[opinion] [spoiler]Hardest battle in BG2?

sansserif

Just wondering which battles you find the hardest in BG2 and your comments?

I would say the Demogorgon and the Silver Dragons, and maybe Abazigal, but its all a matter of proper planning. Never killed Adalon as I've never crafted the flesh armor. Didn't bother killing the Demogorgon either, as they were other methods to finish the quest.

JuliusBorisov

By the way, you can create polls by choosing "New Poll" instead of "New Discussion".

I would vote for the Twisted Rune encounter.

sansserif

@bengoshi ^^ new here...
I did that in Ch2 though... Was quite a challenge.

Lord_Tansheron

Vanilla game, innocent and unburdened by ten years of meta knowledge? Twisted Rune, Kangaxx, Draconis, from what I remember.

Right now with my knowledge and mods? TorGal, City Ambush 2, Irenicus in Hell/Ascension. In that order.

Any mods/setups I ever had? Lunar Eclipse (Solaufein mod), Vampire Hunters (Valen mod, assuming you don't want her to die), Ira'kiuo'dneg (The Ritual mod). May be easier now that I know more, have not played those in a long time.

prairiechicken

I would say Abazigal

sansserif

Lord_Tansheron said:

Vanilla game, innocent and unburdened by ten years of meta knowledge? Twisted Rune, Kangaxx, Draconis, from what I remember.

Right now with my knowledge and mods? TorGal, City Ambush 2, Irenicus in Hell/Ascension. In that order.

Any mods/setups I ever had? Lunar Eclipse (Solaufein mod), Vampire Hunters (Valen mod, assuming you don't want her to die), Ira'kiuo'dneg (The Ritual mod). May be easier now that I know more, have not played those in a long time.

Ah, if only Sola NPC was available for EE. Hoping for the best.. ^^

Yeah, it kinda works this way for me, much easier when you know what you're doing. I compare my current playthrough with my original **first time* playthrough eight years back, and this run was muchhh faster.

Ive not had Ascension before, but Irenicus in Hell is way easier than Irenicus at the Tree of Life.

Most walkthrough writers have Twisted Rune as a Chapter 6 encounter, though. I did it in the EE version at Chapter 2, with a cheesy Gate summon Also handled Kangaxx in Chapter 2 as I already had some equips/weapons from Watcher's Keep.

prairiechicken said:

I would say Abazigal

Couldn't agree better. Reloaded a couple of times, first time i succeeded but everyone got killed except the PC. haha. Second time I pushed some contigencies (I didn't even need to use those in vanilla BG2!) and spammed Horrid Wilting. Sigh. the two dragons in his lair (son and geased ally) were way easier.

Lord_Tansheron

sansserif said:

Ive not had Ascension before, but Irenicus in Hell is way easier than Irenicus at the Tree of Life.

Not the SCS/Tactics version, that's for sure ¬_¬

sansserif

@Lord_Tansheron obviously, that's for advanced players, not one like me who just came back to bg2 after 5-6 years of not playing it. ^^

bob_veng

it's not for advanced players if you don't turn the hardest options on. with those off, it's okay even for beginners.

sansserif

@bob_veng ok, thanks for telling me XD didnt know that. gona check it out.

bob_veng

if all the various tweaks are a bit scary to you, just stick to Improved Ilyich, that one's the best for beginners and IMMENSELY improves the game

sansserif

bob_veng said:

if all the various tweaks are a bit scary to you, just stick to Improved Ilyich, that one's the best for beginners and IMMENSELY improves the game

Oh wait, does it work on v2.0?

Kykuy

Adalon. Maybe Demogorgon.

Twisted Rune also may provide some challenge, but that depends on the chapter when you do it. If in chap 6 - then absolutely no problem.

Also, that may sound a bit silly, but i often have some *serious* problems killing the Elder Brain in Illithid Caves.

prairiechicken

In my first play I jumped to Draconis without realizing he was there, no buffs absolutely no preparations I was completely off guard. Then I just decided to have a go to see what he does then somehow I killed him.

Liches including Kangaxx are can be cheesed too easily once you learn about "that spell" or "that item". I had problem with demilich in WK because you cannot cheese it the same way

sansserif

Kykuy said:

Adalon. Maybe Demogorgon.

Twisted Rune also may provide some challenge, but that depends on the chapter when you do it. If in chap 6 - then absolutely no problem.

Also, that may sound a bit silly, but i often have some *serious* problems killing the Elder Brain in Illithid Caves.

Silver dragons always prove to be difficult. Especially those in ToB, having to fight two at once.

The only battle I found un-doable even on Normal difficulty was, in fact, the Demogorgon. Given his nature as well as the Prince of Demons. However, this battle can be avoided by just taking another route. SImilarly, the "Twin" silver dragons in ToB may be avoided as well, if you don't mind forgoing the scales.
Adalon, too, if you're not into crafting the armor - the experience she gives is nevertheless, worthwhile.

Regarding the Elder Brain, i have discovered that Cloudkill inflicts some damage to it. Perhaps Horrid Wilting, too? Or you could deal some ranged damage to it, I suppose. I went direct melee combat with Dorn and Korgan for that.

prairiechicken said:

In my first play I jumped to Draconis without realizing he was there, no buffs absolutely no preparations I was completely off guard. Then I just decided to have a go to see what he does then somehow I killed him.

Liches including Kangaxx are can be cheesed too easily once you learn about "that spell" or "that item". I had problem with demilich in WK because you cannot cheese it the same way

I thought Draconis was easy, at least compared to Abazigal. Well, he's the son, after all. Didn't spell buff much.

Yeah, once you have the Daystar and Spell Immunity/Death Ward, Breaches etc, you can just go for a Lich. The only difference is the Demilich Imprisons your members. But Berserkers are immune to imprisonment, and if you're a Fighter/Mage, you could equip the daystar and cast Spell Immunity: Abjuration on yourself, so, not really a threat.

Regarding the demilich in WK, the issue I had is that you cannot isolate your whole party and just have your berserker go in as it's an all-party area. So occasionally one person would get Imprisoned, it was usually Viconia. Had to reload.

Moonheart

Kykuy said:

Adalon. Maybe Demogorgon.

I didn't find Adalon hard at all. Killed her at the first attempt using only one character of my party.

prairiechicken

I am sure you miss out more exp by killing adalon (unless you cheese and kill her after the quest, not sure if it still works or not)

semiticgoddess

Vanilla? Twisted Rune.

SCS? The final battle with Irenicus in Hell, based on the Tactics mod. This version is no longer present in SCS (it doesn't fit SCS' theme of realism and fairness), so for the current version, the toughest would be the Twisted Rune.

Also, Sarevok in BG1, Draconis in ToB, Melissan in Ascension, Belhifet in IWD1, and the Horde Fortress for IWD2.

Pteran

Playing a solo F/M/T right now, with most of the SCS improvements. SCS focuses a lot on spellcaster improvements, so I wasn't expecting too much from him. In vanilla he's quite the pushover. SCS TorGal is most definitely more difficult than vanilla...his lackeys are now infinitely more helpful than before, and actually became quite bothersome. The only way I survived the fight was through liberal use of potions, buff/protection spells, and finally isolating the Yuan-Ti Mages (there are two). I ran out of debuffs, so I just had to outlast their protections before I could finally bring them down. Once all his buddies were killed, I chugged another Potion of Frost Giant Strength. It was a race really, as I was down to one last Stoneskin. Finally outdamaged his regeneration and brought him down with about half my HP left.

TheArtisan

There's this fight at Abazigal's lair that's added by SCS that isn't that difficult when you know it's coming, but completely threw me off guard when I did it the first time. At one point you have to go back to Amkethran to get rope and when you return, you're attacked by two dragons. Kill them, and one more appears. When you kill it, you have to fight an even stronger one. I got my ass handed to me the first time because I blew everything on the third dragon and had to retry the fight a dozen times. It's also near impossible to save between the fights.

lunar

Final battle, ascension, on insane difficulty, with scs scripting. You really can not get any more difficult than that. Just when you _and if you_ manage to beat all the five, and only big boss remains, she...has further surprises for you on insane.

mashedtaters

Strangely enough, the hardest battle for me of all time was that Mage that Edwin sends you to kill by the Harper's hold, the first time I played it. I was still new to the game, didn't have any real levels, and was using Jaheira, minsc, yoshimo straight out of Chateau Irenicus. I learned a lot from repeating that battle over and over again.

sansserif

prairiechicken said:

I am sure you miss out more exp by killing adalon (unless you cheese and kill her after the quest, not sure if it still works or not)

Yes, 78500 exp per character.
Don't think you can kill her after the quest coz she'll teleport away? She's only worth 48k exp, I believe. The only reason to kill her, maybe for her blood. My character can't use the armor, anyway.

Moonheart

@sansserif & @prairiechicken

In my current playthrough, for which I write reports in the playthrough section of this forum (here Under the title "Children of Fire", if your curious), I did solve the matter quite nicely:

I gave Adalon her eggs back, and earned the 78.500xp/char. Then Adalon changed her form the her elven one and teleported us to the exit of the underdark where we get ambushed by drows (provided you didn't kill them first, if you did, you cannot use this methode)... there, I immediatly attacked her.

Adalon doesn't attempt to fight back when in her elven form, probably because she could probably not use things like her Breath or her Wing Buffet, but immediatly attempt to cast Dimension Door instead to flee, and cannot be interrupted when she does it.

On the good side, you don't have to worry about defense, but on the bad side, it mean you have about one round and half (yes, I said round, not turn) to reduce her hitpoints to 0 despite of her AC and magical resistance. Her hitpoints are slightly lower than in her dragon form, but her magic resistance and AC are not.

Providing you succeed to do it, she leaves the same reward than when she's killed in her dragon form: 54.000xp/party, the Silver Dragon Blood, and a scroll allowing you to leave the underdark without her help.


That's a different battle when she's in her Dragon form or Elven form (I killed her in both, to try). I found the later more difficult... in her Dragon Form she just need some management, but in her Elven Form, it's a true test of speed and burst damage. You don't pull a few hundred of damage in one round and half without some true effort.

Jarrakul

Draconis, probably. I had runs where I just could not beat him no matter how many times I tried, back when I was younger and less experienced. Now... it's harder to predict what'll give me trouble, but the dead magic room with the fear traps in Watcher's Keep comes to mind.

sansserif

Jarrakul said:

Draconis, probably. I had runs where I just could not beat him no matter how many times I tried, back when I was younger and less experienced. Now... it's harder to predict what'll give me trouble, but the dead magic room with the fear traps in Watcher's Keep comes to mind.

In the old walkthroughs of vanilla BG2, I recall Draconis was much tougher than Abazigal, but it's not really the case with BG2EE. At least, i think Abazigal is much tougher. And maybe my game was bugged, he wasn't stopped by Time Stop..

Seldar

Draconis/Demogorgon

Twisted Rune is not so hard for me once you know the tactics, but Draconis is a beast and whatever I try it's always a big challenge

oh and the fight to loot Celestial Fury, as I go there at the begining of the game it can be very hard

Shando

Abazigal i think.

dat drake gave me such hard times. ;x

Raduziel

Slave Compound (specially with improved demons - you'll be overwhelmed in a hearbeat)

All the beholders from the Unseeing Eye (I don't use Shield of Balduran or the Cloak of Mirroring)

Arunsun

If BP counts, well undoubtedly Planar Hunters are the most powerful enemies in the game (unless of course you undermine them).

Draconis is one of the fights I hate the most.
The twin silver drakes put up quite a fight if you do not cheese them as well.
The first and the last two battled of Neera's ToB quest might be quite painful as well.

Sceptenar

After 15 years of playing this game I don't find any fight in this game even remotely challenging any more. However with mods, I'd say the fight with all five of "The Five" and Melissan in Ascension is the hardest fight in the game.