Divine Epic Encounter SPOILERS Options

[rbeverjr]

I thought this encounter was hilarious – in a bad joke sort of way. After all, you must defeat it in order to face the final conflict. And there is no setting on the difficulty slider that is less than easy.

During this encounter you will face a Rakasha Prince god, a bunch of horrid and noble Rakasha (Rakashas love to cast Protection from Magic Weapons and Absolute Immunity, yee-hah), a supreme golem, two ultra golems, an elemental golem, a bunch of amber golems, and a coin golem or more. Topping this, the Rakasha Prince has a Repulse Field (or some Star Trek-like name). As near as I can tell, this power will strip you of your buffs (including hardiness), do a little damage, and has a chance of stunning you. Whooo-hooo! I think it may be an area effect power too. This power is in need of some nerfing as far as I’m concerned. The opposition is tough, but this power combined with the opposition is just wrong.

This is by far the toughest fight that I have ever faced in BG2. I am in awe of anyone who can win this battle. I am particularly impressed with someone who can do it on insane. I am absolutely dumbfounded now when considering that thetruth thinks he can win with a single fighter-mage!!!

OK, I struggled through some of the improved encounters in the beginning. Since then, I have had a few very tough battles: the Demon Prince wanting judgment day sword, The Horde in Watcher’s Keep (mostly because of the spell shield bug), and Yaga-Shura. Now, I have run into this brick wall. Please spoil me with detailed tactics to win this battle so I can finish spoiled but otherwise without cheating.

My crew is around levels 33-40: kensai, swashbuckler, inquisitor, stalker, mage-cleric multiclass, and sorceress. (I was ready to upgrade to v 4.3, but at this stage I’m just going to finish the game at v 4.2.)

PS With this encounter as just a prelude to the final conflict, I’m sorry that I may be pestering you experts for more help later on…

This post has been edited by rbeverjr: Jun 19 2007, 03:06 PM

[Arkain]

It took me two, maybe three tries on core. So... I'm good now? Cool

So... on to my tipps (SPOILERS included)





Afterwards I did some testing with it. IMHO there are two ways to do this. You can try it with tricky positioning, that is, making them spawn in a chamber like the Ravager's and then run out, while the spawning occurs (so you can use the small corridor to use the Ultra Golem's size against them ). So you would have to battle one at a time, but preferably you take the Supreme Golem out first (as he gates in an Elemental Golem. Or maybe it was someone else... Sikret's ways are... strange. Or something like that). After you finished off the golems focus on the RP. If he uses a protection spell take some other Rakshasa (actually I didn't really try to dispel his or any protections... as everybody who uses spells is immune to those removal spells [or rather all spell levels] anyway). So you can bash on some of them, when they aren't protected. Oh and use either Critical Strike or The Answerer (or both ) as his AC is -26 and you will have a hard time actually hitting him without Critical Strike or a lowered AC. The opposite is not true. His THAC0 is -28. But don't forget one thing: focus on the Prince whenever possible. Use every resource avaible.
Oh, one thing though: I experienced something bad with the narrow corridor tactic thing... my characters where trapped between monsters. BAD! Watch your positions. So the other option is open field battle. I won the battle when I charged at them... I took the golems down VERY fast by simply charging and pounding them into dust. The Rakshasas were more tricky.

Spells, which are, imho, quite useful (yep, no-brainers included):

- Protection from X (Protection from Energy covers them all ). Mostly because of the Dragon's Breath he constantly casts (aren't too bad... if you have resistance) and because of his Field of Repulse, which deals magic damage. So after all fire and magic damage are most important (suprise, surprise)
- Protection from Magic Weapons, maybe Absolute Immunity (you should have lots of scrolls, if you run out of spells. I don't know if the latter is of any use though). Obvious, no?
- Dragon's Breath. Actually I didn't spend so much time with casting offensive spells (most are useless anyway ) but this one might be useful, because of it's ability to knock the opponent back
- Comet. When it actually hits they may be stunned . In fact our favorite Rakshasa Prince doesn't have any magic resistance... and isn't immune to level 10 spells. Damn, abuse this! Just imagine all these helpless enemies on the ground...
- MAGIC MISSILE! Yes, I'm serious. I hit this damn Supreme Golem with every magic damage spell I could as he isn't immune to it. If it gets through his resistance... well, that's some 1s and 2s you don't have to inflict via weapons . Don't even try to use it on Ultra Golems... it heals them (125%) -.-
You could try acid damage against the golems, though. Too bad there aren't many acid based spells/weapons...
-> Pierce Shield. Maybe it's my imagination but those tough golems seem to be immune to lower resistance . As Pierce Shield is a spell of 8th level you could try lowering it with this. Maybe it works, maybe not... I mean, your pure mages don't have that much to do anyway, right?
- Planetar, Mordys etc. -> decoys. Sometimes they can pack quite a punch. In one of my corridor tests the Planetar lastet like forever if you compare it's power to the enemies that surrounded my dear little helper o.O. Also use your items. Ring of Greater Djinni Summoning etc.! Every hit that doesn't hurt you is a good one.
- DON'T use Fireshield Blue/Red. I had my game crash because of this. The Field or Repulse responded to it, the FS responded to the FoR, the FS... after all I got a lot of FoR hits and my game froze. Maybe it's because of my sucky PC . They are useless anyway. You can get resistances another way and the enemies are immune to either the spell level (dunno if this works) or the damage type.
- Greater Restoration, Healing and Mass Healing. LOTS of it
- Spells which offer physical resistances as Armor of Faith or Hardiness (it's a HLA, but what the heck?)! Also think of items. Barbarian Essence, Defender of Easthaven -> Flail of Defending and Wounding, Judgement Day, Roranarchs Horn (that helm component for the Staff of the Ram) etc. (there is something I've forgotten, right? )
- Time Stop. The RP and the golems are immune to it. The others are NOT! Have some solo fun (again, clever positioning) with a PfMW-ed F/M type with lots of attacks. You could either beat up the Rakshasas (on a side note: is the plural Rakshasi or Rakshasas?) which are (sadly =/ poor kitties *evil grin*) not protected (or simply can't protect themselves...) and get some free hits, or do the same on the prince. You two are aaaaaall alone for a few rounds =)
(edit: Best to forget about it... or do you have someone to pull this off? Sorceress with Energy Blades as weapons maybe?)
- clever use of sequenzer spells and contingencies (of course.. duh)

[edit] I took a look at your party: may be tough. Do you have any possibility to do some serious "tanking"? Maybe abuse PfMW scrolls with the swashbuckler? Use the C/M and the sorceress for distraction? Otherwise.. summons and evn more summons, eh? Oh and you need +4 weapons - at least my tests told me that. Impaler wasn't able to hurt him Rynn's Staff was - to actually hit the Rakshasa Prince, so let's hope you got some good ones? Summons having such include mordys, planetars or fire (and earth?) elementals. Guess devas as well. So again the usual high level stuff.
I faced the EDE with a F/M/C protagonist, Keldorn, Valygar, Solaufein, auramaster Cernd and Irenicus, so maybe it was easier for me due to fighter types with access to (protectional) spells. Not to mention your ally if you are a mage. Again, use your scrolls... and UAI. [/edit]

This post has been edited by Arkain: Jun 20 2007, 12:30 AM

[thetruth]

- Dragon's Breath. Actually I didn't spend so much time with casting offensive spells (most are useless anyway ) but this one might be useful, because of it's ability to knock the opponent back
- Comet. When it actually hits they may be stunned . In fact our favorite Rakshasa Prince doesn't have any magic resistance... and isn't immune to level 10 spells. Damn, abuse this! Just imagine all these helpless enemies on the ground...
- MAGIC MISSILE! Yes, I'm serious. I hit this damn Supreme Golem with every magic damage spell I could as he isn't immune to it. If it gets through his resistance... well, that's some 1s and 2s you don't have to inflict via weapons . Don't even try to use it on Ultra Golems... it heals them (125%) -.-
You could try acid damage against the golems, though. Too bad there aren't many acid based spells/weapons...
-> Pierce Shield. Maybe it's my imagination but those tough golems seem to be immune to lower resistance . As Pierce Shield is a spell of 8th level you could try lowering it with this. Maybe it works, maybe not... I mean, your pure mages don't have that much to do anyway, right?

Ehm Arkain are you sure you are talking about the Epic Divine encounter?

Supreme golems have 100% MR and res. to Magic dmg and there is no way to lower their MR. The same is true for some of the others.

Comet and Dr.Breath are 10 level spells but the enemies are immune to fire and the R.Prince cannot be stunned.

The only Mage Spells that can damage the Prince are the Biqby's spells, but the dmg is so pathetic that they are useless.


The Answerer is very useful here (but I am sure rbeverjr already knows it).

Spells which offer physical resistances as Armor of Faith or Hardiness (it's a HLA, but what the heck?)! Also think of items. Barbarian Essence, Defender of Easthaven -> Flail of Defending and Wounding, Judgement Day, Roranarchs Horn (that helm component for the Staff of the Ram) etc. (there is something I've forgotten, right? )

Yes some combinations of the above can be exploited.
Do it now that you can since I don't think that Sikret will allow 100 ph.resistance in the next version.