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#631201 15/10/17 03:13 PM
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I think the most useless skill is Apotheosis Especially on the final fight. I got this skill and through the whole game I never had a reason to use it once.

Maybe if it had a 0 AP cost, I could see it as more useful.

Honestly a lot of the source skills are kind of bad and you can get by just using normal magic.

Did anyone find breathing bubbles useful?


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I think, you are pretty alone with that. For many Aphotheosis is more a must have for the most insane damage output strategies.

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Many source skills are kind of terrible. Apotheosis isn't one of them though. It allows for some really broken combos, especially as Fane.

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I use that skill in difficult fights and its totally OP with my elemental mages o.O

Useless skills? I vote "Smoke cover", "glitter dust" or the unique source skill of the Red Prince.

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My vote is for break the shackles, Sebille's source skill. But her flesh sacrifice makes up for it.


"Keep distant, My own demons still haunt me too closely. I cannot also bear the burden of yours."
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How about Taunt? Why this skill even exist is beyond me.

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Every elf has flesh sacrifice, and everyone who shapeshifts into an elf

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There are many useless skills in the unmodded game. Apotheosis isn't one of them.

I think that Provoke, Smoke Cover and Breathing Bubbles are good contenders.

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Apo is completely unnecessary unless you're going for some overkill record lol. idk what situation you guys could possibly need that in other than maybe early on in tactician where you're still gearing up. One meteor shower, thunderstorm, or arrow storm(w.e it's called) knocks out most enemies if done right, and if all grouped up, it can kill them all. After that it's just cleanup.

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Originally Posted by omegazen
Apo is completely unnecessary unless you're going for some overkill record lol. idk what situation you guys could possibly need that in other than maybe early on in tactician where you're still gearing up. One meteor shower, thunderstorm, or arrow storm(w.e it's called) knocks out most enemies if done right, and if all grouped up, it can kill them all. After that it's just cleanup.
By that metric, the majority of Skills are useless. The discussion concerns which is the most useless. Apotheosis is still useful, even if it's rarely used because the game is ridiculously easy.

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If apotheosis is useless then I don't know what's op lmao, it makes solo mage's life much easier level 16 and beyond, without it I probably can't do certain encounters.

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Originally Posted by Luckmann
By that metric, the majority of Skills are useless. The discussion concerns which is the most useless. Apotheosis is still useful, even if it's rarely used because the game is ridiculously easy.



  • Blood Rain is pretty stupid.
  • Snipe is so boring and restrictive considering the level requirement.
  • Bleed Fire is trashy.
  • Aportation in combat, lol.
  • Terrain Transmutation is pretty bleh.
  • Sabotage is derpy, but an interesting idea.
  • Corpse Explosion - Does no damage and hard to land.


Handful of skills there that are borderline crap, made worse by the fact that memory tax is a very real thing and this game hates you having multiple skills.

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Terrain Transmutation is at least reasonably useful. There are lots of times when I might want to switch the surfaces of things. It's at least something I've found much more useful than Smoke Cover, even if a lot of that is out of combat.

Bleed Fire is probably one of the worst. Like, when exactly would that ever be more helpful than detrimental?

Corpse Explosion is very disappointing because of how cool it sounds, and how impractical is is to ever actually use.

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Originally Posted by Alexstrasza
Originally Posted by Luckmann
By that metric, the majority of Skills are useless. The discussion concerns which is the most useless. Apotheosis is still useful, even if it's rarely used because the game is ridiculously easy.



  • Blood Rain is pretty stupid.
  • Snipe is so boring and restrictive considering the level requirement.
  • Bleed Fire is trashy.
  • Aportation in combat, lol.
  • Terrain Transmutation is pretty bleh.
  • Sabotage is derpy, but an interesting idea.
  • Corpse Explosion - Does no damage and hard to land.


Handful of skills there that are borderline crap, made worse by the fact that memory tax is a very real thing and this game hates you having multiple skills.


I mean yeah, not all of these are great, but they all still have uses. Blood Rain can be used to create blood surfaces and actually makes enemies without physical (...wtf) armor bleed, Snipe may be boring and restrictive but it still does something, Terrain Transmutation is actually legitimately useful in a wide range of situations (go away, cursed fucking surfaces reeeee), and Corpse Explosion might not do great damage and may require corpses that are hard to come by, but they all do something that's ultimately useful in some way.

Out of those, as contenders for most useless skills, I can only see Bleed Fire, Apportation and Sabotage, and out of those, I'd like to disqualify Apportation because it can still be useful outside of combat, I guess - although with Teleportation and Telekinesis, it's highly questionable.

Sabotage is an interesting idea but useless in practice; you can't actually reverse-pickpocket in this game, and you not only do not have any idea if the enemy has any grenades or not (and if you do, why the hell didn't you pickpocket those grenades when you had the chance, to prevent them from using them to begin with?), but if they do have grenades, you want to have those for yourself - either by pickpocketing them in advance, or by killing the enemy before it gets to throw them. It's not only ridiculously situational and uncertain to be of any use whatsoever, but you actually (maybe, maybe not; we can't know beforehand!) demolish resources you want to take advantage of yourself.

And I had completely forgotten about Bleed Fire. That's how useless it is. It doesn't even do any damage by itself, and it only contributes to the battlefield turning into a raging inferno, and screws whomever is engaging the affected enemies in melee combat.

I have a very hard time deciding the single most useless Skill, though. Provoke, Smoke Cover, Breathing Bubbles or Bleed Fire. Unmodded, I can't find a use for any of them. None.

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My personal worst of fives:

1.) Bleed fire. It´s more of a detriment then help, I´ve yet to find any use for it.

2.) Breating bubbles: Yeah, nice, but .. well, no. Thanks to the armor system i rather buff or restore magic armor instead.

3.) Sabotage: Sounds cool as a concept, but how am I supposed to know if my target even has grenades? I rather use the AP and the memory slot to do something usefull, like pure damage or apply a usefull CC.

4.) Smoke cover: Highly and I mean highly situational. The 2 AP cost got this skill a spot in the list.

5.) Provoke: If the taunt mechanics where any different (like forcing the target to do basic attacks for instance), but as of yet, I don´t see a difference beneficail to me in AI behavior after a taunt.

By the way, Blood Rain is actually a pretty decent spell. The surface created by it can be used in many different ways. Elemental affinity as a necro, max heal nuke for blood sucker and tons af damage for grasp of the starved.

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I consider Rain of Blood acceptable if for no other reason than that blood is easier to see than water, but behave in an almost identical way.

The only bad thing is how badly Necromancer synergizes with the other magic schools (especially Hydrosophist), because of the armor system.

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Blood rain is quite useful especially as it douses fire surfaces and allows for blood incarnate summons as well as combos with blood sucker. To me, it's a more advanced rain spell and I use it quite often.

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Well most skills, like in any game, are going to be sub-optimal, therefore a lot of the time making them obsolete. The only reason to have blood rain and not something better would be because you're going for a unique build, you just like it, or flavor, which is great too. Or maybe I'm missing its secret, idk :p

The discussion that makes more sense is: What are Tier 1, 2 , 3.. etc skills? Since there's technically a use for everything.

And there would be a difference in tier placement depending on if Solo or in a team. Apotheosis like the guy said could be huge in solo.

Actually, I would like to see a tier list made for the fun of it. We should make one!

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This is true, usually as you progress some spells or skills are getting obsolete further down the road.

There is an other apsect to it, too. Some time ago I watched an interview with a Magic the Gathering designer (don´t have the link at hand unfurtunatly) who argued that weak cards are getting designed in purpose. According to him it makes discovering strong cards much more rewarding. Of course, comparing a TCG and with a CRPG is a bit pointless, but maybe this was in part a factor for some less usefull spells/skills.

Blood Rain is situational, true. It´s decent if you have a summoner/necro or build for it to synergies otherwise.

Just for the sake of mentioning it, I tried a "I heal you to death" party setup just for fun and with this group, Blood Rain became a core spell. Not particular strong, but manageable, even on tactitian.

The bummer at least for me was to find the least usefull spells (or those where it´s hard to fit them in any build) by combining spell schools.

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Originally Posted by omegazen
Well most skills, like in any game, are going to be sub-optimal, therefore a lot of the time making them obsolete. The only reason to have blood rain and not something better would be because you're going for a unique build, you just like it, or flavor, which is great too. Or maybe I'm missing its secret, idk :p

The discussion that makes more sense is: What are Tier 1, 2 , 3.. etc skills? Since there's technically a use for everything.

And there would be a difference in tier placement depending on if Solo or in a team. Apotheosis like the guy said could be huge in solo.

Actually, I would like to see a tier list made for the fun of it. We should make one!


As a solo player I consider Apotheosis the number 1 tier 1 skill. This thread made me goggle when I read that someone considered it bad. You have to think, to some extent in combat, until you get a hold of it. After which, combat for pretty much any build that uses it becomes a specific formula. Use abilities xyz in a specific order and you win.

True, it has no use in the last fight, but that is only because in the last fight you have the effect of Apotheosis active anyhow. If you did not have that effect, it would be useful there as well.

Last edited by Sharp; 17/10/17 07:07 PM.
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