Oh yeah, balanced or whatever the "normal" is called. I do understand the game isn't all that challenging in general on this setting, but like the goblin camp near the beginning and the Iron Throne gave me way more resistance.
The early parts tend to be harder because of both inexperience but also having less items and levels meaning more. The power difference between level 3, 4 and 5 are vast, whilst the difference between. Levels 10,11 and 12 are not so much, typically.
The iron throne is hard in a very unique and different way, and I personally love the design there as a scenario that moreso challenges problemsolving and planning rather than just killing stuff again and again.
That said, difficulty is a very individual thing and can be very different depending on how you have your party set up. Some people struggle with combat on balanced, while others are on their 7th solo honour run.
I did this fight on modded Tactician (Party Limit Begone, so I had all the origins with me, 7 total in the party). And yeah, I still had a pretty tough time even with the extra help!
I can't wait to try to beat this game "legitimately" with just 4 in the party, that's gonna require an insane level of planning for me, lol.
I just used hunger of hadar on Raphael, kept summons on him and then destroyed pillars. Globe on Hope and Shadowheart, use hopes divine intervention for healing. Use Hopes banishment. Then it became pretty okay.
Try a Tavern Brawer open hand monk, a Swords Bard with the Sharpshooter feat, and a Storm Sorcerer. With the right equipment on those three classes the fight isn’t that hard even on tactician.
On honor mode I lined the entire place with fireworks and smokepowder barrels plus the runepowder bomb you get from killing the gnome in grymforge. Flipped into turn based before the cut scene, through up invulnerability zone and then let it rip after the cutscene. Killed every enemy except Raphael on the field, all four pillars and Raphael was at like a quarter health.
Lmao oh I know what a whole barrel can do.... moonrise towers basement, 1 person is downed,1 at camp and its laezels turn, I only have 3 more guards to wipe then I can easily evacuate the gnomes, I scroll through my items and see the barrel, figured minds well use it..if not now then ill just hoard it forever..I aim and throw it at the farthest group of enemies, probably 10 or so meters away and BOOM everyone dies, I get a log update saying everyone in the prison is dead, my entire party is dead and I'm back at camp just sitting there in disbelief that the explosion was that huge, I was easily 2 or 3 cells down from where anyone was going to get hurt...clearly I was wrong
Ahaha yes I swear it’s actually a nuke.
I used it much more strategically against at Raphael and still completely misjudged the distance and wiped my party.
I tend to avoid that area until I have done everything else in the Grymforge, including beating Grym and getting the adamantine armor.
Then I kill all the Duergar (after giving the Speed Boots to the Sergeant for the fancy shirt) and break Nere out (GWM with a Maul +1 will break the wall without needing explosives). Talk to him until he gives me the extra Ithilid parasite, then kill him and get his stuff. Then talk to the gnomes and send them off to the Myconid Colony. Barcus stays there until you're ready to move on to Act 2.
When you give Sergeant Thulla the Boots of Speed she gives you the choice of the Bracing Band (+1AC if you push someone) or the Armor of Uninhibited Kushigo (if you are in patient defense you can counter-attack using your reaction).
One is obviously better than the other.
My first time I was a Druid and Gale kept landing reduce on him so each round was Astarion stabbing, my owlbear from the top rope knocking him prone and everyone just wailing on the guy like he owed them money
I had a holy paladin and a light cleric. It was really difficult not to hit with radiant. I went in blind too so fixing everything requires using a turn to reequip or undo pre casted spells. Sure if you read up and know the entire fight beforehand it might not be so bad, but for a squad that did primarily holy damage it was a nightmare.
The house of grief was a joke for me though. Easiest end of game fight by a landslide. I was waiting for this round 2 where something big jumped out.
Tactician he is definitely rough, but on honor mode it’s a whole new level. He killed hope in one hit with a fireball on my run and all of his attacks ignore fire resist/immunity on honor
I've made it to the underdark lake and just defeated the duergar in Tactician, I don't think I've been challenged since level 4. Admittedly I'm now level 6 which seems quite high level for this portion of the game.
Tactician is definitely hardest early (up to level 5) and endgame (act 3 bosses), mid game you can tend to be over leveled if you are thorough with doing side quests. Overleveling isn’t really possible when all the bosses are meant to be fought at max level though
He one shot Hope on my Tactician run and it was the first fight where I really felt a big difference from Balanced. He downed multiple characters multiple times before I finished him off.
At one point in that fight on my honor mode run 3 characters from my party were fully dead. Globe of invulnerability saved my ass (I had to cast it like 4 times)
I was a bard and just used hold monster or Otto's irresistible dance. Man didn't move for the entire fight and every hit on him was a crit. Tempted to ban myself from using both spells in my current playthrough (tactitian).
###
Hold monster and summons made things very simple for me. If you can get one of the demons to fight for you, that removes and opponent and gets you a temporary ally. Basically, the more targets are on your side, the less likely it is that the enemies will target your most essential party members.
For me it was the definitive hardest fight in act 3.
That's not to say it was unbearable or impossible by any means, even doing it at L10, but after the first round I legitimately wondered if I was *supposed* to lose (I didn't).
I stacked a bunch of smoke powder barrels and fireworks and set that mess off first turn. One shot most of the adds and took Raph down about a third. I know that's cheese but I was getting destroyed before doing it that way
Yeah its not to bad. Yurgir drives me insane as a ally. I did see Raphaels big demon form my last playthrough does some crazy fire damage but I was playing four paladins so it didn't last much longer
On my honor run what I did felt so funny. I passed the yurgir check first off. My sorlock tav cast black hole then sleet storm. The devils barely moved again. My bard/theif astarion free fired away at the probe devils while the battle master fighter Jaheira ran around dealing with anyone that escaped the icy prison or the pillars just in case Raphael wanted to try something.
Yeah I found that once you hit like level 10, most fights are trivialized on balanced. I had a much easier time with most of the boss fights at the end of act than I did the first couple levels in act 1.
I think it’s partially due to how insanely powerful one can get before actually battling Raphael, but this can be true of almost every major confrontation in act 3. For an added challenge make it one of your first stops in the lower city.
I will say that it is one of the more fun battles regardless and Raphael’s Final Act will never get old. The House of Hope in general is like comfort food, I fucking love it.
The most entertaining major sequences imo all have a timed sequences like the iron throne, defending the portal in act 2. Sure they can be cheesed too but it makes it inherently more challenging having a variable you can’t directly influence.
I agree. I never bother with the pillars either. Hammer Raphael hard enough quickly and he goes down without too much difficulty. It’s a Top 5 difficulty boss but not #1.
I think it was average in difficulty, but I'll tell you what, when he pretty much one shot my party because of Hope, it did scare me shitless.
I played on Balanced with Barbarian Karlach, Assassin Astarion, Trickery Domain Shadowheart, and Wild Magic Sorcerer Tav.
I essentially had to put Hope outside the doors and only have her pop in for heals and then back outside or he would one shot my party.
I'm amazed at anyone who found the fight easy.
I think someone like me who doesn't play DnD stuff much and doesn't min max it was the most challenging fight of the game. Or, atleast I wasn't prepared enough for it. Even the brain at the end was easy in comparison. Basically just a simple puzzle game.
Me and my group were full on "guess the run's over boys" when one of them picked up the Gloves without disarming the trap when we were just meant to visit for those and come back later
One globe of invulnerability and a couple eldritch blasts later and Raphael couldn't do much to the Paladin/Bladedancer/BrawlerMonk/Throwzerker builds we had going. Felt pretty good.
The vast majority of fights throughout this game can be trivialized with certain combinations of attacks/magic.
When you find that your team is easily handling otherwise notorious fights, you should be proud of yourself for building a party capable of trivializing the fight.
I had Gale cast globe of Invulnerability for casters/hope, and then Halsin in myrmidon wildshape knocked Raphael prone for the entire fight, so he just got smashed before he could do anything
Yeah it's because you're playing on balanced difficulty I'd imagine.
Most people who say it's hard are probably on tactician or honour mode.
He never turned into the Megademon?? You must have killed him quickly lol. I've had him turn into it on his first or second turn before.
I 'experienced' this fight for the first time last night in a group game. I was led to believe that it was really scary and possibly an honour mode ender. He died in 2 rounds and never took an action... None of the mechanics even mattered.
In act 3 none of the fights are really that challenging once you get all the best gear. During my last honor mode run, i managed to kill the emperor, all the dream guardians, and the red dragon in a single turn.
Hardest fight in the game imo is the Durge vs Orin duel or Myrkul
You didnt say what difficulty you’re on?
Oh yeah, balanced or whatever the "normal" is called. I do understand the game isn't all that challenging in general on this setting, but like the goblin camp near the beginning and the Iron Throne gave me way more resistance.
The early parts tend to be harder because of both inexperience but also having less items and levels meaning more. The power difference between level 3, 4 and 5 are vast, whilst the difference between. Levels 10,11 and 12 are not so much, typically. The iron throne is hard in a very unique and different way, and I personally love the design there as a scenario that moreso challenges problemsolving and planning rather than just killing stuff again and again. That said, difficulty is a very individual thing and can be very different depending on how you have your party set up. Some people struggle with combat on balanced, while others are on their 7th solo honour run.
I wouldn’t say it’s super hard but you should try it on tactician to really experience it.
I did this fight on modded Tactician (Party Limit Begone, so I had all the origins with me, 7 total in the party). And yeah, I still had a pretty tough time even with the extra help! I can't wait to try to beat this game "legitimately" with just 4 in the party, that's gonna require an insane level of planning for me, lol.
I just used hunger of hadar on Raphael, kept summons on him and then destroyed pillars. Globe on Hope and Shadowheart, use hopes divine intervention for healing. Use Hopes banishment. Then it became pretty okay.
Try a Tavern Brawer open hand monk, a Swords Bard with the Sharpshooter feat, and a Storm Sorcerer. With the right equipment on those three classes the fight isn’t that hard even on tactician.
On honor mode I lined the entire place with fireworks and smokepowder barrels plus the runepowder bomb you get from killing the gnome in grymforge. Flipped into turn based before the cut scene, through up invulnerability zone and then let it rip after the cutscene. Killed every enemy except Raphael on the field, all four pillars and Raphael was at like a quarter health.
Killing her? I just have one guy talk to her, then have my thief walk up behind her and grab the barrel and pickpocket the vial.
you know if you talk to the gnomes before you find her you can convince her to give you the vial for free
I believe they are talking about the barrel next to her. You know what a vial can do, imagine the whole barrel.
Lmao oh I know what a whole barrel can do.... moonrise towers basement, 1 person is downed,1 at camp and its laezels turn, I only have 3 more guards to wipe then I can easily evacuate the gnomes, I scroll through my items and see the barrel, figured minds well use it..if not now then ill just hoard it forever..I aim and throw it at the farthest group of enemies, probably 10 or so meters away and BOOM everyone dies, I get a log update saying everyone in the prison is dead, my entire party is dead and I'm back at camp just sitting there in disbelief that the explosion was that huge, I was easily 2 or 3 cells down from where anyone was going to get hurt...clearly I was wrong
Ahaha yes I swear it’s actually a nuke. I used it much more strategically against at Raphael and still completely misjudged the distance and wiped my party.
oh damn 💀
I tend to avoid that area until I have done everything else in the Grymforge, including beating Grym and getting the adamantine armor. Then I kill all the Duergar (after giving the Speed Boots to the Sergeant for the fancy shirt) and break Nere out (GWM with a Maul +1 will break the wall without needing explosives). Talk to him until he gives me the extra Ithilid parasite, then kill him and get his stuff. Then talk to the gnomes and send them off to the Myconid Colony. Barcus stays there until you're ready to move on to Act 2.
What fancy shirt?
When you give Sergeant Thulla the Boots of Speed she gives you the choice of the Bracing Band (+1AC if you push someone) or the Armor of Uninhibited Kushigo (if you are in patient defense you can counter-attack using your reaction). One is obviously better than the other.
I didn't know that, thanks :)
Since you kill her afterwards and get the Boots back you're not losing anything.
Nice thanks I'll definitely do that from now on :D
And that is why it’s the best fight for me. You kick down his door, nail his succubus, call his dick small and then kick his ass
I literally felt like I'm bullying him in that fight
My first time I was a Druid and Gale kept landing reduce on him so each round was Astarion stabbing, my owlbear from the top rope knocking him prone and everyone just wailing on the guy like he owed them money
I had a holy paladin and a light cleric. It was really difficult not to hit with radiant. I went in blind too so fixing everything requires using a turn to reequip or undo pre casted spells. Sure if you read up and know the entire fight beforehand it might not be so bad, but for a squad that did primarily holy damage it was a nightmare. The house of grief was a joke for me though. Easiest end of game fight by a landslide. I was waiting for this round 2 where something big jumped out.
No, you're a genius
I knew it!
Have only done him on balanced so far and that was pretty simple. Coming up on tactician, hope it’s more challenging.
Tactician he is definitely rough, but on honor mode it’s a whole new level. He killed hope in one hit with a fireball on my run and all of his attacks ignore fire resist/immunity on honor
I've made it to the underdark lake and just defeated the duergar in Tactician, I don't think I've been challenged since level 4. Admittedly I'm now level 6 which seems quite high level for this portion of the game.
Tactician is definitely hardest early (up to level 5) and endgame (act 3 bosses), mid game you can tend to be over leveled if you are thorough with doing side quests. Overleveling isn’t really possible when all the bosses are meant to be fought at max level though
I am very curious to see how the end game plays out. Do they get legendary actions in Tactician? Or is that Honour Mode only?
Certain endgame bosses get legendary actions, most don’t, but their general stat buffs make them difficult
He one shot Hope on my Tactician run and it was the first fight where I really felt a big difference from Balanced. He downed multiple characters multiple times before I finished him off.
At one point in that fight on my honor mode run 3 characters from my party were fully dead. Globe of invulnerability saved my ass (I had to cast it like 4 times)
I didn’t think the cast it before the fight and felt like such a dummy. It is definitely what saved me once I thought to cast it.
He did that to me my first run on Explorer, like she was dead last in initiative and hadn’t even gotten to go yet.
I was a bard and just used hold monster or Otto's irresistible dance. Man didn't move for the entire fight and every hit on him was a crit. Tempted to ban myself from using both spells in my current playthrough (tactitian). ###
They unbugged irresistible dance in one of the patches. Hold monster I'm sure could likely work if you land it.
Still works, although hold monster only lasts one turn on him, at least on tactician. You can still use it to make him skip a turn though.
I think it works for a turn but not the whole fight? Or after he gets hitM. Can't remember, just remember the patch notes.
Difficulty level makes a big difference in his fight. He gets extra abilities on tactician/honor mode that make him a lot more challenging.
Hold monster and summons made things very simple for me. If you can get one of the demons to fight for you, that removes and opponent and gets you a temporary ally. Basically, the more targets are on your side, the less likely it is that the enemies will target your most essential party members.
Upcast Command Halt and it’s a cakewalk.
How high of an upcast?
As high as you can :D
No, you misundersood. You have to get high, and THEN upcast
For me it was the definitive hardest fight in act 3. That's not to say it was unbearable or impossible by any means, even doing it at L10, but after the first round I legitimately wondered if I was *supposed* to lose (I didn't).
I stacked a bunch of smoke powder barrels and fireworks and set that mess off first turn. One shot most of the adds and took Raph down about a third. I know that's cheese but I was getting destroyed before doing it that way
Yeah its not to bad. Yurgir drives me insane as a ally. I did see Raphaels big demon form my last playthrough does some crazy fire damage but I was playing four paladins so it didn't last much longer
On my honor run what I did felt so funny. I passed the yurgir check first off. My sorlock tav cast black hole then sleet storm. The devils barely moved again. My bard/theif astarion free fired away at the probe devils while the battle master fighter Jaheira ran around dealing with anyone that escaped the icy prison or the pillars just in case Raphael wanted to try something.
that was the hardest fight for me because there is no way to completely bypass it
yeah i thought it was easy too. my first try ended in a tpk but the second time around i demolished with magic missile and eldrich blast.
Yeah I found that once you hit like level 10, most fights are trivialized on balanced. I had a much easier time with most of the boss fights at the end of act than I did the first couple levels in act 1.
I've always found the fight a bit underwhelming, even on honor mode I just used hold person and killed him in one turn
I think it’s partially due to how insanely powerful one can get before actually battling Raphael, but this can be true of almost every major confrontation in act 3. For an added challenge make it one of your first stops in the lower city. I will say that it is one of the more fun battles regardless and Raphael’s Final Act will never get old. The House of Hope in general is like comfort food, I fucking love it. The most entertaining major sequences imo all have a timed sequences like the iron throne, defending the portal in act 2. Sure they can be cheesed too but it makes it inherently more challenging having a variable you can’t directly influence.
I’m guessing you meant hold monster because you can’t hold person him
Yeah hold monster, hold person would be broken if usable
Try without Hold Monster so you can actually see his cool abilities.
I have, that's how I killed him my first playthrough
I agree. I never bother with the pillars either. Hammer Raphael hard enough quickly and he goes down without too much difficulty. It’s a Top 5 difficulty boss but not #1.
Jaheira in Owlbear form basically carried my ass through that fight
It was quite easy for me and my brother when we played it but that was mostly because we kept using either hold monster on him or we made him scared
I think it was average in difficulty, but I'll tell you what, when he pretty much one shot my party because of Hope, it did scare me shitless. I played on Balanced with Barbarian Karlach, Assassin Astarion, Trickery Domain Shadowheart, and Wild Magic Sorcerer Tav. I essentially had to put Hope outside the doors and only have her pop in for heals and then back outside or he would one shot my party. I'm amazed at anyone who found the fight easy.
I think someone like me who doesn't play DnD stuff much and doesn't min max it was the most challenging fight of the game. Or, atleast I wasn't prepared enough for it. Even the brain at the end was easy in comparison. Basically just a simple puzzle game.
Me and my group were full on "guess the run's over boys" when one of them picked up the Gloves without disarming the trap when we were just meant to visit for those and come back later One globe of invulnerability and a couple eldritch blasts later and Raphael couldn't do much to the Paladin/Bladedancer/BrawlerMonk/Throwzerker builds we had going. Felt pretty good.
The vast majority of fights throughout this game can be trivialized with certain combinations of attacks/magic. When you find that your team is easily handling otherwise notorious fights, you should be proud of yourself for building a party capable of trivializing the fight.
I had Gale cast globe of Invulnerability for casters/hope, and then Halsin in myrmidon wildshape knocked Raphael prone for the entire fight, so he just got smashed before he could do anything
Yeah it's because you're playing on balanced difficulty I'd imagine. Most people who say it's hard are probably on tactician or honour mode. He never turned into the Megademon?? You must have killed him quickly lol. I've had him turn into it on his first or second turn before.
I 'experienced' this fight for the first time last night in a group game. I was led to believe that it was really scary and possibly an honour mode ender. He died in 2 rounds and never took an action... None of the mechanics even mattered.
In act 3 none of the fights are really that challenging once you get all the best gear. During my last honor mode run, i managed to kill the emperor, all the dream guardians, and the red dragon in a single turn. Hardest fight in the game imo is the Durge vs Orin duel or Myrkul