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The Black Wyrm's Lair Terms of Use |
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Post
#21
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Forum Member Posts: 554 Joined: 30-November 20 ![]() |
Amazing run! I'm really happy, that you decided to share your journal with us (and not 1 but many!). Today's update covers some of my favourite encounters and I am amazed at how easy they seem with this party, even on insane! Good job! Can't wait to read about your fight against Demogorgon at some point ![]() Well, it's nice someone reads my ramblings. I decided not to write silly stories in this one that much. I have a plan for demo. Though my plans don't really work that well ![]() Wk level 3 (the maze) SPOILER! I was actually drinking a little bit of beer, on my free night a few night back whilst playing through this and I have to admit that I don't recall these battles in that much of a detail as I didn't make any notes. Limak Our CC of 3x Khelben's Warding Whip on "see enemy" doesn't work. Pre Limak we cast a spell so the cowled wizards come, we whack em. Then we buff & go to meet Limak. We dodge, tank with skinned characters & turn ambers into chickens (and finish with MM's). Once SI is out we true sight, breach & whack. F/M goes down because of the trigger, we raise her immediately (we don't know what happened to her SI:Necromancy). We return the CC scroll to Ribald who agrees to give our money back. Kangaxx Pre-Kangaxx liches: Cernd unleash energy & implosions 'em. Kangaxx. We whack away while Cernd under aura clensing covers for the crew (at -4 is no problem renewing death wards). It's also nice to have the F/M here, who with SI:Abjuration + GOI + ST is quite safe from imprisonment. We summon some fodder so Kangaxx chooses death spell as the first one it casts. A big mistake since our frontline under IH & with CS takes it down before it gets the 2nd spell away. Assassin's at Bridge District We're not sure what happens. We walk in, fully buffed ofc. incl. elemental resistances with Imoen having a CC of 3xMS8. Both Imoen & Cernd are at -4 when the battle starts. Then we go IA/Aura Clensing & just anhilate (debuff spell protections, lower resistances, gm's, chain lightnings, insect plagues, flame arrows, melf's acid arrows, emotions and the whole shabang). No RvE's needed, no nothing. Pure dominance. Fun level: Much. **** F/M has 2 critical strikes already, yay! **** Ancient Mage Prebuff. Walk in. Debuff. Whack. Then we milk some golems from the 2 elementals. We easily have enough skins to do this. Umar Witch Prebuff. Enter. Obliterate. No problems. -4 Cernd is uber yet again (doom's, flame arrows, imsect plgues, alicorn lance's, emotions, poison's, implosions, chain lightnings, unleash energy's and whatnot). Ancient Golem What do you know. DD with AC of -29 is very, very hard to hit. We resort to jogging round with the DD though, it's too consuming to re-up elemental resistances properly continuously. Lure golem-spawns to the middle where we have ourselves a proper golem whacking feast. The middle of the lair is a great spot for a barbeque. Unfortunately the Dragon meat we had packed along for the occasion has already gone bad. Ancient Golem isn't a problem, we hae easily enough APR's & CS's to whack it. It does get s dispel way though, we are prepared however as in Imoen has active IA so instant re-up of IH's for frontline. DD takes the initial aggro. We use a simple trick here to make sure we're safe -> Jaheira starts casting regen on DD who runs to the golem, takes dispel, gets hit, activates hardiness & gets regen from Jaheira. This post has been edited by pekkae: May 20 2022, 07:06 AM |
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Post
#22
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Forum Member Posts: 554 Joined: 30-November 20 ![]() |
Supreme Leader
This is the first time we play the actual version of the fight, with non-bugged Githyaki's, in a loooong time. We max prebuff including chaotic commands for everyone (Cernd wonderous recalls these, as he's got oodles of wonderous recalls) + RvE:Regen pre-fight + Minor globes (from limited wish). Cernd runs to the second room while the rest of the crew pound Githyaki in the first room. Cernd goes aura clensing and drops some 10 or so Githyakis with doom + emotion combination then moves to summoning / flame arrows + chain lightnings. Once the rest of the crew has cleared the 1st room (doesn't take long), the most difficult part of the fight starts, as in we need to run to the blacksmiths taking the first batch of a gem + a coin + the rest with us while they should aggro Jaheira or F/M. If they go for Kensai we have to use our gam-breaking superpowers, as in "LOAD A GAME". Supreme Leader should stay on Cernd. We succeed about once in 4-5 tries or so, it's by far the most difficult part of the fight. We use horn of blasting here to clear the way bit sometimes, as it sometimes works and sometimes doesn't. When we finally manage "the run" Jaheira then tanks the gem + coin while Imoen IA's (to 3xLR + ST: 3xLR + GM + SS:3xPO + 2-3xPO) to turn the first batch of gem & coin into chickens. DD + Jaheira takes out Stone & Clay golems. Then we take out a blacksmith, the inquisitors are nasty at this level but a regenerating (+ IH'd) Smildon is really good at tanking these. We take out Inquisitors one by one as a group, while leaving a coin & a gem battling a few swords, then after the Inquisitors are down take out the remaining blacksmith, and repeat. One inquisitor goes for Cernd, luckilyy at that point there's also a greater yuan-ti, greater djinn + an anaconda there with him. Once there's only supreme leader left we have 7 level 9 spells left so we start wishing for rest, which we get on the 6th try. It's needed this time as the dispel's get us 3 times or so, as we're just too lazy to be extra careful. This is doable without the wish:rest also, but we're not looking to consume our other resources here. **** We end up cheating as we forgot the leader's 3xChain Lightning, so we end up lowering difficulty for the hit. We were prepared for ADHW. It's too much to ask to play through another 1,5-2 hours of micro management, because the enemy had a different trigger than what we remembered. We have oodles of 4th level spells left (Jaheir has all but one). **** Demi-lich Enter with alacricities, turn golems into chickens (triggers & casting time buffs), then whack demi-lich. Cernd under aura clensing with AoP can easily rebuff death wards after the dispel. Saladrex We lose on our first try because of the 3xADHW trigger. Cernd rules this fight. Max prebuffs (incl. double RvE:Regen, even though we're not actually sure if it works like that). Enter. Summon CS, Noble Spider Greater Djinn, Cernd aura clenses, 2-3xRRoR's then use triggers to breach + lower it's resistances - then we just whack while Cernd drops his whole spellbook on Saladrex (mostly unleash energy's though). We like the -4 Cernd. Done and done. (We didn't try chain lightnings but they would have probably also worked). Theshal Cernd drops the lich (1xRRoR & 5xImplosion). We loose the first try because of the ADHW trigger, which we forgot. Again. The rest we just whack away. F/M tanks yet again. Marvella Part #1 (Steam Prince) Marvella Part #2 (Ice & elemental golem) Marvella Part #3 (Pasha) All quite straightforward, but require a little bit of planning. We milk #2 to the max and #3 almost to the max (Pasha tanks & we regen him maybe 3 times + a few heals) The #2 we prebuff to the max, Imoen takes the initial purge & PFMW's as everyone move to whack ice golem with active CS's. DD takes aggro with 70% phys resistance & triple regen (RvE + 2xRegen) + elemental resistances. Globe Machine This requires a little bit of planning. Even the 2x ice golem + an elemental is quite a tough encounter here. We clear everything else besides the 4x Grave Liches + the last two golem encounters (so the 2x ice golem + elemental & the last golem encounter). We'll be back for this. **** Crew works s planned, as in very well on most encounters. The Saladrex - encounter for example is reduced to very simple & straightforward whack'a'thon without need for tactics that much. **** This post has been edited by pekkae: May 21 2022, 04:06 PM |
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#23
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Forum Member Posts: 554 Joined: 30-November 20 ![]() |
Chapter Seven
Nizidramanii'yt Prebuff, enter. Summon CS, Noble Spider + Greater Djinn. DD draws the hardwood golems near Imoen who is out of Dragon's sight and who then drops 9xLR + 3xGM + 10xPO on them and then finishes them with magic missiles. F/M takes first silence while launching secret word on the Dragon. Cernd aura clenses, then natural restoral on DD, then regen, regen & natural restoral (all on DD), then RRoR on the dragon & summon, summon. Imoen renews her ST with 2xLR + 1xBreach. Cernd renews aura, Imoen walks in when Dragon stars to cast something (maybe RRoR?), launches the trigger, Dragon is breached, fighters activate CS's and the Dragon falls. The protector among the loot. We are overjoyed as we need for the improved Dragon Hat. The Harpist's House Max prebuffs (incl. PfF, PfC, PfL + PfA for Jaheira & Cernd. Imoen CC:3xMS8), enter, summons CS + Noble Spider. F/M runs to take the purge, then moves a little bit around so the Raksasha's start targetting her with ADHW's and just before they hit she releases ST: PfMW+PFME+IH. Imoen + Cernd IA, then remove magic's, a few heal's and then summon away. We aim to whack the GEG after the 2nd dispel, though it whacks us around so it gets the 3rd dispel away at "near death". Doesnt matter, Imoen IA's + IH's & then RvE:Regen's and we're good. Got 5-6 spawns. No time stop? I remembered it was here. Perhaps that's a Necro thing? *** We sell a bunch of stuff (so oodles of gems, scrolls + all of the extra gear we've hoarded and some potions) and our monies are at 650k !!! We're hoping to gain a few levels before we go to dance with the Ancient Dragon. Perhaps we're rich enough to forge a few cloaks and rings of protection +2, as we've got only a few of 'em atm. Then we forge some rings of protection +2 and gold is back at 450k. *** Twisted Rune Summons, prebuffs. F/M takes initial silence. Cernd & Imoen stay out of Vaxall's sight. Whack Revanek, then Shyressa (Shyressa aggro's Jaheira, who has SoA & skins), then Layenne. Then Vaxall and last we take out Shangalar. We get a scroll of memory boosting. Great. Perhaps we should finally fix Jaheira's Pendant? Globe Machine ice golems + elemental Summon Smilodon's & Anaconda's. They together with F/M take the initial purge's. After dispel hits F/M activates trigger with PFMW + IH + Protection from Cold. The rest of the frontline moves in from the other side under all buffs. Ice golem doesn't last for long against 26 APR of natural 20 rolls + Clan Spirit's damage. We distract the elemental a little bit as it goes for Smildon who moves out of the frame. After ice golems are down we re-up elemental resistances & milk some golems out of the elemental. *** Next for the Ancient Dragon! *** |
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Post
#24
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Forum Member Posts: 554 Joined: 30-November 20 ![]() |
Ancient Dragon
*** 1st try We lose the first try because for some reason Imoen didn't have PfF and she gets hit completely accidentally, as in the Dragon wing-buffets a troll away and then sends an improved fireball away. The 2nd try we blow for Drake doesn't silence F/M, we start whacking Nishruu and ofc the Dragon moves in and then silences F/M and the silence hits our whole frontline. The 3rd try goes awry as nishruu punches through F/M's skins and then Cernd occidentally heals the Nishruu. The 4th try ends when a potion of magic shielding doesn't work. We get the "shield" - icon but still DD gets chaos'd (they probably hit exactly the same time or so) The 5th try when the Nishruu targets Cernd (it changes it's mind after targetting F/M)... The 6th try we play for 3 hours or so. In the end the time IRL is midnight and I have to get up the next morning very early so we start taking risks. The dragon is at it's last or second last PfMW we think, our risk taking goes south as DD with -100 in fire resistance takes a full force of an improved fireball and gets whacked. And so on ... *** Margins are very, very, very much too thin here. Maybe 15-20 tries or so, marginal improvements all the way and every second try lasts for 1+ hours. Essentially this is a fight between taking down the Dragon before it can lower our fire resistances into oblivion and whacking us with improved Fireballs. So we take some risks. It's sort of annoying that we have to take the risk after quite the time of micromanaging the fight. DD enters the fight with Red Dragon Scale + improved dragon helm giving him 95% fire resistance. We also take a potion of barbarian essence for him, so he starts with undispellable 40%-50% physical resistance. Lure elite nishruu to target F/M. Then whack Nishruu (with Kensai, DD, Jaheira (CS'ing)+ Clan Sprit). Lure Noble Efreeti away from Ancient Dragon, for Imoen to drop it with CC: 3xLR ("see enemy"), RRoR & 12-15 acid arrows. Salamander Prince with skins & PfF is a piece of cake. Then it's just the dragon. It gets tanked by Sunnis (from Noble staff of earth) & another greater elemental (from summon a greater elemental), they are great for they don't get blown away when the dragon wing buffets + some random summons (trolls, anacondas & bears mostly) Imoen renews her CC (Breach+LR+LR) & we renew triggers (our game sometimes crashes when casting spell trigger, so that's superbly annoying ) with breach+lr+something. Move into dragon's sight with Imoen when it's casting fire storms / true sights / lower resistances / death spells or so. F/M has trigger with Breach+LR+LR. She launches it but gets greater silence. Then for some time we just send in summons and summons while DD moves in to give the dragon whacks. After greater silence is done she casts CC from a scroll, another breach + 2xAA's (we forgot the we could have also taken ST with Breach + LR + Hold Monster). Drop regen's for Smilodons and just flat our run away when they take too much damage. Breach as many PFMW's as possible. In the end it's tanked by a few Anacondas and the greater djinn. Imoen moves in and (we wish:rest before) and drops 15 CO's & 15 AA's on the dragon & all of her Flame Arrows she has, ditto for Cernd. We forgot that we could have also used Nature's Fists & Chain Lightnings (probably). It doesn't matter in the end. Frontline moves in and starts whacking. DD gets whacked, so does F/M. Luckily not permanently. Kensai keeps up Critical Strike & is standing in front of the Dragon and in the end the dragon falls to Kensai (Peridan main hand + belm off-hand). It's oh so very close we think. **** A few things we didn't try: - Once the dragon starts taking damage from spells, it might be worth while to drop lightning bolts instead of flame arrows - chain lightnings & implosions - Hold monster's (we could use these in a trigger as well sa F/I has it) - Miscast magic's from Cernd (after GM + doom) - Nature's fists from Cernd **** Simple "Dragon Killing Guide", Voilá: Non-Necro tactics for the fight SPOILER! #1. Summon-tactic: Whack the entourage, summon, summon, summon. Smilodons are great, ditto for Clan Spirit. Arcane summons in trolls & Yuan-Ti's work great as well. Drop regenerations & PfF's for bigger summons (we always buff the CS). Use a tank (I used the DD ofc.) to whack it every now and then. When all PFMW's are exhausted, re-buff your crew, enter & anhilate the dragon. Without protections it doesn't last for long. The problem with this tactic is that it looks like the dragon has an (unending?) pool of "lower fire resistances" so after some time the dragon will lower your tank's fire protections & dispel, then you have to re-up with PfF, Res. F&C, PftE, PfE + rings and even that won't get you to proper fire resistance level so in the end your tank will be very, very vulnerable to improved fireballs. Then again, once it's out of PFMW's with a competent frontline one can easily afford not to aggro with the char that took majority of the lower fire resistances. #2. Trigger-tactic:. Whack the entourage. Summon for distractions. Use triggers for instant breaches when the dragon is busy casting something else, so walk in - release trigger - walk out of sight. Effective ways of doing this include at least casting a mirror image (or imp. invisibility), so Dragon will cast true sight, quaffing a potion of magic protection (or cast magic resistance with Cernd for example), so it will cast LR or tanking with summons and using a missile weapon so the dragon will fire storm to the character using the missile weapon (we used dwarven thrower). Once PFMW's are out, buff up fire resistances, enter & obliterate. #3. Power-tactic: Whack the entourage. Dispel spell protections. When the Dragon starts taking damage from spells (most likely after entourage is done). distract, enter dragon's sight with aura clensing's & IA's and drop as much damage via spells to the Dragon as possible. So CO's, AA's, Flame Arrows (lightning bolt is probably better, COC's and chain lightnings (should work)). And should you have Cernd also implosions & nature's fists should work. Two competent casters with maxed casting time should do the trick, especially if it's supported by triggers, sequencers & Chain Contigencies and competent frontline whacking away under IH & CS (as the dragon will need to renew protections). #4. Dispel-tactic: Relies on specific characters in the party / high enough levels. There's a few possibilities for dispelling (/breaching) the Dragon without Necro. A high-level enough Cernd can (read: should) be able to dispel the Dragon and he's unsilenceable. This also works with Jaheira, if you have her "perform ritual" active. The other options include dispelling with inquisitor with it's innate ability. And if you have a thief (pure class / dual class with Use Any Item), you can cast "breach" from a scroll. Last but least one could use a cleric here, as they have faster level progression. And you can cast dispel from off-screen, so without visibility. The Dragon moving all the time makes this difficult though. |
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Post
#25
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Forum Member Posts: 63 Joined: 15-August 21 ![]() |
Yup I had a feeling that Ancient Dragon fight with no Necro on insane would be a pain in the ass. Hurts to even think about.
Look forward to the plan for Demo! |
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#26
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Forum Member Posts: 554 Joined: 30-November 20 ![]() |
Yup I had a feeling that Ancient Dragon fight with no Necro on insane would be a pain in the ass. Hurts to even think about. Look forward to the plan for Demo! It's always a pain. Though I think I have it covered for now, it doesn't seem impossible at all once one gets the hang of it! *** At 7m exp our multiclassed F/I has 7 HLA's. A Paladin with same exp has 10 HLA's. Our F/I has also gained all of the ground regarding Thac0's. Compared to Paladin/Ranger she's lacking a little bit in HLA's, somewhat in hit points & weapon proficiency points. On the bonus side she's quite the competent spell-caster. Monies at about 450k, some gear left unsold still. *** Mystery of the Shimmering light De-buff and anhilate. Elite Doppleganger against DD's 55% undispellable resistance + double regen is easily enough. Judgement Day - fight We can't blow through this. We probably could, if we would swap Cernd for a Riskbreaker to add muchos-muchos H2H capabilities, but we would have had a terrible time so far in the game. It takes some time before we find the right rhytm for the fight. Demon Lord's summons aren't a problem. We get mostly elemental golems. That's completely fine for us since they are much easier to dispatch than Marilith groups. Jaheira is our best tank against them, as she's got the shadow dragon scale, that together with improved dragon helm and Boots of Grounding means she only needs "resist fire & cold" to have about 100% in elemental resistances (we don't need em Boots when we get the Harper Pin, but we don't have it yet). The only thing that comes through the skins then is the acid, where she's only at 50% without acid shield. Naturally we have a lot more "resist fire & cold" 's then protection from elements & PfE's. And ofc she has the golem slayer, so when we get "hardiness" we can drop her phys. resistance against crushing to 75%. She usually equips the girdle of lordly might so with buffs she's at 190hp's or so. With regen, good enough easily. Anyway, whack the entourage, they aren't a problem - so we tank with Jaheira or Cernd mostly The end is annoying for the FoD trigger + lower fire resistances + the oodles of absolute immunities. We make it, though we have to once re-up through Wish. Ultra golem + GEG F/I takes initial purge with summons. She then uses ST to launch PFMW + IH + skins. GEG goes for summons so our frontline + CS (PfL + IH'd) goes for ultra golem. Everyone CS's, Cernd + Imoen aura clense. Cernd summons distractions, Imoen summons + turns a few ambers into chickens + once ultra drops the dispel she imediately re-up's IH's for our frontline. Nasty Orcsies - fite Well, here we are again. We come in prepared though. Our least favourite fight in the while game. Prebuff to the max. Additional buffs we usually death ward, protection from poison & protection from petrification on on DD + F/I. Kensai + Jaheira take potions of magic protection, they don't do the "mage runs" that much. Potion of storm giant strength for F/I. We optimize our equipment; Jaheira with Noble Staff of Earth + Senses of the Cat is at -22 against missiles. We can aura of flaming death her to -26 & if we use DUHM we can drop to -28. That's good enough not to be targetted. We have numerous auras of flaming death. DD has defender of easthaven in off-hand + BoIB so with Hardiness he's at 70% phys resistance + 85% against missiles. Then we further optimize by equipping the orc leather for him, which puts him at 95% physical resistance against missiles with Hardiness. Conveniently it also makes him easier to hit, it's the perfect combination - easy to hit, impossible to hurt. Though missing one hardiness means he's dead. Most likely. In a pinch we could equip the supreme shelter. (The arrows do 28 pts of damage, but with DD's protections they are down to 2 pts, how noice!) F/I takes gloves of missiles snaring dropping her AC against missiles to -16. We can drop an additional -10 against missiles by equipping the supreme shelter. That plus SI:Divination, improved invisibility + blur mens that we can get as low as -29 against missiles or so (-19 without supreme shelter) assuming there's no bonus from improved invisibility. And ofc. she has skins + mirror images + pfmw's to keep her safe. And a few foreknowledges. And CC's & triggers & everything. Kensai is safe with Judgement Day & almost continuous CS / Kai. Imoen with SI:Divintion + Mirror Images + Blur + Improved Invisibility is at -15 + occasional foreknowledge (to -19) and PFMW's. That leaves Cernd, who is in trouble here the most. Cernd takes the ox-tail belt, that together with barkskin + aura of flaming death means he's at -19 against missiles. We cast "protection from missiles" every now and then but it doesn't last that long (we don't actually even check if works but we cast it). Usually missing one mirror image / iron skins means he's dead. Drop mages immediately, summon for distraction, buffs (IH+ Regen) on bigger summons (so Smilodons & CS). After entering (we usually aura clense here) Cernd & Imoen take turns in dispelling. Cernd with dispel magic, Imoen with remove magic. We keep Imoen & Cernd a little bit away from each other so that we can see when mirror images are out. All three of F/I + Imoen + Cernd have SI:Divination + Improved Invisibility active. Imoen casts the improved invisibility to F/M, so it's more difficult to dispel. Renew regen on DD. We have oodles of 'em. With this setup we can manage. However, we will run out of defensive buffs so we need a wish:rest. If we don't get it, we lose. And we need it at mid-point, so after 1-2 hours of playing through this. We win this perhaps on the 5th try or something like that? In the end, we're all out of resources & in desperation mode. We are super glad this part os over. |
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Post
#27
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Forum Member Posts: 554 Joined: 30-November 20 ![]() |
Grave Liches @ Globe Machine
Prebuff, dispel, whack. Alternatively we could have used time stop + ia from Wish for debuffing & then whacked. Guarded Compound We need celestial fury for Hammer of Thor. Enter, dominate, exit. Milk all golems. (<= this requires a few tries as our margin for error is nonexistant). We turn 4 ambers into chickens and we're not sure if we get all spawns from the lich, as the CS accidentally kills it. **** Forge Hammer of Thor, a few rings of protection & noble staff of Fire. We are quite optimistic about what comes next as in the Demogorgon. **** Demofight Well, our crew has worked exquisitely well so far. But here, not so much. We are missing arcane casting capabilities and here is where it shows big time. It's the hardest fight in the game, or at least for us, We try the fight n times (10-15 or so), doing testruns & tinkering with it we and can't get past the beginning. We are using F/I (also known as the F/M here in this journal) for tanking and it doesn't go so well. It's quite the tight spot to debuff only with a single Sorceress it seems. Dammit. **** We could also tank with DD, as F/M and DD have equal amount of CS's and DD has better fire resistance, because of the great wyrm plate. Thac0 wise they are about even (DD is ahead by -2). We'd need another * in war hammer's for F/M though, which is about 150k away. We have easily enough quests left in SoA to do that. **** This post has been edited by pekkae: May 25 2022, 05:42 PM |
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#28
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Forum Member Posts: 554 Joined: 30-November 20 ![]() |
We agree to try once more. If no progress, we'd try another tactic but once we make it through the beginning, we make it all da'way!! On insane.
I can't believe it. SPOILER! Max summons, so 2xGreater Yuan-Ti, Greater Djinn, CS + Sunnis. Greater Yuan-Ti goes for Belcheresk, the other goes for Kazuyl, ditto for Sunnis, Greater Djinn takes Rozvankee and CS goes for St Kargoth (under IH, PFME, Skins + regen). The rest are just hasted. The micromanaging required here to make everything work makes us insane. Max prebuffs. Including barbarian essences for both Kensai + DD. CC 3xRRoR "on hit" for F/M. She also takes 5 barbarian essences, shield of harmony (we switch with supreme shelter every now and then), Peridan, boots of the north, ring of gaxx and improved dragon helm. Protection from level drain scroll to, well, protect from level drain. Start, launch trigger with llarloch's minor drain to debuff Nulonga & then F/M moves to whack demo, once she gets aggro we move her to near St Kargoth. Once St KArgoth is whack-able she whacks and then she tanks Demo + Rozvankee through the fight, all the way to the end. And at one point she tanks 5-6 Vargouilles + a bunch of Mariliths. She also has potions of cold resistance (2-3) and potions of fire resistance (5-8) we keep quaffing potions of regeneration in the beginning, she must've taken perhaps 10 or so. She gets stunned once & once she gets held. Doesn't matter, she's quite difficult to hurt with everything that she has. Plus we take 3 or so RvE:Regen's throughout the fight. While stunned/held she only takes fire damage. Imoen is the class in the beginning, she goes IA, Breaches Nulonga (Who is then whacked into oblivion by IH'd Kensai & Jaheira under CS, though we have to use 2-4 breaches here), then she debuffs Belcheresk, breaches, lowers it's resistances (ST 3xLR) and then drops 12 Magic missiles on it with about 15 acid arrows (10 + both sequencers). Cernd aura clenses and then drops 2-3 unleash energy's on Belcheresk, which then falls. Then we 3xRRoR St Kargoth,3xLR + Breach and drop 30 flame arrows on it + our remaining acid arrows. Jaheira, under SoA + PfME goes to give it a whack. Unfortunately CS falls here, it was on St Kargoth, otherwise we could have natural restored it to full health. Next up is Kazyul, who is battling Sunnis & Greater Yuan Ti (greater elementals don't get knocked back, that's why they are really good here - for the fight is much more manageable that way). Imoen breaches and Cernd summons another greater elemental to help our summons. DD whacks the spawning Vargouille (just one, under CS) and then moves to whack Kazuul. Then rest of the frontline moves in, it activates "hardiness" and we can't hurt it. We're out of breaches. F/M is tanking demo + rozvankee so she's no help. At this point Imoen is out of 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 5th and almost out of 7th level spells so we start wishing. We get Wish:Rest maybe after 8 tries or so we follow-up by re-casting IA and then Breach (x2 perhaps) Kazuyl, which falls quite quickly once it gets targetted with 26 APR with natural 20 rolls. De-breching with -5 and coordinating Criticla Strikes is deadly. Imoen follows up by starting to summon. Then it's just Rozvankee + Demo. F/M moves near the staircase to try and feed some spawns to the rest of the crew, since they can't attack her as they can't all fit, but they just stick around her. Demo launches lower resistances + fire storm so we are in a bit of a pickle for some time. But we are prepared, as in we have active regen + batalista's passport + supreme shelter to temporary up the fire resistance for further 75% Plus the potions. She gets stuck there, with Rozvankee & Demo below (+ Mariliths), Vargouilles on top. Her HP's drop quit fast so Cernd moves in and heals with natural restoral. It's enough. Fighters move in from the top, clear out the Vargouilles (one of DD, Kensai or Jaheira is always with CS (three capable fighters with one using CS the Vargouilles don't last for long) and once cleared move to the center we go where we whack the Mariliths, Imoen mostly breaches them (from scrolls). We dodge fire storms a little bit and a few "lower fire resistances", whack a few more waves of Vargouilles and Mariliths. We give our best shot to separating Rozvankee & Demo here (using summons to tackle Demo) but it doesn't work, however Demo is quite conveniently single mindedly aggroing F/M, even after it's distracted by a summon. Rozvankee runs out of SI:Divination. We true sight & whack it immediately (it doesn't launch a trigger, though our frontline had PFME's active, probably from the Wishes in the beginning of the fight). Then it's just Demo. Debuff (not sure if it works but we do it anyway) and towards the end Imoen doesn't have anything worthwhile to cast and frontline is almost out of Critical Strikes so she Wishes and we get our rest #2. Yay!!! At this point the fight is won, we are only down a lot on fire resistances but with our capabilities the renew spells will easily carry us until the end. We re-up fire resistances as much as possible (Cernd aura clenses and runs around casting protection from fire & resist fire & cold's) and front line whacks demo with CS. Cernd drop CC's for whole frontline together with resist fear (from Imoen) so F/M switches to Githzerai Blade (she has 5 Critical Strikes). Demo against 30 APR with natural 20 rolls doesn't last for long, still it's perhaps 3 rounds or so. It's quite tanky. It seems like it takes forever. In the end we give Noble Staff of Fire to Jaheira, so in a pinch she can equip it to dodge fire damage (she's at -10% or so without the staff). Doesn't matter. We hear the sweet sound of Demogorgon's wail while our group of mostly mere mortals thusfar whacks it into another plane. Then we finish the remaining mariliths. F/M, who's been taking the damage takes giant strength from Jaheira & belm off-hand and goes on a Marilith whacking spree. We get our superpowers. We check the difficulty setting 5 times. Yes. It's on "insane". This took about 4 hours of constant micromanagement. Our whole crew including PC gets Blessings(?!?!?). On my other runs PC just gets the ring. Well, we don't complain. **** We re-install simplified economy here. It's too much to ask to gather & sell the swords & armours from the next fights. We forge Phosphorous (finally) for F/M together with Helm of Clarity for Jaheira. Now we have a little bit more flexibility. No more milking, we're just going to enjoy the rest without the annoying prolonging of the fights. We're actually looking forward to these! **** This post has been edited by pekkae: May 27 2022, 04:16 PM |
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#29
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Forum Member Posts: 554 Joined: 30-November 20 ![]() |
Assassins at Windspear Hills
Cernd aura clenses and dispels coordinators, rror's em, dooms everyone, drops 10 insect plagues / emotions / alicorn lances / chain lightnings / nature's fists & implosions while Imoen with max casting time bonuses drops LR's at everyone and then drops GM's & turns the golems into chickens and ADHW's away. It takes perhaps two rounds or so? Double -5 is complete overkill. As we thought. And frontline with 33 APR's of Critical Strikes, as we thought. **** Fun level: Much fun OP level: Game-breaking Difficulty level: trivial **** Grandfather of Assasins We lose on our first try. We forgot the trigger, as usual, so ADHW whacks us into oblivion. Prebuff. Max casting time bonuses. Initiate. Aura clense & IA. Drop 15 chain lightnings while Imoen LR's + GM's. Drop rest of the spellbook's for surviving enemies. Frontline activates CS's and the whole fight is over before the CS's run out. GBU We're not milking, so ... Max prebuffs, max summons, max prebuffs for summons (regen's, ih's, elemental resistances) Cernd goes for Ariel, aura clenses & drops 2x regen on her + heal. Then he goes to whack the golem (with PfL) It takes a few rounds for our H2H crew to take down the two elementals. After Supreme Golem's dispel hits Cernd, we move in & whack the Supreme Golem. Then the elemental. Ariel waves us goodbye and we go to fetch the jewel and the relic, which we have no use of. Viper Queen Lasts for a surprisingly long time as in maybe 3 rounds or so. We use only h2h here. City Gates Lich Cernd obliterates it with implosions & nature's fists. **** Amulet of Power The AoP is such a powerful item that we think it deserves it's own entry. And we think it's wasting its potential somewhat if one turns it into Amulet of Hades / Lord of the Underworld. Especially in chapter 3. There's three distinct benefits, for not going for Necro's amulet, even with a Necro in the party: #1 NPP is quite difficult to find. Having permanent NPP is very powerful. AoP on a ranger (/paladin) means quite a lot easier time with vampires, mists and the few other level draining foes. AoP on a F/M means you can pretty much buff the character and then solo some of the Vampire encounters - a recipe for domination. One will have these types of encounters throughout the game, so this flexibility will make things a lot easier. #2 Flexibility with tanking -1 in casting time means you are safe in numerous encounters. Without -1, your character is always subject to interruption meaning most likely an instant or near instant death at more advanced encounters. This is highlighted in the encounters requiring sheer endurance, that take hours even for an experienced mod-dweller types. The best way to use AoP is to circle it around depending on your need - if you are planning on tanking with an Avenger, give it her for the fight. Tanking golems becomes a breeze when you can have 3 characters with at least -1 in casting time through chapters 3-5 (for example Cernd with innate -2, Jaheira with CotW & F/M with AoP, assuming no-Vecna ofc). This becomes crucial at later stages when you need to switch the tank to re-up skins / re-up elemental resistances. #3 Stacking bonuses: casting time bonuses work non-lineary. A -1 or -2 reduction in casting time can mean immense increases in ability. This is especially true with your premier Arcane spellcaster and is oh'so'nice when one has Cernd with you. For almost all of the best offensive spells with Cernd have a casting time of 5, which is reachable if you don't use AoP for Necromancer's amulet. The difference between -3 and -4 and -5 is immense. In chapters 4-5 having Cernd with -4 is quite game-breaking. It means insect plagues & chain lightnings with casting time of 1, emotions with casting time of 0. With a bonus of -5, some encounters become almost trivial. My (32nd level) Cernd, with Noble Staff of Earth + 25 Wisdom + Circlet of Golden Flowers + AoP (so -5) can within a fraction of a round drop: 10 Nature's Fists (40d10 crushing damage) 13 Implosions (130d10 fire damage, 130d10 crushing damage) 16 chain lightnings (256d6 of lightning damage) 15 insect plagues (45 damage per rd for 3 rds) 15 poisons* / emotions 15 flame arrows (90d6 piercing damage + 360d6 fire damage) 17 alicorn lances (51d6 piercing damage) That's in line with a Necro, power wise, we think, depending on the fight might even be a bit further. It's too bad that Cernd doesn't have a usable first level damage dealing spell as burning hands doesn't really work. (Chromtic Orb would). All that for easier time with Ancient Dragon, we don't really think it's a tradeoff we want to make in most cases. The only exception might be if we're playing a Necro without Cernd & with multiclassed F/M as a supportive arcane caster. *Currently we though don't know of a single fight where poison would work. This post has been edited by pekkae: May 27 2022, 04:21 PM |
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#30
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![]() Forum Member Posts: 2570 Joined: 10-May 13 ![]() |
Bravo! I'm amazed that you managed to win probably the hardest fight on insane! Reading your log of the fight was really entertaining and I hope, that analyzing and doing the fight was no less rewarding for you in terms of joy and excitement (4 hours of those emotions!). Your party really has the power and the diversity needed for even the most challenging elements of IA.
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#31
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Forum Member Posts: 554 Joined: 30-November 20 ![]() |
Bravo! I'm amazed that you managed to win probably the hardest fight on insane! Reading your log of the fight was really entertaining and I hope, that analyzing and doing the fight was no less rewarding for you in terms of joy and excitement (4 hours of those emotions!). Your party really has the power and the diversity needed for even the most challenging elements of IA. Thanks! It was an emotional journey yes, went from curious to hopeful to annoyed to desperate to overjoyed ![]() **** Orcus We always have trouble in the beginning. It's actually little difficult, for we are a vulnerable to silence. Prebuff incl. RvE:Regen. Jaheira drops another regen for DD. Anyway, move around a bit to get the 1st silence for one caster. Attack with frontline. F/M moves out of sight and the plan is to summon with her but as we're not careful she gets silenced as well. Oh well, doesn't matter as Cernd saves us. In the end F/M gets whacked (level drain from vampires), for we are not careful. Cernd can already dispel Orcus so it's not that big of a deal. DD survives with double regen & active hardiness all the time. The first fight in the game where we tank with regen + hardiness on this level, though Cernd uses all natural restorals to heal DD. We make it, thanks to Jaheira's ritual & unsilenceable Cernd. Irenicus Engage. IA + aura clensing. Imoen turns all golems into chickens immediately (use triggers here as well) and finishes then with MM's. RR0R x n (3?) Irenicus + 3xLR + GM + Doom + drop Joneleth by implosions & nature's fists. Perhaps one round? DD thinks them hardwood golems make the best tooth picks. Hell Summon to the max. Prebuff to the max. Prebuff summons to the max. Then we give'em'hell. Thus we conclude SoA. **** We'll play through ToB at some point, but for now we'll take a break! The sun is shining and the summer is here, so there's no point in sitting inside and staring at the computer screen with out free time so much! **** This post has been edited by pekkae: May 29 2022, 05:53 PM |
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#32
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Forum Member Posts: 554 Joined: 30-November 20 ![]() |
TOB
Illasera Debuff. Whack. Milk a little bit. It's quite easy with an unconscious Illasera. Gromnir Troubles here, we play this through for a number of times. This is mostly due to us being completely ill-prepared. Anyway, with minor globes from limited wish + proper prebuffs this is solved easily. Krun does a lot of damage on insane with MM's & AA's. **** We forge Cernd's staff & a ring of protecion +4. We don't have anything else we want to forge. We have a lot of unsold stuff along with unsold equipment. **** Marching Mountains Max prebuffs, max summons, PfF's for everyone & prebuffs for summons sa well. Only one elemental golem here with Berenn? They all in all do not survive long enough to get a single spawn away. Yaga-Shura Drop Yaga-Shura's magic resistance with 3xpierce shield (F/M's CC). Whack away. Cernd 12xCall lightning's here. We use one RvE. Skins keep us safe. DD has double regen throughout the fight. Greater elementals are great at tanking Yaga, for they don't get thrown back. We use all of our Critical Strikes (30 or so). The Oasis Enter with contigencies skins on sight & cc's with foreknowledge + 2xMS8. Imoen + Cernd AI/Aura clense. Cernd moves to the front to take the aggro of about half of the first batch of gems (3-5 or so). We can drop his AC to -30 against crushing (barskin + aura of flaming death + SoA). Then he drops his whole spellbook on enemies. Imoen starts wishing, once ia is done - we aim to get PfME's for everyone but we get "double time stop + ia" instead. That's fine. Imoen then IH's, PfME's + PftE's the whole crew. F/M enters, launches trigger (GOI + PFMW + IH) on herself, then puts up SI:Abjuration and off she goes to whack the battle mages (after PfME ofc.). Swords work very, very well here. We get wish:hardiness at some point + we RvE:Regen. Jaheira misses her skins, gets interrupted, then we are about to start running away until she gets hit, with wish:hardiness + golem slayer + helm of clarity + AoF she's at 80% physical resistance ... RvE regen keeps her easily safe enough, we don't need skins. Which we understood only after being hit. How nice. **** The nicest thing bout the F/M is that she has multiple layers of protection. We can throw her into a fight with PFMW, once that runs out there's great AC + skins up next, sometimes coupled with mirror images (+ fire shields). After those are done, there's Hardiness (though on insane that doesn't amount to much). And additional defensive buffs are cast instantly (with foreknowledge). So she's usually quite safe in any encounter. **** Sendai's Enclave Our H2H too great. Our spells too many. Way too many. Lich causes some problems, luckily there's Cernd at -5 to renew death wards. Once invisibility is out, Cernd drops it with implosions & nature's fists. We fall once to Sendai for the golem's dispels & the deafness. Turn golems into chickens. We whacked the pet next, leaving Sendai the last. Would have probably been easier if we would have left a regenerating Smilodon battling Sendai's Pet and whacked Sendai herself. Doesn't matter. Vongoethe Prebuff with death wards. Start. Cernd IA 2-3xRRoR & 5-6x implosions and Vongoether falls. Then Cernd nature's fists pretty much everything else. They are instant so that's quite fun. Abazigail This is such a nice fight Summons for distractions. Whack the salmanders. Srop the human form. Get blown back & debuffed. Summons go for gollums. Improved alacricity for Imoen & Mental Agility (we get it on the 4th try), then Cernd ura clenses (it has a casting time of 2) & immediate mirror image from Cernd. When Abazigail starts true sight enter line of sight and drop Cernd's & Imoen spellbooks on it starting with 2-3RRoR's, 4-5 LR's, breach and then we dish out the hurt, as in everything we have that's 5 or under in casting time. It's near death after Cernd's implosions (we start with 'em) pretty much, so before about 15x nature's fists, 15 MMS', 30 Flame Arrows and so on. We try to whack it with spells but it just stays "near death" - we must have dropped 300-500 pts of damage to it after it's "near death", so F/M comes in and gives it a whack. Abazigail falls. Double -5 is overpower. Balthazar Cernd drops him with implosions EDE No Pasha? We saved him and he was very happy earlier. Well, I guess that's a Necro thing. We don't finish EDE yet, as the elemental backlashes are a lot on insane. We'll be back for this later on. **** The End **** Some thoughts on the crew: Our crew worked almost as planned. We had quite an easy time for most parts of the game, out counting the demo-fight, which was a handful. Cernd is our best damage dealer via spells in almost all of the fights. it's also super nice, that almost all of his damage-dealing spells have a casting time of 5, so they are instant. I'm quite confident in stating that Cernd, developed this way, is the most powerful spellcaster in the game and he beats out even a fully developed Necro in number of areas. The only thing that makes a fully developed Necro more powerful is having access to full RvE. But when it comes to damage dishing & summoning, Cernd beats Necro hands down. Our Sorceress is mostly for debuffing enemy spellcasters & protections and buffing our crew. And ofc dish out the hurt in those cases where she was able to. We really didn't need to tank with DD that much. But in the few cases that we needed to, it was doable with a double-triple regen. That we really could not was probably our biggest miscalculation. I think in this setup the DD can be switched with a Vagrant, for they have almost equal phys resistance towards the end but Vagrant is a better damage dealer + has amazing complimentary abilities. This is so probably even without Flail of Defending & Wounding and the Red Coral Armour. Though if that switch would be made, we're not sure how we can beat Mithril golem (perhaps summons & pfmw's & range would work here?). Our muticlssed F/M (or F/I) was a great character, combining very powerful abilities with really good H2H capabilities, as we thought. It would be fun to get this type of character an additional bonus item or two. In ToB parts of the game it would be great to be able to upgrade the Asylferund elven chain with adamantite dust to bring back some abilities from the Drow Elven Chain, most notbly the -1 in casting time. That adjustment is mostly convenience adjustment, it really doens't help the character that much (as you can just have active foreknowledge all the time for insant skins & pfmw's). Another nice tweak would be to allow the Wondrous Gloves to be usable by F/M types. Thanks again for the great mod. I've had much, much fun with this & a great time! This post has been edited by pekkae: Jun 6 2022, 10:26 AM |
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Lo-Fi Version | Time is now: 31st August 2024 - 04:24 AM |