Shadowdancer Solo against enemies with see invisibility
RedWizard
Member Posts: 242
A normal thief can use HLA traps to easily dispatch threats that can see through invisibility/stealth like dragons, demons, liches and ToB bosses, and assuming solo by the time those enemies start showing you're bound to have HLAs already.
What's a Shadowdancer solo to do against those foes? UAI shenanigans?
What's a Shadowdancer solo to do against those foes? UAI shenanigans?
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Don't forget special Shadowdancer's HLAs. Especially a Shadow Twin - it creates a duplicate of the Shadowdancer for 2 turns, at 60% of the level at which the Shadowdancer is currently on. This way you can cast even more spells from scrolls.
Add to that a Simulacrum helmet, and you get a party of high-level mages.
If you're going to try a Shadowdancer I would probably dual one to Fighter once you get enough thieving points (10-13 probably). That way you can actually stand and fight when stealth isn't working out.
"Non-detectable by magical means such as detect invisibility and scrying."
Stay hidden when you need to!
Aaaaawwwwwwww y eaaaaahhhhhh!
I don't know why it works like this, maybe because "hide in shadow" is a skill and not an illusion.
Anyway few enemies can see you even through it, like the demon that has the deck of many things, i think it's racial
If you have a character who is *stealthed*, i.e. using a thief/ranger skill, and she has the cloak of non-detection, nothing will find her. Not even True Sight.
If she uses a potion of invisibility, the invisibility spell, or improved invisibility, then Non-detection will not save her.
Check https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/13339/what-does-non-detection-really-do/p1
You can use Vhalior's helm to make a clone, which is better than the shadowdancer HLA.
Shadowdancers can maze enemies...something I've never done before, even with mages. And the maze that shadowdancers can do isn't reliable.
You still get to jump into the plane of shadow, hide, backstab with all of the bonuses of a lvl 13 shadowdancer...only you get grand mastery as well.
Grandmastery katanas, backstab, greater whirlwind, hide, backstab, greater whirlwind. So much more useful than any shadowdancer HLA.
And for enemies who you can't backstab and who can always see you? Well, you are still a fighter who can go toe-to-toe with them. Something pure thieves just can't do.
Theives minus the swashbuckler, shouldnt be going toe to toe with anything. If you wanted that, play a fighter.. Theives are rogues who find weaknesses in the enemy to exploit them for advantage.. This requires strategy, cunning and guile to achieve. Standing toe to toe, is for low intelligence half orcs...but thats just my opinion lol
Sidenote: ewww katanas....
It's an interesting concept and one that I've considered doing but ultimately I don't feel like the benefits are worth the extremely long wait period before you get your thief skills back, during which time you'll have an extremely hard time surviving. You also miss out on the thief HLA's which make the game so much easier for a solo character.
I'd just go with a Mage-Thief instead and make liberal use of Mislead/Invisibility to land your backstabs. At least this way you'll have some magic between those swords and your spleen, even if you wont have the world's greatest thac0.
I guess that you're not using SCS or Ascension here so you should be able to use clone quickslots without issues so take as many useful scrolls as possible, those alone should be enough for the fight (thanks UAI). Of course if immersion in combat is what is important for you, well a solo challenge might not be the greatest idea honestly as the game is just not meant to be played that way, it should be for a challenge and to test your knowledge. Some classes will for sure require some level of cheese and honestly, the game is overall based around it to push through some challenging encounters. Shadowdancer is an overall weak class for the endgame just so you know (thief with no traps
Scrolls i would hunt for: PFMW, Skull trap, Simulacrum, Wish, Spell immunity, Mordenkainen Sword, Gate, Protection from Evil, Absolute immunty, Shapechange, Improved Haste, Timestop, Incendiary Cloud, Death Fog, Abi Dalzim Horrid Wilting, Improved Mantle, Imprisonment, Enchanted Weapon, Farsight, Wizard Eye.
Wands: Of Spellstrike, of cloudkill, of reversal, of Wonder.
Some good gear to keep for that fight (there is more but that's a good start): Roranach's Horn, Helm of Balduran, Ring of Gaxx, Vhailor's Helm, Frost Embrace, ring of Fire control, ring of Earth control, cloak of mirroring, amulet of sedarine, amulet of power (immunity to level drain, MR), Specter Ring, Amulet of the master Harper.
Strat for the pools:
Incendiary cloud scrolls should easily clear pool 1 and 2, especially with some mordy sword tanks. For pool 3 some Mordy swords, maybe Gate for a demon and you could go fish for a 1 hit kill against the Solar using Ravager +6 in timestop (10% per hit) and stone the Mariliths with the Wand of Wonder if you struggle keeping them breached. Additionnally you can simply switch into the Slayer and go with your Shadow Form HLA. Wish rest as needed using clones and power word: Reload, make sure to use a potion of insight on quickslot if your wisdom is lower than 18.
For Amelyssan, in the Vanilla game as i remember, she can be affected by poison (i think, not 100% sure on this, there was a point when she was for sure but it might be different now). Her combat buffs are also dispelled by Pierce Shield from the wand of Spellstrike or Ruby Ray from the Rod of Reversal, breach won't work as it is a unique version of the combat protection spells. Her AC is -8 and Thac0 -7. Now things you can try:
-Pierce shield from wand of spellstriking + wand of cloudkill (not sure about that one as i said). Skulltrap and Abi-Dalzim can also be used for some ranged damage.
-Using clones to setup a ton of skull trap somewhere on the platform, make yourself immune to magic or use cloak of mirroring, pierce shield her, use a timestop scroll, drag her into the traps as she's immune to it, timestop end and boom.
-Slayer form (your best bet i think, especially with UAI), can be mixed with Shadow Form HLA (could also reload for Wish: Hardiness for some pretty high temporary damage resistance but i don't think that's necessary), use a spell immunity:Abjuration before the fight, facetank and focus on her using your PFMW and absolute immunity scrolls as needed. Make sure to make yourself immune to magic damage using a potion or scroll so you can stay as the slayer indefinitely. Your equipment bonuses with stack with slayer form if you re-equip them once transformed so you can get low enough AC to be extremely hard to hit, which i think should be good enough to make you complete the entire throne fight without having to Wish rest at all considering proper usage of scrolls and proper planification/execution, thanks to UAI, still keep some potions around as the Rod of Resurection isn't a full heal anymore. You could use Shadow Twin for easier debuffing while your character focus on damage. Honestly once you're done buying things, feel free to switch to slayer form if needed, it can be pretty useful on classes with bad melee potential when everything else fail. If you need it before that, well you can always buy it back to 18 and you should be able to have unlimited money with pickpocket which really balance things out.
Slayer AC rough calc should be : -4 Slayer base, -2 ring of gaxx, -1 earth control ring, -5 darksteel shield, -1 helm of balduran, amulet of the master harper -3, greater Evasion/evasion for cap of -20. -6 dex, for -26. Now if you want max Slashing AC, Gorgon plate -7, Golden Girdle of Urnst -3 for -36. If under improved invisibility (shouldn't be necessary i think), this should put you to -30 base and -40 slashing, which should be more than enough to crush the 3 encounters without problems i think as you'll only get hit on crits. You should have -7 Thac0 at 4 APR which should be enough to hit her 90% of the time, -8 with legacy of the masters (95%), 4.5 APR with Spec gloves but that means completing the final seal in Watcher's Keep. Remember to use pierce shield from a wand of spellstriking to dispel her protections. I'm sure your shadowdancer HLAs can come in handy to make the slayer form even more efficient, assuming the Maze one also work.
If you make it there, good luck!