SCS final battle

Dexter

I finally completed the game with SCS installed. As you know this mod is a must have for those who have a good understanding of the game mechanics, especially in BG2, and even though it makes the game more challenging, I think it makes the game more realistic as well.
Nevertheless the one fight I’ve found to be really hard is the final battle. I was waiting for the new patch to come, but when I heard that BGEE was on hold I decided to start a game with a custom party (which I never do), trying to create some powerful builds (mostly duals). And this party was powerful enough to kill his way through demonknights, cultists, werewolves and whatever with ease.
So I’m standing out of the temple, characters are max level, best gear at my disposal, spell books are filled and I have all kinds of potions, scrolls, magic arrows… But first, some hints about this fight:

- Sarevok is a beast: 3APR, -9THAC0 (better than drizzt), -6 AC, 25+ damage, permanent haste, plenty MR, and, as you know, he can’t be killed until all of his friends are dead
- Angelo and Semaj are both level 12 mages, and you know how funny SCS mages are (both can cast PfMW)
- Tazok is probably the weak link of the group, but at the start of the fight he drinks so many battle potions that he also hits hard and often, and his berserker rage makes him immune to most disabling effects for some time
- Diarmid (the new guy) is a fighter/archer who reads a scroll of protection from magic at the start of the battle and loves to fire arrows of biting to your mages. He works really well with Angelo, since the later loves to cast dispel magic and often success at it.
- Something that I didn’t remembered, anytime you kill one of them, an hostile skeleton warrior appears from the dead corpse (yes, the ones worth 4.000xp)
- As you can see there’s no way you can effectively tank sarevok with just one character. Assuming AC -16 vs slashing (-9 plus full plate modifiers plus girdle) he still hits 65% of the time. Given his APR and high damage output is really hard to survive him more than 2 or 3 rounds. Besides there are 4 more people to worry about. Summons aren’t really useful; when not simply ignored they are killed in a heartbeat.

My first attempt was somewhat chaotic. I managed to win the fight, but everyone died except charname (swash 5 -> Fighter 8).
My second attempt was much better. Instead of waiting for them to come to me, I sent the fighters ahead. Speed is the key to this battle. I had all my 3 fighters protected from magic and drinking lots of potions; mage, sorcerer and avenger were casting spells like there was no tomorrow, especially web, chaos, slow, summons, pro-normal missiles, minor globe, confusion, emotion, spellthrust, insects… They always kept a good distance of course… First one to fall is Tazok, then Diarmid, Semaj, and Angelo. Time for the skeletons and finally Sarevok. Nice!

But now that it's done I have a question, have you ever solo this fight? Because I think it would be quite hard. I guess an elf F/M with a whole arsenal of pro-magic scrolls, potions, arrows of detonation, arrows of dispelling… might have a chance. You know, making yourself immune to magic AND physical attacks while running around and fireballing everybody. But still, dropping sarevok’s 250 HP@-6AC wouldn’t be easy… What do you think?

lunar

It is quite possible, there are some people who soloed the SCS final battle on Bioware forums No-reload challenge.

Example:
http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/181/index/3124065/274

SpaceInvader

I did, with a sorcerer lvl9.

Dexter

wow thanks @lunar... That's owning the game I guess

kab

With or without copious cheese?

Final battle is one of the few SCS fights I don't install, trying to beat it without using cheese inevitably just frustrates me.

Dexter

@kab what do call cheese? Because I didn't use any, other than maxed party and best gear/potions/scrolls/buffs for everyone. The fight has nothing to do with vanilla game but it's doable.
I think one of the best features of SCS is that it removes some cheese tactics from the game (i.e fighting one foe at a time) and to be honest there're so much harder fights on SCS2...

Anyway I've seen a video on youtube of a minimum-stat sorcerer beating sarevok (vanilla sarevok) with just web and that spider summonig spell, that I don't call cheese but plain stupid AI. Maybe @SpaceInvader would like to share his tactics on this battle with his solo sorcerer.

kab

I consider `cheese` blatant exploitation of game mechanics or rules that are 'unrealistic' for the setting. Things like trapping Drizzt with invisible party members, luring out Sarevok's accomplices one at a time, using Imp -> Polymorph -> Mustard Jelly to trivialize Firebead, Ankheg's and Basilisks. I also try to avoid pre-buffing unless there's an in-character reason to do so, which doesn't apply to the final battle since going into a Temple of Bhaal to face your brother doesn't exactly require metagaming to know is a major fight.

ICN

I soloed it the other day with a Kensai. In some ways, the fight is actually easier solo (if you care about your party surviving that is.), since every bonus you apply to the character also applies to the whole party. With boots of speed, a speed factor of 0, a protection from magic scroll, and any potion that provides a buff the fight was actually pretty easy.

Dexter

solo kensai, wow @ICN that's pretty impressive! I would never imagine how is it easier with a solo kensai though (or any other fighter for that matter). Even with -13AC against slashing (and i don't think you can go lower with a kensai), Sarevok's fighting skills (3 APR with -9 thac0) are enough to hit you quite often, and he hits really hard. I bet it was a long fight, wasn't it?

ICN

Oh yeah, it was a very long fight. The protection from magic scroll I applied at the beginning had worn off by the time I got to the end. As for soloing, I think it's easier because you don't have any other party members to try to keep alive, and you'll always have the best of every type of consumable available in sufficient quantities. I didn't actually have to worry about Sarevok's damage much, since the strategy I used was to combine boots and oil of speed to move faster than everybody else, and then occasionally dart in and hit somebody with my quarterstaff. Sarevok did get a hit in sometimes, but not often enough that potions couldn't take care of the damage easily enough. I did try going toe to toe with Sarevok once, and almost managed to beat him (-4 thaco, 3 attacks per round) by quaffing a potion of extra healing every round.