ilasera vs. improved ilasera (spoilerz)

THE JAKER · Post by **THE JAKER** » Sat Oct 13, 2001 9:30 pm

SPOILERS IN THIS POST YOU SHOULD PROBABLY NOT READ IT UNLESS YOU HAVE PLAYED THROUGH TOB! (I hope that satisfies the legal dept.

)

well, since there are now improved ilasera, gronmir, yagashura, abazigal, and demorgorgon fights available on balderdash - thanks Kevin and David! I thought I would go through my current game of TOB and fight the unimproved, then download and fight the new battle and compare them.

I played a party of five through SOA - fighter/thief PC, korgan, viconia, edwin and haer dalis (leaving a spot open to get Sarevok in TOB). I pretty much did every quest in SOA and this party got pretty powerful ending the game with about 4 mil exp each.

Like I think everyone else, I found the original Ilasera battle to be an utter joke. Even with her "team" the battle is easy and unmemorable. I understand that the battle is kept easy so that a player starting a game in TOB with a solo sorceror can still win, but I found that with a solo new sorceror WITH NO SPELLS it was still easy - just turn into the Slayer.

The improved battle, on the other hand, is very satisfying and memorable. Right from the start Ilasera's team looks more interesting - she has a big crazy ogre guy, a cleric, a mage, and another fighter. They cast higher level spells than in the original battle and they are somewhat harder to take out. The mage casts sphere of chaos and some other pretty good spells.

Ilasera herself the most interesting part, however. She is an archer and is an excellent shot - she uses the different archer abilities on you which makes it an interesting battle. She also goes ethereal and heals herself. She is also magic resistant.

The battle as a whole is still not really hard, I won it the first time with no preknowledge, and then found it easier once i had some tactics - one thing i did was to cast power word blind on Ilasera. Because she is a ranged fighter she is useless blinded.

Overall I really like the improved battle - it is more interesting and it "feels" more like a TOB battle - lots of high level abilities and spells around, a magic resistant boss etc., and it is interesting to fight someone with the archer abilities.

There is different treasure and one thing I have a problem with is that the improved Ilasera does NOT drop a pair of boots of speed like the original does, which is kind of a disappointment and is almost enough to make you not want to do the fight.

Musashi Miyamoto · Post by **Musashi Miyamoto** » Sun Oct 14, 2001 12:12 am

LoL have you tried the improved yagashura, and abazigal, all i can say is boy theyre tough even with edwin level 31, me a bard level 40, vicy a level 40, and jan i'm not sure but think around 20/20 little higher than that.

all i can say is those two battle was very tough even with me useing the project image cheese, i had 8 project image working round the clock to keep yaga armies at bay while my bard and vicy was softing him up for the heavy whammy.

then abazigal, well only reaon why i even won was that i got lucky on that one fight.

the improved demogroggy i couldn't defeat untill i just ploped down 10 spike trap and reloaded untill they all got a roll high egough to annihate him the second he appears.

gronmir, i orginaly found that to be a simple fight now it was more challengeing, and oh yeah the balzah one omg haveing one monk with those spiecal ability is pain in the rear but haveing what i think 5 monk that also have the speical abilities, well omg i was being blew all over the freaking place.

seadi, i didn't notice any difference *shungs*

THE JAKER · Post by **THE JAKER** » Sun Oct 14, 2001 1:08 am

the only other improved battle i have done before was demogorgon - I am going to try all the buffed bosses this go through. I have confidence in this party. As far as improved Demogorgon goes i had to try it a couple of times and and really had to go all out to beat it, but I was able to do it with a combination of whirlwinds and alacrities.

One battle that I am going to be interested to try this time is in Watcher's keep when you trigger all three of the seals to open demo's lair at the same time - someone wrote that that was the toughest battle in the game. I have to say i like the TOB-style big battle a lot - I know it's Monty Hall and everything but it's fun when you have so many nasty enemies and so much going on.

spork · Post by **spork** » Sun Oct 14, 2001 9:46 pm

Well, I'm sure you'll think this is good news: David Gaider (senior Bioware programing dude) and some top AI scripters are now testing an early beta of an entirely new (and better--but I don't want to spoil it) ending to ToB, designed by DG. It is huge compared to the things on Baldurdash, and it contains lots of fancy scripting. I tried it and am currently pleading to have the enemies be a bit less tough, but even if I get my way, this ending will be incredibly challenging. You'll also see Illasera again, but this time with friends!

spork

THE JAKER · Post by **THE JAKER** » Mon Oct 15, 2001 9:25 am

Oh god. I think I read about that battle you're talking about on the Bioware boards. I think it would crash my computer! Sounds fun though.

(((((((((((((((((((((( Improved Gronmir ))))))))))))))))))))))

Well, I was trying out the Gronmirs last night. Once again I would definitely say I like the improved battle a lot more than the original, but there are not a lot of big differences really. Gronmir and his friends use some special abilities like greater whirlwinds and assassination. Gronmir also entangles you and slows you (and diseases you?) with each hit.

Gronmir himself is a very tough melee opponent, I found that one on one he could kill any of my melee fighters, but not two of them or more

One of Gronmirs buddies (the one with the spear) has attacks that dispel your protections. His mage buddy Karun the Black casts higher level spells than in the unimproved, including "wail of the banshee".

There are a couple of extra enemies: a nymph, and minotaur and a big cheetah-thing. They are not any big deal but they do liven things up a little. Because of them the encounter is worth more experience (about 25,000 more) than the regular version. The treasure is about the same, you get some gems and some potions of superior healing but only one staff +2 instead of two. The spear fighter has a set of full plate +1 instead of regular plate mail.