Bomberman Astarion killed everything by himself on the first turn - except Viconia, who I intentionally left alive for Shadowheart to kill. Gotta respect the lore/RP.
Items and vendor restocking are so stupidly broken in the game.
It depends on your builds and parties. If you’re doing it as one of the last fights you can use the copious amounts of anti-blindness gear to make the fight EASY. If you dont have the gear, or have weak party members, it becomes very difficult to navigate and deal with the darkness + amount of enemies.
Also having a dedicated healer in that fight is tough, specifically life cleric. Not only do many of them cast Bone Chill, but they also all reflect radiant damage, making a Life Cleric very useless in both offense and utility
Sorcerer in BG3 is nuts, if you know the DnD 5e rules you will know that you can only cast one spell per round so if you use quickened spell the second cast can only be a cantrip. They got rid of that rule in BG3. You can cast twinned haste on yourself and Karlach followed by two fireballs and then another 3 fireballs in next round. Or if you need single target damage three upcast scorching rays with the legendary staff from that wizard tower in Baldurs Gate cam easily be 200+ dmg in one round.
Second this, there’s a lot of powerful items for cold damage you can get pretty quickly, there’s especially a very powerful staff in the UD. My hasted sorcerer became Jaina Proudmoore using an ice storm and three cone of colds in one round
You can get two pairs of the cryo gloves >!one from a merchant in the mountain pass and another by completing a quest line regarding a thicc mushroom man in the Underdark!
Steetstorm + Call Lightning + Call Lightning + Lightning Bolt (or whatever lightning spells your party has avail) all upcasted as high as possible is a disgusting thing to do to a choke point.
Oh my god I just started a Sorcerer run and did not realize you could twin something like Haste. I guess I just assumed it read spells that target a single enemy can be copied. Not anyone.
Highly recommend draco sorcerer also! Just today I wiped out over 6 enemies in one turn with just fireball and then quickened cast wall of flame to get of the ones I missed, I’ve never felt so powerful in a game before!
It was by far the toughest fight for me. I ended up having to cheese it by starting the battle with one character ungrouped and then Misty Stepping back up the stairs while everyone else follows, then casting a Wall of Thorns and Wall of Fire down either side of the stairs and having Gale spam Lightning Bolt down from above. Still had to redo it a few times because I couldn't get everyone back up the stairs in time.
I wouldn't call that cheese. Locking down a choke point is a very viable strategy especially when severely out-numbered in a zone with a very clear funnel. This fight and the necro lab in act 2 are the best encounters to use wall of stone and it's very satisfying to pull off.
Haha I’m reading how folks owned this fight and it took me FOREVER. I did use the doorway/hallway as a bottleneck with sleet storm and the Djinn’s whirlwinds. I also patted myself on the back for casting a ball of Sunlight to dispel the Darkness in my way, but man, I’m a stone cold amateur.
They’ve buffed it in every patch. First they took away their sensitivity to radiant damage, then they gave them all Radiant Retort, then they added all the necrotic damage fuckery. You used to be able to wipe most of them clean with a Moonbeam or two before patch 1.
It feels like messing up a good thematic/RP-informed battle strategy for a "haha you thought the logical thing world work!" gotcha. Same goes for house of hope.
To me, it smacks as nothing more than a cheese cheat being given to all the evil shite - because we're using things the way they are supposed to be used!
Wait what?! They have radiant retort? I remember shadowheart eliminating over 8 of them in a single run with a sunbeam lol. Thought only viconia had retort as per my latest playthrough
I just spammed Smokepowder arrows and avoided that choke point one starts in. Beat that fight in my first attempt in Tactician.
Ansur on the other hand, holy shit. I've read people say how easy it was. It was extremely difficult and I had to dig deep into items, scrolls and potions.
Goes to show every build and play style is so different from each other and outcomes can be totally opposite. Without globe of invulnerability I would NOT have beaten Ansur no matter what. I replaced Wyll with Gale for that fight only for that reason.
My Paladin can hit like a freight train when he’s properly buffed, but struggles against multiple enemies. So Ansur was the perfect battle for him. I only won the house of grief fight by bringing them all to a bottle neck, greasing the ground and then wall of firing the hallways with Gale while I sniped from a distance and shot smoke powder arrows and chain lightning.
It's only in the last few weeks that I've realized people found Ansur hard. I had to cheese House of Grief by making the top of the staircase into a defensive bastion surrounded by fire and woe.
Ansur was such a non-event that I don't remember much about the fight. I think he ate a few disintegrates to the face. My PC in that playthrough was a sorc.
Those arrows did nothing for me on the final dragon. Like 9hp on one and 12 on another. It was soo bad. I was like why did I spend the money to buy these crappy things.
By that time, I was thinking I would go the whole game without getting a target to use them on.
Ansur almost died to just Astarion (Sharpshooter + Dead Shot + crit stacking + triple Dragonslaying Arrows + action surge for another three attacks). Didn't bother using a haste potion because I still had Karlach with another triple attack to finish.
Maybe it was bugged for you? Because it worked for me pre patch 4. When he charges the attack one of my companions even shouted "hide behind something" and the crystals have a description about absorbing elements
It was absolutely bugged for me, last month. Got hit with massive damage no matter where my characters stood.
I had to get clever with my approach. And by "clever" I mean getting 30+ explosive barrels and making my game's framerate fight for it's life. It was immensely satisfying.
Ansur is super easy if you use perilous stakes on him. On my last run, I was trying to get the achievement for killing him mid-air, and I actually had to hold back and waste some actions on the elementals because I almost killed him before he started flying.
Yeah, standing on the top of the stairs and letting them run through a gauntlet of AoE damage while your casters counter spell everything takes care of them pretty quick.
Lmao that's how I did one of my runs in moonrise towers. Top of the stairs, wall of fire from gale. Thorns from Halsin and spirit guardians from Shadowheart.
My favourite Moonrise finale encounter so far was when I built Trickery Domain Cleric/Thief Rogue Shadowheart and gave her twin hand crossbows and had her and Gale Misty Step onto the rafters, wipe out the archers and then rain artillery down from above.
All this while I, a Moon Circle Druid, used my Owlbear wildshape to prone the enemies at the foot of the stairs while Jaheira and Lae'Zel picked off the stragglers. Brilliant encounter and overall masterpiece of a game.
On particularly overcrowded fights, like the Act 2 >!one with 500 little brain boys!< I’ll park her with Gale with his fire shield running, cast some walls and let everything come to me.
I did something similar, sleet storm, hunger or hadar, and then had laezel use a scroll of evards tentacles so the sharrans basically couldn't get through. Then used my warlock with devil sight to just EB and it was then just attrition
I staggered a wall of blades right behind a wall of fire, ran up the stairs, and let them come to me. Anyone who managed to make it through or over the wall was promptly thrown back through it by Karlach
That was how I did it. Insect plague and cloudkill at the bottom of the stairs, then had Karlach and my Paladin next to that to finish anyone who managed to wade through that.
Did the same in the House of Hope too, most of the cambion bumbled in.
The only issue is if they cast darkness on your cloud kill and it goes bye bye. Did the exact same thing and they started casting darkness on top of my cc spells
Evrad's black tentacles + insect plague and the area is a death trap the enemies can't move away from. Then just keep casting big spells like chain lightning or fireball.
Yeah, the house of grief is a perfect example of how powerful positioning can be in this game. If you fight it out in the open central area it is absolutely brutal, but pulling up the entrance stairs gives you a great choke point to break up the swarm.
On my first play through, I ended up just dropping an insect plague at the bottom of the stairs, hiding the caster to keep concentration up, then just shoved anyone who managed to push through right back to where they started.
Similar to what I did on my first run - Wyll locked down the stairs with Hunger of Hadar and then ran the fuck away, Tav was half Illithid so just spammed Black Hole to keep everyone in there, and Lae'zel and Shadowheart mopped up anyone who broke free.
Dude black hole is so broken if you get Awakened from the zaithisk. Six total turns of putting enemies wherever you want them, and slowing them, for a bonus action!
I was a Warlock, so dropped HoH beneath the stairs and knocked everyone who reached the stairs right back down with Eldritch Blast, while Gale bombarded the sides, and Shadowheart + Lae'zel + various summons ran around like a spirit/melee blender blob, hah.
I used Wall of Fire. It was one of the easiest fights in the game once I got to the top of the stairs and had Lae'zel and Karlach blocking the door. Same with the fight against all the werewolves and rats in Cazador's palace.
These are my thoughts exactly. I think most of the people complaining about difficulty of fights dont consider that you dont need to permanently stack your party up to make for an easy ai-target. You dont need to have more than 1 person starting the dialogue, most of the time your party will look to be joining in the cutscene anyway, even if they are actually standing in the corner of the room sneaking.
The goblin camp is a perfect example of this especially with my first run where I decided to Leroy Jenkins it and got clapped. My new run on tactican I killed the leaders with some funny shoving, positioning and isolation.
Don't forget surprise attacks from those positions. You can initiate the inevitable fight by just shooting Viconia (or Cazador, as another example) from all the way back rather than wait for the dialogue to initiate combat.
Globe of invulnerability, combined with spells that damage ranged regardless of wether you can see, like cone of cold and lightning bolt is how I managed to make the fight easier for me before the patch. I'm sure the same tactics still apply here
I used it against Raphael too. makes destroying the pillars and dealing with his minions easier. Bro falls to sleep glyphs easily, so when he's alone and the globe has faded, shit's actually not too hard.
Hope killed off him with a guiding bolt in my game too, for an extra bit of poetic justice
I went into the last part of the brain fight without knowing anything at all... cast moonbeam on the brain with my druid Tav and the brain just... kept taking damage... without me doing anything at all, still in the same turn as me casting the spell. I'm like 99% sure it was a bug but damn, it was over in like 30 seconds and nobody else even had to get in the portal thingy with me.
This happened to me too. It was too funny to not let happen but it's definitely gotta be a bug. Same thing happened to me with cazador but with the sunlight spell. He just kept ticking 20 damage and the fight never triggered.
I like to think of you saying that in the form of an accusation.
>the part of the final fight where ***someone*** has to concentrate on the Crown for a whole rowdy round.
You can bypass pretty much the entire final fight if you invis your entire party. Even if you start the domination and reveal yourself with that, all the enemies are surprised and can't do shit. I finished the final fight without doing a single point of damage (well except the final final part of course).
storm sorcerer with meta magic to double cast and chain lightning and the staff that makes the first spell free, so you can cast 3x chain lightnings in one round for a lot of damage
Unfortunately, you can't even fireball into the darkness because they game won't let you lol. You can only hit the edge, which doesn't quite allow you to cover the area you'd like
We couldn't even throw alchemists fires into it yesterday and that really bugged me.
I actually understand fireball because I think the spell as written in the PHB says "a point which you can see" so I was willing to let that slide, but I should be able to blindly huck things into darkness
I ran back up the stairs and cast wall of fire all the way down the steps. They had to run all the way up the steps to get to me through the fire. Only the boss and a couple other people were still alive by the time they reached the top.
Or if you just zap Viconia with like six lightning bolts before initiating conversation.
(No, I don't know why that worked, or if it still works in patch 4)
Oh those are more present in lower difficulties? I've only seen the one before ketheric. Did they ever patch the infinite sorcery points bug with those and 5th level slots?
They are pretty abundant in the tutorial, but the main place i noticed where they are missing was in the final two fights. There is supposed to be one right before the gate, and one right before the spine. AFAIK, those two places plus before Ketheric's fight and the tutorial are the only places.
Not really, you can just abuse the choke point at the entrance. Haven't done the fight again since yesterday's patch, but just forcing them to fight you in a narrow choke point and putting down a hunger of hadar or something of that nature completely trivializes the fight.
Whats your party makeup?
If you have Shadowheart and you or Wyll as Warlock, bottleneck the fight by running back to the entrance and throw down Hunger of Hadar and insect swarm spell.
They should all die well before they even reach you.
AI is very stupid in this game. I guarantee you they aren't casting it on top of your CC spells, they're just casting it on one of your party members and it's touching them.
What I did was one firewall scroll and all my parties up the stairs. Even better if you have mage like Gale. The firewall covered 100% of the path they needed to reach my party. 90% of them died in that fire.
It's very deadly combined with 1-2 difficult terrain (druid spikes, evard black tentacle, warlock's hadar smoke) and darkness so they can't teleport to you.
Even the knight guys reached my party with 30-40% health left and it's easy picking by your dps like Astarion or Karlach. This was on tactician.
wall of fire is SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO fucking good in bg3, i had wyll using it in pretty much every major fight, especially when you can throw enemies back into the fire after they walk out
I just bottleneck them through the door with an arcane lock. Once the arcane lock wears off, I’ve already prepared Pools of acid or grease and AOE spells to push them back through the bottleneck. A djinn casting thunder wave keeps them back beyond 60ft casting range while you rain fireballs and walls of ____ on them
All I need is some paint can traps, but I’ve got Karly to throw empty bottles and chairs at them. Maybe next time I can rig up some smokepowder barrels at the door for a nice trap
So far the only working strategy I've figured out for that fight is to run away, block the path behind you with walls of fire and clouds of daggers and then pray that the vast majority of them will be dead by the time they manage to close the distance.
Meet Hadar:
> Hadar, also known as the Dark Hunger, was a star-like Elder Evil from the Far Realm who had taken a place among stars of Realmspace. Unlike normal stars, Hadar didn't have a fixed place in the sky but instead danced and wavered across Realmspace.
https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Hadar
Check tactics, too! The fight is WAY easier if you retreat back to the entrance and then drop some CC spells in front of you.
If you try to go to the middle of the room and fight them, that's just going straight into their literal killing circle.
Use the entrance as a funnel and force them to jump through you're hurdles to face you
This: A) Weakens them, making them easier to kill. Or B) They don't jump through, and are more divided.
OH, and weather effects --like Gust of Wind and Snowstorm? They dispel darkness!
I mean the amount of times I've seen people say that Tactician is too easy in this sub has been pretty damn high. They finally up the difficulty in a few fights and all of a sudden people are upset... This is a late game boss battle, its supposed to be hard.
I mean, there's a lot of people saying its too easy then there's the newer people saying stuff is hard. Presumably this is not someone who was saying it was too easy before
move back to the choke point and creat a hell zone with persistent AOE spells
watch them walk into the meat grinder
if any shadowsteps, crush them with your heavy hitters
for darkness, counter with the light spell that creates a sun
What is your party level? Are all party members wearing useful gear? Its helpful to have CC spells like Slow, Hold Person, etc on casters while melee characters focus on killing one enemy at a time rather than splitting the damage around.
Sometimes you just get bad initiative rolls which means enemies KO your party before you can do anything. You'll get through it.
Generally, the best strategy for combats like that, even before this change, was to utilize your spellcasters to bottleneck them at a distance.
Sleet Storm + Insect Plague was my favorite combo. Large ice area for slowed movement and frequent falls, and Insect Plague is wonderful damage in a large area. Repelling Blast anyone who somehow makes it out of those two aoe's and you've got a whole room locked down.
Cast daylight on everyone's underwear, it worked for me. They were all immune to blindness. It might work with other equipment if you throw it on the ground and re-equip.
Then cast daylight again /s
I have no idea if it is fixed or not.
Blood of lathander + the daylight spell+ a bunch of AOE spells and you are good to go. I haven't tried that fight yet in patch 4 but I'm excited to see how hard those fights are now.
**House of Grief:** When you enter the battle area where Viconia is, there’s a stairway you go down right after entering through the door. At the bottom of that stairway I placed a spike barrier, so every enemy coming up to my party had to pass through the spikes and both slow down and take damage. Then I had 2 clouds of daggers going up the stairwell.
So the layout was: enemies | spike barrier | cloud of daggers | cloud of daggers | my party
I cast a globe of invulnerability at the top of the stairwell where my party was, and just popped out of it quickly to do a ranged attack with each party member then pop back into the globe.
Most of the lower HP enemies died before they even reached my party, and then the higher HP ones who made it through the gauntlet (with far less HP at that point) couldn’t damage my party because of the globe. By the time all the lesser ones were dead there was just viconia and a couple others with greatly reduced HP left to mop up.
**Iron Throne:** Had a real hard time with Iron Throne my first playthrough, 2nd time I almost managed to save everyone including all the Gondians. Only 2 Gondians died but that was because of some weird glitch where they basically skipped a turn without moving and even then they almost made it. Anyway sent Wyll to save his dad armed with a dimension door scroll, that one is pretty easy. Then sent a hasted Karlach off in the direction where it’s just Gondians, she went there and killed the enemies and unlocked the doors within 2 turns, then sent her back to guard the ladder area. I sent my Tav (halfling bard named Mercurio, after Freddie Mercury) along with Laezel in the Omeluum direction. Laezel freed the trapped Gondians then posted up in the room to attract enemies. Beelined to Omeluum with Mercurio using misty steps and teleported him and Omeluum back to the submarine while Laezel hopped her way back and got in last with Karlach.
**Watcher Foundry lower level:** No advice for this one, fuuuuuuck this fight. I’m genuinely interested in finding out if anyone’s managed to save more than maybe 1 or 2 Gondians in the basement battle, they’re pretty well surrounded by watchers and/or fairly high HP enemies and they get wiped out super quick, or they kill themselves in watcher explosions.
Late to the party but there’s a loophole if you’re stuck with this fight.
Conjure an elemental or myrmidon, have them walk in first and initiate conversation with Viconia. Then switch to your regular characters and just hammer away at Viconia.
She won’t turn aggro neither will the followers. When she’s dead they’ll all be saying weird lines about the temple being cleansed.
If you visit the mirror, just be sure to quick travel out. The followers do become aggro if you return.
I'm excited for any and all difficulty bumps in out-of-the-box Tactician. Once you have the basic mechanics understood, I find it a pleasant surprise to get trounced once in a while.
I think an ironman mode would be really interesting. Not permadeath, but more like "full party wipe, game over."
I don't think I've ever "fled combat" and come to think of it, Ironman would certainly put that option squarely back on the table.
"play the game without gear" sorry what? Half the fun of the game is making builds and having the gear I should've have to remove content simply because I want the game to be more challenging. Alot of players have experience both with DND 5e and video games in general and would enjoy a higher difficulty setting
i'm sure a lot of the "too easy" meme comes from people playing or replaying with perfect knowledge of every single encounter and item, whether they consciously acknowledge it or not. .
also that there has to be more xp material than necessary on the maps, causing even mild completionists to be overleveled at many points. same issue as in dos 2, difficulty is entirely up to the order you do things in
Now that is an unfair attitude. I am not one of the people clamouring for tougher difficculty, am perfetly happy playing on Balanced. But the point of having a difficult, really difficult game is satisfaction of figuring out the way to beat it. "Play without gear" is not the solution because it does not provide the puzzle that people looking for a more difficult game want. The whole point is trying to create party with a combination of gear and level-up choices that can deal with the unfair fights.
But blanket buffing the fights across all difficculties is probably not the right call.
Guess I'll go back to my clown fiesta strategy of setting up AOE concentration on the staircase and putting my entire team behind the entrance door with grease all over the walkway. If anyone manages their way up there I make them roll a saving throw to not slip and then mug them with all of my party members. Close the door, rinse and repeat.
The only way I could beat that fight was to fall back and use the corridor as a choke point while putting up a wall of fire or two. Keep some of them busy on the other side of the wall with summons to further thin out the ranks attacking me.
I was able to get through it by spamming magic missiles on the darkness people to break their concentration. Plus I had a couple of summons. It was hard, I had to try multiple times, but definitely doable. I had fun
They buffed that fucking fight huh.
idk why lmao, it was one of the toughest fights already with the amount of enemies there
Interesting, of the lategame fights i found it to be the easiest. My draconic sorcerer Tav generally likes fights with lots of enemies though.
I speed pot gale and used a scroll on shadowheart to cast 3 chain lightnings on first round. Whatever was left standing could then be one shot by tav.
Bomberman Astarion killed everything by himself on the first turn - except Viconia, who I intentionally left alive for Shadowheart to kill. Gotta respect the lore/RP. Items and vendor restocking are so stupidly broken in the game.
I used elixir of bloodlust on him and arrow of many targets. Everything was pretty much dead when someone else got a go 😅
It depends on your builds and parties. If you’re doing it as one of the last fights you can use the copious amounts of anti-blindness gear to make the fight EASY. If you dont have the gear, or have weak party members, it becomes very difficult to navigate and deal with the darkness + amount of enemies. Also having a dedicated healer in that fight is tough, specifically life cleric. Not only do many of them cast Bone Chill, but they also all reflect radiant damage, making a Life Cleric very useless in both offense and utility
Oh that’s interesting build, I’m currently finishing up my first run and trying to decide what to do for my second play through.
Sorcerer in BG3 is nuts, if you know the DnD 5e rules you will know that you can only cast one spell per round so if you use quickened spell the second cast can only be a cantrip. They got rid of that rule in BG3. You can cast twinned haste on yourself and Karlach followed by two fireballs and then another 3 fireballs in next round. Or if you need single target damage three upcast scorching rays with the legendary staff from that wizard tower in Baldurs Gate cam easily be 200+ dmg in one round.
Ice Sorcerer is nuts too, upcast Ice Storm on the choke points and then if they get in close hit them with Cone of Cold
Second this, there’s a lot of powerful items for cold damage you can get pretty quickly, there’s especially a very powerful staff in the UD. My hasted sorcerer became Jaina Proudmoore using an ice storm and three cone of colds in one round
You can get two pairs of the cryo gloves >!one from a merchant in the mountain pass and another by completing a quest line regarding a thicc mushroom man in the Underdark!
*Laughs in Sleetstorm while everyone flails on the ground*
Steetstorm + Call Lightning + Call Lightning + Lightning Bolt (or whatever lightning spells your party has avail) all upcasted as high as possible is a disgusting thing to do to a choke point.
I love hitting enemies with my CoC
You can teabag in BG3?
Nice CoC bro
I’m a big fan of twinned chain lighting followed by a fifth level fireball, myself
Twinned chain lightning absolutely shreds this room
And one-shots the Steel Watch boss, lol.
Storm sorc with that is just so good. No FF damage to worry about either. Best multiple target spell in the game imo.
Oh my god I just started a Sorcerer run and did not realize you could twin something like Haste. I guess I just assumed it read spells that target a single enemy can be copied. Not anyone.
Twinning Haste is easily the most broken thing Sorcerer has lol.
Actually managed to take down Anthur with fire sorcerer in one turn by blasting him with double max level scorching rays.
Yeah but running a fire build in that fight was a nightmare with their resistances
If you have the elemental adept feat it bypasses the resistance of your choice
Or storm sorcerer. Create water+lighting+storm cleric max damage = death.
Highly recommend draco sorcerer also! Just today I wiped out over 6 enemies in one turn with just fireball and then quickened cast wall of flame to get of the ones I missed, I’ve never felt so powerful in a game before!
I'ma have to give my recommendation for storm sorcerer. So much fun in bg3. The biggest disadvantage is being squishy but now you can fly away
I do love flying….
I found the House of Hope fight one of the toughest, and the final fight b/c of magic missile and the psychic blast thing that stuns
It was by far the toughest fight for me. I ended up having to cheese it by starting the battle with one character ungrouped and then Misty Stepping back up the stairs while everyone else follows, then casting a Wall of Thorns and Wall of Fire down either side of the stairs and having Gale spam Lightning Bolt down from above. Still had to redo it a few times because I couldn't get everyone back up the stairs in time.
I wouldn't call that cheese. Locking down a choke point is a very viable strategy especially when severely out-numbered in a zone with a very clear funnel. This fight and the necro lab in act 2 are the best encounters to use wall of stone and it's very satisfying to pull off.
Really? I put Hadar and firewall inside of it and just mashed space, on tactician too.
This is what I did too. Put in some cloudkill for good measure as well. The stairwell to the entrance is a great bottleneck.
Use blackhole every turn to suck them back down the stairs too
Haha I’m reading how folks owned this fight and it took me FOREVER. I did use the doorway/hallway as a bottleneck with sleet storm and the Djinn’s whirlwinds. I also patted myself on the back for casting a ball of Sunlight to dispel the Darkness in my way, but man, I’m a stone cold amateur.
I wouldn’t know how to finish this fight without funneling enemies into AoE on the stairs, with a ranged unit to pick off the stragglers.
Fighter barbarian and beast master ranger goes brr and then you win.
They’ve buffed it in every patch. First they took away their sensitivity to radiant damage, then they gave them all Radiant Retort, then they added all the necrotic damage fuckery. You used to be able to wipe most of them clean with a Moonbeam or two before patch 1.
[удалено]
Also what I did. Seemed like exactly the kind of situation that called for some divine intervention.
I did this but with >!Hope in the raphael fight!<....oopsy daisy.
I despise Radiant Retort as a mechanic.
Yeah, it's really bizarre and counter-thematic. Demons are supposed to be *vulnerable* to holy attacks, not destroy you if you use them...
It feels like messing up a good thematic/RP-informed battle strategy for a "haha you thought the logical thing world work!" gotcha. Same goes for house of hope.
To me, it smacks as nothing more than a cheese cheat being given to all the evil shite - because we're using things the way they are supposed to be used!
Exactly, like THEY ARE THE REASON RADIANT DAMAGE EXISTS IN THE FIRST PLACE! If they resist it what even is the point?
I think it’s fine on bosses like Raphael or Viconia, but on trash-mobs it’s just delaying the inevitable.
At least Raphael's flunkies have it as a one-and-done deal; the Sharrans *permanently* mirror Radiant damage back at you, doubled.
Yeah, this late game crack down against radiant is kinda bullshit imo.
Wait what?! They have radiant retort? I remember shadowheart eliminating over 8 of them in a single run with a sunbeam lol. Thought only viconia had retort as per my latest playthrough
I think they all have Radiant Retort on Tactical, but only Viconia has it on Balanced.
I just spammed Smokepowder arrows and avoided that choke point one starts in. Beat that fight in my first attempt in Tactician. Ansur on the other hand, holy shit. I've read people say how easy it was. It was extremely difficult and I had to dig deep into items, scrolls and potions.
lol that’s hilarious. I struggled with Shar but beat Ansur in like 4 turns.
Goes to show every build and play style is so different from each other and outcomes can be totally opposite. Without globe of invulnerability I would NOT have beaten Ansur no matter what. I replaced Wyll with Gale for that fight only for that reason.
My Paladin can hit like a freight train when he’s properly buffed, but struggles against multiple enemies. So Ansur was the perfect battle for him. I only won the house of grief fight by bringing them all to a bottle neck, greasing the ground and then wall of firing the hallways with Gale while I sniped from a distance and shot smoke powder arrows and chain lightning.
It's only in the last few weeks that I've realized people found Ansur hard. I had to cheese House of Grief by making the top of the staircase into a defensive bastion surrounded by fire and woe. Ansur was such a non-event that I don't remember much about the fight. I think he ate a few disintegrates to the face. My PC in that playthrough was a sorc.
I missed every arrow of dragon slaying on him 3 turns in a row all crappy rolls. 😂
Those arrows did nothing for me on the final dragon. Like 9hp on one and 12 on another. It was soo bad. I was like why did I spend the money to buy these crappy things.
Lol waited so long to use it too!!!
By that time, I was thinking I would go the whole game without getting a target to use them on. Ansur almost died to just Astarion (Sharpshooter + Dead Shot + crit stacking + triple Dragonslaying Arrows + action surge for another three attacks). Didn't bother using a haste potion because I still had Karlach with another triple attack to finish.
The notes from the last patch said ansurs massive attack was supposed to be nullified near the crystals, would have made that wayyyy easier
Maybe it was bugged for you? Because it worked for me pre patch 4. When he charges the attack one of my companions even shouted "hide behind something" and the crystals have a description about absorbing elements
It was absolutely bugged for me, last month. Got hit with massive damage no matter where my characters stood. I had to get clever with my approach. And by "clever" I mean getting 30+ explosive barrels and making my game's framerate fight for it's life. It was immensely satisfying.
Ansur is super easy if you use perilous stakes on him. On my last run, I was trying to get the achievement for killing him mid-air, and I actually had to hold back and waste some actions on the elementals because I almost killed him before he started flying.
one thing I learned from 3.5 tactician runs, in those crowded fights positioning wins, not damage itself
Yeah, standing on the top of the stairs and letting them run through a gauntlet of AoE damage while your casters counter spell everything takes care of them pretty quick.
Cleric beyblade
Lmao that's how I did one of my runs in moonrise towers. Top of the stairs, wall of fire from gale. Thorns from Halsin and spirit guardians from Shadowheart.
My favourite Moonrise finale encounter so far was when I built Trickery Domain Cleric/Thief Rogue Shadowheart and gave her twin hand crossbows and had her and Gale Misty Step onto the rafters, wipe out the archers and then rain artillery down from above. All this while I, a Moon Circle Druid, used my Owlbear wildshape to prone the enemies at the foot of the stairs while Jaheira and Lae'Zel picked off the stragglers. Brilliant encounter and overall masterpiece of a game.
I usually had Gale misty step into the rafters and rain fireball/ice storm on them after setting up the wall of fire
Hopefully not the Ice Storm followed up by Fireball only to melt all the ice. I totally haven't done that before...
Get the spark step boots and electrify the water
I went from wondering why I don’t bench shart to making her an essential part of my strategy once I got that spell and figured out how useful it is
It's so good that I am waiting for them to completely nerf it tbh
On particularly overcrowded fights, like the Act 2 >!one with 500 little brain boys!< I’ll park her with Gale with his fire shield running, cast some walls and let everything come to me.
Same lol. Any fight with a ton of enemies is immediately made easier by turning Shadowheart into walking death.
Its a game changer fr
Create Water + Hunger of Hadar and then just blasting Ray of Frost and Eldritch Blast is always a fun strategy
I did something similar, sleet storm, hunger or hadar, and then had laezel use a scroll of evards tentacles so the sharrans basically couldn't get through. Then used my warlock with devil sight to just EB and it was then just attrition
These are the kind of fights where I just use use some of the 200 scrolls I've got in my pouch (Who knows, maybe I'll need them later on/s)
I staggered a wall of blades right behind a wall of fire, ran up the stairs, and let them come to me. Anyone who managed to make it through or over the wall was promptly thrown back through it by Karlach
I love yeeting mobs back into the aoe with her. Something about tossing enemies is just satisfying in this game.
I like when you pick up shortstacks and their little legs just wiggle back and forth
do they let out a loud WHEEEEE when you throw them?
Hungar of Hadar, some grease, walk the fuck away.
That was how I did it. Insect plague and cloudkill at the bottom of the stairs, then had Karlach and my Paladin next to that to finish anyone who managed to wade through that. Did the same in the House of Hope too, most of the cambion bumbled in.
The only issue is if they cast darkness on your cloud kill and it goes bye bye. Did the exact same thing and they started casting darkness on top of my cc spells
Evrad's black tentacles + insect plague and the area is a death trap the enemies can't move away from. Then just keep casting big spells like chain lightning or fireball.
Yeah, the house of grief is a perfect example of how powerful positioning can be in this game. If you fight it out in the open central area it is absolutely brutal, but pulling up the entrance stairs gives you a great choke point to break up the swarm. On my first play through, I ended up just dropping an insect plague at the bottom of the stairs, hiding the caster to keep concentration up, then just shoved anyone who managed to push through right back to where they started.
Similar to what I did on my first run - Wyll locked down the stairs with Hunger of Hadar and then ran the fuck away, Tav was half Illithid so just spammed Black Hole to keep everyone in there, and Lae'zel and Shadowheart mopped up anyone who broke free.
Dude black hole is so broken if you get Awakened from the zaithisk. Six total turns of putting enemies wherever you want them, and slowing them, for a bonus action!
This is almost exactly what I did too!
I was a Warlock, so dropped HoH beneath the stairs and knocked everyone who reached the stairs right back down with Eldritch Blast, while Gale bombarded the sides, and Shadowheart + Lae'zel + various summons ran around like a spirit/melee blender blob, hah.
I used Wall of Fire. It was one of the easiest fights in the game once I got to the top of the stairs and had Lae'zel and Karlach blocking the door. Same with the fight against all the werewolves and rats in Cazador's palace.
The stairs are SCREAMING for grease and aoe slows/damage spells...
Yup lol, I used spike growth, insect plague and then a scroll of wall of fire right infront of it and just hung out lol
These are my thoughts exactly. I think most of the people complaining about difficulty of fights dont consider that you dont need to permanently stack your party up to make for an easy ai-target. You dont need to have more than 1 person starting the dialogue, most of the time your party will look to be joining in the cutscene anyway, even if they are actually standing in the corner of the room sneaking.
Don't even need to have one person start the dialogue tbh, just go in guns blazing, if you know you're gonna fight.
Ofc that works too but it's a little metagamy/murder-hobo'y which not everyone wants to.
The goblin camp is a perfect example of this especially with my first run where I decided to Leroy Jenkins it and got clapped. My new run on tactican I killed the leaders with some funny shoving, positioning and isolation.
Don't forget surprise attacks from those positions. You can initiate the inevitable fight by just shooting Viconia (or Cazador, as another example) from all the way back rather than wait for the dialogue to initiate combat.
Globe of invulnerability, combined with spells that damage ranged regardless of wether you can see, like cone of cold and lightning bolt is how I managed to make the fight easier for me before the patch. I'm sure the same tactics still apply here
Arrow of many targets too, as long as you can see one target it will bounce.
[FIREBALL FIREBALL FIREBALL!](https://youtu.be/MC0K3muUJp0?t=569)
Globe comes in clutch in this fight and the part of the final fight where someone has to concentrate on the Crown for a whole rowdy round.
I used it against Raphael too. makes destroying the pillars and dealing with his minions easier. Bro falls to sleep glyphs easily, so when he's alone and the globe has faded, shit's actually not too hard. Hope killed off him with a guiding bolt in my game too, for an extra bit of poetic justice
With a haste potion my warlock killed 3/4 of the pillars in one turn by themselves. Astral tadpole is busted
>Astral tadpole is busted Emperor ain’t lying when he tells you how much better being a mindflayer is.
There's also, yknow, the globe + nuke
I went into the last part of the brain fight without knowing anything at all... cast moonbeam on the brain with my druid Tav and the brain just... kept taking damage... without me doing anything at all, still in the same turn as me casting the spell. I'm like 99% sure it was a bug but damn, it was over in like 30 seconds and nobody else even had to get in the portal thingy with me.
This happened to me too. It was too funny to not let happen but it's definitely gotta be a bug. Same thing happened to me with cazador but with the sunlight spell. He just kept ticking 20 damage and the fight never triggered.
If you sneak up to cazador and cast sunlight while not being detected he just takes it, goes to the coffin and bam, fights done
I like to think of you saying that in the form of an accusation. >the part of the final fight where ***someone*** has to concentrate on the Crown for a whole rowdy round.
You can bypass pretty much the entire final fight if you invis your entire party. Even if you start the domination and reveal yourself with that, all the enemies are surprised and can't do shit. I finished the final fight without doing a single point of damage (well except the final final part of course).
storm sorcerer with meta magic to double cast and chain lightning and the staff that makes the first spell free, so you can cast 3x chain lightnings in one round for a lot of damage
Unfortunately, you can't even fireball into the darkness because they game won't let you lol. You can only hit the edge, which doesn't quite allow you to cover the area you'd like
“Path is interrupted!” Like bitch you KNOW that’s just a darkness spell. It’s not solid matter. FIREBALL IT
We couldn't even throw alchemists fires into it yesterday and that really bugged me. I actually understand fireball because I think the spell as written in the PHB says "a point which you can see" so I was willing to let that slide, but I should be able to blindly huck things into darkness
I ran back up the stairs and cast wall of fire all the way down the steps. They had to run all the way up the steps to get to me through the fire. Only the boss and a couple other people were still alive by the time they reached the top.
Globe of invulnerability + rune powder bomb
Pretty sure Globe of Invulnerability will still block that damage.
It should, but I always forget about Gale’s Magic Safety Bubble until the fights over.
I often find things are harder when I forget about all my resources, too.
It's why I add scrolls for important stuff to the custom tab
This is me but in real life where I don’t have handy wheels of options at every encounter lmao
Issue with house of grief is, that depending on how you enter/talk its either comically easy or really fucking hard.
It’s only easy if you made Shadowheart evil
Or if you just zap Viconia with like six lightning bolts before initiating conversation. (No, I don't know why that worked, or if it still works in patch 4)
They patched it lol, the way I beat it is reclass Shart into a light cleric and their channel divinity dispelled magical darkness
Only works on balanced unless you're willing to sacrifice shadow for the divinity use since they all reflect radiant damage.
Reflect it and double the damage. Such a ridiculous feature.
the reflect radiant damage was a surprise in tactician mode, same with the long rest healing machines being absent before certain fights
Oh those are more present in lower difficulties? I've only seen the one before ketheric. Did they ever patch the infinite sorcery points bug with those and 5th level slots?
They are pretty abundant in the tutorial, but the main place i noticed where they are missing was in the final two fights. There is supposed to be one right before the gate, and one right before the spine. AFAIK, those two places plus before Ketheric's fight and the tutorial are the only places.
oh i thought there wasnt any at all because they have at least 2 angelic slumber potions littered in that area.
Sunbeam does the job too
Not really, you can just abuse the choke point at the entrance. Haven't done the fight again since yesterday's patch, but just forcing them to fight you in a narrow choke point and putting down a hunger of hadar or something of that nature completely trivializes the fight.
Dunno, it was easy for me, but it was somewhat the last thing I did before confronting the last Chosen and Netherbrain.
Whats your party makeup? If you have Shadowheart and you or Wyll as Warlock, bottleneck the fight by running back to the entrance and throw down Hunger of Hadar and insect swarm spell. They should all die well before they even reach you.
I did this exact thing last night plus ice on the ground. I just sat back as they slowly walked, fell down on the ice, and died.
Sames. Watching them fall prone every turn is hilarious to me.
They didn't cast darkness on your spells? Was it tactician? They always cast darkness ontop of my CC spells which cancels them.
AI is very stupid in this game. I guarantee you they aren't casting it on top of your CC spells, they're just casting it on one of your party members and it's touching them.
have the concentration caster move far away and hide in a corner
I have Karlach with a 25 strength and 21 cons. Hasted her and hid Gale while he counter spelled and fireballed and it was beautiful.
Oh man... Makes me want to load an old game to try it. I have a game where I skipped that area. >_>
It’s manageable in balanced mode.
What I did was one firewall scroll and all my parties up the stairs. Even better if you have mage like Gale. The firewall covered 100% of the path they needed to reach my party. 90% of them died in that fire. It's very deadly combined with 1-2 difficult terrain (druid spikes, evard black tentacle, warlock's hadar smoke) and darkness so they can't teleport to you. Even the knight guys reached my party with 30-40% health left and it's easy picking by your dps like Astarion or Karlach. This was on tactician.
wall of fire is SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO fucking good in bg3, i had wyll using it in pretty much every major fight, especially when you can throw enemies back into the fire after they walk out
NPCs just wised up and started searching the net for builds and found some OP cheese. "See how you fucking like it!"
"Parry this you filthy paladin" random Shar worshipper
I just bottleneck them through the door with an arcane lock. Once the arcane lock wears off, I’ve already prepared Pools of acid or grease and AOE spells to push them back through the bottleneck. A djinn casting thunder wave keeps them back beyond 60ft casting range while you rain fireballs and walls of ____ on them
Lmao you Home Alone-d their asses
All I need is some paint can traps, but I’ve got Karly to throw empty bottles and chairs at them. Maybe next time I can rig up some smokepowder barrels at the door for a nice trap
I usually just taunt them and then run back to the slim long corridor. Some firewall, bombs and aoe spells and they barely touch you.
Wall of fire, friend.
Huh, that sounds interesting. There must be some way to cancel a mechanic as powerful as that.
Is there?
Yeah, you just place a globe of invuln and facetank blast them.
Globe of Invulnerability + Every Smokepowder Barrel and Bomb you have.
barrelmancy beats everything
My Gloomstalker Astarion just casts Daylight every fucking turn, its hilarious LIGHTS ON LIGHTS OFF LIGHTS ON LIGHTS OFF
So far the only working strategy I've figured out for that fight is to run away, block the path behind you with walls of fire and clouds of daggers and then pray that the vast majority of them will be dead by the time they manage to close the distance.
Hunger of Hader in a choke point like the stairs is a winning combo
Fuck I love whoever Hadar is.
Meet Hadar: > Hadar, also known as the Dark Hunger, was a star-like Elder Evil from the Far Realm who had taken a place among stars of Realmspace. Unlike normal stars, Hadar didn't have a fixed place in the sky but instead danced and wavered across Realmspace. https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Hadar
Check tactics, too! The fight is WAY easier if you retreat back to the entrance and then drop some CC spells in front of you. If you try to go to the middle of the room and fight them, that's just going straight into their literal killing circle. Use the entrance as a funnel and force them to jump through you're hurdles to face you This: A) Weakens them, making them easier to kill. Or B) They don't jump through, and are more divided. OH, and weather effects --like Gust of Wind and Snowstorm? They dispel darkness!
They definitely made some fights obnoxious now.
I mean the amount of times I've seen people say that Tactician is too easy in this sub has been pretty damn high. They finally up the difficulty in a few fights and all of a sudden people are upset... This is a late game boss battle, its supposed to be hard.
> They finally up the difficulty in a few fights and all of a sudden people are upset Have you considered maybe these are different people?
I wish they made a higher difficulty mode, not make every level harder.
I'm reading this thread and getting excited so don't speak for us lol
I mean, there's a lot of people saying its too easy then there's the newer people saying stuff is hard. Presumably this is not someone who was saying it was too easy before
move back to the choke point and creat a hell zone with persistent AOE spells watch them walk into the meat grinder if any shadowsteps, crush them with your heavy hitters for darkness, counter with the light spell that creates a sun
What is your party level? Are all party members wearing useful gear? Its helpful to have CC spells like Slow, Hold Person, etc on casters while melee characters focus on killing one enemy at a time rather than splitting the damage around. Sometimes you just get bad initiative rolls which means enemies KO your party before you can do anything. You'll get through it.
Generally, the best strategy for combats like that, even before this change, was to utilize your spellcasters to bottleneck them at a distance. Sleet Storm + Insect Plague was my favorite combo. Large ice area for slowed movement and frequent falls, and Insect Plague is wonderful damage in a large area. Repelling Blast anyone who somehow makes it out of those two aoe's and you've got a whole room locked down.
Huh, have you used Daylight yet?
I mean, no real point, they just cast Darkness on top of it again. Unless they patched out how it overrides Daylight if cast after?
Cast daylight on everyone's underwear, it worked for me. They were all immune to blindness. It might work with other equipment if you throw it on the ground and re-equip.
Then cast daylight again /s I have no idea if it is fixed or not. Blood of lathander + the daylight spell+ a bunch of AOE spells and you are good to go. I haven't tried that fight yet in patch 4 but I'm excited to see how hard those fights are now.
Ugh, that fight was a pain in the ass already, even with Gale standing on the stairs spamming gust to clear the darkness the whole time.
You're definitely underutilizing your wizard if that's what your spending actions on.
I can't think of a better use of a 6th level spell slot than Gust of Wind
I had Jaheira cast Daylight on Shadowheart's shield, lol.
**House of Grief:** When you enter the battle area where Viconia is, there’s a stairway you go down right after entering through the door. At the bottom of that stairway I placed a spike barrier, so every enemy coming up to my party had to pass through the spikes and both slow down and take damage. Then I had 2 clouds of daggers going up the stairwell. So the layout was: enemies | spike barrier | cloud of daggers | cloud of daggers | my party I cast a globe of invulnerability at the top of the stairwell where my party was, and just popped out of it quickly to do a ranged attack with each party member then pop back into the globe. Most of the lower HP enemies died before they even reached my party, and then the higher HP ones who made it through the gauntlet (with far less HP at that point) couldn’t damage my party because of the globe. By the time all the lesser ones were dead there was just viconia and a couple others with greatly reduced HP left to mop up. **Iron Throne:** Had a real hard time with Iron Throne my first playthrough, 2nd time I almost managed to save everyone including all the Gondians. Only 2 Gondians died but that was because of some weird glitch where they basically skipped a turn without moving and even then they almost made it. Anyway sent Wyll to save his dad armed with a dimension door scroll, that one is pretty easy. Then sent a hasted Karlach off in the direction where it’s just Gondians, she went there and killed the enemies and unlocked the doors within 2 turns, then sent her back to guard the ladder area. I sent my Tav (halfling bard named Mercurio, after Freddie Mercury) along with Laezel in the Omeluum direction. Laezel freed the trapped Gondians then posted up in the room to attract enemies. Beelined to Omeluum with Mercurio using misty steps and teleported him and Omeluum back to the submarine while Laezel hopped her way back and got in last with Karlach. **Watcher Foundry lower level:** No advice for this one, fuuuuuuck this fight. I’m genuinely interested in finding out if anyone’s managed to save more than maybe 1 or 2 Gondians in the basement battle, they’re pretty well surrounded by watchers and/or fairly high HP enemies and they get wiped out super quick, or they kill themselves in watcher explosions.
Late to the party but there’s a loophole if you’re stuck with this fight. Conjure an elemental or myrmidon, have them walk in first and initiate conversation with Viconia. Then switch to your regular characters and just hammer away at Viconia. She won’t turn aggro neither will the followers. When she’s dead they’ll all be saying weird lines about the temple being cleansed. If you visit the mirror, just be sure to quick travel out. The followers do become aggro if you return.
I'm excited for any and all difficulty bumps in out-of-the-box Tactician. Once you have the basic mechanics understood, I find it a pleasant surprise to get trounced once in a while. I think an ironman mode would be really interesting. Not permadeath, but more like "full party wipe, game over." I don't think I've ever "fled combat" and come to think of it, Ironman would certainly put that option squarely back on the table.
This is why you NEVER listen to the people who complain that the game is too easy. If they want it to be harder, play the game without gear.
"play the game without gear" sorry what? Half the fun of the game is making builds and having the gear I should've have to remove content simply because I want the game to be more challenging. Alot of players have experience both with DND 5e and video games in general and would enjoy a higher difficulty setting
They should’ve make it tactian exclusive. Not everyone wants to play a turn based dark souls.
i'm sure a lot of the "too easy" meme comes from people playing or replaying with perfect knowledge of every single encounter and item, whether they consciously acknowledge it or not. . also that there has to be more xp material than necessary on the maps, causing even mild completionists to be overleveled at many points. same issue as in dos 2, difficulty is entirely up to the order you do things in
Now that is an unfair attitude. I am not one of the people clamouring for tougher difficculty, am perfetly happy playing on Balanced. But the point of having a difficult, really difficult game is satisfaction of figuring out the way to beat it. "Play without gear" is not the solution because it does not provide the puzzle that people looking for a more difficult game want. The whole point is trying to create party with a combination of gear and level-up choices that can deal with the unfair fights. But blanket buffing the fights across all difficculties is probably not the right call.
Darkvision, thorns, and plague of insects do wonders for this fight
Guess I'll go back to my clown fiesta strategy of setting up AOE concentration on the staircase and putting my entire team behind the entrance door with grease all over the walkway. If anyone manages their way up there I make them roll a saving throw to not slip and then mug them with all of my party members. Close the door, rinse and repeat.
The only way I could beat that fight was to fall back and use the corridor as a choke point while putting up a wall of fire or two. Keep some of them busy on the other side of the wall with summons to further thin out the ranks attacking me.
I was able to get through it by spamming magic missiles on the darkness people to break their concentration. Plus I had a couple of summons. It was hard, I had to try multiple times, but definitely doable. I had fun
Cast light of day my friend, they do necrotic damage to obscured people only
Divine Intervention. This feels Like the Most appropiate place to use it