can someone give me some tips on a proper build?

[efd731]

because my ass is being cosistently handed to me and despite retrying a couple times since the ebginning, i cant seem to git gud, any tips?

[Zetachron]

AP are rare so specialise only in 1 weapon for fighters/archers. For mages only a few spells on max. Never ever try 2 weapons or fighting mages.

General Fighting Build ASAP:
Max your 1 weapon of choise then master bonus, Max endurance before life. Get shadow spell level 1. Get war talent level 1 for extra speed and expensive level 4 very late for free weapon switching.

Bowman:
Get bow special attacks up to 7-Shot and area guarding ASAP.

Be evil and after doing 3 Faramud jobs get the great hunter bow (otherwise mix of elfbow and sharpshooterbow for being good). Get war arrows ASAP in El Halem.

Avoid close combat and enemy missiles with high initiative, shadow magic and good tactics.

Crossbowman: Same as Bowman, but forget 3-Shot and 7-Shot. Saves a lot of endurance but is weaker.

Assassin:
Learn 2 weapons fighting in favour of other weapons specialization. Max your critical which is best for daggers.

Magic Tips:
Useful all-purpose spells up to their max use level:
Accelerate L4 for double action
Shadow L1 for warriors / L4 for mages
Knockdown Storm L2 for cleaning areas, slowing troops and destroying bridges
Berserker L1 to stop mages from casting useful spells
Fire Stream L1 or fire arrows to ignite explosives
Healing L3 to heal wounds in combat
Freezing L4 to slow down and hurt enemies globally
Paralyse L2/L3 to paralyse dangerous enemies, L4 to immunize against insectoids
Endurance Regeneration L2

Max astral points, then spell range and very late astral regeneration. Let Zurburan do most support magic. Be evil and get the complete yellow robe set.

Mages like Zurburan should never spend a single point into combat skills. They are born to stay out of combat.

The Dwarf a defensive tank and Takate and Faramud offensive. Avoid wasting money on buying armor and stay with what you find. Exception is Garether armor set late in game.

EDIT:
Early mage spell build is probably:
Shadow L1, Knockdown L2, Berserker L1, Accelerate L4

[efd731]

so a pure mage or mage bowman hybrid is the best set up for cassia?

[l1ttl3buddh4]

Be carefull with the mage bowman hyprid, the shadow can only use basic attacks, they nerfed this pretty hard.

[Zetachron]

My personal favorite is the bowman with minimal magic:
Max Bow, War Talent L4, Sharp Eye Talent L4, Self Control L4, Ranged Guarding + 7-Shot + Ranged Mastery, Max Life + Endurance + Astral + Endurance Regen, Fight Reflexes + Avoidance L2, Shadow Spell L1
Shadow L1 is mandatory ASAP:
1-Cast with double action it grants shadow double action for quad action
2-Ranged Guarding offers free 3 shots in a single round even for shadows
(summing up to 12 endurance free shots in a single round with 40 astral points, taking down half an army if positioned properly and initiative timing correct)
3-Shadow distracts and blocks perfectly and you don't lose astral points on shadow death
You can get one L4 spell in late game, so I choose Accelerate L4 for max speedup.
General Strategy is 'Attack is best defense' to take down the dangerous enemies down ASAP. In case of crystals its the crystals.
You still have a few AP reserves for character fine tuning.

Mage Cassia allows double global freeze with Zurbaran later in game taking out whole armies. But gives you harder time for special enemies, as the bowman can take out 2 big creations or a tough mage in a single turn. The bowman is more flexible but relies a lot on ranged guarding for big armies, where the mage can freeze them.

Nevertheless try both and remember that a good map strategy can help you when your build is weak.

[efd731]

thanks guys, i appreciate the tips :) i tried melee cassa first, originally with spears(forgot about the other spear weilder you get) and then axes maces, feels like melee was nerfed.

[Falaris]

Seems like ball lightning isn't too bad - at lvl 4 it creates a cloud that continuously spawns ball lightnings, having a bit of fun with that. :)

[Zetachron]

Lightning L4 is optically brilliant and fun to watch, but tactically rarely useful. It takes extremely long to do damage. Usually most fights can be won in about 5-15 rounds for good tactics on hardest difficulty. Meaning in most cases the battle is almost over before Lightning L4 gets useful.

Game AI is weak, giving offensive strategies quick victories. Only in the begin, where you don't have offensive power you must rely on slower strategies. I often asked myself how I would do, if I had to play against a human enemy, because I'm sure this would force me to more defensive steps. In the Shinna map on hardest difficulty I can win the map in 3 rounds, simply because the AI doesn't focus on my extremely dangerous accelerated Cassia archer with shadow company, who is then able to bring down the most powerful enemy in a single round. A human enemy would have tried to block or bring down Cassia ASAP.

By the way, I dropped paralyse L4 as useful for a mage. In BG1 i used it mainly to block all incoming L4 spells, because in BG1 the resistance against spells was possible. In BG2 I assumed i could not survive without defense, but the AI never gets to corner my Cassia or Zurburan, so paralyse L4 is useless now. In BG1 paralyse generally was more useful.

Some tactically useless spells:
Lightning (too slow)
Antivenom (too few dangerous poison enemies like in BG1)
Fireball beyond L1 (on average targets is 3-4, enemy fireresistance is 50 percent, battlemage already has it)

Most useful spells are all spells who give you double action (speed L4, shadow L1) or disrupt the action of the enemies (berserk, knockdown, paralyse) or hurt globally (freeze L4).

[efd731]

much appreciated :)

[Lampros]

Originally posted by LittleBuddha:

Be carefull with the mage bowman hyprid, the shadow can only use basic attacks, they nerfed this pretty hard.

Yikes - but reasonable.

[jmck]

I played her as a pure mage. Maxed Cold Shock early and made sure I had the AP to cast it twice, that made most early battles a breeze. By the time battles got harder, the rest of my team was built up enough to steamroll most of the game. Gave her Level 2 Wrath of the Elements, Level 3 Heal, Level 4 Move as Lightning, Level 4 Lightning Find You, Level 4 Paralyze and Level 1 Frenzy. Maxed AP regen, got all the magic specials except for the iron armor stuff.

Had Takate as an archer, Naurim as a 2 weapon Axes fighter, and Zurbaran as another pure mage - built similarly to Cassia, but instead of Wrath of the Elements, he got Level 2 Burst of Flame and Level 1 Fireball.

Archery is weak at the beginning of the game, but it gets a lot stronger as you get better bows, war arrows, and build up the skill. At the end of the game it's as strong as anything you can do in melee. If you want to make Cassia an archer hybrid (rather than pure archer) I recommend crossbows rather than bows. Saves on AP and endurance - triple shot and arrow storm are costly (and compared to magic, rarely worth it).

2 weapon fighting is an easy way to go for melee damage - it comes with 2 handed attack for 15 endurance, which is generally better than any techniques unless you need one of the supplementary effecets (knockdown, for example, or knockback from liberating blow). I didn't even bother having Naurim learn any other techniques, so it's the way to go if you want to save AP for other things while building Cassia as a melee fighter.

The game was, for the most part, *too* easy this way. 4-5 cold shocks will clear most battlefields of anything but leapers, jesterwoods, or sand ghosts, or bosses.

[e.issaly]

hi, restarting the game. wonder about cassia build. I can't find any "accelerate" skill thou.
if someone has an updated post?

[Darbie]

Cold Shock and the AP to cast it twice on both mages wipes most maps.

I think I might try a Crit build next playthrough and grab Shadow L3 to have 2 crit melee's, and use Slavey McCasterson to buff me.