Gonna try Giths right now : )

I love even more Mazzy right now. I find her kit extremely balanced (unlike some others), with a great equilibrium between melee power and utility, and even tankiness. Paladins might get quite interesting by being reworked in regards to her kit (which went the other way rather AFAIK). In other games she'd be refeered to as some kind of utility/tank, which is kinda what a paladin is supposed to be to me.

I find quite ironical that they get so nerfed in IA in comparison to other kits (not even mentioning the turn undead thing) while the game pushes you to be as good as possible (unnecessary slaughters for xp excepted of course : ) ).

The armor of faith implemented on the shield is an amazing idea, totally fits the character (and paladins in general) - if she was even more of a damage dealer I'd even find her sword too powerful, giving permanent Free Action for ToB and some hard fights, but that's her point I guess. (un)Fortunately, most powerful enemies are immune to greater malison, so it's more of a +5 shortsword giving free action.

I'm thinking of some mix of Mazzy's kit and Avenger (giving those clerical spell making the druid a real beast in fight) that could bring some decent paladin thing - at the price of their immunities maybe ?
Might give it some thoughts.

A paladin with access to clerical spells up to lvl 6 (why not 7) but gaining them at a REAL slow rate could be interesting for runs without a cleric - while being nerfed HLA-wise maybe. Maybe statwise too.

Just random ideas, but Champion of Arvoreen is the most balanced kit I've played in IA so far (Necro being considered as a kit for the stupid amount of overpowered items he gets - not complaining here - and Vagrant is... vagrant but he's got too much in his inherent kit by itself).

And since R/C is a very much played character, his main advantage for most of the game being iron skins (I also think of high lvl dispel and early access to lvl 7 druid spells), I'd find interesting to work out a kit for Viconia for example, or Aerie, so that there would be a bioware character able to do what a R/C does (Anomen comes to my mind of course but no iron skins makes all the difference).
Viconia being a priest of Shar IIRC, she could have some illusion/darkness based spells, and maybe shadow-like summoning as innate improving with levels.

In a nutshell, something Avenger-like, but cleric/divine-oriented (which makes me go back to that paladin idea).

Just ideas, just wanted to write them down somewhere. (even though this is a discutable place to do so).

I really wonder - are those giths really that difficult? I usually got debuffed pretty quickly(torturous inquisition?) and my casters were useless so I just hacked and slashed those inquisitors, but had no problems with that. Lesser force on the other hand - really frustrating, did that quest only once, but defeating those balors was immensely fun after I figured out how to do that!

Paladins aren't really that nerfed compared to some other classes - thieves(apart from swashie) and bards(I used skald and monk before he was reworked in one of my games - was really interesting!) not to mention pure clerics. It's extremely hard to balance everything at once, that is why each IA release introduces some changes - it gradually moves towards better balance but it takes tons of time and sadly we don't have that resource any more(not to mention manpower).

Thinking of ways to improve certain classes/kits is entertaining and if you have some ideas - please share them

And great to hear that you like Mazzy's kit that much! Critto did really good job introducing this composition of skills for her as I see! (I have yet to start a run with her in party)

It's the fight (at least one of) I personaly find the most difficult of the game, unless you go for it in ToB, then you have enough HLA to hack'n slash. But there fighters only had 2-3 critical hits.

Made it eventually but Supreme Leader himself is always truly a pain in the darkest past of my anatomy.


Regarding classes, it's just that I'd really love to have every Bioware companion being somehow viable in IA. So I'll think of some customed kit considering their backgrounds and gods (if divine).
In the fashion of Champion of Arvoreen which is - again - just perfect : )

Thought yesterday of some "Priestess of Shar" thing for Viconia, a kit favoring flails (as drow priestess) and oriented toward tanking (to make it an alternative to the usual R/C) - maybe including some illusion/darkness based spells or abilities. Thought of a "cloak of shadows" thing that could act like a iron-skins spell, maybe mitigating damage instead of blocking it. Like a hardiness that gets removed skin by skin (maybe that's uncodable).
Thought of an item that would include Flail of Ages in its recipe, to fit the three-headed serpent flails of the drow priestesses in the D&D lore.

I'll make a review of my opinion of all Bioware NPCs in IA 7 (for example making Minsc a barbarian was a GRAND idea ! Korgan is fine as he is but could be twisted in some BattleRager thing, making him closer to a barbarian maybe ?). General idea being that Bioware NPC deserve - IMHO - to be as efficient as customized characters, even though it's cool if they have a weakness (Most of them not having 18/90+ str for example, as for fighters that is). Aerie "caring" personality could be made into a slightly nerfed mage, with some healing-supporting abilities as HLAs or innates.

Must think of all this it's really clumsy so far, but Viconia is really the one character motivating me to think of all that. Must also take into account her freaky 50% natural magic resistance that makes her quite strong (but her stats are horrid).

This post has been edited by Badgerlad: Dec 8 2018, 11:48 AM

Not including class-quest related fights, I would say it is for sure, for me, most often on the top 3 at least of most difficult fights
I do not rank demogorgon, I never beat the new version of the fight.

I would also say, according to party composition one is used to, rating most difficult fight has to be taken with a lot of "relativity". IIRC, with a Riskbreaker protagonist and no unsilencable caster, ancient dragon was THE fight for this party, some players consider fights I always have trouble with as no more than minor nuisances, etc.

All I can say is that end of WK4 (gith/lich /dragon) and WK5 are in terms of density of difficult fight my favourite moments in any IA run.



Nicely said

Random input about Mazzy : the healing effect of her lay on hand is countered by magic resistance. Thought several times that I had targeted the wrong character but it actually says "XXX : magic resistance" when she casts it, and no heal effect (but the removal of negative effects does apply).

I don't know if it's intended, but I guess not.

That's a bug as well.

Just about gate district grave lich, I did not find any trouble:
my mage was Neera, after some rounds spent waiting for silence to wear off, all DU landing, lich dead under TS+ alacrity sequence, only thing I noticed (since I did not play for a long time) was that DU spell indicated "crushing damage" wich I did not remember from past runs.

So I fixed the Alicorn Lance projectile bug, as well as the Mazzy stuff. We'll probably push out 6.4 soon since it contains some fun stuff we've added the last time we've worked on the mod. Then I'll see if I can give the druid stronghold another go after 57 years that it has been in development already.

Done it without problem.

For the Balor part, as I point it out in the journal, I think having a party of pretty high level really helped on some saves. I don't know if you can protect yourself against all FoD, but you can cancel most of them and rely on saving throwns for those going through.

Can't give a better advice to start this fight than to have as much spell defense as possible. Under alacrity and casting speed -5, u can refresh SI : "whatever you need" (aka necromancy or abjuration) depending on the spells targeted toward you.

Necro had (IIRC) spellshield, GoI, Spell Turning, SI : Necromancy, and other various buffs (DW ofc). He also had a potion that makes saving throws automaticaly a success in his quickslots (didn't use it but could have). Also had a spellshield on contengency hit.
With -5 casting speed, idea was to down balors as fast as possible, ofc. So Necro went alacrity right after the dialogue with force that annouces the Balors.
It's easier, IMO, to refresh SI : Necromancy under alacrity than to wait for a well-timed DW from Cernd, even though I had this option considered and Cernd had alacrity on.
Necro had 2 SI memorized, and 1 SI under contigency : hit.
I went more for something like "i try to be protected vs. those FoD most of the time" rather then "I want to be protected at the right time".
Saves vs. death were good : Necro had 0 while debuffed by Balors (including doom, or greater doom, dunno).

The fight lasting a few rounds at least (more than 4 that is) having breach on most lvl 5 spellslots is not that necessary. Balors PFMW will wear off for the last 2 or 3 of them, so with a bit of luck they are poundable in a round without a PFMW refreshed (we could kill 2 of the last 3 that way).

I also noticed that having the balors being hit by someone tend to prevent them for trying to FoD you down, so that's another way to limitate the number of focus you'll get on your PC.

Balor are not affected by the knockback of smite, so it's a 2 round auto-crit for fighters, which we started with. I might be wrong here but I wonder if a balor or two didn't get stunned by smite. They seem to be immune, but they were on a hold-like effect animation some times so... I dunno. I think they're immune still.

I also made sure to have 1 remaining alacrity so that I could rebuff fast for the grandlords wave.


Fight seemed easy compared to my previous runs, so I might be a bit overconfident in the description, but it looked like this.

Possible gold exploit in Deepstone Clanhold (Rasaad's quest in ToB) : when you sleep and get attacked inside the Clanhold, fighters carrying each +1 bastard sword + 1 platemail and +1 shield spawn.
Easy to make 1k gold out of each fighter spawning.
Assassins may spawn too, carrying +1 shortsword each.

Monks can also spawn, and they don't carry anything.
Making only monks spawn might be a way to counter that.


Sleeping in the mine itself spawns Umber Hulk Elders, giving 6k xp each.

This post has been edited by Badgerlad: Dec 10 2018, 02:08 PM

Demogorgon fight is something !

Feel free to "spoiler" that if needed : )

At best I managed to get out Saint Kargoth, Archpriest Nulonga, Belcheresk, and Exarch Kazuul.
But Rozvankee is virtually immortal as long as her SI:Divination is on... maybe lightning spells could do something to her (as in chain lightning since she can't be targeted - and I guess she has protection from lightning anyway...) ? Anyway she keeps spawning those horrid Vargouilles (which btw are not supposed to be THAT strong from a monster manual point of view. Even as easy to kill opponents they'd still be an annoyance.). And Demogorgon himself keeps spawning mariliths...

This is the sequence I found to get most enemies out of the way in the least time possible (less than a round, I expect this fight to be extremely short if well done) :

Necro starts alacrity
Fighters stack left of Demogorgon (to avoid a dispel magic effect). Character who remains on the eastern part of the room comes to Necro (necro who is spawned north, said eastern characters moves there to avoid dispel effect too, it was Mazzy here).
When dispel hits, fighters rush on Saint Kargoth
Necro goes 3xRRoR on Saint Kargoth
3xRRoR on Archpriest Nulonga
Breach on Saint Kargoth (breach spell moves a bit faster than RRoR so it needs a few instants so it doesn't hit first)
Spell Trigger 3xLower Resistance on Saint Kargoth.
Cernd moves south and starts alacrity (needed to dispel clouds)
Party pounds Saint Kargoth (someone procs Free Action for all on cat figurine for stun effect from Exarch Kazuul) while Necro unleashes spellbook of acid spell on him. Necro also uses RRoR or breach from time to time to make Archpriest use his SI : Alteration and PFMW
Saint Kargoth dies fast (1/2 round at most).
Depending on where Belcheresk is, party goes either on Archpriest or the demon (belcheresk) after a breach from Necro. Figured it was easier to pound Belcheresk because Archpriest under alacrity can refresh stuff fast, hence our will to make him use his protective spells.
Both fall pretty fast if done correctly (before Necro alacrity ends).
Necro uses wishes as needed during the casting fest, 'cause 1 caster doesn't have enough RRoR nor breaches without wish for rest for this fight. At least, as I played it. Wish also may bring PFME for all, which is necessary given the number of ADHW fired. Prot. from fire at all time mandatory too (it tends to get dispelled often unfortunatly).
When Saint Kargoth, Archpriest Nulonga, Belcheresk, we prayed for Rozvankee not to focus one of our casters. Cernd under alacrity goes Natural Restoral when needed.
IMO, gotta take down Kazuul next, who keeps refreshing his hardiness making him immune to physical damage (ofc), but he's killable, we managed it twice.

Then Rozvankee and Demogorgon... couldn't pass this point, even after 2 or 3 rounds of fight the room is filled with Vargouille x6+, and Demogorgon procs 3 Abyssal Escorts (every 5 rounds unless I'm mistaken). In addition to that, Kazuul tends to go full retard on smite and stun/pushes my characters to the top of the map, making 2 additionnal Abyssal Escorts spot us, and even sometimes locking the character if he gets behind the portal (wayout being occupied by said Abyssal Escorts).

I'm really interested in some advices from those having achieved this insane fight : ) I gave up on this run but I kept a save to replay it sometimes.

Yeah! I love reading about players' impressions concerning Demogorgon fight!

All enemies are designed to have some individual skills/fighting styles that make the fight harder and more painful for player, but most of them have weaknesses that can be used against them(apart from Exarch probably + Rozvankee as you need a high level cleric/inquisitor to dispel her and exploit her weaknesses). It's good to hear that you managed to find a way to get rid of most of them!

Some things from top of my head:
SPOILER!


We will probably make a slight rebalance for the fight in the future to lessen the frustration in later parts of the fight(and maybe increase in beginning stages to compensate for that!), but it is not our priority right now

This post has been edited by SparrowJacek: Dec 11 2018, 09:07 PM