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Werewolf island: solo Cleric challenge *spoilers*

I have tried several times to beat the Greater Wolfwere (GWW) with a solo Cleric, on that BG1 island. Never could. Weapon restrictions mean you cannot damage him whether in melee or range, which means there are only wands and spells left to do so / his regeneration rate made this impossible for me.

Has anyone tried? succeeded? does anyone think it is feasible? Difficulty set on core.

Comments

  • moopymoopy Member Posts: 938
    Other than stacking a bunch of glyphs of warding, and protecting from lightning yourself, and triggering them all with the greater wolfwere on top of you I have no ideas.
  • MadhaxMadhax Member Posts: 1,416
    My first reaction to your situation is to call it impossible.

    But if I had to make it work... perhaps some save-lowering debuffs followed by spamming Flamestrike from wands? You'd probably need a summoned tank to survive long enough, and I'm not sure if it would be enough to overcome his regeneration. Plus, if you're already on the island or have used up some of the finite flamestrike charges in the game, you may not be able to do that.
  • IgnatiusIgnatius Member Posts: 624
    moopy said:

    Other than stacking a bunch of glyphs of warding, and protecting from lightning yourself, and triggering them all with the greater wolfwere on top of you I have no ideas.

    Yep, that's one possibility. I have not tried but it could work.

    Another idea was to cast as many Poison spell on him as possible - they do stack...

  • IgnatiusIgnatius Member Posts: 624
    Madhax said:


    But if I had to make it work... perhaps some save-lowering debuffs followed by spamming Flamestrike from wands? You'd probably need a summoned tank to survive long enough, and I'm not sure if it would be enough to overcome his regeneration. Plus, if you're already on the island or have used up some of the finite flamestrike charges in the game, you may not be able to do that.

    You mean something like ->Doom, followed by charges from the Wand of Heavens? I think you can only use one charge of a wand per round, which given his regen. rate, will not be enough to kill him I fear...
  • moopymoopy Member Posts: 938
    I think the only way for you to get around his regen is to burst damage him from full to dead in one shot, and the only Cleric abilities I can think of for this would be glyph of warding. The fact that you can make yourself immune to lightning should make it even easier.

    I _know_ this works for a mage using skull trap, but again in that situation I found using a powerful spell here, and there wasn't working for me because of his regeneration so I had to go from 100% to dead in one gigantic blast.

    Put a bunch of glyphs of warding somewhere on the level below him, walk up stairs, talk to him, walk down, and after he comes down and is on top of you walk him over to it and boom. I'm like 99% sure that will work given how it worked with skull trap.
  • IgnatiusIgnatius Member Posts: 624
    moopy said:


    I _know_ this works for a mage using skull trap, but again in that situation I found using a powerful spell here, and there wasn't working for me because of his regeneration so I had to go from 100% to dead in one gigantic blast.

    I agree. I cannot remember if he renegerates 30 or 45HP / round but in any case, it is insane.
    moopy said:


    Put a bunch of glyphs of warding somewhere on the level below him, walk up stairs, talk to him, walk down, and after he comes down and is on top of you walk him over to it and boom. I'm like 99% sure that will work given how it worked with skull trap.

    I will try next time I am attempting this. The issue is that if he saves there is no damage at all, and I am sure his save vs spell is pretty low so I wonder how many would be required for it to work...
  • moopymoopy Member Posts: 938
    Ah...

    Skull trap is save for half... I was thinking Glyph of Warding was the same but you are right its save for none... that might be a problem.

    Does the glyph go away when resting? Or can you stack as many as you can cast, rest, restack, rest, restack and stack enough so that the odds are in your favor?

    Failing that maybe you can open with a doom, walk him onto the glyphs, and if he doesn't die sanctury and run out, rest and retry until he gets bad dice rolls?
  • PantalionPantalion Member Posts: 2,137
    I managed to kill the Loup Garou using Wands of the Heavens; I'm not sure how fast they regenerate in comparison.

    The other thing you might try are potions of Firebreathing; those deal 6D6 damage twice over two rounds I believe. Apply repeatedly and run in circles (helpfully killing all the other weres), and maybe you can build up enough damage to outdamage his healing factor.
  • IgnatiusIgnatius Member Posts: 624
    @moopy: I believe once you've lay a glyph of warding they stay forever so you could sleep and cast tens of them, I guess. Have not tried though.

    @Pantalion: maybe with several characters using several wands of heavens you could kill the GWW. I don't think you can do it with a single guy. Not enough damage. Potion of firebreath is however, an excellent idea. The damage dealt is severe. I really want to try stacked Poison spells as well.

  • moopymoopy Member Posts: 938
    @Ignatius
    If that's true then I'd just cast like a bigazaillion glyphs of warding, immune to lighting yourself, open with doom. Even if only 1 in 10 glyphs hit him... if you made enough.... Boom.

    I now want to try that on the Demon Knight on the top floor. Think I'll do that when I get home.
  • DeucetipherDeucetipher Member Posts: 521
    @Ignatius
    The best piece of advice I can offer is to make sure you are not saving and loading in the actual shipwreck. Save and load immediately outside. There is a bug wherein loading a game inside an area in which the GWW is can cause the regeneration to stack, stacking as many times as you load and save.
  • IgnatiusIgnatius Member Posts: 624
    @Deucetipher: !!! thanks a lot, that sure it useful information. So saving on the island but just outside the shipwreck will not cause the bug, right?
  • moopymoopy Member Posts: 938
    @Deucetipher

    Thanks. That might explain why every time I hit him he appeared to go back to full health and I had to end up blowing his face off in one go.
  • DeucetipherDeucetipher Member Posts: 521
    edited December 2012
    That should prevent any problem, yes.

    Basically, if you load the game in the shipwreck, you'll end up loading a character with twice the regeneration. If then you tweak your load out, save again (then die) then load, he'll have triple intended regen. It was a problem in the old BG2 engine that I've read some have encountered here.
  • NukeninNukenin Member Posts: 327
    I have yet to get to this point in BG:EE but from examining the files in other discussions his regen is coded properly and should not stack on a reload. Now, depending on the interpretation, he either regenerates 5hp/round or 5hp/second. He's only got 66hp, but 5hp/second (thus 30hp/round) would definitely replenish that quickly enough.

    I should be able to further investigate this sometime in 2015 when I finally manage to get a character and/or party to that fight.

    :D
  • CheesebellyCheesebelly Member Posts: 1,727
    Wand of Heavens most definitely was able to kill the guy easily in vanilla BG1. Loup Garous are still a joke as they don't regenerate *at all*.

    On charts, I believe they should heal maybe 1HP/3 seconds, no? Sadly, they were always bugged to unearthly foes in BG2. Checking teh interwebz won't help plenty because many argue they are supposed to completely heal at the end of the round (which is a big big lie).
  • moopymoopy Member Posts: 938
    Only 66HP? Given how long it took my fighter dual wielding the bastard sword and the knife I'm still going to say blowing 66HPs off his face in one go is the best choice.
  • IgnatiusIgnatius Member Posts: 624
    I have not faced him yet in BG:EE but from what other posters have reported he seems to regenerate 5HP/sec, ie 30HP/round.

    A Wand of Heavens deals 8d6 damage per strike, 1/2 if save, and you get one strike per round. If he saves (and his saving throws must be very low....) the wand will deal max 24 damage and on average a puny 12 damage. He might from time to time, fail a save in which case it is max 48 and average 24 damage. So I think it is fairly safe to say that a solo player cannot kill him with the Wand of Heavens alone - at best, it can complement a more effective way of damage.

  • NukeninNukenin Member Posts: 327
    For the item RINGWOLF.ITM that the Greater Wolfwere "wears" to confer his regeneration (and in BG1/BG:EE also his immunity to non-silver weapons), the three games (BG1+TotSC or "BG1", BG2:Soa+ToB or "BG2", and BG:EE) have three different timing modes for the effect:

    BG1: Instant/Limited (0)

    BG2: Instant/Permanent until Death (1) (this seemed to cause stacking problems with Greater Wolfweres in BG2; Greater Wolfweres in that game started with innate 4hp/second regen and the "ring" added 6hp/second on top of that, stacking every reload)

    BG:EE: Instant/While Equipped (2) (I think this timing mode was the common solution to the BG2 regen problem in bugfixes for that issue)

    Maybe this difference (between BG1's timing mode and BG:EE's) is why the encounter is not what some classic BG+TotSC players remember, in terms of difficulty.

    From what I recollect, a Wand of Heavens in a cleric's arsenal should indeed be all that is really necessary to handle the Greater Wolfwere.
  • IgnatiusIgnatius Member Posts: 624
    Nukenin said:


    From what I recollect, a Wand of Heavens in a cleric's arsenal should indeed be all that is really necessary to handle the Greater Wolfwere.

    See my post above. If GWW does indeed regenerate 30HP/round then WoH cannot do the job.
  • AHFAHF Member Posts: 1,376
    Ignatius said:

    @moopy: I believe once you've lay a glyph of warding they stay forever so you could sleep and cast tens of them, I guess. Have not tried though.

    On my solo run with a F/M/C, I used this technique with skulltraps successfully. I tested multiple glyphs of warding and you can stack as many of those as you want as well. I would advocate putting them outside of the cabin just outside the ship so you can cast all the glyphs you can memorize and then go into the cabin to sleep safely. Rinse and repeat until you have a ton of them out there. You can lead him into the stack of glyphs without setting them off yourself if you are hasted (which is what I did with the skulltraps) but getting protected from lightning first is probably a safer way to go so that both you and the GWW trigger them. Casting doom on him after he emerges from the ship and before you trigger the glyphs would also be smart.

    This should be doable.
  • moopymoopy Member Posts: 938
    @AHF

    I figured it would be even easier than with skulltraps since you can run through them with protection from lightning on and trigger them together.

    For the skulltraps you'd have to place them in a good place, and then use boots of speed / haste to run around them so you wouldn't trigger them and bait him into walking straight to you through the traps. When you used the skulltraps was that more or less what you did or is there a smarter way to use them?
  • AHFAHF Member Posts: 1,376
    moopy said:

    @AHF

    I figured it would be even easier than with skulltraps since you can run through them with protection from lightning on and trigger them together.

    For the skulltraps you'd have to place them in a good place, and then use boots of speed / haste to run around them so you wouldn't trigger them and bait him into walking straight to you through the traps. When you used the skulltraps was that more or less what you did or is there a smarter way to use them?

    @moopy

    There is probably a smarter way to use them, but that is what I did. I put them next to the cabin (testing it first with one and checking to make sure I could run by the side of the cabin without triggering the spell) then dashed against the side of the cabin and looped around to the other side of the traps which led to him running straight through them. I actually had to summon multiple ghasts for the express purpose of setting the unused spells off. If you used the glyph wards, you could set them off yourself with a protection from lightning spell or some potion/boot/scroll combination.

    (Here is a rough recreation with my character's path as the "Y"):

    . SHIP
    . . . Y . .
    . . . . Y .
    . . . . . Y
    . . SKL . . YCabin
    . . . . . Y
    . . . . Y .
    . . Y . . .
  • moopymoopy Member Posts: 938
    I want to try the glyph of warding idea on Saverok now. Just cast a gazaillion over and over again, even if he only failed his save on 5% of them... if you cast enough... this might make solo cleric or multi cleric boss fights easier.
  • PantalionPantalion Member Posts: 2,137
    moopy said:

    I want to try the glyph of warding idea on Saverok now. Just cast a gazaillion over and over again, even if he only failed his save on 5% of them... if you cast enough... this might make solo cleric or multi cleric boss fights easier.

    Doesn't the battle occur indoors, where you can't rest, and prevent you from leaving?

  • AHFAHF Member Posts: 1,376
    Pantalion said:

    moopy said:

    I want to try the glyph of warding idea on Saverok now. Just cast a gazaillion over and over again, even if he only failed his save on 5% of them... if you cast enough... this might make solo cleric or multi cleric boss fights easier.

    Doesn't the battle occur indoors, where you can't rest, and prevent you from leaving?

    Half right. It occurs indoors but you can go back outside and rest and reenter.

    The problem is that Sarevok has some massive electrical resistance in addition to awesome saving throws.

    I just tested. With roughly 70 glyphs out there and after "dooming" Sarevok, he was only down to 'barely injured' status with him suffering only 2 or 3 damage per failed saving throw. (Semaj and the rest of the crew were not so lucky even though they generally made most saves).

    Skull traps, on the other hand, work just fine against Sarevok.

    I haven't tested glyphs of warding against the GWW but lightning bolts worked just fine (except they didn't injure him more than once despite passing through repeatedly) so I am guessing this would work.

    Personally, I won't use this technique against Sarevok but will against the GWW. The game gives you other, much less cheesy ways of defeating Sarevok. GWW, on the other hand, are pretty much invulnerable against any solo character using blunt weapons.
  • moopymoopy Member Posts: 938
    @AHF

    I was mainly just curious if it was feasible.
    Sounds like theoretically it is if you don't mind literally using 1000+ glyphs, but ignoring how cheap it is there would be faster ways.

    I'd rather just beat him in the head with a mace, but the RP idea of Saverok not knowing you'd been outside his hideout for a day putting a lot of traps down and him charging you and BOOM is hilarious to me.
  • AHFAHF Member Posts: 1,376
    moopy said:

    @AHF

    I was mainly just curious if it was feasible.
    Sounds like theoretically it is if you don't mind literally using 1000+ glyphs, but ignoring how cheap it is there would be faster ways.

    I'd rather just beat him in the head with a mace, but the RP idea of Saverok not knowing you'd been outside his hideout for a day putting a lot of traps down and him charging you and BOOM is hilarious to me.


    @moopy

    More like in and out of his hideout for a good month or so! 4 per day x 3 times per day = 12 per day. 30 days = 960 glyphs (minus the ones that the bats set off).

    If you do this with a mage, the greater malison + doom might work a bit better as well.
  • moopymoopy Member Posts: 938
    @AHF

    I guess for Saverok it is a better concept with skull trap given his electrical resistance and skull trap is still half damage on a save.
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