Yes, I created a new killing machine, a berserker with 2 * in katana, flail and dual wielding.

You know it's very possible to obtain the Flail of Ages and the Celestial Fury pretty early in the game.

I took the pain, put an additional * in dual wielding and am amazed at the results.

But which weapon would you take in your main hand?

Poll Information
This poll contains 1 question(s). 21 user(s) have voted.
You may not view the results of this poll without voting.

Poll Results: Dual wielding CF and FOA (21 votes.)

Which weapon would you take in your main hand? (Choose 1)
* Celestial Fury - 81% (17)
* Flail of Ages - 19% (4)

Yeah,berserker is the best choice.But if you say it is a killing machine,try this:Long sword*****
2 weapon style***

Well, that's an easy question to answer. You want to put the highest plus weapon in your off hand. Why ? Well, to give you the best chance of both weapons hitting. Else you would have a thac0 of lets say -3 in your main hand and +5 in your offhand, where you could have I dunno, -1 in your main hand and +1 in your offhand. Okay that last bit of maths doesn't make sense. But seriously, it's a pretty easy question to answer.

Main hand = Lesser +x weapon
Off hand = Higher +x weapon

Some people would disagree, but if you were going to use CF and FoA, then you really want both hitting. I've forgotten of course how many +'s CF has, so that could theoretically change my mind.

@ Jechor
CF is a +3 weapon

Both CF and FoA are +3 weapons.

FoA does 1D6 + 4 Crushing, +1 Acid, +1 Cold, +1 Fire damage. It also has a 33% chance of slowing the opponent, no save.
CF does 1D10+3 slashing damage with a 5% chance of 1D20 Electrical damage. It has a 20% chance of stunning the opponent on a failed save.

Keeping either weapon in your off-hand (which only gets 1 attack per round) is criminal imo. Use either weapon depending on which is required.
Personally i prefer to use the CF more often than FoA since the nice stun ability looks great. You really cant appreciate the slow effect of the FoA.

See this thread:

http://www.sorcerers.net/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?/topic/10/3498.html

To be honest with you, putting a weapon in the offhand for just it's attacking power is wasting that weapon. You only get one attack with the offhand weapon no matter what you do.

A better offhand weapon is one that gives extra attacks (Belm, Kundane), makes you stronger (Crom Faeyr), or gives you immunities (The Equalizer).

Unless you're playing solo, give one weapon to your character and another to a different tank.

Umm, sorry but I have to disagree, cos you still get the effects off the offhand weapon, just you're only likely to get it once per round on the offhand attacks.

As for FoA slow ? You've got to be kidding me, that it's not worth it ? When there's virtually nothing in BG2:SoA that is immune to slow magic, it can make the majority of the battles a piece of cake. Hell, even give Minsc or Anomen the flail, boots of speed, buff their ac up, and watch them rip through anything with FoA in their man hand hasted, and slowing the opponent.

I can't see a problem with that, and personally given katana is not allowed to be used by certain classes, and when it can be used, well I'm sorry but CF is a nice weapon sure, but there are better weapons out there as well, and if you have the right party make up, you really don't need it.

Oh, also Katana as was pointed out is slashing damage, thus of no use against a lot of npc's in BG2:SoA, ie rule out skeletons, and most golems. FoA, is much more useful, there's a lot less out there immune to bludgeoning than slashing and piercing. If you're forgetting some undead will only take half damage from slashing and piercing.

@Klorox, as for your suggestion of Kundane ? Well, sure it's a +2 shortsword, with speed 0, but there's a +3 shortsword out there with speed 0. As for Belm, there's really only one person you really give Belm to and you put that in the offhand, ie Jaheira's offhand, and put the +3 club from trademeet or something else in her main hand.

What +3 shortsword would that be, Jechor?

If I told you, I'd then have to kill you Klorox :p But there is a +3 short sword out there with the same speed factor as Kundane which is only +2, and the +3 and +2 have the same class restrictions. If you've been through BG2:SoA at least once, you should have found it by now :)

Klorox,
I think Jechor may be talking about the Short Sword of Backstabbing which I never found all that great, or possibly Cut Throat but I believe thats a +4 weapon.

I'm not sure, but I think Jechor may be unaware of Kundane's "undocumented" bonus, in that, like Belm, it gives an extra attack to the main hand. AFAIK, the only other weapon that does this is Scarlet Ninja-To, but only monks can use that weapon.

Thanks Splunge. I guess Jechor didn't know that.

+3 is SS of Backstabbing,
and Katana is 1D10, while Flail is 1D8, so
I think CFis better

@Jechor killing slowed opponents is easy,but killing stunned opponents is much easier.
CF is a magnificent katana. And I think katanas are the best swords in the world.

Each to their own then, and yes I was referring to the SS of BS, and where is it mentioned Kundane gives an extra attack, I'm sure I never read it in it's in game description. Do you have proof of this.

As for Katana's each to their own, some are good, some are bad, but stunning isn't the be all and end all, besides all I will say is slow goes and works on the FoA and Ardulia's a lot higher percentage than CF stun will go off. That I take into account.

Anyway each to their own, I personally find some weapon types kind of pointless, it just depends how you build your characters and npc's as to what weapons you will use. Personally, i've never really had a need for Katana's, ie what I mean by that, I've never created a character to use them. I'll admit if I was going to create a character, I probably would use CF, but I'd give it to an Assassin, most likely, or a Kensai.

For the moment, I have the CF in the main hand and the FOA in the off hand. The CF works very well, but it's still early game (I rushed and just finished shark city). If the CF proves less impressive in later stages, I'll swap them. It will still be a good +3 weapon with possible effects to boot. (I'm not trying to prove that CF is superior to FOA, I'm a FOA fanboy.)

As someone pointed, the CF is ineffective against clay golems but it still stuns them, which is very convenient for your friends. It's strange that golems fail their save vs spell so often, since, as I experienced the hard way, they nearly always make their save vs death.
I don't think having such a weapon as the FOA in the off hand really is a waste or criminal because no NPC has flail proficiency, so who would get it except your PC? If, for example, Korgan had Flail proficiencies instead of Axe, the story would be different. And giving the Flail to Viconia is even more criminal, she'll only have 1 attack/round.
Like others, I think having an off hand weapon just for extra attacks is a little cheesy, at least strange (you get more attacks with your main weapon). Too bad really the attacks are not split more evenly between arms.
And having an off hand weapon for immunities is strange too. I tried it with the improved Mace of Disruption (level drain). Not very funny, not as funny as having both the FOA and the CF.
If I had to pick a weapon for immunities, it could be the short sword Arbane (stun, hold). But do you prefer some immunities or a major AC bonus?
And if you just want the immunities, then it's not even necessary to put * in the weapon?
Choosing to dual wield Crom Faeyr or not is a question that comes pretty late in the game, you can't create your PC for that and keep waiting.

@Argohir, what other long sword would you wield (Equalizer being the first, I guess)? Not Black Razor I hope (greed...)?
Anyway, same problem, good long swords come late in the game, contrary to FOA and CF.


Edit: I just killed the Baalor with this combination, just the PC enraged, no reload. It's at least an example of powerful creature not immune to CF stun, nor, for that matter, to FOA slow.

[ April 20, 2005, 23:28: Message edited by: Capt Massacre ]

where is it mentioned Kundane gives an extra attack, I'm sure I never read it in it's in game description. That's what makes it an "undocumented" bonus. :p

Anyway, this is pretty common knowledge here on SP. For proof, simply equip some other short sword, check the number of attacks in the record screen, then replace the sword with Kundane, and check the number of attacks again. With Kundane, the record screen will show 1 extra attack.

Anyway, same problem, good long swords come late in the game, contrary to FOA and CF. And thats the rub, innit ;) This time I am leaving as much as possible till later. Hopefully Equaliser or even Crom will be of some use this time.
As far as using a weapon in your off-hand simply for its benefits with no thought to its hitting potential is concerned, well I generally have played Kensai and they do need the immunities. As your Beserkere can slap on a Helm of Charm Immunity, you might not need that. You can go through pretty much all of SoA without the CF falling into disuse.

Its only in ToB where the saves are monsterous. Also, if you want the Blackrazor without its alignment change, get the helltest mod :spin:

When I first saw blackrazor, I was shocked, but I don't use it. I use equalizer, daystar, namarra, blade of roses, dragonslayer, flametongue... Maybe they are not too powerful, but plenty. You could make good combos with them

I liked Blackrazor, the best longsword in Baldur's Gate. Come to think of it, for me it beats any weapon in SOA, even Celestial Fury and Crom Fayer.

@Kulyok Blackrazor is the second greatest item I see in BG2. The greatest item in BG2 is the wand which you find 2 parts during the unseeing eye quest.But it has only 1 charge and you can't get it out of the sewers :cry:

@Argohir

Actually...you can get it out of there. I read in a post somewhere on the board that you can have your familiar pick-pocket you for it. When you return to the surface, ask the familiar for whatever he's pick-pocketed. Woalla.

Holy Avenger is best

i prefer to dual CFs

[snip]
Still nice but not really better than Celestlial Fury(or even Mace of Disruption +2 for that matter). Blackrazor is one of the best longswords in the game and would be unquestionably best if not for it being only +3. [snip]

I personally never bothered with Belm and the like because it seemed like a tradeoff of "Get an extra attack with a crappy weapon or get only one attack with a good weapon"(I may well have been misunderstanding something).

My main dualed CF and the qualizer in the latter part of SoA(switching to otehr weapons for specific immunities/resistances/bonuses at certain times).
The evil dwarf 'zerker dualed Crom Feyr and whatever +3 battleaxe he had on hand until he got the AoU.

[snip]

[ToB content removed] - Beren

[ April 24, 2005, 09:58: Message edited by: Beren ]

Honestly, CF is better to put in the main hand because you'll get the stun effect and the 20 extra electrical damage more often than when its in the off-hand because it'll make more attacks. From what I can tell, I think CF's stun effect happens with each attack too, so you'll try and stun many times per round. So the enemy does make a save, you get a lot of oppurtunties to try again.

FoA's slow effect only happens 1 out of 5 attacks, so you'll only get to invoke it once every 2 rounds. While FoA has a no-save on it, the CF effect is better all-round because stun is preferable to slow. You still get FoA's slow effect every 5 rounds in addition to what CF already gives you when you use FoA in your off-hand, and the elemental damage will still happen once every round, killing trolls and the like anyway (which is one of its main usefulnesses).

In some ways, I think these are both meant to be main-hand weapons on two different characters becasue FoA's best ability is better when you give it multiple attacks per round. You're not using FoA to its full potential. I think it's fair to say CF is better than FoA and you should probably be using a shield or an off-hand weapon that makes CF better, like Crom Fayer or Belm.

However, once in ToB, FoA would be better because +3 enchantment simply sucks.

I hope that answers your question.

[ April 24, 2005, 06:52: Message edited by: egervari ]