Problems with the final HoF battle. Never mind!

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I can't seem to hurt the twins!

My party is two sorcs and a cleric. When I arrive in the throneroom I quickly cast a few Gates, send one sorc with M.Sword to kill the summoner, then Charm Person a couple of the henchmen. Soon everyone is dead but the twins, who are occupied with the Gate demons.

Now, the twins have 25 damage reduction against physical, and I can't do that much (M.Sword has a range of about 22-29). My summons can't harm them either. So first I cast Lower resistance on one of them a couple times, then knock it down to Hurt with Horrid Wilting or Skull Traps or other spells (Isair has Evasion, so it is easier to damage Madea).

Next they teleport to the Pool, which I've already purified. I come and kill the Slayer Knights and engage the twins again. The problem is, now Isair has Antimagic Shell on him. He is totaslly immune to spells, and the Shell cannot be Dispelled or Lower Resistanc'ed. Madae, on the other hand, will cast Heal on herself when she gets badly injured. I don't know how many times she can cast it, but even once is too much; I run out of spells before she dies.

How do other people do it?


EDIT: It turns out Madae only casts Heal once. So I burnt all of my Skull Traps and Horrid Wiltings, and most of my Cones of Cone and Acid Rains, and finally she went down. Melee was completely useless against the twins.

[ December 18, 2005, 00:42: Message edited by: JT ]

 

Don't Xvim and the Twins take additional +15 damage from cold in HoF? That should shorten the fight ... once their Protection from Magic expires ofcourse.

 

I think the bonus cold damage was only +5.

What do you mean by Protection from Magic? Isair cast Antimagic Field on himself near the end of the throneroom battle, so I waited a long time for it to wear off before going to the Pool. But then he cast it again.... It lasts one _turn_ per caster level so if he's level 30 that is 300 rounds.

Madae had various protection spells but I was able to punch through them, and they wore off by the end anyway.

 

"Protection from Magic" is the standard way of dealing with the twins, if I remember correctly. It's the scroll you get from the Severed Hand and it makes them immune to magic (including their own buffs).

 

Oh. Yeah, I had two of those scrolls but using them would have been suicidal since I would have then been completely unable to damage the twins.

 

Cast summons, then antimagic on the twins. then have your summons beat the crapp out of them, more summons nd more buff's for the summons. use spells to take out anything else.

 

The twins each have 25 points of physical damage reduction. My summons couldn't punch through that in HoF.

 

JT, shoulda buffed those summmons. As your allies, they benefit from bless, prayer, mass bulls str, haste, etc. Gotta load up before attempting this battle.
Tanking sucks from the mid game on, until this final battle, where some good old fashion butt kicking, major damage comes in handy. Two tanks really work best, so when one is targeted and dropped down, he can back up to the healer while the other takes a turn wacking away. Your summons, properly buffed, still only do single digit damage, but they are really just meat shields to take a few hits while the tanks do some real damage. I had my Ftr4/Bar17 doing over 75 pts per hit (minus damage reduction, still hitting for 50, and hitting about 1/3 of the time) while my DG monk1/pal1/Ill16 got in a few hits with the HA, and causing a lot of misses on the twins strikes (mirror Image is the best lev1 spell).

 

Madae takes bonus cold damage!

Summon a Gelugon, (I forgot which type of demon summoning called this), he is an ice demon, so it rips Madae quick!

Cast Protection from Magic scrolls on twins, send in a horde of Gelugons to surround and kill Madae quickly! Madae will try to cast nsty things but fail. And will take 10+ damage from each gelugon hit!

Alternatively, get the Halberd of North which is +5 and does WONDERFUL cold damage, cast Tenser's Trans and hack at Madae, though my Ranger missed with a 43 you may have a luck! My warriors equipped with Halberds of North and gelugons froze the Madae b***h quickly!

Try it!

 

GG and Shrikant, is this in HoF or normal?

Buffing summons is a good idea, although they don't last very long with I+M whaling on them.

Why would I want to use PFM scrolls on the twins? It wipes out their protective spells, but leaves the 25 points of physical damage resistance and makes them immune to magic. I don't care about stopping them from spellcasting. In the first half of the battle, Madae Gated in some demons, but since my whole party had Protection From Evil, they were friendly to me and hostile to the twins.

Gegulons have a nice Cone Of Cold attack, but they only use it when they decide to atatck another Gegulon (which happens a lot). I got some good mileage out of that by positioning them carefully around Madae. But most of the damage came from my Skull Traps and Wilting.

 

Protection from Magic is far and away the easiest way to kill the Twins. In fact, it is the only way I have ever figured out to deal with them easily. That's the reason why those Protection from Magic scrolls are strategically placed in the Severed Hand just before you meet them. Protection from Magic isn't even a normal spell, so it's something the game designers must have invented specifically for this situation.

 

I must be missing something about Protection from Magic... it makes them immune to buffs, but it also makes them immune to your party's spells. It makes them unable to cast, but nothing they cast is a threat (except Isair's Antimagic Field). Explain further, please?

 

I know they take +5 bonus cold damage in Normal and I think its goes up to +15 cold damage in HoF. At any rate cold is the way to go with Xvim and the Twins.
By the way, Prot' from Magic does not stop weapon elemental damage iirc. And I guess you had no real melee fighter because my Cleric could do 20-25 damage easy with the Massive Halberd of Hate. Add to that the HP drained and you have fleeing Twins.

My strategy has always been to keep the Twins busy with summons while I kill the rest of their helpers first. By the time I have only a couple of those guys left, the Twin's buffs have come off. Then switch to whooping Isair. The vampiric effect really helps, what with their resistance to damage.
By the way, are you sure its 25/- DR and not 25/+5? I mean do +5 weapon hit normally?

 

I didn't even think that it could be 25/+5. If that is the case then I could have done it with bows. I will definitely try that next time. Unfortunately I sell most weapons right away and don't have any recent save games with +5 weapons.

 

JT, I just use the buffed summons to hold everyone's attention while I blast away from afar. ANd yes, I believe +5 weapon do effect normally, but the only one I ever use were the +5 arrows and bullets, which don't do to much damage to begin with, but this fight is a marathon, not a sprint, so ewvery little bit helps. Still, some of my undead summons (apocalyptic boneguards?) and gated demons were able to do some damage to them, before getting creamed. So they can help.