Poll sorta, Effective/Ineffective NPC mages

Looking for info on the mage AI and would like to get peoples experiences with the various "pure" mage NPC's. By pure I mean the ones that are supposed to use magic as their primary weapon.

In general are any of them good in combat?

Which seem to be the best and worst?

Estimate about what percentage of the time do they engage in HtH rather than spellcasting?

Do any of them seem to be using too many defensive and healing spells when they do cast a spell? Or not enough?

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Otto Krupp on 2002-02-27 13:46 ]</font>

 

Hmmnnnnnnn.............
OK,let's see:

Virgil - he isn't such a mage but his healing spells come in handy during the combat.

Dante - Good mage but only above lvl 30. He prefers force spells(shield) and I think water/air elemental
BUT he too often goes to HtH instead of magic attack.

Smythe - Realy good mage when reaching lvl 35(or more). He prefers force spells and.., I can't remember name of that college(Blur sight..)In 70% of attacks he goes to magic unless you equip him with sword or something.

G.T.Ashe - Nice evil mage with necromancy black,fire and force but the problem is that he don't use magic to his advantage;he has harm,fireflash,shield,summoning undead,quenche(speling...)life and he almost always goes to HtH.

That female elf in dark elf city-I don't know her name;something like Zul'...
she has nice combination of temporal and earth elemental and she almost always uses her call earth elemental and body of earth but stone throw is smoething unknown to her.

 

spoiler










Aaronax- In combat he will usually use his fists. He will not let you equip a weapon for him. So much for the arch mage that raised a city.

 

Here's a truth I've discovered with mages. For the most part, they want to go fighting with melee. However, in a dangerous fight, where you are outgunned, outleveled, and outmatched, they bring out the magic. If you get knocked out then they go into a frenzy. But it is usually only against opponents who offer a significant or dangerous challenge that they will let loose with magic of any kind.
For the record, Dante is an excellent warrior mage-good. His strength reaches up to 20 and he maxes out melee/dodge so who really cares if he wants to go HtH? Virgil, Perriman Smythe, Geoffry T.A., and maybe some others max out or come close to maxing out melee dodge but do not improve their strength :sad: Of course, their magical apt. means they DO benefit from the damage bonuses imparted by magical weapons. And take this for what you will, but you can equip Perriman with a barbarians heavy blade, or any of the others who come nowhere near close on the strength rating, and they CAN and DO effectively use them, but with penalties or bonuses to damage based on their strength; i.e. Perriman will only do 6-18 damage with it because his damage bonus is -2. FYI and all that...

 

The Beddokken warrior (Warrmogan?) is OK. He is very good with a bow and he will cast a summoning spells in every battle that you are outnumbered in. I usually canned him before he made it to 30th level so I am not sure what he will do after that. Also, he has scaly skin so you don't have to get him armor.