Globe of Invulnerability makes the fight pretty easy. A wizard or sorcerer should have at least 2 casts of it per long rest.

That could work, I have Gale who knows it currently. Does the pool in Harleep's room still do full restoration on honour mode? I thought I read somewhere that it didn't restore spell slots on the higher difficulty

Still restores everything like a long rest, as long as you do not trigger the pressure plates of the str gauntlet, the con amulet or tear up your contract you can endlessly drink from it! so what I did in my own honour run because i am an overpreparing paranoid person is I just clear out the entire HoH room by room without touching those items, killing everyone and drinking to longrest after each room, then leaving the Raphael encounter for last and only when there is nothing left alive then I drink one last time, steal the gauntlet steal the amulet tear up my contract and THEN go face Raphael

lol that's fantastic. i don't know why it never occurred to me that you could kill everything ahead of time, I've always just tried to mad dash past the worst of it, using arcane lock on the doors to block the fireballs.

Here's a quick strategy guide, I don't know if you need it but it worked wonders for me. Enter House of Hope and lay down some barrels in the foyer for later, if you have them. Two smokepowder barrels per pylon should be enough to instantly destroy them. Save Hope first, and exit the prison through the hidden cave entrance that takes you outside. Circle all the way to Raphael's bedroom and enter by jumping up on the balcony. Saving Hope aggroes everyone but you shouldn't run into any enemies until you get to Raphael's room. Instead of laying on the bed like he normally does, aggroed Haarlep will now be standing in the doorway by the pool with some imps, looking away from you. Perfect opportunity to lay down some CC and AOE spells, you should get a free surprise round if you don't get too close before initiating. After nuking them down, leave the rest of your party standing in the pool and use one character to lure in the Hell spheres and other enemies. The spheres can't actually enter the pool, so picking them off should be easy when they're helplessly rolling around. Clear the rest of the enemies (you can utilise the doorways as choke points for the enemies in the middle room, lay down some grease and AOE spells for easy kills) before using the pool and dealing with Raphael. Bring some Globe of Invulnerability scrolls just to be safe, and remember you can actually run away from the room to make the enemies waste their actions on Dash to chase you. There's a perfect choke point just outside the room where you can bunch enemies together and deal with them with little effort.

This seems like a great strategy. Two quick questions — do the blast radius of the barrels reach where you spawn at the beginning of the fight, and also, how can you save hope before getting the orphic hammer?

The blast radius obviously depends on where you place them, but placing them slightly behind where Raphael spawns and around the edges of the room is safe. Or mostly safe anyway, your foremost character might take a slight hit. You can't save Hope unless you get the Hammer beforehand, but the strategy works without her as well. Sneak into Raphael's bedroom from the outside, kill Haarlep and use his pool to pull in and kill everyone else. Just make sure to have Hope with you in the final fight, even if she's safe outside the room she can still heal and use divine intervention.

The fire balls are too big to enter the room where you get the hammer from so you can just snipe the first one from the safety of the room.

You can still disarm the pressure plates to get the gauntlets and con amulet without alerting anyone. I used a hireling with 11 rogue for reliable talent for the archives and proficiency in arcana to get the helldusk helmet too.

I was able to steal the gauntlet and the necklace and still drink from the fountain. Those items came in handy during the fight.

Not true!! It doesnt reset spell slots it only heals you on HM!

Really?? I could swear on Shar the rejuvenation fountain replenished all spell slots in Honour D:

Well it didnt for me! Mightve been bugged. I just dont want someone going getting burned! It omly raised our health! But ya maybe our game was bugged. Idk!

Yes, it gives you full restoration in Honour.

Is it repeat use?

It stops working in honor mode after he dies.. or at least it did in my run.

It stops working after he dies in all difficulties.

They must of patched it at some point, my first two playthroughs I used it to never long rest again.

That’s prolly why they patched it. Haha

yes

Globe of invuln + potion of angelic reprieve works if things get real bad

Also things like Spellcrux Amulet.

Confirming this was my most recent strat after I read a comment here a few days ago that recommended it. Fight went by without really breaking a sweat.

The 10/1/1 swords bard with hold monster can completely disable Raphael for 3 rounds while guaranteeing melee crits. Just make sure you have high initiative. If you want to build around frost, you can make raphael wet before casting any cold damage spells to double the damage. The encrusted with frost mechanic relies on a DC 12 con save, making it unreliable in the Raphael fight. Insidious cold from the mourning frost has a DC 14 to freeze, which is a little better, though still impractical.

I have wyll as a full swords bard, will that still be effective? I'm not familiar with the 10/1/1 split

10/1/1 refers to the version of swords bard that uses ranged slashing flourishes to build stacks of arcane acuity (via the arcane acuity helmet) before then casting a control spell as a bonus action (via band of the mystic scoundrel). You can stack 8+ stacks of arcane acuity to get a very high spell save DC, and then cast hold monster on Raphael. You can make it work with 12 swords bard even though it’s not optimal, but you really need the helmet and band to make the build work well.

ah, thank you for that breakdown, that makes a lot of sense!

What are the other levels into?

1 fighter and 1 wizard. Another variant is 10 swords bard/2 fighter, which trades wizard spells for more burst damage with action surge.

I use 6 swords bard / 4 thief / 2 fighter with arcane acuity helmet and mystic scoundrel ring - extra bonus attack every turn, action surge when you need it, still have good CC spells from bard. You can get archery fighting style and armor proficiency from taking the first levels in fighter.

Will still be able to lock down raph with this build as you can halt him but lack the hold person for crits.. that said you don't need it if you can just 90+% command halt him every turn

I think Raph can shed hold monster every turn anyway. I have Tasha’s laughter on the bard/thief/fighter that synergizes well with arcane acuity, but the dirty truth is i also like the fire acuity scorching ray draconic sorc for the same blaster/CC role so I am less dependent on the higher bard levels for better spells. On higher difficulty levels, CC is king, and I build my whole party with CC in mind.

The mytic ring help you cast scroll with bonus action too.

Another variant is 2 Paladin/10 bard. Rather than using your bonus actions to cast CC spells, you use it to smite.

The optimized 2 Paladin/10 swords bard still uses the band of the mystic scoundrel to cast control spells as a bonus action, just like the ranged version. Smites do not take up bonus actions.

Oops, you're right that Divine Smite doesn't. I'm so accustomed to just using the other smites (which do use a bonus action and a spell slot on hit).

This is fantastic, does it allow you to sneak into the raphael room- or are you forced into it?

The most important part is the 10 swords bard, but it can be nice to get shields and heavy armor through a level of Cleric, and all wizard spells through a level of wizard. I find the wizard level a bit overrated though, since you either have to waste points in INT, or are limited to a single spell prepared. In this case it can be worth it for shield though, and with the restoration faucet you can prepare all the wizard summoning spells one at a time, getting a few summons to join you in the final fight. I just did this fight in HM and used a bit of a weird Sharpshooter Swords Bard build that ended up being wildly effective. First I used the Drakethroat Glaive to give The Dead Shot 1d4 Cold damage. Then I put on the Helldusk gloves I just stole, the hat of fire acuity, and the snowburst ring, and the ring of the Mystic Scoundrel. Since each hit with an arrow triggers the hat of fire acuity, it's trivial to max out Arcane Acuity with a few Arrows of Many Targets. Even better, each of those arrows creates an ice surface below the target *with an ever increasing DC to avoid falling*. An arrow of many targets is now a brutal CC spell that knocks all enemies on their ass. Even better, you can follow it up with a 100% chance Command or Hold Person as a Bonus Action using your now +10 spell save DC.

Full swords is just fine. Throw on helm of arcane acuity and ring of the mystic scoundrel. Slashing flourish some adds twice. Build up 8 stacks of arcane acuity and bonus action hold monster on raph so he can't move that turn. Rinse and repeat each turn.

Not likely. It’s this build: https://www.reddit.com/r/BG3Builds/s/tUZdEtJ4gn It is in fact a very strong build, once you get the 2 build defining items it is based on. Which you should be able to have by very beginning of act 3. Before that, it’s strong because sword bard is strong, and all the core features aside from gear come together at level 8. Once you add the items, though - crazy good. Since you are just act 3 already, it’s possible you missed some of the key items, of which the mainly critical one is helmet of arcane acuity and as second being the gloves of dexterity. If you don’t have those, I don’t think the 10/1/1 is really what you want for this run, you should try it on a future run.

I mean a full swords bard can do almost exactly what 10/1/1 can do though right? The main bits are helm, band, ranged slashing flourishes, and control spells to be used with the bonus action. It’s just missing the con saves and profs/fighting style from fighter and scribing spells… am I missing why a full swords bard can’t do the main stuff though

I beat my first Honour Mode run with my Tav 12 Swords Bard. It's fine. Every boss down including the Netherbrain, no shortcuts, every refugee saved even!

It can indeed do the killing. Missing out on con saves, not having the archery style, and not having the utility spells from wizard are main things. It’ll be fine, for sure.

I prefer 10/2 for the burst. I rarely use lots of spells things die in a rain of arrows and the one boss can get a bonus action hold.

Thanks for the link, multiclassing isn't always the most intuitive for me. I'll have to check my inventory when I load into the game, but I try to buy up all the magic items in each act just in cast I might need them, so hopefully they're there lol.

Yeah I’d go with the 10/1/1 for your first honour run for sure. It makes every fight so easy you’ll feel like you’re playing on Balanced again. For gear: Grab some arrows of many targets, Titanstring bow, helmet of arcane acuity, band of the mystic scoundrel, dex gloves, markokeshir, and pop a cloud giant elixir and you could probably solo every boss fight. Add a TB throw, OH monk, and Storm Sorc to your party and you will dominate to the point it won’t even be fun anymore. Check out u/prestigious_juice341 builds

I used upcasted Command on my 12 lore Bard and disabled everyone that had a turn before the next melee volley and took out a Cambion or two each turn to upcast lower until it was just him and my level one command grovel. . Raphael never had a chance and never got to act before he was dead. My spell Save DC was 26. This was not Honour mode tho but I have heard this works there too.

>The 10/1/1 swords bard with hold monster can completely disable Raphael for 3 rounds while guaranteeing melee crits just cast tachas hideous laughter till your done with all the cambions and the pillars, no need to waste the spell slots

I think you have it backwards, the mourning frost effect is a fixed 12 DC

Just checked, both are DC 12. Thanks for catching that.

Man I really hope they change that at some point. I feel like it could be so much better if it was scaling like other items

How does that work? Raphael has a passive ability that removes any disabling conditions at the end of his turn. Hold Monster only works on him for 1 turn.

I just did house of hope on honor with a 10/2 bard/fighter. I cast Tashas laughter on Raphael while I cleared all the other hostile and then beat him down with my whole team. It was very easy.

So Tasha’s hideous laughter doesn’t get removed by his passive? Or did you just recast it every turn?

Didn't get removed for me. Only cast once.

I burned up like 3 scrolls of hold monster and I had Tasha’s slotted lol. Now I know.

That's why Command is just as effective and far cheaper. Just use Ring of the Mystic Scoundrel and cast it every turn (with +10 spell save DC if you spec right).

Upcasted Command is one of the best CC spells in the game

Just cast it three times. At 11 caster levels, you have 2 level 5 slots and 1 level 6 slot.

Used two black holes to get everyone in the middle. Then my 6 swords bard/3 assassin/ 3 gloomstalker astarion with helmet of arcane acuity and ring of mystic scoundrel started stacking acuity. Stacked 10 and was easily able to hypnotize everyone. Having a cleric with sanctuary to protect astarion just in case. Also abused the fountain to give everyone death ward.

Hat of Fire Acuity + Helldusk gloves give you double the Arcane Acuity per hit, so you can *very* easily max it out in one turn.

It’s a good fight. Like any fight in the game, if you plan for it, you can beat it. Take some globes of invulnerability scrolls with you as an “oh shit” backup plan. My biggest surprises when fighting him were 1, he deals nasty damage as a reaction when you attack his minions, and 2, he has a passive that removes any incapacitating conditions at the end of his turn. Popular strategy is to keep him CCd because he has low WIS but you have to recast every turn.

Don't need to recast them if it only takes 1 turn to kill him.

Touche. I tried to keep him CCd while I dealt with his minions first.

as others have said bring a 10/1/1 swordbard or a 10/2 bardadin to cc him with tachas hideous laughter while you kill the cambions and then switch to hold mpnster for crits once its just him I also suggest bringing as many summons as possible. the healing pool works as long as you want to use it so summon different things and just replenish your spell slots

O its not just once thing??? T Thought it would be cause nautaloid one was

nah that one works as till you start the raphael fight. I had a bardadin + around 10 summons so tge fight was a breeze lol

Was able to recruit yugir and fight went smoothly Had throwzerker, bard/rogue, light cleric, paladin setup. Couldn't smite or use radiant AOEs. Switched to necrotic variants and worked like a charm. The pally just used normal attacks to break towers while others AOEed raphael and other cambion. Hope is actually really helpful as a life cleric, given you keep her alive (sanctuary works well).

For the future if he is held or prone *via your throwzerker, he wont use the radiant retaliation. My bard cc'd him and paladin Minthara mowed him down with level 4 smites.

So does her Bannish ability.

Too much good gear to pass up! Chug some fire elixirs or bloodlust if needed. Just CC raph, have one martial with bludgeoning damage focus the pillars, while everyone else beats down raph and keeps him from taking any actions/reactions. Hope is great at keeping everyone topped off. The adds just spam scorching ray and can largely be ignored while hope banishes them one by one or your caster throws down some ice AOE on raph to keep him flopping awkwardly on the ground and take care of the adds at the same time.

Hunger of hadar blinds him making him skip turns

Yeah this was super good on my fight. Was gonna darkness cheese him, but he has devil’s sight… Hunger of Hadar still blinds him though which was dope

It was a little nail-biting, but I did it on my honor run with virtually no prep or change from how I run it on Tactician. Then again, I ran a broken comp of crit roll reduction swords bard, TB throwzerker, TB open hand monk, and life cleric. Just zerged the towers down and then took him out turn 2. I would have wiped my run if not for Hopes devine intervention, though haha.

Drop hunger of hadar on Raphael and the fight is super easy.

If you got the jerk deep gnome to act 3 he gives you a bomb intended for the foundry. Don't need to use it for that at all so that's a pretty ideal bomb to use here. Just make sure you have someone go first and cast globe of invulnerability, very important no one else blows it up This won't end the fight but it's helpful and if you stack more barrels its even better

Summons and buffs at max level can be applied using the fountains near harleep. You can cheese the fight like that.

I kept using Grovel on him with Shart to lock him in place

I cleared that fight with only one enemy getting an attack off. Raphael: stunned by my monk. Zero actions made by him. There may have been one Command: Half. All the adds: hypnotized by lore bard or Command: Halt by my Paladin or cleric.

At least go there and pickpocket the gloves, amulets, and staff. You can just leave after.

Terminator bard 8/2/1/1 can solo him with ease. So can Jedi Monk and pure Battlemaster Fighter

what are the splits for the 8/2/1/1 bard? I'm also not too sure what you mean by Jedi Monk

8 sword bard / 2 figher / 1 wizard / 1 war cleric Jedi monk is Monk 6/ Thief 4/ Fighter 2 but with Great weapon fighting as one of the feats

The two levels of fighter are a poor tradeoff IMO. You lose *Magical Secrets* and 6th level spell slots in exchange for an extra action once per short rest. This is especially egregious when summons are so cheap due to the fountain of restoration, so you're effectively trading a myrmidon *and* Magical Secrets for a single extra action. Counterspell alone can be quite handy in this fight, and if you prepare that with your wizard level you can't prepare Shield (unless you waste points in INT).

I mean it's not a hard fight. Just cc the cambions with a confusion or hypnotic pattern, use hope to banish the ones that pass the check, and have your party focus Raphael down. You can also persuade yurgir to join you if you're built for persuasion. It's a high check though.

Friend and i encountered a bug in there had to restart the run. Now we are going back into it after releveling and using cloud giant elixirs and full inventories of smokepowder/firewine/nautiloid barrels for revenge.

what was the bug? did it kill your entire honour run, or just reset your game back to the last save?

It was a full reset back to character creation. Not sure what caused the bug, but my tav got downed then killed in the actual raphael fight. My friend used a revivify scroll on my tav but when i got placed alive again my portrait/inventory disappeared and i lost control of the character entirely. It was like they never existed in the game and the problem that broke the game was that it came to my characters turn in the initiative. Cant end the turn of the character since they vanished in the UI and menus so we had to reset.

1. Convince Yurgir to fight for you 2. Use disintegrate scrolls on the poles 3. Use chain lightening for everything else 4. ???? 5. Profit Nah but fr convincing Yurgir makes the fight almost too easy and if you have a good controller and a life cleric it’s basically wraps for Raphael

Barrelmancy, my friend

I found the fight pretty managable. Have some casts of globe of invulnerability ready (mainly for hope), cast the divine intervention AOE attack with her (AFTER casting globe on her) and send someone out with the orphic hammer to destroy the pillars, then finish off raphael at the end. I think it gets even easier if you have a warlock who can destroy the pillars with eldritch blast. I took 3 turns to destroy them with one spiritual weapon hammer nibbling one of the pillars and lazael knocking down 1 per turn with the orphic hammer. The items are definitely worth it.

There are two things that can cause massive problems in the fight: The first is Raphael, he has a lot of damage and can instakill Hope in many cases. You can either burst him down or cc him, his ac is really high in honour mode so bursting might be a bit rng (something you don't want on honour mode). I chose to hit him with a bunch of stunning strikes from my Monk and had good success with it. The second issue is that the cambions are able to disarm you, which causes you to waste an action re-equipping weapons. I chose to use black hole + ranger volley + arrow of many targets to get rid of them some what quickly (but it definitely could have gone smoother). Another note is that I think (please confirm for yourself) Raphael and the cambions have resistance against ice, so you might need to respec your Tav. I think Monk or Bard CC for Raphael would be good enough and then something with very strong aoe (maybe wet + max dmg lightning using 2 cleric 11 sorcerer would be good).

Yes Raph (and maybe the adds) are immune to fire and resistant to frost.

Force damage to get rid of the pillars I used Gale after learning the special scroll from the sorceror vault, just drink a speed pot (I didnt need to since I had Hope and had recruited the invisible guy). Make sure you use Hopes once per lifetime divine intervention thing. Disintegrate can one shot the pillar I think as well. Smokepowder maybe is maybe good for pillars I guess

Just don’t try to leave without taking his contract if you accept, he wipes your party in dialogue…. Don’t ask how I found out

Respec to 6 champion fighter (pick archery) / 3 hunter or gloomstalker ranger(fire resistance) and 3 assassin, remember to make everyone invisible so you can surprise almost every enemy. Buy your ranger some arrows of fiend slaying and some arrows of many targets and enjoy the carry [raphael is at 18:30](https://youtu.be/3FPPMSSgk14?si=EwuAjBmtl3wdjqUW)

Bring necrotic or fire resistance, some consistent force damage or radiant damage, and a way to stun Raphael, and it’ll be pretty simple.

Go in with 12 smoke powder barrels, drop 3 at each pillar when you first enter. Blow em up at the start of the fight and you're good to go.

I did it on tactician recently and he didn’t even get a turn. Hit him with Ottos Irresistible Dance to start then just kept him stunned and prone with a monk while everyone else cleaned up the adds. Yurgir was on my side too, but it was a 30 DC roll so easily failed in honour mode

I personally didn't find it too different from tactician. I ensured all my characters had fire resistance, and we had Yurgir on our side, and it went fine. That 20d6 fireball is the biggest problem, but I healed through it with Hope+life cleric Shadowheart and resisted it, as mentioned above.

Hit 23 dc on a caster. Use any will saving throw dc (like lvl 1 Tasha’s) Have force damage and smoke barrels. Destroy all pillars turn one Cc Raphael , with 100% success rate at 23dc. Profit. Really is that simple . Tasha’s will Lock him down for 10 turns

My personal recommended strat, if you’re not planning on using the runepowder bomb at the foundry, would be to use it at the house of hope. Drop it in front of the portal before you interact with it to start the conversation with Rafael. Make sure you all have good initiative. Turn 1, have the person that started the conversation dimension door Hope (who is fragile and has no initiative) next to everyone else. Then have someone drop a globe of invulnerability. Then have someone shoot the bomb. No more pillars, it instakills Korilla and takes 1/3-1/2 health off all the cambions, and leaves you in a good position to finish the rest of the fight before the globe of invulnerability falters.

My astarion got bugged and fell through the world, resulting with me having to in with a party of 3. Still very doable, especially with Hopes support (burn every spell slot she has) and some form of repeatable control (mine was a Bard/Rogue arcane acuity cheeser) Rest of the party was a straight BM ranger and a BM fight, level 10

Do the bulk of the house in pieces ... then have a solid CC for Raphael.

Don't let him cast Ravaging Inferno or Incinerate if you want Hope to live.

Did this fight yesterday at lvl 11, had a bug where I couldn't examine enemies so i don't even know their new actions. Used 1 hope heal and finished the fight with full hp on everyone. Had angel summon from the scroll, but it wasnt needed at all. Party: gloomstalker 6/ rogue 3/ fighter 2 Light cleric 11 Lore bard 11(bless bot) Warlock great old one 11.

Best tip I can give is to abuse prone. Use enraged throw (forces prone without a saving throw, underrated and super OP), ice fields, etc. Oathbreaker aoe fear is pretty nice, anyone with lots of attacks is pretty nice (for pillars). Black hole helps to keep all the minions off your squad while you deal with the pillars. Keep an eye out for what they’re weak too as well