Final battle too hard, need help

popcorn311

Finally reached the end of the entire saga from bg1 to tob. Mods installed - Ascension and SCS. Difficulty: insane. But I have exp cap removed and am a solo FMT. Levels are 50 40 50 respectively so I'm quite powered. And yet the final battle is overwhelming.

Starting the battle I have the main buffs, stoneskin, mirror image etc. I have several PFMW and Improved Mantle ready. I have MR at 100+ from potions (75 is base). I have SI: Abjuration, IH, several summons, planetar etc ready.

Facing all 5 bhaalspawn plus Melissan simultaneously is just overwhelming. In the chaos I can't really see what happens to my buffs but after I quickly kill Balthazar and Illasera, I get a triple Lower MR spell sequencer from someone (what happened to my SI: Abjuration??) and my MR goes from 125 to -15. I get chopped pretty quickly while trying to run, and I can't run away because everyone else has IH on. One action per round is just not enough to survive, choosing between drinking another MR potion, or recasting PFMW, or Planetar etc. If only I had perma Improved Alacrity...

I notice I'm pretty safe when PFMW and MR>100 is both active, but they get through these buffs somehow even with SI:Abjuration.

Any suggestions? Not willing to lower difficulty.

Grond0

Sounds like you're the victim of the improved AI that comes with SCS. SI: Abjuration is a great defense in the standard game, but because it is so good SCS is likely to target that - I suspect you probably got hit with a Ruby Ray at some point. Spell shield could stop one of those, or you could use SI: Alteration.

popcorn311

SI Alteration is definitely cheaper than a Spell Shield, thanks. Why don't I simply SI everything? What can go thru that?

Balrog99

popcorn311 wrote: »

SI Alteration is definitely cheaper than a Spell Shield, thanks. Why don't I simply SI everything? What can go thru that?

I believe Spell Thrust can take that away, at least from the description.

jmerry

Spell school immunities don't protect against the protection removers; everything from Spell Thrust to Spellstrike. Only Spell Shield can block them - aside from Spell Thrust itself, which is a low enough level to be blocked by Globe of Invulnerability. Or Protection from Magic, which blocks everything. Unless a certain SCS component is installed, in which case Spellstrike gets through and breaks even that.
So no, SI: Alteration wouldn't help. It likely wasn't a Ruby Ray anyway.

This isn't a mod thing, by the way. That limitation of Spell Immunity is present in the vanilla game.

If Spell Immunity is your only spell defense, the first protection remover will get rid of it. If you have higher level protections as well, that'll at least buy you time against anything other than Spell Thrust or Spellstrike.
Of course, if the SCS AI sees any of those protections, it will consistently cast something to remove them rather than any targeted spell. And you're very likely to face Spellstrike in this fight.

The final battle with Ascension is a notable difficulty spike, for pretty much any character or party. Lowering the difficulty a couple of notches is a completely reasonable thing to do.

Christian79

It's been a while and it's from the top of my head, so take this with a grain of salt:

Spell Shield is the only way to protect your protections. Renew it once it's dispelled.

As far as I remember it is adviced to not outright kill one of the five but rather bring all their HP down so you can kill them off in quick succession since Amelyssan does not join the fight until one of them is killed. I admit I don't know if this possible when soloing though.

The next one is a pure guess: If some of the bhaalspawn buffs are temporary you could use a spell Sequencer with triple remove magic to get rid of those.

popcorn311

Awesome awesome... will try again when I get the chance. This battle is a fitting end, gives me something to think about during the day and then I give it another crack once every few days. Reliving my favourite childhood game haha

Grond0

jmerry wrote: »

Spell school immunities don't protect against the protection removers; everything from Spell Thrust to Spellstrike. Only Spell Shield can block them - aside from Spell Thrust itself, which is a low enough level to be blocked by Globe of Invulnerability. Or Protection from Magic, which blocks everything. Unless a certain SCS component is installed, in which case Spellstrike gets through and breaks even that.
So no, SI: Alteration wouldn't help. It likely wasn't a Ruby Ray anyway.

This isn't a mod thing, by the way. That limitation of Spell Immunity is present in the vanilla game.

That's true for the specific protection removers, but not for remove/dispel magic (which I find to be a greater danger for dispelling buffs).

jmerry

Grond0 wrote: »

That's true for the specific protection removers, but not for remove/dispel magic (which I find to be a greater danger for dispelling buffs).

Yes, only abjuration immunity protects against dispel/remove magic. That, or sufficient levels. Which this character has. What's left that abjuration immunity is protecting against? Imprisonment. Which the SCS mage AI won't use on player 1. It's not an important defense for the character at this stage, really.

Christian79

jmerry wrote: »

Grond0 wrote: »

That's true for the specific protection removers, but not for remove/dispel magic (which I find to be a greater danger for dispelling buffs).

Yes, only abjuration immunity protects against dispel/remove magic. That, or sufficient levels. Which this character has. What's left that abjuration immunity is protecting against? Imprisonment. Which the SCS mage AI won't use on player 1. It's not an important defense for the character at this stage, really.

OP might have buffs from scrolls and/or potions. Don't know about the levels though. TOB enemies are quit high level and without SI: Abjuration you might get unlucky.

jmerry

The mages in the final battle are only around level 30. All of the spell buffs are safe, aside from a tiny chance; the enemies would need Breach to take them down. I think the highest level mage in the game, with SCS, is about level 35 - the lich in Sendai's enclave.

But yes, potion buffs like that extra magic resistance are vulnerable to Remove Magic.

Christian79

Talking about breach... Isn't this another spell SI: Abjuration is used for? You can use spell deflection and such but SI:A deals with breach and dispels

jmerry

SI: Abjuration does not deal with Breach. I just tested it before one of my earlier posts; my test character with SI: Abjuration active had all of their combat and specific protections dispelled.

Christian79

This seems to be change from my last SCS playthrough a few years back then and is most probably a serious bug. This was one of the major changes SCS introduced to prevent players from simply breaching and clubbing every mage. With SCS Breach should never bypass any spell protection that should counter it (like SI: Abjuration).

There only known exception (bug) is the wand that casts breach which bypassed spell protections (don't know if this got fixed in the meantime through EE/SCS). If you were able to breach through SI: Abjuration with a normal cast you should report this as a bug on G3 or the SCS thread here in this forum.

jmerry

OK, that was unmodded 2.6 that Breach bypassed SI: Abjuration in. And Spell Turning. In my old 2.5 installation with SCS, SI: Abjuration blocks Breach and Spell Turning reflects it.

The protection-bypassing behavior is tied to the projectile these spells use. The spell attack projectile does that, and in vanilla Breach uses that same projectile. SCS changes things so that Breach has its own unique projectile which is considerably easier to block.