Party of lesser-used classes and kits Options

[blastermaster]

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.

[blastermaster]

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.

[Krell]

You cannot trigger the Old One quest until you get the Scholastic Cloak in Spellhold's Library.

[blastermaster]

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).

[blastermaster]

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.

[blastermaster]

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.

[Krell]

It's interesting to know how did you get Irenicus so fast. He is under Spell Immunity Divination, Improved Invisibility, multiple Absolute Immunities and is a higher-leveled mage than your PC, meaning that your Remove Magic won't work. Did you use CC: triple KWW?

This post has been edited by Krell: May 16 2015, 06:23 PM

[blastermaster]

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).

[blastermaster]

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!)

This post has been edited by blastermaster: May 18 2015, 02:18 AM

[blastermaster]

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...

[Krell]

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!)

You won't be able to get the Gauntlets of Extraordinary Specialization, since you have to defeat the Ancient Dragon first. But I don't see how you will manage to do that.

As for Balors, you could win a round or two before they can start casting offensive spells or Greater Doom. Potion of Invisibility will force them to cast True Sight the first round of the battle, multiple Breaches under Alacrity with reduced casting time of 4 will force them to focus on defensive buffs rather than offense, and unlike a dragon, their aura is not permanently cleaned so you could kill some in the meantime. Combining Critical Strike + Greater Whirlwhind attack will allow you to whack at them with any weapon at its fullest potential, so pick the weapon with the greatest damage output. You can also trick them into wasting a round by not starting the battle under Spell Immunity (but under Alacrity) and cast Spell Immunity Abjuration immediately after they all start chanting for Breach. Also, you could have 3*Skeleton Lord + Greater Djinni + Noble Spider before the fight starts.
Also check if the Balors are immune to Cold. If they're not, you could get them into an infinite fireshield backlash damage and kill them that way.

[blastermaster]

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.

[critto]

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.

I'd add that in the upcoming IAv6.1 we've fixed all the resonating shield bugs so I wouldn't employ that as a long-term tactic either.

[blastermaster]

Cool. Is there a list of other 6.1 improvements either already completed, or in the works? From what I saw, it seemed mostly oriented towards EE compatibility. Anyways just curious - I can't update in the middle of a playthrough anyways, but just curious what else I can get excited about :-)

[Krell]

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.

You most definitely can be under Alacrity and Potion of Invisibility effect. Casting Alacrity will take almost a round with no reductions to casting speed. Supposedly you have 2 from the Memory of the Apprenty which you cannot remove. Foreknowledge can be triggered after the Balors appear (Chain Contingency containing Foreknowledge, trigger on hit, trigger via LMD targeting self). Amulet can be taken off temporarily (re-equip after Alacrity casting is finished). Do that while the last Skeleton Lord is on 1 hit to get maximum effect of the Alacrity. Since it has already been almost a round, chug a potion of Invisibility, it will be gulped almost immediately. And you will have your alacrity still running.

If you can't do that, then use Ilbratha's Mirror Image as prebuff. It will just as well trigger the Balors' True Sight casting. If you sold Ilbratha, now is the time to remember where and whom did you sell it to.

I think you cannot kill the demons anyway via fireshield backlash damage, since they have at least 50% innate resistance to cold, brought to 100% with the fireshield. And you cannot dispel just one of those - it's either both or none.

As I said before, use multiple powerful summons, this should help against the Balors. If you don't have the Greater Djinni, then yes, go and look around in Watcher's keep. Also do Orcus for the Skeleton Lord.

Relying on something like magic resistance vs FoD is, well, not a sound tactic. Shapechange to Iron Golem under Alacrity while the Balors shower you with FoD spells however, is. You may try that.

This post has been edited by Krell: May 18 2015, 03:07 PM

[critto]

Cool. Is there a list of other 6.1 improvements either already completed, or in the works? From what I saw, it seemed mostly oriented towards EE compatibility. Anyways just curious - I can't update in the middle of a playthrough anyways, but just curious what else I can get excited about :-)

I've listed all major changes in the relevant thread. Mostly it's a maintenance release, yes, but we did add some new stuff the majority of which is ported from IAv7 development branch. We expect Monk to be a solid choice now in IA, for example.

[blastermaster]

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.

[Krell]

Hmm, I doubt that these Balors are such a major problem. If you could send me the game modifications in PM which avoid Sikret's anti-solo "tweaks", I could get to that point and try them out myself. And all other shaky victories as well, like Firkraag for example.

[blastermaster]

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.

Hopefully I'll have some time to give it another go tonight. It's pretty easy to mimic my setup for this particular battle by using a few tweaks within Shadow Keeper if you have a Necro protag save near that point.

[blastermaster]

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.