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I dont think shadowdancer can solo bg2ee

SirBaldurSirBaldur Member Posts: 80
but i hope i'm wrong, maybe i'm just not clever enough!

i'm in the underdark and need to kill the balor to get into the drow city. my shadowdancer is level 19, but is basically helpless to do anything against the balor. balor sees through my stealth even with cloak of non-detect, so no backstab, no sneak bonuses. 3 hits from balor - which takes only 1 or 2 rounds - wipes out most of my hp.

the only way i found to defeat it is that the balor can't go past the dwarf compound gates, so i could sit and shoot gesen bow all day after luring it to the gates. (He rips apart the dwarf guards, sorry guys.) Literally 9/10 shots were misses though, and it took about 25 hits due to gesen's weak damage, so this little non-thematic limitation was essential. (plus, there aren't a lot of +3 range weapons - drow parties didn't drop a crossbow - so you could easily be stuck here with no way to continue. slings useless since max is +2 bullet. and it's pretty clear that melee would never succeed with so many hits needed. arrows of biting no effect. shadowdancer no traps.)

i even lured the earth and air elementals to the balor, but the balor would shred them in 2 hits. After all that, the portals aren't producing any more elementals - and combined they got 1 hit on the balor!

Needless to say the gesen bow solution utilizing the invisible svirfneblen barrier is pretty unsatisfying.

anything that i'm missing?

also thinking that this problem will get worse - iirc, more enemies in tob see through stealth, even with cloak of non-detection, and are immune to backstab, so i feel like this might be a fool's quest.

Comments

  • jmerryjmerry Member Posts: 3,822
    Demons in general innately see through invisibility. They aren't fully immune to backstabs, but you're not getting one off without a distraction or a lot of luck. Traps could help, but ... well, you're a Shadowdancer.

    Oh, and drow crossbows wouldn't help you. It's the ammo's enchantment that matters. There are only four sources of infinite +3 attacks avaialable at that point - a bow, a crossbow, a sling, and a returning dart. Plus you can find +3 ammo in Watcher's Keep, and a scroll of Enchant Weapon would let you hit for as long as it lasted (if you were epic with UAI).

    There is a dastardly way past that encounter without killing the demon - you can just steal the light gem. Doing that dooms all those friendly gnomes to a horrible death, though.
    SirBaldurAerakar
  • Grond0Grond0 Member Posts: 7,305
    You can also get +3 axe and hammer as returning throwing weapons. As the balor has no ranged attack you can just run it round while shooting if you want. Alternatively you could use summons to distract it while nipping in for melee attacks. You're right though that the lack of traps does make soloing the game as a shadowdancer more challenging than for the other thief classes.
    SirBaldurJuliusBorisovAerakar
  • jmerryjmerry Member Posts: 3,822
    Right. Those are only available with UAI if you're a shadowdancer, of course. The dwarf-only and good-only restrictions are also eliminated by that ability.
    SirBaldurJuliusBorisovAerakar
  • SirBaldurSirBaldur Member Posts: 80
    edited June 2021
    standing there shooting 250 times was pretty immersion breaking to say the least. shadowdancer is really the only class i truly enjoy, it just matches my play style, so i'm feeling pretty discouraged about going on.
    jmerry wrote: »
    There is a dastardly way past that encounter without killing the demon - you can just steal the light gem. Doing that dooms all those friendly gnomes to a horrible death, though.

    This actually feels more narratively-compelling than the way i took
    Grond0 wrote: »
    Alternatively you could use summons to distract it while nipping in for melee attacks.

    The number of summons available to shadowdancer before uai is pretty limited and those would get chewed up almost instantaneously i think - at least not much help for getting enough hits in given 1/10 hit rate.
  • Grond0Grond0 Member Posts: 7,305
    edited June 2021
    SirBaldur wrote: »
    Grond0 wrote: »
    Alternatively you could use summons to distract it while nipping in for melee attacks.

    The number of summons available to shadowdancer before uai is pretty limited and those would get chewed up almost instantaneously i think - at least not much help for getting enough hits in given 1/10 hit rate.

    You can get 30 elementals from the Staff of Fire. You can also rest in the area to recharge once a day items without the balor healing. If you wait until higher levels, you can also use the Shadow Twin HLA to get extra support.

    Your chance of hitting should also be far greater than 10%. Here's a screenshot of a quickly created shadowdancer attacking that balor and hitting with a 2.
    gpoq7lx6aq0y.jpg
    The only buff here on top of using Daystar is DUHM to get strength to 24 - you should be able to match this THAC0 (even without potions) as you can get strength to 25 (assuming you know DUHM), although at L19 your base THAC0 is one worse than this test character.

    Note that, even though the balor can see you, you still get the bonuses to hit from being in the shadows - which is why hitting is as easy as this.
    JuliusBorisovAerakarSirBaldurilduderino
  • jmerryjmerry Member Posts: 3,822
    DUHM isn't an option for that fight - you lose your Bhaalspawn abilities in Spellhold, after all.

    The Balor in question has a base AC of -6 and 19 Dex. So, that's an effective AC of -10 if you're not hidden and -2 if you are; melee stealth attacks for thieves ignore Dex modifiers to AC in addition to granting +4 to attack. It's a huge difference.
    Grond0JuliusBorisovSirBaldur
  • Grond0Grond0 Member Posts: 7,305
    True - I just consoled the character there, so bypassed that. Even so, a stealthed shadowdancer could still be hitting with a 2 if you use a potion of power.
    JuliusBorisov
  • jsavingjsaving Member Posts: 1,083
    edited June 2021
    SirBaldur wrote: »
    standing there shooting 250 times was pretty immersion breaking to say the least. shadowdancer is really the only class i truly enjoy, it just matches my play style, so i'm feeling pretty discouraged about going on.
    Singleclass thieves are toward the lower end of the power curve in BG2 so it is not surprising you are struggling at times. The playstyle demanded of a singleclass thief, namely plodding very slowly from one encounter to the next and being in deep trouble against foes who see through invisibility, isn't going to be a good fit for everyone. Ordinarily there would be a bit of a payoff at 3 million XP when you'd gain the ability to use HLA traps against "perceptive foes" but shadowdancers aren't able to set those traps, unfortunately.

    It's puzzling that you seem to dislike core features of shadowdancer play while nevertheless saying the class matches your playstyle, but to each their own I guess. Unless you mean you like the general theme of a thief who uses mage spells to improve stealth and mobility? If so, then you might consider switching to a stronger option that also has those abilities, like FMT or MT.
    Post edited by jsaving on
    SirBaldur
  • SelerelSelerel Member Posts: 172
    1. Last time I fought the Balor here my PC was using the Pixie Prick +3. Doesn't sound like you can go toe to toe in combat or land enough hits, so it might be moot, but he did seem to fail the save fairly often--yes you can get him to go unconscious and then just wail on him. It's breaking immersion in its own way I guess haha.

    2. You can also consider playing a Shadowdancer dualed to a Fighter. The build would basically be to dump points in Stealth and then use HIPS during combat situation. Always low HP though, but eventually you'll be able to grandmaster in a weapon, get your APR up and THAC0 down.

    It's an unorthodox direction to dual. Obviously there's a fairly large tradeoff (Shadowdancer HLAs) which might be a dealbreaker, but it's a Shadowdancer-specific build, and if you like the shadowdancer anyway during BG2EE without HLAs you might consider it an option.
    Grond0AerakarSirBaldurJuliusBorisov
  • SirBaldurSirBaldur Member Posts: 80
    edited June 2021
    Grond0 wrote: »
    at L19 your base THAC0 is one worse than this test character.

    Note that, even though the balor can see you, you still get the bonuses to hit from being in the shadows - which is why hitting is as easy as this...

    Even so, a stealthed shadowdancer could still be hitting with a 2 if you use a potion of power.
    base thac0 12 (level 18 not 19; i realized level 19 came after getting the balor quest xp), and with daystar and pips in long sword + single weapon, it drops to 8. i always show hit rolls, and i was literally hitting only 18+ (my mistake: 15% not 10% hit rate). i could get it down to 10 going in with stealth, but balor hits on everything except a 1, and even hasted, often gets in 2 hits vs my 1 attempt. 2 hits is usually 60 - 80% of my total hp. it seriously never occurred to me to rest bec ... it's the underdark, i was afraid of getting woken up by drow

    My strength is pretty low (18) bec halfing and also i forgot to buy the hill giant belt. seems like another big problem is i have almost no potions, bec i haven't bought any except invisibility; historically i've never needed them, prob bec i've gone through bg1 a lot more than bg2.
    jsaving wrote: »
    The playstyle demanded of a singleclass thief, namely plodding very slowly from one encounter to the next and being in deep trouble against foes who see through invisibility, isn't going to be a good fit for everyone....

    It's puzzling that you seem to dislike core features of shadowdancer play while nevertheless saying the class matches your playstyle, but to each their own I guess. Unless you mean you like the general theme of a thief who uses mage spells to improve stealth and mobility? If so, then you might consider switching to a stronger option that also has those abilities, like FMT or MT.
    actually i don't mind plodding from encounters... i've occasionally sat in shadows for long times for other enemies to be off screen to backstab more safely. attacking from stealth / avoiding unnecessary battles i think are the primary shadowdancer features, and they're not very useful in this scenario.

    i think this was the first time i ran into something very strong, i couldn't hit easily, and also sees through non-detect stealth. the kua toa parties on this level are also really owning my butt for exactly the same reason.

    if surviving in the rest of soa and tob means using lots of scrolls, that actually doesn't sound like fun to me, which is exactly why i'm not mt/fmt. my fear is, no traps means lots of scrolls is the only long term solution.
    Selerel wrote: »
    1. Last time I fought the Balor here my PC was using the Pixie Prick +3. Doesn't sound like you can go toe to toe in combat or land enough hits, so it might be moot, but he did seem to fail the save fairly often--yes you can get him to go unconscious and then just wail on him. It's breaking immersion in its own way I guess haha.

    2. You can also consider playing a Shadowdancer dualed to a Fighter. The build would basically be to dump points in Stealth and then use HIPS during combat situation. Always low HP though, but eventually you'll be able to grandmaster in a weapon, get your APR up and THAC0 down.
    1. sounds not bad to be honest, if i had that (and could land a hit)
    2. i might try that next time! (i almost always play halflings or gnomes for the saves - very important solo! - so eww humans; and for some reason using eekeeper to make my chars into setups that break the original rules is mentally off limits to me!)
    Post edited by SirBaldur on
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