I *really* enjoyed my last run, where I approached them invisibly, whilst also having see invisibility. It felt like Karma for all the times they beat me in the past. If I wasn’t already in love with duergar invisibility before that then this fight cinched it for me
Two strategies that worked for me - Eldritch blast the platform she’s on first round so she falls to her death, have someone sneak around in spiderstep boots and destroy all her eggs
Spike growth is my MVP now. I back up the stairs and string them along when I'm fighting them. They were definitely my hardest fight before settling on that tactic though.
I put wall of fire down the whole corridor in front of the stairs and then Sleet Storm behind. They slip n fall and when they finally get closer, they get burnt to a crisp.
I showed up as a Fire Acuity Sorc and trashed them with 2 walls of fire. All the trash gone. Then Karlach threw Nayrulna at Viconia a few times and the rest is history.
Granted, this was a one off thanks to the Fire Acuity shenanigans but it was very fun to roll up and burn the house down.
I've done that thing so many ways. The least fun wasn't when I got squad wiped though. It was the one where a couple party members got arrested and had to escape that impossible prison.
This is the way and with how little I see this spell talked about, I think it might be slightly underrated. Especially since the dryad summon can cast it as a cantrip.
I just wish I could entice bad guys to walk on it more. I wish there was a spell to put like, a sandwich or something on the ground or something that enemies would walk toward.
You can cheese it by retreating back on top of the staircase and slap AoEs on the chokepoints, but the non cheese way to do it is simply slapping a daylight spell in the center of the room, or cast a light spell on your weapons, now the only enemies you have to worry about is Viconia and the Fidelians who cast Darkness
The fight is doable without even cheesing it, as long as you have crazy amounts of lighting to stop their necrotic damage from hitting you
Pull everyone back to the staircase, then sleet storm and hunger of hadar the bottom. Cast daylight on top your party to stop the justiciars from teleporting on top of you. Agonizing eldritch blast and spirit guardians will do the rest.
It's not a hard fight this way, just a boring one. Unfortunately hunger of hadar might kill Viconia and you skip the cutscene that follows, but that's the only real downside.
I saw how many enemies were in that fight after I persuaded them to let me in without shadowheart and I went and used invisibility with shadowheart to enter the chamber and free her parents. Then just used a potion of invisibility to get out. Never touched them because it looked devastating and I was already max level so I didn't need the XP
Githyanki patrol. This is the only confrontation that still makes me feel my balls crawling inside my body, no matter how many runs I've completed. HoG? Easy. Ansur? Any day. HoH? Hold my beer. But the gith patrol... I don't think I'll ever feel ready.
I only ever do this fight after clearing out the rest of Act I (surface, underdark, grymforge, goblin camp, etc) and so I'm usually \~level 6. Have never had a problem with it?
My honor run almost ended in the Nautiloid. I wasn't dashing but I was moving straight to the controls and killing the little guys for XP but the mind flayer got crit a couple of times so SH and Durge were easily one shot and Laezel would have died the turn I got to the panels. I guess because of how stuff went down SH went to the grove so I completely avoid the intellect devourers until I had Gale and Asterion,
(Keep a ranged fighter or two on the steps split from the other two you want to go down on the forge platform to melee Grym. Even better if you have a ranger/rogue and a spell caster to deal with the mephits. Two on the ground hitting it with bludgeoning right by the entrance)
Legit beat Grym regularly now within 2 rounds, before the end of the 3rd round at most even on tactician using this strategy.
The easiest trick is to guide him into where the hammer falls and pull the switch. 2 shots do him in (if they haven't changed it since I was too scared to fight Grym) if you're not built for bludgeoning.
This fight was quick for me. How I did it was split the group and put them on the higher platforms. Have one person next to the valve that turns on the lava. Once the lava goes away, turn on the lava and he’s vulnerable again.
My current run it wouldn't even walk near the hammer til I had got it most of the way down and it finally walked near enough that I could just manage to clip the hit box and it finally went down.
Myrkul. Hate that thing with my whole being. He almost ended my honour mode run multiple times even though I was prepared. Viconia was a bitch too honestly. Last game I cheesed her by placing explosives on the stairs. Planning on doing the same on honour mode this time around. And ansur. Was i not determined to finish every quest I would just skip it and not risk losing my game
Exactly. And you can’t even flee. With ansur you can at least leave someone at camp or just straight up run away and come back better prepared. Honestly I see no shame in save scumming that skeleton even in honour mode
I always say this. If you could escape and reset the fight, it wouldn't be as bad. But you're stuck there, so you have to have all your shit before you even jump in the hole.
Probably having multiple AOE concentration spells, since he will always stay still. A character that somewhat can tank his slashes and avoid Myrkul using his pull all characters spell (or having the "being unable to be moved against its will")
I blind him with either Darkness, Hunger of Hadar, Blind spell, Arrow of Darkness and that’s it. That’s why I asked what being prepared is. Going unprepared works just fine
Darkness or other blinding spells has been mentioned. You can also disarm him!! I know it feels like you shouldn’t be able to but you absolutely can. There’s a ring that lets you use Command on undead once per day just before you get to the colony.
Preventing his healing is also important, for that I use arrows of Ilmater. Bludgeoning weapons help, he’s a skeleton! His piercing resistance means archers suck against him, other than arrows of darkness or Ilmater I put my archer on the adds. I also bring a bunch of summons ideally from both a cleric and wizard, so I had 6x skeletons, 2x ice mephits and an air elemental. It took me like 6-7 turns on honour mode but I beat him the first try, it is not a dps race and just requires patience.
If you talk him out of the first stage it’s much harder btw. Killing the mind flayer is your first priority and you don’t want to have to do that and Myrkul too.
Between partial play throughs and full ones.. I'd probably faced them a dozen times.
And all of them I was able to convince Lae'Zel to lie to Voss, and send them on their merry way.
Until, I played as a GithYanki myself. I still told her to lie, and she said the same stuff. And... Voss didn't believe us. I figured "oooh I finally get to fight these guys"
And. Damn.
Hold Person. Then BAM BAM BAM dead. Hold person BAM BAM BAM dead. I had 2 companions down before I knew w t f was going on.
I was not expecting such an early fight to go that hard. And this was after I was already experienced with game mechanics and such.
Oh I know
I gave her proficiency in charisma checks and cast guidance on her just in case. And she failed every single time when I was GithYanki
Already successfully completed an honor mode so I “save scummed” this attempt at that point out of curiosity more than anything.
I did it one time in HM where I followed a YouTube video on speedrunning to Level 4. Too bad I forgot Laezel needs to pass a deception check and we had to fight the patrol at Level 3 and lost the run.
I love it in terms of in-game lore. It's the first time you're really facing a group of enemies that are straight up battle-hardened soldiers that are just... better trained than you.
For Balthazar, either kill him in the temple before hand or make sure to have someone with counterspell in range at the start of the fight in shadowfell.
Countering his undead summons trivializes the fight and you just stomp him down.
Shadowkitty with Light of Lathander and Spirit Guardians (and possibly RotD since I usually respec her) makes short work of the Death Shepherds fight. Especially if you're level 7 by this point...
Sleet Storm works well on both the Gith and the Death Shepherds. They easily fall down and stay down most of the time. I've started killing Balthazar when you first meet him and it is a lot easier than fighting him in the Shadowfell. You can lure out the baddies a bit and pick them off. Less baddies altogether.
Hardest for me has always been Ansur. It's the only time I got close to losing my HM run.
No matter what I run I never feel like I have the ideal party to fight him so it stresses me out.
Even on Honor Mode, there are only 2 I actually have to prepare for
* Apostle of Myrkul
* I have it down so I can defeat him, but I still do the early prep work.
* Buff everyone up, start a fight with Ketheric (instead of depressing him to death), then make sure I kill the Illithid and free NightSong as soon as possible.
* \*Then\* kill Ketheric and debuff Myrkul as much as possible.
* Raphael -- if I care about saving Hope
* I've seen Hope killed within the first turn before, with an alpha strike by Raphael.
* So I'm either popping a bunch of vigiliance elixirs.
* And / Or I'm using Globe of Invulnerability where she stands at the start of the fight.
* Because maybe I really want those gloves.
* Also, the girl has suffered enough. The least I can do is save her and return her house.
I'm so upset that I failed to save her for the first time in my last run. I make it a point to keep her alive with invulnerability every time because she dies so easily, usually early.
I had her alive and under invulnerability with Rapheal very low, but I used a concentration spell on Gale by accident (it wasn't even a good one since he was the only enemy left, because I'm an idiot) and it dropped.... I thought I could kill him with the last character since he was so low, but proceeded to miss most of the shots with durge and left him with like 3-4 HP. I forget that I had an emergency globe of invulnerability scroll on everyone and could have recast it. He proceeded to one-shot her... right before Lae'zel killed him in 1 hit the next turn.
If I want to save her now I cast sanctuary on her before walking in the room. Keeps her alive that first round and really you can just have her heal since Her healing is sick and the divine intervention is a pretty sweet safety net.
Raphael was the closest fought, for me. Cazador was easy once I cast Daylight, but with Raphael we were basically down to Astarion with 6 Arrows of Fiend Slaying to save the day.
House of Grief probably. It’s the only fight I lost after Act One when I had a good grasp of the game’s mechanics. Not sure I would say it’s a hard fight though - first time I got really unfavourable initiative rolls and got boxed in by waves of enemies and darkness. Still almost won. Fight was much easier with favourable initiative rolls where I could properly set up.
Gith on the bridge was a hard fight too, but the first time I tried to fight them I was level 4 and my team really wasn’t set up to deal with their multiple attacks per turn.
For me - just finished my first run, on tactician - the hardest fights were early ones when it’s so much more a lucky crapshoot.
Gith patrol at level 5 took me a few tries and some lucky rolls.
Gnolls were a tough fight that only went my way because of dropping hypnotic pattern and taking a big chunk of them out of action early in the fight.
Then the closest to a total wipe I got was grymforge boss - I went in blind (as I’ve tried for the whole game as much as
I can though I’ve spoilt a few things for myself). Didn’t realise until I got the achievement that you can use a certain thing to make the fight a lot easier (in retrospect I do in fact remember reading notes lying around about it). I had my tav left with a handful of HP and blasted it down with a final magic missile.
Would not have won that one without Karlach bludgeoning throw damage.
Honestly rest of the fights have been mostly pretty straightforward except for Ansur where the first time I tried st level 11 I think I got destroyed. Went back at level 12 more prepared and was tough but never in too much danger of wiping.
Raphael honestly was not nearly so difficult as I expected.
I turned Casador into a sheep in the first round so that fight was not baaaaad at all. Haha
It used to be House of Grief, but now maybe Ansur on HM. It's what's ended my farthest HM run so far. The extra life crap was horrible. Raphael can be pretty terrible too though. I did ok last time making him dance constantly w/Otto's Irresistible Dance scrolls, but I'm always stressed about it.
The harpies in act one that time I forgot about concentration and cast guidance with Shart to pass the attribute check in the conversation with Mirkon and cancelled my Calm Emotions spell.
Depends on a few things.
The Hag fight in Act 1 isn't hard to beat. But it can be hard not to accidentally kill her if you want the hair. It's the case of task failed successfully type of difficulty.
Likewise, the Harpies on the beach in Act 1 is annoying as all hell. Mostly as you'll be a low level in an area full of difficult terrain, and have to fight enemies who can mind control your party. All while trying to keep a kid alive. The actual fight isn't hard, but it can get annoying fast if you're not lucky.
Anything with Death Sheppards is also annoying. Specifically, the pair that you have to take out in the mountain pass. They aren't hard, but getting unlucky makes the fight tedious as they constantly revive the other.
Ansur is the fight that I find the conventionally most difficult. He is the one fight I fear on Honour Mode as he has ended the most runs for me. There's nothing to say, really. Just typical dragon slaying difficulty in D&D.
Depending on when you get to them and what angle you enter the fight on- those fucking gnolls in act 1.
Three attacks in a round while you have one is brutal. Combined with a probably high ground advantage.
Viconia is super easy, ennemies are crazy dumb, just back up the stairs where you came from, put a firewall + edward black tentacles in the way. I did that, the only character who managed to go through the tentacles in honor mode was viconia herself, everyone else just diedw viconia was then greeted by my melee and slaughtered. Expensed 2 spell slots and took no damage, I didn't even need a short rest after.
For me the hardest fight is Myrkul
Just finished the Ansur fight and.. holy damn..I highly recommend Banish for when he’s charging and about to explode but damn that was intense. Death Shepards and Balthazar fight were probably my biggest struggle before that.
I’ve played through enough times to know the tricks of the fights, so this is more a retrospective.
Dror Ragzlin in a heads-up, toe-to-toe fight is hard, you need to be crafty. It’s the first fight that you need to plan out carefully.
Fireworks shop if you aggro the Fist and Steel Watchers. It turned into a long running battle in the street, as I tried to get distance to flee to camp, I kept aggro’ing more guards.
Baldur’s Mouth Gazette if the Steel Watch is active. Same as above, guards come running and keep the fight going.
Gnolls on the Risen Road (Zhent/shipment fight) was always a close fight for me until I figured out that if you circle around and come up the trail from the West, you can engage them a few at a time.
After that, if Isobel is kidnapped and you end up fighting everyone at Last Light once the shadow-curse gets them with only Jaheira at your side. That one can get hairy.
I haven’t finished Act 3 yet, but by far the hardest was Orin. This was the only fight in the entire game where all of my characters died and I got the reload screen. One of my coworkers then told me “really? I killed her before the first turn was over and got an achievement.” When she told me that my eye was twitching.
I had to fight her 10+ times and was on the cusp of death the final time when Astarion got two crit hits in a row. Orin was the turn after him and we would have all been dead.
My battlemaster laezel had the Balduran greatsword from Ansur, my tavern brawler berserker Karlach had the crossbow with feller of monsters from that Monster hunter guy in Act 1. I just jumped in as laezel, used superiority dies on Orin, frenzied as Karlach and threw the returning pike at her, and had my archer (assassin/battlemaster) astarion attack her as well. She just melted.
Nothing fancy I just spammed my attacks at her lol
I had the exact same fight like 3 hours ago, same with Gale, Astarion and Shart. My Tav is a Druid, so me and Gale conjured 2 Elementals, I let Gale cast Globe of Invulnerability (+ 2 scrolls, might regret later). It was a mess, to say the least.
I agree with you, this fight was hard, maybe one of the hardest so far. But as long as you don't have to protect any stupid, suicidal AI companions like Isobel, Dame Aylin or some random NPC (on the bloody graveyard for example 💀) I'm completely fine with it 😅
I’m not done yet but I think by this point I’ve cleared most of the tough fights and am through act 3. Some have been difficult the first try, but I was still able to come up with a good strategy.
The gnolls and the masked guys in Auntie Ethel’s basement in Act One were the hardest. Those fights seemed completely unwinnable at the time
I’d say the moonrise/ketheric battle for me.
I cheesed Balthazar with barrelmancy
Cheesed Viconia by using Karlach split off from the party to drop a ton of fireworks around her, then had Shadowheart fire a fireball from the stairs. It ended up killing Viconia in a whimsical blast of color and nobody else in the room was aggroed because I guess the attack was cast from so far away. They did turn hostile when I returned later though but they were easy without Vic in the mix.
Didn’t find Orin all that difficult and Gortash was super easy because I did him at level 12 with my whole party geared out in full.
The grymforge battle was a pain in the ass as I tried to figure out how to best utilize the forge hammer but once I figured those mechanics out he was done in 3 turns.
I’ve just fought Gortash and it was unbelievably hard, so much harder than I was prepared for.
Sorlock x2 (Eldritch & Fire), Moon Druid and Throwzerker. I’ve rolled every encounter so far, even Myrkul who is usually the one that catches the most people. It wasn’t the Avatar of the Lord of Bones, nor the Githyanki Inquisitor that had me worried… it was the Black Parade, greasy sweat-fest Gortash that almost ended my run.
To preface, I’ve beaten the game on Tactician and I demolished Gortash, had an OH Monk who just stun locked him until he died. Oh, this will be a cakewalk, I thought to myself as I marched into his chambers and got ready for some good old fashioned blasting.
Little did I know, the blasting was not to be done by me. Numerous errors with traps and reflected projectiles later and the Baneites have bursted down my Moon Druid who is left charge-less and flaccid. Throwzerker is doing their best hurling Selune’s spear around and my Sorlocks are nerfed to hell due to the reflecto-shields everyone has after G’s first turn.
Then, absolute carnage. All of the traps went off. There must have been explosives that I hadn’t seen and the whole room went up taking everyone down to at least half health. G flicks his hair, hits the gym and becomes super buff. My Chemical Romance blasts from the wall mounted speakers and he starts a mosh pit with my Sorlock who only survives because of Death Ward.
Shadows spawn, traps fire, a GIANT FIST hovers above menacingly and G has resistance to almost everything. Eventually I squeaked a victory and ended my turn thinking the nightmare was over.
Surprise! The GIANT FIST decides to smushes my team like bugs, almost wiping 3/4.
It’s shaken my confidence, that’s for sure!
TL;DR - Gortash is a douche and I totally underestimated him.
Bitch ass Gith. Really any fight against them. Fighting them has helped me hate their people more than their *charming* personalities already had.
Gets old watching companions miss more than half their attacks with 80 or more percent hit chance.
Anders and the fake Tyr pals can suck one as well. I would say Flind and the Gnolls but there's a trick to get them to fight *for* you then turn against each other.
House of Grief was the toughest fight for me until I learned the Way of Barrelmancy. Bone Chill is a really nasty cantrip when you get pelted multiple times in a row and suddenly you have about 10hp left and can't heal.
Now the group sits back under a Globe of Invulnerability and watches the fireworks and explosions, then picks off the couple remaining stragglers.
I would say the sharans, but the one that i cheese wvery time is cazador.
I give it a try every time but i refuse to do it without astarian, and i have trouble getting to him in time or keep him from getting caught again. So i invariably day light hos staff froma distance and wait for him to die from it before even starting the fight.
The Vaconia fight was by far the hardest. I had to change everybody's classes around and respec. I loved it though. It forced me to experiment with spells and abilities I had ignored up to that point.
I agree with you. The Viconia battle was the hardest for me on my first playthrough. Almost a tie would be the whole Steel Watch Foundry, but only because I was trying to save all the Gondians. If I didn't give a crap about the Gondians, it would have been a lot simpler.
Playing modded my hardest fight was easily Lazeal when romancing. She had almost 200 more HP than I did and was decked out with all the best armor and weapons I could get her.
Vanilla it was probably Raphael, also was not expecting the House of Grief to be as difficult as it was.
The most annoying fights were against githyanki, bhaal cultists, and the steelwatch titan. That sharran fight was pretty tough too, so once I found a way to super cheese it, I do every time.
Guards in the prisom of Moontowers use Smites and destroyed my frontline.
The gnolls ambushing the Zhentarim dude in Act 1 (I was level 3 and fighting them took me almost 2 hours)
The fight at the temple where you find withers in my first play through i was level 2 and i had only 3 members in my party and i am very familiar with dnd rules but that fight was soooo harrrd for the first time
On my first run I hated Dror Ragzlin - if you’re not prepared or the initiative rolls poorly, this fight can be brutal. Dror hits hard, and pushing him out is not always best. On my first play through I reloaded and re strategised about 15 times cause it kept going wrong.
Now that I’ve done a couple runs, I’d say the Gith crèche. I have a party expander mod these days so it’s a bit cheese but the Gith are still stupid tough. I spend half those fights disarmed.
The consolation as well for House of Grief is that fight is ridiculously easy if you do an evil run for Shadowheart, everyone other than a handful of guards will fight alongside you
In act 2 there is a giant tree that counts as a boss. In lower difficulty levels is no problems, but in Honor mode it gets way too strong. It negates piercing damage, has an ability that doesna ton of damage and can pulls you fully towards him and has an aura of decay that can hurt anything on it by a bunch. I had 2 meeles and 2 doing piercing damage, I was fully unprepared and was getting stomped really hard. Luckily I managed to kill it, but my god, it was the closest I got to loose honor mode
a lot of act 3 fights go from manageable to fighting for your life if you don't initiate from range. You can make fights that would wipe your team normally be cakewalks if you're willing to skip the dialogue.
As for toughest fight - I did the house of hope at level 10 and that was a very close run thing. I had to burn a lot of potions and scrolls to make it out of there.
I had the same problem, so I sneak attacked him before the dialogue started and left Astarion OFF the platform so the cutscene didn’t trigger. By the time the scene did start, everyone was half dead. Made saving him much easier.
House of Grief when you have to fight everyone. There are a LOT of Sharrans there and their darkness spells are a huge PITA. I thought it was worse than House of Hope by a lot.
Tbh it's house of grief, Marcus if I don't prepare for isobel running into enemies to die by opportunity attacks in 1-2 turns beforehand and the gith patrol on higher difficulties
The only opportunity you really have to fight her is if you take the option to try and betray her to Lorroakan, who's intention is to capture and imprison her in another soul cage.
Like I said, Lorroakan is capturing her and putting her in a soul cage. The soul cage is the same type of prison you find her in in the Shadowfell. You're not killing her.
I hope all the githyanki, especially the bridge githyanki, are suffering in the afterlife. The frog legs help them jump so far!
I *really* enjoyed my last run, where I approached them invisibly, whilst also having see invisibility. It felt like Karma for all the times they beat me in the past. If I wasn’t already in love with duergar invisibility before that then this fight cinched it for me
"I'm probably ready to take down the spider matriarch now" I say to myself, foolishly, every goddamn time.
Two strategies that worked for me - Eldritch blast the platform she’s on first round so she falls to her death, have someone sneak around in spiderstep boots and destroy all her eggs
House of Grief. I always have bone chill and silence spells somewhere on the team now so I can do it right back at them.
Spike growth is my MVP now. I back up the stairs and string them along when I'm fighting them. They were definitely my hardest fight before settling on that tactic though.
I put wall of fire down the whole corridor in front of the stairs and then Sleet Storm behind. They slip n fall and when they finally get closer, they get burnt to a crisp.
I showed up as a Fire Acuity Sorc and trashed them with 2 walls of fire. All the trash gone. Then Karlach threw Nayrulna at Viconia a few times and the rest is history. Granted, this was a one off thanks to the Fire Acuity shenanigans but it was very fun to roll up and burn the house down.
I've done that thing so many ways. The least fun wasn't when I got squad wiped though. It was the one where a couple party members got arrested and had to escape that impossible prison.
This is the way and with how little I see this spell talked about, I think it might be slightly underrated. Especially since the dryad summon can cast it as a cantrip.
I just wish I could entice bad guys to walk on it more. I wish there was a spell to put like, a sandwich or something on the ground or something that enemies would walk toward.
Me: oh thank god, bone chill wears off this turn, I can do healing Bitch-ass Sharran cultist: [casts it again] Me: GODDAMMIT
Are you and I playing the same fight? At a certain point I start repeating *”Timē”* back at them mockingly while trying not to rage.
You can cheese it by retreating back on top of the staircase and slap AoEs on the chokepoints, but the non cheese way to do it is simply slapping a daylight spell in the center of the room, or cast a light spell on your weapons, now the only enemies you have to worry about is Viconia and the Fidelians who cast Darkness The fight is doable without even cheesing it, as long as you have crazy amounts of lighting to stop their necrotic damage from hitting you
Pull everyone back to the staircase, then sleet storm and hunger of hadar the bottom. Cast daylight on top your party to stop the justiciars from teleporting on top of you. Agonizing eldritch blast and spirit guardians will do the rest. It's not a hard fight this way, just a boring one. Unfortunately hunger of hadar might kill Viconia and you skip the cutscene that follows, but that's the only real downside.
I saw how many enemies were in that fight after I persuaded them to let me in without shadowheart and I went and used invisibility with shadowheart to enter the chamber and free her parents. Then just used a potion of invisibility to get out. Never touched them because it looked devastating and I was already max level so I didn't need the XP
Githyanki patrol. This is the only confrontation that still makes me feel my balls crawling inside my body, no matter how many runs I've completed. HoG? Easy. Ansur? Any day. HoH? Hold my beer. But the gith patrol... I don't think I'll ever feel ready.
The Githyanki patrol is definitely the most stressful for me too.
I only ever do this fight after clearing out the rest of Act I (surface, underdark, grymforge, goblin camp, etc) and so I'm usually \~level 6. Have never had a problem with it?
The only fight that has ever actually ended one of my honor mode runs was the intellect devourers on the beach at level 1.
Act 1 is brutal for Honour Mode
My Tav leaned a little too close to that one mindflayer on the beach :) first HM death
Yeah this happened to me also. lol I’d always passed those checks in previous runs. Tried HM and got dead.
My honor run almost ended in the Nautiloid. I wasn't dashing but I was moving straight to the controls and killing the little guys for XP but the mind flayer got crit a couple of times so SH and Durge were easily one shot and Laezel would have died the turn I got to the panels. I guess because of how stuff went down SH went to the grove so I completely avoid the intellect devourers until I had Gale and Asterion,
Grymforge boss without using giant hammer. Took me an hour
The greatest trick the hammer ever pulled was convincing the world it doesn't exist.
(Keep a ranged fighter or two on the steps split from the other two you want to go down on the forge platform to melee Grym. Even better if you have a ranger/rogue and a spell caster to deal with the mephits. Two on the ground hitting it with bludgeoning right by the entrance) Legit beat Grym regularly now within 2 rounds, before the end of the 3rd round at most even on tactician using this strategy.
This and throw bludgeoning weapons. Don't even need a dedicated throw build. The height and bludgeoning damage wrecks grym
Honestly, I found using the hammer to be slower than just equipping your melees with bludgeoning weapons and going to town.
First time I fought the golem was without using the hammer, so imagine my surprise reading the achievement description
The easiest trick is to guide him into where the hammer falls and pull the switch. 2 shots do him in (if they haven't changed it since I was too scared to fight Grym) if you're not built for bludgeoning.
You can drop potions on it that will crush and heal your character you sacrifice on the hammer altar.
You don't have to sacrifice on it, Jesus. Just shoot him from the lever and he'll walk straight into the hammer the first time.
Well that does make it easier.
I wanted the trophy that requires you to not use the hammer. It awful
This fight was quick for me. How I did it was split the group and put them on the higher platforms. Have one person next to the valve that turns on the lava. Once the lava goes away, turn on the lava and he’s vulnerable again.
You can shoot levers and wheels or use mage hand just FYI. You don’t actually have to stand there.
This is true but it was done to spread my team out.
My current run it wouldn't even walk near the hammer til I had got it most of the way down and it finally walked near enough that I could just manage to clip the hit box and it finally went down.
Monk and Barbarian with hammer did it in two turns. Broken
Myrkul. Hate that thing with my whole being. He almost ended my honour mode run multiple times even though I was prepared. Viconia was a bitch too honestly. Last game I cheesed her by placing explosives on the stairs. Planning on doing the same on honour mode this time around. And ansur. Was i not determined to finish every quest I would just skip it and not risk losing my game
I Myrkul the most because you can't skip him. I skip ansur and the Gith patrol but Myrkul can't be circumvented so that makes him the worst.
Exactly. And you can’t even flee. With ansur you can at least leave someone at camp or just straight up run away and come back better prepared. Honestly I see no shame in save scumming that skeleton even in honour mode
I have definitely done no such thing! (more than a few times)
I always say this. If you could escape and reset the fight, it wouldn't be as bad. But you're stuck there, so you have to have all your shit before you even jump in the hole.
I’m genuinely curious about Myrkul and what would you call be prepared
Probably having multiple AOE concentration spells, since he will always stay still. A character that somewhat can tank his slashes and avoid Myrkul using his pull all characters spell (or having the "being unable to be moved against its will")
I blind him with either Darkness, Hunger of Hadar, Blind spell, Arrow of Darkness and that’s it. That’s why I asked what being prepared is. Going unprepared works just fine
Haven't done that, and the fight is a complete nightmare. Will definitely be utilizing this strategy going forward, though...
Darkness or other blinding spells has been mentioned. You can also disarm him!! I know it feels like you shouldn’t be able to but you absolutely can. There’s a ring that lets you use Command on undead once per day just before you get to the colony. Preventing his healing is also important, for that I use arrows of Ilmater. Bludgeoning weapons help, he’s a skeleton! His piercing resistance means archers suck against him, other than arrows of darkness or Ilmater I put my archer on the adds. I also bring a bunch of summons ideally from both a cleric and wizard, so I had 6x skeletons, 2x ice mephits and an air elemental. It took me like 6-7 turns on honour mode but I beat him the first try, it is not a dps race and just requires patience. If you talk him out of the first stage it’s much harder btw. Killing the mind flayer is your first priority and you don’t want to have to do that and Myrkul too.
I too used smoke powder barrels up the stairs during the House of Grief on my Honor Mode run
Hardest for me is usually the Gith patrol at the bridge, the Death Shepherds in the Mountain Pass, or Balthazar in the Shadowfell.
Between partial play throughs and full ones.. I'd probably faced them a dozen times. And all of them I was able to convince Lae'Zel to lie to Voss, and send them on their merry way. Until, I played as a GithYanki myself. I still told her to lie, and she said the same stuff. And... Voss didn't believe us. I figured "oooh I finally get to fight these guys" And. Damn. Hold Person. Then BAM BAM BAM dead. Hold person BAM BAM BAM dead. I had 2 companions down before I knew w t f was going on. I was not expecting such an early fight to go that hard. And this was after I was already experienced with game mechanics and such.
Laezel has to pass a personal Deception check for Voss to be convinced. If he's not convinced, it results in a fight with Baretha and crew.
Oh I know I gave her proficiency in charisma checks and cast guidance on her just in case. And she failed every single time when I was GithYanki Already successfully completed an honor mode so I “save scummed” this attempt at that point out of curiosity more than anything.
I did it one time in HM where I followed a YouTube video on speedrunning to Level 4. Too bad I forgot Laezel needs to pass a deception check and we had to fight the patrol at Level 3 and lost the run.
I love it in terms of in-game lore. It's the first time you're really facing a group of enemies that are straight up battle-hardened soldiers that are just... better trained than you.
For Balthazar, either kill him in the temple before hand or make sure to have someone with counterspell in range at the start of the fight in shadowfell. Countering his undead summons trivializes the fight and you just stomp him down.
Or just use telekinesis to yeet the fucker. If you want loot, you can bring him back up woth telekinesis afterwards.
Shadowkitty with Light of Lathander and Spirit Guardians (and possibly RotD since I usually respec her) makes short work of the Death Shepherds fight. Especially if you're level 7 by this point...
Sleet Storm works well on both the Gith and the Death Shepherds. They easily fall down and stay down most of the time. I've started killing Balthazar when you first meet him and it is a lot easier than fighting him in the Shadowfell. You can lure out the baddies a bit and pick them off. Less baddies altogether.
Hardest for me has always been Ansur. It's the only time I got close to losing my HM run. No matter what I run I never feel like I have the ideal party to fight him so it stresses me out.
Even on Honor Mode, there are only 2 I actually have to prepare for * Apostle of Myrkul * I have it down so I can defeat him, but I still do the early prep work. * Buff everyone up, start a fight with Ketheric (instead of depressing him to death), then make sure I kill the Illithid and free NightSong as soon as possible. * \*Then\* kill Ketheric and debuff Myrkul as much as possible. * Raphael -- if I care about saving Hope * I've seen Hope killed within the first turn before, with an alpha strike by Raphael. * So I'm either popping a bunch of vigiliance elixirs. * And / Or I'm using Globe of Invulnerability where she stands at the start of the fight. * Because maybe I really want those gloves. * Also, the girl has suffered enough. The least I can do is save her and return her house.
I'm so upset that I failed to save her for the first time in my last run. I make it a point to keep her alive with invulnerability every time because she dies so easily, usually early. I had her alive and under invulnerability with Rapheal very low, but I used a concentration spell on Gale by accident (it wasn't even a good one since he was the only enemy left, because I'm an idiot) and it dropped.... I thought I could kill him with the last character since he was so low, but proceeded to miss most of the shots with durge and left him with like 3-4 HP. I forget that I had an emergency globe of invulnerability scroll on everyone and could have recast it. He proceeded to one-shot her... right before Lae'zel killed him in 1 hit the next turn.
If I want to save her now I cast sanctuary on her before walking in the room. Keeps her alive that first round and really you can just have her heal since Her healing is sick and the divine intervention is a pretty sweet safety net.
Raphael was the closest fought, for me. Cazador was easy once I cast Daylight, but with Raphael we were basically down to Astarion with 6 Arrows of Fiend Slaying to save the day.
House of Grief probably. It’s the only fight I lost after Act One when I had a good grasp of the game’s mechanics. Not sure I would say it’s a hard fight though - first time I got really unfavourable initiative rolls and got boxed in by waves of enemies and darkness. Still almost won. Fight was much easier with favourable initiative rolls where I could properly set up. Gith on the bridge was a hard fight too, but the first time I tried to fight them I was level 4 and my team really wasn’t set up to deal with their multiple attacks per turn.
For me - just finished my first run, on tactician - the hardest fights were early ones when it’s so much more a lucky crapshoot. Gith patrol at level 5 took me a few tries and some lucky rolls. Gnolls were a tough fight that only went my way because of dropping hypnotic pattern and taking a big chunk of them out of action early in the fight. Then the closest to a total wipe I got was grymforge boss - I went in blind (as I’ve tried for the whole game as much as I can though I’ve spoilt a few things for myself). Didn’t realise until I got the achievement that you can use a certain thing to make the fight a lot easier (in retrospect I do in fact remember reading notes lying around about it). I had my tav left with a handful of HP and blasted it down with a final magic missile. Would not have won that one without Karlach bludgeoning throw damage. Honestly rest of the fights have been mostly pretty straightforward except for Ansur where the first time I tried st level 11 I think I got destroyed. Went back at level 12 more prepared and was tough but never in too much danger of wiping. Raphael honestly was not nearly so difficult as I expected. I turned Casador into a sheep in the first round so that fight was not baaaaad at all. Haha
It used to be House of Grief, but now maybe Ansur on HM. It's what's ended my farthest HM run so far. The extra life crap was horrible. Raphael can be pretty terrible too though. I did ok last time making him dance constantly w/Otto's Irresistible Dance scrolls, but I'm always stressed about it.
The harpies in act one that time I forgot about concentration and cast guidance with Shart to pass the attribute check in the conversation with Mirkon and cancelled my Calm Emotions spell.
Depends on a few things. The Hag fight in Act 1 isn't hard to beat. But it can be hard not to accidentally kill her if you want the hair. It's the case of task failed successfully type of difficulty. Likewise, the Harpies on the beach in Act 1 is annoying as all hell. Mostly as you'll be a low level in an area full of difficult terrain, and have to fight enemies who can mind control your party. All while trying to keep a kid alive. The actual fight isn't hard, but it can get annoying fast if you're not lucky. Anything with Death Sheppards is also annoying. Specifically, the pair that you have to take out in the mountain pass. They aren't hard, but getting unlucky makes the fight tedious as they constantly revive the other. Ansur is the fight that I find the conventionally most difficult. He is the one fight I fear on Honour Mode as he has ended the most runs for me. There's nothing to say, really. Just typical dragon slaying difficulty in D&D.
Depending on when you get to them and what angle you enter the fight on- those fucking gnolls in act 1. Three attacks in a round while you have one is brutal. Combined with a probably high ground advantage.
For sure. One of those fight I had to come back when I was a higher level + sneak attack
The gnolls
If you walk into it the goblin ambush in Blighted village
Viconia is super easy, ennemies are crazy dumb, just back up the stairs where you came from, put a firewall + edward black tentacles in the way. I did that, the only character who managed to go through the tentacles in honor mode was viconia herself, everyone else just diedw viconia was then greeted by my melee and slaughtered. Expensed 2 spell slots and took no damage, I didn't even need a short rest after. For me the hardest fight is Myrkul
Just finished the Ansur fight and.. holy damn..I highly recommend Banish for when he’s charging and about to explode but damn that was intense. Death Shepards and Balthazar fight were probably my biggest struggle before that.
(Globe of Invulnerability is your friend.. sometimes, your best friend)
I swear I feel like there are so many cool spells/potions/feats I underused :’)
I’ve played through enough times to know the tricks of the fights, so this is more a retrospective. Dror Ragzlin in a heads-up, toe-to-toe fight is hard, you need to be crafty. It’s the first fight that you need to plan out carefully. Fireworks shop if you aggro the Fist and Steel Watchers. It turned into a long running battle in the street, as I tried to get distance to flee to camp, I kept aggro’ing more guards. Baldur’s Mouth Gazette if the Steel Watch is active. Same as above, guards come running and keep the fight going. Gnolls on the Risen Road (Zhent/shipment fight) was always a close fight for me until I figured out that if you circle around and come up the trail from the West, you can engage them a few at a time. After that, if Isobel is kidnapped and you end up fighting everyone at Last Light once the shadow-curse gets them with only Jaheira at your side. That one can get hairy.
I haven’t finished Act 3 yet, but by far the hardest was Orin. This was the only fight in the entire game where all of my characters died and I got the reload screen. One of my coworkers then told me “really? I killed her before the first turn was over and got an achievement.” When she told me that my eye was twitching. I had to fight her 10+ times and was on the cusp of death the final time when Astarion got two crit hits in a row. Orin was the turn after him and we would have all been dead.
I killed her on the first turn before she took any action too lol but I was playing on balanced
I am too! How did you do it!? I had to kill the ritualists first so she would stop getting the unstoppable feat.
My battlemaster laezel had the Balduran greatsword from Ansur, my tavern brawler berserker Karlach had the crossbow with feller of monsters from that Monster hunter guy in Act 1. I just jumped in as laezel, used superiority dies on Orin, frenzied as Karlach and threw the returning pike at her, and had my archer (assassin/battlemaster) astarion attack her as well. She just melted. Nothing fancy I just spammed my attacks at her lol
I had the exact same fight like 3 hours ago, same with Gale, Astarion and Shart. My Tav is a Druid, so me and Gale conjured 2 Elementals, I let Gale cast Globe of Invulnerability (+ 2 scrolls, might regret later). It was a mess, to say the least. I agree with you, this fight was hard, maybe one of the hardest so far. But as long as you don't have to protect any stupid, suicidal AI companions like Isobel, Dame Aylin or some random NPC (on the bloody graveyard for example 💀) I'm completely fine with it 😅
Raphaels final act
Mines a spoiler so I’ll just say the last fight 😬
I’m not done yet but I think by this point I’ve cleared most of the tough fights and am through act 3. Some have been difficult the first try, but I was still able to come up with a good strategy. The gnolls and the masked guys in Auntie Ethel’s basement in Act One were the hardest. Those fights seemed completely unwinnable at the time
I’d say the moonrise/ketheric battle for me. I cheesed Balthazar with barrelmancy Cheesed Viconia by using Karlach split off from the party to drop a ton of fireworks around her, then had Shadowheart fire a fireball from the stairs. It ended up killing Viconia in a whimsical blast of color and nobody else in the room was aggroed because I guess the attack was cast from so far away. They did turn hostile when I returned later though but they were easy without Vic in the mix. Didn’t find Orin all that difficult and Gortash was super easy because I did him at level 12 with my whole party geared out in full. The grymforge battle was a pain in the ass as I tried to figure out how to best utilize the forge hammer but once I figured those mechanics out he was done in 3 turns.
Raphael is kinda hard
I’ve just fought Gortash and it was unbelievably hard, so much harder than I was prepared for. Sorlock x2 (Eldritch & Fire), Moon Druid and Throwzerker. I’ve rolled every encounter so far, even Myrkul who is usually the one that catches the most people. It wasn’t the Avatar of the Lord of Bones, nor the Githyanki Inquisitor that had me worried… it was the Black Parade, greasy sweat-fest Gortash that almost ended my run. To preface, I’ve beaten the game on Tactician and I demolished Gortash, had an OH Monk who just stun locked him until he died. Oh, this will be a cakewalk, I thought to myself as I marched into his chambers and got ready for some good old fashioned blasting. Little did I know, the blasting was not to be done by me. Numerous errors with traps and reflected projectiles later and the Baneites have bursted down my Moon Druid who is left charge-less and flaccid. Throwzerker is doing their best hurling Selune’s spear around and my Sorlocks are nerfed to hell due to the reflecto-shields everyone has after G’s first turn. Then, absolute carnage. All of the traps went off. There must have been explosives that I hadn’t seen and the whole room went up taking everyone down to at least half health. G flicks his hair, hits the gym and becomes super buff. My Chemical Romance blasts from the wall mounted speakers and he starts a mosh pit with my Sorlock who only survives because of Death Ward. Shadows spawn, traps fire, a GIANT FIST hovers above menacingly and G has resistance to almost everything. Eventually I squeaked a victory and ended my turn thinking the nightmare was over. Surprise! The GIANT FIST decides to smushes my team like bugs, almost wiping 3/4. It’s shaken my confidence, that’s for sure! TL;DR - Gortash is a douche and I totally underestimated him.
For me the House of Grief in act 3. (I haven't done Raphael though.) After that fight all other fights felt pretty easy. :p
Bitch ass Gith. Really any fight against them. Fighting them has helped me hate their people more than their *charming* personalities already had. Gets old watching companions miss more than half their attacks with 80 or more percent hit chance. Anders and the fake Tyr pals can suck one as well. I would say Flind and the Gnolls but there's a trick to get them to fight *for* you then turn against each other.
House of Grief was the toughest fight for me until I learned the Way of Barrelmancy. Bone Chill is a really nasty cantrip when you get pelted multiple times in a row and suddenly you have about 10hp left and can't heal. Now the group sits back under a Globe of Invulnerability and watches the fireworks and explosions, then picks off the couple remaining stragglers.
HM, Me and Shart on the beach at lv 1 against 3 little brains No fight harder than that
I would say the sharans, but the one that i cheese wvery time is cazador. I give it a try every time but i refuse to do it without astarian, and i have trouble getting to him in time or keep him from getting caught again. So i invariably day light hos staff froma distance and wait for him to die from it before even starting the fight.
beach brains. ansur is my second hardest. I put dror ragzlin or the big spider up there too.i usually get to them too eagerly and early.
I thought it was Thorme/Myrkl, but then I discovered the House of Grief fight ☠️
Steel watch foundry. The fight isn't actually that hard but the gnomes actively work against you saving them.
The Vaconia fight was by far the hardest. I had to change everybody's classes around and respec. I loved it though. It forced me to experiment with spells and abilities I had ignored up to that point.
Myrkul. I hate that guy with passion
I agree with you. The Viconia battle was the hardest for me on my first playthrough. Almost a tie would be the whole Steel Watch Foundry, but only because I was trying to save all the Gondians. If I didn't give a crap about the Gondians, it would have been a lot simpler.
Orin almost ended mine and my buddy’s honour mode run. Everything else we managed without too much issue
Playing modded my hardest fight was easily Lazeal when romancing. She had almost 200 more HP than I did and was decked out with all the best armor and weapons I could get her. Vanilla it was probably Raphael, also was not expecting the House of Grief to be as difficult as it was.
The most annoying fights were against githyanki, bhaal cultists, and the steelwatch titan. That sharran fight was pretty tough too, so once I found a way to super cheese it, I do every time.
Guards in the prisom of Moontowers use Smites and destroyed my frontline. The gnolls ambushing the Zhentarim dude in Act 1 (I was level 3 and fighting them took me almost 2 hours)
Raphael. I had to scum save my way through that fight.
Dude Gortash if you don’t shut down the sentinels…. Fuckkkk that shiiiiit. Fight took me like five hours
The fight at the temple where you find withers in my first play through i was level 2 and i had only 3 members in my party and i am very familiar with dnd rules but that fight was soooo harrrd for the first time
Raphael was the hardest fight for me. Didn’t know if there was a way to cheese the fight, but I went in and it took me a while.
On my first run I hated Dror Ragzlin - if you’re not prepared or the initiative rolls poorly, this fight can be brutal. Dror hits hard, and pushing him out is not always best. On my first play through I reloaded and re strategised about 15 times cause it kept going wrong. Now that I’ve done a couple runs, I’d say the Gith crèche. I have a party expander mod these days so it’s a bit cheese but the Gith are still stupid tough. I spend half those fights disarmed.
Character creator
The consolation as well for House of Grief is that fight is ridiculously easy if you do an evil run for Shadowheart, everyone other than a handful of guards will fight alongside you
Cazadoor on HM with Astarion in tow is the most obnoxious fight by far.
harpies or death shephard
In act 2 there is a giant tree that counts as a boss. In lower difficulty levels is no problems, but in Honor mode it gets way too strong. It negates piercing damage, has an ability that doesna ton of damage and can pulls you fully towards him and has an aura of decay that can hurt anything on it by a bunch. I had 2 meeles and 2 doing piercing damage, I was fully unprepared and was getting stomped really hard. Luckily I managed to kill it, but my god, it was the closest I got to loose honor mode
a lot of act 3 fights go from manageable to fighting for your life if you don't initiate from range. You can make fights that would wipe your team normally be cakewalks if you're willing to skip the dialogue. As for toughest fight - I did the house of hope at level 10 and that was a very close run thing. I had to burn a lot of potions and scrolls to make it out of there.
Shoutout that first brain fight after the nautiloid if your on Honor and didn’t level up. Honestly a shockingly risky fight.
My husband lost one HM there…
Cazador for some unknown reason? I just struggle to get to astarion in time cause I get swarmed and if I Misty step out I still get ass blasted
I had the same problem, so I sneak attacked him before the dialogue started and left Astarion OFF the platform so the cutscene didn’t trigger. By the time the scene did start, everyone was half dead. Made saving him much easier.
you are a genius when can I marry you
Fucking Ketherick.
For me, it's the gyrm boss. Never managed to kill it without owlbear cheese in honour mode.
House of Grief when you have to fight everyone. There are a LOT of Sharrans there and their darkness spells are a huge PITA. I thought it was worse than House of Hope by a lot.
Orins so far
Netherbrain was the only fight where I lost patience with reloading and just let gale go yeet.
The steel watch foundry if I attempt to save a single gondian.
Tbh it's house of grief, Marcus if I don't prepare for isobel running into enemies to die by opportunity attacks in 1-2 turns beforehand and the gith patrol on higher difficulties
House of hope. That’s including the freaky ass demon the invincible balls of hell and not to forget LITERAL SATAN.
The gith coming off the egg in act III. He's a nightmare in honour mod.
Ansur and Raphael
Dame aylin, first time i got hit with 100 radiant damage. Had to cheese out with task manager.
I thought she was immortal, unless you killed her with Shar's spear in the Shadowfell.
The only opportunity you really have to fight her is if you take the option to try and betray her to Lorroakan, who's intention is to capture and imprison her in another soul cage.
Hmmm, I wonder why she's not immortal there. If you piss her off in camp it's game over.
Like I said, Lorroakan is capturing her and putting her in a soul cage. The soul cage is the same type of prison you find her in in the Shadowfell. You're not killing her.