Fighter/Necro solo, please see topic guidelines Options

[blastermaster]

Guidelines:
1) this topic is for reporting and discussing a playthrough as a Fighter/Necromancer multiclass character. IA was modified such that he will be treated as though he was a single-class Necromancer. So he will get the Mage stronghold quests, can forge and wear Amulet of Hades, can get Wish Rest, etc. Additionally, if some encounters give better rewards for a character with a full party, he will get those better rewards.

2) please do not comment on how certain strategies or tactics would not work in other types of games. I'm more than happy to comment on tactics in your types of games in your own thread.

3) I am very happy to hear any comments on different tactics I could use with this character under this game setup.

4) I plan to run an exploit-free run. That is, no abusing engine bugs, infinite exploits, etc. My general rule is to ask myself if the BG game designers expected something to be possible, or if they would patch it out if they could. If the latter, I won't do it. Obviously this is subjective.

How to set this up
I am very much an amateur coder, but with a tool like Near Infinity, you can quickly begin to figure out (and alter) the scripts in BG2. In order to set up the expanded stronghold quests, the game uses a "ScriptingState" with a value for one's kit. This is because it seems as though the code cannot look for a player's kit, it can only look for their class and alignment. So there's a bunch of code that says something like "If Player1 is a Mage, and not a Fighter, and not a Cleric, and not a thief, and ScriptingState1 = 7, create Marvella". It's as simple as removing the line about "and not a fighter". Occasionally this code can be found in scripts that determine monster loot, so I removed it there as well.

An alternative to this, if one doesn't want to get into scripting, is to use ShadowKeeper. Create a Necromancer to begin the game, change it in SK to a fighter/mage and adjust initial HP and proficiencies and saves and Thac0 and such. And then when you approach a portion of the game that looks at your class, make a save and adjust in SK to be a plain Necromancer. You can't level up until you switch back to fighter/mage or you will mess things up though.

Sometimes the game looks for the number of party members you have alive. Usually it wants 4 or more, and if it sees that, it will give you a different (better) reward. The best way to remove this is in NearInfinity since it's hard to know when these events may occur, but you can just do a blanket search for something like "If NumInPartyAlive GT" and find those lines of code and remove them. The non-coding way to accomplish this is to simply find these instances in Near Infinity and just ensure you have 4 useless (but alive) companions in the next room while you go through these points.

Though I am very amateur with my coding abilities (both within BG and beyond), I am happy to offer advice or suggestions if someone has a creative idea for a run they'd like to make. For example, in another thread there was a proposal of a Kensai/Auramaster, which can be done via NearInfinity or with some tricky use of Shadow Keeper.

Journal (pasted together from past posts):
At the moment, I have 3.6M experience, so I am really looking to hit the 11.9M cap before heading to Spellhold. Getting level 6 spells was probably the biggest game-changer so far, as it allowed me to throw on PFMW and give myself enough time to deal sufficient damage in battles. I also used, for the first time in my BG career, Protection from Normal Missiles. It worked very well in the Slaver Ship, blocking arrows not only from the 4 archers but Captain Haegan's axes as well. He did melee me though.

I have Flail of Ages +3 and one +3 Morningstar. My current motivation is to forge Phosphorus +4 so I may tackle some challenges requiring such weapons. I need 2 permanency scrolls and one more +2 Morningstar to make this happen.

Quests of note that I plan to do next:
- Sphere
- Planar Prison
- Temple Ruins

At this point I think the biggest issue I will have is getting a scroll of Wish. I suspect many later battles will require many more copies of spells to be cast than I can memorize at once. Getting Wish will be the final enhancement to the character, and we will see how far he can advance from there.

The Sphere is proving to be a challenge at this point. With only three castings of level 6 spells available, I am forced to use one for Improved Haste and two for PFMW. The Greater Bone Golem and 2xGem and 2xCoin golems in the time machine ended up taking a lot of my potions and scrolls. I am down to one PFMW scroll, one Improved Mantle (which I'd really like to save to scribe in my spellbook, but haven't yet because I need another level before I could cast it from there), and one Absolute Immunity. I have three superior healing potions, one extra healing potion, and two oil of resurgences.

Lavok was challenging, due to his ability to PW:Kill once he finds a good opportunity. I am not used to multiclass FM and their lower HP than a dual class. Eyeballing my health bar, I'd think I was OK and then would hear the spell being cast and by then it's usually too late. Oil of Resurgence, which I almost never use in other runthroughs, was actually quite key here. It allowed me to recover from Lavok's intermittent damage spells (Vampiric Touch and Acid Arrow, I think) without using too many one-per-round actions. So I could refresh Haste and Stoneskin while recovering from his spells and staying out of PW:Kill range. It's always cool to find uses for things I never have before (see above with Protection from Normal Missiles).

I am terrified of the engine room of the sphere, because IIRC it has TWO groups of Greater Bone, 2xGem, 2xCoin, and they tend to come to each other's aid when you engage with one of them. EDIT: I am at level 14 mage, almost level 15, which brings no growth in level 6 spells (nor access to level 8 spells). I may have to revert back to pre-Sphere and level up before coming back. I don't see how I can manage the engine room otherwise, unless those groups are able to be battled separately. Or perhaps I can just go in there invisible and avoid them entirely; their loot and experience isn't terribly necessary given I'm only leveling up and equipping one character.

In fact, the group(s) in the power core can be tackled separately. I think the reason you have to fight them all at once with a large party is because one of them ends up within some distance of the other group, triggering their help. With my solo character, I was able to keep them hemmed in the narrow passage they start in, and face each group individually with rest in between. Additionally, thanks to the narrow pathway, only two of them can attack at a time, so I was able to comfortably refresh stoneskins, only using PFMW when I needed to refresh my Draw Upon Holy Might. Still, each group takes long enough that my Improved Haste runs out and I must finish the battle with plain Haste.

Things continue to go well and be fun, though I am constantly haunted by the choice to multiclass rather than dual class from a level 9 fighter. The dual class just can't get a great Thac0, even for chapter 2 and 3 enemies. By my math, Tenser's Partial gets him to 7 Thac0. Subtract 1 for Specialization, 7 for 25 strength (DUHM), 4 from weapon enchantment (when I'm able to get Phosphorus), 1 from gauntlets, 1 from Helm of Balduran, and you're only sitting at -7. By the end of the game, maybe -11 or -12, when you're able to factor in a nice Ioun stone upgrade, a slightly more enchanted weapon, etc. On the plus side, a level 9 fighter would get to level 33 mage, I think, and make for a very potent Remove Magic and perfect defense against the same from virtually every enemy in the game. If the dual class could get to around -17 or -18 Thac0, he could hit things like Greater/Supreme Golems every time (I think they have around -18 AC). That would make the choice a no-brainer in favor of dual.

Thought I was ready for Samia at 16/16. Was not ready for Samia at 16/16. Likely going to wait for level 9 spells before trying to tackle this one again.

Comet was super helpful for Samia & co. Breach on Chak, attack Chak (with one hit on Legdoril each round to ensure no Deva summoned), Comet to disperse the crowd. Keep Pro:Fire up, as well as Spell Immunity to ensure you're not having a comet land on your head. Spell Sequencer for Stoneskin and Pro:Fire is super helpful.

Umar was a major pain. The imp quickly overwhelms with summons and must be killed quickly. I didn't think I could strip his spell protections fast enough, so I just whacked away at him. One round to remove his first Stoneskin, one round to remove his Contingency stoneskin, and once I see a hit go through after that, I activate Critical Strike to take him down before any other defense could be raised. Had enough swings left on Critical Strike to take down one Whisper Spider too, which was nice. Exit the room to better position myself, refresh some protections, take down the Whisper Spider and focus on stripping away Umar's defense. Umar's summons seem unlimited, at least in some of my failed tries, and could be a source of a ton of experience and gold for a post-Spellhold party. Once Umar is dead, there's still around 8 Skeleton Lords and Warlords, plus Minotaurs, to be dealt with. Three scrolls of PFMW were used to survive.

Thax (shadow dragon) was exhilarating. Went in with full buffs (Pro:Acid, SI:Abjuration, Spell Turning, Stoneskin, PFMW, Mirror Image, Improved Haste, DUHM). Contingency set to Stoneskin upon 50% health. And just whacked away. Phosphorus until Thax cast PFMW, then moved it to the offhand and equipped a plain Morning Star in the main hand. Back to magic weapons a bit later, then unenchanted until Thax died. Ended up having 8 HP left at the end of the fight and paused to find the closest route to escape the death cloud just in case. If I had Mage level 20, I'd have gotten an extra skin on each Stoneskin cast and would have had a much more comfortable fight. If I was mage level 17, I don't think I would have succeeded since I'd have had one less skin each time. Either way, I made one significant mistake in not using Tenser's Transformation before the fight. I wouldn't be casting anyways, and the extra HP would have been a nice buffer.

So that is one major obstacle resolved, now that I can craft the Amulet of Hades and be immune to this silence business in the future. Next step is to do the bard and fighter strongholds, grab myself a permanency scroll and craft up Memory of the Apprenti to really kick the spells into high gear. Currently at 7.88M Experience (21 Fighter / 19 Necro), so will soon be at the point where it's just a matter of grabbing up some equipment before heading to (Improved) Spellhold.

Seems grave liches (for example the one with Daystar) can attack while under Time Stop. This cost me a reload :-)

Spider Queen and her minions cost me one PFMW scroll. Just so many of them...

Elemental Golem in the North room of Watcher's Keep Elemental Level was no problem. Only summoned two minor golems; should have let him stick around longer - not for the experience, which is rapidly approaching the level cap, but rather for the gems and coins they leave behind. I am very low on gold, and he dropped the Girdle of Fortitude (this is usually randomized much later for me).

Chromatic Demon always seems to revert to his fire form when being let out of his cage. Prep with SI:Abjuration, Spell Turning, Improved Haste, Absolute Immunity. Let him out, Lower Resistance, Improved Alacrity, Lower Resistance, Greater Malaison, Spell Trigger: 3xCone of Cold, bunch of castings of Cone of Cold, one casting of Ice Storm, Spell Sequencer 3xIce Storm, activate Smite, refresh Absolute Immunity. Attack him. Smite's stun does work on him, letting all further attacks hit with 100% chance (I think they would anyways due to Thac0 but I feel like I don't Critical Miss when enemy is stunned, could be my imagination though). The cold spells get him to Near Death, and my attacks take a couple of rounds to do the rest. At 2 damage per swing, and him regenerating 1 HP per second, he must have been down to about 20 HP or less from the cold spells. His minions seem to disappear when he dies, which is unfortunate (I only killed the Hybrid Mist thing, accidentally, via the cold spells). Might re-do this battle to kill an Amber Golem first, as I might need it to get the Crom Faeyr upgrade at the first moment possible.

Troll Mound next, and hopefully I can get the Girdle of 19 STR and craft up that cool belt. Need some cash for this though, and also have the parts to The Truth but can't see myself dropping 100k on it quite yet. I also want to craft up a Ring of Protection +4 and Cloak of Protection +3 (I think that can stack with other items, but will test first of course). Really didn't think cash would be an issue in this runthrough, given that I'm just equipping one person, but those rings are quite expensive!

Troll Mound: easy. Pretty much anything that can be tackled pre-Spellhold is proving to be not too difficult for this character.

Chaos (Druid Stronghold) is proving to be very difficult. He casts Killer Insects every 60 seconds, which negates spellcasting for... 60 seconds (not to mention the damage). Spell Immunity doesn't seem to block it, nor is there any save. I don't think I can disrupt the casting. I may try to summon a Planetar and see if that can get Chaos to try to cast on it while I get out of the area of effect. 60 seconds should give me enough time to unload my spellbook on Chaos, and if that's not enough, so be it. Joolon isn't really that useful anyways.

Expanded Mage Stronghold has been easy until "Why is it so cold in here?". That is looking very difficult. Without Foreknowledge, my Ray of Fragmentations are taking a long time to cast (I do have -3 casting speed from Vecna's upgrade and Amulet of Power's upgrade). I can get the Ice Golem down to around 85/200 via these spells, but finishing the job is very difficult. Especially because the Slow applications keep making my character stop attacking and his Attacks per round are poor under this effect. Might need to max out levels and come back to this one.

Firkraag is an enormous pain. Greater Doom appears to stack, and gives a -6 penalty to Thac0. Two of those and I'm nearly unable to hit Firkraag or his Skeleton Warlords.

Firkraag casts Lower Fire Resistance and then Improved Fireball 2 seconds later, un-interruptible. The first time it's not so bad, I go from 100 Fire Resist down to maybe 50, but then he does it again and again.

The real problem though is Greater Doom. It lowers everything (Thac0, Saves) by -6, and it lasts 100 rounds, and it stacks. And it looks like Firkraag does it until your saves are 8 or worse. When this happens, I cannot hit Firkraag or the Skeletons (apart from Critical Strike). So interestingly, there is no reason to wear things like Ring of Protection. In fact, they just make him cast it more, ruining my Thac0. So I think the solution is to not wear them at all so he only casts Greater Doom once or twice.

I will probably return to this battle when I reach the level cap and have the maximum number of Critical Strikes available. Maybe even post-Spellhold when I may have some other equipment available too. With the right rings, I can better manage my saves to reach precisely the point where he stops Dooming me. I forget where the Ring of Fire Resistance is, but that would also be a huge help, to be able to put off and on during the battle. Likewise with the shields and helmet that grant fire resistance.

Cleaned up some loose ends - Roenalls, Theshal, Ashideena. Tried Orcus, but he may be too much for me at this point. Foreknowledge would help, letting me refresh Spell Turning and Spell Immunity a bit faster and get back to whacking away sooner. Haven't tried using Alacrity in the battle yet, but it might help.

Supreme Golem in Watcher's Keep is ludicrously difficult for me at this stage. And as sort of a preview to the Epic Divine Encounter, it's terrifying. Somehow he's hitting me for 25 damage while I'm under PFMW and protected from Elements. Oils of Resurgence aren't doing anything, perhaps because they are interfering with another regeneration item. I can get him down to around 320 HP before my own HP is pretty low. Maybe Cat Figurine would help here, but after Ch. 4-5, I don't have to fight this guy anyways. He seems to block any Ch 2 or 3 parties from beginning level 3 in WK.

Might take a few more stabs at Orcus, Firkraag, and the Ice/Elemental Golems in the sphere. I think the latter is my best chance. Timing is the hardest part; the cold application disrupts spells, as does the Ice Golem's Ice Storm and other attacks. So it's really hard to time things. I basically need to unload all of my Ray of Fragmentations (including those in Spell Sequencer and Spell Trigger), plus Vampiric Touches, to get him down to 85/200 or so. Another Alacrity, Wish Rest, and repeat of the ROFs and VT and I should have him down to 25 or so, which I can reasonably deal in between Purge Magic's. From there it should be a walk in the park against the Elemental Golem.

Very exciting battle against the Ice Golem and Elemental Golem. Many things were key.

SPOILER!
1) summon Noble Spider to draw Elemental Golem while I'm casting Alacrity (he dies within a round)
2) under Alacrity: PFMW, Ray of Fragmentation x 10 (Ring of Acuity!), Vampiric Touch x 10, Larloch's Drain x 9, Minor Sequencer Larloch x 2, Sequencer RoF x 3, Spell Trigger RoF x 3.
3) during the above, re-cast PFMW when purge magic hits. Cast Spell Immunity: Evocation to become immune to the Ice Golems cold attacks (yes, remarkably even the Freezing Wind attack actually has this spell school, most IA spells are School-less).
4) After a slow hits, equip Boots of Speed, cast Improved Haste. At end of round, quickly chug Potion of Freedom. In IA, it appears a "free action" type item will prevent future haste spells, but not cancel existing ones. This is crucial. So for the next couple of rounds, we get 9 attacks per round.
5) Purge magic. Get hit a bunch of times, Contingency: PFMW.
6) Improved Haste
7) Potion of Freedom
8) dead Ice Golem.
9) Use remaining PFMW against Elemental Golem, with 3 x Critical Strike in between each PFMW. Easy at this point, but ended up using my last PFMW (had scrolls if needed though).


Anyways, without the SPOILER!
potion of freedom and ring of acuity
it wouldn't have worked I don't think. Another purge was coming and I wouldn't have been able to save a round letting PFMW come via Contingency.

As for the next expanded stronghold quest, I did a couple of quick trial runs and I don't expect to be able to SPOILER!
keep Pasha alive
. No idea if the stronghold quests would continue, but this is kind of the nail in the coffin for EDE.

I didn't know SPOILER!
Limak
had a scroll of Chain Contingency. A nice find that will make me re-try a few more things before Spellhold. I do get worried that Spellhold and even visiting Cromwell afterwards won't get me much character improvement. My character is starting to "plateau", unfortunately.

Orcus is a huge pain. Partly because Chain Contingency (50% health) doesn't kick in fast enough with the amount of damage you're taking if your PFMW lapses. And partly because he also casts Greater Doom, like Firkraag, and won't stop until your Save vs. Death is 8 or more. If I unload my rings and cloak, that gets me to -4 (base 3, -3 for Amulet of Hades, -1 for Helm of Balduran, -2 from Memory of Apprenti, not sure where the last point comes from). At -4, I'm looking at two greater dooms to get me to Save vs. Death of 8. This would bring my Thac0 to -4. Which is not going to cut it against Grandlords and Master Vampires. May try Firkraag again, then give Orcus one more try before giving up and heading to Spellhold.

Potion of Magic Shielding worked well. I used two of them, two potions of Freedom and maybe 5 PFMW scrolls. Yes, Orcus has finite RRoR, but it's something like eight and it is difficult to keep up spell protections when you need to take every 4th round to cast PFMW. So he gains ground on you every 4 rounds. Additionally, due to the order spell protections are stripped, if you just have GoI left when he's out of RRoR, you're getting Breached. And GoI is the only one that can be cast from Spell Trigger. The major issue here was Chain Contingency not kicking in fast enough. In fact, it finally triggered when I was alone with Orcus and using Stoneskins to save on scrolls (he had some kind of elemental or magic damage that happened onhit that was getting to me).

Greater Doom is still an enormous headache. I think I can beat Firkraag with one Magic Shielding potion, but I hate to keep burning them this early in the journey. I was going to try Wind Master before Firkraag, but I plan to upgrade Jhor the Bleeder which I think will help me against that guy. No rush for his paltry treasure.

Firkraag dead, although like Orcus I'm not particularly happy with how it went down. I did manage to do it without using Magic Shielding or Icedust potions, but it took a bunch of tries. Improved Fireball and/or Red Dragon Breath seems to have highly variable damage (or maybe it's because my saves were 8 and I wasn't saving almost half the time?). Greater Doom sort of forces you to rely on actually making save rolls, but it's annoying to reload and just win via making saves.

First quest from Vanya was more challenging than I expected. Two mages strip protections fast, so at least one needed to be dealt with quickly. Guildmaster didn't seem to activate most of his protections - I went right for him after killing one mage and he went down quicker than the Master Assassins. Spawn kept going for a LONG time; I thought it was linked to the Guildmaster or mage but it may be a property of the area itself. Golems stopped appearing when Guildmaster went down, but it seemed like assassins kept coming. Wasted about 5 PFMW scrolls, but I think I got that many or more from the mages.

I am worried that if I don't do Wind Master, I'll lose the chance after I initiate Vanya's next quest, so will give this another shot. Feels weird to do it with a vanilla +3 bastard sword, but that should work better than a good flail given his resistances. In testing, a potion of Freedom seems to eliminate the wing buffet and unconscious stuff and allow me to swing constantly during it. I've burned 2 or 3 of these so far I think, hopefully this will be the last one as I can use Cat Figurine post-Spellhold.

Wind Master ended up being easy via spells, and the other enemy there was no challenge for a fighter with PFMW.

Played around with the mage stronghold and realized you can have a much easier time by

SPOILER!
ensuring Pasha is nowhere near those guys that Marvella spawns in

So that's done. Old Ones quest should be do-able with this char. Also forgot that I had Guarded Compound unattempted thus far.

Looks like Old One quest requires you to be in Chapter 5, unfortunately.

On the plus side, just breezed through the Guarded Compound and found Jhor the Bleeder! Did not know this item was randomized. Was able to upgrade this to the +4 IA version, which is awesome. Might give Chaos another try (funny he's providing the most difficulty pre-Spellhold). It's him and Twisted Rune as the only things I have left to try (and the Supreme Golem in WK, which I may try for kicks, but I suspect I won't even come close).

My deepest sympathies to Loren, who had to wait at Trademeet for at least a month before I got there to slay Chaos.

Went back at the Supreme Elemental Golem again and... not happening. I can't get more than 4 damage per hit on him (usually 3). From the looks of the code, he Heals within 60 seconds of going under 300 HP. So while, under absolutely perfect circumstances I do think I could deal 300 HP in 10 rounds, it seems extremely unlikely. Besides, I'm itching to get to Spellhold at this point. Watcher's Keep, The Old Ones, and the Twisted Rune can wait until my return.

Spellhold not bad. I can see how it would be tough on a party just over the cap, but for my character it wasn't particularly difficult. Liches dealt with in the usual way, PFMW against the Cat (I think I remember it having some nasty on-hit effects).

Mithril Golem was the biggest challenge, and I thought about skipping him. Summoned Noble Spider and some Trolls to allow me to get some Jhor hits in (Critical Strikes, too). He seems to have few attacks per round, or he doesn't always dispel on hit, as I could sometimes refresh Stoneskin for a few rounds in a row without bleeding. Planetar got a nice Heal to me, and if I was smart I'd have had her heal the Noble Spider (who battled admirably for a couple of rounds).

Irenicus wasn't too bad. He took a few rounds to show himself, and there were at least a dozen Asylum Scouts in there by the time he did. Taking them down after he died was a little nerve wracking (first time I've run out of Critical Strikes that I can remember) but I had just enough PFMW and AI to not waste a scroll.

He either didn't cast AI, or I disrupted it if he was hardcasting it (as opposed to a scroll). His behavior was odd... he stayed invisible while multiple groups of Asylum Scouts appeared, and they all went after Wanev and crew, since I was under PFMW. Then he appeared to cast some kind of spell, probably RRoR but I forget precisely, and I started whacking away and was able to get him to near death and his exit speech after one more round.

Underdark not too bad. Mind Flayer final battle was a little tricky with the purges. Hardest battle was definitely the Demon Knights since you have 5 of them RRoR and Breaching at once. Very hard to keep protections up, especially amidst all of their damaging spells too.

Adalon casts Minor Spell Turning (cheater!). Seems completely unmodified by IA though, she really behaved pretty dumb and I killed her quickly.

Kruin not too bad, I think Warlock fell to one hit (!!), and the rest of the crew was easily dispatched. One Alacrity to refresh buffs, but Kruin ran out of RRoR quickly and I was able to finish the elementals, their spawns, and Kruin, within the last two Spell Immunities I had. Forgot he had PW:Kill which cost me one reload (was saving my spell to respond to Comet if needed, rather than to drink a potion).

Finally got to the battle I have been dreading this entire time... "Lavok's Postmortem Request". The six Balors all cast Greater Doom, dispel at level 30, cast lower resistance, strip protections with Ruby Ray, etc. They all wear fire shield blue and red, so even if I manage to isolate one for a moment, I'll be taking a beating from the fire shields.

Oddly enough, if you get out of their line of sight, the Lesser Force thinks you won and spawns the next wave (Grandlords). And if you get out of their sight too, you get the rest message and he spawns the beginning of that next battle. Of course the Grandlords and Balors are still wandering around, so this isn't really a viable strategy.

I suppose I can finish up Watcher's Keep and get Crom upgraded and the Gauntlets of Extraordinary Specialization. That will at least ramp up my damage as much as I can, but I suspect this whole endeavor is futile. At least it's not a required battle, I guess (though the Carmine Ioun Stone would be very nice to have!)

Looks like they might only cast Finger of Death via their "Chain Contingency", in which case if I can get them to all fire it off at the same time, then chug a Magic Shielding potion before the fingers get to me, perhaps I could continue the battle...

I can't drink a potion of invisibility *and* be under alacrity to begin the Balor battle... I can't kill the last skeleton lord of round 1 while invisible (unless maybe I get it to Near Death and have some summons finish it). Keep in mind the Balors have around 160 HP and 75% physical resistance, so best case I can only take down one in a round. And I should add, I didn't waste HLA slots on Whirlwinds - I wouldn't be this far if I did that. Maybe if the timing works right I can be invisible to begin the fight, then cast alacrity after they've all committed to True Sight (if they all do this).

Fire shield backlash is not something I'm interested in pursuing. I'd honestly rather cheese my guy up to level 40 before I tried an exploit like that.

Anyways, probably going to pursue WK instead. May be some improvements I can get from there before heading back to the sphere... I'm thinking for example of the Ring of Gaxx +5 which is only missing an ingredient from the WK demi-lich I think. Extra 10% magic resist may help with the fingers of death, depending on what level of magic resist the balors look for before casting Lower Resistance.

Further testing on Balors: while they do mostly adhere to spell rules, their fire shields and stoneskin are cast upon spawning.

They have more than enough Ruby Ray (5) and Breach (4) castings (each).

They will only dispel invisibility once via Remove Magic, and the rest of the time via True Sight.

They will remove magic every 4 rounds.

They will Lower Resist if your magic resist is over 30. They will lower fire resist if yours is 50 or more.

They will randomly try to paralyze you or cast chaos if you're not protected from such. They have some kind of fear aura.

They will Greater Doom every 2 rounds, relentlessly, until your Save vs. Death is 9 or worse. Then they will let off a Chain Contingency of 3xFinger of Death. Then they are done with both Greater Dooms and Finger of Death.

Key vulnerabilities: if you can survive the Doom/Finger of Death onslaught, it looks like you only need to last 20 rounds until the Greater Dooms expire. At that point, you don't have to worry about them again (I think), and your Thac0 is back to being good enough that you can actually hit them. Until then though, you're still going to have to worry about a bunch of fire-based attacks (even if you stay out of range of their weapon hits). The major problem during this period would be staying close enough that at least one of them is in view (else you trigger the Grandlords), but somehow saving against their paralyze, fear, and chaos spells. Potion of Magic Shielding only lasts 4 rounds at best, though I guess if somehow it's timed perfectly, that makes just 5 of them needed to live through this.

I still haven't tried summons, nor some special equips (Dragonslayer sword for immunity to fear, Shield of Harmony for immunity to Confusion, which I guess just leaves me vulnerable to the Paralyze ability while I'm Doomed).

It's possible I can keep them looking at summons until the Dooms run out, who knows. I think it's feasible if indeed they will stop casting Greater Doom once they've loosed their Finger of Death contingencies.

If you can get all six Balors to let loose their Chain Contingency, and block all of them with SI:Necromancy, you can actually have a bit of a prolonged fight. This is pretty hard though, since they tend to spawn all around you, and they drop the Chain Contingency at a bit staggered time. If they all happen to spawn on one side of you though, you can head to the other side of the screen and have enough time (with the decreased casting speed of 2 from robe, 1 from amulet, and 1 from Foreknowledge) to throw up the SI:Necromancy. If you're sort of in the middle of them surrounding you, you're dead if you wait until you see one before casting. And if you cast it before you see them, you're only going to get maybe 4 of them, in which case you're likely dead when they do the last one or two.

Still... if you survive this, it does appear that:
- Dragonslayer prevents the Fear effect
- Shield of Harmony prevents the Confusion effect
- Potion of Freedom prevents the Paralyze effect (and is either not dispelled by Remove Magic, or they don't bother casting it)

So after all this, the major threats against you are Fireball and Incendiary Cloud, as well as the accompanying Lower Fire Resistance. Incendiary Cloud can sometimes be escaped without damage, and sometimes hits you right away (often killing you).

If there are threats beyond those spells, I haven't seen them yet. But that may well be it; it may be a physical battle at that point onwards. Which we're in good shape for, with -24 AC and very good Thac0. I think the play would be to wait out the Dooms, so as to be able to equip something else to attack with (Dragonslayer can't hit them, as +2). Alternatively, you could equip Equalizer in the main hand and attack with that for the Confusion immunity, with Dragonslayer in the offhand for Fear immunity. But at that point, AC may have you getting hit too much.

Recast Vital Energy could help here:
- one "Mental Agility" would make SI:Nec have a casting time of 0, so I could get a little better at drawing the Finger of Deaths and responding with that.
- Regeneration (and 50% HP boost, frankly) would be extraordinarily helpful as I then try to survive the fire attacks.

As far as I can tell, I sort of have my way with the last Skeleton Lord and can accomplish quite a bit when he is the only enemy remaining. I also haven't tried looking for a Wish Rest here, but that might help as well.

I also think my Chain Contingency and Contingency of defensive buffs might not be the best idea... I may be better off with summons instead. Balors just strip buffs so fast...

1 Incendiary Cloud, 5 Sunfire, 4 Fireball each.

The "normal" 10-round regeneration is not enough. I need the long-lasting one (or two!). Increasing HP by 50% is somewhat helpful, it doesn't stack with items that add HP though. But it allows me to shuffle items essentially without losing HP.

Tricking the Balors into the Chain Contingencies (by removing cloak, ring+4, and ring of gaxx), then re-equipping them once the Contingencies are fired, seems more reliable than trying to squeeze off a Spell Immunity, even with -5 speed which should make it instant (but doesn't).

I made a save with 1 long regeneration and 3 party regenerations, and tried it a bunch of times and it just wasn't enough (along with a potion of superior healing every round) to keep me alive. The most I can keep is 40 Fire Resist and 30 Magic Resist without them lowering it (I could theoretically get up to 45 fire resist actually, I think). It's close to keeping me alive, but they have a tendency to release the Sunfires essentially all at once and I can't quite live through it. They have 8 attacks at -6 Thac0. My AC is -16 to -19 after all of the dooms, so they should hit probably 4 times per round of 8 swings. In testing from this saved game, when reloading the "order of operations" puts me at normal speed (whereas with the initial playthrough, since my Boots of Speed were applied before the Potion of Freedom, I am at Hasted speed).

Maybe Tenser's Transformation to get enough HP? I am literally just walking around and chugging potions.

3xRegeneration, 1xLong Regeneration, Tenser's Transformation, gets it done.

With the resistances mentioned above, this allowed me to survive a full round of sunfires or fireballs, and between the regeneration and heal potions, I was able to heal back up each round. Eventually they run out of fire spells and dooms, and I begin exhausting them of their Breaches. This cut into my PFMW scrolls a bit, since they were pretty good about only firing one breach at my protections (rather than 5 or 6 of them doing it at once as I'd hoped). Once they run out of Breaches, I could protect myself and work on killing them. With my saves back to normal, I was able to equip my preferable weapons (Death of a Thousand Cuts, Crom Faeyr) without fear of Paralyze, Chaos, or Fear.

Once dead, the Grandlords weren't difficult, as expected.

Spent a little time refreshing my memory about the Lesser Force battle. He casts Purge Magic every 3 rounds if you're using PFMW or Stoneskin, but he doesn't if you're just using Improved Haste. Recast Vital Energy regeneration may be key here again, though there is no way I can hurt him to Near Death three times, along with killing his sets of Bone Golems, during the time the short or even "long lasting" version is active. I expect this portion of the battle will be difficult, but nowhere near the trouble I had with the Balors. For now though, need to call it a day. Moral victory in getting the Carmine Ioun Stone into my inventory, hopefully tomorrow I can manage to escape with it.

Ended up using a handful of RVE before the Lesser Force battle began, to help me get through him and the first wave of Greater Bone Golems without using Stoneskin or PFMW (either of which would trigger a Purge Magic every 3 rounds).

Used the rest before the second wave, same way.

Before the final try against the Lesser Force, realized he wouldn't purge SPOILER!
Protection from Energy, which brought my Magic Damage resistance up to 105
, so that made it not too bad. Should have done that in the first place.

Only thing I'm skipping in SoA at this point is the Twisted Rune. May give it a shot, just for completionist purposes... but I am getting eager to put a hurting on Irenicus too :-)

Supreme Leader is harder than I expected (forgot about those "Anti-Inquisitors" and their ability to strip protections; usually I fry them quickly). At this point I think it makes sense to finish up SoA and get some bonuses from the Hell Trials and early ToB (Foebane!), and revisit.

I just killed Irenicus and have paused at the beginning of ToB. The Slayer's regeneration is perhaps the highest in the game. I actually reloaded once because I thought the Slayer was bugged... I couldn't get him off of Barely Injured for something like 5 rounds of swinging nonstop. I did have some Critical Strikes but forgot to use them; I assumed there was some kind of bug where it didn't record my kill of one of his helpers so he was invulnerable. Upon the reload, I was able to grind him out with about 7 rounds of Critical Strikes.

Ilasera, easy. Gromnir, not too bad. Fire temple, not too bad. I thought I remembered a lot more Elite Fire Giants in there with my party of 6 runthrough earlier this year.

Nyalee took a couple of reloads for me to figure out how to kill her from a position in which I could actually escape the area. First two tries I was able to kill her but could not kill the Skeleton Lords and other baddies faster than they were being created, and as a result I just got trapped. Shambling Mounds are immune to crushing, I forgot about this. Such a cool art for those guys, it's a shame you only see something like four of them in the entire game.

Supreme Leader is looking very difficult. It appears there is no limit to the golem summons of those two summoners, so they clearly have to be killed as top priority. However the resulting Anti-Inquisitors are a nightmare. 90 physical resist, 150 HP (not to mention their potions), and they strip protections and lower fire resistance and attack with fire every 2 rounds.

I will try to give it a shot with RVE regeneration, since that isn't dispelled, but I suspect if I enter the area with it, it will only last long enough for me to kill the summoners (when I don't need it anyways).

If that doesn't work (and I don't expect it to), I may have to use some barbarian essence potions here. 4 potions would get me to 105 physical resist, which may be enough (if I let a couple of coin and gem golems wail on me) to keep me alive until the Anti-Inquisitors are dead. I wanted to save them for EDE, but offhand the only other time I think I might need them before then is the Yaga Shura battle, which terrifies me.

Tried Supreme Leader with 5 barbarian essence potions, and it was easy. Won on first try by getting Supreme Leader isolated with some time to spare with the Barbarian Essence potions.

Took a few more tries with just 4 (getting me to 105 phys resist) and managed to win with some careful positioning (ensure you're surrounded by mostly Gem and Coin Golems, maintain fire resistance to avoid Comet which can displace a great setup). Tried the Gnasher club method on the anti-inquisitors and it seemed to work well. Upgraded Jhor seemed to work equally well, but no save on the Gnasher extra damage is pretty great.

Going to continue with WK as long as I can as I am dreading Yaga Shura.

This post has been edited by blastermaster: May 25 2015, 11:23 AM

[Krell]

Good job. I only dislike the moment of having to get 4 Wish:Rests to refresh your abilities and spells in order to win, too much depends on luck to get those.

Comet/Dragon Breath are useless indeed, Energy Blades can be useful mainly vs Chaos, but there are other ways to beat him.

Actually I always thought that damage calculation (+ heal) is always dependant on the listed resistance value, i.e. no more than 127%. Should test it again.

I think that the 350 rounds represent 8 hours in-game time. The prince gets complete rest after 8 hours have passed.

Only Hammer of Thor main has actually a longer reach than the Prince's weapons. Other 1-handed weapons cannot reach that far.