I have fond memories of my first encounter in vanilla Icewind Dale, most of my party died but I did get her in the end (after a couple of reloads) In my last walkthrough I did the following; 1.prebuff and summon a living wall of animals by the entrance to her chamber 2. send a talker/decoy to talk with Yx 3. keep her pinned by the door with summons and use grease/web, aoe spells 4. archer (in my case F/T) equipped with messenger of seth concentrates on Xy, everyone else is dealing with her minions. 5. the end
The main problem with this tactic are the wizards who teleports close to the main group. At least for me it was a HUGE problem, until I lay some traps to give welcome to them.
The main problem with this tactic are the wizards who teleports close to the main group. At least for me it was a HUGE problem, until I lay some traps to give welcome to them.
I usually have no problems with those annoying mages. One character concentrates on Yx with ranged attacks, one spellcaster is on crowd control spells & summoning duties and the rest of the party is focused on her minions (mages being on the top of the list)
Another tactic is to dispel the YT mages buffs even at the cost of your own. Their buffs are better than yours, and in the end, they're just mages. Get rid of the shiny protections and they go down pretty fast.
If you don't mind being cheesy you can always use invisibility 10' radius to counter the scripted approach cheese your opponents get. The enemies will stack on whoever your first slot character was at game start, and you can just aoe them down from out of line of sight with the rest of your party. The kitchen has a great kill floor for this.
It's the exact opposite of satisfying, but you should be able to clear her minion swarm pretty easily that way, and Yxunomei herself isn't terribly difficult if you can focus fire her.
This is, in my mind, the nuclear option, if you find yourself between a wall and a hard place and you simply can't win otherwise.
If you don't mind being cheesy you can always use invisibility 10' radius to counter the scripted approach cheese your opponents get. The enemies will stack on whoever your first slot character was at game start, and you can just aoe them down from out of line of sight with the rest of your party. The kitchen has a great kill floor for this.
It's the exact opposite of satisfying, but you should be able to clear her minion swarm pretty easily that way, and Yxunomei herself isn't terribly difficult if you can focus fire her.
This is, in mind mind, the nuclear option, if you find yourself between a wall and a hard place and you simply can't win otherwise.
Yxxy is much tougher than she was in standard IWD. Back in those days it was a quick chase around the table with the throwing axe +2. Ah the fun we had pre IWDEE, easy-cheesy Yxxy I miss you....
I always include a fighter/thief and fighter/druid in my party. I give my fighter thief two ranks in longbows so he can use Messenger of Sseth. I have my fighter/druid summon six giant insects to help protect my flanks and rear from the Yuan-Ti priests that appear. The bombardier beetles work wonders disrupting their spells and frequently stun at least one. I open the door to Yxunome's room and have my mage and fighter druid prepare the opening with webs and entangles.
I have one of my tanks (normally a cavalier) drink a potion of freedom and go talk with Yxunome. Once she goes hostile, he retreats from the room and my fighter/druid throws down as many spike growths as she can before she has to enter melee. The Yuan-Ti archers and priests get bogged down in the webs and entangles. I add insult to injury by having my mage throw a fireball and my cleric throw a couple of holy smites. Most die before they enter melee range of my tanks and the archers only get a shot or two off.
Once Yxunome enters visual range, my fighter/ thief opens up with +2 arrows (from the Messenger of Sseth) and my cavalier and fighter wait for her to clear the spike growth and chop what's left of her to pieces.
Last two times I played through, I had no fatalities and didn't reload.
I've never really tried the game with anything but a balanced party, so my strategy for Yxonomei always involves a bunch of hasted summons to take out the minions while my archers lead her on a merry chase. My last Argonauts-themed runthrough had Medea the Sorceress take her out with a fireball, of all things, but that wasn't even what I'd had in mind when I cast the spell, I just got lucky.
When all else fails in IWD, try buffing as much as possible (Prot Evil 10' R, Prayer/Recitation, Haste etc.), spawn Y-girl and and attack her with everything you've got, apart from the mage/s. Bombard her minions with Web, Entanglement Fireball and Cloudkill with the mage/s.
I must admit I haven't battled her in EE yet, but in vanilla my strategy was to blockade the door to her throne room with my fighters and summoned reinforcement (in order to kee py ranged characters safe), and destroy her guards while bombarding Yxunomei herself with spells and all manners of arrows and missiles.
I just killed her with my 3rd try. In the first two one of my party members died so I had to reload. But qhat worked really well was to keep my party in the hallway and send an invisible thief to disarm traps and do a backstab on the girl. The dialogue ended and te mages teleported to the hall. Immediatelly i sent my rouge out of the line of fire, commanded the two melee guys, bard and archer to smash the mages. For some reason they died quite easily and didnt get to debuff or cc my party. When the rougue was bac in the hall, the mage popped two webs in the door. Yx casted a cloudkill on the rogue but she was already out of aoe. Yx minions got stuck in the web and the cloudkill started to kill them off. I popped couple of fireballs in their direction and killed most of them. By that time Yx had gone trough the web and my party retreated for the kitchen. And then it was just a matter of juggling her targets and make my ranged dudes to finish her off. I believe i used couple of magic missles and lower resistance on her. Tbh i was surprised about how easy it was taking in account that she had anhilated my previous 3-4 parties. Also, iirc i had no buffs to cast like prayer or something, as i forgot to rest beforehand.
Anywho, it's an interesting encounter an i wish there were more like tese in the game. So far im in Lower Dorn's Deep and havent had a similair challenge.
the simplest strategy is rushing her with a hasted and buffed party and killing her fast which shouldn't be a problem. archer is recommended.
As simple as it is, I found this to be the best strategy, too. I tried many times to defeat her in standard group format, but she causes problems the longer she stays alive, and once she gets her summons off, she goes melee and hits like a truck. I finally just went for it like so and downed her as quickly as possible. She has a standard caster script, meaning she will try to unload all of her spells before moving in for the attack. Those crucial moments are the best moments to strike.
It was somewhat painful My last party consisted of 3 chars - sorcerer, blackguard and swash/fighter. Since I've imported them from BG, they were of higher levels, but I was playing on insane, so I'm sure it compensated that.
- I had to leave two guys at the back, I actually left them in that little room with chests, where is a thin entrance. - Third guy hasted, went in and out, then rejoined with his party. - Since there is a thin entrance to that room - all of her army got compressed quite nicely near the entrance, skull trapped them all into oblivion. - Then ran around Yxunomei with a char whom she attacked, while the other melee char was comfortably slicing her and my sorcerer was using all his direct dmg spells on her.
Oh, about Chromatic Orb... I fell in love with it from the moment I've played BG2 for the first time, many years ago, when I've encountered my first Dragon and not knowing what to do, I simply used Chromatic Orb as my first attack on him. I didn't know much about D&D at that time and obviously got really lucky, but my first experience fighting a Dragon was somewhat hilarious. He died instantly from my first Orb
I tried to do the whole level in one go with a party of 6 druids... they were fatigued and down to 2 spells apiece by the time I met Yx. It didn't go well. I'll eventually reload, rest, and try to take her on again. But I'm not sure they can do it.
One trick you can do with druids is summon lots of beetles. The Bombardier Beetles can potentially paralyze Yxunomei. That's how I managed to win the battle with my party of six divine spellcasters. If you have the extra enemies on, they can help a lot against the Yuan-ti Mages too.
I am having a horrible time defeating yxunomei as well. I am using the default player characters. They are around lvl 7-8. I am able to kill all her minions, but she herself takes little damage and chops up my tanks pretty quickly instead. The best I was able to do was get her down to "Injured" status.
I am having a horrible time defeating yxunomei as well. I am using the default player characters. They are around lvl 7-8. I am able to kill all her minions, but she herself takes little damage and chops up my tanks pretty quickly instead. The best I was able to do was get her down to "Injured" status.
First of all you need to use +2 weapons on her. Second of all, try gulping strength potions on your melee characters.
Using magic missile and hammer arrows should do the trick.
Yxunomei really hates Insect Plague, especially multiple castings. Removed the enemy mages from the picture as well. She's soft as butter on a hot day when the spell wears off.
I am not looking forward to my next dance with Yxunomei. Six fighters, two of whom are going to be in the middle of Dual Class Downtime (one to Druid, one to Mage) if I hit Fighter 7 on the way down. On the plus side, I have six chars that can stand and fight in melee.
E: Turned out to be not as bad as I feared. She dropped her Cloudkill on my DD, he pulls back into the sideroom while Drew the Druid drops an entangle in the cloudkill to tie up the minions. Everyone coming through that mess has to deal with +2 Defender Axe on one side, +3 Black Bess/+2 Speed Flail on the other, and (for Yxunomei, anyway) four +2 Arrows a round courtesy of Sseth (Elf trueclass fighter) wielding the Messenger of Sseth at High Mastery. Almost lost my DD to chip damage though.
(Sorry for my English ) I'm playing on insane mode, without double experience points for killing enemies. It won't be suprise that i try to avoid melee combat, not only with Yxonomei, but in every battle. My tactics is simple: AoE spells (Entangle, Spike Growth, Spike Stones) and ranger shooting arrows - sometimes, when I enter new interior I've no time for using this tactics (enemies are too close) and those combats are really difficult, but with Yxonomei we can prepare. First I summom some animals and driad in the hall behind me (they will interrupt yuan-ti mages), then I cast entangle (3/6 times) to the main chamber, and open with my ranger dialogue with Yxonomei, my druids cast Spike Growth and Spike Stones (6 spells in all) at the same time, after that I escape with them to the hall where Yuan-ti mages stand. Yxonomei cast some deadly clouds and I retreat with my ranger as well. My druids cast 2/3 Spike Growth closer to the door. My ranger should help animals shooting few arrows to yuan-ti mages. When Yxonomei appears near door, she should be close to death, few arrows end her life.
Playing druids and ranger have some defects:
- I have no thief and I can't use mage spells, so there is no chance to disarm traps, I can only find them with the spell. - I can't open all these chests in the last level of Dragon Eye. - I don't know if i'll handle with strong enemies in those battles where there is no time to make AoE combo (yet the most challenging I think was fighting with Undead Lieutenant and its legion of Cold Wights on Presio's Domain. I take with my ranger speed potion and use her as bait - all Cold Wights run after her, it was my time to use AoE spells, then my ranger took invisibility potion. My druids were seperated from the enemies with Spike Growth and Entangle spells and safe as well as ranger).
the simplest strategy is rushing her with a hasted and buffed party and killing her fast which shouldn't be a problem. archer is recommended.
This is also what I found worked best. I equipped everyone with the best weapon they could use and cast Haste. No other buffs used. I then rush as close as possible to Yxonomei before being stopped by the dialogue options. Once the dialogue ended and combat started, everyone attacked Yxonomei. She was dead within seconds. Then it was a matter of surviving the rest of her entourage. My fighters easily killed them all while I concentrated on keeping my mages, clerics and thief alive.
Comments
In my last walkthrough I did the following;
1.prebuff and summon a living wall of animals by the entrance to her chamber
2. send a talker/decoy to talk with Yx
3. keep her pinned by the door with summons and use grease/web, aoe spells
4. archer (in my case F/T) equipped with messenger of seth concentrates on Xy, everyone else is dealing with her minions.
5. the end
Other than that I definitely recommend having a ranged character take out Yx.
It's the exact opposite of satisfying, but you should be able to clear her minion swarm pretty easily that way, and Yxunomei herself isn't terribly difficult if you can focus fire her.
This is, in my mind, the nuclear option, if you find yourself between a wall and a hard place and you simply can't win otherwise.
I have one of my tanks (normally a cavalier) drink a potion of freedom and go talk with Yxunome. Once she goes hostile, he retreats from the room and my fighter/druid throws down as many spike growths as she can before she has to enter melee. The Yuan-Ti archers and priests get bogged down in the webs and entangles. I add insult to injury by having my mage throw a fireball and my cleric throw a couple of holy smites. Most die before they enter melee range of my tanks and the archers only get a shot or two off.
Once Yxunome enters visual range, my fighter/ thief opens up with +2 arrows (from the Messenger of Sseth) and my cavalier and fighter wait for her to clear the spike growth and chop what's left of her to pieces.
Last two times I played through, I had no fatalities and didn't reload.
you just broke the game. enjoy!
Anywho, it's an interesting encounter an i wish there were more like tese in the game. So far im in Lower Dorn's Deep and havent had a similair challenge.
Yxunomei wasn't meant to be defeated - she's too hot.
Since I've imported them from BG, they were of higher levels, but I was playing on insane, so I'm sure it compensated that.
- I had to leave two guys at the back, I actually left them in that little room with chests, where is a thin entrance.
- Third guy hasted, went in and out, then rejoined with his party.
- Since there is a thin entrance to that room - all of her army got compressed quite nicely near the entrance, skull trapped them all into oblivion.
- Then ran around Yxunomei with a char whom she attacked, while the other melee char was comfortably slicing her and my sorcerer was using all his direct dmg spells on her.
Here, I found the pre-battle save:
I didn't know much about D&D at that time and obviously got really lucky, but my first experience fighting a Dragon was somewhat hilarious. He died instantly from my first Orb
Using magic missile and hammer arrows should do the trick.
E: Turned out to be not as bad as I feared. She dropped her Cloudkill on my DD, he pulls back into the sideroom while Drew the Druid drops an entangle in the cloudkill to tie up the minions. Everyone coming through that mess has to deal with +2 Defender Axe on one side, +3 Black Bess/+2 Speed Flail on the other, and (for Yxunomei, anyway) four +2 Arrows a round courtesy of Sseth (Elf trueclass fighter) wielding the Messenger of Sseth at High Mastery. Almost lost my DD to chip damage though.
- warrior (lvl 7)/ druid (lvl 9)
- avenger (lvl 10)
- druid (lvl 10)
- ranger (lvl 8)
(Sorry for my English
Playing druids and ranger have some defects:
- I have no thief and I can't use mage spells, so there is no chance to disarm traps, I can only find them with the spell.
- I can't open all these chests in the last level of Dragon Eye.
- I don't know if i'll handle with strong enemies in those battles where there is no time to make AoE combo (yet the most challenging I think was fighting with Undead Lieutenant and its legion of Cold Wights on Presio's Domain. I take with my ranger speed potion and use her as bait - all Cold Wights run after her, it was my time to use AoE spells, then my ranger took invisibility potion. My druids were seperated from the enemies with Spike Growth and Entangle spells and safe as well as ranger).