Yay! I finally beat the Eclipse gang on insane difficulty.
:lol: Actually it was 2 weeks ago but I am just now getting around to writing about it, and wanted to share it with you all.
First off I would like to thank Westley Weimer for making such a great mod and NPC in Solaufein. The dialog of these guys was hilarious! At least it was just before they turned my party into quivering sushi so many times... It took me about 10 tries to finally get a strategy for beating them on Insane without taking any damage.
I've thought about going in depth about how I did it but I will spare everyone the length(This incredibly long post was originally intended to be even longer!) Gag.... I think a lot folks here have probably already finished this 'battle' and don't want to bore you all too much...but I am just too excited and gotta tell ya! :lol:
My party consisted of:
PC(fighter/thief) equipped: CF+5 & Saanchudoku(sp?)
Solaufein equipped: Moonblade +5 & FoA's+5
Sarevok equipped: The Silver Sword
Edwin equipped: Elemental staff
Viconia equipped: MoD+2 & energy blades
Valen equipped: Her hands +5 & Torgals claw
My Strategies:
1.) Since the Eclipse crew pretty much goes after the party member with the lowest AC. I made sure it would be Edwin. This took the heat off everyone else for the short term. Edwin would be very protected by any attack they might make, and it allowed his chain's to fire onto the appropriate enemies that needed to take the heavy damage.
2.)Buff heavily and keep it. In a nutshell I used Edwin to cast buffing spells(scrolls and from memory) from images. Buffing using the green protection scrolls from an image is great buffing cheese because the protections stack, last for hours, and are virtually free. Since Edwin's buff's are cast from a high level mage, my idea was they would better resist the remove magics my party would encounter. Viconia cast her particular brand of buffing spells such as regeneration, death ward, chaotic commands, etc. Edwin would not equip(it was in his quick weapon slot however) the Staff of the Magi. He did use its powerful spell trap ability however. Valen and my PC had UAI so they cast (from scrolls) stoneskins, fireshield red and blue, Spell turning(last buff). Everyone is protected from: energy, magic energy, the elements(120+% for a healing effect if necessary), poison, and undead(except Valen...I don't even know if it would work on her but even so she won't get it regardless...my quirkiness... :rolleyes: ).Edwin and Sola had Protection from Magic Weapons set in a contingency. Also Edwin cannot be invisible since I needed him to draw everyone(the fighters) to him. They cannot see through invisiblity and rely on the cleric and sorcerer's True Sight and Remove magics, respectively, to clear that up(That's how it appeared anyhow). On the whole I didn't even mess with invisibility. Nor did I use any spell immunities, relying more upon spell turning instead. It seemed to work okay. I made sure everyones constitution was buffed to 16 or more(that I could) depending on the class. Potions of Mind focusing were drunk to max effect. Potions of giant strength where needed, etc., etc. You all know the drill...
3.) (also the actual fight summary)To remove their heavy buffs and cause very massive damage very quickly. Eliminate all the fighters within the first round or before the first time stop anyhow. Leaving the fighters to live and prowl around and attack during the time stop was very bad news for me on many previous occasion. So I made sure that Edwin had loaded in his chain a x1 remove magic and x2 ADHW(target enemy, see enemy). Solaufein had the same. After being teleported to the eclipse fight area, I had Edwin set another chain immediately after the first went off with the same as before. Solaufein however set a chain with x3 ADHW. Next they would each cast spell triggers with Death Fog x3 at the dead clerics belonging's. More on dead cleric below...
*side note* I used no teleportation spells at all in my final games. After using them in the beginning, it became evident that I was having too much trouble targeting these guys and maintaining a high, sustained rate of damage upon their persons in melee...
My fighter types would all set their HlA's: assassinate(PC), assassinate(valen), Critical strike(Sarevok), and viconia would use Energy blades on the weakest of the fighters from the chain's that went off. Before, I used to run her to the back of the arena and start casting Greater Restoration. But my party never took any damage in the final fights so it became unnecessary to use, and so I just had her wade in with energy blades, attacking the weakest.
My PC went straight for the cleric. Who died in about 2 blows or less. Next moving to the Sorcerer after that. Once Sola and Edwin got their triggers targeted and off on the belongings they started doing what melee they could and Sola set Critical Strike and took off for the Druid if all the fighters had died. The Druid and the Sorcerer were still protected and buffed so they usually lived the longest. Valen and Sarevok would clean up on any fighters that lived through the ADHW's and would move to the Sorcerer afterward if still alive.
The Sorcerer's chain usually went off during this time with a remove magic, a Dragon's breath, and Spell Trap. Since my party is heavily buffed and well protected the Dragon's breath does nothing at all. By now, Edwin's and Sola's chains go off and all the Undead(whom I've ignored) finally die off and all the fighters died. The cleric has been dead for awhile now and the Druid is soon to become fertilizer for some forests somewhere.
Total eclipse. The Druid dies very quickly now and the Sorcerer is targeting my PC who has spell turning buffed. No problem. Sola moves to the last and final, the Sorcerer.
Time starts to flow again and Edwin loads another chain with x2ruby ray and breach. As well as casts a Remove magic. My PC uses the wand of reversal and everyone hits upon the Sorcerer. It is important to note that Vorpal weapons(thanks Alson
) do indeed work very well here and would make very quick work of the Sorcerer. I elected to use a slightly inferior (because it allows a save) one, the Silver Sword, compared to the ToB level items. This was because I wanted to keep Sarevoks attacks per round up, since he had grand mastery in swords. The Sorcerer soon dies anyway because were all over him.
Success! What a great feeling it was to go from getting sliced and diced to doing the slicing and dicing for a change! But I will very much miss their most humorous banter. A great mod. Totally hilarious and intimidating at the same time! :lol:
:lol:
To all players of this mod- What did you think of the Eclipse battle and/or what strategies did you use to beat them?
Thanks for reading my long post.