Improved Final Battle

[Drelnza]

I found the end battle hard as well but perfectly balanced for me, especially considering it *is* the end battle. I also use HardTimes Petrus and those 10 arrows of dispelling are critical! I use several at the Coronation to take out those nasty Dopplegangers sharpish. The rest are needed for the end battle.

 

The mage has to die first, so I get him with an arrow of dispelling and blast him with everything I have whilst using an army to keep everyone else busy. The first time I played the end battle this was not problem. The second time he got away using invisibility and it made the whole encounter much, much more tricky. I ended up summoning monsters right on top of him so he couldn't escape....

For me taking out Diarmid who fires arrows of dispelling is the next priority, followed by Angelo and Tazok.

I dare say the end battle would be a lot LOT harder if I didnt have BGI style summons installed....

 

There being no ending to the game is a current bug that I believe David will fix in the next version.

[PetrusOctavianus]

I found the end battle hard as well but perfectly balanced for me, especially considering it *is* the end battle. I also use HardTimes Petrus and those 10 arrows of dispelling are critical! I use several at the Coronation to take out those nasty Dopplegangers sharpish. The rest are needed for the end battle.

 

The mage has to die first, so I get him with an arrow of dispelling and blast him with everything I have whilst using an army to keep everyone else busy. The first time I played the end battle this was not problem. The second time he got away using invisibility and it made the whole encounter much, much more tricky. I ended up summoning monsters right on top of him so he couldn't escape....

For me taking out Diarmid who fires arrows of dispelling is the next priority, followed by Angelo and Tazok.

I dare say the end battle would be a lot LOT harder if I didnt have BGI style summons installed....

 

There being no ending to the game is a current bug that I believe David will fix in the next version.

 

When I bought those 10 Arrows of Dispelling I thought there were more for sale, so I as counting on buying more after raising another 10,000 gold. :-(

Using them at the Coronation sound like a bit of a waste to me. I was able to beat the Dopplegangers on first try with only the female Grand Duke dying. Since you know from certain letters that there are Greater Doppleganger among the crowd, it's not "cheating" to buff before the Coronation.

I guess the final battle would have been much easier if I was able to Dispel Semaj's protections ASAP. Then he would be easy meat for summons and my own archers and spell casters. I did cast Remove Magic, but it it seems to roll a seperate dice for each spell, so I was able to sometimes remove Mirror Images, but not Globe for example. The Arrows of Dispelling are all or nothing, but with a much higher chance of succeeding, in my experience.

Also, I was halfway counting on getting spells like Breach and similar by the end of the game, but no such luck. :-(

 

BTW, Hard Time seems to have become harder since last time I played (1.5 years ago). I could swear I found Gauntlets of Dex and Ogre Power and more Arrows of Dispelling then.

[Angel]

Sorry to revive a four year old thread, but I just have to say that for me the final battle was way too freaking hard. I'm able to get Tazok down, but I'm completely unable to even get to the casters before Sarevok and his newly created skeleton warrior tear through my summons and rip me to shreds, or a Chaos spell disables my entire party. I tried over a dozen times without even being able to dent them much. While I enjoy the rest of SCS, this part just had to go if I'm ever going to finish the game.

[kreso]

Well, when I fight this I tend to be pretty stocked with potions of all kind (it's not like you'll need them anymore). They help immensly. If you don't use Item Revisions, using a Protection from Magic scroll on their spellcasters messes them up completely.

If you need a breather, both Invisibility and Wand of monster summoning are good options. Any Chaos scrolls? Those can be of great help, only Sarevok seems to be immune to it.

Try to focus down Tazok first, while keeping Sarevok occupied with summons. Imo he's the easiest to kill. After he dies, kill the skeleton which will spawn. Leave Angelo and the other mage for last, they take some time to bring down (unless you use prot.magic scroll on them).

Unless you have Item Revisions, it's hard to tank Sarevok. A Blade which drank some kind of Defense potion+Mirror images/stoneskin + def.spin+blur+girdle of slashing has a decent chance, however. About -14 and below keeps you quite safe.

[Angel]

I used every potion, scroll and wand I could. AC was at -10 or lower for nearly the whole team, but Sarevok keeps hitting all the time regardless. It was completely undoable. I eventually gave up and removed the tactical challenge part. The improved general AI still gave me trouble but at least that was a fair fight (since I use BGT, going for Sarevok first doesn't help much, I still have to kill all of them).

 

Maybe it's just not for me. I'm a casual player, not a min-maxer who perfectly tunes DPS and stuff like that, and I dislike abusing bugs or using things in ways the rules didn't intend. It's not the first time I hit a snag like that; I had to remove the improved bandit camp too, having all of them come out to play the moment I took down one bandit was just too much. I was able to do the improved Ice Island, -Werewolf Island, -Durlag's Tower and -Cultists without too much trouble though, they were all tough but doable for me.

 

Just in case you wanna know, main guy was a bard, rest of team was Minsc, Yeslick, Jaheira, Imoen and Xan. Installed mods included ToBex, BG1 Unfinished Business, Spell Revisions, D0Tweak, BG2_tweaks and something of my own creation which tweaks the modifiers from ability scores a bit, makes items like the Gloves of Dexterity give a +2 bonus instead of setting stats to 18, and introduces a few new items, nothing big. (The best new item is probably my Girdle of Dwarvenkind: +1 con, -1 cha, +3 versus death and spells, and infravision. Minsc was using that.)

 

I intend to replay as a paladin sometime, maybe I'll give it another try then but probably not unless a new version tones it down. This was a nightmare. :-(

[kreso]

I used every potion, scroll and wand I could.

If you have money, visit Sorcerous Sundries and buy expendable stuff - Chaos/confusion scrolls, Stoneskin (if it's available on your install), Mirror image. Porions of Invulnerability and Magic Shielding are very good. Regeneration might help as well. Pro fire and magic (green) are good.

Blindness spell might be useful. Drink Giant Strenght, Power, Heroism etc. potions with all fighters.

Any Arrows of dispeling left?

 

AC was at -10 or lower for nearly the whole team

Imo, it's better to max it out on 1 character to take on Sarevok than having it spread out, but that's just me.

 

but Sarevok keeps hitting all the time regardless. It was completely undoable. I eventually gave up and removed the tactical challenge part. The improved general AI still gave me trouble but at least that was a fair fight (since I use BGT, going for Sarevok first doesn't help much, I still have to kill all of them).

I think he has somewhere -7 THAC0. It's far from perfect, he shouldn't be always hitting. Imp.invisibilty might come in handy. With SR installed, Defensive Harmony is a great buff. Blur will last you whole battle. Toss in Emotion on them to make their THAC0 worse. Barkskin spell is exellent with SR. I think you'll get +3 AC with Jaheira casting it.

I agree that this is a hard battle, even more so since Sarevok can't be nor killed nor disabled (I think). You simply have to delay him until others die. If all else fails, go invisible after you trigger the fight, lure Sarevok away and swarm him with summons via wand, while you kill the rest of them.

 

I'm a casual player, not a min-maxer who perfectly tunes DPS and stuff like that, and I dislike abusing bugs or using things in ways the rules didn't intend.

Neither am I. Altough, if you play SCS you should get used to pre-buffing a lot. Also, don't expect to win all battles without casualties. Last time I fought this only my protagonist survived.

 

It's not the first time I hit a snag like that; I had to remove the improved bandit camp too, having all of them come out to play the moment I took down one bandit was just too much.

That's my favourite battle in SCS. Disables are the key here. A frontal assault is destined to fail, however Web+Free Action, pro Fire+Wand of Fire etc.will end it quickly.

 

Just in case you wanna know, main guy was a bard, rest of team was Minsc, Yeslick, Jaheira, Imoen and Xan.

It's a very decent team.

 

...something of my own creation which tweaks the modifiers from ability scores a bit, makes items like the Gloves of Dexterity give a +2 bonus instead of setting stats to 18, and introduces a few new items, nothing big. (The best new item is probably my Girdle of Dwarvenkind: +1 con, -1 cha, +3 versus death and spells, and infravision. Minsc was using that.)

Item Revisions does pretty much the same thing.

[Angel]

- Prebuffing doesn't work, they dispel that, or it just runs out.

- Summoning doesn't work, Sarevok buzz-saws through them faster than Drizzt goes through those gnolls.

- Disabling? Forget it. Sarevok is immune to everything and the others all have Potions of Freedom.

- His casters are nearly impossible to take down, they have too many contingencies and they drink potions at a rate that is absolutely impossible for a PC to do. Not to mention that they run all over creation in the rare case that I do get one of them vulnerable.

- Confusion is very hard to get rid of once it hits. (Dispel Magic? Um, they're level 14+, I'm level 8-10. Bite my at best 10% chance of it actually working.)

- Skeleton warriors are just too much, they're already a challenge by themselves, let alone with everything else going on.

 

Look, I'm no newbie to the game and I tried absolutely everything. Spend nearly 70k of gold on every buff the Sorcerous Sundries has to offer. It's just too freaking difficult. When I've played for several hours, reloaded more than a dozen times and I still don't get beyond "barely injured" on any of his guys when half my team is dead, things stop being fun. I like a challenge, but this battle is completely unfair. There is no way I can take them down. Even without the tactics and just the general AI updates it's already a very hard battle.

[kreso]

- Prebuffing doesn't work, they dispel that, or it just runs out.

Send one guy in to take Remove magic, keep the rest behind. Rushing head on towards a Remove magic is gonna get you killed fast.

Summoning doesn't work, Sarevok buzz-saws through them faster than Drizzt goes through those gnolls.

I think he kills 2 per round at most, maybe 3. Still, a wand of MS has >10 charges. You might get a lot out of those, believe me. Any hit that hurts a gnoll instead of you is saving 20+HP.

- Disabling? Forget it. Sarevok is immune to everything and the others all have Potions of Freedom.

Their potion buffs are dispellable without IR. I'm sure Chaos works on them (not Sarevok, but others can be disabled).

-

His casters are nearly impossible to take down, they have too many contingencies and they drink potions at a rate that is absolutely impossible for a PC to do. Not to mention that they run all over creation in the rare case that I do get one of them vulnerable.

They can drink potions same as you, 1 per round. And in that round, they cannot cast anything.

-

Confusion is very hard to get rid of once it hits. (Dispel Magic? Um, they're level 14+, I'm level 8-10. Bite my at best 10% chance of it actually working.)

Potions of Magic Shielding and Clarity keep you safe from getting confused in the first place, dispel won't help you much, even if it would work.

-

Skeleton warriors are just too much, they're already a challenge by themselves, let alone with everything else going on.

Are you using Haste, Bless etc? They don't last long vs 2-3 hasted, str buffed fighters beating them up.

 

Look, I'm no newbie to the game and I tried absolutely everything.

I know, you've gotten up this far. If you managed to finish Cloakwood mines my hat is off to you, that's (imo) a much harder battle (not Daeveorn, but those 2 mages in front of the Mines)

 

Spend nearly 70k of gold on every buff the Sorcerous Sundries has to offer. It's just too freaking difficult. When I've played for several hours, reloaded more than a dozen times and I still don't get beyond "barely injured" on any of his guys when half my team is dead, things stop being fun. I like a challenge, but this battle is completely unfair. There is no way I can take them down. Even without the tactics and just the general AI updates it's already a very hard battle.

Next time I play this I'll make a video.

[Angel]

The battle outside Cloakwood was tricky, but fairly evenly matched. Teleport Field helped a lot in protecting my casters from hasted fighters. ^^ As for Davaeorn, I think I got lucky there. Due to some AI hiccup he Dimension Doored into the middle of my party unbuffed. Minsc and Yeslick tore him apart soon after, and his Battle Horrors self-destruct when he's dead. It was over before it really started.

 

The battle in the Undercity was also somewhat tricky, especially since those Skeleton Warriors in the ruins are close by and can join the fray. But I did survive that one, although with Imoen and Xan dead. (Due to his 7 con, Xan is weak as tissue paper when not protected.)

 

But this final battle? Sorry, but I really tried hard. I can't do it. I don't think I'll install it ever again.

[kreso]

In battle outside Cloakwood Mines those 2 mages cast Chaos. And I have no potions to protect from that, only 1 item. It's usually quite hard for me. Fighters I can take in hand to hand combat, but once those mages start summoning Ogre Berserkers it's pretty much a reload.

I think that which spells they know/memorize is actually random, so you might have gotten a better deal with them.

Davaeorn can be lethal, if for 1 reason - he casts Sunfire. If a character isn't protected and fails his save, he will be probably chunked.

Undercity is a hard battle, one of the hardest. Those goons have a lot of HP. I usually send a superbuffed fighter in and bomb the area with Fireballs/arrows of detonation etc.

When I took Xan, I usually kept him invisible. he dies in a single hit sometimes.

Otoh, for impossible, once I played a no-reload game (BGT) with a Stalker. Everything goes fine, up until Davaeorn. He has 2 Horrors. I installed PnP Horrors from "Aurora's Shoes and Boots".....they see through invisibility, teleport, immune to magic, cast magic missile at will, over 100 HP, THAC0 of -2 or something. I couldn't take on 1, let alone 2. Also, they seem to be scripted to teleport near the one with worst AC-in my case, Xan.

[Angel]

Yeah, even unmodded Battle Horrors are brutal, perhaps even more so than Skeleton Warriors. Those Dwarven Doom Guards around Kiel's grave in Durlag's Tower are quite something as well. But those things I can prepare for. Without Breach and True Seeing, these mages drive me completely insane and there is only so much you can do against them with what is in BG1.

 

Maybe it's just my inability to oversee a complex battle that makes this final fight so hard for me. There's just too much going on at once. Oh well.

[Drelnza]

I found the end battle hard as well but perfectly balanced for me, especially considering it *is* the end battle. I also use HardTimes Petrus and those 10 arrows of dispelling are critical! I use several at the Coronation to take out those nasty Dopplegangers sharpish. The rest are needed for the end battle.

 

The mage has to die first, so I get him with an arrow of dispelling and blast him with everything I have whilst using an army to keep everyone else busy. The first time I played the end battle this was not problem. The second time he got away using invisibility and it made the whole encounter much, much more tricky. I ended up summoning monsters right on top of him so he couldn't escape....

For me taking out Diarmid who fires arrows of dispelling is the next priority, followed by Angelo and Tazok.

I dare say the end battle would be a lot LOT harder if I didnt have BGI style summons installed....

 

There being no ending to the game is a current bug that I believe David will fix in the next version.

 

When I bought those 10 Arrows of Dispelling I thought there were more for sale, so I as counting on buying more after raising another 10,000 gold. :-(

Using them at the Coronation sound like a bit of a waste to me.

 

Since this thread has been raised from the dead...

 

It is Belt or Liia that you have to protect, not the Grand Duke. I have had them die before despite overwhelming the room with summoned monsters and killing the dopplegangers ASAP.I play a no reload game and falling at this hurdle is very annoying, the only way to be sure is careful targetting of any doppleganger that gets close to Belt or Liia and the use of Arrows of Dispelling to remove their Haste and Mirror Image.

 

Angel - this is how I conquer the final battle:

 

1. Summon as many monsters to help you as possible. I use BG1 summons so there is no limit...a bit of a cheat but that's my rules.

2. Buff to the max. Buffs will last! The party and summons should all be hasted.

3. Move up the room keeping your monsters just ahead.

4. As soon as you see Sarevok and the fight begins, or if you see him sooner, locate the mage Semaj ASAP. Semaj for me is the game changer, if a Chaos affects any of the party, it's really bad news.

5. Move some of your summons to block Sarevok steam rollling your party (every little helps, every second) and move some others to surround Semaj immediately.

6. Attack Semaj with an Arrow of Dispelling to remove any Improved Invis, Mirror Image .etc. Then attack him with all monsters and all missile weapons you have. Repeat until dead. Keep summoning monsters!

7. Now take out Diarmid, his Arrows of Dispelling really messed me up.

8. From there you should be ok, keep summoning, keep yourself hasted ... and Sarevok is still a sucka for Magic Missile....

 

Hope that helps.

[n-ghost]

Uh, guys? Why would you ever want to 'tank' anything? In cases such as Sarevok's you should get his attention with some hasted character and tumble around him, moving outta his swing zone, but close enough that he'd still try to hit you.

 

Wizards\sorcerers with stoneskin (if you've installed an option which allows you to have BG2 spells in BG1) and mirror image work best.

 

Resilient sphere helps too, a bit, if you can beat MR (I might be wrong, but afair both mages in this fight use only Minor Globe, i.e. sphere will blast through it).

Also found out hard way that if you manage to save during the encounter, if you ever load after that, all buffs on the enemy party (haste on Sarevok, for example) will be refreshed to full duration, so just don't do that.

[Saros]

I haven't played a SCS game for quite a long time, however last time I did that final fight, Invisibility was the key. It helped evade all the threats in the Undercity (of course with the help of the 2 cloaks of Non-Detection to get past those mages from the Iron Throne). And also helped in the final fight - go near the enemies with 1 char, drink an Invisibility potion (other too Invisible), don a Cloak of Non-Detection and wait for 10 turns for Diarmid's Magic Protection and all other Free Action to expire, then malison+web them off-screen.

[ancalimohtar]

I actually had almost no trouble at all with the final battle. I had Item Revisions, a messed up Spell Revisions (some level 1 spells were not altered), SCS/II, etc.

 

Honestly, the real difference is potions. I used almost no potions throughout the game, so I had my whole arsenal available. Potions generally have a duration of 5 or 10 turns (some 15), so you can drink them all before you even cast your [level] rounds/turn spells. I literally took out everything in my potions case that could possibly be of use for the fight, and distributed it among my 6 PCs; then I went through their inventories and arranged the potions by duration (interspersing scrolls for Viconia and Xan and my PC as well). Then I just drank them all, one at a time, one pot per character per pause. For example, my PC (fighter/mage multi) in the end drank these potions:

 

Potion of mind focusing

Potion of absorption

Potion of magic protection

Potion of storm giant strength

Potion of clarity

Potion of invulnerability

Oil of speed

Scroll of luck

Potion of power

Potion of magic shielding

 

Then the rest of the party had a smaller set of potions (with some extra ones, like Kagain had Potion of agility as well, and Kivan, Viconia, and Xan had Potions of fortitude), After that, defensive harmony and bless and prot evil 10' radius, etc. before you go in. Used the best arrows (Arrows of Piercing +3) and bullets (+2) and the fight went rather like butter.

 

I honestly found the chess fight in TOSC the hardest one in the game. So much harder in fact that I had to split up all my wands of fire and oils of fiery burning and that other explosion potion and toss six 6d6's into the middle at the very beginning. (If that didn't work I was going to give electricity immunity to my PC and send him willy nilly in to hunt down mages.)

 

As an aside, the demon dude at the end of TOSC was also rather easy, but I'm not sure if it was bugged for me--were the acolytes or whatever supposed to just stand around until you got close? Or did their scripting get messed up?