HELP IM GETTIN NAILED ,OVER

[El Diablo]

i just entered the throne of bhaal with balthazar joined in the battle and this as the rest of the party
pc,skald
minsk
mazzy
imoen
aerie
i just barly survived the fight with mister irenicus and co. and am now going to use the pools but the demons slaughter me even on novice mode
so please some tips here would be VERY helpfull                    

[El Diablo]

oops never mind somehow the difficulty had gone up to insane its not so hard now now                    

[Baby Slayer]

Ahh reminds me of the time when I actually dared to play the game on core rules...imagin my surprise when there was more than one Fallen Solar to deal with and Amellysan kept summoning wave after wave of Demons...

as for my advice,I suggest you select good spells and potions,the best weapons and get yourself one of those nifty little custom scripts for your character(plenty available on the net)and sit back and enjoy the show

and don't be a sissy put the difficulty slider back up to normal...what kind of a god are you gonna make?                    

[stesun]

I got stuck at the final fight too. I play on Core level,  and would like to
stay this way for a good tactical fight (which I usually enjoy) .Here's my
party:

PC (Fighter/Mage)
Sola
Mazzy
Anomen
Tashia
Imoen

The party is fairly high-level (Anomen is around level 38 or so, others have
similar experience level), and well equipped (I have the Item-Upgrade mod).
The problem is mainly Yaga-Shura and Mel: no matter what I do, I can't seem
to get Yaga-Shura to below "Slightly injured",  and then Mel comes out. Mel
only takes less than 10 points damage (that incudes extra weapon damage
like fire/acid etc.) per hit, and she keeps re-buffing so I run out of Breach
quickly. Mel also keeps summoning demons, one of them likes to eat my
magical weapons ... :[

Anyway, I'd really appreciate if somebody can give me some tips for this
fight. Usually Weimer include such tips in the README file but not for
Accession.

Thanks a lot.
                     

[weimer]

Weimer includes tips for his own modules. At this risk of being redundant of being redunant, I didn't write Ascension. Credit should go to Gaider and a bunch of others (as mentioned in the readme). Some of those people (e.g., Quitch) are still around.

Anyway, Ascension is also sufficiently well-known that a number of people have written detailed walkthroughs or "how I did it" victory posts. IIRC, Trent Goulding had a nice one on a.g.b-g -- search Google groups.

In addition, I typically find it hard to dispense Ascension aid because I (sorry!) can't really remember why it was difficult anymore: it has been too long. The last time I had difficulty with Ascension was when every party member was a Fighter/Druid ... for some reason, the game designers made all of the uber-bosses immune to Nature's Beauty. Anyway.

Here are some general hints: are you buffing correctly? Take a look at Sola's auto-buff script and make sure that you are using just about every spell he is willing to cast. They are all good, trust me.

Did you plan correctly? Many people mistakently think that Greater Whirlwind is the way to go if you have a mage in the party. This is incorrect. You really want Improved Haste + Critical Strike.

Did you buy every potion and scroll you could before starting the final battle? This is the end, pull out all the stops: mind flayer control circlets, potions of magic resistance (there are six in the game, each giving 50%), potions of invulnerability all around (+20 to all saves is nice), etc.

Finally, this is the last battle. Turn on "pause at end of round" and "pause on spell cast". Even your fighters need to know when the end of the round is so that they know when to drink potions.

If all of that doesn't work, abuse Wish.

                   

[Kish]

Yaga-Shura has no magic resistance.  Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on PoV, that's the only thing he's not highly resistant or immune to.

Anyway, you have Anomen, Anomen can wipe out Shaggy Yaggy with a single Harm spell.  Failing that, you'll just have to wolfpack him.

Melissan is invulnerable (yes, she takes damage, no, it doesn't actually matter) as long as any of her named allies is still on the field--your problem with her will be that Yaga-Shura is still there.  Balthazar is pretty good for keeping Melissan occupied until you're ready to take her on.  Summons don't work very will--it takes her about one round to mince anything that takes physical damage, up to and including a planetar or elemental prince, and Mordenkainen's Swords draw quick Death Spells.

Once Shaggy's down, that just leaves Melissan and her Divine Mantle and Divine Spell Shield.  Trent's writeup of the battle (referenced by Wes) includes one bit of misleading information--it states that Divine Mantle cannot be Breached.  In fact, it can--it's Divine Spell Shield that absorbs any Breaches cast on Melissan.  As far as I can tell, Divine Mantle is nothing more or less than a clerical version of Absolute Immunity, and Divine Spell Shield is a clerical Spell Trap--so hit her with something that will take down a Spell Trap (Pierce Shield, Ruby Ray, and Spellstrike for sure; I'm not sure about what else), followed by Breach.  Failing that, +6 weapons, of which there are potentially four in the game, will go through Divine Mantle, as will the claws of CharName's Ravager form.  (I'm not sure whether or not the Slayer will work.)

... for some reason, the game designers made all of the uber-bosses immune to Nature's Beauty.

Probably because they read you talking about how great that spell is.                    



[!--EDIT|Kish|Oct 20 2002, 10:22 PM--]

[stesun]

Weimer and Kish:

Thank you very much for your replies. Kish's bit about Mel's invunlerability
is especially helpful. The final fight frustrated me so much that I've started
all over with a new party with Valen -- I heard on Valen's board that she
can level-drain Yaga to death.

And I'd also like to express my appreciation to you guys and all other mod
authors. Great work!

- Steve

P.S.

] Yaga-Shura has no magic resistance. Fortunately or unfortunately,
] depending on PoV, that's the only thing he's not highly resistant or
] immune to.

He seems to resist magic damage though. I have tried Lower Resistance +
2 or 3 Abi-something but it didn't  do much.l
                   

[Althernai]

Once Shaggy's down, that just leaves Melissan and her Divine Mantle and Divine Spell Shield.  Trent's writeup of the battle (referenced by Wes) includes one bit of misleading information--it states that Divine Mantle cannot be Breached.  In fact, it can--it's Divine Spell Shield that absorbs any Breaches cast on Melissan.  As far as I can tell, Divine Mantle is nothing more or less than a clerical version of Absolute Immunity, and Divine Spell Shield is a clerical Spell Trap--so hit her with something that will take down a Spell Trap (Pierce Shield, Ruby Ray, and Spellstrike for sure; I'm not sure about what else), followed by Breach.

Hmm... how sure are you about this? In my experience, Breach has always removed all of her combat protections (including Divine Mantle) - I never bother Spellstriking her or doing anything else to bring down her spell prottections - Divine Spell Shield doesn't seem to stop Breach.

Summons don't work very will--it takes her about one round to mince anything that takes physical damage, up to and including a planetar or elemental prince

Are you playing on Insane (that may account for the Breach thing as well)? Elemental princes don't live very long, but, on Core, a planetar keeps her busy for about two rounds unless she is using GWW or Time Stop. However, using planetars offensively against Mel is a bad idea - she needs +4 to hit, they strike as +3 (I want to know who came up with this idiotic idea - mere Fire Elementals and such strike as +4, a Divine Servant such as a planetar is only +3).                    

[Kish]

Hmm... how sure are you about this?

Not very.  I could easily be wrong.

Are you playing on Insane (that may account for the Breach thing as well)?

No, Normal.  I never play on Insane on purpose.  (I fought the [standard] Guarded Compound and Mencar Pebblecruncher on Insane once, by accident.  Didn't seem to make much of a difference...as you can see in the fact that I got all the way through the Guarded Compound and over to Waukeen's Promenade, and didn't notice something was wrong until Aerie failed to scribe one of the scrolls we looted from Mencar.)                    

[KaPe]

Ascension on hard *does* make difference... big one, that is - Mel appears at the beggining of fight, and with sendai casting time stop this can be nasty(w/o focus you're dead... simple), and u cannot use timestops yourself... which isn't much different from core, except that you could've killed balthazar/illasera before mel appeared... Anyone tried it on imp? Does it get any different?                    

[Piker]

Insane Ascension is pretty ugly.

Melissan seems to let you kill more of the resurrected Bhaalspawn on lower difficulty settings before deciding to deal with you herself.  Its been a while since I did it so I don't remember for sure.  I do remember that Melissan came after me after I killed one of my siblings.  Also taking damage from Illasaera hurts when damage is double.

It is my impression (I haven't looked at the actual spells and such to be sure that I am right) that Melissan Gates more demons on insane than on other settings - she filled the front quarter of the screen with summons at one point.  At a guess there were fifteen demons in the batch.

Insane Ascension is very very very very tough.  You will probably die if the first few seconds if you don't turn on every Auto-Pause option they give you.                    

[KaPe]

Well, it took me ~7 tries to finish ascension on hard( and ~4 with irenicus and bodhi, without balthazar) with 4 chars( well actually five, but Sola was *much* weaker than others, so he just DD to pool, and imp.inv   So, how much chars are needed to finish it on impossible? Without summoning multiple planetars at once or wishing for rest? Seems like a challenge :rolleyes:                    

[Piker]

I had a full party when I first did it.

I think it was Sarevok, PC Inquisitor, Viconia, Tashia, Solaufein, and Valen, but it was a while ago and I don't have the save anymore.

It is pretty difficult,  but it's fun if you have the right mindset.  It's not if you don't.  

Abazigal and Yaga-Shura can make chunks out of pretty much anyone in one or two rounds if you are unlucky.   Any AI script on your characters means they are dead, probably.

Bring lots of scrolls and potions