Yeah, thats true @Victor_Creed_SFV. I hope @histamiini will show us how the Cavalier can do it. But i will be a looong way. Same goes for Bavaborass the Dwarven F/C who successfully used the Basilisk XP loop and is already level 7/7 after around 15 minutes work. Only one time he had to help his new friend who was petrified by the Greater Basilisk - the rest was clean execution of petrifying and refleshing. Hope i will find some time today to get more items and push reputation before he will continue with the main quest.
Big B has 1130 HP and also regenerates constantly. The easiest way - at least for me - was to use hit & run abusing Invisibilty Potions to avoid the annoying demon porting. As only Big himself and the Erinyes can see through Invisibilty this also gives time to heal and buff up. This tactic works quite decent with some routine and should be even easier with a Cavalier.
Totally unrelated, has any of you ever tried the level 9 wizard spell shapechange into Mind Flayer on LoB. I randomly got the idea of trying it today because of the massive LoB HP increase. The Thac0 in that form is really bad, but if you use Spell Trigger and put in level 2 spell Strength + Imp haste and Tensers you get negative Thac0 (-3 or smth) 10 apr and almost 400 hp. The form also has 50% phys resistances and 75% missile resistance, also 90% MR...
And the expected LoB HP bypass works perfectly well you 2 hit most enemies and if you have gore turned off in the settings you get all item drops normally.
Killed the mob at the bridge, asked Demon a staff which could be usefull in SoA. Belhifet fight, although I knew the tactic against Bel I tried first putting him and Heprenaan under PfM, but Heprenaan dispelled it and Belhifet still spawned his demons. So to the obvious hit and run tactic, is there any other? This continued a while, and Bel spawned his demons, which incidently stopped the missile attack when Erinyes were being crowded out. Got Bel to the second last health bar, but I was getting tired and my pause thumb was starting to sore. So I left the game on pause and went to bed.
New day and full of energy, well no, but continued the game anyway and oh boy. Got Bel to the last bar, but then was caught in the crowd and that was it. Well no, had freedom with only 37 hp left. Then I was trapped again completely in the center of the whole mass, with no possible way out. Man was I triggered cursing all the designers of LoB SCS to which ever way.
But this was not the end. Somehow Bel teleporting in distrupted the crowd, and I was freeeee again with only 15 hp left. Regained my health and with this new purpose were smacking Bel away, but he didn't die and I was getting low of everything. And lmao literally the first hit after I asked how do you kill Bel he died. Phewwww... I mean really phewww... This fight reminded me of the good old Nintendo 8bit days when you had a hour of progress but couldn't save and then you died. But luckily Sir Vanderley didn't.
Nice job @histamiini. You really killed Big B on first try with normal hit & hit and no invisibility potions? Man, your micro abilities seem to be godlike. As well as your luck. With skills like this even Mel will be a "cakewalk". Well. Nearly.
@Victor_Creed_SFV: Tested Mindflayer form a bit - looked decent enough for a lot of enemies. Too bad i am playing no Mages!
Well first real fight after doing couple of test runs. I did go without invisibility potions for a while, but noticed that the annoying teleporting stopped with them, so I started using them. Is there any other tactic against Bel, I mean how does for example mage kill him?
@chimaera killed Big B with his Dragon Disciple but he used the SR-Mod which gave him the opportunity to combine a Fireshield with acid damage while he was immune thanks to Otilukes Sphere. Big B killed himself as he was trying to damage the invulnerable Mage. Really bad AI here. But let us ask our Mage Pros @Grond0 or @Victor_Creed_SFV how they would deal with Big B as a Mage.
I have read somewhere that a guy managed to beat Big B without Invisibilty using a Fighter/Mage. He was not only using any protection spell he could get but also killing the minions first and only then turning on Big B over and over again. Anyway: The Invisible Hit & Run tactic works absolutely great with most Fighter classes so i always use it even when doing no-reload-runs. Bad luck, tireness and missing patience are your worst enemies then.
P.S. Yeah, Korgath was doing exactly this in the final fight against Mel @Victor_Creed_SFV.
Yeah, test it out @histamiini. In the meanwhile Bavaborass is having a lot of fun with his Skeleton Warriors (plus Doom & Hold Person). Even big bad Bassilus had no chance against the undead "army". Thats how i like it. Watching how the pets are punching everything into the ground while drinking a cup of tea without any rush. Time to visit poor Dushai and preparing his funeral.
Holy shit! Did it in first try, used PfM and buffed up, then at the beginning of the fight used the first Fireshield. Got Belhifet to third bar. But then I was surrounded, Fireshield ended, and had to rely solely on DG because there was no time to recast Fireshield. But I was able to get Bel near death until my DG was gone. Then fired the last Fireshield as a last resort and boom he went down. Tedious 1 hour fight just changed to 3 minutes of mayhem.
Fireshield (Red) The red Fireshield protects the user from fire damage by surrounding the caster with a shield of flame. This shield not only grants the user 50% Fire Resistance, but also protects the caster from attacks made within a 5-ft. radius around the caster. An opponent that hits the caster with any weapons or spells within this radius suffers 1d8+2 fire damage.
No melee protection. If there isnt any hidden bonus it looks like the gods were blessing you with supernatural luck.
Hmm, but also protects the caster from attacks made within a 5-ft, that's kind of vague? Anyway I only buffed to 200hp, buffing to 300hp should make it more repeatable method. Cavalier will have the lowest THAC0 against Bel of any class I think, and I'll hit almost always.
I think the phrase "but also protects the caster from attacks made within a 5-ft" only means that anyone who hits the caster within this range will have to feel the pain of its retalation damage.
The only classes that can compete here would be the Kensai and the Ranger with Arch Enemy "Demon". The latter one proved to be a walk in the park pretty much like your Cavalier. Never tried a Kensai here - could be interesting.
Holy mother of vague descriptions. Yeah tested it on Heprenaan when he's was still alive and he hits me. So it was just plain old tanking with the Goblet. Well atleast it's also a viable method.
With a fully buffed Cavalier and maybe a Ranger (Kensai too?) it looks like you can take the risk of plain tanking (maybe with summons for distraction?). But i wouldnt consider it as a viable method in a no-reload-run. At least not if you try to minimize any risks. "Crazy" @Grond0 however will love you bold approach!
I don't think any Cavalier or ranger has more Thac0 than a fighter dualed to mage with 4 pips in longbow (4 pips just means plain +2 thac0 over 2 pips and Cavalaier and Ranger don't get more than 2) who uses enchanted weapon for acid arrows which is another 2 Thac0 because equipping any arrows even regular ones gives +1 Thaco. Also the 2d6 acid damage is guaranteed since there is no save and Big B has no acid resistance.
Btw I tested the Mind Flayer form a bit in ToB and at least with SCS and improved shifting (no idea if this even affeects the mage spell) devour brain instakills summoned skeleton warriors and the shades in the sewers, unlike npc mindflayers who can't touch undead.
Only enemies immune to +2 weapons are untouched by the flayers but I don't think too many enemies are innately immune to it and you can always outwait spells that only last 4 rounds, apart from the fact that a high level mage has other ways to deal with enemies than just Flayers. :P But I've never seen such killspeed on loB ToB before, the 1st trial even bugged out after the drow because they went down too quickly.
edit: I think improved mindflayers of scs might actually affect the mindflayer fotrm, since it has high resistances and seems to detect invis...
Ah, so much fun getting back to good old BG. Bavaborass managed to grab a lot of fine items along his way.
Ring fo Free Action from Dushai (only 8 tries before charm affected him!) as well as the Gauntlets of Weapon Expertise from Meilum who had no chance against the Skeletons and the Warhammer +2 from Bassilus who also was obliterated by the Skeletons. Not to forget the Ring of Fire Resistance, Large Shield +1, some more Girdles, Necklace of Missiles and the Shield Amulet.
Thanks to Sanctuary he sneaked through the Nashkel Mines and reached Mulahey without any problems. The evil Cleric was charmed on the second try and feeded to his own Kobolds. With another precious ring Bavaborass will soon head back to Beregost and the Bandit Camp. The ambushes did not prove to be any danger so far as the enemies are mostly not able to hit the well protected Dwarf.
I don't think any Cavalier or ranger has more Thac0 than a fighter dualed to mage with 4 pips in longbow (4 pips just means plain +2 thac0 over 2 pips and Cavalaier and Ranger don't get more than 2) who uses enchanted weapon for acid arrows which is another 2 Thac0 because equipping any arrows even regular ones gives +1 Thaco. Also the 2d6 acid damage is guaranteed since there is no save and Big B has no acid resistance
Here's Cavalier max output against Belhifet before Power Potion.
Cavalier lv9 12 THAC0 base, -3 +3dmg bonus Specialized -1 +2 Strenght -7 +14 Scimitars -3 1d8+3 Helm Of Balduran -1 Gauntlets -1 +2 Medal Of Valor -2 Belt Of Skillful Blade 10% Oil Of Speed 4 attacks
-6/-4 THAC0, 28-35 dmg per attack, 4 attacks per round Average dmg per round 126
I don't think any Cavalier or ranger has more Thac0 than a fighter dualed to mage with 4 pips in longbow (4 pips just means plain +2 thac0 over 2 pips and Cavalaier and Ranger don't get more than 2) who uses enchanted weapon for acid arrows which is another 2 Thac0 because equipping any arrows even regular ones gives +1 Thaco. Also the 2d6 acid damage is guaranteed since there is no save and Big B has no acid resistance
Here's Cavalier max output against Belhifet before Power Potion.
Cavalier lv9 12 THAC0 base, -3 +3dmg bonus Specialized -1 +2 Strenght -7 +14 Scimitars -3 1d8+3 Helm Of Balduran -1 Gauntlets -1 +2 Medal Of Valor -2 Belt Of Skillful Blade 10% Oil Of Speed 4 attacks
-6/-4 THAC0, 28-35 dmg per attack, 4 attacks per round Average dmg per round 126
I wonder what's Bel's AC?
Hm, I forgot the base Thac0, since fighter duals at 7 it is only a 14, so the Cavalier ends up with 1 Thac0 less than fighter but also less damage since Comp Lbow +2 + Acid Arrows is 1d6 +4 base damage, but the deciding factor here is 2d6 acid damage. (especially since Big B only takes half missile damage compared to melee, but since he takes full acid damage the arrows hit MUCH harder).
Idk how deciding 1 Thac0 is here, but since there are also crits I feel like it might not be too deciding. There is one more factor tho, the 25 ST potion doesn't apply to bows...
Then again bows have the massive advantage of not having to be close to Big B. (But also the disadvantage of taking 4 more damage in melee due to no melee weapon equipped) I wonder how valid monster summoning wand spam is if you combine it with bow, guess it depends if you can stop the melee summons from attacking you or if it is still better to go invis like @Harpagornis always does.
Drinking Power Potion gives yet another -1 to Thac0 at that point I think, still not entirely sure how it works? Well I'll calculate with -7/-5:
Cavalier -7/-5 THAC0, 3/1 attacks per round, 28-35 dmg per attack Belhifet -12 AC, 25% melee resistance, 1130 HP Hit Probability 80% (16/20) main hand, 70% (14/20) off hand Average damage per attack 23.5 (28*0.75-35*0.75)/2 Average damage per round 88 (23.5*3*0.8+23.5*1*0.7) Average time to kill Belhifet about 13 rounds or 77 seconds (1130/88)
Hmm, but also protects the caster from attacks made within a 5-ft, that's kind of vague? Anyway I only buffed to 200hp, buffing to 300hp should make it more repeatable method. Cavalier will have the lowest THAC0 against Bel of any class I think, and I'll hit almost always.
I've not tried buffing HPs against Belhifet, but with multiple potions of power / heroism you should be able to get way over 300 (probably nearer 1,000). If you used all the available potions I would imagine that a fight in which you were using Durlag's Goblet would become relatively straightforward. I never allow my characters to use healing items (like potions or Durlag's goblet), so couldn't use that particular tactic. However, I haven't made up my mind whether use of a scroll of Greater Restoration should be allowed. That would also re-maximise HPs, though at the expense of causing fatigue. I suspect though that even fatigued it would still be possible to finish Big B off in melee.
All the action on this thread is tempting me to have another go. I wonder what character class I should try out?
Comments
I randomly got the idea of trying it today because of the massive LoB HP increase.
The Thac0 in that form is really bad, but if you use Spell Trigger and put in level 2 spell Strength + Imp haste and Tensers you get negative Thac0 (-3 or smth) 10 apr and almost 400 hp.
The form also has 50% phys resistances and 75% missile resistance, also 90% MR...
And the expected LoB HP bypass works perfectly well you 2 hit most enemies and if you have gore turned off in the settings you get all item drops normally.
Nothing too hard here.
Chapter 12
Killed the mob at the bridge, asked Demon a staff which could be usefull in SoA. Belhifet fight, although I knew the tactic against Bel I tried first putting him and Heprenaan under PfM, but Heprenaan dispelled it and Belhifet still spawned his demons. So to the obvious hit and run tactic, is there any other? This continued a while, and Bel spawned his demons, which incidently stopped the missile attack when Erinyes were being crowded out. Got Bel to the second last health bar, but I was getting tired and my pause thumb was starting to sore. So I left the game on pause and went to bed.
New day and full of energy, well no, but continued the game anyway and oh boy. Got Bel to the last bar, but then was caught in the crowd and that was it. Well no, had freedom with only 37 hp left. Then I was trapped again completely in the center of the whole mass, with no possible way out. Man was I triggered cursing all the designers of LoB SCS to which ever way.
But this was not the end. Somehow Bel teleporting in distrupted the crowd, and I was freeeee again with only 15 hp left. Regained my health and with this new purpose were smacking Bel away, but he didn't die and I was getting low of everything. And lmao literally the first hit after I asked how do you kill Bel he died. Phewwww... I mean really phewww... This fight reminded me of the good old Nintendo 8bit days when you had a hour of progress but couldn't save and then you died. But luckily Sir Vanderley didn't.
@Victor_Creed_SFV: Tested Mindflayer form a bit - looked decent enough for a lot of enemies. Too bad i am playing no Mages!
I have read somewhere that a guy managed to beat Big B without Invisibilty using a Fighter/Mage. He was not only using any protection spell he could get but also killing the minions first and only then turning on Big B over and over again. Anyway: The Invisible Hit & Run tactic works absolutely great with most Fighter classes so i always use it even when doing no-reload-runs. Bad luck, tireness and missing patience are your worst enemies then.
P.S. Yeah, Korgath was doing exactly this in the final fight against Mel @Victor_Creed_SFV.
P.S. Big B was killed by his own Hamatula. Thats always funny!
Fireshield (Red)
The red Fireshield protects the user from fire damage by surrounding the caster with a shield of flame. This shield not only grants the user 50% Fire Resistance, but also protects the caster from attacks made within a 5-ft. radius around the caster. An opponent that hits the caster with any weapons or spells within this radius suffers 1d8+2 fire damage.
No melee protection. If there isnt any hidden bonus it looks like the gods were blessing you with supernatural luck.
The only classes that can compete here would be the Kensai and the Ranger with Arch Enemy "Demon". The latter one proved to be a walk in the park pretty much like your Cavalier. Never tried a Kensai here - could be interesting.
Also the 2d6 acid damage is guaranteed since there is no save and Big B has no acid resistance.
Btw I tested the Mind Flayer form a bit in ToB and at least with SCS and improved shifting (no idea if this even affeects the mage spell) devour brain instakills summoned skeleton warriors and the shades in the sewers, unlike npc mindflayers who can't touch undead.
Only enemies immune to +2 weapons are untouched by the flayers but I don't think too many enemies are innately immune to it and you can always outwait spells that only last 4 rounds, apart from the fact that a high level mage has other ways to deal with enemies than just Flayers. :P
But I've never seen such killspeed on loB ToB before, the 1st trial even bugged out after the drow because they went down too quickly.
edit: I think improved mindflayers of scs might actually affect the mindflayer fotrm, since it has high resistances and seems to detect invis...
Ring fo Free Action from Dushai (only 8 tries before charm affected him!) as well as the Gauntlets of Weapon Expertise from Meilum who had no chance against the Skeletons and the Warhammer +2 from Bassilus who also was obliterated by the Skeletons. Not to forget the Ring of Fire Resistance, Large Shield +1, some more Girdles, Necklace of Missiles and the Shield Amulet.
Thanks to Sanctuary he sneaked through the Nashkel Mines and reached Mulahey without any problems. The evil Cleric was charmed on the second try and feeded to his own Kobolds. With another precious ring Bavaborass will soon head back to Beregost and the Bandit Camp. The ambushes did not prove to be any danger so far as the enemies are mostly not able to hit the well protected Dwarf.
Cavalier lv9 12 THAC0 base, -3 +3dmg bonus
Specialized -1 +2
Strenght -7 +14
Scimitars -3 1d8+3
Helm Of Balduran -1
Gauntlets -1 +2
Medal Of Valor -2
Belt Of Skillful Blade 10%
Oil Of Speed 4 attacks
-6/-4 THAC0, 28-35 dmg per attack, 4 attacks per round
Average dmg per round 126
I wonder what's Bel's AC?
1130 HP
-12 AC
80% magic resistance
100% fire resistance
50% cold resistance
25% melee damage resistance
50% missile damage resistance
Saves are -3/-1/-2/-3/0
1d6 +4 base damage, but the deciding factor here is 2d6 acid damage.
(especially since Big B only takes half missile damage compared to melee, but since he takes full acid damage the arrows hit MUCH harder).
Idk how deciding 1 Thac0 is here, but since there are also crits I feel like it might not be too deciding.
There is one more factor tho, the 25 ST potion doesn't apply to bows...
Then again bows have the massive advantage of not having to be close to Big B.
(But also the disadvantage of taking 4 more damage in melee due to no melee weapon equipped)
I wonder how valid monster summoning wand spam is if you combine it with bow, guess it depends if you can stop the melee summons from attacking you or if it is still better to go invis like @Harpagornis always does.
Cavalier -7/-5 THAC0, 3/1 attacks per round, 28-35 dmg per attack
Belhifet -12 AC, 25% melee resistance, 1130 HP
Hit Probability 80% (16/20) main hand, 70% (14/20) off hand
Average damage per attack 23.5 (28*0.75-35*0.75)/2
Average damage per round 88 (23.5*3*0.8+23.5*1*0.7)
Average time to kill Belhifet about 13 rounds or 77 seconds (1130/88)
before regen that is, anyone know his regen rate?
Somebody correct if I'm wrong?
All the action on this thread is tempting me to have another go. I wonder what character class I should try out?