Boareskyr Bridge fire summons (minor spoiler)

Bockhorn

When you are just about to cross the Boareskyr Bridge you reach a mage that, if you don't kill her/him fast enough summons a fire portal of sorts.

After this portal has opened up I had fire mephits, elementals and efreeti come through it in quite large numbers. My question is if someone could verify how much enemies you need to defeat before the portal closes? This fight seems very diffult.

I play the game on insane difficulty.

ThacoBell

I didn't even know that was a thing, having always killed the mage fast enough. I got the impression that not doing so would have been a game over.

Ardanis

The Mage-on-Boareskyr-Bridge scene has been revised in the patch, the way it's been redesigned just prior to game's release but not implemented due to deadlines.

Previously it would have summoned a fire elemental, whose presence near barrels would eventually detonate them (based on timer), but it's been kinda sloppy on multiple accounts, both creative and technical (i.e. you could lure the elemental away and forget where it is, or spam fireballs at the barrels to no effect).

Now she instead opens a portal, from whence waves of enemies will spawn and attack anything they see, including the barrels if there're no party members in vicinity. You just need to hold them off for one minute on Normal, one and a half on Hard, and two on Insane.
Since barrels can now take damage, AoE spells are hazardous to use near them.

Grond0

Ardanis said:

Since barrels can now take damage, AoE spells are hazardous to use near them.

I've had a couple of no-reload runs that can attest to that . The only enemies that I've noted so far try to attack the barrels while I was fighting them have been the mephits using their scorchers - I therefore prioritize those for quick killing.

TheDruid

The bridge fight against the summoned fire creatures is certainly difficult (playing insane), but checking xp before and after, it nets c. 30k xp EACH from the kills, so worth it in many regards. One piece of advice is not to stand in the portal itself as it seems to deal fire damage. You can also try another trick - obviously you want fire resistance, but cold resistance plus bludgeoning resistance allows you to drop icestorms on the portal and so long as you can heal quickly enough during the fight, this seemed to be the quickest way. You need to target behind the portal away from the barrels, so the portal is still in the AoE, while the barrels (plus ranged / healers) don't get hit.

monico

Yup, my blade no-reload run ended there not because of the Mage or the summons, but because of a poorly targeted Skull Trap

psychopomp

On Insane difficulty, I counted 49 (might've missed one)... Yeah, I don't think you're meant to go that route on Insane...