Overrated / underrated weapons

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I believe Equalizer gives immunity to Charm and Confusion. Naturally that is the reason to use it, take away that ability and you're left with a sub-standard +3 weapon.
A redeeming feature is that if you're into Long Swords this might - unfortunately - be your best choice since it is +3. Daystar is only a +2 weapon. There is also Blackrazor, but then the game is over, so it hardly counts.

The reason the Equalizer is overrated are:
- You have to enter two fairly dangerous places, which otherwise are optional, to get the parts (Mind Flayer and Beholder areas) and you can't assemble the weapon until chapter 6.

- There are many other ways of getting immunity to Charm and Confusion. Many of them available before leaving for Brynnlaw. For example:
* Lilarcor
* Shield of Harmony
* Aeger's Hide
* Chaotic Commands
Some "limited" use items also protects:
* Greenstone Amulet
* Potion of Clarity

 

I’m actually surprised at myself for saying this (being somewhat of a powergamer), but I tend to dislike weapons where the only thing they have to offer is extra damage; instead, I prefer weapons that have other bonuses such as immunities, alternate damage types (eg poison), etc. So a weapon like the Impaler is one that I would probably never use (since it doesn’t appear to me that there are that many other good spears in SoA); even though it is +4, there are lots of other +4 weapons available (especially if, and I realise that this is probably not what this thread is about, but especially if you have the Item Upgrade mod. And since I am already somewhat off-topic, Pitchwife +5 is a great weapon.) C’Fury dualled with Belm offhand is a terrific combo since the extra attack goes to CF.

I’ve never actually used Crom; I usually have 2 characters who can benefit from the gloves and belt more than 1 character can benefit from 25 STR.

 

When talking about bows everyone seem to favour the short bows, while the Strong Arm +2 is a very good choice. Way better than most of those shortbows(if you're strong enough that is)...

 

@Earl Grey
Don't forget the Blade of Roses! It's a +3 long sword that gives +2 Charisma that you can buy from Bernard after the slaver quest. It's less than 5000 gold IIRC.

 

One VERY underrated item is the Staff Mace. Everyone overlooks it! It does 2d4 +2 damage, which is a lot in the early game. It's great for Aerie, or especially Jahiera, since it uses the Staff proficiency but wields like a mace, so it's one handed. It can be used by Jan, Imoen or Nalia to backstab, and they can all wear a buckler with it if they go that route. It's the first purchase I make when I hit Rybald's place. It's fairly cheap, too (only like 2000 g). It's like giving a +2 bastard sword to your priests.

 

I have the same philosophy as Splunge in that I care relatively little about damage and rather alot about special abilities when it comes to weapons.

Just to clarify things, the reason +3 weapons is so much better than +2 is that there are some monsters that are immune to +2 or less. You can hit anything with a +3 weapon (well... except Kangaxx). For this reason I rank weapons like Flail of the Ages and Celestial Fury, which are both +3 weapons, just as high as any +4 or +5 weapon.

Crom Faeyr has been talked about by many in this topic. IMO this is a great weapon and well worth the items spent to make it. It's a weapon you get very late and it turns much of the Suldanesselar battles into a cakewalk for you. It's one handed and it's blunt. Is that not good enough?
No, I don't think Crom Faeyr is overrated.

How many characters do you need to improve the strength of at that point? Apart from Crom Faeyr giving one of the characters 25 strength, you have two more girdles of giant strength (19 and 20 respectively). Three characters with 19+ strength in your party should be enough.

@CamDawg
Indeed, there is the Blade of Roses, a decent choice early in the game, but +2 charisma is not particularly useful in battle.

@Daephon
Strong Arm is IMO not a particularly noteworthy weapon. It requires 19 strength to use and gives +3 to hit and +3 to damage. It has no special ability.
I'd say Heartseeker is a much better longbow as it "only" requires 18 strength, gives +4 to hit and +2 to damage as well as having a special ability: Once per day can increase bow's aim to an additional +7 to hit for nine seconds.

Anyway the shortbows are more interesting than the longbows.
Tuigan is an absolutely brilliant bow early on - the perfect thieves bow.
Tansheron and Gesen, both requiring no ammo, are both also great.

[ October 14, 2003, 23:07: Message edited by: Earl Grey ]

 

I like to equip Anomen with the Sling of Seeking -- give him a good strength item and this sling and he rocks the house -- especially if you also add on the Gauntlets of Dexterity -- he hits often, hits really hard, and stays back from the melee so he can heal others if necessary.

A dwarven fighter dual wielding Crom with just about anything else is a sight to behold.

 

I love the Gesen Bow. Last time I played, Mazzy killed almost every powerful enemy in the game with it, doing most of the damage herself while Minsc and my paladin blocked the enemy, Aerie and Jaheira healed, and Imoen cast various spells.

I agree about Crom Faeyr; I need those strength-enhancing items for my party. And Lilarcor's awesome, but I wish it'd shut up. I swap it out when I'm not actually fighting so I don't have to listen to it.

 

I guess I like to have one super strong character and the rest of them can get by with spells or ranged weapons -- I should mention, and I don't think it's much of a spoiler, that if you continue to TOB it is really worth it to get old Crom, given that there are more items of all sorts in that expansion.

 

This weapon I'm about to discuss is so underrated that it was an afterthought in my original post, and so underrated no one else has even spoken about it yet either!

The *Gnasher*!

Yup! I love this weapon! I have Jaheira using it! And it is her main weapon! We found it in the Druid Grove, and it has been her only main weapon since.

This weapon is so good that I'm currently playing ToB, and I'm still using it as her main weapon.

In Jaheira's inventory I have the Gnasher in her first slot, Sling of Seeking in her 2nd one (she wears the Hill Giant belt of 19 Str so Seeking is good for her), and Staff of the Woodlands +4, Bone Club +3 vs Undead, and Rod of Smiting +10 vs Golems in her pack. Through it all, Gnasher has been her buddy in combat! She is so good with it that I hardly ever use her spellcasting in fights.

Gnasher!!

 

@Earl Grey
Are you sure about the Equalizer? I don't remember it giving protection against anything.

Overrated:
-Celestial Fury: Never found its stun to be useful. I've only ever seen that go off once and it was against a Gibberling in ToB. By that time, what's the point?

Underrated:
-Sword of Balduran: +10 MR. Not bad.

-Unholy Reaver: It's an excellent weapon, but there aren't many who can use it.

-Adjatha the Drinker: Immunity to Charm and Domination and it heals you on each hit.

I don't think Lilacor is underrated. There's lots of threads about how good it is.

[ October 17, 2003, 21:08: Message edited by: Rastor ]

 

Earl Grey is right. Equalizer does give these immunities


I like Gnasher too, but once, I almost have to restart my game just because of it's wonderful ability. I defeated Lavok by having Jaheira wrecking him with Gnasher and guess what? He cannot live long enough for me to return with the demon's heart just because the gnasher's ability to deal 2 damages every ? round/s. Luckily, I had a auto-save, or it wound have been a nightmare for me.

 

Adjatha gives immunity to Charm and Domination.

Celestial Fury stun is IMO very good. Each hit forces an unmodified save vs Spell or be stunned. Unless the target is immune to stun this means you should be getting the stun effect roughly every second to fourth hit (Spell saves are almost never below 5 and often 10+)!

To get the most out of it the wielder should be someone with lots of attacks per round like a warrior! Don't give it to a thief just to get a high backstab, that's a waste.

Also do not forget it has a few extra abilities: Blindness and Lightning Strike 1/day as well as a neat 5% chance of doing an extra 20 electric damage.

A good choice is to dual wield CF with an off hand weapon that gives an extra attack.

[ October 15, 2003, 10:00: Message edited by: Earl Grey ]

 

Rastor...

I can't beleive that CF didn't go off until ToB! For me, it'll go off at least twice a fight.

I think Blackblood (?) is a much better weapon for Jahiera because a) it does everything that Gnasher does, and b) it's +3.

Also, there's a throwing hammer only usable by dwarves. It's not particularly powerful, as it only has major bonuses against giants, but it's great if you have a dwarven fighter with GM in Hammers.

Bastard Swords were seriously overlooked in SoA (I don't know about ToB). I don't thing there's one above +2, and even those don't have any particularly amazing abilities.

 

Overrated:

The Equalizer-I thought it would be like Golden Heart of ... from IWD2.But found it useless.

Wave Halbred-Useless except against Fire Elementals.

Underrated:

Adjatha the Drinker-Saved my ass in so many fights.

Drizzt's Weapons-Both Icebrand and Twinkle are very powerful.

Mana Bow-With just arrows +1 it takes out Goblins, Kobolds, and Glibberlings.

 

So does the bottom of your shoe! Those are probably the 3 weakest enemies in the game. I wouldn't call that a selling point in an arguement for an item being underrated, would you? Though the magic resistance is nice.

And Drizzt's weapons are nice, true, but there's no legal way to keep them, so I'm not sure they count.

 

@D.R
roflmao

Actually, installing some mods allow you to keep Drizzt's weapons but yay, true if its vanilla SoA
I think that your middlefinger is enough to finish those "foes".. I was wondering why there weren't orcs/hobgoblins mentioned, they also are an bottom of your shoe-kill... hmm, that would actually make a great tweaked spell.. "Summon Titan Heel/Bottom of Shoe".. yea =)
sry badtime I'm just tired and laughing to D.R's comments

 

What about the +3 Bastard Sword that can erupt a fireball and stone ogre(sp?) and the other that deals additional 1 fire damage? I never find a chance to use them.
Oh yeah and the boomrang(sp?) and firetooth throwing daggers are nice. Like the Equalizer, I always equip it to non-fighter Like Equalizer for Jan and Firetooth for Edwin.

Btw, I remembered that Equalizer will become +4 or more when fight (more evil) foe right? So I think, it will still be good for warrior class, since it will most likely be used against foes where it will be come more than +3 and give those immunities, so you can dual-wield with any other single-handed weapon that you like(like CF hammer or CF katana). Anyway, the only thing I dislike about Equalizer is it's design. Anyway, this is my view, so if you still have bad opinion on Equalizer, pls tell me, so I can think about it.

[ October 16, 2003, 04:28: Message edited by: Skywind ]

 

More Equalizer confusion!

The Equalizer always counts as +3 when determining what it can hit.

The To Hit bonus is (don't know if it's actually implemented this way though) like this:
+0 vs Neutral (+0 to dmg)
+1 vs CN/LN (+2 to dmg)
+2 vs NG/NE (+4 to dmg)
+3 vs CE/LE/LG/CG (+6 to dmg)

As you can see it is never +4 and isn't even +3 all that often.

 

Underrated:
Quarterstaff-It demolishes hobgoblins

@Earl Grey
I gave CF to Valygar, so I highly doubt it was me giving it to a crappy fighter.