (which might not be the best if someone is new to the game) while with a mage they can just pick and choose and try whatever they like without having to worry if they made the best spell choice or not.
Web is nice indeed but i rather pick Horror because it ha WAY bigger range. Its also Necromany and Necro is the game 5th best caster for its -4 penalty on both Horror but more importantly Finger of Death (i took many dragons and top rank demon-lords out with that :D)
To be honest, I've never analysed the actual range of both spells but I've always felt like web was a way larger effect. The one thing I dislike a lot about horror though is the fact that your enemies will just start running around all over the place. This is bad for two reasons: it makes them hard to kill and they may end up going to different areas and calling more enemies into the fight. Web will just stick them in place and while their paralyzed their AC doesn't matter so you always land your hits, which is also a very big boost. Naturally the downside of web is that you may have to wait for the effect to be over to pass through the area and if you don't have movement impairing immunities it can be a bit of a mess. Finger of death is a whole different story, and I agree it does feel good to one shot baddies with it :p
@@CoredumpedGaming you misunderstand the range, you send yo scoot invisible, when there is an enemy that is VERY BAD for you like an ogre mage you shoot horror outside of its view, fails nothing happens it dos not see you you try again. (if you use web you scout in cases may get separated). YES horror will make enemy runaround, that is when you saw to bows, the maps/combat aria are small, a lot of them, with web you also need to swap to bows, but if you walk in it by accident...(it happens even with bows yes) well thatch BIG problem :D So both makes it hard to hit an enemy, not to mention in corridor's you have to w8t web to go away to proceed. YES horror is harder to "hunt down enemy" but safer to put on enemy's, and a scatter enemy group that would harm you without crowd control is better than one that can lets say shoot back because they win one of their saves(like wizard Enemy with chaos as you have web is down XD an yey everyone is tapped ...again XD). Is better than one that lets be hones wont stay in 1 web :D i use 2 mostly and its...steel not grate. Also you ring of "free movement" for one of your things to walk in it. I would not risk an Oger mage caliber enemy, that can one shoot the party with fire ball because the web did not go under him. WEB IS GRATE is good spiel but i rather use it if i have ring or spider walk sword (that i don't have on everyone and its ....hard to get lest say :D horror only needs bows), Web its awesome with summon spiders, or druid avenger spider transformation :D Both spells are grate its about what one finds comfortable to me is horror, and later chaos. (best spell of the game :D until 7th level spells)
Hi Coredumped, I don't know if you have looked at the details of the relatively new version 35 of SCS, but DavidW made one change that I think is fairly substantial when deciding spell selections. He decided to make Breach bypass Spell Immunity Abjuration altogether. I might be wrong, but I believe that means that a sorcerer would be vulnerable to breach unless he has a Spell Shield or Spell Turning, or Spell Trap up. Given that, I am thinking for my upcoming BG2 playthrough to take Spell Trap for my third level 5 pick at level 13, and Lower Resistance for my fourth pick at Level 15. Would you agree with taking Spell Shield sooner knowing that without it your sorcerer is always vulnerable to Breach?
Oh what? That's a pretty massive change not gonna lie. I would have to experiment with it a bit to know if I like it or not, thanks for letting me know this :D I would definitely say that spell shield becomes a lot more important as well as other defenses like spell turning and spell deflection. The main problem is still getting hit by remove/dispel magic so spell immunity abjuration is still crucial. Just by writting this I think I like the change actually, definitely makes things more interesting in order to keep our spellcasters safe :D
Yeah, I don’t think a lot of players have noticed this yet. Whenever you next play the original BG saga, I’d recommend taking a look at the very long list of changes that DavidW made for v35. In that post, this is the bullet that describes the change to Spell Immunity: “Breach now bypasses spell immunity by being effectively level 10 (on reflection the mismatch with Spell Turning isn't as bad as the alternatives).”
Project Image is straight cheating in my eyes and so fun to abuse with a meme build. But wow did Bioware not even remotely think that spell through. It's arguably more powerful than Wish, which itself is utterly OP if you have high Wisdom (or just carry Potions of Insight to be used in conjunction with it; you can afford them if you can cast 9th level spells)
Well, I wouldn't call them cheating... broken maybe xD Project image is bonkers for sure... Casting your entire spell book at the cost of a single level 7 spell is waaayy too good. Extremely fun though! ahah But yes, Project image and Wish can be considered a bit cheesy and I understand that some people might not want to use it.
Sleep is an amazing spell for early BG1, no question about it. But since it becomes obsolete relatively soon, I find it not to be a worthy pickup on a sorcerer and instead just have another mage in the party memorize it for the parts of BG1 where it is still relevant.
Guys can you tell me whats your thought on mass haste Mordenkainens swords? I literally use it throught whole game nearly, and i dont know is it so good as i think or not. And if i may ask, please wrote more than "it sucks".
Improved haste on swords is awesome. They're nearly unkillable and will be excellent summons. Their vulnerability is death spell, but if you're hasting them you can also give them death ward and protection from magic damage and make them immune to everything :p
@@CoredumpedGaming Thats why im surprised You didnt even mention them. Yes, there was some parts when i couldnt use time stop/swords spam, but i think it is one of the cheeseist strategies in the game :P
Glitterdust is a very good spell but something I will usually only take a couple of on a mage companion and not use a sorcerer slot on (though it's not a bad choice). Compared to detect invis though it is less effective as detect does not need to hit the enemies to reveal them, and a lot of times that will make a huge difference.
While I disagree with some choices, (playing Sorcerers, I prefer Dragon Disciple and spam Incendiary Cloud) I agree with your choices. Last spell choice on level 9 is Wish. SpellStrike and Imprisonment doesn’t even compare. 😛
For sure. The thing with Wish is simply that some people may find it cheesy (I'm fine with using it however). But if you want the best possible spells, then yes, Wish really is the way to go.
@@CoredumpedGaming Cheesy isn’t Wish. It’s Limited Wish. 😈 Have Edwin cast Limited Wish, and with his AWESOME Wisdom 9, ask for Protection from the Undead. If Viconia is high enough, have her turn the vampires to attack your enemies. But even worse than that, getting the vampires sets the system clock to midnight. If you do this at 1am facing Demogorgon, or a high level lich, ALL THEIR PROTECTIONS WILL EXPIRE. This will make the system clock move forward 23 hours. Short duration summons will expire, combat and magic protections will expire. 🤭🤭🤭
@@CoredumpedGaming Have you tried Wand of Lightning cheeses? Wand of Lightning allows you to select up to 6 targets. Make your selection, and before unpausing, replace the Wand of Lightning with whatever you want. Like the Wand of Fireballs, or Cloudkill…this unleashes 6 fireballs or Cloudkills. If you had taken advantage of the ferret or cat familiar (I always do) and smuggled out the Rift Device, you can blast Melissa’s and 5 of her minions in TOB. (the cat and ferret’s storage bypasses checks. In the Unseeing eye, have one person empty their inventory except the Rift Device, and have your familiar steal it. When you get back to Athkethla, ask for the Rift Device. Stash it in a chest until the Underdark is complete, and take it with you through TOB. There’s a check exiting the Underdark. And an option in SCS meant to elimate this cheese…)
Very nice guide. But could you elaborate why is Dragon Disciple more powerful than normal sorc? I mean, who cares about fire resistance, you lose one spell charge per level which is HUGE. Normal sorc is much more powerful at mid to high to end game.
Thank you :) And sure, this question has come up before: There are multiple reasons. The main one for me is that they become immune to fire at level 16 and they have more HP than a regular sorcerer. Fire is the most common damage element in the game, so it's amazing to just have your character immune to it as a default and more HP will allow you to live when otherwise you would die. They also get boosts to their AC and their Constitution making them tankier overall (+5 AC and +2 CON at level 20) and they have their cool fire breath ability which can be useful, especially earlier in the game. All these make a Dragon Disciple a better choice than the regular sorcerer for me, and all they lose for it is 1 spell/day on each spell level. They get a lot of spells for day, so losing out on one doesn't really make much of a difference, especially considering the gains. As an extra thing to think about regarding the relevance of fire resistance is that the most common way for enemy high level spell casters to try and kill you is to dispel you and then drop a dragon's breath or comet on top of you (both are fire). Also something I just remembered: one of the most damaging things you can do in an aoe is to drop several incendiary clouds in an area and melt everything inside. You would normally do this with protection from fire on yourself but if you get hit by a remove magic and lost that buff you instantly die. Being a dragon disciple you can just freely walk through all those situations and not worry about a thing :D tldr: Most of the benefits from a dragon disciple come down to survivability. This is mostly because I play with no reloads and double damage on so I want to make sure I'm as safe as possible. If you're just playing normally for fun and want to have the most firepower possible, then yes, the regular sorcerer will enable more spells overall.
Don't get me wrong, us simians should only refer to you as sir... Still, I feel like nitpicking. 1: Agreed, almost. Protection from Petrification! A little situational, but in those situations - not having this is suicide 2: I prefer to skip invis here for improved invis later. Especially on SCS, vocalize is mandatory. Sure, you get the amulet of power at some point, but you have to get there, first. Also, I oftentimes give the AoP to a cleric or paladin for the Negative Plane Protection. AoP becomes more a wizard thing by the time you get HLA's and you don't get drained all the time. Web remains useful throughout ToB. Couple in a sequencer; fire at Yaga Shura and laugh. 3. Agreed, unless you go solo. In that case, protection from normal missiles is *mandatory* for BG1 segment. For a party, a notable pick is mass invis. See enemy casting evocation or necromancy? Pop this, and the spell is oftentimes wasted. In a fight you can't win? Pop it, regroup. Also superduper handy for when you travel the world map in bg1 *and* bg2. Still, that spell doesn't scale - so you could have your off-mage cast that. 4. Yeah, see, you pick both invisibilities, I wouldn't do that. I'd take this one, and Vocalize on level two. 5. Yes, agreed. 6. Yes, agreed. 7. I'd forego Sequencer for Spell Trigger at 8, and take Mordekainen's Sword here. Great summon to hold off the goons. 8. Eh, I take both? Not immediately, but by the end of SoA, early ToB you have both. 9. Take both!! CC first, Time Stop second.
All valid choices to be sure, some of my choices are mostly personal preference. 2: I normally take invisibility because it lasts 24h which is very nice for scouting or some specific tasks and it is also very useful for BG1 and SoD due to its very quick cast time to get someone out of trouble, like a companion held by hold person or web. 3: I never go solo, but I agree that for a solo run the list would definitely feature different spells. AoE invis is something that I always have on one of my other arcane casters so I don't take it on the sorc since I don't cast it that often. It is a very important spell to have access to in the party for sure though. 7: ALL THE SEQUENCERS!!!! Mordekainen's sword is an amazing summon and definitely worth considering, I just don't usually play with summons so I don't take it very often. Every time I took it I forgot about them until after the fights are done :p 8 and 9: Naturally! I just wanted to give more emphasis on the spells you can use for a good while. For example, when I first played my sorcerer I wanted cloudkill but left it for last since I would still learn it later on, ended up getting it SO late in the game that it wasn't even worth using anymore. But of course that once you get to those experience levels, pick them :D Thanks for the feedback good sir!
@@CoredumpedGaming But.. wait. You can only have one sequencer active at any given time? Am I missing something? Yeah, I'd take 'em both if they'd stack. In fact, if they do, I'm rolling up a Dragon Disciple NOW. Sunday afternoon.... I'm guessing I can make it to Durlaq's before bedtime. And, if I do, I'll consider Spider Spawn. Granted, they don't do much late game, but I want to play around with web and spider combo's. Imagine that in the SCS Bandit Camp. Yep. Rolling a DD.
@@redelephantsdotnl looool they don't "stack" as in, you can't click one button and it fires 7 spells, but you can have readied a minor sequencer + sequencer + trigger + contingency + chain contingency :D
@@CoredumpedGaming Yeah, just now I watched your vid of Palpatine in Sendai's Enclave where I noticed that. I think that's new with the EE's? I am *positive* before you could only have one sequencer, and one contingency. This is a game changer for me. So many possibilities!
@@redelephantsdotnl hum, maybe, I honestly can't remember how it was back in the old days so I'll take your word for it. Well, I am very happy to have been part of a new discovery for you my friend :D enjoy!
If you've already experienced the game unmodded I would say sure, try it out with some mods. Don't go crazy and bump up the difficulty to the max at the start though if you haven't played in decades xD Some useful links on that regard: How to install mods: ruclips.net/video/Dpumgv99_iI/видео.html Understanding SCS mages and how to beat them: studio.ruclips.net/user/videoKf18ab17NVU/edit
It does depend on level yes. I *always* put it on my sorcerer because it is incredibly useful. You won't rely on it for boss type enemies or liches (even though they can still work) but for most other enemies in the game it works quite well. And let's not forget you can also prepare a triple remove magic sequencer which is really powerful. Remove/Dispel magic works even better on a bard of course, as they do gain levels more quickly.
My problem with it, normally, is that it allows for saves with massive bonuses at times, while also having other occasions where it can disintegrate the items that the enemy is wearing. I would consider it more of a fun spell to use, and certainly can be picked up.
As someone who played bgs with all mods with hardest settings (including legacy of bhaal), this list is weird af to me. You listed here a lot of useless spells (remove magic; you have breach etc. to remove magic from enemies... Your enemies usually are higher level than you so this spell simply doesnt do anything most of the time; another such spell is detect invisibility - again, you have better spell than this one to deal with invisibility) and didnt include game changing ones (like chromatic orb with malison, hold person (stun is the most 'lose of controll; effect), gllitering dust, hold monster, hold undead (well, hold spells are especially important for legacy of bhaal) etc. In general it looks like you use mage almost exclusively as a support whos job is to immobilize enemies.
Hello. We all have our preferences naturally, this is merely my suggestion: Going over the points you touch - Remove magic is still very very good. I wouldn't use it to try and dispel a demilich for example, sure, but it works on most opponents, it's an AOE which means not only are you dispelling some enemy mage but you are also dispelling any friends he might have in the area, such as any other class capable of buffing and even potions that the enemies will chug. Slot 3 remove magic in a spell sequencer for example and you essentially guarantee that an enemy group is fully dispelled (with the exception of those that might be immune to it via some mean or another naturally). As to detect invisibility, I really like having it and I use it as kind of an *emergency invisibility dispel* if I see some thief close by go invisible for example. If you try to cast True Sight to reveal that thief, one of your party members will most likely get chunked since True Sight has a cast time of 8 while Detect invis is a cast time of 2 (I also always have True Seeing memorized on my clerics). Chromatic Orb is too random for me because of the high saving throw bonus it gives enemies but sure, it can be fun to use in something like a sequencer after having applied some saving throw penalties on your opponents like you mentioned with Greater Malison. I would however rather be casting something else most of the time. Glitter Dust is a good spell, but it is something that I would prefer to have on a mage companion rather than take up 1 sorcerer spell slot. As for the way I use my sorcerer, I do prefer to have him as more of a disabler rather than a nuker. Once he starts getting some higher levels though... He melts the screen :p As always, thank you for your comment, it is always interesting to see how other players approach the game!
For the most part it's a matter of getting used to the spell and always having ranged weapons equipped on your characters as a side weapon for when you want to web your opponents. There are also some items which give you passive freedom of movement, potions that do the same thing and also the level 4 cleric spell Free Action (though this one you might get a little bit late in the game to be useful in this scenario). Don't get me wrong, I've webbed myself many times before by accident :p But the power of web in my opinion justifies learning how to use it and positioning the party correspondingly. There are many hard fights that web(s) turn the tables in your favor.
to many defense spells and to less attack spells for my taste i mean what am i then? a super tanky sorc who is mainly there for buffing an debuffing? i wanna hail destruction on my enemies... when i finally hit lvl 8 spells the base game is basically over what sense does that make? for example: why should i use spirit armor if i allready have: mirror image, stone skin and protection from magical weapons? its such a waste and its not like iam playing the sorcerer as a tank in the first place the sorcerer should stay back out of enemy range and in baldurs gate 1+2 they aggro what they see first
Hello, first of all let me just say that if you are only playing the base game and not trying SCS, then you can definitely go much more offensive in terms of your spell selection. This video is more focused on dealing with Ascension/SCS modded games, though it can still apply to the base game as well of course. In an unmodded installation, enemies do tend to focus essentially on what they see first, so as long as you position properly, you are safe for the most part and can just chuck spells at enemies as you please. Enemy spellcasters also don't buff themselves in the same way as with the mods, so you also don't need to go so heavy on anti-magic spells, even just a few on your mage companions will likely do the job. As for this guide, yes, you become quite tanky as with mods enemies are much more intelligent and pick their targets in a much smarter way. Buffing and debuffing is extremely effective and also efficient, helping your entire party while disabling the opponents is usually much better than chucking a fireball into the enemies. Personally, I find that a few offensive spells early such as magic missiles and skull trap for instance, can take care of pretty much anything until you get your heavy hitters on the higher levels so there's not much need to go overboard with offensive spells. To answer your example question - generally speaking, stacking buffs is very powerful. In this case, you have mirror image (essentially a miss chance for opponents), stoneskin (negates damage from hits until it expires) and protection from magical weapons (makes you immune to hits from magic weapons for 3 rounds - short duration). PfMW is obviously very powerful, but it only lasts for 3 rounds, so it's not something that you will pre-buff with for an adventure or long combat. If you add spirit armor, you are increasing your AC by a lot (which in turn makes all your other defensive buffs better, as enemies will miss you more often, which means your mirror images and stoneskins will stay for much longer) and you are also increasing your saves, making you safer vs. spells where as the defensive selection you mentioned provided 0 protection from them. As an additional note: You can reach level 8 spells a lot sooner than end-game. For example, in my playthrough that's on the channel, I believe I already had level 8 spells even before going to spellhold.
You are right that remove magic will remove most buffs that an enemy has. But, that's only true if it actually hits. So, what I mean by this is that enemies might have other spell defenses that give them immunity from remove magic or even immunity from abjurarion spells altogether (remove magic is an abjuration spell). While those defenses are up, remove magic effectively does nothing, so you need to use other tools to strip away those magical defenses in order to be able to hit with your powerful "anti-buff" spells like remove magic or breach. Also, remove magic is not a guarantee to work, you need to overcome an enemy spell level and make a roll to see if the remove magic will work or not (simplifying - the higher level the character casting the remove magic has, the better chance you have of actually dispelling an opponent). If you try to use remove magic on a lich for example or another high level wizard you'll see that some times it will not work, this is also why slotting in 3 remove magics in a spell sequencer is so powerful, you get 3 shots at it. Breach on the other hand removes pretty much everything you need in combat and is a guaranteed hit (again, if the enemy is not immune to it). For a better explanation and visualization of what I'm talking about, check this - ruclips.net/video/Kf18ab17NVU/видео.html :D Baldur's gate is a complex game eheh that's what makes it so amazing!
@@CoredumpedGamingy man, im trying to learn how to dispel on this game, im in chapter 3 but did all quest that i find i got watcher keep until hive mother and i got totally destroyed (maybe level average 14 15 in party) but some lichs go went with letting their buffs run out and some dragons just luck with brute force, so i feel that im winning hard fights with luck or cheese. I wanna try scs so im looking at your vids! Ty for this. I was looking that mage vid bit you said that take a look of this one first hehe
@@andrese564 Yeah, don't worry about it :p That's the usual experience when first playing BG2 for most players ahah Beholders in general are extremely deadly opponents, and hive mothers are some of the strongest beholder types there are. Animate Dead from a cleric or mage will destroy them though as the skeleton warriors it summons are immune to magic so they'll just kill those evil eye monsters while your party sits safely behind :D
There are multiple reasons. The main one for me is that they become immune to fire at level 16 and they have more HP than a regular sorcerer. Fire is the most common damage element in the game, so it's amazing to just have your character immune to it as a default and more HP will allow you to live when otherwise you would die naturally. They also get boosts to their AC and their Constitution making them tankier overall (+5 AC and +2 CON at level 20) and they have their cool fire breath ability which can be useful, especially earlier in the game. All these make a Dragon Disciple a better choice than the regular sorcerer, and all they lose for it is 1 spell/day on each spell level. They get a lot of spells for day, so losing out on one doesn't really make much of a difference, especially considering the gains. If there is anything else you would like to know, ask away :D
@@CoredumpedGaming Thanks for the reply. Personally, if its a choice between 1 more casting of sleep or +1 AC on squishy character, I will take 1 more casting of sleep. And at 20th level, I really dont want to rely on AC or extra hit points to survive against a fire giant for example, because there is no way a sorc is getting enough AC or hit points for that to be an effective option. Extra castings of spells at every level, including stone skin and protection from magical weapons, are going to do more for survivability. Constitution bonuses are useless given you can just start with 16 constitution, and the glacially slow regen requires manual of bodily health and level 5 or level 15, and not talking elf (thereby losing 1 thac0 on melf's meteors and sleep and charm immunity). Its so slow that its a moderate convenience for travelling on the world map, not consequential in combat. Fire immunity at 16 is a long wait for something that is essentially replicating the functionality of a 3rd level spell. The other issue is that taking fire damage, even if its completely negated, still interrupts casting. You are going to want warriors to be tanking fire damage anyway. Sorcs do have a reasonable number of spell casts, but more spell slots is still very useful. That's why the ring of wizardry and Edwin are good. Once you start using sequencers and contingencies, you can get through spell slots extremely quickly, and with sorcs being spontaneous casters, they nearly always have something useful to use their spell slots on. If you rest after every battle, this usually wont matter, but its tedious, and on the hardest fights, even fully rested you can run out of high level spell slots. To me, DD is making them moderately better at something they are still wont be good at (AC and health), and significantly worse for the thing you want them for (spell casting).
@@notalefty999 Fair points given in a well constructed manner, thank you :D At a certain point I think it also comes down to personal preference. I usually play the game with few rests and I find that my dragon disciples have a lot of longevity. Sometimes if I want to go nuts and just blow everything at a pack of enemies to watch the fireworks go off I like doing it with a project image. There was very rarely a time where I felt I had not enough spell casts (except Amelyssan, but with her even on a normal sorcerer I feel I don't have enough :p). In the end, I enjoy the extra safety of the defensive bonuses the DD gets and feel they justify the loss of a cast/level but by no means do I underestimate the value of having extra spells either. Thank you for your comment, I appreciate your insight on this matter.
Hello, you did not skip it, I did not recommend it. My reasoning for it: 1. the duplicate only has 60% of the level of the original caster, which means it cannot cast the more high impact spells (of course lower level spells can still be useful). 2. Using SCS, quick item slots are not usable so you cannot abuse certain items or scrolls (which I find cheesy anyway). 3. Project image can cast everything that your own sorcerer can as it has the same level, which means that 1 use of project image = your entire spell book available which can be unleashed through improved alacrity + time stop for example, which is absolutely devastating. And as such, I find project image to just be a better version of simulacrum. 4. There are other level 8 spells that I consider to be more important and as such it's difficult to find room for other spells. With that being said, this also comes down to play style. The simulacrum can attack, while a project image cannot for example, which means you could have another minute meteor machine gun in your group :D It can cast spells alongside the sorcerer which can be an advantage (once you get improved alacrity and timestop this advantage becomes irrelevant though) and your own sorcerer can move and do stuff while the simulacrum is alive, where it is frozen in place with project image. In any case, given the reasons above, I just find that Simulacrum is not as good as the alternatives and since our level 8 spells are quite limited and in my opinion Project Image is superior, I just never take it. I would, however, rank it much higher if it was being cast by a bard or mage/thief for example since the bard can buff everyone with a song while the original is fighting or just also join the fight as well, and a mage/thief can be an additional sneaky backstabber in the fight.
I do take greater malison, although this is actually a spell that could be used by one of your other mages to free up a slot in your sorcerer if you prefer since you don't usually cast greater malison more than once in a fight (I still like having it in my sorcerer though). Glitterdust is something that I always memorize on my other mage companions, I would not waste a sorcerer slot on it. Very good spell though.
@@Ddd23153 Good point, the skeletons are indeed quite strong for a good portion of the game. This may be party dependent naturally but I always have at least one cleric with me and since they have the same spell (with the bonus of for cleric's it's a level 3 spell) I just summon the skellies with them. Do not underestimate spell shield though, it is a very good spell. If I really wanted animate dead on my sorcerer I would have a hard time choosing whether to leave out Spell Shield of Lower Resistance (really depends on the companions I would take with me)
@@Ddd23153 no web is better bro, once u get polymorph, haste and magic weapon u can cheese the hell out of most packs of mobs for a while with poly morph giant spider magic weapon and web
@@CoredumpedGaming I hope you don't mind answering this question, but I've also been thinking of doing a berserker mage dual class some time later. But I noticed that a mage and a sorcerer have a different way of spellcasting. I know you can learn every spell as a mage where a sorcerer can't but it's more limited how many times you can cast those spells. So if I were to fully level up a berserker mage through the whole game, how would that spell selection look like? As in how many times would I have to memorise a spell like shield, for example?
It is definitely one of the best summons in the game with all its invulnerabilities. It is a fair choice but not one I end up using myself too often as I don't tend to rely on summons that much outside very specific situations. Well, and the planetar of course :p
Secret word is a very worthy choice for sure. I normally don't need it very often for the earlier portions of the game so I usually just have it memorized on a mage.
Hi! I do like glitterdust, but it's something I always take on my mage companions. I feel like one or two is enough, and that's why I don't take it on a sorcerer.
Greetings good sir. My understanding is that you can mod your game with scs on your phone but I have never done it myself. I'll leave you a few links here in case they help: Android - www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=www.reddit.com/r/baldursgate/comments/gh2ncc/a_quick_and_easy_guide_to_modding_baldurs_gate_on/&ved=2ahUKEwibpMzmi-X6AhVC3hoKHQYnA8IQFnoECAcQAQ&usg=AOvVaw3hwD6ut-AV4tCh7PhvoSWT Iphone - www.reddit.com/r/baldursgate/comments/lqvflr/mods_on_ios/? Modding discord where you can ask questions and get help for any issue you might encounter - discord.gg/hDdvfHTA Hope it helps and have fun with your game :D
Usually the main stat for spellcasting on a sorcerer would be Charisma, but in these games that wasn't actually implemented. You could dump charisma if you wanted and it wouldn't make any difference combat wise. Still, since a sorcerer doesn't really need any stat, this makes him a good contender to actually have high charisma :p he will be more charming to people, get better prices, better reactions and will also help in keeping your party together (there are specific events were certain companions can just leave your party if your charisma is low) Other than that, I would also give him a lot of dexterity to increase his AC and CON to a maximum of 16 (lower if playing a dragon disciple as they gain 2 con as they level up) because 16 is the maximum CON value that a non-warrior type can benefit from. There is a case for having high WIS on a sorcerer, and that is if you intend on casting the Wish spell. It's very niche and not something I usually concern myself with but if you do want to cast Wish you would want your wisdom at 18. Also keep in mind that if you're playing through BG1 and importing to BG2 there are tomes in BG1 that permanently increase your stats (1 for each stat with the exception of wisdom for which there are 3). Tl;dr: 10 STR 18 DEX 15 CON (13 if dragon disciple) 10 INT 15 WIS 17 CHA will make you as effective as possible on a roll of 85 (83 for a DD) which is quite trivial to get.
@@CoredumpedGaming @Coredumped Gaming sweet! Thank you :] what party npcs would you recommend if I want a minimized party? 2 or max 3+me? I do play on normal mode, so it should be possible right?
@@geraltgrey-mane695 yes, it is possible for sure. I prefer to play with as many companions as possible :D but I would say that at a minimum I would want a cleric, a thief and a fighter type with me. So for BG1 an example party would be: Sorcerer (you) Fighter type (Kagain, Montaron, ajantis, khalid, minsc - my personal preference is kagain) Cleric (Viconia, tiax or Branwen) Thief (imoen, montaron, tiax or coran) If you only want to have 2 companions, look for the multiclassed companions like tiax, montaron, coran for example that can fit two of those roles. For BG2 you also have a lot of choices but if you want to keep the party tiny I would suggest: Sorc (you) Anomen (fighter>cleric) - support and fighting prowess Jan (mage/thief) - takes care of all thief duties and supports as mage Korgan - rips enemies apart :D
Acho que se falar a minha lingua mais conveniente a maioria dos espectadores não iria ter muito interesse em ver estes videos. Também não sei se pela minha pronunciação estás a assumir que sou eslavo, que não sou :p
I've been playing these games since they were released. This is grade A content right here, I couldn't agree more with your picks.
Dunno I think both sleep + blindness or sleep + spook are better than spook + blindness
@@maomaeramnon3870 If I'm playing through BG1 first, I somewhat agree with you, as Sleep is op in BG1. But your sorcerer can easily get a wand of sleep from Thalantyr as well. In BG2 and TOB Sleep sadly does nothing while Blindness and Spook never really cease to be decent spells.
Lol you sound like Edwin, 🤔 or are you Edwin
"You may refer to me merely as 'sir'" :D
Holy shit, you’re so spot on!
Dude i was JUST thinking that this is freaking Edwin teaching us
Slavic elitism represent
😂 I can't stop thinking about it now
Can't argue with the majority of choices here.
One essential Icewind Dale spell that deserves a mention, if you are playing with those spells, is the level 4 spell: Emotion Hope. It's a party wide buff of +2 to saving throws, damage, and hit roles, that lasts 1 hour. That's an essential buff IMO. Hard to say where it fits for a sorcerer preference among the other great level 4 options, but definitely wants to be somewhere in your party at least.
Oh, I definitely agree. I always have both positive emotions on my party pretty much at all times. But since it's something you usually cast once per rest I always leave that for my mages to memorize.
I think it’s important to mention the rng nature of remove magic and how it interacts with your and your opponents level. With the low leveling rate of sorcs I find it pretty inconsistent and much better on a bard.
I agree. On a bard it is much better because they gain levels a lot faster. However, I can tell you that having someone (in this case the sorcerer) be able to have a lot of remove magics available, in addition to the ones your other party members might have is always a valuable asset in my opinion.
At the start of SoA and even in BG1 remove magic will not be a great bet on something to use, but mid SoA and later it becomes pretty consistent. If you are playing against, let's say, a very high level spell caster, you would be better relying on your other anti-magic defense tools but more often than not, a remove magic or a spell sequencer with 3 of them takes care of a whole lot of problems. And naturally it will be very effective against a lot of other enemies as well.
Many thanks for the thorough guide. Appreciate you consider spell picks you have for the majority of your play-through vs total spell picks you get at the very end of the game.
Great guide. could I give you one idea for future content? Dav has covered alot of stuff in hus channels, but one thing i never hear him mention is a guide for strong enemies for scs. I would love to see a strategy breakdown for the ravager, Irenicus, the 5, watchers keep, basically any of the big bads. I know how to beat them, scs, insane, no re road not so much. would love to see a guide on strong enemies.
Ps also no one seems to have a good guide for installing mods and where to find all mods. I wish someone would do this so we could get more people to try scs and other content.
Hi, thanks for the feedback. Future content will also be about making other playthroughs of different games, not strictly infinity engine games. I will however upload anything Baldur's Gate related if I think it could be useful/fun for you guys.
My current BG2 playthrough is now ongoing in Throne of Bhaal so you can see how I deal with those tougher opponents there, but I get that people also like to have something more self-contained and only showing the fight, could be something interesting to do sure.
Regarding mod installation guide, I've seen some good guides out there. Do you feel that those are outdated?
@@CoredumpedGaming yeah I would love to see a breakdown guide for ee versions and how to install and what goes with what. But even if it was just teaching someone how to install scs and why would be good enough. It took me like 3 days to figure out one mod to cast in armour with no penalty. But just an idea no need to pursue it.
As for a self contained guide to help with the harder enemies and what to expect and what to use to win for scs insane would be great. But I can figure it out on my own. Was just thinking it could be a decent guide idea that no one else has done (besides written form)
have you seen the walk-through by mivsan_nt? he plays with scs and ascension and has INCREDIBLE knowledge about the game. he came up with lots of innovative strategies for many of the boss fights, highly recommended
One reason to bump up incendiary cloud to a higher priority is that even though characters like Korgan can't become immune to dispel, there is a ton of gear in bg2 that provide fire resistance and its very easy to have 2-3 characters completely immune (or even absorbing) fire damage. And if you're a dragon disciple, you can put on a fire resistance ring (or protection from fire + spell immunity abjuration) and create a space where you will heal like half your total hit points per round for a turn. Kinda broken against anything that doesn't blow away the cloud effects (dragons and most clerics).
You make very good points and indeed incendiary cloud is super powerful. My main issue with it is that it is a cloud effect which can sometimes be inconvenient because I may be standing in it with some character that gets dispelled suddenly and he just gets one shot instantly (especially if stacking clouds and playing with double damage on) and the fact that fire is the most commonly resisted element.
If people are aware of it though and position properly the spell is very very good though.
Great video. Would love to see one on divine spells. Very informative and concise. Thank you for not making it too long
Thank you :)
For divine spells there are clearly spells better than others but is not usually such an issue as with a sorcerer given that you always have access to all of them at any time and can swap them in and out to experiment.
Very nice. I didn't know Blind could prevent spellcasters from targeting you
Blind is one of the most powerful effects in the game for a very long time. Not only spellcasters btw, enemy fighters also can't see you and won't attack you unless you go up against them in melee, so you can basically blind a fighter and then just kill him from range and he can't fight back (he may wander around aimlessly though which is sometimes annoying to chase after :p)
I personally think the level 2 Resist Fear is essential. Its an aoe, which means itll effect all party members, and negates all the fear/intimidation effects when fighting draconic and demonic enemies. A must have imo
I completely agree, but that's a spell that I would always have ready on a companion mage.
I don't think that it worth it, when you can just have a couple of remove fear on your cleric
@@dzn9338agreed.
Must have for a solo run
Good Guide. The Sorcerers I played could not live without Glitterdust, AOEInvisiblity, Animate Dead, Mordenkains Sword. Depends on the play style I guess.
Thank you! All the spells you mention are very very good. The reason why I don't usually include them in my sorcerer is because in a full party I leave those spells for companions (with the exception of Mordenkainen's sword).
Glitterdust and AOE Invisibility are very important but I find that I never need many casts of those spells so I have my mage companions memorize them (Jan for example). Animate dead I always leave to my clerics (and this is basically one of the most powerful summons in the game). Mordekainen's sword is something that I pick up as a last pick for the level as I don't usually rely on summons that much, this one I would say is play style dependent, if you like using summons, then definitely go for this one.
If you don't have companions capable of casting said spells, then they would become a much more serious consideration to take on any sorcerer.
I expect your channel to do quite well in time. Well presented and not overly complex. Keep it up!
Thank you so much for your kind comment! I will do my best :D
God I loved the way spells worked in this game, stripping defences off your opponent was actually fun. Stacking buffs and debuffs. 5e and the concentration mechanic ruined it but I understand why they went that route.
At least we still have pathfinder
Yup, totally agree with you. The way magic works in bg, the mage battles, having to work through defenses in order to be able to hurt them I think is the best implementation of a magic system in any game to date.
5e is still cool, but is very simplified and taking away this complexity does make me a bit sad, although like you said, I get why they did it. It probably makes more people in general happy but the few of us who loved the intricacies of this system sad :(
Pathfinder will also come to the channel one day, I also love those games, though they feel, at least to me, more like "buff to high heavens and just break through anything in your way with brute force" than the finesse of Baldur's gate. Still, it feels really good to beat those games :D
@@CoredumpedGaming Hah, yeah that's pretty spot on for pathfinder, you can make nigh unkillable blender gishes that take days to buff and ends a fight in under a min.
Great stuff man, I look forward to future pathfinder or even bg3 content!
@@domokun845 both of them will come to the channel :D
And yeah, blender is quite accurate lol once I got nok nok the first time I played the game, it was like suddenly I had received godlike powers ahah little dude just shreds through everything.
As for the buffs you are 120% correct on that, and it can become quite tedious, but there are some really great quality of life mods for pathfinder that pretty much automate your buffs. The one for kingmaker is not very good to use, but works, the one in wotr is very cool, saves a LOT of time, definitely recommend checking them out. It's called bubbles buff bot
@@CoredumpedGaming Oh nice, I gotta check that out. I pretty much burned out on WOTR due to the endless buffing I had to do for my dual kukris wielding magus trickster. Also my framerates were chugging since it's been a while and my cpu is def throttling my fps
@@domokun845 yeah, buffing manually gets very tiring after a while xD I was trying a crusader dwarf mounted on a boar for shield bashing (it's like my fantasy dream ahah) but it doesn't work very well :(
Very nice video, I listen to while at work. Love bg content
Thank you for your kind comment!
More will soon follow :)
fantastic review! i like your use of spells i selected different spells but you made me appreciate spook alot more thanks. i like using Horror as an early level 2 spell especially combined with web is just cruel on low level enemies haha :D
Thank you very much!
Horror + Web seems like disabling overkill ahah But I can imagine how funny/chaotic it would be to just have scared opponents running around like chickens getting webbed all the time :D
@@CoredumpedGaming my first real time through with a sorc so ill see how o.p they are in number 2, i usually kensai mage or fighter theif
@@Altiar253 Ah, then you are in for a good time! Sorcerer is always useful, but once you get Project image and some higher level spells... You'll feel like a god :D
@@CoredumpedGaming struggling a bit early on..as im getting used to controlling the sorcerer like a fighter 🤣🤣 adjusting still
@@Altiar253 Godspeed friend :D
This is a great list!! Great explanations and very thorough understanding of spells! Kudos, sir!
I’ll sub to any new bg content. Good show m8
Much appreciated! Hope you enjoy :D
Same here buddy
As much as the Sorcerer is fun to play, I prefer to roll a fighter (++ in shields fighting style) and then dual class to mage at level 2. Purely to be able to equip helmets, shields, and certain 1H weapons that work well on a mage and otherwise would be unusable. Helps so much in BG1 with survivability if playing solo or in a small party. The only thing I don't like is that the character model remains looking like a naked fighter when equipping robes...that drives me a little crazy TBH :)
Definitely a very cool and useful option! I know what you mean regarding the character model, when that happens to me I use EEKeeper to change the model of the character.
I do that in basically all my */thief classes, I like the hoodie too much :D
You can also use the avatar morphing script component from Tweaks Anthology to change your avatar anytime you want in game if you can use mods in your game.
Спасибо большое за видео
Great guide, appreciate it!
my general spell picks for sorcerer, with one being solo, the other being party. Overall it's pretty close to yours, though the idea of sorcerer picking detect invisibility as one of their spells is actually pretty interesting-would have been very nice against stuff like BG1 sirines and such, as well as other late game encounters that have mages spamming improved invisibility or thieves using potions of invisibility to try and backstab you. I think I've seen most people ignore it in favor of just waiting for true sight at level 6, or using planetar/infinite spells book instead
Solo LoB Sorcerer Spell list (damage and buff focused rather than debuff focused)
1-Blindness, Magic Missile, Protection from Evil, Identify, Chromatic orb
2-mirror image, knock, invisibility, blur, resist fear
3-Skull Trap, Haste, Protection from Fire, Slow, flame arrow?, //Minor Spell Turning (to prevent stuff like hold traps-may instead go with slow)
4-Stoneskin, Improved Invisibility, Greater Malison, Spirit Armor, Farsight
5-Breach, Spell Immunity, Lower Resistance, Spell Shield, Chaos/Feeblemind?
6-Death Fog, Improved Haste, Prot From Magic Wea., Mislead, True Sight (former-Protection from Magical Energy, use spell immunity: Necromancy instead) (True Sight-planatar has or use book of infinite spells)
7-Project Image, Mordenkainen's Sword, Ruby Ray, Spell Sequencer, Spell turning
8-Abi-Dalzim's HW, Incendiary cloud (Spell trigger?), power word blind (-formerly pierce shield, may need if needed to deal with ravager and other similar enemies), Spell Trigger (pierce shield?)
9-Time Stop, Chain Contingency, Wish, Imprisonment (spell strike wand, staff of magi for spell trap)
Party Insane Sorcerer Spell list (debuff focused)
1-Shield, Magic Missile, Blindness, Identify, Chromatic orb
2-mirror image, knock, invisibility, blur, resist fear
3-Skull Trap, Slow, Haste, Protection from Fire, flame arrow
4-Stoneskin, Improved Invisibility, Greater Malison, Spirit Armor, Farsight
5-Breach, Spell Immunity, Lower Resistance, Feeblemind (Spell Shield?), Chaos
6-Death Fog, Improved Haste, Prot From Magic Wea., Mislead, Protection from Magical Energy (Contingency/True Sight?) (True Sight-planatar has and use book of infinite spells)
7-Project Image, Mordenkainen's Sword, Ruby Ray, Spell Sequencer, Spell turning
8-Abi-Dalzim's HW, Incendiary cloud, pierce shield, Spell Trigger
9-Time Stop, Chain Contingency, Wish, Imprisonment (spell strike wand)
Nice thorough lists. My reply will mostly be focused on the party list as it is the one in which I have more experience, though I will say your solo list seems very solid. Also, are you playing without IWD spells or do you just not consider them for your sorcerer?
1. In a party do you feel the need for identify? Granted that for BG1 it can be useful but I find that you can easily identify things by either just paying for the service or using baeloth.
2. Why knock here? Do you usually not play with a thief in the party?
4. Farsight - interesting, I think I've never even ever cast that spell before :p any particular reason for this? I can see it being useful if you want to guide summons around the map while you stay behind. Any other cool use you have for it?
@@CoredumpedGaming playing without the IWD spells since I try to keep the mods as minimal as possible-only using the gibberlings 3 tweak pack to mod a few settings. I played with the IWD spells (and a decent number of other mods like extra areas and NPC companions) a ways back, but that install got messed up or forgotten or something, and the saves were lost, so when I started up again I didn't bother finding all the mods I'd been using and just went with the tweak pack. I also don't use SCS or other difficulty mods, so that probably affects some spell pick weights and whatnot. A general trend I've seen people hold is trying to avoid redundancy when possible, or use an item substitute if it's available-like the spellstrike wand instead of taking the spell itself, and possibly using summoned planetars or book of infinite spells for true seeing (and using that only instead of earlier invisibility busters like detect illusion or invisibility-you can also just hold onto some scrolls of those spells to cast it when you need them, but that might be much more important for SCS fights where more mages, thieves, and enemies in general use invisibility). It's also why i've seen people skip animate dead as a level 5 spell despite the level 15+ skeleton warriors it summons being absolutely phenominal summons with their very good durability, resistances, immunities, and absurd 90% magic resistance as well as 8 hour duration, but mordekainen's sword beats even that skeleton warrior in everything aside from summon length
1-indentify was the lazy pick after getting the level 1 spells that are most vital-blind, shield (though the shield necklace also works instead), and magic missile. It really did help a lot in BG1 though when you're struggling for money, or don't want to spend 100 gold per identified item at the shop-even the most expensive room at an inn only costs 8 gold, and it's probably done after some adventuring so doing that also refreshes your spell lists and gets you some healing in, which is more important in BG1 than BG2 since there are regen rings and other gear around. Spook can be nice even late game, but i never bother casting it since there are usually a lot of other options, and if i'm going for a single target disable spell i'd rather attempt either the paralysis wand, polymorph wand, or a blind spell since those are far more crippling and last longer than 3 rounds. Still, having it as a quick heavy save penality panic button to make an enemy spellcaster bugger off for a few rounds is no small feat for a level 1 spell.
I also don't use baeloth (or evil companions in general-i usually run good/neutral parties and characters) much since their whining at high reputation, or outright deserting at highest reputation, annoys me and I don't feel like having to micromanage reputation to keep them from going into a tizzy and running away like divas. When I do use them, it's usually only temporarily for their quests, and usually early game so I do it before I get the reputation high from questing for shop discounts. Baeloth (and Edwin) are definitely probably some of the most powerful NPC companions in the game for arcane casting, but their personalities irritate me and the reputation management thing is an annoyance.
Still, it is something that can be planned around for, like one thing being doing all the EE companion quests in BG1 at chapter 5 when you can get them all done at once, and even if you're at max reputation you can do something like kill shandalar (after doing the ice island quest of course-lots of stuff and exp from that quest, and a boatload of exp and valuable items from shandalar himself-just gotta make sure you've got lots of hasted minions and the paralysis charge hits him, then nail him with lots of arrows and magic missiles. Obviously this is only on a run where you allow reloads, or are feeling particularly reckless and willing to risk a no reload run to shandalar failing that save against the paralysis wand) to tank your reputation to be able to grab dorn and do his quest. Then you can do some reputation tricks with grabbing viconia and baeloth as well to really tank your reputation to like 6, and get the cheaper donation rates for raising reputation - not too high though, unless you don't care at all about being able to use them again if they permanently desert from high reputation. Still, getting like 6 reputation points to get to 12-14 reputation from temple donations lets you get up to 18-20 reputation when you fire dorn, viconia, and baeloth, and get any few remaining points from some quests in the city itself, or quests you've saved to turn in and get the rep boost from them.
Knock-hmm, that might be a mistake choice accidentally copied over from the solo list, I have messed around with them both a lot. Still, having it isn't entirely useless in case your thieves have been gibbed, or spent points in the wrong areas and you don't have thief potions to make up for it. Much better to pick a different spell like resist fear or melf's acid arrow though instead of knock.
Farsight-basically to have as a fallback option if I *really* need to heavily cheese some really annoying enemy group or boss-summon a flood of monsters, project image/vhailor's helm, etc. and having it be farsight instead of wizard's eye since wizard's eye can be detected and killed, which usually would be the case for something that would warrant that level of heavy cheese since most of those foes can see through invisibility. Not sure if I ever will use it, but it's there as a kind of 'nothing else at this level really needed, so could be a fun option'
For a few picks that are a bit out there-web is absent because it's usually overkill if you aren't playing on LoB mode (the LoB mode run I am doing uses web all the time though), and while you can use the ring of free action as an easily swappable item to let your melee characters go into the web without issue, having to micromanage that usually isn't worth the hassle unless you truly need the stopping power multiple webs give you. Death Fog over death spell, since death spell's kill effect is basically worthless on LoB mode with the absurd +13 levels all enemies get (dispel/remove magic also being similarly worthless in LoB mode), though the slay summon effect still works at least, and the level 6 acid damage without save lets it be useful against liches. Probably the one I'm really most unsure about is pierce magic vs pierce shield, especially on the solo sorcerer since I don't remember if the ravager basically needs something like pierce shield to be able to have a reasonable chance at killing as a solo sorcerer
For a solo run I can definitely see the value in avoiding redundancy as every little bit will help or even be really necessary and you only have a limited number of picks. For a party run it's much less of an issue honestly as you can easily spread spells between your companions, especially if you have a mage with you to complement your sorcerer list. Animate dead for example I would never pick on my sorcerer because I can have the same spell as a level 3 spell on a cleric which will be able to dedicate a lot of spell slots to it easily. The swords are a different beast though and definitely worth taking. Just the fact that Animate dead skeletons can deal with swarms of beholders makes them an invaluable spell for me, not to mention just being extremely good against pretty much anything in general.
I understand your other points, just wanted to mention that even if you pick all evil companions (not saying you're doing it wrong by taking good characters btw, this is all personal choice and roleplaying) you can still reach maximum reputation without paying at the temple. In fact I think at times I'm even forced to do some evil stuff to lower my reputation so that my evil companions don't leave the party :p
As for web, that will *always* be in my mage spellbooks and sorcerer learned spells. It is *the* spell for BG1 I think, just takes care of so much for you and even in BG2 can still have great value. Granted that if you play without SCS, this choice as well as other spells of course may not have as much value. Spell defenses and anti-spell defenses spells are not nearly as important in a non-SCS run.
As for the ravager, I think you're right about him needing pierce shield, but I've never done him solo so can't give you much advice there. I typically take pierce magic just because I can sequencer it for some fun. I wouldn't really consider it a "mandatory" spell since secret word does basically the same thing where it counts.
@@CoredumpedGaming evil companions- The 'using the temple to regain reputation' thing was specifically referring to that trick of killing someone like shandalar in chapter 5 so you can recruit dorn, do his quest, and then afterwards regain your previous reputation with minimal gold cost. It isn't needed, but can be useful if you've already done most of the quests that give reputation outside the city itself by that point, I also just find it kind of funny from a mechanics point since you're getting some good will by cheap donations, then taking a drow/blackguard to tank your reputation a bit more, and then getting a bit more cheap goodwill, then booting the drow and blackguard to get a huge increase of reputation. Another factor of the trick is being able to push you back to 20 reputation without needing to do quests since normally you're only able to get up to 18 reputation with donations (and it's super expensive for the last few points).
Yeah, having to do occasional stupid evil stuff is part of what makes keeping evil companions satisfied so annoying, with many people saying they wished there was some kind of evil temple/bard service that you could pay to reduce reputation a bit so you had more control over it without having to do stupid stuff like occasionally murder random innocents or get caught stealing and try bribing the guards
Web-yeah, it is definitely one of the most oppressive spells in BG1 for it's spell level and how long it lasts, as well as how lethal being held is, and since you can stack multiple webs that's almost a guarantee that almost everything that isn't immune will be held, and you can even throw in a greater malison to really make it shut down everything. An annoyance with it though is since it lingers for so long it prevents you from saving or resting until it goes away (same thing for most cloud spells), and it can trip you up and catch you if you aren't paying attention (and the party AI is feeling super stupid and wants to get the party members killed by having them run into melee for no reason). It really is worth taking in most cases, even as a solo sorcerer, but I kind of have a grudge against the spell since web is so bloody annoying to deal with when it happens with traps or enemies casting it (as well as being a bit contrarian and not wanting to use a spell that's on basically every 'recommended' list, since it's possible to go without, unlike stuff like mirror image, blur, stoneskin, and protection from magical weapons)
For pierce magic specifically-part of what makes it stand out is it's the lowest level anti magic spell that can affect liches, which are immune to breach which is otherwise the go to anti magic spell for most enemies (assuming you aren't using SCS or other difficulty mods). Triple pierce magic in a sequencer definitely is a fun toy to use against stuff like liches since it absolutely wrecks their magic defenses and magic resistance
Yep, I also dislike the way you have to handle reputation in the game if you're playing with evil companions but not necessarily being an evil psycho murderer to everyone you find. Seems like that type of gameplay/roleplaying was a bit overlooked. It's not a major problem but it definitely feels silly to at times just having to murder a random innocent bystander just to keep your companions.
You're right about web being annoying in that situation as is the case for any non party friendly aoe effects but I find it still worth using, especially since there are a few ways to make yourself immune to it (but I agree that especially early in BG1 if you aren't careful with movement and positioning it's also an easy way to get yourself killed). Same thing with cloudkill, it's just so good that I put up with the annoying lingering effect afterwards. Makes me miss selective metamagic that you have available in pathfinder WotR or even just the dismiss effect "cantrip" that just adds so much quality of life for those cases.
nice video!
recently I finished baldur's gate 1 and going to play 2, this is going to helpful
Best of luck friend and enjoy :D
Question about chain contingency(9th level spell); you suggested stringing together 3 Horrid Wiltings contingent upon spotting an enemy. In theory this sounds great but in practice does this often get used up killing some low level mooks?
The way I've been using contingencies is to create them, then delete the contingency out of my memorized spell slot (the contingency itself is still stored) and then rest and make any minor tweaks to my spell selection, effectively giving myself a number of extra spells per day stored in the form of contingencies.
A bit of cheesing, but still nothing compared to the similacrum cheese (that I've read about/seen guys like you and Daveorn talk about) which I haven't even made an attempt to learn yet.
What you do with the contingency (use them then remove from memorized spells) is perfectly fine, assuming you are a wizard for this effect naturally. It is an intended game mechanic as far as I know so I have absolutely no problem with it. As for your question, totally depends on when you use it. I would only really setup such a contingency if I know I'm going to be fighting something heavy, so if you expect your next encounter to be something you want to nuke into oblivion ASAP then you would setup this contingency. If you just have it on by default then yeah, an angry squirrel looks at you sideways as you traverse the wilderness and he and all of his ancestors get evaporated :p
I normally have a defensive chain contingency setup to walk around the world and such. 3 horrid wiltings only for something very intentional.
I kinda disagree on the Remove Magic assessment when playing with SCS/Ascension. The problem is that it works from the level difference (50% base chance with -10% per level difference in enemy favor and +5% if the difference is in your favor). And most dangerous spellcasters in SoA/ToB are higher level than your party by quite significant margin. Remove Magic basically works only on unnamed mook casters and not that often.
That's true for early SOA, but later on not only is it very effective against multiple enemies (as usual) but it can also dispel very high priority targets, assuming they are not buffed with SI: Abjuration naturally. I've used remove magic on Irenicus (the last fight of SOA) and successfully dispelled him multiple times. Of course this is more powerful on a bard, which gains levels much faster, but it is still very very strong on a sorcerer. Especially if you like to queue 3 of them in a Spell Sequencer.
But you are right that earlier in the game, you shouldn't try to dispel kangaxx with this :p
@@CoredumpedGaming yeah. Remove magic is where it's at. A bard is great for it obviously but I think it's good for a sorcerer
Yeah, I would give the argument the best dispeller is actually PC inquisitor paladin or get Keldorn with Holy Avenger. Just need to be careful with placement so you do not end up dispelling your own buffs (but if the party somehow gets under the control of the spell or charm then slap with Keldor's dispel or holy avenger to face knock them out from spell control). Remove Magic is friendly for sending parties in and dispelling enemy buffs without fearing your own buffs being removed.
The other consideration is that a Bard is better than a wizard at remove magic. If you take a Bard, then that's one of the best things about them.
It's also tricky, because you are so often fighting mages a higher level than your PC (liches etc...), and remove magic is not so reliable. Well, if they are lower level than you, then it's probably not a very difficult fight anyway.
@@awesimo4684 True, bard's can make good dispellers, as well as they, advance more levels quicker than a paladin, cleric or wizard does.
Great guide, thank you.
you don't fool anyone with that accent you are a portuga i am sure of it. LOL. Bom video continua.
Hey, I've had people saying it was a Thayan accent! Mas obrigado :p
@@CoredumpedGaming bom saber que existem portugas a fazer videos deste tipo e por acaso gostei do conteudo vou tentar jogar reiniciar novo jogo no baldur' gate 2 com os spells que recomendaste.
@@hellscorpio82 Fico contente por saber que aprovas :D Força nisso, qualquer coisa apita por aqui e falamos.
41:43 improved haste is agonizing :D I would like to add mislead is also one of my favorite spell's is very good in practice than in theory, combo with improved invisibility because its instant and eats one action
Oh, mislead is a god tier spell lol The reason why I don't add it to the list is that it can be abused so much to the point of trivializing most of the game, and for that reason I don't like it and don't use it. Extremely effective spell though.
For 6th level I always pick death spell as my first choice. Sure it’s not very useful in difficult battles but it’s convenient when you meet a large group of trash mobs
Death spell is a top tier spell for sure. It's just something I delegate to my other mage(s) in the party as it's a spell you don't usually cast more than once or twice in a fight.
44:00 That's not entirely accurate. PfMW protects against weapons that are 'magical'. In game engine terms, this parameter is separate from a weapon's 'enchantment level'. Weapons that are 'magical' usually have an enchantment level of 1 or more but not always. There are weapons with enchantment level 0 that are nevertheless 'magical'. For example, arrows of dispelling and Bala's axe. These will be blocked by PfMW despite having no enchantment bonus.
Very true, there are certain exceptions for that purpose, thanks for pointing them out good sir.
Dude no invisibility 10 foot radius mention? In bg1 and you have baeloth on your team, is very powerful. You can sleep anywhere, get pass cloakwood ambushes, and great to position and ambush any boss. Heck it's great against every ambush from all the bounty hunters. Sure you could invis everyone with lvl 2 invis spell. But you lose out on it being a oh shit button. I forgot about the wolf of ulcaster fear spell. I had baeloth cast it. It got off everyone was dead except my MC basically. He was running around afraid, but he was invis. Ressed everyone and kept moving. Pretty handy for a no reload run.
Invis 10 foot radius is an amazing spell. Just not something I would give my sorcerer for a full trilogy run as you don't really cast it that often. I would rather have another mage in my party memorize it.
@@CoredumpedGaming yeah I agree with a full run. But baeloth getting it in bg1 is awesome sauce. I'm not sure a reliable way to get it in bg1 for a standard mage.
Just getting into older crpg's like baldurs gate (i have a bit of experience from DoS1 and BG3 and have played the intro dungeon of bg2 before playing bg1). currently around nashkel mines. havent watched the video yet but from my experience, Chilled touch ia surprisingly useful, especially if you actually have a str stat. I say this because i had chosen both chilled touch and chromatic orb. although i expected chromatic orb to be useful (and expect it to be in bg2), i ended up using chilled touch way more because one use of the spell lasts for several small battles or part of one longer one. admittedly it is risky and relies more on the safety net of savescumming (although im kinda still a noob so i mean what strategy for me dosnt require savescumming when 1-2 sling hits kill you) but its a constant source of damage when someone else is there to distract the enemies and doesnt last only one "use." This niche usability probably falls off in BG2 but for early game, im seeing its uses;
it gave me a fun time!
First thing: if it was fun for you to use and you made it work, go for it! Finding cool and interesting things to beat the game with is a lot of the fun :D
In terms of general efficacy though, chill touch is not something I would ever recommend. Like you mentioned, the fact that you need to cast that spell, send in your pretty much naked character into melee, TRY to hit an attack with your horrible caster THAC0 to deal a bit of damage, when you could have cast for example Sleep, which is also a level 1 spell, that would disable every enemy in the area instantly and then your fighters just kill all sleeping enemies for free, makes the spell not very useful in general. Or even just magic missile, which can never miss, scales with levels and deals very decent damage. This is not to say, of course, that you can't play around with the spells and discover what works for you and what you think is fun!
Enjoy playing these amazing games :D
Nice guide im doing my first SCS run as inquisitor planning sorc next I’ll use this guide for tips
Thank you! Have fun with your Inquisitor :D
Earned a follow, nice video
I'm honestly glad and kinda surprised the video wasn't just a 10 second screen that said "Play a Mage instead, lol".
Because that's usually the advice given when the matter of Sorcerer pops up in these games. (and most versions of D&D prior to 5th edition)
Really? People tell you that? That's kind of weird and inconsiderate in my opinion. I love sorcerers and I prefer them over mages (especially if we're talking about a Dragon Disciple).
Both are extremely strong choices but the only time I would try to point someone more to a mage would be in the case of a new player that doesn't know the spells yet since playing a sorcerer you get locked to your choices (which might not be the best if someone is new to the game) while with a mage they can just pick and choose and try whatever they like without having to worry if they made the best spell choice or not.
Sorcerer is objectively better than mage in Baldur's Gate
I didn't realize project image worked like that. :O
Will try..
Project image can be quite the god tier spell. Have fun with it :D
Web is nice indeed but i rather pick Horror because it ha WAY bigger range. Its also Necromany and Necro is the game 5th best caster for its -4 penalty on both Horror but more importantly Finger of Death (i took many dragons and top rank demon-lords out with that :D)
To be honest, I've never analysed the actual range of both spells but I've always felt like web was a way larger effect. The one thing I dislike a lot about horror though is the fact that your enemies will just start running around all over the place. This is bad for two reasons: it makes them hard to kill and they may end up going to different areas and calling more enemies into the fight. Web will just stick them in place and while their paralyzed their AC doesn't matter so you always land your hits, which is also a very big boost. Naturally the downside of web is that you may have to wait for the effect to be over to pass through the area and if you don't have movement impairing immunities it can be a bit of a mess.
Finger of death is a whole different story, and I agree it does feel good to one shot baddies with it :p
@@CoredumpedGaming you misunderstand the range, you send yo scoot invisible, when there is an enemy that is VERY BAD for you like an ogre mage you shoot horror outside of its view, fails nothing happens it dos not see you you try again. (if you use web you scout in cases may get separated). YES horror will make enemy runaround, that is when you saw to bows, the maps/combat aria are small, a lot of them, with web you also need to swap to bows, but if you walk in it by accident...(it happens even with bows yes) well thatch BIG problem :D So both makes it hard to hit an enemy, not to mention in corridor's you have to w8t web to go away to proceed. YES horror is harder to "hunt down enemy" but safer to put on enemy's, and a scatter enemy group that would harm you without crowd control is better than one that can lets say shoot back because they win one of their saves(like wizard Enemy with chaos as you have web is down XD an yey everyone is tapped ...again XD). Is better than one that lets be hones wont stay in 1 web :D i use 2 mostly and its...steel not grate. Also you ring of "free movement" for one of your things to walk in it. I would not risk an Oger mage caliber enemy, that can one shoot the party with fire ball because the web did not go under him.
WEB IS GRATE is good spiel but i rather use it if i have ring or spider walk sword (that i don't have on everyone and its ....hard to get lest say :D horror only needs bows), Web its awesome with summon spiders, or druid avenger spider transformation :D
Both spells are grate its about what one finds comfortable to me is horror, and later chaos. (best spell of the game :D until 7th level spells)
Hi Coredumped, I don't know if you have looked at the details of the relatively new version 35 of SCS, but DavidW made one change that I think is fairly substantial when deciding spell selections. He decided to make Breach bypass Spell Immunity Abjuration altogether. I might be wrong, but I believe that means that a sorcerer would be vulnerable to breach unless he has a Spell Shield or Spell Turning, or Spell Trap up. Given that, I am thinking for my upcoming BG2 playthrough to take Spell Trap for my third level 5 pick at level 13, and Lower Resistance for my fourth pick at Level 15. Would you agree with taking Spell Shield sooner knowing that without it your sorcerer is always vulnerable to Breach?
Oh what? That's a pretty massive change not gonna lie. I would have to experiment with it a bit to know if I like it or not, thanks for letting me know this :D
I would definitely say that spell shield becomes a lot more important as well as other defenses like spell turning and spell deflection. The main problem is still getting hit by remove/dispel magic so spell immunity abjuration is still crucial.
Just by writting this I think I like the change actually, definitely makes things more interesting in order to keep our spellcasters safe :D
Yeah, I don’t think a lot of players have noticed this yet. Whenever you next play the original BG saga, I’d recommend taking a look at the very long list of changes that DavidW made for v35. In that post, this is the bullet that describes the change to Spell Immunity: “Breach now bypasses spell immunity by being effectively level 10 (on reflection the mismatch with Spell Turning isn't as bad as the alternatives).”
Long video but excellent none-the-less :)
Project Image is straight cheating in my eyes and so fun to abuse with a meme build. But wow did Bioware not even remotely think that spell through. It's arguably more powerful than Wish, which itself is utterly OP if you have high Wisdom (or just carry Potions of Insight to be used in conjunction with it; you can afford them if you can cast 9th level spells)
Well, I wouldn't call them cheating... broken maybe xD Project image is bonkers for sure... Casting your entire spell book at the cost of a single level 7 spell is waaayy too good. Extremely fun though! ahah
But yes, Project image and Wish can be considered a bit cheesy and I understand that some people might not want to use it.
Sleep will make your life ALOT easier for BG1...It hurts not to choose it
Sleep is an amazing spell for early BG1, no question about it. But since it becomes obsolete relatively soon, I find it not to be a worthy pickup on a sorcerer and instead just have another mage in the party memorize it for the parts of BG1 where it is still relevant.
Guys can you tell me whats your thought on mass haste Mordenkainens swords? I literally use it throught whole game nearly, and i dont know is it so good as i think or not. And if i may ask, please wrote more than "it sucks".
Improved haste on swords is awesome. They're nearly unkillable and will be excellent summons. Their vulnerability is death spell, but if you're hasting them you can also give them death ward and protection from magic damage and make them immune to everything :p
@@CoredumpedGaming Thats why im surprised You didnt even mention them. Yes, there was some parts when i couldnt use time stop/swords spam, but i think it is one of the cheeseist strategies in the game :P
@@jakubbiskup4494 exactly for being kinda cheesy is why I don't normally use it or brought up in the video :p
But it is definitely very viable!
I’m surprised Glitterdust didn’t make it over detect invisibility.
Glitterdust is a very good spell but something I will usually only take a couple of on a mage companion and not use a sorcerer slot on (though it's not a bad choice).
Compared to detect invis though it is less effective as detect does not need to hit the enemies to reveal them, and a lot of times that will make a huge difference.
While I disagree with some choices, (playing Sorcerers, I prefer Dragon Disciple and spam Incendiary Cloud) I agree with your choices. Last spell choice on level 9 is Wish. SpellStrike and Imprisonment doesn’t even compare. 😛
For sure. The thing with Wish is simply that some people may find it cheesy (I'm fine with using it however). But if you want the best possible spells, then yes, Wish really is the way to go.
@@CoredumpedGaming Cheesy isn’t Wish. It’s Limited Wish. 😈 Have Edwin cast Limited Wish, and with his AWESOME Wisdom 9, ask for Protection from the Undead. If Viconia is high enough, have her turn the vampires to attack your enemies. But even worse than that, getting the vampires sets the system clock to midnight. If you do this at 1am facing Demogorgon, or a high level lich, ALL THEIR PROTECTIONS WILL EXPIRE. This will make the system clock move forward 23 hours. Short duration summons will expire, combat and magic protections will expire. 🤭🤭🤭
@@User_Un_Friendly LOL I have never tried anything remotely like that, had no clue that even happened. That would be a sight to behold for sure xD
@@CoredumpedGaming it’s in the BG2 Fandom Wikipedia page for Limited Wish. 😉😉😉
@@CoredumpedGaming Have you tried Wand of Lightning cheeses? Wand of Lightning allows you to select up to 6 targets. Make your selection, and before unpausing, replace the Wand of Lightning with whatever you want. Like the Wand of Fireballs, or Cloudkill…this unleashes 6 fireballs or Cloudkills.
If you had taken advantage of the ferret or cat familiar (I always do) and smuggled out the Rift Device, you can blast Melissa’s and 5 of her minions in TOB.
(the cat and ferret’s storage bypasses checks. In the Unseeing eye, have one person empty their inventory except the Rift Device, and have your familiar steal it. When you get back to Athkethla, ask for the Rift Device. Stash it in a chest until the Underdark is complete, and take it with you through TOB. There’s a check exiting the Underdark. And an option in SCS meant to elimate this cheese…)
Very nice guide. But could you elaborate why is Dragon Disciple more powerful than normal sorc? I mean, who cares about fire resistance, you lose one spell charge per level which is HUGE. Normal sorc is much more powerful at mid to high to end game.
Thank you :) And sure, this question has come up before:
There are multiple reasons. The main one for me is that they become immune to fire at level 16 and they have more HP than a regular sorcerer. Fire is the most common damage element in the game, so it's amazing to just have your character immune to it as a default and more HP will allow you to live when otherwise you would die.
They also get boosts to their AC and their Constitution making them tankier overall (+5 AC and +2 CON at level 20) and they have their cool fire breath ability which can be useful, especially earlier in the game.
All these make a Dragon Disciple a better choice than the regular sorcerer for me, and all they lose for it is 1 spell/day on each spell level. They get a lot of spells for day, so losing out on one doesn't really make much of a difference, especially considering the gains.
As an extra thing to think about regarding the relevance of fire resistance is that the most common way for enemy high level spell casters to try and kill you is to dispel you and then drop a dragon's breath or comet on top of you (both are fire). Also something I just remembered: one of the most damaging things you can do in an aoe is to drop several incendiary clouds in an area and melt everything inside. You would normally do this with protection from fire on yourself but if you get hit by a remove magic and lost that buff you instantly die. Being a dragon disciple you can just freely walk through all those situations and not worry about a thing :D
tldr: Most of the benefits from a dragon disciple come down to survivability. This is mostly because I play with no reloads and double damage on so I want to make sure I'm as safe as possible. If you're just playing normally for fun and want to have the most firepower possible, then yes, the regular sorcerer will enable more spells overall.
@@CoredumpedGaming Very nice reasoning. I just started a new run of my heavily modded EET game :D
@@SlunceBlunce best of luck my friend :D let me know how it goes!
See? I'm too computer illiterate to give myself additional XP, so that's frustrating right off the top.
59:41 one of my Wizards i love Simulacrum and a simularcrom can also summon simulacrums :D
I normally just stick with project image for this purpose, but I'm gaining more fondness for Simulacrum over time :D
Don't get me wrong, us simians should only refer to you as sir... Still, I feel like nitpicking.
1: Agreed, almost. Protection from Petrification! A little situational, but in those situations - not having this is suicide
2: I prefer to skip invis here for improved invis later. Especially on SCS, vocalize is mandatory. Sure, you get the amulet of power at some point, but you have to get there, first. Also, I oftentimes give the AoP to a cleric or paladin for the Negative Plane Protection. AoP becomes more a wizard thing by the time you get HLA's and you don't get drained all the time. Web remains useful throughout ToB. Couple in a sequencer; fire at Yaga Shura and laugh.
3. Agreed, unless you go solo. In that case, protection from normal missiles is *mandatory* for BG1 segment. For a party, a notable pick is mass invis. See enemy casting evocation or necromancy? Pop this, and the spell is oftentimes wasted. In a fight you can't win? Pop it, regroup. Also superduper handy for when you travel the world map in bg1 *and* bg2. Still, that spell doesn't scale - so you could have your off-mage cast that.
4. Yeah, see, you pick both invisibilities, I wouldn't do that. I'd take this one, and Vocalize on level two.
5. Yes, agreed.
6. Yes, agreed.
7. I'd forego Sequencer for Spell Trigger at 8, and take Mordekainen's Sword here. Great summon to hold off the goons.
8. Eh, I take both? Not immediately, but by the end of SoA, early ToB you have both.
9. Take both!! CC first, Time Stop second.
All valid choices to be sure, some of my choices are mostly personal preference.
2: I normally take invisibility because it lasts 24h which is very nice for scouting or some specific tasks and it is also very useful for BG1 and SoD due to its very quick cast time to get someone out of trouble, like a companion held by hold person or web.
3: I never go solo, but I agree that for a solo run the list would definitely feature different spells. AoE invis is something that I always have on one of my other arcane casters so I don't take it on the sorc since I don't cast it that often. It is a very important spell to have access to in the party for sure though.
7: ALL THE SEQUENCERS!!!! Mordekainen's sword is an amazing summon and definitely worth considering, I just don't usually play with summons so I don't take it very often. Every time I took it I forgot about them until after the fights are done :p
8 and 9: Naturally! I just wanted to give more emphasis on the spells you can use for a good while. For example, when I first played my sorcerer I wanted cloudkill but left it for last since I would still learn it later on, ended up getting it SO late in the game that it wasn't even worth using anymore. But of course that once you get to those experience levels, pick them :D
Thanks for the feedback good sir!
@@CoredumpedGaming But.. wait. You can only have one sequencer active at any given time? Am I missing something? Yeah, I'd take 'em both if they'd stack. In fact, if they do, I'm rolling up a Dragon Disciple NOW. Sunday afternoon.... I'm guessing I can make it to Durlaq's before bedtime.
And, if I do, I'll consider Spider Spawn. Granted, they don't do much late game, but I want to play around with web and spider combo's. Imagine that in the SCS Bandit Camp. Yep. Rolling a DD.
@@redelephantsdotnl looool they don't "stack" as in, you can't click one button and it fires 7 spells, but you can have readied a minor sequencer + sequencer + trigger + contingency + chain contingency :D
@@CoredumpedGaming Yeah, just now I watched your vid of Palpatine in Sendai's Enclave where I noticed that. I think that's new with the EE's? I am *positive* before you could only have one sequencer, and one contingency. This is a game changer for me. So many possibilities!
@@redelephantsdotnl hum, maybe, I honestly can't remember how it was back in the old days so I'll take your word for it.
Well, I am very happy to have been part of a new discovery for you my friend :D enjoy!
Haven't played the game in decades and planning the buy game again. Do you think it's okay for me to use the 2 mods that you mentioned?
If you've already experienced the game unmodded I would say sure, try it out with some mods. Don't go crazy and bump up the difficulty to the max at the start though if you haven't played in decades xD
Some useful links on that regard:
How to install mods: ruclips.net/video/Dpumgv99_iI/видео.html
Understanding SCS mages and how to beat them: studio.ruclips.net/user/videoKf18ab17NVU/edit
@@CoredumpedGaming I see. Will do. Thank you for the links!
Love it. :-)
Remove magic depends on level? Is it correct to give it to sorcerer in case most of you enemies will be higher level then you if I`m not mistaken?
It does depend on level yes. I *always* put it on my sorcerer because it is incredibly useful. You won't rely on it for boss type enemies or liches (even though they can still work) but for most other enemies in the game it works quite well. And let's not forget you can also prepare a triple remove magic sequencer which is really powerful.
Remove/Dispel magic works even better on a bard of course, as they do gain levels more quickly.
Now I want to play bg1-bg2 as a Sorcerer, dammit I just started my pure kensai walkthrough :(
Yeeees, restartitis :D This happens to me a lot as well lol I usually create like 4-5 characters before I actually decide which one to go with :p
Is description of spells still actual after mods (IWDcation, etc)?
I believe they get updated with the mods yes. Is there any spell that seems incorrect to you ?
I honestly like lvl 1 chromatic orb. Higher lvls it’s a cheap finger of deaths
My problem with it, normally, is that it allows for saves with massive bonuses at times, while also having other occasions where it can disintegrate the items that the enemy is wearing. I would consider it more of a fun spell to use, and certainly can be picked up.
The game is difficult enough already :(
That's also why it's fun :D
Practice makes perfect!
As someone who played bgs with all mods with hardest settings (including legacy of bhaal), this list is weird af to me. You listed here a lot of useless spells (remove magic; you have breach etc. to remove magic from enemies... Your enemies usually are higher level than you so this spell simply doesnt do anything most of the time; another such spell is detect invisibility - again, you have better spell than this one to deal with invisibility) and didnt include game changing ones (like chromatic orb with malison, hold person (stun is the most 'lose of controll; effect), gllitering dust, hold monster, hold undead (well, hold spells are especially important for legacy of bhaal) etc.
In general it looks like you use mage almost exclusively as a support whos job is to immobilize enemies.
Hello. We all have our preferences naturally, this is merely my suggestion: Going over the points you touch - Remove magic is still very very good. I wouldn't use it to try and dispel a demilich for example, sure, but it works on most opponents, it's an AOE which means not only are you dispelling some enemy mage but you are also dispelling any friends he might have in the area, such as any other class capable of buffing and even potions that the enemies will chug. Slot 3 remove magic in a spell sequencer for example and you essentially guarantee that an enemy group is fully dispelled (with the exception of those that might be immune to it via some mean or another naturally).
As to detect invisibility, I really like having it and I use it as kind of an *emergency invisibility dispel* if I see some thief close by go invisible for example. If you try to cast True Sight to reveal that thief, one of your party members will most likely get chunked since True Sight has a cast time of 8 while Detect invis is a cast time of 2 (I also always have True Seeing memorized on my clerics). Chromatic Orb is too random for me because of the high saving throw bonus it gives enemies but sure, it can be fun to use in something like a sequencer after having applied some saving throw penalties on your opponents like you mentioned with Greater Malison. I would however rather be casting something else most of the time.
Glitter Dust is a good spell, but it is something that I would prefer to have on a mage companion rather than take up 1 sorcerer spell slot.
As for the way I use my sorcerer, I do prefer to have him as more of a disabler rather than a nuker. Once he starts getting some higher levels though... He melts the screen :p
As always, thank you for your comment, it is always interesting to see how other players approach the game!
I've always found web to be too limiting and annoying to use. Too many times, you're too close to the enemy and end up disabling your party as well.
For the most part it's a matter of getting used to the spell and always having ranged weapons equipped on your characters as a side weapon for when you want to web your opponents. There are also some items which give you passive freedom of movement, potions that do the same thing and also the level 4 cleric spell Free Action (though this one you might get a little bit late in the game to be useful in this scenario). Don't get me wrong, I've webbed myself many times before by accident :p But the power of web in my opinion justifies learning how to use it and positioning the party correspondingly. There are many hard fights that web(s) turn the tables in your favor.
Web is absolutely broken with poly morph giant spider and haste on the spider in early game... Literally rocks all bosses till level 5
to many defense spells and to less attack spells for my taste
i mean what am i then? a super tanky sorc who is mainly there for buffing an debuffing?
i wanna hail destruction on my enemies... when i finally hit lvl 8 spells the base game is basically over
what sense does that make?
for example: why should i use spirit armor if i allready have: mirror image, stone skin and protection from magical weapons?
its such a waste
and its not like iam playing the sorcerer as a tank in the first place
the sorcerer should stay back out of enemy range and in baldurs gate 1+2 they aggro what they see first
Hello, first of all let me just say that if you are only playing the base game and not trying SCS, then you can definitely go much more offensive in terms of your spell selection. This video is more focused on dealing with Ascension/SCS modded games, though it can still apply to the base game as well of course.
In an unmodded installation, enemies do tend to focus essentially on what they see first, so as long as you position properly, you are safe for the most part and can just chuck spells at enemies as you please. Enemy spellcasters also don't buff themselves in the same way as with the mods, so you also don't need to go so heavy on anti-magic spells, even just a few on your mage companions will likely do the job.
As for this guide, yes, you become quite tanky as with mods enemies are much more intelligent and pick their targets in a much smarter way. Buffing and debuffing is extremely effective and also efficient, helping your entire party while disabling the opponents is usually much better than chucking a fireball into the enemies. Personally, I find that a few offensive spells early such as magic missiles and skull trap for instance, can take care of pretty much anything until you get your heavy hitters on the higher levels so there's not much need to go overboard with offensive spells.
To answer your example question - generally speaking, stacking buffs is very powerful. In this case, you have mirror image (essentially a miss chance for opponents), stoneskin (negates damage from hits until it expires) and protection from magical weapons (makes you immune to hits from magic weapons for 3 rounds - short duration). PfMW is obviously very powerful, but it only lasts for 3 rounds, so it's not something that you will pre-buff with for an adventure or long combat. If you add spirit armor, you are increasing your AC by a lot (which in turn makes all your other defensive buffs better, as enemies will miss you more often, which means your mirror images and stoneskins will stay for much longer) and you are also increasing your saves, making you safer vs. spells where as the defensive selection you mentioned provided 0 protection from them.
As an additional note: You can reach level 8 spells a lot sooner than end-game. For example, in my playthrough that's on the channel, I believe I already had level 8 spells even before going to spellhold.
@@CoredumpedGaming ah i understand
thanks for the explenation
Whats the point of all those spells that remove buffs if remove magic can do it and erase all at once? Or is not like that how remove magic works
You are right that remove magic will remove most buffs that an enemy has. But, that's only true if it actually hits. So, what I mean by this is that enemies might have other spell defenses that give them immunity from remove magic or even immunity from abjurarion spells altogether (remove magic is an abjuration spell). While those defenses are up, remove magic effectively does nothing, so you need to use other tools to strip away those magical defenses in order to be able to hit with your powerful "anti-buff" spells like remove magic or breach.
Also, remove magic is not a guarantee to work, you need to overcome an enemy spell level and make a roll to see if the remove magic will work or not (simplifying - the higher level the character casting the remove magic has, the better chance you have of actually dispelling an opponent). If you try to use remove magic on a lich for example or another high level wizard you'll see that some times it will not work, this is also why slotting in 3 remove magics in a spell sequencer is so powerful, you get 3 shots at it.
Breach on the other hand removes pretty much everything you need in combat and is a guaranteed hit (again, if the enemy is not immune to it).
For a better explanation and visualization of what I'm talking about, check this - ruclips.net/video/Kf18ab17NVU/видео.html :D
Baldur's gate is a complex game eheh that's what makes it so amazing!
@@CoredumpedGamingy man, im trying to learn how to dispel on this game, im in chapter 3 but did all quest that i find i got watcher keep until hive mother and i got totally destroyed (maybe level average 14 15 in party) but some lichs go went with letting their buffs run out and some dragons just luck with brute force, so i feel that im winning hard fights with luck or cheese. I wanna try scs so im looking at your vids! Ty for this.
I was looking that mage vid bit you said that take a look of this one first hehe
@@andrese564 Yeah, don't worry about it :p That's the usual experience when first playing BG2 for most players ahah Beholders in general are extremely deadly opponents, and hive mothers are some of the strongest beholder types there are. Animate Dead from a cleric or mage will destroy them though as the skeleton warriors it summons are immune to magic so they'll just kill those evil eye monsters while your party sits safely behind :D
Why is dragon disciple good?
There are multiple reasons. The main one for me is that they become immune to fire at level 16 and they have more HP than a regular sorcerer. Fire is the most common damage element in the game, so it's amazing to just have your character immune to it as a default and more HP will allow you to live when otherwise you would die naturally.
They also get boosts to their AC and their Constitution making them tankier overall (+5 AC and +2 CON at level 20) and they have their cool fire breath ability which can be useful, especially earlier in the game.
All these make a Dragon Disciple a better choice than the regular sorcerer, and all they lose for it is 1 spell/day on each spell level. They get a lot of spells for day, so losing out on one doesn't really make much of a difference, especially considering the gains.
If there is anything else you would like to know, ask away :D
@@CoredumpedGaming Thanks for the reply. Personally, if its a choice between 1 more casting of sleep or +1 AC on squishy character, I will take 1 more casting of sleep. And at 20th level, I really dont want to rely on AC or extra hit points to survive against a fire giant for example, because there is no way a sorc is getting enough AC or hit points for that to be an effective option. Extra castings of spells at every level, including stone skin and protection from magical weapons, are going to do more for survivability.
Constitution bonuses are useless given you can just start with 16 constitution, and the glacially slow regen requires manual of bodily health and level 5 or level 15, and not talking elf (thereby losing 1 thac0 on melf's meteors and sleep and charm immunity). Its so slow that its a moderate convenience for travelling on the world map, not consequential in combat.
Fire immunity at 16 is a long wait for something that is essentially replicating the functionality of a 3rd level spell. The other issue is that taking fire damage, even if its completely negated, still interrupts casting. You are going to want warriors to be tanking fire damage anyway.
Sorcs do have a reasonable number of spell casts, but more spell slots is still very useful. That's why the ring of wizardry and Edwin are good. Once you start using sequencers and contingencies, you can get through spell slots extremely quickly, and with sorcs being spontaneous casters, they nearly always have something useful to use their spell slots on. If you rest after every battle, this usually wont matter, but its tedious, and on the hardest fights, even fully rested you can run out of high level spell slots.
To me, DD is making them moderately better at something they are still wont be good at (AC and health), and significantly worse for the thing you want them for (spell casting).
@@notalefty999 Fair points given in a well constructed manner, thank you :D
At a certain point I think it also comes down to personal preference. I usually play the game with few rests and I find that my dragon disciples have a lot of longevity. Sometimes if I want to go nuts and just blow everything at a pack of enemies to watch the fireworks go off I like doing it with a project image. There was very rarely a time where I felt I had not enough spell casts (except Amelyssan, but with her even on a normal sorcerer I feel I don't have enough :p).
In the end, I enjoy the extra safety of the defensive bonuses the DD gets and feel they justify the loss of a cast/level but by no means do I underestimate the value of having extra spells either.
Thank you for your comment, I appreciate your insight on this matter.
@@CoredumpedGaming No problem :).
Eh 😐 humans are the best race nothing beats an extra feat
Why no simulacrum? Or did I skip that part?
Hello, you did not skip it, I did not recommend it.
My reasoning for it:
1. the duplicate only has 60% of the level of the original caster, which means it cannot cast the more high impact spells (of course lower level spells can still be useful).
2. Using SCS, quick item slots are not usable so you cannot abuse certain items or scrolls (which I find cheesy anyway).
3. Project image can cast everything that your own sorcerer can as it has the same level, which means that 1 use of project image = your entire spell book available which can be unleashed through improved alacrity + time stop for example, which is absolutely devastating. And as such, I find project image to just be a better version of simulacrum.
4. There are other level 8 spells that I consider to be more important and as such it's difficult to find room for other spells.
With that being said, this also comes down to play style. The simulacrum can attack, while a project image cannot for example, which means you could have another minute meteor machine gun in your group :D It can cast spells alongside the sorcerer which can be an advantage (once you get improved alacrity and timestop this advantage becomes irrelevant though) and your own sorcerer can move and do stuff while the simulacrum is alive, where it is frozen in place with project image.
In any case, given the reasons above, I just find that Simulacrum is not as good as the alternatives and since our level 8 spells are quite limited and in my opinion Project Image is superior, I just never take it. I would, however, rank it much higher if it was being cast by a bard or mage/thief for example since the bard can buff everyone with a song while the original is fighting or just also join the fight as well, and a mage/thief can be an additional sneaky backstabber in the fight.
Ohh! Spell guide.
If you enjoy these guides consider checking the guides playlist: ruclips.net/video/W3zTtTL377U/видео.html :D
Spirit armor instead of greater malison? No glitterdust?
I do take greater malison, although this is actually a spell that could be used by one of your other mages to free up a slot in your sorcerer if you prefer since you don't usually cast greater malison more than once in a fight (I still like having it in my sorcerer though).
Glitterdust is something that I always memorize on my other mage companions, I would not waste a sorcerer slot on it. Very good spell though.
@@CoredumpedGaming I see. I thought this was a solo sorcerer thing. Glitterdust is better than web in every way though.
@@CoredumpedGaming Gotta say though, no Animate Dead? Giving up on 5 hasted skeleton warriors in exchange for spell shield is a bit much
@@Ddd23153 Good point, the skeletons are indeed quite strong for a good portion of the game. This may be party dependent naturally but I always have at least one cleric with me and since they have the same spell (with the bonus of for cleric's it's a level 3 spell) I just summon the skellies with them. Do not underestimate spell shield though, it is a very good spell. If I really wanted animate dead on my sorcerer I would have a hard time choosing whether to leave out Spell Shield of Lower Resistance (really depends on the companions I would take with me)
@@Ddd23153 no web is better bro, once u get polymorph, haste and magic weapon u can cheese the hell out of most packs of mobs for a while with poly morph giant spider magic weapon and web
Are spell choices optimal for a dragon disciple?
Oh yes, and a dragon disciple is just overall better than a sorcerer for what he gets, so you will be very well served :D
@@CoredumpedGaming Thanks for replying, man
No worries good sir, enjoy blasting your enemies to oblivion with magic :D
@@CoredumpedGaming I hope you don't mind answering this question, but I've also been thinking of doing a berserker mage dual class some time later. But I noticed that a mage and a sorcerer have a different way of spellcasting. I know you can learn every spell as a mage where a sorcerer can't but it's more limited how many times you can cast those spells. So if I were to fully level up a berserker mage through the whole game, how would that spell selection look like? As in how many times would I have to memorise a spell like shield, for example?
I'm a level 2 sorcerer and I haven't unlocked any new spells help please?
I'm new
Hello, worry not friend, you unlock new spells at level 3 :)
@@CoredumpedGaming Thank you I'm having a great time with the game.
Lol he sounds like Edwins brother 🤣
The best compliment possible :D
No lvl7@Mordenkainen sword, really???
It is definitely one of the best summons in the game with all its invulnerabilities. It is a fair choice but not one I end up using myself too often as I don't tend to rely on summons that much outside very specific situations. Well, and the planetar of course :p
No secret word? How do you mage duel
Secret word is a very worthy choice for sure. I normally don't need it very often for the earlier portions of the game so I usually just have it memorized on a mage.
Do you not like glitterdust?
Hi! I do like glitterdust, but it's something I always take on my mage companions. I feel like one or two is enough, and that's why I don't take it on a sorcerer.
@@CoredumpedGaming Thanks, currently playing through(again) and was mulling over my sorcerer picks.
I play on a phone so I can't get scs?
Greetings good sir. My understanding is that you can mod your game with scs on your phone but I have never done it myself.
I'll leave you a few links here in case they help:
Android - www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=www.reddit.com/r/baldursgate/comments/gh2ncc/a_quick_and_easy_guide_to_modding_baldurs_gate_on/&ved=2ahUKEwibpMzmi-X6AhVC3hoKHQYnA8IQFnoECAcQAQ&usg=AOvVaw3hwD6ut-AV4tCh7PhvoSWT
Iphone - www.reddit.com/r/baldursgate/comments/lqvflr/mods_on_ios/?
Modding discord where you can ask questions and get help for any issue you might encounter - discord.gg/hDdvfHTA
Hope it helps and have fun with your game :D
What about with SR? Spell Revisions...
I believe that is already included in SCS and Tweaks Anthology. Or am I thinking of something different ?
something different. SR rebalances/changes spells
@@CoredumpedGaming
What stats should I focus on first as a sorc? Con? Charisma?
Usually the main stat for spellcasting on a sorcerer would be Charisma, but in these games that wasn't actually implemented. You could dump charisma if you wanted and it wouldn't make any difference combat wise.
Still, since a sorcerer doesn't really need any stat, this makes him a good contender to actually have high charisma :p he will be more charming to people, get better prices, better reactions and will also help in keeping your party together (there are specific events were certain companions can just leave your party if your charisma is low)
Other than that, I would also give him a lot of dexterity to increase his AC and CON to a maximum of 16 (lower if playing a dragon disciple as they gain 2 con as they level up) because 16 is the maximum CON value that a non-warrior type can benefit from.
There is a case for having high WIS on a sorcerer, and that is if you intend on casting the Wish spell. It's very niche and not something I usually concern myself with but if you do want to cast Wish you would want your wisdom at 18.
Also keep in mind that if you're playing through BG1 and importing to BG2 there are tomes in BG1 that permanently increase your stats (1 for each stat with the exception of wisdom for which there are 3).
Tl;dr: 10 STR 18 DEX 15 CON (13 if dragon disciple) 10 INT 15 WIS 17 CHA will make you as effective as possible on a roll of 85 (83 for a DD) which is quite trivial to get.
@@CoredumpedGaming @Coredumped Gaming sweet! Thank you :] what party npcs would you recommend if I want a minimized party?
2 or max 3+me?
I do play on normal mode, so it should be possible right?
@@geraltgrey-mane695 yes, it is possible for sure. I prefer to play with as many companions as possible :D but I would say that at a minimum I would want a cleric, a thief and a fighter type with me. So for BG1 an example party would be:
Sorcerer (you)
Fighter type (Kagain, Montaron, ajantis, khalid, minsc - my personal preference is kagain)
Cleric (Viconia, tiax or Branwen)
Thief (imoen, montaron, tiax or coran)
If you only want to have 2 companions, look for the multiclassed companions like tiax, montaron, coran for example that can fit two of those roles.
For BG2 you also have a lot of choices but if you want to keep the party tiny I would suggest:
Sorc (you)
Anomen (fighter>cleric) - support and fighting prowess
Jan (mage/thief) - takes care of all thief duties and supports as mage
Korgan - rips enemies apart :D
@@CoredumpedGaming Wow!!! this is a Great help!! :) Now I feel realy preperd hehe.
@@geraltgrey-mane695 best of luck friend and enjoy!
Wow such a nice vid.. and you don't cuss like some American on here.
What spell do i pick for better inglish accent?
😂❤
www.dndbeyond.com/spells/tongues
:D
Why do you sound exactly like edwin? Lol
Sound like? Ermm yes yes, I merely sound like Edwin... (ignorant monkeys!)
:D
Не ломал бы ты себе язык )) говори на том языке на котором удобно ) Автопереводчик есть у всех.
Acho que se falar a minha lingua mais conveniente a maioria dos espectadores não iria ter muito interesse em ver estes videos. Também não sei se pela minha pronunciação estás a assumir que sou eslavo, que não sou :p
Предположил по произношению )
За видео спасибо 👍@@CoredumpedGaming