Abazigal IMPOSSIBLE to beat.
Ramshine
Member Posts: 36
I'm having a lot of difficulty defeating the blue dragon. His Human form goes down super easy but once he becomes a dragon he rips through my team like toilet paper. My Kenzai Mage last about 7 seconds fully buffed and I can't even get him down below barely injured even with slayer mode. I'd really appreciate some tips. Just so you know me team is Minsc, Saverok, Edwin, Viconia, Imoen, and of course my character a Kenzai Mage.
Honestly once I got Spectral Brand +5 I expected this game to get a whole lot easier. Guess not! ^_^
Honestly once I got Spectral Brand +5 I expected this game to get a whole lot easier. Guess not! ^_^
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Buff your party, debuff the lizard, kill.
Let's start from Charname, how have you buffed him? A fighter mage should last much longer than 7 seconds. And the buffs that you give to him are the key.
As offensive buff IH to boost his APR should be enough, also your other fighters need it, but they must act as flank attackers while he take the punishment. Punishment that cause him no damage if he has defensive buffs and buffs that prevent him from be debuffed.
Tell us which defensive buffs you have tried so we can find together why they didn't work.
And tell us also what was your tactical plan for the battle.
A simple tactical idea is to spread your fighters, have some gated helpers and work from the distance with the casters to debuff his magical protections, lower his magical resistance, debuff his physical resistances, breach him, multiple times if he cast again physical protections, then hit him with GM and doom.
As helpers a Planetar from a mage and an elemental from Viky should be fine. they should be hasted. Both are gated so the death spell don't kill them, and they are tough. Skellies and Mordies can be also useful, but far less important.
At the beginning of the fight only your KM and the helpers should be near him, they are your tanks and work to keep him busy as the casters do their work. spread them at about 120° and attack with one of them as the other 2 go a little in direction of his tail, so only 1 will be hit by his wing buffet or breath. As soon as the attacker has been thrown away by the wing buffet, or if he is taking too much punishment attack with an other 1, as the 3rd move at his back, ready to attack when his turn come. The helpers can be healed with the Rod of Resurrection if needed, charname if well buffed doesn't need it.
Until his physical defenses are not debuffed the flank attackers can only take damage so until that moment keep them in a safe place. A safe place is not a static thing as he is not static, a safe place is where they are not hit by his breath weapon. So move the flank attackers and the casters as he turns to attack a new tank.
As your mages can use Improved alacrity in very few rounds the big one should be debuffed and doomed, now is the moment to attack him with the flank attackers and the tanks while the casters use their nukes.
He should die pretty fast in this way. If you time Viky to have 25 STR and harm ready at the moment he is debuffed is even better, with the +7 thaco bonus and he with a malus of 6 (10 if you add PW Blind) and without MR there is a big chance to kill him with the harm and a MM.
As I told you this is a basic tactical idea, nothing new, nothing fancy, but usually works well with dragons.
About Spectral Brand +5.......
Sorry but no weapon can beat the game, only a solid player can, and the weapon is just a candy, you can go without it and if you use it you will only win a little faster.
Fixed that for you.
Speaking of Draconis, @Ramshine: he's often considered to be harder than his dad, so if you managed to beat him you can definitely beat Abazigal.
There is also one hidey-hole at the far left wall of the cavern, Abazigal can not reach there in melee, but can breathe lightning.
I also told " Punishment that cause him (Charname) no damage if he has defensive buffs and buffs that prevent him from be debuffed.", the way @lunar suggested is the way to do it.
@shawne casting Finger of Death until one of them breaks through should work, also Feeblemind and Flash to Stone should, but probably Imprisonment not, I never tested it, but Draconis is immune while can be turned to stone.
Anyway to do it you need a tactical plan to let your party survive during the process and your casters cast without being disrupted. Even so you must have a good number of Finger of Death memorized as he has very good saves and even Doomed and under GM he saves quite often. I didn't look at his stats, but I have dedicated quite a long time torturing his son with multiple Flash to Stone and often he saves 4-6 times before the spell works. Is not like with SoA dragons.
Spectral Brand in and of itself is not a big deal - there are no game-changing items.
I have no idea what you're equipped with, so it's difficult to give specific advice, but:
1) Pre-buff your group as much as possible.
2) Don't forget potions.
3) Use your mages to take down his defenses.
4) Summons help.
Or, to take a very straightforward route, you could cast improved haste on Minsc, Sarevok and charname and have them beat the life out of Abazigal. Whenever he puts up a defense, have your mages take it down. You have ways to prevent panic. You won't resist wing buffets, but you can respond to them, i.e. just run back to him. Definitely turn the AI off, and make the game auto-pause at the end of each turn (I never do the latter myself, but since you're still learning, this may be a good idea to ensure that you won't waste time doing unnecessary stuff).
(Some people have suggested that you use Finger of Death or Flesh to Stone. That, indeed, works. I never do it myself.)
Incidentally, did you defeat Firkraag? If you did it in Chapter 3 without visiting Watcher's Keep, I can pretty much guarantee he was a more difficult foe, relatively speaking, than Abazigal is at this point.
And you are a MM or flame arrow away from killing him.
@xzar_monty also I had avoided save or else instant killing spells for a long time, then I discovered that planning a battle in the way that they have a really good chance to work can be a reliable and funny tactic. I don't use it often, but if you don't factor in the power of reload is an interesting way to add some spice to a game that I have played so many times.
About the Deva the problem is that is not allowed to have both gated at the same time and the Planetar is a better summon. That is why I suggest that Viky summons an elemental.
Harm, however, can work just fine if Viconia lands a hit. With Holy Power, Draw Upon Holy Might, and Righteous Magic, her THAC0 should be -8, assuming she's level 20 or higher. Add in Bless, Chant, Aid, and some items, and she can land a hit almost without fail. If you lower Abazigal's 65% magic resistance first with Lower Resistance, Pierce Magic, and/or Pierce Shield, Harm will go right through his defenses. If Viconia fails once, re-cast Harm; she should have enough spell slots.
Protection from Magical Weapons should protect your Kensai/Mage from Abazigal's attacks for four whole rounds, and can be chain-casted. Stoneskin should keep you safe for another round per casting if Abazigal is under the effects of Improved Haste, or two rounds if he is not hasted.
Make sure to buff the whole party with Protection from Lightning (Viconia can do it). Abazigal's breath weapon will still disrupt spells, and he can lower your electricity resistance if you fail a save vs. spell at -3, but Protection from Lightning should mostly negate the attack. Chaotic Commands will also help with Abazigal's wing buffet and shockwave attacks.
Minsc and Sarevok will want Hardiness and Potions of Superior Healing to survive Abazigal's direct attacks. Viconia is better off running away.
HUMAN FORM:
this battle is pretty simple if done right, its kind of exploiting the battle a bit, but on insane difficulty abizigal is going to straight up kill anyone he is in melee combat with ( because he can't miss at 74 damage a hit)
so what I do now adays, is have a mage cast protection from magical weapons and have him go right up into melee combat and have abizigal attack my mage, that gives me 4 rounds for everyone else to greater whirlwind him into oblivion
so with that, his human form will last around 2 rounds
DRAGON FORM:
this is where things get very silly, first off the thing that makes his dragon form so deadly is that he will cast remove magic and it works without fail regardless of your level, and next his breath weapon apparently has infinite range, so as long as you are in the same map, it will hit you, but this can be overcome with some careful spell casting
so first, even before the abizigal fight, you want everyone to have protection from electricity ( whether it be the level 4 cleric spell or level 5 mage spell) and then you want your wizard to have spell immunity: abjuration, and then you want to summon in 5 mordenkainen's swords
so with that said once I hit his dragon form, I get everyone to run away out of sight, except for the wizard, and I have my wizard run straight up to the dragon form with spell immunity active, so he can soak up that deadly remove magic, and since you have spell immunity abjuration it thankfully fails, then next I use protection from magical weapons again, and after abizigal uses his breath weapon ( which actually doesn't chunk my guys thanks to the fact that my lightning protection was not dispelled) he will resort to melee attacks, and since you have 5 mordy's swords and your wizard with PfMW there will be a lot of confustion for him on who to attack and he will be attacking something he cant damage
once that starts, bring in the warriors with the greater whirlwinds and turn him into mince meat, and keep greater whirlwinding him, because if you screw around too much, he will blast you with another remove magic and all will be lost when he chunks you with his breath weapon ( or at least on insane difficulty his breath weapon deals around 200 damage)
also, do not use time stop in this battle, for some bizarre reason beamdog made it so he is immune to it, don't know why they did that, but it is what it is a guess
but in conclusion, that is what I did and I won without a hitch, now I don't know if you are playing with any mods or anything, so the battle may be different, but the game I have has no mods and I play on insane difficulty so that is the result I get when I do it this way
Finally got him. Had my Mage lower his defenses and then my warriors slam him with greater whirlwind.
Woot! Now I'm dealing with the Demogorgon
Abazigal is immune to instant death and vorpal hits, as well as petrification. I think the issue here is that in original BG2 he wasn't given all the blanket immunities of other ToB dragons and could be killed by vorpal hits and petrification (but perhaps not instant death).
Anyways the EE fixed all of this.
And good work @ramshine!
In the original the blanket immunities of other ToB dragons did not protect them from petrification, but did protect against imprisonment (tested with Draconis), while Abazigal was more protected to be sure that the cutscene can trigger.
Edit: Seems I'm late to the party. Congrats ramshine!