@Grond0 Yeah, you're one of the few people on this earth that can claim to have finished solo no-reload playthroughs of the BG saga with both a Wizard Slayer and a Wild Mage... That's really amazing when you think about it !
Tanked all the undead and helped the dwarves, although Deepvein was the only one to survive, but as I got them all attacking me in the end, it wasn't really close.
Invisibility and gathered all the undead in the crypt for some roasting, used two PfU's to hunt all of them.
Lich Coldharbor was Secret Revealed, and I hid for the parlay behind the tent. That was it really for Chapter 8, hit already 420k xp so level cap soon.
It's over! We managed to take down Belhifet with a combination of kiting, tanking, and hit-and-fade tactics. It was incredibly close, though.
First, because we only had 10 Potions of Power, we could only do two bouts of tanking, and while the tanking does very little damage to Belhifet, being able to thin the herd extends the period during which kiting is possible. Kiting is the most productive means of dealing damage for an Archer/Mage, but the buildup of enemies eventually makes it impossible without numerous Potions of Invisibility.
Second, we got FOUR Hamatulas at once, which made Arrows of Detonation extremely dangerous and slow. Firing all four possible arrows each round would have easily killed Frisk from all the Barbed Defense backlashes. To truly be safe, we could sometimes only fire a single arrow per round. Having four Hamatulas in a group was extremely draining to our resources: we could only kill a few demons in the process, and every extra demon on the maps amounts to 2 fewer rounds available for kiting, or an extra 30-50 HP for Belhifet.
The ratio of Cornugons to other demons was also not ideal. Cornugons have the most HP and are the last to die to Arrows of Detonation, which means it's best to either have very few of them or a whole bunch of them, so that they'll all die together instead of dying one by one, which opens up holes in the wall we used to keep out Belhifet. We had lots of Cornugons and just enough of every other demon to make it possible to open a hole for Belhifet but only kill a single Cornugon. This also added to the number of demons on the map.
More troubling, I lingered too long on the tanking process the second time around, and could have been killed if I had lingered even a few frames longer. I paid so much attention to the duration of the Potions of Power--letting them run out during tanking would have almost assuredly been fatal--that I forgot to factor in the duration of the Potions of Magic Shielding. I got hit by a Cornugon's Absorb Health just as the first Potion of Magic Shielding ran out and took 44 damage (the second Potion of Magic Shielding was still intact). If I hadn't reacted in time, a string of Absorb Health spells could have killed Frisk in seconds.
I'm surprised no one has mentioned the importance of Potions of Magic Shielding in the Belhifet fight. Without them, each Cornugon can deal exactly 88 damage with a single spell, bypassing magic resistance and spell protections. Potions of Magic Shielding are the only defense against Absorb Health available in SoD, unless you want to chain-cast SI: Necromancy the whole fight. It's very important for anyone who has to fight next to Cornugons while still visible.
With all those Hamatulas hampering the tanking process, we had far fewer rounds in which to kite Belhifet, and I was forced to resort to Potions of Invisibility when the map gathered so many Cornugons that our wand summons died faster than I could conjure them, at which point using the wand would expose us to danger rather than protecting us. We drank 30 Potions of Invisibility in order to deal the last 200 damage to Belhifet. I had much better luck in the test run; Potions of Invisibility were unnecessary in the late stages of the fight.
Animate Dead got us through Chateau Irenicus and we picked up all the equipment we stashed at Dragonspear Castle at the end of SoD (smuggling equipment is only possible in EET). It breaks the difficulty of early SoA because it obviates the need for money gathering and gives lots of resources very early, but early SoA hasn't had any difficulty for me in quite some time. I do the smuggling thing for the same reason I abused the Nazramu trick: because I hate inventory management and budgeting. I've done it too many times and now it is a chore.
Frisk is at level 13 after completing the Trademeet questline (they had a lot of extra XP from SoD; I was holding back a level up) and is 1 million XP away from hitting level 16, at which point Called Shot will deal STR drain. Then I'll have an instant kill option on pretty much anything I can hit with Minute Meteors. Time Stop will remove THAC0 from the equation and eliminate the chance of missing, and late in ToB, the Scorcher Ammunition will double the effects and also let us bypass weapon immunities, as well as take down herds of enemies at once.
I have 40 Arrows of Detonation and Vhailor's Helm, so we could deal 100 missile damage per round as an area effect if I had the clone fire the arrows under Improved Haste, but it won't really be necessary (I might try it as a goof). This is BG2; it shouldn't be the least bit difficult for me. I just need to change the way I think about combat: while the critical fights in BG1 and SoD required high offensive output in order to survive in LoB mode, surviving in BG2 is much more about buffing and evasive strategies.
I'll probably start posting on this run in the no-reload thread with screenshots.
Thinking about when a Wizard Slayer should dual to a druid: - my natural instinct for fighter duals is to do it late, but I can't see any way to have even a remote chance of winning the Sarevok fight in LoB as a wizard slayer. - dualling at level 8 would limit druid to level 7, which again would seem to give little chance against Sarevok (remembering that magical items can't be used). - dualling at level 7 to get the extra 0.5 APR would be very handy and that would allow druid level 9. - dualling at level 6 allows the druid to get to level 10 as usual. That's not as big a deal as with a totemic druid, but would still give one extra 4th and 5th level spell. - earlier dualling only has the advantage of less grinding for the Wizard Slayer.
PfM also does the job for me @semiticgod but Potion of Magic Shielding is always the backup option! SoA should be a walk in the park now!
Same problem here @Grond0! Level 7 would be perfect but without XP loop getting the Druid up seems to be not much fun. The loss of level 4 & 5 spells might be important against Sarevok - might be not. Too bad that Wisdom 21 is not in reach...
This morning's progress saw the first order of business being to pick up the Ring of Wizardry and swap it for full plate. I very rarely buy anything expensive until reputation is maximized, but as the Wizard Slayer is unable to use much equipment money is really not a concern.
Next he watched Drizzt being cut down and inherited Icingdeath (he can't use Twinkle as he's neutral in order to dual to druid).
He went to Nashkel to learn Bhaal CLW, but also got a level there thanks to talking to Noober and shooting down Vitiare. Rather more XP and a further level was gained by sticking Shoal full of throwing daggers. Another level wasn't long in coming, courtesy of a ghast that tried a travel ambush.
Bjornin's half-ogres were taught a painful lesson about the value of weapon speed. Frere then had his first stand up fight with a wolf - that was successful, but the effort to revive Melicamp failed. It was back to throwing daggers for Greywolf (over 100 used for him).
A few attempts suggested that helping Ardrouine would be a bit of a pain at the moment (due to the worgs ability to get criticals with a 19 and relatively high damage), but Charleston Nib and Brage were no problem and got Frere up to level 5.
Arabelle, Samuel and Joia were all done without trouble before Frere headed for the Cloud Peaks. Caldo & Krumm were not their usual prize as Frere can't use magic belts, but the Dryad did push reputation up to 20. Continuing on, he picked up the charisma tome (Wizard Slayers can use tomes, though solo characters unfortunately have no way to get the strength tome) before shooting a bear to the north (but finding even with reputation 20 his charisma was not good enough to be gifted some boots).
After identifying the tome at High Hedge, Frere killed quite a few skeletons to renew his stock of throwing daggers. A series of generally low value encounters followed, including the Beregost spiders. That led him to the FAI where he used his WS abilities for the first time - a thrown dagger disrupting an attempted mirror image was followed by further hits to shut down Tarnesh's casting before he could try another spell. As the ogre belt is no good to Frere, he also handed that back to Unshey.
Moving on north, the fishermen provided a bowl to return to Tenya. With the next level not too far away Frere then went to help a farmer with a zombie problem to get the remaining XP needed.
With level 7 seeming a long way off Frere decided to invest some resources in a couple of protection from acid scrolls - without using those tackling ankhegs would be too dangerous as he would have to retreat after a single hit and could easily be hit again and killed before getting out of range. The scrolls allowed him to kill 3 ankhegs and grab their treasure before the criticals mounted up and he had to run (that was a bit of a waste of the scrolls - it's the sort of situation where I miss not using healing potions ).
In Beregost Frere attacked Silke with a dart of wounding - successfully poisoning her. Several other hits followed to shut standard casting down, but she used a minor sequencer invisibility to buff up and recover her casting abilities and Frere had to run away quickly to survive. After resting up he tried again and this time Silke had no answer to run and shoot tactics.
Returning to the coast, the extra couple of levels (including a weapon speed bonus for scimitar high mastery) made killing Ardrouine's worgs much easier. Frere then took on the sirines - drawing out their charms and poison arrows at long range and resting whenever one of them went invisible nearby. Once distance attacks were gone they were simple to finish off using run and shoot. Two of the golems were drawn out of the cave and shot up, but the final one hid behind the hold and charm traps and refused to move despite multiple resting and leaving the area - that golem was eventually left. The constitution tome is handy as, in conjunction with Buckley's Buckler, that allows regeneration to make up a bit for Frere's lack of healing or other regeneration.
Moving on to the Valley of the Tombs Frere had a number of attempts at killing one of Narcillicus' mustard jellies before deciding he had no realistic chance against that without some assistance - he had to be satisfied with pulling a few ghasts out of their tomb there to shoot up. That still leaves him nearly 5,000 XP short of dualling at level 7, so there's some grinding to be done yet before the druid gets his chance.
Same problem here @Grond0! Level 7 would be perfect but without XP loop getting the Druid up seems to be not much fun. The loss of level 4 & 5 spells might be important against Sarevok - might be not. Too bad that Wisdom 21 is not in reach...
Are you sure you can't get wisdom 21? I had a feeling that 21 strength was sufficient to kick open the tomb with the final tome in (or is it 22?).
Might be @semiticgod but i used PfM nearly all the time and Absorb Health was never a problem as the Cornugons did not use it.
That could well be a scripting issue. I could easily imagine the Cornugons would be scripted not to use the spell against someone protected from magic.
Might be @semiticgod but i used PfM nearly all the time and Absorb Health was never a problem as the Cornugons did not use it.
Might be shades of SCS AI. SCS never uses Dispel magic on Improved Invisibility or Imprisonment/Maze on Cloak of Mirroring, even tho they would work. Congratz on that fight @semiticgod awesome stratgy and clutch execution. :P
I started with the Wizard Slayer to follow @Grond0 but realized soon that i have to stop this. Maybe its some kind of Druid overkill after playing so many poverty runs with this class only. Damn it. Thinking about an alternative my good old Beast Mistress Lyzz came to mind who was still waiting before Big B.
As i was in the mood for some good beating combined with a fresh mind i buffed her up. Ready for action? Ready!!! Once she was at full power i realized that she got a 95% hit chance with the Club +3 thanks to racial enemy Demonic/Fell - superb!!
The start of the hunt was nothing special: Let Caelar soak up Dispel Magic and kick her out of the party so she doesnt take double damage anymore. Some lucky summon rolls followed with mostly three or four Myconids appearing around Big B which gave Lyzz time to shoot Void Arrows +3. This hurted Big B quite a lot so he was down to "injured" when Lyzz switched to hit & run cause Caelar and the Myconids could not hold the line any longer.
Thanks to the high hit chance and the bonus damage Big B suffered a lot eating several crits. Even though the Potions of Power started to fade away Lyzz was never in any danger (still 11 charges of Durlags Goblet left) and finished the demon with another 36 damage hit right in his face. I forgot to count the number of Invisibility Potions but it must have been somewhere around 40 - maybe a bit less.
Without decent armour i avoided tanking - especially as my "chicken nature" tries to avoid any damage. Hit & Run is much more my style and - at least this time - it worked nearly like in the old days. Lyzz will soon start SoA and at the moment i am thinking if i should dual class her to Cleric later on. We will see!
Neothelid smacked down with three zips from the Goblet.
Akanna smacked down with two zips from the Goblet, surrendered the fort.
Bridge mage first dispelled, the killed by acid arrows, and then smacked rest of the mob. Hit lv10 which means 10 DR which together with Defensive Stance (50), Helmet (3) and Cloak (5) gives a collective 68 DR. Should be good against Bel.
@histamiini is working like a clockwork! Are you sure that you are human?
If you keep going your Dwarfen Defender will rock SoA soon as well. Too bad i lost my own one before he could start the Gauth XP loop... Like @Grond0 i think that this class has good potential for going deep into ToB! We will see.
The Beast Master - even though its rated by many as one of the weaker classes - is working surprisingly well but thats maybe cause it fits me quite well thanks to stealth and a bit of summoning. The wolves should be very helpful in the Irenicus starting dungeon...
@Harpagornis Don't say that, Crusaders are incoming. I'm pretty OCD so repeating the same tactic over and over comes pretty easily, and I have to always try to powerplay or it bothers me. Pretty much every class there's two risky fights in BG+SoD, Palace ambush, and Crusader Attacks. And possibly Bel if you don't have enough Thac0. So other than that, it's mostly fetch this, overpower that. This was the first time I took points in Long Bow so with 4 apr Detonators Crusader Attack should not be that hard...
How did you die with DD? I was thinking today how I'm going to clear out from the Irenicus dungeon without summons, nor Invisibility, is DD able to tank Duergar's with 60 DR? There's also the Memphit room which could be tricky.
I'll actually lose most of my saves, Lucky Boots gone, Claw gone, items gone... With Balduran Helmet I've "only" 3 vs Spell which isn't guarantee against anything.
@histamiini: Even with SCS, you should be able to rest as many times as you like in Chateau Irenicus since Imoen is not in your party. I don't know about the Duergar, but if you get the Oil of Speed, there's a trick that can let you get past the Mephit Portal Room without any fighting. Hopefully it works in your install; I haven't tested it in a very long time.
1. Drink the Oil of Speed 2. Run into the Mephit Portal room and attract the attention of all four Mephits 3. Retreat to the previous room and wait until the Mephits are almost next to you 4. Run past the Mephits into the next room and shut the door behind you
The Mephits should be stuck behind the door, and if you time it right, the Radiant Mephit shouldn't be able to hit you with its Color Spray spell, which puts you to sleep for several rounds and has a -3 save penalty, enough to kill almost any class that's not immune to sleep or doesn't have MGOI. You can then take down the Mephit Portals without suffering any attacks.
The Salt Mephit will be mostly luck. The Salt Mephit is in between the Ice Mephit that's fighting the thief, and the group of duergar further north from the Mephit Portal room, so you'll be able to fight it alone as long as you don't rush ahead. The Salt Mephit's Salt Crystal spell has a 50% chance of stunning you for 2 rounds without a saving throw, so, on average, it's a stunlock for anyone not immune to stun. But since there's only a 50% chance per round, it's not guaranteed. You'll be able to attack for one out of every 4 rounds on average. The Salt Mephit will deal 6 damage on average per round when you're stunned, so that amounts to 18 damage for every round you're able to attack it. It has 152 HP, and a Dwarven Defender with the Oil of Speed and specialization but not grandmastery using a nonmagical weapon should be able to deal 300 damage assuming all hits make contact.
The odds of death are fairly low, but it's still very dependent on luck.
Chapter 10, mostly dialogue and fetching. First smacking was against the Belben mob in the Dragon Spear Basement, freed Daeros and got his full plate, and quicly escaped, didn't bother with the mages. Crusaders Attack. 3x Mind Focusing, 2x Fire Resistance, Storm Giant, 7x Heroism, Clarity and Power Potions, and Troll attack was done after 15 Arrows of Detonation and three zips from the Goblet.
Mage attack was easy, 23 arrows and no need for the Goblet. More Heroism Potions to 500 hp, and tanked the paladins, 23 arrows, 3x Goblet.
End battle was target practice with my acid arrows, spent almost all 120. Ashatiel dispelled and smacked down easily. Bridge mob in the hell was simply smacked with one Speed, Storm potions and Defensive Stance, no other resources needed.
Speaking of resources I have 20 Durlag's Goblet, 1 Violet, 20 Heroism, 5 Power potions and plenty of others, including 78 invisibility if something goes wrong... My saves are with Crusader Ring, Helm of Balduran, Cloak +2, Lucky Boots and Defensive Stance: -9,-7,-3,-3,-6 I wonder if that's enough not to bother with PfM at all?
Frere did low value stuff like hobgoblins for a while, but then got bored of that and decided to attack the wolf pack at Beregost Temple for the XP needed for level 7. That required a lot of running round, but eventually nearly all the accompanying wolves were dead and he switched to bullets of fire. Sixty or so of those later the first vampiric wolf was dead and Frere finally achieved his desired level as a WS.
At that point he aimed to dual to druid, only to remember too late that requires 17 charisma - which despite his good starting stats he doesn't have . Rather than start again and go through yet more kiting I decided to dual him to thief instead as that will also allow him to recover fighting abilities in BG1.
As he can't use protection equipment, the Shadow Armor is by far the best choice for him and that was immediately purchased. He already had the +3 staff for backstabbing and acquired a +1 short bow for kiting where necessary.
The first item of business was to finish off the last of the wolves - as they have a follow-me script there's a danger of getting attacked unawares by those if left. About a hundred +1 arrows and a few backstabs later the job was done and Frere up to level 3. Back at the Coast he tracked down the missing golem and a series of stealth attacks on it provided a further level.
Returning to the Valley of the Tombs, Frere found that Narcillicus' jellies were less able to deal with stealth attacks than frontal ones. That was also the case with Bentan at Firewine Bridge - his PfM scroll is particularly useful for Frere as his only source of magical protection. Sneaking past the kobolds to Meilum Frere used run and shoot around his rockpile (not wanting to stray far and risk encountering kobolds). He needed a 17 to hit, which meant several hundred arrows - but he had just enough on him and the XP was enough to take him to level 5.
Seven vs Bel. Decided to use PfM (and Speed boots) anyway, Violet, Fortitude, Agility, 3x Mind Focusing, Speed, 20 Heroism, 2 Power, Speed and Clarity potions put me exactly 500 hp. And tanked Bel pretty effortlessly, didn't even bother with Defensive Stance because it makes you so slow moving. Somebody still got me bleeding with PfM and -6,-4,1,1,-3 saves. But after seven invisibility potions and zips from the Goblet Bel fell. Wasn't close, but wasn't close of Sir Vanderley either who tanked Bel in about 100 seconds, which is probably is going to stay as a record forever.
@histamiini: The Cornugon's bleeding effect offers no save. Every hit has a 50% chance of applying it.
I notice that your maximum HP is only 400-something in that screenshot, despite your previous maximum being 500, yet you've still got 280 current HP. Is this because you unequipped the Helm of Balduran or the Ring of Purity or another HP-boosting item? Because if that's a Potion of Power wearing off, your install doesn't work the same as mine; my current HP drops down to 150 in seconds when Potions of Power wear off, no matter how high the maximum HP goes.
@semiticgod I took one Power potion pretty early in the lift to speed the smacking so that probably weared off for max hp 500. I was naturally that low in the picture, just using the Goblet last time. But I did notice the thing you described in the Crusader Attack where I used one Power Potion, where current hp (not max hp) dropped dramatically when it weared off.
EDIT: tested it out, 9 Heroism 306 hp, 1 Power 337 hp, waited 4 turns, 306 hp. So I don't know what I noticed before.
Irenicus Dungeon, Aataqah summoned 4 Gibberlings who almost killed me because I didn't have my trusty Scimitars, even with Duhm and DS, but one retreat eventually saved the three Health potions. First Duergar party, tanked both melee versions one by one, resting between, and the ranged ones at the same time. Found two Scimitars from the Golem room which made smacking easier, also got couple Extra Health potions. The next four Duergar party attacked me all at once, which I was able to tank using all four normal Health potions.
Lesser Clay Golems smacked one by one, only with Duhm and DS. Then the next couple Duergar parties dispersed, lured and killed, which consisted also lot of resting between. Found the first Speed potion from the library. Was able to tank Otyugh using couple healing potions, tanked the next Duergar party and found the Helm of Balduran. Looted the level, 2 Speed, 6 Extra and 8 normal Health potions.
2nd level, used the Speed potion, and lured the four Mephits in the room below and trapped them there, one of them blinded me, which didn't matter, smacked the four portals down. Killed the clone, used Speed potion and ran out of the dungeon to Athkatla.
Had 3k money so I bought 4x Scimitars, arrows, Gem Bag and Scroll Case, and I'm now wondering what on earth to do next. Feeling quite small and feeble in the big world, first time LoB with character who doesn't have Invisibility or can't summon.
I'm in Spellhold now. I sold off a whole bunch of equipment in High Hedge (BG1 stores in my EET install buy items from you at much better prices), bought everything I could possibly want aside from the Defender of Easthaven, and did a quick circuit of various quests to collect items I wanted, never venturing any further than was necessary to get what I wanted. Notable items include the Silver Pantaloons, the Robe of Vecna, the Strong Arm +3 (longbows are terrible but I have grandmastery in them), and a bunch of scrolls and potions I'll never use.
Frisk is at level 16, about to hit level 17, and can now score STR drain kills, though I don't think it'll be necessary anytime soon. We already have Simulacrum and Vhailor's Helm and clones with 7 APR that can stack Called Shot with Darts of Stunning for near-guaranteed stun-locking, fire Arrows of Dispelling for free, or just bomb things with Arrows of Detonation (boring but fast, and I do love fast). I'll probably sneak past almost everything in Spellhold and spam magic attacks at Irenicus and/or use Dimension Door to find safety in one of the pods in the chamber (I think it may be possible to escape the reach of any planetars he might summon). The only interesting fights will be the Kuo-toa, the mind flayer ambush, Bodhi, and the final fight in Hell. Since I can revisit old areas in ToB, there's no need to fight Kangaxx or the Twisted Rune anytime soon.
Shadows of Amn has been the easiest part of this run by far, but you should never underestimate your opponent. Death can come from the most mundane sources you can imagine. A Carrion Crawler or a Hobgoblin can waste any Bhaalspawn with a save vs. death or save vs. spell of 2, a Maze trap can go right through your Minor Spell Deflection, a Cloud of Bats could disable your spellcasting if you don't equip the Belt of Inertial Barrier in time...
God, I've missed BG2. After Belhifet, I'm glad the game is no longer a challenge.
Frere opened the session by backstabbing the Doomsayer. That took a while, though not as long as shooting Meilum. The Revenant also got the treatment - being dragged over to the tomb entrance before being made hostile so that Frere could attack and run away immediately. Moving on to Durlag's Tower one of the Battle Horrors was dragged into the tower to play hide and seek - it's death provided Frere with level 6.
The other Battle Horror from the path and all the ghasts inside the Tower were backstabbed before Frere ventured onto the roof. Using the PfP scroll from the Carnival he dealt with the basilisks there, gaining level 7 in the process.
For the final push to regain his fighting levels, Frere went to find some more basilisks. Korax was recruited and successfully dealt with Mutamin and the northern basilisks to get the XP Frere needed.
Frere repurchased the boots of stealth - giving him over 100% stealth - and headed for the Nashkel Mine. After doing so much hard work to that point he tried to take it easy there by just sneaking through to the third level. The danger doing that is the kobold shaman and indeed he cast oracle. Frere was out of sight of anything when he did that, but the text didn't show his stealth had been dispelled and the stealth button was still lit so it seemed as though he was still in the shadows. That wasn't the case, however, as a kobold reacted as soon as he moved into sight. As that wasn't entirely unexpected Frere was able to do a quick armor change and his plate provided enough protection for him to run through the hordes to find a quiet spot and restealth.
After killing the kobolds outside Mulahey's cave, Frere dealt with the four inside before activating Mulahey with a stealth shot. He waited for the summoned troops to gather round the cleric before picking half a dozen of the opposition off one by one as they wandered around a bit - that included a rarity in LoB with a one-shot backstab. Gloating over that proved fatal, however, when I was distracted by writing a note and failed to react instantly when Mulahey suddenly appeared having apparently heard the kobold's grunt as it died. I tried making a first use of a PfM scroll, but the momentary delay in doing that meant that Mulahey had already launched his spell when the scroll took effect ...
So order of things, get enough money for Nymph Cloak, use it to get Ring of Invisibility and use that fetching Belm +2. Circus tent and damn, broke the two out of four Scimitars in the first level already, lucky that I brought four. Kalah was easy pray with Duhm and Defensive Stance. Looted Maevar's Guildhall and Temple of Helm to get enough money to buy the Nymph Cloak.
Charmed (1) Brennan in the Den of Seven Vales, rested, then charmed (1) Amon. Started putting traps with Brennan, but he killed himself trying to put them on. Well getting the Sandthief Ring was easy.
Amon dominated (1) both Orcslicer and Pooky, who then killed Mencar.
Then Orcslicer killed Pooky and I smacked Orcslicer with DS, Duhm, Speed and 3 Extra Health potions.
Trademeet, killed the animals just in time as my 6th and last of Scimitars broke, damn these are awful. Druid Grove, Ring of Invisibility, and got the Belm +2, finally unbreakable weapon and plus one apr. Achieved a lot with this push, Ring of Charm, Nymph Cloak, 20 Cha, Full Plate, Belm +2 (+1 apr), 10k gold, Cloak of Non Detection and Ring of Invisibility.
Tried charming (10) Rengaard in Temple Sewers to no avail, so I left them be for now. Picked up Staff of Curing and Battle Axe +2 from Graveyard, helping the Orphan and the Ghost. Hit lv11, picked up Potion Case.
De'Arnise Keep, Trolls were easy pray 1on1, with invisibility looted the place. Tried to charm Glaicus but it didn't work, then tried to tank him, nope, drank invisbility, waited his haste to end, and then kited him with arrows. Had to waste two invisibility potions in here but gained a lot of loot, FoA +3, Elven Court Bow +3 and Frostreaver +3. After selling the loot, bying Shield of Balduran and one PfU, I still have 4k gold left. Time to smack some Gauths, a lot of Gauths!
Fealing quite exhausted today i parked Lyzz in SoA and returned to have some fun with Krell and his poverty run.
Next stop was Irenicus in Spellhold. In the past this was sometimes tricky but with good old Far Sight Krell send in his Spirit Lions to bring the evil mage down to 1 HP before going upstairs. The result of this: Once you get in with all the crazy mages and the talking finishes the fight is over as well as the final speech of Irenicus nearly immediately triggers. Easy!
The Underdark was skipped by Harmonizing Adalon and getting the finishing blow with his summons. Getting out was more problematic. While the Kua Toas could not touch the summons the Mages and Demons blocked the passage heavily and managed to kill Krell one time cause he rushed things too hard. Therefore he switched his tactic and lured them away in small groups so the Spirit Wolves, Deva and Elemental Pince could handle them easily. With only few demons left he used Spirit Bears as decoy and slipped through hasted by Energy Blades...
Bodhi was quite funny as the vampires died like flies against Spirit Lions and especially the instakilling Deva so after triggering the talking Krell lured the vampires away from her to kill them in the corridor one by one. Even though this took some time Bodhi was finally on her own. Now it was all about: Let the summons get in to soak her attention and rush in fast to harm her down. Thanks to her magic resistance 20+ rests were needed before Bodhi went down to 1 HP the second time. With three more Lions and a Deva rushing in the vampire queen did not last long even though she regenerates like crazy...
Suldanessalar was surprisingly easy. Use invisibility to skip most Rakshasas, collect the items while giving all of possessions (good joke!) to the dragon Krell headed to the temple. There he buffed, went in and out to let Glabrezu waste his remove magic and lured it to the exit where it got killed by Harm – Exit – Energy Blades. Same for the Mage. Once Harm landed Krell rushed out waiting for the protections to expire and switfly killed him with Energy Blades out of invisibility. The Rakshasa and Iron Golem proved to be no more challenge especially as the first one could not touch the Spirit Summons. Once another Deva rolled in the Golem crumbled to dust.
Next was Irenicus on top of the Tree of Life. This one was funny again as Krell retreated quickly soaking up Remove Magic while always using Far Sight to get a clear view of Irenicus position. Then the Nymphs rolled in sacrificing themselves to let him waste all of his spells and summons. After some waiting and recasting Krell switched to Fire Elementals, then Spirit Wolves and even before the Deva could get in Irenicus went down pulling Krell into Hell...
Next stop was Irenicus in Spellhold. In the past this was sometimes tricky but with good old Far Sight Krell send in his Spirit Lions to bring the evil mage down to 1 HP before going upstairs. The result of this: Once you get in with all the crazy mages and the talking finishes the fight is over as well as the final speech of Irenicus nearly immediately triggers. Easy!
Nice one, didn't know this was a thing.
Btw you tested this once, did Blackrazor work against Mel? I'm now at the point of do I take Long Swords or not.
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Invisibility and gathered all the undead in the crypt for some roasting, used two PfU's to hunt all of them.
Lich Coldharbor was Secret Revealed, and I hid for the parlay behind the tent. That was it really for Chapter 8, hit already 420k xp so level cap soon.
First, because we only had 10 Potions of Power, we could only do two bouts of tanking, and while the tanking does very little damage to Belhifet, being able to thin the herd extends the period during which kiting is possible. Kiting is the most productive means of dealing damage for an Archer/Mage, but the buildup of enemies eventually makes it impossible without numerous Potions of Invisibility.
Second, we got FOUR Hamatulas at once, which made Arrows of Detonation extremely dangerous and slow. Firing all four possible arrows each round would have easily killed Frisk from all the Barbed Defense backlashes. To truly be safe, we could sometimes only fire a single arrow per round. Having four Hamatulas in a group was extremely draining to our resources: we could only kill a few demons in the process, and every extra demon on the maps amounts to 2 fewer rounds available for kiting, or an extra 30-50 HP for Belhifet.
The ratio of Cornugons to other demons was also not ideal. Cornugons have the most HP and are the last to die to Arrows of Detonation, which means it's best to either have very few of them or a whole bunch of them, so that they'll all die together instead of dying one by one, which opens up holes in the wall we used to keep out Belhifet. We had lots of Cornugons and just enough of every other demon to make it possible to open a hole for Belhifet but only kill a single Cornugon. This also added to the number of demons on the map.
More troubling, I lingered too long on the tanking process the second time around, and could have been killed if I had lingered even a few frames longer. I paid so much attention to the duration of the Potions of Power--letting them run out during tanking would have almost assuredly been fatal--that I forgot to factor in the duration of the Potions of Magic Shielding. I got hit by a Cornugon's Absorb Health just as the first Potion of Magic Shielding ran out and took 44 damage (the second Potion of Magic Shielding was still intact). If I hadn't reacted in time, a string of Absorb Health spells could have killed Frisk in seconds.
I'm surprised no one has mentioned the importance of Potions of Magic Shielding in the Belhifet fight. Without them, each Cornugon can deal exactly 88 damage with a single spell, bypassing magic resistance and spell protections. Potions of Magic Shielding are the only defense against Absorb Health available in SoD, unless you want to chain-cast SI: Necromancy the whole fight. It's very important for anyone who has to fight next to Cornugons while still visible.
With all those Hamatulas hampering the tanking process, we had far fewer rounds in which to kite Belhifet, and I was forced to resort to Potions of Invisibility when the map gathered so many Cornugons that our wand summons died faster than I could conjure them, at which point using the wand would expose us to danger rather than protecting us. We drank 30 Potions of Invisibility in order to deal the last 200 damage to Belhifet. I had much better luck in the test run; Potions of Invisibility were unnecessary in the late stages of the fight.
Animate Dead got us through Chateau Irenicus and we picked up all the equipment we stashed at Dragonspear Castle at the end of SoD (smuggling equipment is only possible in EET). It breaks the difficulty of early SoA because it obviates the need for money gathering and gives lots of resources very early, but early SoA hasn't had any difficulty for me in quite some time. I do the smuggling thing for the same reason I abused the Nazramu trick: because I hate inventory management and budgeting. I've done it too many times and now it is a chore.
Frisk is at level 13 after completing the Trademeet questline (they had a lot of extra XP from SoD; I was holding back a level up) and is 1 million XP away from hitting level 16, at which point Called Shot will deal STR drain. Then I'll have an instant kill option on pretty much anything I can hit with Minute Meteors. Time Stop will remove THAC0 from the equation and eliminate the chance of missing, and late in ToB, the Scorcher Ammunition will double the effects and also let us bypass weapon immunities, as well as take down herds of enemies at once.
I have 40 Arrows of Detonation and Vhailor's Helm, so we could deal 100 missile damage per round as an area effect if I had the clone fire the arrows under Improved Haste, but it won't really be necessary (I might try it as a goof). This is BG2; it shouldn't be the least bit difficult for me. I just need to change the way I think about combat: while the critical fights in BG1 and SoD required high offensive output in order to survive in LoB mode, surviving in BG2 is much more about buffing and evasive strategies.
I'll probably start posting on this run in the no-reload thread with screenshots.
- my natural instinct for fighter duals is to do it late, but I can't see any way to have even a remote chance of winning the Sarevok fight in LoB as a wizard slayer.
- dualling at level 8 would limit druid to level 7, which again would seem to give little chance against Sarevok (remembering that magical items can't be used).
- dualling at level 7 to get the extra 0.5 APR would be very handy and that would allow druid level 9.
- dualling at level 6 allows the druid to get to level 10 as usual. That's not as big a deal as with a totemic druid, but would still give one extra 4th and 5th level spell.
- earlier dualling only has the advantage of less grinding for the Wizard Slayer.
I'm currently minded to hold out until level 7.
Same problem here @Grond0! Level 7 would be perfect but without XP loop getting the Druid up seems to be not much fun. The loss of level 4 & 5 spells might be important against Sarevok - might be not. Too bad that Wisdom 21 is not in reach...
Take your pick!
Next he watched Drizzt being cut down and inherited Icingdeath (he can't use Twinkle as he's neutral in order to dual to druid).
He went to Nashkel to learn Bhaal CLW, but also got a level there thanks to talking to Noober and shooting down Vitiare. Rather more XP and a further level was gained by sticking Shoal full of throwing daggers. Another level wasn't long in coming, courtesy of a ghast that tried a travel ambush.
Bjornin's half-ogres were taught a painful lesson about the value of weapon speed. Frere then had his first stand up fight with a wolf - that was successful, but the effort to revive Melicamp failed. It was back to throwing daggers for Greywolf (over 100 used for him).
A few attempts suggested that helping Ardrouine would be a bit of a pain at the moment (due to the worgs ability to get criticals with a 19 and relatively high damage), but Charleston Nib and Brage were no problem and got Frere up to level 5.
Arabelle, Samuel and Joia were all done without trouble before Frere headed for the Cloud Peaks. Caldo & Krumm were not their usual prize as Frere can't use magic belts, but the Dryad did push reputation up to 20. Continuing on, he picked up the charisma tome (Wizard Slayers can use tomes, though solo characters unfortunately have no way to get the strength tome) before shooting a bear to the north (but finding even with reputation 20 his charisma was not good enough to be gifted some boots).
After identifying the tome at High Hedge, Frere killed quite a few skeletons to renew his stock of throwing daggers. A series of generally low value encounters followed, including the Beregost spiders. That led him to the FAI where he used his WS abilities for the first time - a thrown dagger disrupting an attempted mirror image was followed by further hits to shut down Tarnesh's casting before he could try another spell. As the ogre belt is no good to Frere, he also handed that back to Unshey.
Moving on north, the fishermen provided a bowl to return to Tenya. With the next level not too far away Frere then went to help a farmer with a zombie problem to get the remaining XP needed.
With level 7 seeming a long way off Frere decided to invest some resources in a couple of protection from acid scrolls - without using those tackling ankhegs would be too dangerous as he would have to retreat after a single hit and could easily be hit again and killed before getting out of range. The scrolls allowed him to kill 3 ankhegs and grab their treasure before the criticals mounted up and he had to run (that was a bit of a waste of the scrolls - it's the sort of situation where I miss not using healing potions
In Beregost Frere attacked Silke with a dart of wounding - successfully poisoning her. Several other hits followed to shut standard casting down, but she used a minor sequencer invisibility to buff up and recover her casting abilities and Frere had to run away quickly to survive. After resting up he tried again and this time Silke had no answer to run and shoot tactics.
Returning to the coast, the extra couple of levels (including a weapon speed bonus for scimitar high mastery) made killing Ardrouine's worgs much easier. Frere then took on the sirines - drawing out their charms and poison arrows at long range and resting whenever one of them went invisible nearby. Once distance attacks were gone they were simple to finish off using run and shoot. Two of the golems were drawn out of the cave and shot up, but the final one hid behind the hold and charm traps and refused to move despite multiple resting and leaving the area - that golem was eventually left. The constitution tome is handy as, in conjunction with Buckley's Buckler, that allows regeneration to make up a bit for Frere's lack of healing or other regeneration.
Moving on to the Valley of the Tombs Frere had a number of attempts at killing one of Narcillicus' mustard jellies before deciding he had no realistic chance against that without some assistance - he had to be satisfied with pulling a few ghasts out of their tomb there to shoot up. That still leaves him nearly 5,000 XP short of dualling at level 7, so there's some grinding to be done yet before the druid gets his chance.
That could well be a scripting issue. I could easily imagine the Cornugons would be scripted not to use the spell against someone protected from magic.
SCS never uses Dispel magic on Improved Invisibility or Imprisonment/Maze on Cloak of Mirroring, even tho they would work.
Congratz on that fight @semiticgod awesome stratgy and clutch execution. :P
As i was in the mood for some good beating combined with a fresh mind i buffed her up. Ready for action? Ready!!! Once she was at full power i realized that she got a 95% hit chance with the Club +3 thanks to racial enemy Demonic/Fell - superb!!
The start of the hunt was nothing special: Let Caelar soak up Dispel Magic and kick her out of the party so she doesnt take double damage anymore. Some lucky summon rolls followed with mostly three or four Myconids appearing around Big B which gave Lyzz time to shoot Void Arrows +3. This hurted Big B quite a lot so he was down to "injured" when Lyzz switched to hit & run cause Caelar and the Myconids could not hold the line any longer.
Thanks to the high hit chance and the bonus damage Big B suffered a lot eating several crits. Even though the Potions of Power started to fade away Lyzz was never in any danger (still 11 charges of Durlags Goblet left) and finished the demon with another 36 damage hit right in his face. I forgot to count the number of Invisibility Potions but it must have been somewhere around 40 - maybe a bit less.
Without decent armour i avoided tanking - especially as my "chicken nature" tries to avoid any damage. Hit & Run is much more my style and - at least this time - it worked nearly like in the old days. Lyzz will soon start SoA and at the moment i am thinking if i should dual class her to Cleric later on. We will see!
If you keep going your Dwarfen Defender will rock SoA soon as well. Too bad i lost my own one before he could start the Gauth XP loop... Like @Grond0 i think that this class has good potential for going deep into ToB! We will see.
The Beast Master - even though its rated by many as one of the weaker classes - is working surprisingly well but thats maybe cause it fits me quite well thanks to stealth and a bit of summoning. The wolves should be very helpful in the Irenicus starting dungeon...
How did you die with DD? I was thinking today how I'm going to clear out from the Irenicus dungeon without summons, nor Invisibility, is DD able to tank Duergar's with 60 DR? There's also the Memphit room which could be tricky.
Tanking Duergar should be easy especially as you can split them! Mephit Room might be more tricky but with your godlike saves...
1. Drink the Oil of Speed
2. Run into the Mephit Portal room and attract the attention of all four Mephits
3. Retreat to the previous room and wait until the Mephits are almost next to you
4. Run past the Mephits into the next room and shut the door behind you
The Mephits should be stuck behind the door, and if you time it right, the Radiant Mephit shouldn't be able to hit you with its Color Spray spell, which puts you to sleep for several rounds and has a -3 save penalty, enough to kill almost any class that's not immune to sleep or doesn't have MGOI. You can then take down the Mephit Portals without suffering any attacks.
The Salt Mephit will be mostly luck. The Salt Mephit is in between the Ice Mephit that's fighting the thief, and the group of duergar further north from the Mephit Portal room, so you'll be able to fight it alone as long as you don't rush ahead. The Salt Mephit's Salt Crystal spell has a 50% chance of stunning you for 2 rounds without a saving throw, so, on average, it's a stunlock for anyone not immune to stun. But since there's only a 50% chance per round, it's not guaranteed. You'll be able to attack for one out of every 4 rounds on average. The Salt Mephit will deal 6 damage on average per round when you're stunned, so that amounts to 18 damage for every round you're able to attack it. It has 152 HP, and a Dwarven Defender with the Oil of Speed and specialization but not grandmastery using a nonmagical weapon should be able to deal 300 damage assuming all hits make contact.
The odds of death are fairly low, but it's still very dependent on luck.
Mage attack was easy, 23 arrows and no need for the Goblet. More Heroism Potions to 500 hp, and tanked the paladins, 23 arrows, 3x Goblet.
End battle was target practice with my acid arrows, spent almost all 120. Ashatiel dispelled and smacked down easily. Bridge mob in the hell was simply smacked with one Speed, Storm potions and Defensive Stance, no other resources needed.
Speaking of resources I have 20 Durlag's Goblet, 1 Violet, 20 Heroism, 5 Power potions and plenty of others, including 78 invisibility if something goes wrong... My saves are with Crusader Ring, Helm of Balduran, Cloak +2, Lucky Boots and Defensive Stance: -9,-7,-3,-3,-6
At that point he aimed to dual to druid, only to remember too late that requires 17 charisma - which despite his good starting stats he doesn't have
As he can't use protection equipment, the Shadow Armor is by far the best choice for him and that was immediately purchased. He already had the +3 staff for backstabbing and acquired a +1 short bow for kiting where necessary.
The first item of business was to finish off the last of the wolves - as they have a follow-me script there's a danger of getting attacked unawares by those if left. About a hundred +1 arrows and a few backstabs later the job was done and Frere up to level 3. Back at the Coast he tracked down the missing golem and a series of stealth attacks on it provided a further level.
Returning to the Valley of the Tombs, Frere found that Narcillicus' jellies were less able to deal with stealth attacks than frontal ones. That was also the case with Bentan at Firewine Bridge - his PfM scroll is particularly useful for Frere as his only source of magical protection. Sneaking past the kobolds to Meilum Frere used run and shoot around his rockpile (not wanting to stray far and risk encountering kobolds). He needed a 17 to hit, which meant several hundred arrows - but he had just enough on him and the XP was enough to take him to level 5.
I notice that your maximum HP is only 400-something in that screenshot, despite your previous maximum being 500, yet you've still got 280 current HP. Is this because you unequipped the Helm of Balduran or the Ring of Purity or another HP-boosting item? Because if that's a Potion of Power wearing off, your install doesn't work the same as mine; my current HP drops down to 150 in seconds when Potions of Power wear off, no matter how high the maximum HP goes.
EDIT: tested it out, 9 Heroism 306 hp, 1 Power 337 hp, waited 4 turns, 306 hp. So I don't know what I noticed before.
Lesser Clay Golems smacked one by one, only with Duhm and DS. Then the next couple Duergar parties dispersed, lured and killed, which consisted also lot of resting between. Found the first Speed potion from the library. Was able to tank Otyugh using couple healing potions, tanked the next Duergar party and found the Helm of Balduran. Looted the level, 2 Speed, 6 Extra and 8 normal Health potions.
2nd level, used the Speed potion, and lured the four Mephits in the room below and trapped them there, one of them blinded me, which didn't matter, smacked the four portals down. Killed the clone, used Speed potion and ran out of the dungeon to Athkatla.
Had 3k money so I bought 4x Scimitars, arrows, Gem Bag and Scroll Case, and I'm now wondering what on earth to do next. Feeling quite small and feeble in the big world, first time LoB with character who doesn't have Invisibility or can't summon.
Frisk is at level 16, about to hit level 17, and can now score STR drain kills, though I don't think it'll be necessary anytime soon. We already have Simulacrum and Vhailor's Helm and clones with 7 APR that can stack Called Shot with Darts of Stunning for near-guaranteed stun-locking, fire Arrows of Dispelling for free, or just bomb things with Arrows of Detonation (boring but fast, and I do love fast). I'll probably sneak past almost everything in Spellhold and spam magic attacks at Irenicus and/or use Dimension Door to find safety in one of the pods in the chamber (I think it may be possible to escape the reach of any planetars he might summon). The only interesting fights will be the Kuo-toa, the mind flayer ambush, Bodhi, and the final fight in Hell. Since I can revisit old areas in ToB, there's no need to fight Kangaxx or the Twisted Rune anytime soon.
Shadows of Amn has been the easiest part of this run by far, but you should never underestimate your opponent. Death can come from the most mundane sources you can imagine. A Carrion Crawler or a Hobgoblin can waste any Bhaalspawn with a save vs. death or save vs. spell of 2, a Maze trap can go right through your Minor Spell Deflection, a Cloud of Bats could disable your spellcasting if you don't equip the Belt of Inertial Barrier in time...
God, I've missed BG2. After Belhifet, I'm glad the game is no longer a challenge.
The other Battle Horror from the path and all the ghasts inside the Tower were backstabbed before Frere ventured onto the roof. Using the PfP scroll from the Carnival he dealt with the basilisks there, gaining level 7 in the process.
For the final push to regain his fighting levels, Frere went to find some more basilisks. Korax was recruited and successfully dealt with Mutamin and the northern basilisks to get the XP Frere needed.
Frere repurchased the boots of stealth - giving him over 100% stealth - and headed for the Nashkel Mine. After doing so much hard work to that point he tried to take it easy there by just sneaking through to the third level. The danger doing that is the kobold shaman and indeed he cast oracle. Frere was out of sight of anything when he did that, but the text didn't show his stealth had been dispelled and the stealth button was still lit so it seemed as though he was still in the shadows. That wasn't the case, however, as a kobold reacted as soon as he moved into sight. As that wasn't entirely unexpected Frere was able to do a quick armor change and his plate provided enough protection for him to run through the hordes to find a quiet spot and restealth.
After killing the kobolds outside Mulahey's cave, Frere dealt with the four inside before activating Mulahey with a stealth shot. He waited for the summoned troops to gather round the cleric before picking half a dozen of the opposition off one by one as they wandered around a bit - that included a rarity in LoB with a one-shot backstab. Gloating over that proved fatal, however, when I was distracted by writing a note and failed to react instantly when Mulahey suddenly appeared having apparently heard the kobold's grunt as it died. I tried making a first use of a PfM scroll, but the momentary delay in doing that meant that Mulahey had already launched his spell when the scroll took effect ...
Charmed (1) Brennan in the Den of Seven Vales, rested, then charmed (1) Amon. Started putting traps with Brennan, but he killed himself trying to put them on. Well getting the Sandthief Ring was easy.
Amon dominated (1) both Orcslicer and Pooky, who then killed Mencar.
Then Orcslicer killed Pooky and I smacked Orcslicer with DS, Duhm, Speed and 3 Extra Health potions.
Trademeet, killed the animals just in time as my 6th and last of Scimitars broke, damn these are awful. Druid Grove, Ring of Invisibility, and got the Belm +2, finally unbreakable weapon and plus one apr. Achieved a lot with this push, Ring of Charm, Nymph Cloak, 20 Cha, Full Plate, Belm +2 (+1 apr), 10k gold, Cloak of Non Detection and Ring of Invisibility.
De'Arnise Keep, Trolls were easy pray 1on1, with invisibility looted the place. Tried to charm Glaicus but it didn't work, then tried to tank him, nope, drank invisbility, waited his haste to end, and then kited him with arrows. Had to waste two invisibility potions in here but gained a lot of loot, FoA +3, Elven Court Bow +3 and Frostreaver +3. After selling the loot, bying Shield of Balduran and one PfU, I still have 4k gold left. Time to smack some Gauths, a lot of Gauths!
Next stop was Irenicus in Spellhold. In the past this was sometimes tricky but with good old Far Sight Krell send in his Spirit Lions to bring the evil mage down to 1 HP before going upstairs. The result of this: Once you get in with all the crazy mages and the talking finishes the fight is over as well as the final speech of Irenicus nearly immediately triggers. Easy!
The Underdark was skipped by Harmonizing Adalon and getting the finishing blow with his summons. Getting out was more problematic. While the Kua Toas could not touch the summons the Mages and Demons blocked the passage heavily and managed to kill Krell one time cause he rushed things too hard. Therefore he switched his tactic and lured them away in small groups so the Spirit Wolves, Deva and Elemental Pince could handle them easily. With only few demons left he used Spirit Bears as decoy and slipped through hasted by Energy Blades...
Bodhi was quite funny as the vampires died like flies against Spirit Lions and especially the instakilling Deva so after triggering the talking Krell lured the vampires away from her to kill them in the corridor one by one. Even though this took some time Bodhi was finally on her own. Now it was all about: Let the summons get in to soak her attention and rush in fast to harm her down. Thanks to her magic resistance 20+ rests were needed before Bodhi went down to 1 HP the second time. With three more Lions and a Deva rushing in the vampire queen did not last long even though she regenerates like crazy...
Suldanessalar was surprisingly easy. Use invisibility to skip most Rakshasas, collect the items while giving all of possessions (good joke!) to the dragon Krell headed to the temple. There he buffed, went in and out to let Glabrezu waste his remove magic and lured it to the exit where it got killed by Harm – Exit – Energy Blades. Same for the Mage. Once Harm landed Krell rushed out waiting for the protections to expire and switfly killed him with Energy Blades out of invisibility. The Rakshasa and Iron Golem proved to be no more challenge especially as the first one could not touch the Spirit Summons. Once another Deva rolled in the Golem crumbled to dust.
Next was Irenicus on top of the Tree of Life. This one was funny again as Krell retreated quickly soaking up Remove Magic while always using Far Sight to get a clear view of Irenicus position. Then the Nymphs rolled in sacrificing themselves to let him waste all of his spells and summons. After some waiting and recasting Krell switched to Fire Elementals, then Spirit Wolves and even before the Deva could get in Irenicus went down pulling Krell into Hell...
Time for the final confrontation!
Btw you tested this once, did Blackrazor work against Mel? I'm now at the point of do I take Long Swords or not.