By comparison the mages by far are the worst companions. To use Mage Armor, or Wyll's Armor of Shadow perk, they have to forego any medium armor or shield they might gain at lv4, being stuck at a pitiful 17 AC with mage armor at lv4. Landing spells even from elevation is pitiful, unlike landing an Inflict Wounds from backstab. For some reason mage CC spells in this game have abysmal hit chance unlike Lazael's Frightening Strike. You're basically a Charm bot with imp utility as Wyll with still abysmal hit chances in the Underdark thanks to neither Wyll or Gale having darkvision, but Shadowheart can cast the spell Light to illuminate enemies to make them easier to hit (or your druid with Moonbeam).
I don't know why anyone would ever use Astarion. With Shadowheart's Blessing of the Trickster you can pass any stealth check in the game, and Guidance helps a ton in dialogue checks.
I disagree with that. There is more to spellcasting than just single targets spells. A lot of battles don't require high ground or melee jumping, or any other tricks if you combine aoes. There are spells that turn the ground into difficult terrain & cause damage, and spells that obscure vision. Web alone made for probably the easiest fight I had with redcaps, because they didn't even manage to get close to the party. Another battle was the goblin camp, which the party attacked from the bridge side, so no high ground. But the gates make a great chokepoint if you cover the ground with aoes.
As for Wyll's utility, I made the mistake of not giving him repelling blast on that run. But I've just started a second druid playthrough, to see how well it works as a control option. Haven't decided yet whether it's Gale or Astarion (as arcane trickster) for thunderwave.
Your aoe spells are grease and shatter mind. Try landing Shatter Mind on Githyanki patrol or Bulette in the underdark on a mage without darkvision. The single useful one is Thunderwave, which comes as no surprise because the main value is the knockback damage to cheese many fights with. Not a mage spell, considering my druid can also have it and still have 19 AC.
Don't need aoe in goblin camp because I poison their cauldron and that's half of their forces dead. You kill Crusher silently by the alcove and don't even involve the rest of the Goblin camp; the sleeping mobs up top you one shot since sleeping status grants 100% crit; one crit from Lazael with dip fire= dead. Or you can just pickpocket to get the 3m ring off Crusher. Goblin camp was by far the easiest content anyways. Web works with Redcaps if the saving throws go your way; I'd rather not leave that to chance. I'll moonbeam the gateway to Ethel's house and mow them down with Lazael with 19 AC; the sage doesn't even walk to Ethel's house so you just deal with the 3 melee ones.
Either way, I take Gale over Wyll anyways by lv3+ because Wizard scrolls are more useful than the crappy warlock class, and by lv4 with the right scrolls you can not only have a 3rd healer, but Gale with Abjuration school is fairly more survivable than Wyll and you slap poisoner's robe+crone's staff+ring of poison resistance and he suddenly does pretty good poison damage on a cantrip once he runs out of scorching ray or force missiles. Once you get Gale to lv4 you take Warlock initiate and it gives you Hex, and combined with Scorch Ray it's the highest caster damage combo in the game, higher than missiles. Still nowhere close to what dual wield melee with flame dip and oil of sharpness and poison coating cheese does, but it is what it is and consumables vastly favor melee.
Slap the force missile neck on Shadowheart and you got a great rounded out party with mixed melee and ranged capacity and the durability to sustain through the harder encounters. Fact is Shadowheart could only cast Bless and cure and I would still take her without Inflict Wounds until I get Staff of Arcane Mastery because this game is such a hideous coinflip is you don't use Bless to mitigate the RNG casino play aspect or don't abuse backstab (which there's no reason you should not, Lazel with +1 athletic's boots can jump half a map away, why would you not abuse jump for backstab frightening attack and make a fight vastly easier).
