EDIT: The Slow from FoA works on Mel (dropping her down from 5 APR to 4 APR) but Absolute Immunity negates everything. Looks like that without +6 weapons or the ability to dispel her buffs (how?) a Warrior is doomed...
The thing with Mel is that whenever she's debuffed (this includes any AC and/or THAC0 penalty, being under effect of Insect spell, Malison, Blind, Silence, and in your case, Slow) she will use Divine cleansing to purge herself, removing virtually any penalty she's under. This is on a 60 second timer. Whenever she uses it, she gets undispellable immunity to Slow and Silence for 30 seconds. In that time you don't want to waste Ages on her, but switch to a +6 a whack away. Good thing about it is that using Cleansing will permanently reduce her max HP by 25. Then again, on her LoB HP score that may not be such a bad thing for her...
@Arctodus I don't think you're running the same mods as semiticgod though. I can only think of 2 PfM scrolls in the entire unmodded game. You can stretch their use out using a simmy, but conserving them will still be an issue in long battles ...
@Arctodus and @Harpagornis, I'm a bit surprised this still works. I remember one of my solo characters in an EE run only being to cast it on self. Could be a good option though. @CrevsDaak, ha good question! Maybe it's something from the lastest patch? @Victor_Creed_SFV, sorry for the bad link, try this one.
Yesterday was a bad day for my no-reload characters. I had many, many crashes to desktop in Cloakwood, both with Verity and with my Halfling Shadowdancer that I'd been posting about in the Maybe this time thread, to be precise in the Spider area, in the Wyvern area, and on the bridge with the two guards before Drasus & Co. I was a bit reckless, maybe expecting more CTDs when taking on Drasus. A failed attempt at hiding and two sequencered Magic Missiles from Kysus later, and Verity was gone.
Noooooooooo @Blackraven! Looks like Drasus and friends are in bad mood these days!
With regard to PfM and Mel: Tested in the final fight - but its not working @Arctodus! She can still use Absolute Immuniy, Spell Shield, Blade Barrier and - the worst - she is even able to cast Time Stops. Oh, gating also works - like always. Would have been too easy no?
EDIT: Tested it again. This time she was unable to cast spells until she used Divine cleansing to purge herself - looks like this godlike ability also removes PfM even though the globe is still around her!
A few weeks ago I mentioned I had a Gnome Fighter/Illusionist on the march. @Harpagornis flattered me by saying he considered it too easy a class for me, but with my recent string of what I consider failed attempts, I've decided to play on with Oaen,
and to allow some mod items that I had been avoiding. Oaen began specialized in greatswords and crossbows (for a change from my usual scimitars and shortbows), but at that point I didn't know yet that Spiders Bane's free action negated haste.
Oaen currently has about 40k XP. I have some screenshots, but don't remember the exact order in which things were done. According to the screenshots Oaen dealt with the rogue ogre, Tenya, and Melicamp (with the pseudo dragon familiar tanking the wolf, and with Oaen using Blindness on the wolf and on a skeleton). Thalantyr succeeded. Bought Invisibility and copied it into spellbook, did a couple more easy quests/battles, including Brage, Albert, Drienne, Jared, Brun, half-ogres near gnoll fortress, and two Mini Quests and Encounters quests (for an extra 800 XP or so). Oaen did the basilisks rather early on, but thanks to being part Fighter, Oaen, helped by Korax, was fast enough to clear the area before his PfPetrification wore off. Kirian was left for later though. Selling a lot of loot and using Lord Foreshadow's ring of human influence together with Friends, Oaen could afford the robe of the good archmagi, some scrolls, and he had Thalantyr remove the curse on Brage's sword for circa 3.7k GP, to get the Sword of Rage:
His next destination is Durlag's Tower, for another 30k XP from battle horrors and basilisks.
I didn't know yet that Spiders Bane's free action negated haste.
Afaik it doesn't. It prevents it (I may be wrong; EE can now change this, I don't know if it did); however if you're hasted first and then equip the sword, at least on vanilla game there's no way any Free Action effect will remove haste from you. Bar dispeling it, nothing will. Fwiw, I think Haste being blocked by FA is plain stupid. In a game where MR doesn't stop beneficial spells from working, where Dragon's Breath is party-friendly but a Fireball isn't, the fact devs decided to block Haste with FA is...meh. Even in PnP FA blocks only impairments to movement, not benefits. It's called Freedom of Action, so you should be "free" to move quickly should you desire to.
@Blackraven Sorry for Verity... Also, since your trying to no reload LoB SCS and Ascension, by all means use mod items !! This is the ultimate no reload challenge, give yourself a small break !!
Well, if there's only two scrolls of Prot. from Magic and they doesn't work on Mel, at least, I won't feel this is a cheesy way to beat her !! If I had only one to spare, I think I would use it on Sendai to prevent her to cast Heal on the Big Five.
I also would need someone good in math. If I am to use the Stormcharge axe with its 15% chance of stunning Mel, I'd like to know what percentage I have of stunning Mel every round if I hit her 16 time per round (10 from my GWW and 6 from my simmy on Improved Haste).
@Arctodus and @Harpagornis, I'm a bit surprised this still works. I remember one of my solo characters in an EE run only being to cast it on self. Could be a good option though.
Just to explain this: - in BG2 / BGT scrolls could be cast on another character, but the behavior in vanilla BG1 was they affected self-only. - for BGEE, although the engine is now based on BG2 some individual effects have been reverted to vanilla BG1 behavior, including PfM scroll use. - PfM can still be cast on others in BG2EE. Although there are only 2 scrolls available they can be used by simmy's (including from Vhailor's Helm), so this tactic could be used for quite a number of encounters if desired.
@Blackraven Sorry for Verity... Also, since your trying to no reload LoB SCS and Ascension, by all means use mod items !! This is the ultimate no reload challenge, give yourself a small break !!
Well, if there's only two scrolls of Prot. from Magic and they doesn't work on Mel, at least, I won't feel this is a cheesy way to beat her !! If I had only one to spare, I think I would use it on Sendai to prevent her to cast Heal on the Big Five.
I also would need someone good in math. If I am to use the Stormcharge axe with its 15% chance of stunning Mel, I'd like to know what percentage I have of stunning Mel every round if I hit her 16 time per round (10 from my GWW and 6 from my simmy on Improved Haste).
Just use a calculator and type in 16x0.15? :P Granted the axe doesn't give Mel a saving throw?
Once again thx to @Blackraven and @Grond0 my BG2 now works, finally without EEt, I'm so happy.
I also would need someone good in math. If I am to use the Stormcharge axe with its 15% chance of stunning Mel, I'd like to know what percentage I have of stunning Mel every round if I hit her 16 time per round (10 from my GWW and 6 from my simmy on Improved Haste).
Assuming that's a no-save stun then I would calculate it as follows (I've had to make assumptions about the chance to hit Mel below, but you can presumably confirm what those are): % chance of main character missing = 5% % chance of a hit not stunning = 85%
Chance of each attack not stunning = 0.05 + (0.95 x 0.85) = 0.8575
Chance of all main character attacks not stunning = 0.8575 to power 10 = 0.2150
% chance of simmy missing = 20% % chance of a hit not stunning = 85%
Chance of each attack not stunning = 0.20 + (0.80 x 0.85) = 0.88
Chance of all simmy attacks not stunning = 0.88 to power 6 = 0.4644
Chance of all attacks not stunning from both = 0.215*0.4644 = 10.0%
So if those to hit chances were correct you would have a 90% chance of stunning Mel each round (though won't your simmy also be able to use GWWs?).
@Grond0 I'm pretty sure simmys can't use quickslot items anymore. They can use charges from items, though, but not from quickslot. That means that PFM scrolls would have to be preciously conserved.
@Victor_Creed_SFV That's not the right math. 0.15 × 16 = 2.4, which would mean that it would be possible to insure over 100% that Mel would be stunned in a round. But that's not how it works : 15% x 16 times in a round could theoriticaly fail, because every hit is percent base. I know it's a distribution thing, aka the more you can hit her in a round, the closer you can get to 100% chance to stun, without being able to achieve actual 100%. It's a curved distribution : it gets closer ans closer to 100% without achieving it. I'd like to know to base chance I have, and also the difference between 16 and 18 hits in percent, to know if it's worthy to go grandmastery in axes, for the extra APR (I play with the True Grandmastery tweak). I'd like to calculate such a thing, but I'm way too rusty in math to do so. Being a librarian has it's disadvantage...
Me being at level 40, the simmy would be level 20, thus only have 1 WW. Or maybe, even if they're lower level, they have all you innate abilities regardless of their level ? Something I haven't remarked yet, I just got HLA.
Your simmy can use the whole set of HLA´s your main char can use so this doubles the GWW fun!
Please remember @Arctodus that you will most probably need one PfM scroll against Abazigal as he will constantly dispel all your buffs to get in his imprisonment for instant Game Over!
With regard to the Stormcharged Axe: How on earth can you beat the Chosen of Cyric as a Warrior? Their stats, abilities and items just look insane! Never have fought them in practice though as i dont use the required mod.
Your simmy can use the whole set of HLA´s your main char can use so this doubles the GWW fun!
Please remember @Arctodus that you will most probably need one PfM scroll against Abazigal as he will constantly dispel all your buffs to get in his imprisonment for instant Game Over!
With regard to the Stormcharged Axe: How on earth can you beat the Chosen of Cyric as a Warrior? Their stats, abilities and items just look insane! Never have fought them in practice though as i dont use the required mod.
That's, hum... another problem. Well, the readme says that you can actually frighten them by turning into the Slayer, so they will try to flee. I'll try to kill Grok before he leaves !!
Ah, thats interesting @Arctodus. I would immediately test it but i lack the mod. Anyway: 640 HP from Grok takes some time! Maybe you should try to get Axe of Unyielding first to instakill him - if he isnt immune. Or maybe charm him with Nymph Cloak??? Do you know how much time you get before they have fled?
The Axe Calculation is too theoretical for me cause in the final fight you wont get a perfect scenario where you can easily start the beating on Mel. She has many, many rounds before to cast multiple Time Stops, gate in dozens of Demons or Fallen Devas as long as only one of the Big Five (or Sarevok) is alive...
The only chance would be: Bring everyone down to nearly dead and kill them one after another to trigger the half round stun on Mel. When all are dead the final 1vs1 can start - theoretically!
Nope, no idea at all yet. I'll gather everything I can and deal with it then. The only time I did that fight, I persuaded them to flee, so... Maybe stun from Celestial Fury ? We'll see...
Edit : What you just said about the last Throne fight is exactly my blueprint. With the two scrolls of PfM, you could turn the fight against the Five into a kiting session against melee grunts. You take four of them to near death, then stat drain Yaga-Shura with Kachiko's Wakizachi, then kill all the five real fast, then get on stunned Mel and hope luck is on your side. It *might* be possible this way, but to actually execute it seems far from a sure strat.
@Grond0 I'm pretty sure simmys can't use quickslot items anymore. They can use charges from items, though, but not from quickslot. That means that PFM scrolls would have to be preciously conserved.
@Arctodus I'm not quite sure what you mean by can't use quickslot, but can use charges? The EE still allows quickslot use, including scrolls - so unless your mods change that it should be possible to, e.g. use a scroll of PfM via simmy on Abazigal without reducing your stock.
Yeah @Grond0 is right! Your simmy can also use scrolls & potions. This most probably would be the only chance to take out Abazigal and Sendai. But this would also mean: No simmy when fighting Mel 1vs1 later on!
@Grond0 I meant all the charges from the backpack icon, such as invisibility from Sandthief ring. Those a simmy can use, but nothing from quickslot. It's maybe a tweak in my install (can't remember in vanilla, I hadn't played it in years). It's better that way though, because I could have trivialized quite a few mage fight with this strat. Having finite use of scroll of PfM makes them that much more valuable.
Yeah @Grond0 is right! Your simmy can also use scrolls & potions. This most probably would be the only chance to take out Abazigal and Sendai. But this would also mean: No simmy when fighting Mel 1vs1 later on!
That's also why I would refrain from doing that at the Throne. I need the simmy to help me stunlock Mel.
Doing this challenge with you guys and also reading your posts has taught me much about this game. Today I remembered my Dwarven Defender that couldn't kill Abazigal without using PfM scroll and 2 things I learned since then. @Harpagornis mentioned the power of Foebane, which honestly I never knew before it casts Minor Drain with no save on hit, that alone would have helped me to win the fight with reloads until I get a lucky save vs maze. Another thing I learned about is saving throws of -1 never fail, but can be lowered with malison and ofc there is spells with malus on the save. Since my DD was created only for ToB I never got the -2 to all saves from the tear of Bhaal, which would have gotten me enough room to not get mazed together with the -2 of defensive stance. So as a little fun project I created a DD with EE keeper and max xp and best possible equip + 90k gold, so I could rush SoA to get the hell rewards and start ToB one more time, this time with SCS added to LoB.
I made a detour to kill Kangaxx and also did the unseeing eye quest, since it helps you with acces to the Shade Lich.
What can I say even without the -2 from hell I never failed a save except once against Kangaxxs Dragon Fear, when I was under effect of Malison. Kangaxx is an absolute joke with a level 40 DD but some of my equip might be unrealistic :P
The DD is the most awesome pure Fighter, +7 saves because of being shorty and you can take GWW only for HLAs because you have 11 Defensive Stances at 40. If you use some of the high level equip you can combine elemental resistances and have 127 electric resistance, 95 fire, cold, 25 acid and 50% magic dsamage at the same time, while having 20+ MR.
Ofc Foebane wouldn't help vs Mel, but with 20 GWWs you might as well use Staff of the Ram or whatever weapon you please.
Korgath moved on a bit and did mostly a lot of easy-to-do-quests while grabbing essential items and pushing his reputation – just take a look:
Restored Melicamp the Chicken back to Human Form (but got hurt quite a bit when fighting the Skeleton) ----- Retrieved Colquetles Family Amulet from some dead bodies and took it back to Mr. Colquetle ----- gave back Joias Ring after kiting some Hobgoblins ----- cleared Landrins house from the spiders and brought back his stuff to the FAI -----ambushed by basilisk during travel but a fast retreat made sure that the basilisk could not attack ----- kited down Meilum with 49 arrows while critting him five times – grabbed his Gauntlets of Weapon Expertise and moved on ----- helped Prism and kited down Greywolf with 46 arrows and took his Longsword +2 ----- found a hidden Ring of Fire Resistance and saved Samuel bringing him back to the FAI ----- Reunited Albert and Rufie ----- killed Zal and Vax while charming Zal with Algernons Cloak ----- helped the Dryad by killing Krumm and Caldo while charming Krumm with Algernons Cloak – took the Blunting Belt ----- helped Drienne to get back her lost cat ----- reputation at 20 ------ charmed Neira and wasted the spells on herself, parked her near the exit and backstabbed her down – took her nice looking Helm of Infravision ----- charmed Vitiare at the Nashkel Carnival and backstabbed him down to get his Potion of Invisibility and Potion of Master Thievery ----- bought Shield Amulet, Necklace of Missiles and PfP scroll ----- saved Bentha by charming Zordral on second try and backstabbing him down ----- killed four Hobgoblins and took the precious Boots of Stealth ----- level 4/5 aquired after ending the second session
Its quite amazing on this run that charming mostly works on the very first (or second) try while Korgath heavily abuses another fact: When parking charmed enemies near an exit he can backstab them all day long and they wont go hostile thanks to immediate retreats. Too bad i lack time at the moment so progress is far slower than usual. Anyway: Time for some resting before rolling on the road again with godlike Korgath - hopefully tomorrow!
P.S. Yeah, the DD is an awesome Fighter so i will keep a close eye on your updates @Victor_Creed_SFV!
So I went back to my F/M/C today and started out having a real bad time in Durlag's level 4 and then vs Sarevok's girl in the Iron Throne. I was not used to some weaknesses of the F/M/C anymore having played Druid for some time and ended up only grabbing the staff of striking and sling +3 and quickly porting out never to return to Durlag's. Then in the Iron Throne I ended up cheesing with a malison scroll out of sight (skeleton warriors previously turned her hostile) then charming her which automatially summoned her golems who destroyed her.
I felt like I lost all fun with this char, when I faced Slythe and Krystin, but while I was trying to charm Slythe he instagibbed me and I realized he does pierce damage. I instantly realized my slime polymorph is immune to both Krys's magic and Slythe's pierce, but for good measure tried Malison charm one more time, which succeeded, but after both of them were almost dead the charm somehow wore of or got dispelled and I got instagibbed again. After sevral failed tries of charming again I realized why I never saw a save vs breath from Slythe and he still didn't get charmed, since he had magic resistance. I then went balls to the wall and polymorphed into slime and facetanked Slythe, he couldn't damage me! Krys could only damage me with Melfs which she doesn't have to many off, so I used Monster summoning wands to wear them down further, Slythe fell first then after some time Krys followed!
The palace ambush will be next but I'll have to read up on all your awesome strategies here first before I'll attempt it.
I didn't know yet that Spiders Bane's free action negated haste.
Afaik it doesn't.
Hey Aasim! You may be right. @Grondo mentioned the same I think. I should have been more precise: Spider's Bane negates the doubled movement speed of the boots of speed in my current install. I'm pretty sure it didn't do that the last time I used both items together (quite a long time ago). But I've played with so many modded installs that it may well have been some mod or other at work. The P&P Free Action mod springs to mind. I agree that Free Action can hardly be called free if it stops you from moving fast whenever you want to.
PfM can still be cast on others in BG2EE. Although there are only 2 scrolls available they can be used by simmy's (including from Vhailor's Helm), so this tactic could be used for quite a number of encounters if desired.
@Arctodus, I think both SCS and aTweaks have components that prevent clones from using quickslot items (but not items under the Use Item button). I have the same limitation in my current install.
Btw I thought of another weapon that might be of interest to you: the Staff of the Ram +6. Like like RR's Stormcharged Axe +5 it comes with a 15% chance to stun enemies (no save). The staff also knocks enemies back though, so stunlocking would only work if you could somehow corner Mel. Also, it will give you fewer attacks outside GWWs than the axe. The +6 enchantment is an advantage though, as it will ignore Improved Mantle.
Keep in mind that the encounter with the Chosen of Cyric takes place in SoA, so @Harpagornis's suggestion to use Axe of the Unyielding +5 won't help you. Click the spoiler button only if you wish to know when and where you can fight the Chosen of Cyric.
You'll get ambushed when you travel away from the Graveyard District after having slain Bodhi in Chapter 6. You may have assembled the Vorpal Sword at that point, so that could help you instead of the Axe.
Comments
This is on a 60 second timer. Whenever she uses it, she gets undispellable immunity to Slow and Silence for 30 seconds. In that time you don't want to waste Ages on her, but switch to a +6 a whack away. Good thing about it is that using Cleansing will permanently reduce her max HP by 25. Then again, on her LoB HP score that may not be such a bad thing for her...
@CrevsDaak, ha good question! Maybe it's something from the lastest patch?
@Victor_Creed_SFV, sorry for the bad link, try this one.
Yesterday was a bad day for my no-reload characters. I had many, many crashes to desktop in Cloakwood, both with Verity and with my Halfling Shadowdancer that I'd been posting about in the Maybe this time thread, to be precise in the Spider area, in the Wyvern area, and on the bridge with the two guards before Drasus & Co. I was a bit reckless, maybe expecting more CTDs when taking on Drasus. A failed attempt at hiding and two sequencered Magic Missiles from Kysus later, and Verity was gone.
With regard to PfM and Mel: Tested in the final fight - but its not working @Arctodus! She can still use Absolute Immuniy, Spell Shield, Blade Barrier and - the worst - she is even able to cast Time Stops. Oh, gating also works - like always. Would have been too easy no?
EDIT: Tested it again. This time she was unable to cast spells until she used Divine cleansing to purge herself - looks like this godlike ability also removes PfM even though the globe is still around her!
and to allow some mod items that I had been avoiding. Oaen began specialized in greatswords and crossbows (for a change from my usual scimitars and shortbows), but at that point I didn't know yet that Spiders Bane's free action negated haste.
Oaen currently has about 40k XP. I have some screenshots, but don't remember the exact order in which things were done. According to the screenshots Oaen dealt with the rogue ogre, Tenya, and Melicamp (with the pseudo dragon familiar tanking the wolf, and with Oaen using Blindness on the wolf and on a skeleton). Thalantyr succeeded. Bought Invisibility and copied it into spellbook, did a couple more easy quests/battles, including Brage, Albert, Drienne, Jared, Brun, half-ogres near gnoll fortress, and two Mini Quests and Encounters quests (for an extra 800 XP or so). Oaen did the basilisks rather early on, but thanks to being part Fighter, Oaen, helped by Korax, was fast enough to clear the area before his PfPetrification wore off. Kirian was left for later though. Selling a lot of loot and using Lord Foreshadow's ring of human influence together with Friends, Oaen could afford the robe of the good archmagi, some scrolls, and he had Thalantyr remove the curse on Brage's sword for circa 3.7k GP, to get the Sword of Rage:
Fwiw, I think Haste being blocked by FA is plain stupid. In a game where MR doesn't stop beneficial spells from working, where Dragon's Breath is party-friendly but a Fireball isn't, the fact devs decided to block Haste with FA is...meh. Even in PnP FA blocks only impairments to movement, not benefits. It's called Freedom of Action, so you should be "free" to move quickly should you desire to.
Love the portrait, btw. GL.
Well, if there's only two scrolls of Prot. from Magic and they doesn't work on Mel, at least, I won't feel this is a cheesy way to beat her !! If I had only one to spare, I think I would use it on Sendai to prevent her to cast Heal on the Big Five.
I also would need someone good in math. If I am to use the Stormcharge axe with its 15% chance of stunning Mel, I'd like to know what percentage I have of stunning Mel every round if I hit her 16 time per round (10 from my GWW and 6 from my simmy on Improved Haste).
- in BG2 / BGT scrolls could be cast on another character, but the behavior in vanilla BG1 was they affected self-only.
- for BGEE, although the engine is now based on BG2 some individual effects have been reverted to vanilla BG1 behavior, including PfM scroll use.
- PfM can still be cast on others in BG2EE. Although there are only 2 scrolls available they can be used by simmy's (including from Vhailor's Helm), so this tactic could be used for quite a number of encounters if desired.
Granted the axe doesn't give Mel a saving throw?
Once again thx to @Blackraven and @Grond0 my BG2 now works, finally without EEt, I'm so happy.
% chance of main character missing = 5%
% chance of a hit not stunning = 85%
Chance of each attack not stunning =
0.05 + (0.95 x 0.85) = 0.8575
Chance of all main character attacks not stunning =
0.8575 to power 10 = 0.2150
% chance of simmy missing = 20%
% chance of a hit not stunning = 85%
Chance of each attack not stunning =
0.20 + (0.80 x 0.85) = 0.88
Chance of all simmy attacks not stunning =
0.88 to power 6 = 0.4644
Chance of all attacks not stunning from both =
0.215*0.4644 = 10.0%
So if those to hit chances were correct you would have a 90% chance of stunning Mel each round (though won't your simmy also be able to use GWWs?).
@Victor_Creed_SFV That's not the right math. 0.15 × 16 = 2.4, which would mean that it would be possible to insure over 100% that Mel would be stunned in a round. But that's not how it works : 15% x 16 times in a round could theoriticaly fail, because every hit is percent base. I know it's a distribution thing, aka the more you can hit her in a round, the closer you can get to 100% chance to stun, without being able to achieve actual 100%. It's a curved distribution : it gets closer ans closer to 100% without achieving it. I'd like to know to base chance I have, and also the difference between 16 and 18 hits in percent, to know if it's worthy to go grandmastery in axes, for the extra APR (I play with the True Grandmastery tweak). I'd like to calculate such a thing, but I'm way too rusty in math to do so. Being a librarian has it's disadvantage...
Me being at level 40, the simmy would be level 20, thus only have 1 WW. Or maybe, even if they're lower level, they have all you innate abilities regardless of their level ? Something I haven't remarked yet, I just got HLA.
Please remember @Arctodus that you will most probably need one PfM scroll against Abazigal as he will constantly dispel all your buffs to get in his imprisonment for instant Game Over!
With regard to the Stormcharged Axe: How on earth can you beat the Chosen of Cyric as a Warrior? Their stats, abilities and items just look insane! Never have fought them in practice though as i dont use the required mod.
The Axe Calculation is too theoretical for me cause in the final fight you wont get a perfect scenario where you can easily start the beating on Mel. She has many, many rounds before to cast multiple Time Stops, gate in dozens of Demons or Fallen Devas as long as only one of the Big Five (or Sarevok) is alive...
The only chance would be: Bring everyone down to nearly dead and kill them one after another to trigger the half round stun on Mel. When all are dead the final 1vs1 can start - theoretically!
Edit : What you just said about the last Throne fight is exactly my blueprint. With the two scrolls of PfM, you could turn the fight against the Five into a kiting session against melee grunts. You take four of them to near death, then stat drain Yaga-Shura with Kachiko's Wakizachi, then kill all the five real fast, then get on stunned Mel and hope luck is on your side. It *might* be possible this way, but to actually execute it seems far from a sure strat.
Today I remembered my Dwarven Defender that couldn't kill Abazigal without using PfM scroll and 2 things I learned since then.
@Harpagornis mentioned the power of Foebane, which honestly I never knew before it casts Minor Drain with no save on hit, that alone would have helped me to win the fight with reloads until I get a lucky save vs maze.
Another thing I learned about is saving throws of -1 never fail, but can be lowered with malison and ofc there is spells with malus on the save.
Since my DD was created only for ToB I never got the -2 to all saves from the tear of Bhaal, which would have gotten me enough room to not get mazed together with the -2 of defensive stance.
So as a little fun project I created a DD with EE keeper and max xp and best possible equip + 90k gold, so I could rush SoA to get the hell rewards and start ToB one more time, this time with SCS added to LoB.
I made a detour to kill Kangaxx and also did the unseeing eye quest, since it helps you with acces to the Shade Lich.
What can I say even without the -2 from hell I never failed a save except once against Kangaxxs Dragon Fear, when I was under effect of Malison.
Kangaxx is an absolute joke with a level 40 DD but some of my equip might be unrealistic :P
The DD is the most awesome pure Fighter, +7 saves because of being shorty and you can take GWW only for HLAs because you have 11 Defensive Stances at 40.
If you use some of the high level equip you can combine elemental resistances and have 127 electric resistance, 95 fire, cold, 25 acid and 50% magic dsamage at the same time, while having 20+ MR.
Ofc Foebane wouldn't help vs Mel, but with 20 GWWs you might as well use Staff of the Ram or whatever weapon you please.
Restored Melicamp the Chicken back to Human Form (but got hurt quite a bit when fighting the Skeleton) ----- Retrieved Colquetles Family Amulet from some dead bodies and took it back to Mr. Colquetle ----- gave back Joias Ring after kiting some Hobgoblins ----- cleared Landrins house from the spiders and brought back his stuff to the FAI -----ambushed by basilisk during travel but a fast retreat made sure that the basilisk could not attack ----- kited down Meilum with 49 arrows while critting him five times – grabbed his Gauntlets of Weapon Expertise and moved on ----- helped Prism and kited down Greywolf with 46 arrows and took his Longsword +2 ----- found a hidden Ring of Fire Resistance and saved Samuel bringing him back to the FAI ----- Reunited Albert and Rufie ----- killed Zal and Vax while charming Zal with Algernons Cloak ----- helped the Dryad by killing Krumm and Caldo while charming Krumm with Algernons Cloak – took the Blunting Belt ----- helped Drienne to get back her lost cat ----- reputation at 20 ------ charmed Neira and wasted the spells on herself, parked her near the exit and backstabbed her down – took her nice looking Helm of Infravision ----- charmed Vitiare at the Nashkel Carnival and backstabbed him down to get his Potion of Invisibility and Potion of Master Thievery ----- bought Shield Amulet, Necklace of Missiles and PfP scroll ----- saved Bentha by charming Zordral on second try and backstabbing him down ----- killed four Hobgoblins and took the precious Boots of Stealth ----- level 4/5 aquired after ending the second session
Its quite amazing on this run that charming mostly works on the very first (or second) try while Korgath heavily abuses another fact: When parking charmed enemies near an exit he can backstab them all day long and they wont go hostile thanks to immediate retreats. Too bad i lack time at the moment so progress is far slower than usual. Anyway: Time for some resting before rolling on the road again with godlike Korgath - hopefully tomorrow!
P.S. Yeah, the DD is an awesome Fighter so i will keep a close eye on your updates @Victor_Creed_SFV!
Is removing the Curse from Brages sword a mod or how do you get the dialogue for it?
I was not used to some weaknesses of the F/M/C anymore having played Druid for some time and ended up only grabbing the staff of striking and sling +3 and quickly porting out never to return to Durlag's.
Then in the Iron Throne I ended up cheesing with a malison scroll out of sight (skeleton warriors previously turned her hostile) then charming her which automatially summoned her golems who destroyed her.
I felt like I lost all fun with this char, when I faced Slythe and Krystin, but while I was trying to charm Slythe he instagibbed me and I realized he does pierce damage.
I instantly realized my slime polymorph is immune to both Krys's magic and Slythe's pierce, but for good measure tried Malison charm one more time, which succeeded, but after both of them were almost dead the charm somehow wore of or got dispelled and I got instagibbed again.
After sevral failed tries of charming again I realized why I never saw a save vs breath from Slythe and he still didn't get charmed, since he had magic resistance.
I then went balls to the wall and polymorphed into slime and facetanked Slythe, he couldn't damage me!
Krys could only damage me with Melfs which she doesn't have to many off, so I used Monster summoning wands to wear them down further, Slythe fell first then after some time Krys followed!
The palace ambush will be next but I'll have to read up on all your awesome strategies here first before I'll attempt it.
I'm pretty sure it didn't do that the last time I used both items together (quite a long time ago). But I've played with so many modded installs that it may well have been some mod or other at work. The P&P Free Action mod springs to mind.
I agree that Free Action can hardly be called free if it stops you from moving fast whenever you want to. Thanks man!
Btw I thought of another weapon that might be of interest to you: the Staff of the Ram +6. Like like RR's Stormcharged Axe +5 it comes with a 15% chance to stun enemies (no save). The staff also knocks enemies back though, so stunlocking would only work if you could somehow corner Mel. Also, it will give you fewer attacks outside GWWs than the axe. The +6 enchantment is an advantage though, as it will ignore Improved Mantle.
Keep in mind that the encounter with the Chosen of Cyric takes place in SoA, so @Harpagornis's suggestion to use Axe of the Unyielding +5 won't help you.
Click the spoiler button only if you wish to know when and where you can fight the Chosen of Cyric.
@Harpagornis, some good early progress there.
@Victor_Creed_SFV, good luck at teh Ducal Palace!