how do you beat the battle arena?

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doesn't matter what character i use i keep getting slaughtered. how do you get by it?

 

Buff the balls out of your strongest character and send him in. Quicksave before every battle, and reload if the opponent summoned is too tough (i.e. Greater Feyr, Greater Werewolf, etc.). If you can push it till the 6th rank, the Club of Disruption you get from it will be a huge boost to your success at the other ranks.
Alternately, I've heard that mirror imaged casters with powerful spells work well, but I'd only recommend that in HoF.

 

If you have a druid of appropriate level, shapeshifting to polar bear and later dire bear will do fine in the lower levels.

You don't have to do the Battle Square right away. You can return to it later. Which means you can progress with the story and gain more levels so you are more prepared for the Battle Square.

The last chance to go back to the Battle Square is by the end of Chapter 4.

You can pickup the halberd The Hammer of Lucerne by doing that.

It has Disruption just like the Club, and outsiders and undeads fail often against that even without proficiencies in halberds.

So until you can get the Club of Disruption which is better, the halberd is a good alternative.

Giants, Remorhaz and Rhinoceros Beetles can be dealt with by going just outside the room of the Battle Square, standing in the doorway, and pelt them with missile weapons. You should have a good throwing hammer or throwing axe by now.

You can also use a spear, staff or halberd that way, since they can't reach you.

At level 5 you get Throwing Axe of Shocking Burst which really makes is easier dealing with those.

And as AjaX says, reload if you run into a Greater Werewolf or Feyr.

I would do that for Elementals, especially Earth Elementals too, since they doesn't fail there Fortitude save often against Disruption, and has many HP's.

The Battle Square is not for the unpatient, and Power Word: Reload is probably the most used spell there.

 

if you have a decent level on eith a druid or a wizard then they can do you a lot of favours. On top of this, they can heal themselves between battles

 

Don't take on ANY Elder Elemental, no matter what weapon you have. Those guys can tear you a new one in no time. Unless you're using the best of the best JUPP chars (or a Mirror Imaged, Blurred, Blinked Wizard), they WILL hit you, and hit VERY hard. Hell even with JUPP chars there's no point fighting them, they have too much HP to kill in a minute usually.

 

the 1st time i tried it i didn't know it was only going to be 1 character so i was playing around with 3 of the levers and POOF. "hey. where did everybody go?". i got lucky and only got a bear. my sorcerer took it down no prob. cromatic orb stunned it and then i just magic missiled it to death. then i tried my paladin and a demon popped out!!! how does a demon compare to a bear? lol. didn't kill it in time but i didn't die either. sure burned through some healing pots though the 3rd time i tried i got another demon. a different one than before. the 4th time i got a "apocalyps bonedemon" or something like that. that thing shredded me.
i've cleared the rest of the level except for 2 rooms. 1 of which i have to clear the battle arena in order to open the door. at least that's my understanding. so i'm pretty well stuck. is there no other way to get the door open?

 

Remember that battle arena works in terms of ranks, from easy to hard. I think you need to beat the first 3 ranks to get a key that you need.

To beat a rank, you need to win battle square by getting 3,4,5,6 AND 7 victories before winning (if I remember correctly).

So, you start battle square, win 3 adjacent squares. Start it again, win 4 adjacent squares, etc etc. You might only need to stop at 5, cant really remember. Consult an FAQ!

 

To get the key you only have to win once. So just select the easiest difficulty with the levers and have your most powerful character buffed up and win. This shouldn't be too difficult.

The rest is optional and can be done by honest fighting, cheesiness (save within a battle series) or ignored.

 

kmonster is right. You only need to win one level to get the key.

That's 3 battles.

Just pull the Rank 1 lever at the north wall, it's the easiest rank.

To win the 1st level in a rank you need to win 3 squares in a row.

 

IIRC, there is some pretty good armour at the higher ranks. I'm sure you can get some of the dragonscale stuff. Not too sure if there are any decent weapons on offer though.

To be honest, it's part of the fun to see what you get!

 

Actually, the only armor you get from Battle Square is Abhishai Hide Armor, which is fairly worthless. The weapons, however, get pretty neat. And the final Rank's Bracers of Icelandic Pearl allow you to cast Horrid Wilting WAAAY before you normally could.

 

Sorry about that, I could have sworn there was some decent armour!

 

The armor you can get there is actually far from "fairly worthless", it's very useful at this point in the game.

 

Its got 10/+1 DR if I'm not wrong. That's kinda pathetic, Stoneskin will see you through 99% of the fights at this point anyway, and later on the /+1 part ruins it.

 

that's right. items with damage reduction supercede and disable stoneskins until the item is unequipped again. there's no workaround for this. yet.
But damage reduction items can be worn with Iron Skins and barbarian DR no problem.

I never realized you could do the battle square in chapter 4, that's useful info.

Spoiler

Be sure to get the club of disruption, just after that point in chapter 4 you get the chance to use it against hordes of undead. watching them pop like that, especially in HoF mode where they'd take a while to bring down, is great fun!pop pop pop pop

The armor becomes Cornugon Hide Armor in HoF, more DR, regeneration, but still not very good

 

Ah-ha! I knew there was something useful in there somewhere! (ref coineineagh's spoiler)

 

Stoneskin must be cast, doesn't last forever and doesn't absorb unlimited damage. You have to cast 5 level 4 mage spells to protect your party members except the cleric with it, you need 6 level 4 mage spells for optimal protection with the powerful improved invisibilty spell and you'll want to cast emotion: courage too. I don't think many players who don't cheat have so many level 4 spells available at this point of the game, and even if you have a party with 12 level 4 mage spells per day you'll still want more level 4 slots for recasting or trying out other spells.

 

Why do you need to cast it on everybody? The only characters who go into melee need it. I have two of those, and that's all the Stoneskin I need to cast. It doesn't last forever, but neither do the battles. Usually, I still have Stoneskin active by the time I mop up a battle. The other chars should be properly controlled and kept away from the front lines. If your Sorcerer is being bashed at by a Lizardman, that's a very good sign you're doing something wrong in char control.
And IMHO, Improved Invisibility is not "powerful protection", its cowardice. To tear apart battalions of monsters w/o them ever knowing you're there makes the whole game totally redundant. Wouldn't you call that cheating?

Editted to add: Emotion Hope beats Courage any day.

 

If it's cheating then why is it part of the game? If it was a spell that you needed a code for then fair enough. Otherwise, there's nothing wrong with using it

 

Its in the game to use, yes. And its good to use with Rogues who backstab, or scouters, or such. But casting it on ALL six chars for protection? Beg pardon if I call that turning yellow.