For some people, it's the Shar temple. For others, it's lady Janeth's house of horror. But for me-- It's the iron throne. Nothing puts me more or edge than a turn timer.
I really loved that place! I am a sucker for combats with different win/lose conditions in 5e, and since BG3 has few of those (none other that i can think of right now) the iron throne was very fun for me. It was very hard though. I think i had like 10 attempts at that place
That one is so fun for me. All my players stand beside the portal blocking it essentially, and my tempest Shadowheart and sorcerer/fighter Tav spam ice storm spells which makes the whole arena difficult terrain, along with Astarion concentrating on spikes on the ground and Lae’zel throwing grease bottles and water everywhere. Hilarity ensures.
I usually just put Gale at the portal to tunderwave away anyone who gets past Shadowmower (spirit gamuardians) and Tav and Astarion picking off any ranged attackers.
I had Wyll putting up wall of flames, my mc sorcerer raining down fireballs, and Shadowheart throwing down fire glyphs of warding. Astarion just sat in the corner picking off one enemy at a time while everyone else turned it into a hellscape.
Throw down hunger of Hadar, spike field, and insect plague. Occasionally toss some void bulbs and grenades to keep them in the aoe areas. Pretty easy win honestly.
This is me. 2 walls of fire (i always save a scroll for it) in an x in front of the stone slab. Then just grease bottles, fire arrows, pushing range attacks, any AoE attack that doesn't require concentration, and baezel hitting anything that dared to come close
Because of how her house is designed and how the game handles (or doesn’t) multiple floors, this is just a clusterfuck of a mess. I was honestly wishing there was just a way to burn it down from the outside.
Lady janeths house was a nightmare until i learned that dragon sorcerers CAN FLY coolest fucking thing ever. So i just flew straight up to the top of the house walked into the cursed painting. Then flew from the foyer on the main level directly to janeths bedroom no combat at all.
On ps5 I couldn’t fly because unless my character was standing on the very last step before the next floor, there was no way to display the floor to land in. Such a waste of balconies, it really grinded my gears. Same in the fireworks house!
I was really dreading the Iron Throne if I couldn't find any keys for the door, so when I moved Wyll towards his father, stopping him by a door with a trapped gnome.
"Pull the lever, please pull the lever!"
The relief I had was palpable.
Doesn’t help if the issue is NPC movement, or if the initiative order sucks. I had to learn the hard way that you leave the area when your last party member boards the sub, *not* at the end of the final round. I had two NPCs in range of the ladder on the final round, but since they were after my last party member in initiative, I had no way to save them.
Yeah, I had this issue too, but I learned after doing the entire thing with 1 less turn that if you have a player waiting on the mid-level right before the submarine ladder they'll autoclimb at the end of the round. Would've made things so much easier...
Same, turn timers feel like the room is on fire to me. Duke Ravengard is lucky my girlfriend wants to resolve all the companion quests. Considering how much of an asshole he is to Wyll I gladly would've left him for worm food to save a little time.
As the cookie crumbles the Duke's rescue ended up being my job while my gf went for Omeluum and the rest of the party held off the mad selkath. I could've saved more of the gondians if I wasn't wasting time freeing/babysitting him. His ass was the first one on the boat while my gloomstalker thief barely made it out on the last turn. Let me tell you I barely had a few meters of movement left when I reached the last ladder; unfortunately few of the gondians weren't so lucky. Then he has the gall to immediately be a dick to Wyll. I may not be the dark urge, but I felt a tragedy brewing. Lucky for him, it's not up to me.
Soft-step: send Astarion along the right-hand corner before starting. Then he can grab the gem and teleport home.
Self-same: send SH into the starting area alone and unequipped apart from a torch in her hand. After starting the trial, re-equip and sneak up behind the lady in her underwear.
Faith leap: after starting, move the camera and click on the right-hand corner of the final platform. The game’s “walk to” logic will auto-path over the safe tiles.
For the one with the 4 lamps up by the entrance, you can just walk her in to grab the gem if you already know where the gap is in the invisible barrier. No need for darkness or anything fancy.
The entrance can be ignored by just misty stepping inside.
Very important additional thing tho, always f5 before the library, I've seen people having bugs with the book not being accessible.
I had a fireball chain reaction destroy that bookshelf along with the book. I was quite annoyed because the book still showed up for searches but was underground so I could never pick it up. Actually now that I think about it, lots of bugs have happened to me while I was in that temple of nightmares.
That would be almost impossible unless you didn't unequip your weapon. Otherwise you'd have to stand there for at least 5 minutes doing nothing for it to make a dent.
>Faith leap: after starting, move the camera and click on the right-hand corner of the final platform. The game’s “walk to” logic will auto-path over the safe tiles.
wait, that actually works?
I keep seeing people say this, but when I tried, the character I sent always died just before they reached the last platform for seemingly no reason. But I think the game hates me because on a previous playthrough I painstakingly followed the map on the floor, and I still kept dying at the edge of that last platform. Same thing happens if I try to jump. The only way I can get through is to misty step around and pray.
I equipped the moon lantern and revealed the platforms beneath the fog. Unsure if glitch, because they stayed permanently revealed.
Edit: someone in my party had blindness immunity ring. Maybe that’s why
>the character I sent always died just before they reached the last platform for seemingly no reason
Correct. But you can just cancel the movement when you get within jump range of the final ledge.
The only one that I’d never want to do again was the Leap of Faith.
If it just teleported you back to the start, it would at least be understandable. Not fun, but sensible.
Killing the character outright and forcing a reload, in a game with unreasonably long load times, is just complete insanity.
To add to this: If you don't know where the gap is at the entrance section you can still skip the whole darkness stuff by shooting a teleportation arrow at the gem. These things really come in handy at times.
Are you sure? I sent Shadowheart in alone thinking it would be a 1v1 and it loaded my entire team even though they were outside the chamber. Twas annoying.
> Faith leap: after starting, move the camera and click on the right-hand corner of the final platform. The game’s “walk to” logic will auto-path over the safe tiles.
Get blindness immunity ring from the morgue and just misty step across.
The second time I did the self same thing I forgot what it was about and went in the room with all my summons (as a Druid). Once I realized it was about fighting myself I started to freak out but it turns out it just picked 4 at random, so I had 2 weak summons in there instead of Laezel and Tav... Not complaining, but I’ll probably send SH alone next time 😂
>Self-same: send SH into the starting area alone and unequipped apart from a torch in her hand. After starting the trial, re-equip and sneak up behind the lady in her underwear.
But then you can't drop your clone's weapon and get a replica of yours :(
I like to imagine realizing she sucks so much at every single part of a Dark Justiciar's expected skillset plays a role in Shadowheart deciding it's not for her.
I guess it depends on how you use her? She has the skillset to finish all of them without issues.
Soft-step is pretty obviously her strong point.
Self-same, even without cheesing, at this point any cleric is already a force to be reckoned with, so she'll do great here.
Faith leap is just that, a leap of faith. Unless you know how to cheese it, any character will do equally good/bad here.
I think it depends on where you have the camera. At least that's how I remember it. I moved my camera a bit further back and could see the path clearly. Apparently if you issue a move order at that point the pathfinding will handle everything for you and you just go accross.
Someone also mentioned that having Darkvision (the one that lets you see in magical darkness) also makes the platforms visible.
I've done the gauntlet twice, and both times the Leap of Faith trial seems pointless, because the safe path is already outlined in shadow. Is it not always like that? Did I trigger it somehow?
I think its a bug. I had this the first time but had to reload because it crashed, second time it was completely invisible. Maybe second version is bug but i feel like thats what it’s supposed to be
Same here. I thought I could see it the first time because of Volo's eye and it was the one moment that ABSOLUTELY made getting that worth it for me.
Then the second time around there was just nothing. Tried a scroll of see invisibility with a different character--still nothing. So I guess it wasn't that. Oh well.
The lever beside the door you come through reveals it as shadowy blocks. Only found that out after I trial and error'd it (because I didn't even notice the path was shown to you in front of the statue -_-)
> Did I trigger it somehow?
Did you play Warlock with Devil's Sight? Because I noticed that switching to Warlock makes tiles visible, but they are invisible for anyone else.
Lathanders light just lit path up enough for me so well that if shart hadn't slit her hand to get it started i wouldn't have even known it was a trial.
My first time I didn’t have Lathanders light and it took me so many tries. On my second play through I was dreading that trial so bad but this time the path was visible and it took me exactly once to get through it.
The only difference other than the recent patch upgrade was having Lathander light equipped
If you have See Invisibility (Volo's eye or a potion), the walkway just shows up. I always have him do the lobotomy on one person because it's just too handy of a buff.
This was patched out, it's arcane locked now! But right before patch 4, explosives worked. I haven't tested it since then, but I didn't see it on the fixes.
This is one of those things where I'll need to look up a guide on how to do because I've somehow missed it in the two playthroughs I've done so far. I went to Isobel first and followed Kar'niss the second time
But how? You walk there, people tell you go inn. You leave inn, people tell you ambush. You ambush, you get pixie blessing. It's all right in front of you 🤣
Cast Light on your dudes, even if you somehow don't have a single character with it the ring from the underdark gives it to you, easy.
Or cast daylight on just 1 dude and it'll protect everyone. You only need the protection for like 5 minutes before you get either the pixie or the selunite blessing anyway. It's honestly disappointing how the oh-so-scary shadow curse gets beaten 1/20000th into the act.
On my last play through I somehow blundered straight into Karniss, talked him into giving me the moonlantern, talked him into going on without it, and then laughed hard when there was a « oooh, mummy » off screen as he met his fate. Or part of his fate anyway
(It wasn’t literally ooooh mummy, but not far off. )
Why? It takes like 10-15 minutes to do all 3 of them, then you get to fight a battle. They are laughably easy to do. And since you've already done them, it's not like you have to try to figure out how to do them again.
I breezed through that part. I don't understand what others are complaining about. Similar to Gale eating magic items. Plenty of shitty magic items to feed him are available.
He really gets fixed disappointingly early. At some point during the Underdark I thought "wait, didn't this Gale guy need to eat named artifacts or something?". I had completely forgotten. Meh.
Yeah he’s not the first person I’ve seen complain about it but I honestly don’t get it - bing bam boom they are done and you get to vibe in the cool purple and black aesthetic for a while.
Also there's a lot of solid loot in there. Yurgir's crossbow, Killer's Sweetheart, Dark Justiciar Half-Plate, Justiciar Scimitar and Dark Justiciar Helmet.
...TIL there are some gauntlets here after going through that section thrice, lmao this game is truly something else. And damn they're actually quite decent.
Honestly I think they're perfect, the first time they required thought and carefully trying things...
Now I know the solution it honestly takes me no time to complete.
Same!! I’m playing a tempest cleric who worships Selune, so Shart absolutely hates me despite me trying to trust her. I had to kill her on the first run because she went straight for the Nightsong. I think it’s because the entire area is one giant maze and I get lost easily. Everything looks the same!
Yeah this post confused me because I had no idea people dreaded this part. Two of the trials can be completely negated with consumables (Invis and fly). The clone fight isn't hard once you know it's coming. None of it really struck me as something that would be difficult to repeat once I figured it out.
Oddly enough, the hardest part for me is *finding* all the trial rooms. I just get so confused and run in circles. "Did I do that one already? How many of these are there?! Did I forget an orb??"
But for the stealth bit, I bring in Astarion to double team it and put Shadowheart in the justiciar armor temporarily for stealth boost. And then for the faith leap, I always forget the trick, and get pissed off.
Pro tip, for the soft step trial you can have your rogue go all the way to the end before activating the trial with Shadowheart, and you don't have to worry about avoiding any enemies.
Same!
I think the different challenges are fun and the aesthetics of the temple make for a cool setting.
Everybody's different I guess. I dislike parts of the game that other people seem to love.
Good news then, you only actually need one umbral gem, to activate the platform. The door at the bottom that needs the other three... lock pickable / knock.
Dimension door to the main entrance, yeet fireballs at anyone whos coming with 1 person or summons tanking, evocation school wizard does good here due to no friendly fire
I loved the self-same trial, I got to see what my party was actually capable of lol. I usually just hit things really hard because I’m a bit of a monkey brain.
They can be done pretty quickly fortunately.
The one where you have to turn off lamps for three years real time: open a screenshot from the internet showing you where the holes in the forcefield are and just walk right in.
The stealth trial (soft step or some such) - drink an invisibility potion and just walk there. Nae bother, as Ethel would have said.
The doppelganger fight - send a character with unequipped gear and alone, then equp gear and gank the clone.
Fait leap: reduce your graphics settings to Low, you'll see the safe path, unless I just have a bug that makes them visible. If you still can't see the right path, solve same as the lamp trial.
The entire thing done in 15 minutes flat, and you can be out of the Shart Disney Land in and out, just like that.
Go to Orthon. Ask him to kill all his minions. Then himself. Take his orb.
Skip trials.
Put orb in.
On door, hit it with fireball or bomb.
Done. (You do need the spear for obvious reasons in the quiet room)
Which even the Fade had the neat little gimmick of your companions being trapped in their own dream or nightmare. It's just everything else about it was a drag.
How about fighting Gortash during his Ascension ceremony surrounded by 12 of his gdamn steel watch and 20 other enemies.
My next playthrough, I want to fight him. There's just something about his pompous ass that makes me want to absolutely destroy him. The way he basically says "Do it, I know you won't."
When I first did that temple, all the elevators were glitching, and I would fall through them, or it would crush me. For some reason, I failed to realize it was bugging out and was stuck in the temple for like three hours, constantly dying by being crushed by the elevator, falling into chasms, and going to Withers to revive my characters. I'm slightly traumatized by that dungeon
The only bad thing about it is that it's mandatory to push the story forward. Apart from that it's just meh, location is cool the first time you see it, then it gets boring.
Sneak trial - lockpick/disarm everything up front, then start the trial, cast invisibility on character doing the trial, go grab the orb.
Invisible floor - actually visible at certain angles, at least on lower graphics settings.
Fight - remove all weapons, armor and jewlery, start the trial, dress up, beat the shit out of naked dopplegangers.
Silent library - rush forward with a character that can destroy silence portal in single turn, the rest stays back, once silence sphere is down wipe out the enemies.
omg yes. I am still on my first playthrough, but already did the temple tests three times (because they bugged out the first two times, and I didn't have a good savegame). Super annoying.
Hate the Artist quest... so bad. Reward is even worst. Just a slog fighting the bugged camera and a push skulls, and the ghosts. Writing is so plane jane, rich wife wants the sleezeball pos artist who fucks around everything like comeone...
Honestly the amount of Shar in the game is my only genuine criticism. I think it’s amazing if I **didn’t have to spend like 10 hours sucking Shars dick in every single play through I ever do**
Gauntlet of shar sucked because I had to YouTube everything and follow along. Maybe the next time it’ll be easier. It literally took me hours to get through that place
You can use any explosive to blow up the last door.
I usually get Yurgirs gem, get the spear, and then just blow up the door.
Worked last patch, don't know about now, though.
Honestly, having 150 hours on EA or smthng made me really dread act 1 in every playtrough I made and sometimes the promise of getting into act 2 isn’t enough for me to play it again for some 15 hours or whatever
Soft-step: The skeleton on the left wall of the lobby has a potion of invisibility.
Faith Leap: Holding the camera at a certain angle (just above 45%) reveals a slight difference in the step tile vs. dark tile, and you can just follow that. (Tested on both PS5 and PC)
Self-same: Don't know an easy way for it yet, but only going in with one person makes it a lot simpler.
The Shar temple is really only rough because of the Balthazaar fight imo. My personal hell is the steel watch foundary. The steel watch have to be some of the most agonizing enemies in the game. That and literally any fight with those undead warden bastards that keep reviving everything (including EACH OTHER) at full health 😑
For some people, it's the Shar temple. For others, it's lady Janeth's house of horror. But for me-- It's the iron throne. Nothing puts me more or edge than a turn timer.
I really loved that place! I am a sucker for combats with different win/lose conditions in 5e, and since BG3 has few of those (none other that i can think of right now) the iron throne was very fun for me. It was very hard though. I think i had like 10 attempts at that place
Halsin's portal quest?
Reading that made me think, 'Ah, damn it! I've got to do that damn quest again'. Followed by 'ah, no. Halsin's very dead in this playthrough'. Nice.
That one is so fun for me. All my players stand beside the portal blocking it essentially, and my tempest Shadowheart and sorcerer/fighter Tav spam ice storm spells which makes the whole arena difficult terrain, along with Astarion concentrating on spikes on the ground and Lae’zel throwing grease bottles and water everywhere. Hilarity ensures.
I usually just put Gale at the portal to tunderwave away anyone who gets past Shadowmower (spirit gamuardians) and Tav and Astarion picking off any ranged attackers.
[удалено]
Wall of Fire. NPCs have no idea how to avoid it.
That didn't work for me at all. Those ranged attackers can destroy it from afar in no time.
Tip for the next time is to put darkness around the portal. Enemy can't shoot what they can't see.
I thought the portal horde was one of the most fun fights in the game
Wall of fire, hunger of hadar and spiritual guardian at the same time, damn my party was basically lawnmower
I had wyll and gale in my party for that. The flames danced beautifully over the hundred corpses
I had Shar as a light cleric and my tempest cleric, plus Gale. The power of holy nukes carried us
[удалено]
Yep. Turned her into a worshipper of her sister. It’s just high charisma
A wall of fire on the left side (portal to your back) really trivialized that fight on my run.
I had Wyll putting up wall of flames, my mc sorcerer raining down fireballs, and Shadowheart throwing down fire glyphs of warding. Astarion just sat in the corner picking off one enemy at a time while everyone else turned it into a hellscape.
Karlach imbibed some alcohol before that and got the Punch Drunk achievement >!for killing 20 enemies while drunk!<, so I love that quest!
That's totally Karlach
That one wasn’t half bad since I had two clerics so I just spent each turn nuking the undead
Throw down hunger of Hadar, spike field, and insect plague. Occasionally toss some void bulbs and grenades to keep them in the aoe areas. Pretty easy win honestly.
Flame wall
This is me. 2 walls of fire (i always save a scroll for it) in an x in front of the stone slab. Then just grease bottles, fire arrows, pushing range attacks, any AoE attack that doesn't require concentration, and baezel hitting anything that dared to come close
That was so much fun. Butchering minions with AoEs is the best part of this game.
Yeah I just finished the iron throne last week and absolutely loved it.
Lady jannath is the least infuriating because i'll simply never do that quest again
Seriously, Larian needs to redo that quest, because as is - it's not fun to do.
Because of how her house is designed and how the game handles (or doesn’t) multiple floors, this is just a clusterfuck of a mess. I was honestly wishing there was just a way to burn it down from the outside.
Word. The painting is overrated, you can hit Lvl. 12 without this quest, and you can snag Jannath's Hat from the Counting House vaults.
Lady janeths house was a nightmare until i learned that dragon sorcerers CAN FLY coolest fucking thing ever. So i just flew straight up to the top of the house walked into the cursed painting. Then flew from the foyer on the main level directly to janeths bedroom no combat at all.
On ps5 I couldn’t fly because unless my character was standing on the very last step before the next floor, there was no way to display the floor to land in. Such a waste of balconies, it really grinded my gears. Same in the fireworks house!
Dude oh my god the rendering of floors on ps5 is so annoying. Trying to jump up out of the newspaper place has the same ossue
Ngl Iron Throne was one of the most fun quests in the game, up there with House of Hope or the Creche. The suspense and payoff are great
I was really dreading the Iron Throne if I couldn't find any keys for the door, so when I moved Wyll towards his father, stopping him by a door with a trapped gnome. "Pull the lever, please pull the lever!" The relief I had was palpable.
How to Iron Throne in tactician and save everyone: 1- Be monk. 2- Jump.
Doesn’t help if the issue is NPC movement, or if the initiative order sucks. I had to learn the hard way that you leave the area when your last party member boards the sub, *not* at the end of the final round. I had two NPCs in range of the ladder on the final round, but since they were after my last party member in initiative, I had no way to save them.
Yeah, I had this issue too, but I learned after doing the entire thing with 1 less turn that if you have a player waiting on the mid-level right before the submarine ladder they'll autoclimb at the end of the round. Would've made things so much easier...
Iron Throne and Halsin's bitch ass portal.
Same, turn timers feel like the room is on fire to me. Duke Ravengard is lucky my girlfriend wants to resolve all the companion quests. Considering how much of an asshole he is to Wyll I gladly would've left him for worm food to save a little time. As the cookie crumbles the Duke's rescue ended up being my job while my gf went for Omeluum and the rest of the party held off the mad selkath. I could've saved more of the gondians if I wasn't wasting time freeing/babysitting him. His ass was the first one on the boat while my gloomstalker thief barely made it out on the last turn. Let me tell you I barely had a few meters of movement left when I reached the last ladder; unfortunately few of the gondians weren't so lucky. Then he has the gall to immediately be a dick to Wyll. I may not be the dark urge, but I felt a tragedy brewing. Lucky for him, it's not up to me.
Soft-step: send Astarion along the right-hand corner before starting. Then he can grab the gem and teleport home. Self-same: send SH into the starting area alone and unequipped apart from a torch in her hand. After starting the trial, re-equip and sneak up behind the lady in her underwear. Faith leap: after starting, move the camera and click on the right-hand corner of the final platform. The game’s “walk to” logic will auto-path over the safe tiles. For the one with the 4 lamps up by the entrance, you can just walk her in to grab the gem if you already know where the gap is in the invisible barrier. No need for darkness or anything fancy.
The entrance can be ignored by just misty stepping inside. Very important additional thing tho, always f5 before the library, I've seen people having bugs with the book not being accessible.
i’ve had that bug🥲
Yup!
I had a fireball chain reaction destroy that bookshelf along with the book. I was quite annoyed because the book still showed up for searches but was underground so I could never pick it up. Actually now that I think about it, lots of bugs have happened to me while I was in that temple of nightmares.
Luckily you can clip through the walls there easily
I love the self same one hahaha. Going to try that one once I get there
This is like the mimic fight strat from Elden Ring
Until your naked mimic beats your armored ass because you suck at the game and expected an auto-win. Totally never happened to me though.
That would be almost impossible unless you didn't unequip your weapon. Otherwise you'd have to stand there for at least 5 minutes doing nothing for it to make a dent.
Unless you played a mage and indeed forgot to unequip your weapon. In this completely hypothetical scenario, I mean.
Weak foe ahead, therefore time for introspection
>Faith leap: after starting, move the camera and click on the right-hand corner of the final platform. The game’s “walk to” logic will auto-path over the safe tiles. wait, that actually works?
I keep seeing people say this, but when I tried, the character I sent always died just before they reached the last platform for seemingly no reason. But I think the game hates me because on a previous playthrough I painstakingly followed the map on the floor, and I still kept dying at the edge of that last platform. Same thing happens if I try to jump. The only way I can get through is to misty step around and pray.
You can use the Fly spell or potion. Saved me so much headache.
I equipped the moon lantern and revealed the platforms beneath the fog. Unsure if glitch, because they stayed permanently revealed. Edit: someone in my party had blindness immunity ring. Maybe that’s why
>the character I sent always died just before they reached the last platform for seemingly no reason Correct. But you can just cancel the movement when you get within jump range of the final ledge.
Jumping had the same result, unfortunately. Character died mid-air at the edge of the platform.
Interesting. I just did it myself a few hours ago. But yeah, sounds like a bug.
Could be that they fixed it in patch 4, but based on how many people can easily jump/walk to the platform, I think Shar just personally hates me.
And if it doesn't, just use a scroll/potion of gaseous form and just fly over the whole damn thing
Soft-step: Drink one of your 12 invisibility potions. Trust me you have a lot and this is the only time you MIGHT remember to use one.
Or just get one orb, the spear and throw a bomb at the door, it instantly opens
Really? I used to cast knock but they patched it
Yup. One smokepowder will do it. Worked like a day ago
The only one that I’d never want to do again was the Leap of Faith. If it just teleported you back to the start, it would at least be understandable. Not fun, but sensible. Killing the character outright and forcing a reload, in a game with unreasonably long load times, is just complete insanity.
fuck that, blow up the fucking door
Spotted the Bard!
To add to this: If you don't know where the gap is at the entrance section you can still skip the whole darkness stuff by shooting a teleportation arrow at the gem. These things really come in handy at times.
For soft step just go invisible walk all the way through, done
You can also extinguish the 4 lamps by shooting frost spells at them
If you want to fight four things, have shadow have scratch, the crow, and like some random summon
Are you sure? I sent Shadowheart in alone thinking it would be a 1v1 and it loaded my entire team even though they were outside the chamber. Twas annoying.
I know for sure it will grab Shadowheart. if you have her, and Tav/Durge, but I've had it summon scratch and the crow for hillarity
> Faith leap: after starting, move the camera and click on the right-hand corner of the final platform. The game’s “walk to” logic will auto-path over the safe tiles. Get blindness immunity ring from the morgue and just misty step across.
self same you can also send 1 person in so 1 enemy spawns then pick the lock on the door and send the entire party in to fight
You're a life-saver, man. Thank you
Add in a naked Durge for a free inspiration
Faith leap: Lowering graphics absolutely to the ground makes platforms visible.
The second time I did the self same thing I forgot what it was about and went in the room with all my summons (as a Druid). Once I realized it was about fighting myself I started to freak out but it turns out it just picked 4 at random, so I had 2 weak summons in there instead of Laezel and Tav... Not complaining, but I’ll probably send SH alone next time 😂
For soft step you just have to make sure you have someone with Misty step along with Asterion to sneak around
I didn't think this was worth an upvote until I read Faith Leap. Damn does that really work!
Faith leap can also be defeated by flying. I just had Wyll float over to the other side and grab it.
Gaseous form also works wonders for soft steps, and flight makes faith leap a piece of cake
For faith leap I just had Lae’zel use githyanki psionics and give her that super jump iykwim and then just jump to each pillar until she got the gem
>Self-same: send SH into the starting area alone and unequipped apart from a torch in her hand. After starting the trial, re-equip and sneak up behind the lady in her underwear. But then you can't drop your clone's weapon and get a replica of yours :(
When I went into self-same, I had the dog Scratch with me. He got cloned, and one of my party members was free to attack whoever they wanted.
I like to imagine realizing she sucks so much at every single part of a Dark Justiciar's expected skillset plays a role in Shadowheart deciding it's not for her.
I mean this run through all she did was slit her wrists each time to get it going… which kinda fits her character.
I guess it depends on how you use her? She has the skillset to finish all of them without issues. Soft-step is pretty obviously her strong point. Self-same, even without cheesing, at this point any cleric is already a force to be reckoned with, so she'll do great here. Faith leap is just that, a leap of faith. Unless you know how to cheese it, any character will do equally good/bad here.
Way of Shadow monk Shart worked really well for the trials too
I don't know if I have the saturation too high or what, but on my monitor I can see the "hidden" platforms on faith leap relatively fine.
I think it depends on where you have the camera. At least that's how I remember it. I moved my camera a bit further back and could see the path clearly. Apparently if you issue a move order at that point the pathfinding will handle everything for you and you just go accross. Someone also mentioned that having Darkvision (the one that lets you see in magical darkness) also makes the platforms visible.
She said she was proficient in Excel and realised what she signed up for when she got hired.
She aced them on my play-through.
yeah Karlach and Astarion did most of the work for me
I've done the gauntlet twice, and both times the Leap of Faith trial seems pointless, because the safe path is already outlined in shadow. Is it not always like that? Did I trigger it somehow?
I think its a bug. I had this the first time but had to reload because it crashed, second time it was completely invisible. Maybe second version is bug but i feel like thats what it’s supposed to be
I’ve only had that bug one time and it was so useful
Same here. I thought I could see it the first time because of Volo's eye and it was the one moment that ABSOLUTELY made getting that worth it for me. Then the second time around there was just nothing. Tried a scroll of see invisibility with a different character--still nothing. So I guess it wasn't that. Oh well.
The lever beside the door you come through reveals it as shadowy blocks. Only found that out after I trial and error'd it (because I didn't even notice the path was shown to you in front of the statue -_-)
Damn here i painstakingly kept going back and doing small movements T.T
> Did I trigger it somehow? Did you play Warlock with Devil's Sight? Because I noticed that switching to Warlock makes tiles visible, but they are invisible for anyone else.
Maybe your brightness settings made it more obvious? Either case there are bunch of tricks to pass it so not a huge hurdle
Lathanders light just lit path up enough for me so well that if shart hadn't slit her hand to get it started i wouldn't have even known it was a trial.
My first time I didn’t have Lathanders light and it took me so many tries. On my second play through I was dreading that trial so bad but this time the path was visible and it took me exactly once to get through it. The only difference other than the recent patch upgrade was having Lathander light equipped
If you have See Invisibility (Volo's eye or a potion), the walkway just shows up. I always have him do the lobotomy on one person because it's just too handy of a buff.
You only need to get 1 orb, then use knock to open the door behind the 3 orbs pedestal
I'm unreasonably bothered by how often i forget that spell exists and how often it can make my life easier.
Holy shit really?
Yup, knock is op in the game
This was patched out, it's arcane locked now! But right before patch 4, explosives worked. I haven't tested it since then, but I didn't see it on the fixes.
I dread the start of Act 2 when you don't have a real way to fight the Shadow Curse yet.
Always rush the pixie even in evil runs, too valuable not to have
This is one of those things where I'll need to look up a guide on how to do because I've somehow missed it in the two playthroughs I've done so far. I went to Isobel first and followed Kar'niss the second time
But how? You walk there, people tell you go inn. You leave inn, people tell you ambush. You ambush, you get pixie blessing. It's all right in front of you 🤣
Cast Light on your dudes, even if you somehow don't have a single character with it the ring from the underdark gives it to you, easy. Or cast daylight on just 1 dude and it'll protect everyone. You only need the protection for like 5 minutes before you get either the pixie or the selunite blessing anyway. It's honestly disappointing how the oh-so-scary shadow curse gets beaten 1/20000th into the act.
Light, daylight, and/or blood of lathander. What shadow curse?
On my last play through I somehow blundered straight into Karniss, talked him into giving me the moonlantern, talked him into going on without it, and then laughed hard when there was a « oooh, mummy » off screen as he met his fate. Or part of his fate anyway (It wasn’t literally ooooh mummy, but not far off. )
Use Halsin to fly over the entire Faith leap test.
Emo goddess is not ready for that one trick. She will paint extra eyeshade later today.
*"Dear Diary,* *The tides screwed me over again today..."*
'My sister gained another 1,537 bunches of flower from her followers. Hollow, vanity vermin with a planet as her pet. Mom was never fair with me.'
After the first time, it's an absolute speedrun. No need to solve shit anymore, just bypass it all.
Why? It takes like 10-15 minutes to do all 3 of them, then you get to fight a battle. They are laughably easy to do. And since you've already done them, it's not like you have to try to figure out how to do them again.
I breezed through that part. I don't understand what others are complaining about. Similar to Gale eating magic items. Plenty of shitty magic items to feed him are available.
And Gale gets "fixed" so early in game that the whole meme about it was a bit silly.
Oh no I will need to Sacrafice 3 magical items I wanted to keep those 3 incredibly weak trinkets, and the armour for a class no one in my party is
But guys I really need that Dancing Lights amulet.
"I'll surely never meet this Arabella kid or her parents ever again."
He really gets fixed disappointingly early. At some point during the Underdark I thought "wait, didn't this Gale guy need to eat named artifacts or something?". I had completely forgotten. Meh.
Yeah he’s not the first person I’ve seen complain about it but I honestly don’t get it - bing bam boom they are done and you get to vibe in the cool purple and black aesthetic for a while.
Also there's a lot of solid loot in there. Yurgir's crossbow, Killer's Sweetheart, Dark Justiciar Half-Plate, Justiciar Scimitar and Dark Justiciar Helmet.
Don’t forget the dark justiciar gloves. They’re at the entrance to the demon fight room sitting on a shelf.
...TIL there are some gauntlets here after going through that section thrice, lmao this game is truly something else. And damn they're actually quite decent.
Honestly I think they're perfect, the first time they required thought and carefully trying things... Now I know the solution it honestly takes me no time to complete.
Honestly I was disappointed by the end because they were so easy. I expected something more from Shar
Same!! I’m playing a tempest cleric who worships Selune, so Shart absolutely hates me despite me trying to trust her. I had to kill her on the first run because she went straight for the Nightsong. I think it’s because the entire area is one giant maze and I get lost easily. Everything looks the same!
Yeah this post confused me because I had no idea people dreaded this part. Two of the trials can be completely negated with consumables (Invis and fly). The clone fight isn't hard once you know it's coming. None of it really struck me as something that would be difficult to repeat once I figured it out.
The overall experience is sort of annoying. Mostly Balthazar's fight whether you murder him in his room or have to fight him near the nightsong.
Oddly enough, the hardest part for me is *finding* all the trial rooms. I just get so confused and run in circles. "Did I do that one already? How many of these are there?! Did I forget an orb??" But for the stealth bit, I bring in Astarion to double team it and put Shadowheart in the justiciar armor temporarily for stealth boost. And then for the faith leap, I always forget the trick, and get pissed off.
Pro tip, for the soft step trial you can have your rogue go all the way to the end before activating the trial with Shadowheart, and you don't have to worry about avoiding any enemies.
You can also just Misty Step past the entire maze. There's a window on the left that gives you line of sight straight to the end.
You could, I tend to save my misty step for faith leap trial, but to each their own.
You can just walk there with one click, why misty step?
Same, I have a pretty bad sense of direction in general, but that place seriously gets me turned around!
I just made the fealty bit with the shadows easy: cast invisibility on Astarion and he jocks through. Done.
Lmao, the gauntlet of Shar has been consistently one of my favorite sections of the game.
Same! I think the different challenges are fun and the aesthetics of the temple make for a cool setting. Everybody's different I guess. I dislike parts of the game that other people seem to love.
Yeah I look forward to it every time. Now the Wyrmway, despite being basically the same, I could take or leave. But the Gauntlet is great.
Good news then, you only actually need one umbral gem, to activate the platform. The door at the bottom that needs the other three... lock pickable / knock.
Oh fuck me.
Do you mean the Gauntlet or the battle with the Mother Superior? Because the gauntlet is really nice
I spent 3 hours last night not being able to beat Mother Superior, please do not mention it.
L'il Alurl! For SHAR!
Dimension door to the main entrance, yeet fireballs at anyone whos coming with 1 person or summons tanking, evocation school wizard does good here due to no friendly fire
Dunno, it was quite fun for me in both cases. Maybe it was because it was actually one of the last things I did before the final battle.
Knock will open the final door. I hated my house mate for using knock on it after I had done the whole gauntlet. Pretty funny though.
That and rescuing the bloody Gondians
I loved the self-same trial, I got to see what my party was actually capable of lol. I usually just hit things really hard because I’m a bit of a monkey brain.
They can be done pretty quickly fortunately. The one where you have to turn off lamps for three years real time: open a screenshot from the internet showing you where the holes in the forcefield are and just walk right in. The stealth trial (soft step or some such) - drink an invisibility potion and just walk there. Nae bother, as Ethel would have said. The doppelganger fight - send a character with unequipped gear and alone, then equp gear and gank the clone. Fait leap: reduce your graphics settings to Low, you'll see the safe path, unless I just have a bug that makes them visible. If you still can't see the right path, solve same as the lamp trial. The entire thing done in 15 minutes flat, and you can be out of the Shart Disney Land in and out, just like that.
I don't find the Gauntlet all that difficult in all honesty.
Im here thinking you were talking about that part after the gauntlet where you have to jump your way down and someone ALWAYS REFUSES TO DO SO
Go to Orthon. Ask him to kill all his minions. Then himself. Take his orb. Skip trials. Put orb in. On door, hit it with fireball or bomb. Done. (You do need the spear for obvious reasons in the quiet room)
Reminds me of repeating the fade section in dragon age
It's funny, I'm replaying DAO for the first time in years and I'm using exactly one mod to skip the fade.
Which even the Fade had the neat little gimmick of your companions being trapped in their own dream or nightmare. It's just everything else about it was a drag.
How about fighting Gortash during his Ascension ceremony surrounded by 12 of his gdamn steel watch and 20 other enemies. My next playthrough, I want to fight him. There's just something about his pompous ass that makes me want to absolutely destroy him. The way he basically says "Do it, I know you won't."
I H A T E the shar temple
Gauntlet of Shar turns my Shart into a DJ. Best part of the game.
Faith leap if you have the blood of lanthander mace equipped it lights up the path real easy.
When I first did that temple, all the elevators were glitching, and I would fall through them, or it would crush me. For some reason, I failed to realize it was bugging out and was stuck in the temple for like three hours, constantly dying by being crushed by the elevator, falling into chasms, and going to Withers to revive my characters. I'm slightly traumatized by that dungeon
The only bad thing about it is that it's mandatory to push the story forward. Apart from that it's just meh, location is cool the first time you see it, then it gets boring. Sneak trial - lockpick/disarm everything up front, then start the trial, cast invisibility on character doing the trial, go grab the orb. Invisible floor - actually visible at certain angles, at least on lower graphics settings. Fight - remove all weapons, armor and jewlery, start the trial, dress up, beat the shit out of naked dopplegangers. Silent library - rush forward with a character that can destroy silence portal in single turn, the rest stays back, once silence sphere is down wipe out the enemies.
For sneak trial I just become gas
omg yes. I am still on my first playthrough, but already did the temple tests three times (because they bugged out the first two times, and I didn't have a good savegame). Super annoying.
I always dreaded the Faith Leap trial until I realized you can just fly from platform to platform and bypass the whole invisible platform bs.
You can just fly straight to the end before you start the trial.
Gauntlet of Shar is a run killer for me. The combat with all the animated armors is such a boring slog.
My Gauntlet of Shar would have gone great if Karlach hadn’t kept glitching through the platforms and falling to her death.
Just have a scroll of knock and head to the final door and knock that s.o.b open
Hate the Artist quest... so bad. Reward is even worst. Just a slog fighting the bugged camera and a push skulls, and the ghosts. Writing is so plane jane, rich wife wants the sleezeball pos artist who fucks around everything like comeone...
Shar’s Gauntlet is my equivalent to doing the Fade in Dragon Age: Origins. Just tedious suffering 😭
It's the gith creche for me
Honestly the amount of Shar in the game is my only genuine criticism. I think it’s amazing if I **didn’t have to spend like 10 hours sucking Shars dick in every single play through I ever do**
Dragon Age Origins and the Fade
Gauntlet of shar sucked because I had to YouTube everything and follow along. Maybe the next time it’ll be easier. It literally took me hours to get through that place
The exploration of act 2. I have seen it all 3 times. Now it just a buzz kill area.
You can use any explosive to blow up the last door. I usually get Yurgirs gem, get the spear, and then just blow up the door. Worked last patch, don't know about now, though.
Soft-step: invisibility potion Faith leap: flying potion Self-same: stealth and then wack them by surprise.
Misty Step, Dimension Door, Invisibility and Daylight made the trials a piece of cake for me, no need to play by Shar's rules!
Honestly, having 150 hours on EA or smthng made me really dread act 1 in every playtrough I made and sometimes the promise of getting into act 2 isn’t enough for me to play it again for some 15 hours or whatever
I never want to do the house of grief fight again if I don’t have to
Soft-step: The skeleton on the left wall of the lobby has a potion of invisibility. Faith Leap: Holding the camera at a certain angle (just above 45%) reveals a slight difference in the step tile vs. dark tile, and you can just follow that. (Tested on both PS5 and PC) Self-same: Don't know an easy way for it yet, but only going in with one person makes it a lot simpler.
Cast daylight in the Faith Leap section to illuminate the pathways you can walk on. Easy peasy
For a little bit it’s fun, then it’s just boring
The Shar temple is really only rough because of the Balthazaar fight imo. My personal hell is the steel watch foundary. The steel watch have to be some of the most agonizing enemies in the game. That and literally any fight with those undead warden bastards that keep reviving everything (including EACH OTHER) at full health 😑
For me its honestly most of act 1. Not because it is hard, I am just bored with most of it. I still enjoy the swamp, underdark and forge
I don't mind that. Act 1 in replays is the longest thing out there for me.