Tactics Mod - Incredible Difficulty

[Stworca]

sure, and i well prefer to describe it in phases.

my summons at pull (serves as cannon fodder for balthazar )
2 x fallen planetar (only possible of spell is cast from Simulacrum is cast at the exact same time) 2 x golems from our dear book, 1 x Simulacrum.
selfbuffs consisting off.

For an easier run you can also trap the hell out of where Balthazar, Sendai and Aba spawn with skull traps and delayed fireballs, then rest. It's somewhat cheesy tho, and if you place too many traps you might just kill Abazingal right away, which is bad. Happened to me once on sorcerer soloing. Everyone on 100% + Melissan spawning.. Throne of Bhaal parties are the best parties ever, because Throne of Bhaal parties don't stop, until everyone is dead. Took me all the cheese in the book to win that one

blurr, MI, fireshield red/blue stoneskin, improved invis, spirit armor, magic imunity abjuration, conjuration and divination. spellshield, spell trap, protection from energy, protection from magical weapons (pfmw) and improved haste, on both me and Simulacrum.

I wonder how did you manage to get three spell immunities at the same time. Chain Contingency? Or is it 'g3 fixpack' that disallows it..

illesara: dispell arrows, she is completly harmless ASLONG as you have pfmw up 1 hit without pfmw and you might aswell reload though.

Physical Mirror spell aswell as Reflection shield work for her aswell. But instead of beign completely harmless, she kills herself.

saravok: good ammount of hp, will completly destroy you with death bringer assult if cought unprotected

I see that you havent gotten physical weapon resistance in Hell?

abazigal: starts out with pfmw and gains one when badly injured, so mildly anoying.

There was a version where he was a dragon. Fun times.

balthazar: can be imune to timestop, stuns, knockbacks, and selfheals. really the biggest problem among the 6 bosses.

The immunity to time stop is lunar stance, once he changes stances, he's toast in TS


phase 1: since amelyssan will spawn directly after 1 of the 6 is dead, goal is to kill 1, but have atleast 2 others ready to folllow in quick succesion, i prefer to finish of 4 if possible

In some versions she doesn't care if Sarevok dies (possibly a bug). In most versions she doesn't care if Sarevok get's mind controled with the magic circlet from underdark Sarevok is the greatest tool against Sendai, since she isnt immune to non-magical weapons. Try it out sometime.

phase 2. amelyssan spawns, survival/finish off most of the 5.
since balthazar will die in your timestop. it will end the moment he is dead.
once the battle starts up again. open with pfmw, find illesara. (her stealth should be over by now) and focus her down. once she is dead, quickly run and finish off saravok and sendai. by now i start casting improved wish. i have 3 memories on my main, and 2 on my Simulacrum, open with the ones from Simulacrum since he will despawn soon. pray that 1 of your 5 wish spells gives you the ability to "rest" since you have 5, its a quite decent chance.

There are other ways to get spells restocked. ([url="http://www.gamebanshee.com/forums/baldurs-gate-ii-shadows-of-amn-9/guide-to-tactical-mods-spoilers-116063-p4.html#post1079073"]here[/url], cheesy)
If you want to restock in the middle of ascension fight with the above, just use Simulacrum to tank the entire map.

phase 3. Control
as you might notice yaga'sura is still alive. we wont care. he will kill himself off eventually from, fireshields and the acidic backlash from the katana in the kensai mage encounter from SoA.
if amelyssan gets some add spawns off finish them quickly. otherwise just work on amelyssan, a few breach spells when needed, also use those wish spells again, and hope for a rest, while the 1st rest is essential, this one just makes it easier, hopefully you packed alot of scrolls for buffing? well if you miss this wish, then thats what they are for, once you run out of spells. slower to put up than a rested version though.
amelyssan will heal up once in a while and just refuse to die.
yaga'sura dies, and phase 4 begins.

You cannot kill Amelissan before Yaga (and everyone else) dies, so attacking her was a slight waste of time.


phase 4, zerking.
at the start of phase 4, amelyssan will start screaming, "crap im loosing" and summon ALOT of creatures, i tried to kill the all, but there is simply to many.
instead i focus fire on amelyssan with pfmw up, and DRAGONS BREATH to scatter the summons with a knocback 2 times total. pretty much, kill her. before you run out of pfmw at this point in time, once pfmw is down, those summons will beat trough your defenses very very fast.

atleast this is how i managed the encounter
as you can see. i pretty much destroy 4 of the 6 in 2 timestop spells.
only challenging part is really phase 1-2

(some stuff added in quote)

Great job monks! Now if you feel like taking another challenge get [url="http://www.gibberlings3.net/scsii/"]this[/url] mod on top of ascension (you might need to re-install the game, as some components from Tactics wont work 'ere) and do the same with a party I assure you the fun just doesn't end!

Yaga is a royal pain in such scenario, and the main difficulty.

Also : Yay for anti-paladins

[Monks]

gheez the ability to make it even harder sounds anoying, think i used slightly enough time on it already but does tactics and SCSII work together or is it either 1 or the other?

"I wonder how did you manage to get three spell immunities at the same time. Chain Contingency? Or is it 'g3 fixpack' that disallows it.."


i am using g3 fixpack, dont know if it changes that specifik rule, but not being hit by insect swarm, is something that i enjoy. naturally i cannot check if it simply removes my first cast magic imunity since the buff is just "magic imunity"

"You cannot kill Amelissan before Yaga (and everyone else) dies, so attacking her was a slight waste of time."

maybe, but im using celestials fury + 5 (improved anvil or something simular as a mod), so with improved haste on both me and my simulacrum, thats a whooping 20 attacks/round in total. i actually manage to keep her stunned 95% of the time during this, and since hitting yaga'sura only would increase the speed minimally due to his physical resistance, i choose this option.

"Also : Yay for anti-paladins"
indeed, kensai works great aswell. but i took this one for the mind control imunity (instant death on solo, also maze works the same, pretty anoying)
hold imunity is nice aswell. but when playing solo, your lvl is amazing together with all the insane items on the same char, failing a safe is something i see very very rarely.

[Stworca]

gheez the ability to make it even harder sounds anoying, think i used slightly enough time on it already but does tactics and SCSII work together or is it either 1 or the other?

You can use them together, as long as you select only one improvement per encounter, so you don't have both messing up with the same script.

Since SCSII is superior to Tactics script wise, it's best to install everything from SCSII, and only Kuroisan, Lich in the docks, Red Badge, Gnome in the docks from Tactics. Eventually you can instal Tactics Illyich instead of "Improved Starting Dungeon" from SCSII, because Illyich is badass

maybe, but im using celestials fury + 5 (improved anvil or something simular as a mod), so with improved haste on both me and my simulacrum, thats a whooping 20 attacks/round in total. i actually manage to keep her stunned 95% of the time during this, and since hitting yaga'sura only would increase the speed minimally due to his physical resistance, i choose this option.

Flail of Ages + The acid katana drop him relatively fast, esp. with 2 x 10 attacks per round.
The best way of killing him is having a priest cast a succesfull "harm" and reduce yaga to 1 hp.

SCSII isn't much harder, it has just much better scripts. The hard part would be having the whole party survive Enemies don't beat targets that have pfmw, instead they swarm on the unprotected ones.

In a word, it can be hell. But beating ascension with SCSII, on insane and with xp cap was something i truly enjoyed, and probably the toughest encounter i ever had in video games.

[Monks]

"Eventually you can instal Tactics Illyich instead of "Improved Starting Dungeon" from SCSII, because Illyich is badass"

illyich is beaten, although completly ****ed up encounter, way way WAY! to powerfull, note that it wasnt solo but with a custom party of 6

on normal mobs:
fail a saving throw = reload.
enemy makes their saving throw (if you didnt pull 1 at the time) = reload

illyich:
laughable, get more than 1 of them, and you might aswell run away or reload.
illyich will almost destroy your party solo.
really did NOT enjoy this mod, nothing tactical in it. just pure luck and keep grinding them down 1 by 1.
i read trough your section, the deva firestorm abuse didnt come to mind, so will give you credit for that tactic.
but think ill try a fighter/mage/cleric next since i capped out in xp around start of tob (lvl 50 that is)
might get a bit anoying with not having 5 points into a wep spec, but hoping the acces to priest spells will make up for that.

[Stworca]

Well then, don't instal Illyich

I've managed to solo the encounter with a lvl 7 cleric. Sanctuary abuse, skeletons, dudm. No problem. But this is not the place to write that down.

Again with a multi? Come on now, good monks, no cheesy puffs for you A regular, full custom party!

[Monks]

i guess pure mage or cleric can work to, or even a thief with the ability to use scrolls (although the start will be nasty)

could also go with an actual group, but might get a bit boring
only problem i have with multiplayer parties is, the pause function. there is a 3 sec delay from when i activate the game after a pause, to it actually goes on. not a gameplay problem, but a personal anoyance one

[Stworca]

What you want to do is save the game in multiplayer, then move the save file to single player folder, and play a single player game with custom characters. No delay at all. I cannot imagine beating ascension with a pause delay, unless it was a solo sorc play.

[Monks]

thanks for the tip, will see how my group will work out

1 x antipaladin dualed -> cleric (will do the healing that needs to come trough spells + buffing)
1 x priest of lathlander dualed -> warrior
1 x barbarian (group tank)
1 x wizard slayer dualed thief.
1 x generic archer single class
1 x sorc.

any comments on this setup? think it will work? usually i get whacked at irenicus hell with a group in single player.

[Stworca]

thanks for the tip, will see how my group will work out

1 x antipaladin dualed -> cleric (will do the healing that needs to come trough spells + buffing)
1 x priest of lathlander dualed -> warrior
1 x barbarian (group tank)
1 x wizard slayer dualed thief.
1 x generic archer single class
1 x sorc.

any comments on this setup? think it will work? usually i get whacked at irenicus hell with a group in single player.

I'd go with priest of talos instead of lathlander, for the storm shield. Or a ranger / cleric, for it's op'ness.
For wizard slayer / thief remember to have the tweak that makes their ranged attacks cause miscast too (g3 tweaks i believe)

Have either the barbarian or the sorcerer as the main character. Barb for the + weapon resistance in ToB or Sorc for the Normal weapon immunity in hell. Barb may be a better choice. His class resistance + the bhaalspawn buff you get + defender of easthaven + hardiness and you just have pfmw for a warrior.

If that will be the case, watch out for sarevok in ascension, he will one shot your sorcerer if you let him hit you.

[Monks]

hmm any particular reason you view stormshield up there? picked lathlander for the thaco/dmg bonus from boon of lathlander.

also would going with a "blade" instead of a wizardslayer/thief be viable?
a blade would be a very viable secondary tank, or a heavy dps if only 1 tank is needed, due to his offensive/defensive spin.
i know base thaco in accension is really low, but doubt reaching AC -23 or better is hard with a blade

[Stworca]

In SCSII mages do not suck, and resistances are very important, thus stormshield is always my pick. All he needs then is a mage cast protection from magical energy (to stop horrid willing) and he's game (100% resists).
But any cleric will do, so its a secondary thought

Sure, blades are great, and possibly the only class that can tank using his AC in ToB.

[Rancid Sushi]

Just throwing this out there: you can still use Protection from Magic scrolls (through Simulacrum, of course) to disable even the scariest spellcasters in Tactis and Ascension. Remember that they can't cast magic through the sphere and it removes all their protections too. At that point, only enemies who deal a lot of physical damage and status effects are any threat.

[Stworca]

Just throwing this out there: you can still use Protection from Magic scrolls (through Simulacrum, of course) to disable even the scariest spellcasters in Tactis and Ascension. Remember that they can't cast magic through the sphere and it removes all their protections too. At that point, only enemies who deal a lot of physical damage and status effects are any threat.

Hence one should install the mod that allows spellstrike to take down protection from magic scrolls (Part of SCSII), not to mention self-restraint from using simulacrum-scroll exploits is welcome. (After all, why does one install tactical mods anyway? To make the game more difficult, or to cheat his way through?)

Lastly, there is a limited number of these scrolls, and thus should be reserved for the most devastating fights only (Twisted Rune with SCSII for example)

But hey, i was wrong before.. once

[Rancid Sushi]

Meh, I say it's fair game if it's in the game. I'm the guy who uses Imoen's invincibility in Chateau Irenicus to take down Improved Illyich. For me, part of the pleasure of tactical challenges is finding ways to break them.

[Stworca]

Meh, I say it's fair game if it's in the game. I'm the guy who uses Imoen's invincibility in Chateau Irenicus to take down Improved Illyich. For me, part of the pleasure of tactical challenges is finding ways to break them.

I bet you love improved demogorgon then. The challenge is NOT to break him :laugh:
Honestly though, his scripting falls apart when you cough.

[Rancid Sushi]

Haven't played Improved Demogorgon. I skipped him through my first (and last) playthrough of Ascension. I was just too disappointed with how the game basically ended in a boss rush that I uninstalled the mod and haven't been back. PnP demon lords/archfiends would have probably been more of a challenge and more original.

[Sator]

Not to stray off-topic but nothing beats PnP.

[Sykar]

/snip
Besides, the vanilla game really is too easy after a while.
/snip

Killing Firekraag with a Chromatic Orb was hilarious though after debuffing him wih LR, Malison and Doom.

I wonder how did you manage to get three spell immunities at the same time. Chain Contingency? Or is it 'g3 fixpack' that disallows it.

I am not sure what you mean here. You could always have several spell immunities up at the same time. Or do you mean having them up in the same round? SCSII offers Spell Immunity spells for each school as seperate spells so you can place them in CC or Spell Trigger. This mod is great especially for mages. Less so for Sorcs but they are powerful enough.