Tactics: Fire Giants

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I am not really sure if this is a tactics or a ascension issue but boy have the firegiants been beefed up since I last played ToB in my memory. They now have somekind of permanent fireshield and they lower fireresistance all the time so fast it goes from 120 to -110 in a few rounds. It is possible to beat them but you have to more or less dumb down your attacks. I have a fighter/thief dual-wielding CF and Kundane and I let Edwin imp haste her and then let her use the HLA assassination, what happens? She dies, due to the firebacklash. Is there some trick I am missing with them? Now every fire giant battle is like a proper bossbattle where you need preparation and utilize every single ability you have.

[ August 28, 2004, 21:17: Message edited by: Taluntain ]

 

I think this is Tactics. It's definitely not Ascension, as I've never seen this happen during any of my games.

Do you have other mods installed on top of these two?

EDIT: Found it, it's indeed Tactics. This quote straight from the readme:

"Fire Giants (normally coded as berserkers) gain the benefits of Enrage and Fireshield: Red, as well a bit of regeneration and some faster movement. Most notably, however, their weapons no longer do +1d6 fire damage but instead have a chance of casting Fireball (like the Harbinger sword), summoning a Fire Elemental or casting Fire Storm. They also lower fire resistance (a la Firkraag). A single giant may well be a challenge for a ToB level party -- an average 17th-level that someone sent to me consistently loses to one giant unless the party buffs."

All I can say is: GOOD LUCK

 

The improved fire giants are pretty fun. First up, never attack them with the Acid Katana. You enter a never-ending volley of fire shield triggering, which will easily wipe you out (his fire hits you, so your acid hits him, which makes his fire hit you, which makes your acid hit him, etc...you get the point.

It sounds like you are attacking the giant with only one fighter. If this is true, you will definitely need to super-buff. But I find that 2-3 fighters makes pretty short work of one giant, even without buffs. Picking away with slings and bows also helps a lot. But when you get jumped by the 4 (5?) after entering the fire giant lair, you will definitely need summons, buffs, and lots of running and screaming.

I did just think of something else that might be messing you up, though. I wonder how many times the fireshield hits you when you backstab? Does anyone know if, similar to the Acid Katana, a backstab of x7 damage will get you x7 fireshields? And if not, that perhaps the HLA suffers this? Anyway, food for thought. My basic advice is use more than one fighter.

 

Nope...a backstab is just that...A backstab, and for all practical purposes, is a single hit...hence you only take a single burn from Fireshield.

Can't you cast Resist Fire or Protection from Fire or some such spells with a Cleric? Or maybe Protection from Elements with a mage? I'm sure it will make the fights MUCH easier. If their hits reduce the resistance given by THOSE spells, then that is so broken, its beyond cheesy...its like the Giants CTRL+Ying you.

 

IIRC, Resist Fire, Protection from Fire, and Rings of Fire Resistance all stack together. If that's the case you can easily get your fire resistance to above 100% by using all three on your main tank. Then send him/her to whack on the giants while everyone else uses missile weapons (I don't think spells will be useful here). Any damage the giants deal to your tank will be *healed* by the Fire Shield if resistance is above 100%. I know, it's slightly cheesy, but it should allow you to win with less gnashing of teeth.

If, as Faraaz suggested, their hits reduce resistance conferred by the spells, I guess your only bet is to immobilize them somehow (Web, Grease, Symbol: Stun? Not sure if these work on them) and then pump them full of arrows. Its quite obvious that melee attacks just won't work.

 

They lower the fire resistance - when you hit them. But what you can do is to lower your saves as much as possible. Their "Lower Fire Resistance" spell can be saved against! Use rings, potions (of Invulnerability, Magic Shielding, ...) and other items to get your saves below 0.

The fastest and safest way to kill them is to lower their saves (Greater Malison, Doom) and then hit them with Finger of Death, Disintegrate and maybe Feeblemind. Also Vorpal weapons can be devastating when their saves are down. Planetar has one too.

 

I have had succes with finger of deaths but I am a cheap bastard and dont want to waste high level spells on cannon fodder like fire giants.

Also I have lots of melee power, anti-paladin, Sarevok and Korgan in addition to the fighter thief. Melee attacks do work but as I said party deaths are rather common. The giants regeneration is not slight btw, it is super fast. It is nice with challenges and I have beaten several parties of firegiants but a rest have been needed after almost each.

 

Congrats; you just realized the basic idea behind Tactics.

Just let it all out -you asked for CTRL+Y, so you'd better kill their PC before he kills you.

(Btw, if they cannot see invisibility like every other creature in Tactics, just cast Mass Invisibility and sneak to the center room past the ambush point. Much easier to prepare from there.)

 

They are somewhat vulnearable to invisibility as they cannot see through it. I tried a sneak attack and run tactic but it wont work as they regenerate too fast. Have to take them head on and hope that you have more hitpoints than they.

They are rather funny, and cheesy as hell. They regenerate from near death to injured in a round or so. Do anyone have the stats for these improved firegiants? I can take these you meet 1-2 at a time outside but I dread the ones you meet in a large gang inside the marching mountains. I wonder if a timestop, imp alacricity, chain contingency 3x abi dalzim, and then the rest of the time normal abi's will do the trick. After that I would have to rest and I think it likely that you will be interrupted by a bunch of fire giants while resting. Oh well, I wanted a challenge.

[ August 29, 2004, 23:40: Message edited by: joacqin ]

 

Just to clarify my earlier question, I was asking about how the computer calculates backstab damage, not for a conceptual description. But I think you were trying to answer the question I was getting at anyway, Faraaz.

Joacquin, I've tried brute-forcing the giants inside with heavy ADHW use, but I find it to be less effective than using a melee-oriented strategy. The ultimate equalizer in tactics is Greater Malison, Slow, and Glitterdust/Power Word Blind. Put them/some of them in a sequencer, or use three spell casters. With that, plus mord swords and a planetar, you can carve them up fairly easily. It sounds like you have plenty of muscle too, so it should be no problem. The penalty to your fire resistance is really not a big deal compared to the damage the giants deal with their weapons. Just gang up on them one after another and even the group of five will fall--but it can sure make you hold your breath.

 

Well, I managed to kick the snot out of all the firegiants and are exploring a bit in WK now. A funny thing is that Saladrex the dragon is way easier than a single fire giant. Heck, a gang of firegiants were more difficult than the tactics sanddragon of the ritual quest. It took a long time to wear him down but no reload was needed.

 

With fire giants, I use Protection from Fire on all party members. Helps a lot. When there is a large group of them, I cast all buffs I can and take them down one by one. If all party members are well protected and can go into melee, it shouldn't be a problem. With Protection from Fire and Stoneskin, mages are invulnerable to fire giants and when they take some blows they divert the enemy's attention from less well protected tanks who are doing the real fight and the real damage.

 

Not to bring this thread completely off track but: NO!!??

I slaughtered the fire giants using my fighter/thief with regen/imp.haste/assasination, each giant can take 2 hits, the only problem is staying alive.

But that freekin yellow-dragon-o-cheese is the worst thing i've ever met (i'm currently @ yaga-shura having played from start SoA with all tactics components installed).

 

My f/t used the same tactis except for the regeneration and she was chunked before she could put down one improved firegiant.

Oh and actually, there was one reload kinda for the sanddragon but that was because I triggered him the first time just after the ritual with all my chars wounded and level drained and he killed my PC during his first time stop so it was not much of a fight then. The second time I imp hasted all my tanks, used a ineffective timestop, imp ala, abi dalzim storm which did nothing but with time my tanks wore the dragon down. I let Edwin use breach now and then and had a fallen deva take care of the golems. I really dont know how I took him down, Korgan died in the first round and for a long time I did not make a single dent in the dragon but after some time I started to hurt him and then it went quickly. I was at a rather high level by then, my tanks were 25-26 or something like that.

 

Side note: lots of people use fighter/thieves eh? Gotta love that class

 

Seems like I have got the common Yaga Shura battle crash. Quite annoying. I have lowered the settings and see if it will work. One would think a 1.4ghz 512mb computer would be able to handle it even if it has a crappy graphics card.

Oh and tactics makes the already difficult Ascension Yaga Shura battle even more difficult as there are a bunch of those pesky firegiants around whom I have complained about previously.

 

I found the new Yaga Shura battle to be easier than the old one, for some reason. Instead of fighting at the end of the bridge, I charged through to the clearing beyond it. I summoned a clay golem at the bridge to hold back any soldiers, a planetar to get straggling giants, and wasted the soldiers all around my group. In the old battle, at least for me, I always got bogged down at the foot of the bridge and had a heck of a time getting to Yaga Shura.

 

It worked and this time the battle went better as well. Last time I just ran around waiting for Yaga Shura to show up and not dealing with any of his soldiers. This time I stood my ground and slaughtered every soldier and ganged up on any firegiant and when Yaga Shura showed up I was able to wear him down after a lnog time and a bit of running around for healing. I wonder if there has ever been an anti-paladin who has run so fast and so much as my char.

 

Yaga Shura battle didn't crash for me even on that old Pentium II 350 Mhz with 64 MB RAM and some ancient 8 MB graphics card I had when first playing BG2. The junk handled it properly in software mode. It was a bit laggy and not really smooth, but perfectly playable.

 

Well the entire game have been incredibly laggy for me all the time. I have now lowered the settings to low and it is still laggy whenever there is a battle afoot.