Throne of Bhall fight New Ascension MOD (Spoilers)

Vanidar · Post by **Vanidar** » Thu Dec 13, 2001 10:52 pm

OK I have a question...

I have downloaded the new Ascension MOD and played it through again. I am now at the final fight stages. I have killed Irenicus and Bhodi again as well as the Fallen Solar. I have cleared all 3 of the pools and I am now fighting "The Five" all at once.

I cannot for the life of me figure out how to get through this battle.

None of the tactics I have tried seem to work at all. The real problem is that nothing I seem to do has much of an effect on any of them.

Traps don't seem to do any damage at all and what is even stranger is that even when I place traps far away from where they appear they seem to go off as soon as the action starts but without doing any real damage to anyone. The only one that seems to do much is the Time Stop trap and I can use that to get my thief behind one of them and assisin backstab. I have almost killed one of them this way but even after doing 400 plus damage Abizagal was only badly injured.

Then I have done whirlwind attacks on some with several chars, time stops with Dragon breaths and Comets, Horrid wilting etc etc. and after all the spells fire off all of the bad guys are still at uninjured or barely injured at best.

I have tried fighting them one at a time by summoning allies to keep Sendai and Yaga Shura's attention while I run out of the screen to deal with the others. The allies don't last more than a few seconds and then after Sendai and Yaga Shura come wandering around and join in the fight again.

I have tried Contingencies and chain contingies and Spell trigers loaded up with Breaches and Peirce magic and Ruby Rays of reversal and then folowing that up with a massive attack from spell casters and melee classes hoping to kill one of them off quick but no matter what they seem to heal it all back in seconds. What is woirse is that when I finally manage to get one of them down to near death they disappear and travel outside my reach and drink potions and so on until they are back to full health again. I spent almost 25 mins doing this on one battle. Somehow I managed to stay alive long enough and no matter how many times I wore one of them down they kept coming back at full strength.

Is there some way that has been found to beat these guys? I keep trying but nothing I have tried seems to work.

Vanidar

JosephM · Post by **JosephM** » Thu Dec 13, 2001 11:05 pm

you could set the games difficulty to easy to help you and oh about the five, i think you have to kill them in some order. do you have balthazar in your group? it will make it more easier if you do....

Masteraleph · Post by **Masteraleph** » Fri Dec 14, 2001 2:36 pm

Note: think about it for a minute. One minute someone's badly injured, the next minute they're not, without using potions. Now, what kind of character uses spells to heal?

Now that you've gotten that, which character is the only one of the 5 that fits that class?

Yep, go after Sendai first, she's a hugely high leveled cleric with awesome specials that's actively healing everyone else.

Otherwise, as someone else suggested, turn down the difficulty level, that fight is made to be difficult even at Core rules.

Obsidian · Post by **Obsidian** » Fri Dec 14, 2001 4:33 pm

Yep, Follow what MasterRalph says, Whack down sendai with everything you've got, that way you can keep off thier healing. You've got to concentrate on one foe at a time, or you'll get nowhere.

Xyx · Post by **Xyx** » Sun Dec 16, 2001 11:32 am

S
P
O
I
L
E
R
S

When a member of the Five dies, Melissan suffers the loss of their essence. This happens through the death scripts of the Five.

It's possible that these death scripts fail to kick in if you batter them hard enough, just like with Trolls. If you've done 200 damage or so, try letting up for a few seconds to see if the death script kicks in.

Quitch · Post by **Quitch** » Sun Dec 16, 2001 5:12 pm

Isn't that handled by the area script though, checking to see if they're dead or not? So wouldn't that mean the damage problem would be irrelevant here?

Xyx · Post by **Xyx** » Wed Dec 19, 2001 3:30 pm

Hmm... Now I'm not sure.

(There goes my aura of infallibility

)

fable · Post by **fable** » Wed Dec 19, 2001 4:05 pm

Originally posted by Xyx:
<STRONG>Hmm... Now I'm not sure.

(There goes my aura of infallibility )</STRONG>

It's still damn near perfect. Only winked out, once.

Go after Sendai, like the others point out. The battle is deceptive, in that you *think* mages are the first things to target; but the priestly one is the real danger, simply because of Sendai's power.

Knight of Ni · Post by **Knight of Ni** » Thu Dec 20, 2001 3:29 pm

have to admit to be having precisely the same problem.

my party contains no specialist spell casters, :
me cavalier (v good)
a theif
bard
half orc berserker
elven ranger (with ravager, nice)
and balthazar helps out

i decided to rush and kill sarevok purely out of spite, but didn't satnd a chance against Yga shura, he just made my entire party drop dead basically.

illasera and her arrows didn't help much either

Xyx · Post by **Xyx** » Fri Dec 21, 2001 4:42 am

Our friendly neighborhood die-hard testers claim that going after Sendai and Illasera first gives best results. They must've finished this battle over 40 times, so I guess they know.

Knight of Ni · Post by **Knight of Ni** » Sat Dec 22, 2001 1:29 am

well i tried that, and yes it does produce good results. i quickly killed illasera, sarevok died in the melee. but yaga shura, abizagal, and sendai were all alive and very much kicking when melissan turned up.

this proved to be problematic, as while the protagonist was dealing with Sendai, the rest of the party got butchered. and so my cavalier is running around with 70hp remaining, needing to fight abizagl, yaga shura oh yeah and MELISSAN!

is that supposed to happen? i'd have thoguht that she would only turn up after you've killed all of your siblings.

Quitch · Post by **Quitch** » Sat Dec 22, 2001 10:51 am

It is indeed intentional. The higher the difficulty, the earlier she turns up.

The general feedback I've seen on the boards seems to say you should take down Sendai first, and always ignore Melissan until all the Five are dead.

I'd reccomend you take Illasera down second at the latest.

Kovi · Post by **Kovi** » Sat Jan 12, 2002 8:17 pm

I have finally finished the Ascension with a solo Wild Mage with a single item (Vecna). It was an interesting experience, the dialogs are great and battles are very tough and totally different from the original ones.

Irenicus & Co.: though the AI is very strong in this encounter, the battle is quite easy, as all opponents are vulnerable to fire (=couple of dragon's breath). The only problem is the "immediate" battle setup.

Demons: very hard (for a solo caster). Masses have to be disabled with Lower Resistance, Blind and Stun/Hold Monster/Feeblemind. Then they can be killed either with Incendiary Cloud(s!) or with fighting summons.

Five + Mellisan: extremely hard. I had to make a complete analysis of their abilites/immunities with IE. Fortunately all of them are vulnerable to Blind and also to either Stun/Hold Monster/Feeblemind. Only Abazigal (and Mellisan) can see the invisible, so Invisibility tricks (or Mislead or Magi) can be used extensively.
Sendai is a problem, as she can heal/cure the above states (even blindness), so she has to be totally disabled first. Maze/Imprison also works on the Five, but they can "free" each other.
After disabling all of them, they can be weakened with Incendiary Clouds. After Sendai is dead, Mellisan can be disabled easily (her save vs. spell drops). After Yaga-Shura is killed Melissan became vulnerable to fire (Incendiary Clouds). When all of the five (and Sarevok?) are dead, Melissan casts some special abilities and she is also healed, so she has to be disabled again. But finally she will go down within multiple Incendiary Clouds and Melf Meteors (for example).

I have also found some minor problems in my earlier try (with the evil shapeshifter druid):
- the Ravager (still) has only 44hp.
- Dark Taint (evil Bhaal power2) has an incorrect implementation (bad projectile?), and does nothing on high levels
- Hand of Murder (evil Bhaal power3) doesn't seem to work at all

Merkidon · Post by **Merkidon** » Sat Jan 12, 2002 9:12 pm

Sarevok?

Why are you fighting Sarevok?

Were you a jackass to him while he was in your party or something?

Whenever he's been with me, or even spoken up at all, he told Melissan to **** off and that my main had showed him what life was really about.

I did however screw up the balthazaar thing, so he committed suicide and I 1. dont get him to fight for me 2. have to fight against him.

fable · Post by **fable** » Sat Jan 12, 2002 9:20 pm

He didn't say he fought Saverok. He only said Saverok died. I suspect he means his best melee party NPC died first in the battle.

I suspect you will receive fewer experience points for down-tuning the difficulty of the conflict, but if you need to, that's the way to go. If you've got a druid in the group, try casting Insect Plague to keep those healing spells from shooting off. Anything you can summon that's big and nasty: do it, whether it's a deva or a demon.

Kovi · Post by **Kovi** » Sun Jan 13, 2002 2:19 am

I have switched from a solo neutral evil shapeshifter to the wild mage for the Ascension. I fought against everybody all the way through. In the Ascension I fought against Balthazar. Then against Irenicus, Bodhi and Imoen. Then against the Five and Sarevok and Melissan.

Xyx · Post by **Xyx** » Mon Jan 14, 2002 3:18 pm

Amazing job, Kovi! You must be the first person to solo Ascension.

Aubrey · Post by **Aubrey** » Mon Jan 14, 2002 4:07 pm

fable: He didn't say he fought Saverok. He only said Saverok died. I suspect he means his best melee party NPC died first in the battle.

He probably mean he foughtSaverok, if Saverok betrayed him and joined forces with Melissan. At least that's what it's happening to me. But this is another bitter story...

Kovi · Post by **Kovi** » Tue Jan 15, 2002 9:05 am

Originally posted by Xyx:
<STRONG>Amazing job, Kovi! You must be the first person to solo Ascension. </STRONG>

Thanks! I have just realized that the mod can be much harder on hard/insane difficulty (I have played on core), but I don't want to really try that.

Nevertheless the Wild Mage proved an extremely powerful class, the ability to cast any spells with NRD just rocks. (Of course the Robe of Vecna has made a serious difference compared to the my earlier no-item sorcerer).
And that is where my BG2 carrier ends...