Could someone please give me some general Ascension tips?

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Hey I'm having a bit of a problem on the final battle and was after a few general tips from anyone who has managed to complete it.

For starters I would just like to say that I know all about the guide by Beren it's great and I have nothing at all against it, but that guide was based on the way Beren went through the game and I thought I'd try my own tactics instead for a challange (but in any case it's hard just beating it with a walk through but oh well...) So I'm after some general ideas and "rules of thumb" basically.

Just answers such as "should I spread out to take on one-on-one with all my party or should I gang up on one at a time?" tips like that would be helpful although I suspect that I know the answer to that one since Melisan comes in after you kill one of the five and you quickly become outnumbered 1:3.

[ January 30, 2004, 11:18: Message edited by: casey ]

 

Well, I may be wrong about this, as I haven't played recently. But I THINK that you have to defeat them in order of original appearance. ie. you can't even kill any of the others until you kill Illasera. Then Yaga-Shura, then the other two. Now, Assuming I'm right, then I would definitely gang up on them. Throw out a Planetar/Deva and some Elementals. Maybe even a Mordenkainen's Sword or two to occupy the others while you systematically pound on them one at a time. Once Melissan appears, I don't believe you have to kill whoever is left and can just focus on her (I think she pops up after TWO are down, not ONE. But again I could be wrong.) It's a tough fight, and though I don't advocate a lot of cheese, this is a great time to use your high level traps too. You can almost kill Illasera, if not kill her outright, with proper placement of some traps. Then bang on Yaga Shura and Melissan shows up to die.

 

I had a hell of a job with this fight even with characters well over level 30, wielding the best weapons in the game and with the difficulty set to easy. Having Bodhi (or Balthazar if you're good) in your party is pretty much essential.

I found the best tactic was to summon as many allies as possible and use them to block off Sendai and Yaga Shura while you have your fighters take on Ilasera with greater whirlwind attacks. If you leave her she'll hit your spellcasters with arrows of dispelling and ruin their casting ability. As soon as she goes down (and she doesn't take that long unless you're really unluckly) set everyone on Balthazar. Abazigal is tough but I bigger problems with Balthazar due to his annoying habit of running off every time I wounded him badly and healing up before I could catch him.

At some point, have your thief run off to the far edge of the map and set some time snares then lead the enemies after you. As soon as the snares go off, have your thief beat the hell out of any survivors. If you've set enough time snares, you should be able to kill at least one of them and maybe even two.

That's pretty much how I did it. Of course, a lot of it was down to luck and good fortune - Sarevok killed Sendai with a deathbringer assault at a time when the battle was really beginning to turn against me - and even with the difficulty set to easy Jan, Imoen and Sarevok died, Edwin had used up all his spells and the PC and Aerie were within an inch of getting whack themselves.

One day when I'm in a really suicidal mood I'm going to crank the difficulty up to insane and have another go at this fight.