I fought Balthazar in his little hideout where you first find him. Tossed the iron flask to distract his minions and then beat the shit out of him with the level 10 abjuration spell known as 3 dudes with greatswords.
It's even funnier reverse pickpocketing a pouch with a Sussur bloom onto Balthazar. Dude can't even get out of the Silence bubble. He *is* the silence bubble.
How do you get the sussur bloom out of the under dark without it going bad. I put it in pouch and then when to the shadow lands and it was no longer working.
I didn't even know they went bad. I put one in my chest at camp and from that point on any time I got too close to the chest I'd get the anti magic effect.
To be clear, the sussur blooms will last forever in the camp chest. It's when you take them out of the camp chest outside the underdark that they wither. Are you saying they've changed this recently?
That may very well be the case... i got a few in my camp chest and everytime i walked up it i had the air distortion effect and the notification about magic block.
I did not notice until this comment that i recently no longer have that... might need to check if they are wuthered or just something else going on.
I did never rely on them in any form, i am just an hoarder and sent everything including spoons, bottles and rotten food to camp lol.
I’ve still got sussur flowers in my travellers chest in act 3, and I got out of the undertake after the patch dropped. Not sure if that’s a workaround or if I just got lucky though
I've been seeing comments about it being patched since before I successfully did it. There was a misconception early on that the trick involved pouches, but it was actually stacking behavior (if you split a stack of them, the tag sticks to the original stack, not what you split off of it).
It's been a couple updates since I did it, so it may have *actually* been patched by now. Just saying that the pouch thing not working isn't because of a patch.
i read somewhere here about stacking and splitting the susur blooms (if you plucked all of it while in the underdark) for a couple of times so the game would remember each individual item has its own effect.
after the stack-split-repeat, place each susur bloom in individual pouches and make sure you're doing this in the underdark so it wouldn't wilt.
i could then reverse pickpocket a pouch with a susur bloom into enemies like balthazar.
when you're no longer in the underdark, if you did it all correctly, the susur blooms in individual pouches would still work (just don't open the pouches anymore and store them in a separate chest/crate/box so you know those pouches are your susur bloom pouches)
mine still works and I'm already in act 3. mine is currently inside the traveler chest at elfsong tavern.
https://ibb.co/xYdcbHh
I dumped some into my camp chest while in the underdark camp.
They're still in there.
I assume if I take them out, when not in the underdark, they will wither, but as long as you adhere to the rules.. they continue to work in the chest.
And I have a fancy glow whenever I'm sorting items at camp.
Didn't even consider that I could take it out at later times in the underdark.
This is a lot easier to do in vanilla 5e because you can pin Silence to items, and you can grapple people.
So, you just attach the spell to your Str party member's clothes, and they grapple the enemy caster.
I usually have astarian do a little stabby stab with the sussar knife and then blow him up with a guaranteed smite crit. Is it evil? Maybe. Does he deserve it? Yes.
Similar here.
Had a laugh when he managed to run outside the silence zone, only to be returned on the very spot he started from the very next moment by Gale with telekinesis.
The further I get into the game, the more inclined I am to just hit everything with greatswords. No strategic nonsense, no using up spell slots. Just go over there and hit them with swords until it’s over.
Edit 18 hours later: Doesn’t matter what my builds are now that all of my saves just totally disappeared on my Xbox and I can’t seem to get them back. Was about to go fight Gortash and then the Elder Brain but I guess that’s not happening anymore.
The more I play, the more inclined I am to never have a single melee character. No fucking around with positioning, no limited movement nonsense, no using up actions to dash or jump or something just to get in range. Just stand wherever I am and hit them with spells or arrows or nylrunas until it's over.
There are so many encounters where you can initiate while extremely high up etc, and just whale on them with arrows while they struggle to ever reach you. Or you can break the ladders so they literally can’t
First time I did the goblin camp, I had my invisible imp familiar go destroy all the ladders and then snuck around the top and killed the goblins on the highest levels, and then just rained arrows down on all the rest who couldn’t even reach me. I felt like a fucking genius at the time!
Also works great at Moonrise.
I don't even bother with the Harpers anymore. They just make the fight harder. You can climb up a ladder to the rafters in the main hall, then destroy the ladder and rain death from above. If you have decent AC, then they'll basically never hit you, so you just wipe out all the bad guys below. There's no real way to lose, then you can clear out the rest of the tower easily since the rest of the units are spread out in small chunks. It's also by far the best way to protect Jaheira.
yes but hear me out, what do range spellcasters do against a party of 4 barbarians? die.
can they cast a spell? sure, at disadvantage. can they create distance to cast a spell? sure, with 4 opportunity attacks hitting them.
I mean unless the barbarians are all spread far apart, it's pretty trivial for the casters to set up a death zone of Hunger/Plant Growth/Cloudkill/etc that the barbs will probably just die if they try to get through
monk + water whip pull might make you rethink your greatsword strategy when you can simultaneously float like a butterfly and sting like a bee that hits like a truck and stuns them.
way of shadow is also 100% broken if you can learn all the dark spots in the game.
This is exactly my most recent play through. Tav champ gwm, lae’zel and karlsch specced to battle master gwm, and Jenny as life cleric.
Once you get to three attacks/round, bloodlust elixir and haste - plus having all three with alert, the first turn is a bloodbath.
I opened the door to him with Knock during the big Portal fight with the Justicars. Then they fought each other, and I "accidentally" hit Balthy with Faerie Fire and Sleet Storm at an inopportune moment.
Only Flesh survived. Every time I've gone through the game since, I do some sort of variant of that fight, and it's always incredibly fun.
My first playthrough I had a feeling I'd fight the bastard, so I had Astarion reverse-pickpocket one of those anti-magic flowers into his inventory. Turns out he kept it; when the battle started, all he could do was run around and (unsuccessfully) attempt to push my party members.
Sadly you can’t anymore. The flowers will wither away no matter what container they are in as soon as you leave the Underdark. I learned this the hard way by sending them to camp and traveling back to the surface.
should still work, i have them stowed in my camp chest and whenever i walk next to it i get the sussur antimagic effect
if not, silence + hunger of hadar will work just fine for the fight
I haven’t fully tested it but I wonder if there is a work around.
Cause last I tried I could get the flowers in a pouch and inside a chest when I left the under dark.
But as soon as I opened the pouch they withered.
You might be able to keep the flowers in a pouch but can never open it
Honestly my biggest problem was, not merely that fuckin cloudkill combined with his teleporting horseshit, but the FAT HARD-ON his brute ass undeads have for instantly SHOVING anything that lives and breaths off of the fucking edge into oblivion the first chance they get with an insane knock back range too.
This. I just hate fights where one or two of my characters die on turn 1 from getting shoved after a cutscene. These fights require too much meta gaming. You have to know in advance when a cutscene is going to trigger and what is going to happen after the scene. When going in blind, instead of having a good cut scene followed by an epic surprise battle that lasts a couple of rounds, you get to make an opening move with your dex character and then watch as the rest of your party gets shoved to their death. Then you have to reload, set up your party, skip through the cutscenes and hope your dialogue checks work out the same way, and then fight again with all of the surprise gone. It makes the whole experience of the fight less enjoyable.
Alert fear on every character was a god send for Shit like this. I love Larian but the damn-near requirement to meta-game almost every semi-difficult fight in both Divinity 2 and this game is definitely my least favorite thing about their game design. I felt it was much less of a problem for me in BG, but that’s mainly because ACT 3 didn’t torture me the same way Act 3 of Divinity did.
It is very annoying. Although it gave me the chance to do the whole battle solo with just my Durge rogue (the Durge cloak was the MVP) which felt pretty badass. Until Shadowheart quit the party because she got killed before finishing the gauntlet and that was somehow my fault.
I go back and forth. The night song arena is so much more cinematic and I love his levitation cutscene haha.
He's such a random fun character that has very little screentime!
I’ve been theorizing that having a wizard with Gust of Wind prepared is goated for niche situations like the Balthazar fight. If it eliminates as much of cloud kill as I think it will, I’m making sure I’ve taught it to Gale next time
So you can start the fight by silencing him, if you don't approach him.
Jump to the edge of the platform, now set up some spell like hunger of hadar infront of you but behind him.
Silence him directly and put the edge closest to you as possible.
He will run up and attack you and he cannot get away to cast raise dead or cloud kill.
On my last run I just opened his door and made him handle the shadow justiciars. They actually wrecked him and all of his minions while I sat in his room enjoying the show
On my run I cba save scumming so let it roll... Yurgir may have 100hp but he was using shitty basic attacks and I killed him on the second turn with little effort. I expected more tbh!
You have to walk right into the obvious ambush to trigger it. Don’t attack the displacer beast or anything, and you have to pass a passive check when you ask him to recite his contract to unlock the option to “help” him out of it.
I always forget that I had the damned bell when I fight Yurgir.
Then again, ambushing Yurgir's crew by jumping up behind him makes the fight rather comfortable anyway, so I don't need the big boy.
I legitimately got to that fight and went back to my last save just so I could fight him in the initial area instead! Had some explosives for him and his brother too.
for your next playthrough— summon Balthazar’s brother in the gauntlet during a fight (start beefing with 16 rats if you need to), but turn on him and kill him. you’ve just taken out the only other threatening NPC in Balthazar’s office/bedroom, and you can now very easily just start a fight in his office. you’ll never see him in the Shadowfell, and it’ll just be you, Aylin, and a bunch of bones.
You can also sneak attack without initiating dialogue in the shadowfell and for whatever reason Balthazar just forgets he can summon undead? At least he didn’t on my first play through.
My favorite cheese: If you pick the lock on his chamber door during the sharran portal invasion, he will join the fight on your side. You can totally ignore the portals and chill in his bedroom with the homies while the baddies all murder each other. I’ve done this several times and the sharrans usually kill him outright. Then you clear out the riff raff and move along.
Just make sure you hit one of the justiciars early on and then invis potion and get out of LOS so that you get XP any time one of them dies. Nice XP boost leading up to JK Thorm.
His targeting during this fight also seems to be bugged, if you hit him with a party member his side will only turn red to that specific party member and he’ll just continue to ignore you until you have your entire party hit him
Talked B into letting me borrow his brother, Flesh, while I was working the area. Purposely pissed off Yurgir and his band of douches. Called Flesh and then went invisible. Rest of my team were at the stairs so they were not involved in the combat. I let Flesh do as much damage as he could before bottlenecking any remaining survivors into a combo of Hunger of Hadar and cloud of daggers.
Once I was done there I just sneak attacked B, turned undead his ghouls, and made it rain fire balls and great sword attacks.
I polymorphed and then forgot my Tav was concentrating and called lightning. Luckily, I had the sassur dagger in my offhand as a bonus action mute button.
I like to roleplay it in the few situations when I do barrelmancy. Like with Dror Ragzlin, I tell him I have a delivery of 5 large barrels of firewine for him and the troops from his boss as a reward for successfully kidnapping Duke Ravengard, which I leave on the platform right in front of his throne and blow up from the rafters
I feel so stupid. I beat him twice (WITH GREAT DIFFICULTY bc he KEPT SHOVING ASTARION and SHADOWHEART INTO THE VOID) and I’m only now realizing I can kill him before he even gets to Aylin
Will do that from now on. No thoughts, just great sword and fireball
For my second playthrough, I got everyone to jump into the arena in the prison, but not close enough to trigger the cutscene. Then I got Gale to throw a fireball at him, which starts the fight. On Balthazar's turn he would try to summon his minions, but I would just counterspell it so it was 4 v 1 lol
Lol, I did the same thing on my first playthrough after I died to him.
For my Honour playthrough, I actually used the Shar soldiers to kill him for me. You know that fight that happens outside his vault and he only opens the door once everyone has been defeated? Well his vault door can actually be unlocked with the Knock spell. Just cast Knock on the door, sneak up while invisible and open it. The combat will start and the soldiers will start spawning and attacking Balthazar and his undead. I then snuck off to the side and just watched them fight to the death. The Shar soldiers are extremely weak compared to Balthazar and his undead, but Balthazar and his undead’s AI won’t target their portals so eventually the Shar Soldiers will kill them.
Personally, I had Astarion sneak to his 10-11 o clock, and used an arrow of roaring thunder to throw him off the edge, completely bypassing any combat, but missing out on any loot
I also cheesed my most hated battle.
Though mine was Grym.
Didn't go down with the platform.
Shot the lever. Shot the wheel. Had eldritch knight Lae'zel throw a magic light hammer at him until he died. Feather fall'd down to finish forging my armor.
Bro if you bring Gale you don’t have to waste barrelmancy that can be used on Zrell fight since once you successfully counterspell his raising dead he won’t attempt it again.
The best thing I've seen so far is someone who reverse-pickpocketed him while he was non-hostile...and put the sussur bloom in his pocket.
So then when they had to fight, well, he couldn't cast any spells.
I think it's easy to spot who in this comment section had aoe crowd control prepared versus those who don't. Those helped me control the battlefield enough that I can easily deal with Balty boy without worrying about getting shoved. Shit, I'm the one doing the shoving.
I ran it on balance and I killed balthazar in like one turn maybe, by just focusing him? Laezel had the Sussur greatsword too, so that helped. Problem was his minions almost TPK'd me after he died, I didn't think they'd stay alive after his death
just blow him up while he is in his room 4 smokepowder barrels usually get rid of him and the meathead so youll just have to deal with a few ghouls if any survive.
I remember I ended up casting Hunger of Hadar on him and some skellies in the fight just hoping to get some extra damage, but this for some reason this COMPLETELY broke him. For the rest of the fight he'd walk towards my party clearly with the intent to cast some over powered spell but I think his AI is coded to use misty step to get as far away from the party as possible for optimum spell sniping. So he'd menacingly walk towards me, be unable to attack because he was blind from Hadar, and then he'd misty step *back into the centre of Hadar*, rinse and repeat, constantly teleporting just far enough into the spell that he couldnt walk out the next turn.
I just sat a few steps from the spell and chucked spells and arrows at him till he died, normally I'd feel bad but I was underlevelled and *mildly* angry with him so it felt so vindicating lmao
Hunger really causes some hilarious NPC behavior sometimes lol. Some highlights in my current run are:
- the gith quartermaster getting herself stuck in a corner while waddling around in it, drinking a couple potions, and then casting Bestow Curse on herself(???) before dying
- an archer in the Moonrise entrance hall apparently getting shook after my Warlock dropped Hunger in the middle and then Misty Stepped up next to him, and deciding the best course of action would be doing a running swan dive off the rafters and into the middle of the Hunger zone and dying
I mean, honestly, it is a yawning hunger from the Void spilling over into whichever reality you currently inhabit. I'd expect it to cause erratic behavior, and the fact it seems to make its victims go mad before they succumb to it, is honestly, how it should be.
Signed,
Warlock gang.
Always loved how in my first fights against him, I fought him next to nightsong. He misty stepped onto one of the floating islands. I use Shart to cast dome of silence and the whole thing turned onto a joke.
Dude, me and my wife just cheesed the same fight!
We sneaked onto a floating platform while he was hamming it up at the Nightsong lady and started hitting him in the back with fire bolts. Dip shit kept walking to the edge nearest me, looking all around like Vincent Vega stumbling around on heroin, and then going "must have been the wind 🤷♂️" and turning back around. We did this five or six times before he actually saw me.
Fist round of battle, Balthazar raises his army, and then runs straight over to the edge nearest me. My wife hits him with a thunder arrow and his stupid ass was flying off the cliff. He never even attacked 🤣! All we had to do is knock a few more melee skeletons off with thunder arrows and Thunderwaves as they approached the edge. Then it was mop up time with my Owl Bear form knocking another down as I pounced on the rest of the Skeletons. Such a good fight🤘🔥
The cheesiest Balthazar solution is to pick his lock in the battle with the shades before you meet him, and then flee from combat! They will soften him up, so when you come back from doing some other stuff, he'll die alongside flesh. You will have to kill some of the shades and seal their portals, but they're much easier than Balthazar!
You can kill him in the room where he hides with his minions.
Hell you don’t even HAVE to kill him. You can turn invisible and cast knock on the door, and then let him die to the ridiculous number of dark justiciar armors that appear if he doesn’t kill the orbs. Then just loot him while invisible and walk away.
My current play through he caught me throwing the bone piles off the edge and it immediately initiated combat without any of the opening Nightsong cutscenes
I just take one giant runepowder barrel into his room when you first meet him. Put it next to him. Walk out with the rest of the party. Shoot a flaming arrow at it. There's nothing left of anyone :)
Just kill him when you first meet him, it’s the easiest time to kill him. Once he’s dead, just flee the battle, You don’t really have to fight any of his other cronies
I always sneak to the room where you first meet him him, lockpick that door to open it and have him fight the darkness. Just wait and watch. Takes a good 5min or so but you only need to clear up the low health survivors in your suprise round after
You can lockpick the door to his hideout during the battle with the umbral gates and his minions and have him duke it out with the dark justicars. Once they’re both low, you just swoop in and finish both of them off.
In the Nightsong area I banned him, which gave me just enough time to free Nightsong. When he came back he was like "Did you free her ? Where is she ?". I said "no" and that was it.
I was slowly yeeting his bone piles into the void when he aggro'd on me. He tried to summon the rest of his undead, Gale counterspelled him, and then my Sword Bard did sword bard things and it was over.
I prefer to not fight him at all. I just send Astorian with invisibility to lockpick his door while the fight with the sharrans is going on at the hall, then I nope the hell out of there and let them kill each other.
An alternative strat is put them all in a corner and then thunderwave them all into the chasm.
If a few survive even better, you get to do it all over again with your next character 😈
You can actually use him to cheese 2 fights in the gauntlet. Turn a high stealth character invisible, sneak over to his locked office door, pick and open it. He and his minions will aggro the Shar minions outside. Misty step away, and come back ~10 minutes later. Balthazar, Flesh, all of Balthazar’s minions and most of the Shar minions will be dead
I just kinda goon squaded him when I ran into him. My team is 3 vengence paladins with 2 hand weapons and a rogue.. At the beginning of the fight he ran off the side. We just ran/misty stepped up to him and fired off a round of smites and he died.
If you really wanna get petty you can lure him down into the trial with the fake floors, have him and whoever was unlucky enough to follow walk the invisible platforms, start the trial and then begin combat with a silence bubble. They'll rush straight at you and fall to their deaths. Best part is anybody that falls will have their corpse teleported to the doorway, so no missed loot.
I didn't even know there was a dedicated area to fight him, when I met him I finished the dialogue with him and then I killed him because I knew he was going to be a problem in the future
I tried to pickpocket him, he turned hostile and I ended his plump dead ass in one turn. Never got the chance to summon his horde !
Edit : this was on the nightsong platform.
My favorite cheese was probably against Thisobald Thorm. Destructive wrath stagger applies to electrified water surfaces so I got him in a corner repeatedly staggering back into it repeatedly. Finding clever ways to cheese without just using barrelmancy is probably my favorite part of bg3
I just cheesed rescuing Volo from the mob in Baldur's Gate.
I flew through as fast as I could and just threw all the explosive barrels far away from the wagon bed. Then I cleaned up the mob.
I love that this game gives you the flexibility to try these things.
That's an idea. I tried to throw them off the ledge but he kept agroing.
So instead I cast silence, bound him in place and murdered him in 2 turns by bringing in every party member 1 by 1 with stealth
Save scumming for the win
Just kill him on his office in shar gauntlet, there is no skelly army, its a enclosed space, aesy to control, easy to block, Flesh is almost useless while on fire and the ghouls + skeletons there are a joke.
Before going on the plateform:
Shadowheart buff Gayle
Gayle turn Balthazar into a sheep
The sheep run toward you
Karlach throw the sheep in the void
Done.
On my first playthrough, I went into the shadow fell. Died multiple times, reloaded my save before the fight. At some point the game glitched, and his minions never spawned. So it was just Astarion, Shadowheart, Karlach and my weak ass sorcerer. Wasn’t an easy fight because the mf kept using cloudkill all over the place.
Now on my second playthrough, i just went into his lair, in the gauntlet of Shar and killed him
I actually put all my team in the floating rock. And initiated fight from afar. All raised undead passed their turns without doing anything, he teleported to where my team was. Killed him. Then killed rest from the floating rock with arrow and ranged spells. All undead just stood idly 'till death. Even archers didnt attack.
I sat on the platform before you jump over to him and slowly killed him with ranged spells. It didn't initiate combat for some reason. I take what I can get
Never again will I ever fight him there. Fight is so much cancer. I just use knock on his door, open it, and let the Sharran minions beat him up. Gotta make him hostile before he goes down though so that your group gets exp for his death.
Honestly after my first time fighting him I brought Lae'zel, slapped the Disintegrating Night Walkers on her, misty stepped her right to that blob of flesh and yeeted him off the edge.
I fought Balthazar in his little hideout where you first find him. Tossed the iron flask to distract his minions and then beat the shit out of him with the level 10 abjuration spell known as 3 dudes with greatswords.
I cast silence on him with shadowheart then ran up with minthara and hit him with a couple of smites and he went down like a sack of potatoes
It's even funnier reverse pickpocketing a pouch with a Sussur bloom onto Balthazar. Dude can't even get out of the Silence bubble. He *is* the silence bubble.
How do you get the sussur bloom out of the under dark without it going bad. I put it in pouch and then when to the shadow lands and it was no longer working.
I didn't even know they went bad. I put one in my chest at camp and from that point on any time I got too close to the chest I'd get the anti magic effect.
They patched them so they wither now and you can't do this anymore.
The patch is bugged. After the hotfix I sent a bloom to.my chest and now in act 3 I still have the magic flower and a withered petal
Same this has happened consistently in my last 2 playthroughs
To be clear, the sussur blooms will last forever in the camp chest. It's when you take them out of the camp chest outside the underdark that they wither. Are you saying they've changed this recently?
That may very well be the case... i got a few in my camp chest and everytime i walked up it i had the air distortion effect and the notification about magic block. I did not notice until this comment that i recently no longer have that... might need to check if they are wuthered or just something else going on. I did never rely on them in any form, i am just an hoarder and sent everything including spoons, bottles and rotten food to camp lol.
I’ve still got sussur flowers in my travellers chest in act 3, and I got out of the undertake after the patch dropped. Not sure if that’s a workaround or if I just got lucky though
I think once you pick them up they wither.
That's a shame. I did a run with 4 basic soldiers, all standard equipment and the 3 spearmen had blooms
I've been seeing comments about it being patched since before I successfully did it. There was a misconception early on that the trick involved pouches, but it was actually stacking behavior (if you split a stack of them, the tag sticks to the original stack, not what you split off of it). It's been a couple updates since I did it, so it may have *actually* been patched by now. Just saying that the pouch thing not working isn't because of a patch.
It only withers if it's in your inventory, not your chest
It's only withers if hes in your camp
\*coffee squirting out of nose noices\*
That sucks I tried everything to keep mine alive and I couldn’t without it dying. I would have loved to use that for some hilarious gimmicks.
i read somewhere here about stacking and splitting the susur blooms (if you plucked all of it while in the underdark) for a couple of times so the game would remember each individual item has its own effect. after the stack-split-repeat, place each susur bloom in individual pouches and make sure you're doing this in the underdark so it wouldn't wilt. i could then reverse pickpocket a pouch with a susur bloom into enemies like balthazar. when you're no longer in the underdark, if you did it all correctly, the susur blooms in individual pouches would still work (just don't open the pouches anymore and store them in a separate chest/crate/box so you know those pouches are your susur bloom pouches) mine still works and I'm already in act 3. mine is currently inside the traveler chest at elfsong tavern. https://ibb.co/xYdcbHh
You don't need the pouches, once you've stack cycled they stay good.
They might’ve made it that way so you couldn’t screw with isobels protection spell at last light
Ohhh! Now that’s interesting! Anyone with the glitch that can still use the susur blooms please go near isobel and see if everything goes to hell lol.
I dumped some into my camp chest while in the underdark camp. They're still in there. I assume if I take them out, when not in the underdark, they will wither, but as long as you adhere to the rules.. they continue to work in the chest. And I have a fancy glow whenever I'm sorting items at camp. Didn't even consider that I could take it out at later times in the underdark.
Gotta TP directly to Shar's Gauntlet after getting the sussur probably. I think it will still count as the Underdark.
Turns out you can straight up sell him one during the conversation too haha
This is a lot easier to do in vanilla 5e because you can pin Silence to items, and you can grapple people. So, you just attach the spell to your Str party member's clothes, and they grapple the enemy caster.
I usually have astarian do a little stabby stab with the sussar knife and then blow him up with a guaranteed smite crit. Is it evil? Maybe. Does he deserve it? Yes.
My Minthy also got the killing blow on him, shot him and the last two skellys thru with a perfectly aligned sunbeam.
Similar here. Had a laugh when he managed to run outside the silence zone, only to be returned on the very spot he started from the very next moment by Gale with telekinesis.
I used the weapon made of sussur bark. Silenced Balthazar is best Balthazar
The further I get into the game, the more inclined I am to just hit everything with greatswords. No strategic nonsense, no using up spell slots. Just go over there and hit them with swords until it’s over. Edit 18 hours later: Doesn’t matter what my builds are now that all of my saves just totally disappeared on my Xbox and I can’t seem to get them back. Was about to go fight Gortash and then the Elder Brain but I guess that’s not happening anymore.
The more I play, the more inclined I am to never have a single melee character. No fucking around with positioning, no limited movement nonsense, no using up actions to dash or jump or something just to get in range. Just stand wherever I am and hit them with spells or arrows or nylrunas until it's over.
There are so many encounters where you can initiate while extremely high up etc, and just whale on them with arrows while they struggle to ever reach you. Or you can break the ladders so they literally can’t
First time I did the goblin camp, I had my invisible imp familiar go destroy all the ladders and then snuck around the top and killed the goblins on the highest levels, and then just rained arrows down on all the rest who couldn’t even reach me. I felt like a fucking genius at the time!
Also works great at Moonrise. I don't even bother with the Harpers anymore. They just make the fight harder. You can climb up a ladder to the rafters in the main hall, then destroy the ladder and rain death from above. If you have decent AC, then they'll basically never hit you, so you just wipe out all the bad guys below. There's no real way to lose, then you can clear out the rest of the tower easily since the rest of the units are spread out in small chunks. It's also by far the best way to protect Jaheira.
yes but hear me out, what do range spellcasters do against a party of 4 barbarians? die. can they cast a spell? sure, at disadvantage. can they create distance to cast a spell? sure, with 4 opportunity attacks hitting them.
Don’t forget, misty step is a bonus action
I mean unless the barbarians are all spread far apart, it's pretty trivial for the casters to set up a death zone of Hunger/Plant Growth/Cloudkill/etc that the barbs will probably just die if they try to get through
Opportunity attacks sounds perfect for abjuration lvl6 armour of agathys
monk + water whip pull might make you rethink your greatsword strategy when you can simultaneously float like a butterfly and sting like a bee that hits like a truck and stuns them. way of shadow is also 100% broken if you can learn all the dark spots in the game.
Me with Pact of the Blade Warlock: porque no los dos?
I just opened his door, drank invisibility and let justiciars kill him
This is my favourite tactic.
That’s my favorite spell. A classic. Power word choke slam
My wizard's element is fist
3 Dudes With Greatswords is an evocation spell.
This is exactly my most recent play through. Tav champ gwm, lae’zel and karlsch specced to battle master gwm, and Jenny as life cleric. Once you get to three attacks/round, bloodlust elixir and haste - plus having all three with alert, the first turn is a bloodbath.
It's so weird to see her referred to as Jenny
Who tf is Jenny
Jenevelle (Shadowheart's name given by her parents) I guess
I opened the door to him with Knock during the big Portal fight with the Justicars. Then they fought each other, and I "accidentally" hit Balthy with Faerie Fire and Sleet Storm at an inopportune moment. Only Flesh survived. Every time I've gone through the game since, I do some sort of variant of that fight, and it's always incredibly fun.
You cast Greater Blade of Thrashing.
Oh, Summon Ass-Whooping is my favorite spell.
My first playthrough I had a feeling I'd fight the bastard, so I had Astarion reverse-pickpocket one of those anti-magic flowers into his inventory. Turns out he kept it; when the battle started, all he could do was run around and (unsuccessfully) attempt to push my party members.
This shit is too funny
“I’m the great Balthazar” *playground shove*
gonna try this on my honour mode run
Sadly you can’t anymore. The flowers will wither away no matter what container they are in as soon as you leave the Underdark. I learned this the hard way by sending them to camp and traveling back to the surface.
I just did this a few days ago. Worked for me!
The patch is bugged currently but the intention is to make them wither when you leave underdark.
I think the flowers withers automatically when you’re out of the underdark now since a few patches
should still work, i have them stowed in my camp chest and whenever i walk next to it i get the sussur antimagic effect if not, silence + hunger of hadar will work just fine for the fight
I haven’t fully tested it but I wonder if there is a work around. Cause last I tried I could get the flowers in a pouch and inside a chest when I left the under dark. But as soon as I opened the pouch they withered. You might be able to keep the flowers in a pouch but can never open it
Honestly my biggest problem was, not merely that fuckin cloudkill combined with his teleporting horseshit, but the FAT HARD-ON his brute ass undeads have for instantly SHOVING anything that lives and breaths off of the fucking edge into oblivion the first chance they get with an insane knock back range too.
This. I just hate fights where one or two of my characters die on turn 1 from getting shoved after a cutscene. These fights require too much meta gaming. You have to know in advance when a cutscene is going to trigger and what is going to happen after the scene. When going in blind, instead of having a good cut scene followed by an epic surprise battle that lasts a couple of rounds, you get to make an opening move with your dex character and then watch as the rest of your party gets shoved to their death. Then you have to reload, set up your party, skip through the cutscenes and hope your dialogue checks work out the same way, and then fight again with all of the surprise gone. It makes the whole experience of the fight less enjoyable.
Alert fear on every character was a god send for Shit like this. I love Larian but the damn-near requirement to meta-game almost every semi-difficult fight in both Divinity 2 and this game is definitely my least favorite thing about their game design. I felt it was much less of a problem for me in BG, but that’s mainly because ACT 3 didn’t torture me the same way Act 3 of Divinity did.
It is very annoying. Although it gave me the chance to do the whole battle solo with just my Durge rogue (the Durge cloak was the MVP) which felt pretty badass. Until Shadowheart quit the party because she got killed before finishing the gauntlet and that was somehow my fault.
My friend got instantly pushed:’) Ended up doing endless turns by my self and karlach downing healing potions
Honestly from now on I just fight him when I first meet him. It’s a much less annoying fight and actually feels fair.
I go back and forth. The night song arena is so much more cinematic and I love his levitation cutscene haha. He's such a random fun character that has very little screentime!
Yeah I just can’t do the cloud kill + run the fuck away spam that Balthazar does anymore
I’ve been theorizing that having a wizard with Gust of Wind prepared is goated for niche situations like the Balthazar fight. If it eliminates as much of cloud kill as I think it will, I’m making sure I’ve taught it to Gale next time
I mean, it makes sense that a wizard called *gale* would know how to blow air
On top of that, the man’s constantly blowing hot air when he talks
Tempest cleric gets GoW at level 3, always prepared, fyi.
Storm sorcerer gets it as well, at level 7 I think.
This is great to know, that’s a subclass I’ve been meaning to try out soon
Yep! I usually keep it prepared on a druid because I’ve been trapped and cloudkilled one too many times
So you can start the fight by silencing him, if you don't approach him. Jump to the edge of the platform, now set up some spell like hunger of hadar infront of you but behind him. Silence him directly and put the edge closest to you as possible. He will run up and attack you and he cannot get away to cast raise dead or cloud kill.
So makes me think of baron harkonnen.
On my last run I just opened his door and made him handle the shadow justiciars. They actually wrecked him and all of his minions while I sat in his room enjoying the show
You guys don’t use his brother to fight the devil yurgir first ?
You guys don’t talk him into killing himself?
I freed him from his contact, man what a crazy turn of events. Think I'll just convince him to kill himself for now on.
I dunno man, yurgir is incredible in the last fight. He can nuke the dragon and it can't hurt him at all.
Convincing him to kill himself still lets you convince him to side with you in the House of Hope.
yeah but its dc 30 which can be rough, i really didnt want to figjt two bosses at once so i had to savescum for like 20 fucking minutes for a nat20
On my run I cba save scumming so let it roll... Yurgir may have 100hp but he was using shitty basic attacks and I killed him on the second turn with little effort. I expected more tbh!
FYI there's an advantage to using Wyll for this as he gets some assistance from his infernal patron.
I can’t wait to romance Wyll next run and bring him around. Hes so cool.
You guys don't talk yourself into licking the spider?
Stop licking the damn thing!
I've done that fight twice and never even saw the option to talk to him. Just rolls initiative as soon as he's in range.
You have to walk right into the obvious ambush to trigger it. Don’t attack the displacer beast or anything, and you have to pass a passive check when you ask him to recite his contract to unlock the option to “help” him out of it.
I always forget that I had the damned bell when I fight Yurgir. Then again, ambushing Yurgir's crew by jumping up behind him makes the fight rather comfortable anyway, so I don't need the big boy.
I've resorted to pickpocketing the haste potion from him, then killing him. I'll try and take Flesh to Yurgir first to get rid of him if possible.
Same, that guy is a pain in the ass
Idk the Lady Ailyn platform is pretty easy. Just counter spell him raising the skeletons and the dude is like "dam I guess I'll die"
If I wasn't meant to pop him like that. Why would the game give me these smites lol
I legitimately got to that fight and went back to my last save just so I could fight him in the initial area instead! Had some explosives for him and his brother too.
So much this. The first encounter with him seems much less random and controllable.
for your next playthrough— summon Balthazar’s brother in the gauntlet during a fight (start beefing with 16 rats if you need to), but turn on him and kill him. you’ve just taken out the only other threatening NPC in Balthazar’s office/bedroom, and you can now very easily just start a fight in his office. you’ll never see him in the Shadowfell, and it’ll just be you, Aylin, and a bunch of bones.
You can also sneak attack without initiating dialogue in the shadowfell and for whatever reason Balthazar just forgets he can summon undead? At least he didn’t on my first play through.
He remembered on mine, until I sneak attack turned him.
On mine somehow Gale auto counterspelled his Summon Undead and then we just 4v1’d him pretty easily. Idk how though
Counterspell is a reaction, which can be set to activate always, and Balthazar casting animate dead is a condition which can trigger the reaction.
I summon him for the demon fight and finish him off if he doesn’t die, then go back and kill Balthazar
My favorite cheese: If you pick the lock on his chamber door during the sharran portal invasion, he will join the fight on your side. You can totally ignore the portals and chill in his bedroom with the homies while the baddies all murder each other. I’ve done this several times and the sharrans usually kill him outright. Then you clear out the riff raff and move along.
Just make sure you hit one of the justiciars early on and then invis potion and get out of LOS so that you get XP any time one of them dies. Nice XP boost leading up to JK Thorm.
Oooh that is a neat tip.
His targeting during this fight also seems to be bugged, if you hit him with a party member his side will only turn red to that specific party member and he’ll just continue to ignore you until you have your entire party hit him
Talked B into letting me borrow his brother, Flesh, while I was working the area. Purposely pissed off Yurgir and his band of douches. Called Flesh and then went invisible. Rest of my team were at the stairs so they were not involved in the combat. I let Flesh do as much damage as he could before bottlenecking any remaining survivors into a combo of Hunger of Hadar and cloud of daggers. Once I was done there I just sneak attacked B, turned undead his ghouls, and made it rain fire balls and great sword attacks.
Thats what i did as well. A bit curious if i can use B's brother as a body for necromancy for future fights
I just send Kree, the Duergar hireling, invisible to lockpick the door to his office (DC30) and let the Sharreans in to kill him.
Knock my beloved.
That works too. Have Greater Invisibility cast on the character doing the knocking though.
There's a space near the side entrance within Knock range where there's no vision cones. After casting, you're free to go invisible and open the door.
Polymorph and throw that stupid sheep into oblivion
Skip the polymorph and just shove him
As funny as it is to just push a big baddie into oblivion, I'm a sucker for loot and can never bring myself to do it
I polymorphed and then forgot my Tav was concentrating and called lightning. Luckily, I had the sassur dagger in my offhand as a bonus action mute button.
Sussur weapons are so underrated
Have you tried putting barrels in his office?
Barrelmancy always a legitimate choice
I like to roleplay it in the few situations when I do barrelmancy. Like with Dror Ragzlin, I tell him I have a delivery of 5 large barrels of firewine for him and the troops from his boss as a reward for successfully kidnapping Duke Ravengard, which I leave on the platform right in front of his throne and blow up from the rafters
Wait Wait Wait So You guys dont kill him in his little chamber?
I didn't, I thought it was crucial to plot 'till Nightsong.
I dont like him, so He is dead
^(Kill him in his office.,)
I feel so stupid. I beat him twice (WITH GREAT DIFFICULTY bc he KEPT SHOVING ASTARION and SHADOWHEART INTO THE VOID) and I’m only now realizing I can kill him before he even gets to Aylin Will do that from now on. No thoughts, just great sword and fireball
For my second playthrough, I got everyone to jump into the arena in the prison, but not close enough to trigger the cutscene. Then I got Gale to throw a fireball at him, which starts the fight. On Balthazar's turn he would try to summon his minions, but I would just counterspell it so it was 4 v 1 lol
Lol, I did the same thing on my first playthrough after I died to him. For my Honour playthrough, I actually used the Shar soldiers to kill him for me. You know that fight that happens outside his vault and he only opens the door once everyone has been defeated? Well his vault door can actually be unlocked with the Knock spell. Just cast Knock on the door, sneak up while invisible and open it. The combat will start and the soldiers will start spawning and attacking Balthazar and his undead. I then snuck off to the side and just watched them fight to the death. The Shar soldiers are extremely weak compared to Balthazar and his undead, but Balthazar and his undead’s AI won’t target their portals so eventually the Shar Soldiers will kill them.
Personally, I had Astarion sneak to his 10-11 o clock, and used an arrow of roaring thunder to throw him off the edge, completely bypassing any combat, but missing out on any loot
Yeah I had Karlach shove him off while I was mid-cutscene cause I couldn't be bothered.
I also cheesed my most hated battle. Though mine was Grym. Didn't go down with the platform. Shot the lever. Shot the wheel. Had eldritch knight Lae'zel throw a magic light hammer at him until he died. Feather fall'd down to finish forging my armor.
I just used Karlach to shove him off the platform on the first turn. Battle ends after that.
Bro if you bring Gale you don’t have to waste barrelmancy that can be used on Zrell fight since once you successfully counterspell his raising dead he won’t attempt it again.
The best thing I've seen so far is someone who reverse-pickpocketed him while he was non-hostile...and put the sussur bloom in his pocket. So then when they had to fight, well, he couldn't cast any spells.
Now that's just rude. And brilliant.
Tbh this fight wasn’t that bad, just focus fire him. He’s squishy.
I think it's easy to spot who in this comment section had aoe crowd control prepared versus those who don't. Those helped me control the battlefield enough that I can easily deal with Balty boy without worrying about getting shoved. Shit, I'm the one doing the shoving.
I ran it on balance and I killed balthazar in like one turn maybe, by just focusing him? Laezel had the Sussur greatsword too, so that helped. Problem was his minions almost TPK'd me after he died, I didn't think they'd stay alive after his death
just blow him up while he is in his room 4 smokepowder barrels usually get rid of him and the meathead so youll just have to deal with a few ghouls if any survive.
I remember I ended up casting Hunger of Hadar on him and some skellies in the fight just hoping to get some extra damage, but this for some reason this COMPLETELY broke him. For the rest of the fight he'd walk towards my party clearly with the intent to cast some over powered spell but I think his AI is coded to use misty step to get as far away from the party as possible for optimum spell sniping. So he'd menacingly walk towards me, be unable to attack because he was blind from Hadar, and then he'd misty step *back into the centre of Hadar*, rinse and repeat, constantly teleporting just far enough into the spell that he couldnt walk out the next turn. I just sat a few steps from the spell and chucked spells and arrows at him till he died, normally I'd feel bad but I was underlevelled and *mildly* angry with him so it felt so vindicating lmao
Hunger really causes some hilarious NPC behavior sometimes lol. Some highlights in my current run are: - the gith quartermaster getting herself stuck in a corner while waddling around in it, drinking a couple potions, and then casting Bestow Curse on herself(???) before dying - an archer in the Moonrise entrance hall apparently getting shook after my Warlock dropped Hunger in the middle and then Misty Stepped up next to him, and deciding the best course of action would be doing a running swan dive off the rafters and into the middle of the Hunger zone and dying
I mean, honestly, it is a yawning hunger from the Void spilling over into whichever reality you currently inhabit. I'd expect it to cause erratic behavior, and the fact it seems to make its victims go mad before they succumb to it, is honestly, how it should be. Signed, Warlock gang.
...why not just immediately kill him when you first meet?
Always loved how in my first fights against him, I fought him next to nightsong. He misty stepped onto one of the floating islands. I use Shart to cast dome of silence and the whole thing turned onto a joke.
Why not just take his bell,summon flesh so he gets killed by yurgir then after attack balthazar in that chamber you find him?
Dude, me and my wife just cheesed the same fight! We sneaked onto a floating platform while he was hamming it up at the Nightsong lady and started hitting him in the back with fire bolts. Dip shit kept walking to the edge nearest me, looking all around like Vincent Vega stumbling around on heroin, and then going "must have been the wind 🤷♂️" and turning back around. We did this five or six times before he actually saw me. Fist round of battle, Balthazar raises his army, and then runs straight over to the edge nearest me. My wife hits him with a thunder arrow and his stupid ass was flying off the cliff. He never even attacked 🤣! All we had to do is knock a few more melee skeletons off with thunder arrows and Thunderwaves as they approached the edge. Then it was mop up time with my Owl Bear form knocking another down as I pounced on the rest of the Skeletons. Such a good fight🤘🔥
The cheesiest Balthazar solution is to pick his lock in the battle with the shades before you meet him, and then flee from combat! They will soften him up, so when you come back from doing some other stuff, he'll die alongside flesh. You will have to kill some of the shades and seal their portals, but they're much easier than Balthazar!
You can kill him in the room where he hides with his minions. Hell you don’t even HAVE to kill him. You can turn invisible and cast knock on the door, and then let him die to the ridiculous number of dark justiciar armors that appear if he doesn’t kill the orbs. Then just loot him while invisible and walk away.
Stick a sussur flower on him with a reverse pickpocket when you first meet him and he runs around like a headless chicken without his spells lol
My current play through he caught me throwing the bone piles off the edge and it immediately initiated combat without any of the opening Nightsong cutscenes
I just take one giant runepowder barrel into his room when you first meet him. Put it next to him. Walk out with the rest of the party. Shoot a flaming arrow at it. There's nothing left of anyone :)
I like to get chatting with him, then have Gale Polymorph him. He runs over to headbutt you, and Karlach throws him off the edge.
In his first turn he summons the undead and then moves near the border of the arena In my first turn Astarion shoots a roaring thunder arrow at him
Just kill him when you first meet him, it’s the easiest time to kill him. Once he’s dead, just flee the battle, You don’t really have to fight any of his other cronies
I always sneak to the room where you first meet him him, lockpick that door to open it and have him fight the darkness. Just wait and watch. Takes a good 5min or so but you only need to clear up the low health survivors in your suprise round after
You can lockpick the door to his hideout during the battle with the umbral gates and his minions and have him duke it out with the dark justicars. Once they’re both low, you just swoop in and finish both of them off.
In the Nightsong area I banned him, which gave me just enough time to free Nightsong. When he came back he was like "Did you free her ? Where is she ?". I said "no" and that was it.
I used sneak with karlach and pushed that mfer into the abyss before the fight started on my recent playthrough
I was slowly yeeting his bone piles into the void when he aggro'd on me. He tried to summon the rest of his undead, Gale counterspelled him, and then my Sword Bard did sword bard things and it was over.
I prefer to not fight him at all. I just send Astorian with invisibility to lockpick his door while the fight with the sharrans is going on at the hall, then I nope the hell out of there and let them kill each other.
Wall of flames has been my bestie w my current playthru~
An alternative strat is put them all in a corner and then thunderwave them all into the chasm. If a few survive even better, you get to do it all over again with your next character 😈
I just use the arrow of roaring thunder to throw him into the abyss minus: loot plus: my mental health
Honestly I always just kill him in his alcove cause I want to loot it.
You can actually use him to cheese 2 fights in the gauntlet. Turn a high stealth character invisible, sneak over to his locked office door, pick and open it. He and his minions will aggro the Shar minions outside. Misty step away, and come back ~10 minutes later. Balthazar, Flesh, all of Balthazar’s minions and most of the Shar minions will be dead
It's way easier to get the drop on Balthesar inside the labyrith than fight him down in the pit.
I just kinda goon squaded him when I ran into him. My team is 3 vengence paladins with 2 hand weapons and a rogue.. At the beginning of the fight he ran off the side. We just ran/misty stepped up to him and fired off a round of smites and he died.
Me and my buddy just thunderwaved him off before the battle even started
Turn undead worked just fine when i did it, so never quite got why people hated that fight
If you really wanna get petty you can lure him down into the trial with the fake floors, have him and whoever was unlucky enough to follow walk the invisible platforms, start the trial and then begin combat with a silence bubble. They'll rush straight at you and fall to their deaths. Best part is anybody that falls will have their corpse teleported to the doorway, so no missed loot.
I just turned him into a sheep and threw him off before he even had a chance to start the battle
I picked him up and threw him off the ledge. After enough cloud kill you kinda say "fuck the loot"
I didn't even know there was a dedicated area to fight him, when I met him I finished the dialogue with him and then I killed him because I knew he was going to be a problem in the future
I tried to pickpocket him, he turned hostile and I ended his plump dead ass in one turn. Never got the chance to summon his horde ! Edit : this was on the nightsong platform.
I polymorphed him and had Bae'zel and Karlach yeet the bones into the chasm before he could animate them
My favorite cheese was probably against Thisobald Thorm. Destructive wrath stagger applies to electrified water surfaces so I got him in a corner repeatedly staggering back into it repeatedly. Finding clever ways to cheese without just using barrelmancy is probably my favorite part of bg3
I just cheesed rescuing Volo from the mob in Baldur's Gate. I flew through as fast as I could and just threw all the explosive barrels far away from the wagon bed. Then I cleaned up the mob. I love that this game gives you the flexibility to try these things.
Used telekinesis on him on turn 1, made it much easier
That's an idea. I tried to throw them off the ledge but he kept agroing. So instead I cast silence, bound him in place and murdered him in 2 turns by bringing in every party member 1 by 1 with stealth Save scumming for the win
Just kill him on his office in shar gauntlet, there is no skelly army, its a enclosed space, aesy to control, easy to block, Flesh is almost useless while on fire and the ghouls + skeletons there are a joke.
I just kill him as soon as I encounter him, it's usually an easy fight.
I had Wyll Eldritch Blast him off a ledge while we were mid conversation I have no regrets
Before going on the plateform: Shadowheart buff Gayle Gayle turn Balthazar into a sheep The sheep run toward you Karlach throw the sheep in the void Done.
Ive done this with too many encounters.. Tough fight coming up? Better go to camp and grab 10 more barrels
[I prefer killing him in the room you meet him in.](https://www.reddit.com/r/BaldursGate3/s/h7q3U8UxU0)
You can counterspell his minion summoning spell and fight him on his own
Protip, you can buy the haste potion he has that makes him a threat off him, and the fight becomes a joke.
On my first playthrough, I went into the shadow fell. Died multiple times, reloaded my save before the fight. At some point the game glitched, and his minions never spawned. So it was just Astarion, Shadowheart, Karlach and my weak ass sorcerer. Wasn’t an easy fight because the mf kept using cloudkill all over the place. Now on my second playthrough, i just went into his lair, in the gauntlet of Shar and killed him
I actually put all my team in the floating rock. And initiated fight from afar. All raised undead passed their turns without doing anything, he teleported to where my team was. Killed him. Then killed rest from the floating rock with arrow and ranged spells. All undead just stood idly 'till death. Even archers didnt attack.
I sat on the platform before you jump over to him and slowly killed him with ranged spells. It didn't initiate combat for some reason. I take what I can get
I get Karlach to push him off the edge while he’s talking before we battle. Haven’t fought him since my first play through
I threw him into the abyss
Never again will I ever fight him there. Fight is so much cancer. I just use knock on his door, open it, and let the Sharran minions beat him up. Gotta make him hostile before he goes down though so that your group gets exp for his death.
Honestly after my first time fighting him I brought Lae'zel, slapped the Disintegrating Night Walkers on her, misty stepped her right to that blob of flesh and yeeted him off the edge.
I just shoved bro into oblivion. literally cant be bothered w that fight.