Thanks for correcting this @CrevsDaak! Cold damage works - only 50% resistance. And immune to fire - but thats a nobrainer, no?
This means: Yaga-Shura will most probably survive the Skull Trap Horror. Bringing him down with Wands of Frost will be funny while running away from Amelyssan and her summons...
Oh what I would do to wear a helmet. Been killing ankhegs for the last little while and the shield amulet has done wonders, but those criticals certainly do put an end to Kiera's journey pretty fast. At least for now I'm glad I'm not doing a no reload run.
Well I'll keep this one short. The Tenya situation has been sorted, possibly through a bit of luck. Just before she cast hold, a critical hit did enough damage to trigger Tenya's dialogue, fortunate for it didn't interrupt the cast and Kiera was held for a short while which would probably have spelled her doom. After this she went north to Ulgoth's, bought the greenstone amulet and recharged her shield amulet. Finally off down south to deal with a bounty. Bassilus was successfully killed through the lovely use of algernon's cloak's charm. She used bassilus to take down the 3 named hobgoblins then used his own air servant against him quickly slaughtering him and collecting his symbol. Off to Beregost to collect the bounty and that'll have to do for the moment. Next step will be to collect the con and charisma tomes, hit level 7 then go kill Mulahey. I think next character I play is going to have to be a thief or mage variant, I miss having other fun abilities to use too much. But we'll see if we make SoA. If Kiera survives that long then I may not have to worry
Yaga-Shura: He is the Warriors Bane as he not only got 1930 (?) HP but also 99% resistance to all kinds of physical damage. This means: Magic or elemental damage is essential!
He has 99% resistance against *any* type of damage except Cold, for which he has 50% I think, or maybe it was -50%. Or maybe just 0%, I don't quite remember.
You can just Wand of Cold him to death. It takes a long time but it's doable.
Except that warriors can't use the wand of frost... The more I learn about this challenge the stronger my apprehension that Monks may lack the versatility required for this challenge. I may be mistaken though, as I've said, Annick is my first Monk. Even if I were to allow reloads, which I've been considering, Annick would not be able to finish Yaga: 10 uses of Frozen Fist won't do much (in theory 400 damage, but that would require all attacks to be made, without ever retreating, and all hits to land, impossible). And there isn't much else that a Monk can use that gives good cold damage. Does Blackrazor level drain work on him? Maybe warrior Charnames are better off recruiting Bodhi in lieu of Balthazar? She may be able to level drain Yaga-Shura.
Also, Ilasera is a serious concern for Annick because they won't be able to use the Reflection Shield.
I think the five are only immune to intelligence drain, because time stop & mind flayer is such a commn strategy. Btw, @Harpagornis , I had a look at some old Ascension threads, and your bounty hunter missed out on one weapon: one of Haer'Dalis swords drains dexterity on hit, which means you could use it to stat-drain the five.
I'm not sure what weapon enchantment requirements apply to the Five, but if +2 is enough, then Haer'Dalis's Chaos blade is certainly a useful item. It can also be upgraded to +3 with the Item Upgrades mod.
I can't help you with your question about the Wand of Wonder. Ha, after all this time I'm afraid there's still more I don't know than I do know about this game...
I think the five are only immune to intelligence drain, because time stop & mind flayer is such a commn strategy. Btw, @Harpagornis , I had a look at some old Ascension threads, and your bounty hunter missed out on one weapon: one of Haer'Dalis swords drains dexterity on hit, which means you could use it to stat-drain the five.
Does that mean Kachiko's wakizashi that can be bought from Joluv in the Copper Coronet would work? That drains wisdom (although I believe it's a save vs spell effect). I also can't remember if it's a +2 or +3. But that could be a weapon of choice for characters without Use Any Item to use Haer'Dalis's sword.
I did a short test: The Dex Drain from Haer'Dalis Short Sword is able to kill all of the Big Five while Melissan is untouchable. This means: Kill Yaga-Shura with the Dex Drain and the rest - hopefully - with Skull Trap spamming. Kachikos Wisdom Drain + GWW might be the only way for Warriors as it seem even through i havent tested it. Will have to wait until later as i am short on time!
As Dex Drain works great thanks to no save and the duration of 5 rounds i looked at Kachikos Wisdom Drain. The main problem - as pointed out earlier - is that the effect only lasts two rounds and it allows a save vs death. I looked at the stats of the Big Five with Ctrl+Q here are the results.
Yaga-Shura: Wisdom -> 10 Save vs Death -> 8 Sendai: Wisdom -> 19 Save vs Death -> -3 Abazigal: Wisdom -> 13 Save vs Death -> 2 Gromnir: Wisdom -> 10 Save vs Death -> 7 Illasera: Wisdom -> 14 Save vs Death -> 1
The good news: There is a realistic chance for Warriors to take down Yaga-Shura with GWW as well as Gromnir. The rest looks pretty hard but from my experience i know that constant GWW spamming with Flail of Ages is able to kill them without any draining effect.
This still leaves Melissan open. She looks untouchable to everything but Harm - which is out of reach for Korgath. Or is there a secret Harm-Scroll waiting somewhere? Or an item i am missing? Will Feeblemind work?
@Harpagornis, Mel has a very nice amulet (FINMEL01.ITM): it renders her immune to Charm, Panic, Slay/Death effects, Feeblemind, Disease, Confusion, Petrification, Polymorph, Maze, Imprisonment, Level Drain, Wing Buffet, Disintegrate, Sleep, Berserk, Teleport Field, Silence, Entangle, Web, and Grease effects as well as all spells of level 1 and 2.
Interestingly though she seems vulnerable to stun effects. She has 90 MR and her saves are 2/3/2/3/4. With scrolls of Lower Resistance/Pierce Magic, and Greater Malison, you might be able to stun her with the wand of paralyzation. She's immune to backstab, so your Assassination HLA shouldn't work on her, but with the scarlett ninja-to in the off hand for an extra attack in the main hand, plus improved haste (from scrolls, upgraded cloak of protection +2, ring of gaxx), you might be able to take her down.
EDIT: ok, I'm leaving my Monk for now. I want to try with a character I really consider capable of going all the way. I'm thinking either Blade (as per Rogue Rebalancing) or continuing my Fighter/Illusionist that's currently awaiting instructions in Nashkel. Any preferences? Or maybe other suggestions?
Its really interesting that the devs put so many immunities on Mel (and other bosses) but are always forgetting about "Harm". Its nearly and instakill and once it lands on Mel the final cutscene immediately triggers. No way to get it for Korgath?
Blade would be very cool @Blackraven. Fighter/Illusionist is just too OP in your hands - your choice!
Not to forget: Will test the stun option - hopefully today!
New tests have shown: The Answerer +4 works great!!!! Combined with Greater Malison + Wand of Paralyzation + Improved Haste Melissan can be stunlocked quite long. Maybe its time to put all pieces together and bring an end to Melissan once and for all.
Okay, after running some more fights against Melissan it should be possible to keep her in stunlock long enough to avoid the multiple Demon Gating. There is defintely some dice luck needed but Korgath managed to solve this part after several tries! One thing he had to learn was to summon Mordi Swords only after she was stunned thanks to her Death Spells. Once she was surrounded by Mordis her HP bar went down pretty fast! Now its time to test some tactics against the Big Five in practice - this should be funny!
I have tested a bit more beating the Big Five and it looks like things are not that easy. Two main problems are remaining:
1. Sendai is impossible to kill with Skull Trap stacking thanks to 599 HP & 84 % MR. Also Abazigal is hard to take down thanks to 1000+ HP & 50% MR so killing both groups of the Big Five is not possible for Korgath. 2. Meliissan appears immediately once the first of the Big Five goes down - regardless of Time Stop freeze. Even worse: With her appearance the Time Stop is negated bringing everyone back to action!!
Would have been too easy no?
EDIT: Korgath found possible solutions: - Two Time Stop Traps - one south near Melissan - will make sure that Time is frozen again immediately once she has shown up - Delayed Blast Fireballs will not be resisted that much and - combined with poison traps - will hurt Aba, Gromnir & Illasera a lot
EDIT 2: - Undead Warriors work great vs Melissan thanks to their DR & MR. This gave Korgath enough time to drain Sendai & Yaga-Shura - Main problem remains: Melissan has all the time in the world to gate in Demons or Fallen Solars before the stunlock is ready
Korgath the Bounty Hunter vs Melissan & The Big Five
Finally its done – Korgath has taken down the Big Five and banished Melissan once and for all. But it was a long and painful path...
Here the detailed strategy that put him through:
1. Set up two Time Stop Traps - one near Yaga-Shura and the second south of the area where Melissan will show up.
2. Set up five normal traps and use Simulacrums from Scrolls/Helm to stack Skull Traps & Delayed Blast Fireballs in the eastern area where Abazigal, Gromnir & Illasera will appear. Even with 150+ Skull Traps and around 30 Fireballs Abazigal will most likely survive the explosions – pray that the trap damage will take him down (Chance to kill all three with the above setting: ~50%). EDIT: When using Project Image for even more SKull Traps + Delayed Blast Fireballs the killing chance will go up significantly!
3. Summon five Skeleton Warriors around the zone where Melissan will show up. They will not only soak up a lot of damage but will also distract Melissan from casting Time Stop herself. Thanks to their high MR Melissan will not use Death Spell – which would banish Mordi Swords with ease.
4. Once the battle has started Abazigal, Gromnir & Illasera should be dead thanks to the endless explosions. Now the first Time Trap will trigger which will give you enough time for moving up to Yaga-Shura and getting the first hits.with your Dex-Draining-Chaos Blade from Haer`Dalis. Just make sure that you have prebuffed yourself with Oil of Speed plus Improved Haste from a scroll! Why Yaga-Shura first? He is the one with the lowest Dex Skill – only 15 – so you will need just two rounds draining him to death (4 APR using Belm in offhand while draining 2 Dex per hit = 8 Dex per round drained).
5. Now Melissan will appear with a cutscene that will break your Time Stop. As you already have moved away to Yaga-Shura she will start to attack the Skeleton Warriors – thanks to their 50% DR she will need some time to take them down. After the cutscene the second Time Stop Trap will trigger immediately freezing everyone but Melissan and preventing Sendai from prebuffing!
6. This is the moment where the Time Stop + Dex-Drain-Train starts to roll. Just make sure that Time Stop will never end by counting the rounds - items that reduce casting time like Robes of Vecna and Amulet of Power will now prove to be very helpful. You will need two rounds for Yaga-Shura (15 Dex), two rounds and one hit for Sarevok (17 Dex) as well as two and a half round for Sendai (19 Dex). With perfect timing three Time Stops will do the job – four if you want to play it safe. If Melissan starts her Presio chant you are forced to use your Anti-Time-Stop special ability so you might have to use another Time Stop. If luck is on your side you can also interrupt her Time Stop cast when killing one of the Big Five (or Sarevok). With each death she will be stunned for half a round which will buy you very precious time.
7. Once Yaga-Shura, Saverok and finally Sendai have been dex-drained to death its time to challenge Melissan herself. As some of your Skeleton Warriors should be still in action you will have some more rounds to prepare the stunlock. If you feel confident start to attack her with the Answerer +4 Longsword which will drain 15 % MR with each hit for four rounds (but make sure to protect yourself with Stone Skin, Mirror Images or Protection from Magical Weapons). As the hit chance even of a fully buffed Bounty Hunter will be only around 50% it might be safer to start with multiple Lower Resistances – each one will decrease her 95% MR by 20%. Follow up with Greater Malison – this will push her Save vs Wands from 4 up to 8. As the Wand of Paralyzation will add up another -4 malus her Save vs Wands will now be 12 which will give you a pretty good chance to stun her! EDIT: With Tensers Transformation your Hit Chance will rise significantly making the Lower Resistance cast redundant.
8. As the debuffing takes several rounds Melissan will have more than enough time to take out all of your Skeleton Warriors. Thats good and bad. Good because you now have five free summon slots and bad because she will start attacking you. A Protection from Magical Weapons will make sure that you can complete the debuffing so the fun with Wand of Paralyzation can start. Not to forget: If Melissan uses Absolute Immunity you might consider to counter it with Breach - or just continue with debuffing as it will expire soon enough. Its all about timing!
9. Once Melissan is stunned the rest is „quite easy“. Summon five Mordi Swords and Haste them up while switching to Dual Wielding with Answerer +4 and any +4 or +5 weapon available. The Mordi Swords will constantly double-hitting Melissan for 4 or 6 damage – that adds up really fast! Use all improved Hastes you still have available and reapply the stun from time to time (i usually start to reuse it after six or seven rounds just to make sure that some lucky saves will not get Melissan out of the stunlock). Even when everything works perfect it will still take some time to beat Melissan down thanks to 1798 HP and 90% DR. Resummon the Mordi Swords if needed and reapply Greater Malison. Thanks to 100 charges you should never be in any danger running out of stuns from the Wand. Just continue with the stunlock and banish big bad Melissan once and for all...
Including the tests Korgath has died dozens (hundreds?) of times before everything worked perfectly fine. The total killer in this rather long fight is the phase between Melissan joining the fight and the beginning of the stunlock. If you are unlucky she will use this time to either summon big hordes of Demons and/or gate in two Fallen Solars. If this happens you will get overwhelmed in no time. Whenever i saw the Multi-Demon-Gate i thought: Nooo, not again – and immediately pressed the reload button. After doing this fight over and over again it seems that the timing for gating is completly random. Sometimes she gates in the Demons right after joining the battle sometimes she uses the Demons only when dropping down to nearly dead. To make it short: This part of the battle is just luck while the rest is quite logical and „pretty easy“ after getting some experience. However: I wont do this fight again in the next weeks as it has soaked up time over time. How often have i seen the final cutscene talking? Too often! But one thing to remember is that any Mage-Class should have the best chances here thanks to their superiour utility. Without the „Use any Item“ ability Korgath would have been doomed – thats for sure. However: Time for another cup of tea – and finally some resting!
Harpagornis. I bow to your knowledge, expertise and sheer tenacity . Here's a few comments / questions on your approach to Mel:
Set up five normal traps and use Simulacrums from Scrolls/Helm to stack Skull Traps & Delayed Blast Fireballs in the eastern area where Abazigal, Gromnir & Illasera will appear. Even with 150+ Skull Traps and around 30 Fireballs Abazigal will most likely survive the explosions – pray that the trap damage will take him down (Chance of success to kill all three with the above setting: ~50%)
I believe that the 'exploit' allowing project images to use quickslot items still exists. If that's so you could use them as well as simmys if you want to make 100% sure of Abazigal.
4. Summon five Skeleton Warriors around the zone where Melissan will show up. They will not only soak up a lot of damage but will also distract Melissan from casting Time Stop herself. Thanks to their high MR Melissan will not use Death Spell – which would banish Mordi Swords with ease.
I'm surprised by this. Death Spell banishes summons irrespective of MR, so I would have expected Mel to use that pretty much immediately (I've never played Mel with SCS running, but she gets rid of summons very quickly in basic EE).
Just make sure that you have prebuffed yourself with Oil of Speed plus Improved Haste!
Is the Oil of Speed referred to just to make sure your speed doesn't decrease if Improved Haste runs out (I'm assuming that they don't work in conjunction in your installation, though I know someone has recently been posting about bugs associated with haste).
Once Yaga-Shura, Saverok and finally Sendai have been dex-drained to death its time to challenge Melissan herself. As some of your Skeleton Warriors should be still in action you will have some more rounds to prepare the stunlock. If you feel confident start to attack her with the Answerer +4 Longsword which will drain 15 % MR with each hit for four rounds (but make sure to protect yourself with Stone Skin, Mirror Images or Protection from Magical Weapons). As the hit chance even of a fully buffed Bounty Hunter will be only around 50% it might be safer to start with multiple Lower Resistances – each one will decrease her 95% MR by 20%. Follow up with Greater Malison – this will push her Save vs Wands from 4 up to 8. As the Wand of Paralyzation will add up another -4 malus her Save vs Wands will now be 12 which will give you a 60% chance to stun her!
Does Mel's weapon not dispel? Assuming it does then PfMW would be a better bet than Stone Skin. As a thief you could buff with Tenser's - since you're not casting anyway that has no downsides. Together with Giant Strength, DUHM and Potion of Power I imagine that will allow you to hit her with a 2. That would make using the Answerer a better option than mucking about with Lower Resistances.
Thanks for the input @Grond0 - looks like there are still some details that can be improved!
You are right - damn. I have several Project Image scrolls but i never used them cause i thought that they would not be able to use quickslot items. But they can! Holy cow - this makes things even easier!!!
For some strange reason - at least in my installation - Melissan never uses Death Spell against the Skeleton Warriors. Maybe the AI looks at the MR and thinks "wont work" and skips the casting. However: She uses it nearly instantly against Mordi or Fire Elementals!
Oil of Speed lasts much longer yes. Its not really needed but i wanted to make sure to be at max speed all the time - if Melissan tries her teleport + attack trick!
You are right that Stone Skin + Mirror Image wont last long against Melissan but it might give you the second you need for getting Protection from Magical Weapons up - you know i am an old guy, no?
Tensers is a good option - yes! I always wanted to use it - but once things began to work quite well i completly forgot about that option! Tensers + The Answerer should be the way to go then!!!
You're welcome Harpagornis. Of course I'm only trying to help in the fond expectation that the next stage of your development will be to no-reload your challenge .
Congratulations @Harpagornis!!! Great, great work! And a very insightful post. Months ago you started this thread asking yourself whether it was possible to do this, and now you have the answer!
- Did you really use 150 Skull Traps? How? That's a lot of scrolls! (1.) - Like Grond0 I'm used to (SCS) casters using Death Spell to get rid of summons, regardless of MR, so am surprised that Mel didn't. It's something to keep in mind though. - I think SCS has one component that prevents clones from using consumable items such as potions, scrolls etc. (I have it installed in my game.) - I agree wih your decision to use oils of speed to stay at max speed at all times for optimal movement options. Haste also halves scroll casting time btw, so the oils may have helped you there too. - What armor were you wearing? I think I've read somewhere that casting speed bonuses from items (Robe of Vecna, Amulet of Power) also apply to spells cast from scrolls in the Enhanced Editions. Ok, did some searching, @semiticgod mentioned it here. - I love the Dex drain and the wand of paralyzation approach! - And I second Grond0's suggestion of going no-reload. If there's anyone who can pull that of, it's you @Harpagornis!
This has the following implications: - starts out with *** in two-weapon fighting (not too consequential in BG1/SoD as Mordica will generally lack the tankiness for close combat, but surely useful in BG2 where it will open up a couple more weapon options), - gets a weapons display ability that lowers enemy morale and raises party morale (almost useless since it requires Mordica to stand still for a full round, and it allows enemies an unmodified save vs spell while foes with more levels than Mordica don't even need to save to avoid the effect), - can eventually cast up to level 8 spells (clearly a tweak compared to vanilla, though I've also installed CDTweaks' enhanced spell progression, unnerfed Thac0 progression, and true grandmastery, so all enemies gain more spells, better Thac0 and more attacks, whatever is applicable), - special bardic HLAs (these include a Spirit Warrior summon and the Whirlwind ability, which look attractive; on the other hand the Enhanced Bard Song and all high level traps, including the time traps I love, are replaced by a number of special songs the effects of which enemies will probably save against).
The first stage of the game consisted of Mordica slaying the rogue ogre for the invaluable girdle of piercing and roaming the Sword Coast in search of items and XP that could be acquired though little or no fighting. Mordica survived Tenya only by virtue of being a level 1 character. (Level 1 characters can't be one-shotted.)
At level 4 she bought a Find Familiar scroll from Thalantyr and read it to get a Pseudo Dragon pet and a 34 HP increase. She also purchased an Invisibility scroll from Thalantyr that she successfully scribed into her book without drinking any INT boosters. This allowed her to cast Invisibility on her familiar, and direct it toward choke points from where she could attack melee enemies without risk and without having to kite. Examples are Landin's Spiders, the Ogrillons south of Beregost, Greywolf, and Meilum. Mordica did not attack Shoal because that just didn't feel right for a NG character. And she left Melicamp alone as well so that no bad omen could be seen in any failure on Thalantyr's part to retransform Melicamp.
With a composite shortbow +2 bought at the Ulgoth's Beard inn (courtesy of Rogue Rebalancing), her wands of fire and frost, and using seven potions of mirrored eyes, Mordica dispatched the four basilisks at Durlag's Tower. The wand of fire also served to destroy two Battle Horrors near the Tower. Mordica reached level 8 in Mutamin's garden, where the basilisks plus Mutamin were slain with the help of Korax, while Kirian and her men made short work of each other thanks to Algernon's cloak and Greagan's Harp
Btw Mordica's level 4 and 8 weapon proficencies went to hammers (for blunt damage with Ashideena) and long swords (because SoD has a few good long swords I believe).
At level 8 she decided against farming XP from Sirens, Ankhegs, or Flesh Golems. She visited the Nashkel Mines instead. She made it to Mulahey's lair invisibly, rested to get her casting of Invisibility back, buffed (her standard buff was: Shield, MSD, PfE, MI, greenstone amulet, and offensive spin for haste), and pondered which disabler would have the highest chance of succes against the Half-Orc: Greagan's Harp, Algernon's cloak or the wand of paralyzation. Mordica went with the latter and managed to freeze the priest in one go. She then finished him with Drizzt's scimitars.
She looted the tombs, had the Amnian soldiers kill Nimbul for her, and charmed Neira so that her own skeleton warrior would finish her.
Tranzig was charmed as well, and forced to waste his most dangerous spells. Before Mordica slew him he drank two potions of inivisibility that she would have liked to take from his corpse. He also hit her a few times with his staff, so Mordica traveled to the Cloudpeaks to get Krumm's girdle of bluntness, relying once more on her charms to play the brothers off against each other.
Mordica was hesitant to take on Lamalha's group, before she decided to give it a go. She buffed and charmed Zeela, but the priestess remembered her allegiance to Lamalha when the latter addressed Mordica.
Lamalha summoned a skeleton warrrior, Mordica went invisible, and summoned monsters with her wand. She also pulled off a second charming of Zeela, who promptly Held Lamalha. The summons kept the rogues busy, and interrupted Zeela when her charm had expired and she wanted to remove the Hold effect from Lamalha.
Three charges of the wand of paralyzation helped Mordica prevail, even though the skeleton complicated things a bit.
Vax and Zal were finished with the help of the wand of paralyzation, but we ignored the male bounty hunters because of an overcrowded inventory and because they don't drop any really good loot anyway. Mordica sold some loot and paid Thalantyr 4k GP to craft a ring of protection +2 from to +1 protections, a diamond and two pearls.
She then hitch-hiked with Teven to the Bandit Camp, where she had a somewhat frustrating battle in Tazok's tent. Her buffs were Removed by Venkt after he saved against Algernon's charm, and she suffered several critical hits (three or four from poisonous Hobgoblin arrows) even though she had stayed away from most of the enemy archers, leaving the front line to wand summons. It took her four more wand of summoning charges and some wand of fire scorching to prevail. She left the camp invisibly.
Before moving on to Cloakwood, Mordica charmed Bassilus with her harp, and had him fight his own skeleton warrior, a fight he would not win. She then traveled through Cloakwood invisibly, stopping only to bring Chelak's body to Tiber and to pick up Spider's Bane, whose Free Action now negates Haste I discovered.
Mordica charmed Kysus with Algernon's cloak and had him use his spells against his own comrades,
before wand summons finished him off.
Rezdan too was done in by summons. Mordica rested and found Drasus the next day, far from the entrance he was supposed to be guarding. Thankfully there were no other guards in the immediate vicinity, so Mordica buffed, using up her last oil of speed, summoned monsters, and finished the wearer of the boots of speed.
Eager to take advantage of her temporary super speed (oil + boots), Mordica did not rest, but went straight for Davaeorn. She protected herself with two potions of magic resistance, and would have moved upstairs to escape a Remove Magic if it weren't for incoming guards that held her up. Debuffed, she cast the only spell she had left, MSD, and decided to rely on potions and greenstone charges for protection. She scorchered the Battle Horrors to reach level 9, and fireballed the guards from afar. Davaeorn himself injured her with Magic Missiles and Chromatic Orbs, but succumbed eventually to wand of frost rays, wand of fire scorchers, and ice arrows.
Mordica was last seen doing some shopping in the city of Baldur's Gate.
She then traveled through Cloakwood invisibly, stopping only to bring Chelak's body to Tiber and to pick up Spider's Bane, whose Free Action now negates Haste I discovered.
Did you try casting haste before equipping the sword? I think if you add free action after the spell is cast then you still get the extra attack, although it doesn't work the other way round.
She then traveled through Cloakwood invisibly, stopping only to bring Chelak's body to Tiber and to pick up Spider's Bane, whose Free Action now negates Haste I discovered.
Did you try casting haste before equipping the sword? I think if you add free action after the spell is cast then you still get the extra attack, although it doesn't work the other way round.
You're right. Just tested this. It now works like regular free action (like the spell and the potions). E.g. it negates boots of speed 'haste'.
Comments
This means: Yaga-Shura will most probably survive the Skull Trap Horror. Bringing him down with Wands of Frost will be funny while running away from Amelyssan and her summons...
The Tenya situation has been sorted, possibly through a bit of luck. Just before she cast hold, a critical hit did enough damage to trigger Tenya's dialogue, fortunate for it didn't interrupt the cast and Kiera was held for a short while which would probably have spelled her doom.
After this she went north to Ulgoth's, bought the greenstone amulet and recharged her shield amulet. Finally off down south to deal with a bounty.
Bassilus was successfully killed through the lovely use of algernon's cloak's charm. She used bassilus to take down the 3 named hobgoblins then used his own air servant against him quickly slaughtering him and collecting his symbol. Off to Beregost to collect the bounty and that'll have to do for the moment.
Next step will be to collect the con and charisma tomes, hit level 7 then go kill Mulahey.
I think next character I play is going to have to be a thief or mage variant, I miss having other fun abilities to use too much. But we'll see if we make SoA. If Kiera survives that long then I may not have to worry
Even if I were to allow reloads, which I've been considering, Annick would not be able to finish Yaga: 10 uses of Frozen Fist won't do much (in theory 400 damage, but that would require all attacks to be made, without ever retreating, and all hits to land, impossible). And there isn't much else that a Monk can use that gives good cold damage. Does Blackrazor level drain work on him? Maybe warrior Charnames are better off recruiting Bodhi in lieu of Balthazar? She may be able to level drain Yaga-Shura.
Also, Ilasera is a serious concern for Annick because they won't be able to use the Reflection Shield.
It can also be upgraded to +3 with the Item Upgrades mod.
I can't help you with your question about the Wand of Wonder. Ha, after all this time I'm afraid there's still more I don't know than I do know about this game...
Yaga-Shura: Wisdom -> 10 Save vs Death -> 8
Sendai: Wisdom -> 19 Save vs Death -> -3
Abazigal: Wisdom -> 13 Save vs Death -> 2
Gromnir: Wisdom -> 10 Save vs Death -> 7
Illasera: Wisdom -> 14 Save vs Death -> 1
The good news: There is a realistic chance for Warriors to take down Yaga-Shura with GWW as well as Gromnir. The rest looks pretty hard but from my experience i know that constant GWW spamming with Flail of Ages is able to kill them without any draining effect.
This still leaves Melissan open. She looks untouchable to everything but Harm - which is out of reach for Korgath. Or is there a secret Harm-Scroll waiting somewhere? Or an item i am missing? Will Feeblemind work?
Interestingly though she seems vulnerable to stun effects. She has 90 MR and her saves are 2/3/2/3/4. With scrolls of Lower Resistance/Pierce Magic, and Greater Malison, you might be able to stun her with the wand of paralyzation. She's immune to backstab, so your Assassination HLA shouldn't work on her, but with the scarlett ninja-to in the off hand for an extra attack in the main hand, plus improved haste (from scrolls, upgraded cloak of protection +2, ring of gaxx), you might be able to take her down.
EDIT: ok, I'm leaving my Monk for now. I want to try with a character I really consider capable of going all the way. I'm thinking either Blade (as per Rogue Rebalancing) or continuing my Fighter/Illusionist that's currently awaiting instructions in Nashkel. Any preferences? Or maybe other suggestions?
Blade would be very cool @Blackraven. Fighter/Illusionist is just too OP in your hands - your choice!
Not to forget: Will test the stun option - hopefully today!
Lower Resistances + Greater Malison + Wand of Paralyzation = Stunned Melissan
More and more options are rising for Korgath with every test - thats great!!
1. Sendai is impossible to kill with Skull Trap stacking thanks to 599 HP & 84 % MR. Also Abazigal is hard to take down thanks to 1000+ HP & 50% MR so killing both groups of the Big Five is not possible for Korgath.
2. Meliissan appears immediately once the first of the Big Five goes down - regardless of Time Stop freeze. Even worse: With her appearance the Time Stop is negated bringing everyone back to action!!
Would have been too easy no?
EDIT: Korgath found possible solutions:
- Two Time Stop Traps - one south near Melissan - will make sure that Time is frozen again immediately once she has shown up
- Delayed Blast Fireballs will not be resisted that much and - combined with poison traps - will hurt Aba, Gromnir & Illasera a lot
EDIT 2:
- Undead Warriors work great vs Melissan thanks to their DR & MR. This gave Korgath enough time to drain Sendai & Yaga-Shura
- Main problem remains: Melissan has all the time in the world to gate in Demons or Fallen Solars before the stunlock is ready
Korgath the Bounty Hunter vs Melissan & The Big Five
Finally its done – Korgath has taken down the Big Five and banished Melissan once and for all. But it was a long and painful path...Here the detailed strategy that put him through:
1. Set up two Time Stop Traps - one near Yaga-Shura and the second south of the area where Melissan will show up.
2. Set up five normal traps and use Simulacrums from Scrolls/Helm to stack Skull Traps & Delayed Blast Fireballs in the eastern area where Abazigal, Gromnir & Illasera will appear. Even with 150+ Skull Traps and around 30 Fireballs Abazigal will most likely survive the explosions – pray that the trap damage will take him down (Chance to kill all three with the above setting: ~50%). EDIT: When using Project Image for even more SKull Traps + Delayed Blast Fireballs the killing chance will go up significantly!
3. Summon five Skeleton Warriors around the zone where Melissan will show up. They will not only soak up a lot of damage but will also distract Melissan from casting Time Stop herself. Thanks to their high MR Melissan will not use Death Spell – which would banish Mordi Swords with ease.
4. Once the battle has started Abazigal, Gromnir & Illasera should be dead thanks to the endless explosions. Now the first Time Trap will trigger which will give you enough time for moving up to Yaga-Shura and getting the first hits.with your Dex-Draining-Chaos Blade from Haer`Dalis. Just make sure that you have prebuffed yourself with Oil of Speed plus Improved Haste from a scroll! Why Yaga-Shura first? He is the one with the lowest Dex Skill – only 15 – so you will need just two rounds draining him to death (4 APR using Belm in offhand while draining 2 Dex per hit = 8 Dex per round drained).
5. Now Melissan will appear with a cutscene that will break your Time Stop. As you already have moved away to Yaga-Shura she will start to attack the Skeleton Warriors – thanks to their 50% DR she will need some time to take them down. After the cutscene the second Time Stop Trap will trigger immediately freezing everyone but Melissan and preventing Sendai from prebuffing!
6. This is the moment where the Time Stop + Dex-Drain-Train starts to roll. Just make sure that Time Stop will never end by counting the rounds - items that reduce casting time like Robes of Vecna and Amulet of Power will now prove to be very helpful. You will need two rounds for Yaga-Shura (15 Dex), two rounds and one hit for Sarevok (17 Dex) as well as two and a half round for Sendai (19 Dex). With perfect timing three Time Stops will do the job – four if you want to play it safe. If Melissan starts her Presio chant you are forced to use your Anti-Time-Stop special ability so you might have to use another Time Stop. If luck is on your side you can also interrupt her Time Stop cast when killing one of the Big Five (or Sarevok). With each death she will be stunned for half a round which will buy you very precious time.
7. Once Yaga-Shura, Saverok and finally Sendai have been dex-drained to death its time to challenge Melissan herself. As some of your Skeleton Warriors should be still in action you will have some more rounds to prepare the stunlock. If you feel confident start to attack her with the Answerer +4 Longsword which will drain 15 % MR with each hit for four rounds (but make sure to protect yourself with Stone Skin, Mirror Images or Protection from Magical Weapons). As the hit chance even of a fully buffed Bounty Hunter will be only around 50% it might be safer to start with multiple Lower Resistances – each one will decrease her 95% MR by 20%. Follow up with Greater Malison – this will push her Save vs Wands from 4 up to 8. As the Wand of Paralyzation will add up another -4 malus her Save vs Wands will now be 12 which will give you a pretty good chance to stun her! EDIT: With Tensers Transformation your Hit Chance will rise significantly making the Lower Resistance cast redundant.
8. As the debuffing takes several rounds Melissan will have more than enough time to take out all of your Skeleton Warriors. Thats good and bad. Good because you now have five free summon slots and bad because she will start attacking you. A Protection from Magical Weapons will make sure that you can complete the debuffing so the fun with Wand of Paralyzation can start. Not to forget: If Melissan uses Absolute Immunity you might consider to counter it with Breach - or just continue with debuffing as it will expire soon enough. Its all about timing!
9. Once Melissan is stunned the rest is „quite easy“. Summon five Mordi Swords and Haste them up while switching to Dual Wielding with Answerer +4 and any +4 or +5 weapon available. The Mordi Swords will constantly double-hitting Melissan for 4 or 6 damage – that adds up really fast! Use all improved Hastes you still have available and reapply the stun from time to time (i usually start to reuse it after six or seven rounds just to make sure that some lucky saves will not get Melissan out of the stunlock). Even when everything works perfect it will still take some time to beat Melissan down thanks to 1798 HP and 90% DR. Resummon the Mordi Swords if needed and reapply Greater Malison. Thanks to 100 charges you should never be in any danger running out of stuns from the Wand. Just continue with the stunlock and banish big bad Melissan once and for all...
Including the tests Korgath has died dozens (hundreds?) of times before everything worked perfectly fine. The total killer in this rather long fight is the phase between Melissan joining the fight and the beginning of the stunlock. If you are unlucky she will use this time to either summon big hordes of Demons and/or gate in two Fallen Solars. If this happens you will get overwhelmed in no time. Whenever i saw the Multi-Demon-Gate i thought: Nooo, not again – and immediately pressed the reload button. After doing this fight over and over again it seems that the timing for gating is completly random. Sometimes she gates in the Demons right after joining the battle sometimes she uses the Demons only when dropping down to nearly dead. To make it short: This part of the battle is just luck while the rest is quite logical and „pretty easy“ after getting some experience. However: I wont do this fight again in the next weeks as it has soaked up time over time. How often have i seen the final cutscene talking? Too often! But one thing to remember is that any Mage-Class should have the best chances here thanks to their superiour utility. Without the „Use any Item“ ability Korgath would have been doomed – thats for sure. However: Time for another cup of tea – and finally some resting!
I'm surprised by this. Death Spell banishes summons irrespective of MR, so I would have expected Mel to use that pretty much immediately (I've never played Mel with SCS running, but she gets rid of summons very quickly in basic EE).
Is the Oil of Speed referred to just to make sure your speed doesn't decrease if Improved Haste runs out (I'm assuming that they don't work in conjunction in your installation, though I know someone has recently been posting about bugs associated with haste).
Does Mel's weapon not dispel? Assuming it does then PfMW would be a better bet than Stone Skin. As a thief you could buff with Tenser's - since you're not casting anyway that has no downsides. Together with Giant Strength, DUHM and Potion of Power I imagine that will allow you to hit her with a 2. That would make using the Answerer a better option than mucking about with Lower Resistances.
You are right - damn. I have several Project Image scrolls but i never used them cause i thought that they would not be able to use quickslot items. But they can! Holy cow - this makes things even easier!!!
For some strange reason - at least in my installation - Melissan never uses Death Spell against the Skeleton Warriors. Maybe the AI looks at the MR and thinks "wont work" and skips the casting. However: She uses it nearly instantly against Mordi or Fire Elementals!
Oil of Speed lasts much longer yes. Its not really needed but i wanted to make sure to be at max speed all the time - if Melissan tries her teleport + attack trick!
You are right that Stone Skin + Mirror Image wont last long against Melissan but it might give you the second you need for getting Protection from Magical Weapons up - you know i am an old guy, no?
Tensers is a good option - yes! I always wanted to use it - but once things began to work quite well i completly forgot about that option! Tensers + The Answerer should be the way to go then!!!
Will put these infos into the OP - thanks again!
Hhhmmmmm.... why not? Will have to think about that one!
- Did you really use 150 Skull Traps? How? That's a lot of scrolls! (1.)
- Like Grond0 I'm used to (SCS) casters using Death Spell to get rid of summons, regardless of MR, so am surprised that Mel didn't. It's something to keep in mind though.
- I think SCS has one component that prevents clones from using consumable items such as potions, scrolls etc. (I have it installed in my game.)
- I agree wih your decision to use oils of speed to stay at max speed at all times for optimal movement options. Haste also halves scroll casting time btw, so the oils may have helped you there too.
- What armor were you wearing? I think I've read somewhere that casting speed bonuses from items (Robe of Vecna, Amulet of Power) also apply to spells cast from scrolls in the Enhanced Editions. Ok, did some searching, @semiticgod mentioned it here.
- I love the Dex drain and the wand of paralyzation approach!
- And I second Grond0's suggestion of going no-reload. If there's anyone who can pull that of, it's you @Harpagornis!
Here's a first report on my Blade Mordica:
- starts out with *** in two-weapon fighting (not too consequential in BG1/SoD as Mordica will generally lack the tankiness for close combat, but surely useful in BG2 where it will open up a couple more weapon options),
- gets a weapons display ability that lowers enemy morale and raises party morale (almost useless since it requires Mordica to stand still for a full round, and it allows enemies an unmodified save vs spell while foes with more levels than Mordica don't even need to save to avoid the effect),
- can eventually cast up to level 8 spells (clearly a tweak compared to vanilla, though I've also installed CDTweaks' enhanced spell progression, unnerfed Thac0 progression, and true grandmastery, so all enemies gain more spells, better Thac0 and more attacks, whatever is applicable),
- special bardic HLAs (these include a Spirit Warrior summon and the Whirlwind ability, which look attractive; on the other hand the Enhanced Bard Song and all high level traps, including the time traps I love, are replaced by a number of special songs the effects of which enemies will probably save against).
The first stage of the game consisted of Mordica slaying the rogue ogre for the invaluable girdle of piercing and roaming the Sword Coast in search of items and XP that could be acquired though little or no fighting. Mordica survived Tenya only by virtue of being a level 1 character. (Level 1 characters can't be one-shotted.)
With a composite shortbow +2 bought at the Ulgoth's Beard inn (courtesy of Rogue Rebalancing), her wands of fire and frost, and using seven potions of mirrored eyes, Mordica dispatched the four basilisks at Durlag's Tower. The wand of fire also served to destroy two Battle Horrors near the Tower.
Mordica reached level 8 in Mutamin's garden, where the basilisks plus Mutamin were slain with the help of Korax, while Kirian and her men made short work of each other thanks to Algernon's cloak and Greagan's Harp
Btw Mordica's level 4 and 8 weapon proficencies went to hammers (for blunt damage with Ashideena) and long swords (because SoD has a few good long swords I believe).
At level 8 she decided against farming XP from Sirens, Ankhegs, or Flesh Golems. She visited the Nashkel Mines instead. She made it to Mulahey's lair invisibly, rested to get her casting of Invisibility back, buffed (her standard buff was: Shield, MSD, PfE, MI, greenstone amulet, and offensive spin for haste), and pondered which disabler would have the highest chance of succes against the Half-Orc: Greagan's Harp, Algernon's cloak or the wand of paralyzation. Mordica went with the latter and managed to freeze the priest in one go. She then finished him with Drizzt's scimitars.
Mordica was hesitant to take on Lamalha's group, before she decided to give it a go. She buffed and charmed Zeela, but the priestess remembered her allegiance to Lamalha when the latter addressed Mordica.
She then hitch-hiked with Teven to the Bandit Camp, where she had a somewhat frustrating battle in Tazok's tent. Her buffs were Removed by Venkt after he saved against Algernon's charm, and she suffered several critical hits (three or four from poisonous Hobgoblin arrows) even though she had stayed away from most of the enemy archers, leaving the front line to wand summons. It took her four more wand of summoning charges and some wand of fire scorching to prevail. She left the camp invisibly.
Before moving on to Cloakwood, Mordica charmed Bassilus with her harp, and had him fight his own skeleton warrior, a fight he would not win. She then traveled through Cloakwood invisibly, stopping only to bring Chelak's body to Tiber and to pick up Spider's Bane, whose Free Action now negates Haste I discovered.
Mordica charmed Kysus with Algernon's cloak and had him use his spells against his own comrades,
Eager to take advantage of her temporary super speed (oil + boots), Mordica did not rest, but went straight for Davaeorn. She protected herself with two potions of magic resistance, and would have moved upstairs to escape a Remove Magic if it weren't for incoming guards that held her up. Debuffed, she cast the only spell she had left, MSD, and decided to rely on potions and greenstone charges for protection. She scorchered the Battle Horrors to reach level 9, and fireballed the guards from afar. Davaeorn himself injured her with Magic Missiles and Chromatic Orbs, but succumbed eventually to wand of frost rays, wand of fire scorchers, and ice arrows.
Edit: replaced wrong screenshot by correct one.