Saladrex: Critical Existence Failure

lostdragon05

I played through BGEE in preparation for SOD and I just finished BG2EE with that same character. I saved Watcher's Keep for the beginning of TOB and I finished that dungeon last night. I knew I was pretty high level and decked out going into it, but I had a big shock when I faced Saladrex.

I cast my buff spells to prepare for a dragon fight and right as combat began I used Greater Whirlwind. I figured the lizard would go down pretty fast, but he got KO'ed in the first round (literally, he cast his spell trigger for his protection spells and never even got an attack off). I looked back through the combat log and the blow that did him in was a 200 damage crit from Sarevok (the dragon resisted 60 damage but 140 was enough to finish him because he had already taken several hits).

I was shocked at that number. Sarevok was level 20 at the time with Warblade and a strength of 19. I can't figure out how he did that much damage in one hit.

mf2112

Its the Deathbringer assault. It doesn't kick in often, but sometimes I have had amazing timing right when I needed it. Like against the fallen solar in the last melissan fight once, charname was about to die and Sarevok took it out.

Lord_Tansheron

Sarevok has a special passive ability:

Deathbringer Assault - 3% chance for an attack to do an additional 200 piercing damage, with a 10% chance to also stun the target (save vs. spell at -4 to avoid stun)

200 is a lot in the unmodded game, and will kill most enemies outright; however it is piercing, and many bosses have high piercing resistance. Still, it's a MASSIVE hit when it triggers.

Ballad

Sounds like someone needs to install the Improved Dragons component from SCS asap. If I remember correctly, it gives Saladrex 700-something hitpoints and greater resistances, making dragonslaying less like swatting a fly.

On a totally unrelated note, Critical Existence Failure would make a brilliant name for an emo punk band.

Arunsun

It works pretty well indeed, though it's one of the reasons I dislike taking Sarevok along. RNG making a fight trivial is not something I like too much. I once had a mod that would make it more reliable, with 30% to add 20 piercing damage, and that was nice. I lowered the average damage by making it 12 damage instead but that's to match the fact that over 200 damage, most of it would be lost most of the time.

Ballad said:

On a totally unrelated note, Critical Existence Failure would make a brilliant name for an emo punk band.

Would work as well if we were talking about a bugless quest for Hexxat

lostdragon05

Lord_Tansheron said:

Sarevok has a special passive ability:

Deathbringer Assault - 3% chance for an attack to do an additional 200 piercing damage, with a 10% chance to also stun the target (save vs. spell at -4 to avoid stun)

200 is a lot in the unmodded game, and will kill most enemies outright; however it is piercing, and many bosses have high piercing resistance. Still, it's a MASSIVE hit when it triggers.

That explains it, never noticed that in previous plays but I rarely take him along.

lostdragon05

Ballad said:

Sounds like someone needs to install the Improved Dragons component from SCS asap. If I remember correctly, it gives Saladrex 700-something hitpoints and greater resistances, making dragonslaying less like swatting a fly.

On a totally unrelated note, Critical Existence Failure would make a brilliant name for an emo punk band.

I am doing an unmodded no cheat full playthrough of EE.

MrGuse

Ballad said:

Sounds like someone needs to install the Improved Dragons component from SCS asap. If I remember correctly, it gives Saladrex 700-something hitpoints and greater resistances, making dragonslaying less like swatting a fly.

I have more trouble with Saladrex than any other dragon in the game (including Abazigal). He always Hastes himself and then chases down my mages.

God how I hate Saladrex.

Mathsorcerer

I had one fighter use Whirlwind with Arrows of Dispelling to take down all his combat enhancements then another one using Whirlwind with The Answerer (at first) to remove magic resistance then switched to the Silver Sword to finish the job.