How to dispell Deirex's defenses?

[Taylan]

Maybe I'm stupid but this seems kind of broken... All of the following spell protection removals result in a "Spell Ineffective" on Deirex:

• Pierce Shield
• Pierce Magic
• Secret Word

This means I also can't cast Breach on him, so he's effectively completely immune to my attacks for enough time to cast a Comet and Dragon's Breath, obliterating my weaker characters.

Is there a way to properly fight against him? Currently I'm thinking of cheesing the fight like I had to do with some other ridiculously powerful spell-casters, especially Liches who seem to love staying in one place and never chasing you. Just move in and out of their sight to bait out the protection spells and wait for them to wear away... Makes it easy but feels really wrong.

[Christian]

Don't bother with Secret Word. Liches are immune to everything below level 6 exceptions being Breach and the priest version of True Sight.

To give more detailed advice we would need to know his spell protections according to combat log.

[Taylan]

8 hours ago, Christian said:

To give more detailed advice we would need to know his spell protections according to combat log.

Unfortunately I've already beat him by cheesing now. (Well, if you consider Protection from Undead to be cheesing.)

But it's surely not going to be the last SCS enemy who poses this issue. I think the main issue tends to be that spells to eliminate protection from magical attacks like the ones I listed above don't work on them, probably due to innate immunity to spells up to a certain level, and that in turn means you can't Breach them so they're also immune to physical attacks (innate immunity to non-magical weapons + Protection from Magical Weapons or Mantle).

[subtledoctor]

You don’t mention what mods you have installed, which is important. If it’s just SCS, then the only thing that should stop Pierce Shield is Spell Shield. In which case the answer is simply, cast Pierce Shield twice. (Or Pierce Magic + Pierce Shield, or Pierce Magic + Ruby Ray, or Ruby Ray + Pierce Shield, or Ruby Ray twice.)

That will remove Spell Shield + Spell Trap. Another Pierce Magic/Ruby Ray/Pierce Shield should remove any remaining Deflection or Turning, and another one will remove SI:Abj. Then you can Breach (or Disintegrate, or DBFireball, or PW:Stun, or PW:Blind, or PW:Silence). EDIT - actually if the game does not have SCS or SR installed then you don't even need to remove Deflection/Turning/SI:Abj in order to Breach - Breach will bypass all of those spells.

So, just to spell that out: if you have two mages against him, you can hit him with 2xRuby Ray 1 second into combat, and then again 7 seconds into combat. If he only has three protections up, then you can use Breach or whatever 8 seconds into combat; if you need to take down four protections, then you can tag him with something 13 seconds into combat, or 8 seconds in if you have a third caster. Yes, that means he can get off 1-2 spells... which is the whole point of him having protections. Protect your guys from fire and magic energy. Also, buff your mages with Spell Deflection/Trap/GOI, and maybe he'll take a round to take down your protections instead of going HAM on the rest of your party. Why I love PW:Silence - yes the guy can immediately Vocalize, but that takes up a round in which he is not casting Meteor Swarm/Comet/DB/Timestop. As long as you out number him, PW Silence is greatly to your advantage.

If repeated Pierce Magic/Ruby Ray/Pierce Shield doesn’t work, then something is wrong, affected by a mod.

(To smooth this stuff out a bit and/or fix anything put out of whack in this area, you might want to consider my new mod.)

Edited November 15, 2021 by subtledoctor

[Taylan]

@subtledoctor Thanks for the tips! I have SCS installed of course, hence posting this thread in the SCS section of the forum.

Next time I encounter an enemy like Deirex I'll make sure to note whether repeated Pierce Shield / Pierce Magic / RRoR really do what they're supposed to.

Your mod sounds very interesting. Currently I have all the SCS enemy/tactics improvements for mages and priests installed so I guess it would be incompatible, but I'll check it out in the future.

[subtledoctor]

Oh it’s compatible with SCS - some spells are changed but it accounts for the SCS behavior which is the same. If you find that something isn’t working in your game it could fix things, since it overwrites spells. But if you find things are working well, probably best not to mess with things mid-game.