Insane Difficulty - Final Battle (WARNING SPOILERS INSIDE)

Rifkin

Hey everyone,

I'm at the final battle with

Belhifet & Caelar

and I'm noticing I am so utterly unprepared. What I'm trying to figure out is if the difficulty makes the incurrence of extra monsters in this battle?

There are monsters everywhere! and from what I have read it sounds like it's just

Belhifet & Caelar

in the final battle or

Belhifet & Hephernaan

, but I am not getting that experience.

What if any tips can you give for a CHARNAME whom is an Assassin, I have Minsc, Dorn, Neera, Viconia and Mh'kinn in my party.

UnderstandMouseMagic

Advice?
Turn the difficulty down.

Only fight in the whole series I cannot make any headway with on insane. God knows why they made it so hard, it makes no sense to have a battle which outdoes the final seal WK fight and your party is umpteen levels below that which is expected to do that fight. And which starts with all the buffs being stripped.

Sorry to be so negative but for me it left a sour taste having to adjust difficulty which I don't have to do anywhere else.

Rifkin

I haven't adjusted the difficulty once yet, and I don't want to start.

I know, I know... WHY DID I PICK ASSASSIN? Well, because CHARNAME is the BEST Bhaalspawn, so why not Assassin? (Honestly think there should have been some benefits for the CHARNAME if he picked Assassin, or at least some mention that you are following in your fathers footsteps... but nothing...)

From my understanding I need certain buffs and also a scapegoat to prevent myself from being buff stripped, but I'm not able to micro-manage this battle with all the aggro from the other monsters spawning in.

Still, I'm assuming the extra monsters are there because INSANE difficulty?

Grond0

In BG1 and BG2 the difficulty level essentially only changes the stats of enemies. In SoD, however, difficulty also changes the number, type and abilities of enemies - and in a major way .

[Deleted User]

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bob_veng

use haste and reposition often. caelar can kill him for you, but you should kill haephernaan

the_sextein

I use the cloak from beating the lich in the underground caverns. I believe it was part of the eye glasses quest. That cloak will allow you to save 3 web spells in a sequencer. If you pre-buff with free action then the monsters will be held and you won't. I run my party away at the start of the battle and leave a single mage to get hit with the dispel. The mage that gets hit by the dispel has protection from magic so the dispel is useless and doesn't effect anyone in my party.

Summon enemies in to distract and cast full restoration scrolls on a certain someone to keep them alive as additional help. I would cast a scroll of fire protection and drink a potion of fire protection on everyone including that certain someone, so that his main AOE spell has no effect on your party. Make sure everyone has +3 weapons. Have a thief go invisible with detect illusions maxed out and turned on. This will keep him from being invisible which will improve your chances to hit and lower his. Cast spells like slow to keep the enemies that are not webbed wondering around in slow motion. It doesn't hurt to cast Greater Malison so that the enemies are more inclined to be webbed and slowed. Wasting time killing them isn't a very good strategy because they will be spawned in endlessly. Make sure you drink potions that protect from magic and potions of clarity to keep your team from being charmed. Keep your team moving around whenever an enemy gets close and pelt the boss with long range. Move in for small amounts of time with characters that have strong +3 melee weapons but make sure to pull them away and heal regularly.

This worked for me on LOB mode with SCS so it should help a lot on insane. Do all prebufs inside the elevator before the fight. I would throw up stoneskins and ironskins if you have them. Have everyone drink potions of speed before you drink potions of free action. That way you are immune to web spells and you are still hasted. I hoard a ton of potions and scrolls before going into the final area for this fight.

InKal

In vanilla BG1 and BG2 insane doesn't change anything (stats or AI or anything else), it simply gives enemies 100% damage bonus. That's why this difficulty is so stupid in vanilla. Only for "powergamers".

Skatan

My first time I was not prepared at all and like you I had played through the entire game on Insane before that one fight (I had to cheese the f.. out of the battle in the castle after you ride up the first elevator though since there are just so, so many enemies there). I had only two guys with +3 weapons IIRC and in the end it was not doable with that. I was too lazy to reload a save from far back, so I had to lower the diff level. Have to agree and say that battle was pretty stupid. The setting was great with the elevator going up there but the neverending spawning enemies was just incredibly difficult without meta. I'm not complaining on that though, insane should need meta, but it was just the massive spike in diff level that caught me so of guard and that I feel was to steep. I'd rather see a more slowly increasing diff level, but everything up to that point was a cakewalk ('cept that one other battle I mentioned above).

So, to summarize, if you came into that battle kinda like me, meaning not fully prepared, it will not really be doable and you may have to reload an earlier save to tweak equipment and potions etc.

pvh

I just completed this on insane a few days ago. It was very difficult and took many attempts while experimenting with different strategies. What made the difference for me was countering Belhifet’s invisibility. I gave Glint an invisibility potion and then had him cast True Sight and do nothing else so he would not be targeted.

pbuist

Skatan’s strat is right on point.

I would add : buff caelar with items and potions (storm giant strenght, amulet thaco +2, potion speed, boots against web and entangle, magic shield, etc...). On haste she’ll be great at doing hit and run attacks

And kill the erinye asap, she can be a pain

With void arrows, Corwin will do a killing fron afar.

Dordledum

Going for the evil option here is nigh impossible. Having Caelar on your side makes the fight so much easier. Also because evil parties tend to have no real fighter except Dorn.

Hempz

I liked this battle because it was that damn hard! It took about 20 tries to figure out the right strategy (despite being BG veteran) and when it was done I felt completely exhausted and satisfied.
My party was: F-M, Viconia, Minsk, Corwin and Volghin.
The first right action was to send Viconia to be dispelled apart from the rest. While Caelar tanked the main group, I killed nearby demons, and then focused the priest. When new demons appeared, I focused on them to kill fast so that they do not overwhelm my patty. When only the Bad guy left, I tanked him with F-M, Minsk and Viconia by turn. Truesights were continually provided by Viconia and Volghin. That was on hard difficulty though and I haven't crafted any voidstone weapon.

Braeg

Had some success with this fight on insane after a few tries, the key for me was buffing the heck out of all but 1 of my characters (Dynahier) and leaving her in the middle to absorb the dispel at the start while the others ran off to the side.

For the rest of the party, I used the following buffs:
Scroll + potion of fire resistance: Grants immunity to fire damage which is very important
Potion of Clarity: Charm and fear immunity
Potion of Power: More HP and better thaco
Potion of invulnerability for the monk and kensai for armor

Dynahier ended up dying but the rest of the characters were able to make short work of the demon spawns, then whittle down the main boss. I did choose to constantly kill the spawns to maintain control.

Also had to micromanage whichever character was being attacked by the main boss, pull them out of range and chug extra healing potions