The Upgraded Difficulty Bosses

Remove all ads!

A note before anything else: I don't have tactics installed. What I mean by upgraded difficulty bosses are the David Gaider mods to the five and Demigorgon(sp?) as well as the Oversight mod to update Sendai.

In short: Guys, what have I gotten myself into? I know I'm way behind the times and that these mods came out a long time ago, but I'll be honest and say that I've been humbled, severely, from what I've seen so far. I breezed through TOB's bosses before with my other characters, but now it's... refreshingly challenging.

My first hint was when Illasera handed me my party's corpses on a plate two or three times before I beat her.

Then I decided to go to watcher's keep with the intent of defeating the Demigorgon.

I had to play through that battle probably 6 or 7 times before I took him out, losing one of my party members in the process. Yaga Shura was also a real beast and nearly dropped my main character (An inquisitor).

Please tell me that these fights are supposed to be this challenging now. I like it, don't get me wrong, but I'm worried about the final showdown with you know who. I believe I read somewhere that this fight has been changed considerably to include all five members of the five or something along those lines.



Again, what have I gotten myself into? Is this fight as hard as it sounds like it'll be? Is there some key factor that I'm overlooking that will make such a battle winnable?

Finally, can you PLEASE give me some tips for the upcoming battles in TOB. The aforementioned bosses are the only ones I've managed to face so far, and I recently arrived in Amkethran, pretty much terrified at what the future has in store for me. I didn't think I was a shabby BG player, but these additions are impressively difficult. Which brings a second question to mind, is it possible to solo ToB with these addons? It doesn't even seem feasable to me anymore.

 

It's soloable alright.
Just not by anyone and any class anymore.

I remember someone saying once that "It's supposed to be difficult, but not impossible". Very well, but there's must a very, very thin line between difficult and impossible. I don't remember the details anymore but in my first and only try of the Ascension my party was overwhelmed a couple of times before I made some headway. In the end it was 50%luck, 50% spells. You tend to get spoiled over time.

 

I haven't really tried the improved 5 yet, I did kill the first woman, solo, in TOB when I started a new game, haven't killed Yaga yet. I started a new game a couple weeks ago, you can follow it on Newbie Thread, Kinda. Anyway, I just now beat Improved Illyich. I have never finished a game of BG2 or TOB, but the Imp. Illyich has GOT to be the toughest fight in the game It's absolutely the toughest fight I have played in any game. A party of 4 in Chateau Irenicus taking on a Glabrezu and Fallen Deva?!?!?! What I have played of the Improved Five, you will probably find the last battle next to impossible. Plus the buggers cheat. But take heart, you can do what I did to finally beat Illyich, level the playing field by cheating your @$$ off. And get Tactics on your next run through. It's awesome once you beat Illyich, and it will probably prepare you for the improved 5 in TOB. Well, Good Luck.

 

Actually, you ain't seen nothin' yet. Improved Abagizal is by far the hardest of the new five (I never fight Demo, so dunno about that). It's almost as hard as the big rumble -- tons of stuff flying around, and maybe half a round to prepare. Plus after he dragonizes he has this ridiculous "shockwave" which I believe resets all his resistances every freaking round or so.

Still, you -can- beat every battle by planetar-piling. Though for Abagizal and the finale you need to know how. I feel like this is cheating, but some of these battles may force you to resort to it... It makes soloing a sorcerer actually fairly easy, incidentally.

The main trick is to know what everyone's vulnerable to, and what their defenses are. The ones who can be timestopped, have Aerie timestop/harm after a lower resist trigger hits. Bang. Alternately, almost everyone can be hurt by magical cold. Vecna & Improved Alacrity & 5+ Cones of Cold. Use Projected Images to do this more than once. Bang. Probably the easiest (non-harm) way to get ol' Yaga. (Also, try level draining weapons...)

Other general strategies: liberal use of chain contingency, both for attack (3X wilting) and defense (3X Mordy Sword).

OK, major spoilers for the final final battle ahead (there's one warmup battle which is -really- tricky if you don't want to slaughter someone very close):

First, preparation. Spike Traps! Everywhere! On the right side of the battlefield! Plus a pile of strategically placed skull traps (also on the right) can't hurt. A few time traps may make de-protectioning Abagizal easier too. But most important: cannon fodder! Skeleton warriors, shambling mounds... Whatever, as long as it won't die from one hit. Mordy Swords too. If you use one planetar, put it on the far left where Sendai will appear -- if you use two (with Project Image), put the other next to Ilasera on the far right.

The temptation is to summon up an army using project image to circumvent the 5-summon limit. This isn't a bad idea, except you have to make sure you can do it fast enough that your summonses don't start disappearing right off. Having one or two simulacra may be more useful -- put them on the bridge of each of the lower essence pools (or just the left if you use one). Drop a wizard eye there too if you want.

Mel is immune to timestop, and will appear after you kill 1-3 (I believe) of the 5 (depending on your difficulty setting). So get them all as injured as possible before you start offing any of them. Then finish them off if possible in their order of dangerous/pain-in-the-assness: Sendai (also pretty easy to kill -if- you can work true sight and a quick breach), Ilasera (super-annoying Ethereal + those horrid ranged attacks), Balthazar (unless you recruit him -- he'll be the best tank you have), Abagizal (unbelievable damage/round: slow him with FoA as soon as possible), Yaga (harm/timestop if possible, though this may kill him and trigger Mel's appearance), and Gromnir and/or Sarevok, depending on who shows up (unless you've given him something supercool, Sarevok uses a normal weapon, so you can have him hack away at the PC or something endlessly).

Right, protections. Abagizal puts up PFMW, SI: Abj, Spell Turning, and Spell Shield. If you time trap/stop right off, hit him with 3 Ruby Rays (Spellstrike may also work, never tried), step back just a tad, and breach him. Sendai uses Improved Invis, Stoneskin, and PFMW. Have true sight going -- if you time trap/stop, it should trigger then, or use your Inquisitor's insta-truesight. Then Breach her -immediately-. The planetar should keep her busy. Balthazar: he has high MR until he does "flip resistance" which means his MR goes down and physical resistances go way up. He also runs + teleports around at high speed, heals himself, and when he triggers "lunar stance" he's made himself immune to timestop. Ungh. Recruit him, or if you're evil sic on him the evil person you recruit before this battle.

Have whoever's closest to Abagizal Hardiness (or have all your fighters trigger it in the one round after hitting the last pool), have all your other fighters GWW, except that your PC may want to "Focus" to get those free rounds of timestop (improved haste him before the battle). Mages not engaged in the above should lower-resist-trigger folks and start throwing presummoned energy blades. If you want, you can use Smite (with a missile weapon!) to get Abagizal the hell away from you to start (-after- you de-protection him!). Then fire away. If you're going to do the timestop/dragon's breath/nuke thing, fire to the right side! Planetar + missile attacks should get Sendai (and disrupt her attempt to timestop), if the Planetar doesn't get targeted by Yaga.

So when Mel appears, kill everyone else as fast as possible. Each kill drops her 100 HP -- she'll also heal when you kill the last one, so don't bother much with her except using distracting summonses (if the other summonses are dead/gone, you can keep her endlessly amused with that wand of monster summoning you got in Chapter 1). Except... She has this annoying thing where she timestops and summons up a demon army (size depends on difficulty level).

She puts up PFMW (she can only be hit by +4 or better normally anyway), some "Divine Spell Shield" business, and Spell Trap. That means either Spellstrike or 2 Ruby Rays/Pierce Shields before you can even cast something at her, much less breach her (use a chain contingency if you need speed). I believe she's also immune to spell levels 1-4. The Ascension version of her is, however, only partly immune to magical fire.

Have all your fighters fire up whatever they've got left (a well-timed wish spell is really nice here), and kill her. To stop her from timestopping/demon summoning/true sighting, use insects (after a lot of lowering resist, of course).

Helpful enough? I actually was able to ascend the very first party I made, who never found the Cloak of Mirroring, Belt of Inertial Barrier, Robe of Vecna, Carsomy, or the Staff of the Magi. After figuring out some strategy, of course. My Cleric/Mage and Tashia had a much easier time (PFMW! yay!) after I realized how 10 planetars can obliterate Mel even though they can't melee her...

 

*twitches nervously* Uh... Wow. I'm VERY afraid. Incidentally, spoil away on this, how do you keep Sarevok from turning on you? Is it possible? I didn't have him swear an oath in the beginning, was hoping to turn him good. Uh oh...

 

I don't know; I've never used him much.

Another general tip I forgot: for really tough scraps, your PC might do well to off-hand the Defender of Easthaven. That (20%) plus your Hell Trial bonus (25%) plus Hardiness (40%) can get you to 85% resistance to physical attacks -- just what you need for tanking v. Abagizal and the like. (Though having a sorc/mage sit there shooting off endless PFMW may be safer, if sort of a waste.) Interesting post here by a guy who used these sort of tactics to solo a monk.

You might not have picked up the Defender, of course... This is sort of the problem with Ascension, however -- all those little bonuses and benefits that didn't seem worth the trouble at the time turn out to be really helpful, though it's too late to head back to SoA and get 'em. And to play the whole game thinking 'hmm, what if I need this in Ascension' from Chapter 2 on sucks out a non-trivial amount of fun.

The battles are a blast, though. Eventually I'll see if you can beat it with the Big Metal Unit.

 

@Malagance: When he talks to you during the game, you need to pick the "right" options in dialog, until he switches his alignment to Chaotic Good. I thought the options were rather easy actually.

 

Thanks for the extra tips S_C, they're really appreciated.

Ziad, thanks for the heads up, it's good to know that I was planning on turning him good and that I won't be rocked as a result (Sarevok is nearly as powerful as my character, would have been... difficult to fight him along with everyone else).