Cazador Szarr Boss Fight

[F3ral H0und]

So I was going into this fight with all my fantasy knowledge completely understanding fighting a vampire lord would be very difficult, but I have zero clue as to how you can beat this bastard as the Lvl 11 party I currently have.

Things I've done:
-Because of the misty-evasion he does every turn, you can't directly hurt him until after the ritual is complete, so going straight after Cazador will just get you slaughtered by his minions.
-I tried killing one of the spawn before the ritual was complete, but they have so much resistance that I wasted 2 turns killing one with 2 characters, and yet nothing happened after I killed it (probably because they die after the ritual anyways, so I probably 'sped up' the ritual).
-Yes I attempted the good ol' push the boss off the ledge cheese, but never got the chance because of Cazador's mist transformation.
-The coffin in the centre has a key in it, but I have no clue what its for, but I'm open to the fact that it might be important for the fight.
-Tried spamming summons and familiars, but Cazador targets my party members anyways and the enemy minions still overrun us pretty easily.

If anyone who has beaten Cazador could shed some light on what they did or how they managed to defeat him for us lowly mortals who can't lay a finger on him, I'll be leaving this discussion here.

[Brandoch Daha]

Also haven't beaten him yet. The spawns in the cell talk about Cazadors staff being important. I tried pickpocketing his staff but theres only some gold in his inventory. Maybe try to disarm and take his staff with an ability that disarms him. The only way I know of is disarming strike but Laezel is kidnapped. Then again he'd have to not be in his mist form for it to work and it seems too situational for that to be the way. Im just going to try and beat him again, maybe casting Daylight will have an effect as well.

Edit:
Yes casting daylight worked. Cazador has sunlight hypersensitivity and takes damage every turn from it and died in a few turns without doing much at all. It doesnt even trigger the fight.

[your literal mum]

Okay:

1) the arena is SUPER good for shoves. If you've got a barb/fighter positioned right you can be 1-shotting the ghouls and werewolves basically at-will, push them off the edge, bye bye. Repulsor (the illithid power) is also super funny here and can clear out a huge number of them very quickly.
2) anything that generates sunlight (e.g. Lathandar's Blood) is *bananas* in this fight. They'll be blinded, not healing, and taking 20 damage per turn.
3) you absolutely can hurt him in mist form, you just need to be dealing magical damage. Equip a crappy +1 dagger, boom you're back up to full damage.
4) his WIS saves are weirdly bad? I had a monk basically stunlock him, dude got like one round off tops, and the DC for those stuns isn't super high.
5) initiating correctly is a huge part of it -- if Astarion hangs back near the stairs and fires a sneak arrow that's a ton of free damage PLUS he doesn't get grabbed and you're 4-up instead of 3
6) there's a rapier that's designed for killing undead hidden in the dungeon. Slow fall down to the lower level near where the elevator brings you in, grab the (trapped) chest in the middle, give that bad boy to Astarion for at-will sneak attack vs undead.
7) Shadowheart is super useful in this fight. Prepare spirit guardians, pop with radiant, absolutely zero the bats etc. Turn Undead also whips, just generally a cleric is going to be rock to any undead scissors.

Good luck!

[Phoenix Blue]

I counterspelled his opening move and hit the ground in front of his mist form with an arrow of thunder, sending him flying into the abyss. Everything after that was pretty short work.

[F3ral H0und]

Yeah, I was completely unaware you could target him with magic attacks while he was in mist form, which is a lack of reading and understanding on my part. I managed to hit him with force tackle (that ilithid move) which sent him flying off the map after he transformed into the mist. The shove cheese will forever prevail.

[Rayd0n]

When not triggering the cutscene where Astarion gets bound up and using Daylight my lvl 9 party qas able to beat them. I also freed the other spawn.

Only problem I encounter is Cazador is not in the coffin after I killed/beaten him. Only a key. Any thoughts?

[CAESAR]

I polymorphed him.

[The E]

Another way to cheese this encounter is by ungrouping your party and parking Asterion far enough back that Szarr doesn't ackknowledge his presence, tell him that you're going to bring Asterion to him, then have asterion sneak up to Szarr and backstab him for a ton of damage. The fight after that will be very manageable; without the ritual powerup, Szarr isn't much of a threat.
One important note here though: during my playthrough, I hit a bug where Szarr's coffin isn't interactable once he dies (as a proper vampire, killing him just makes him retreat to the coffin to heal); I would recommend quicksaving when you are about to kill him, then murder him, then check the coffin. If the character says something along the lines of "not right now", you're good, if you get the open chest dialogue then just reload.

[ChalkStorm]

like with every fight:

-Send in +5Dex 24 AC archer/dual wielder Fighter with +23 to hit on his bow (after the -5 for Sharpshooter, using the one from the vendor in the Lower City) and two free crits per fight. Misty Step to a good location w/ Amulet of Misty Step, drink a Haste potion or cast Haste on him with your wizard, use action surge, shoot whoever's highest threat six times, critting on 17s, 18s, and 19s. This will delete any boss in the game except the dragons, on Tactician, including this vampire loser.
-If that isn't good enough (or you don't have Haste), Misty Step Gale into a good position near the sarcophagus, then use the Stratagem of War (or whatever it's called) level 5 Magic Missiles upgrade. With an Evocation wizard at level 11, this spell can be easily counted on to do 100 damage, and it can't be mitigated or dodged. IIRC this is what I actually used to finish Cazador off, because I didn't have a Haste potion. You can also easily surf him off the map with this strategy. Misty Step + Thunderwave is braindead in this game.
-If somehow he's still alive after these first two turns, Misty Step whoever is your other DPS dealer--I use Wyll--and use his best nuke into firing position. Eldritch Blast will probably be good enough. Summoning Wyll's free cambrion companion that he gets from freeing Myzora in Act II makes this and every other fight much easier.
-And if this doesn't end the fight within two rounds, use Shadowheart's spell slots to keep everyone healed up, summon a mystic weapon, bring a Diva into the fight if possible to tank some of the adds (I did this), and Guiding Bolt priority targets.

Once you've nuked Cazador, the ads are trivially easy to clean up. It'll just take a few turns. Use AoE spells and Magic Missiles to deal with the rats.

My party was Fighter/Gale (Evocation)/Shadowheart (respec'd to Life)/Wyll, and this, like every other fight in the game, was trivially easy. I can't remember if this was before or after I went up to Tactician, but it probably wouldn't have mattered anyway.

I didn't bring Astarion along because I'm going to romance him on my next playthrough and will do it then, but he would probably do a decent job substituting for the dex tank/archer.

Edit: oh, and don't loot the sarcophagus. It's a borderline bug that you can open it during the fight at all. The key does nothing. The only trick to this encounter is using Sunlight; wait until it's all done with before clicking on the sarco.

[Rayd0n]

If he is not using Astarion for power he is quite easily defeated. My party was level 9.

The quest is bugged like hell. After defeating Cazador I cant kill him in his coffin. I reloaded the game after his defeat and even reloaded an old savegame to play the whole fight again. Still not able to get the option to kill him in his coffin, only a key.

Then when I leave his palace I meet the Gor folks who are glad Cazador is dead. After that I went to camp to talk to Astarion. I then get the option, "Cazador want to see you, let's double cross him". Astarion then like the idea and we 'set out to get him'. Then I get the option - when talking to him again - Cazador is dead and Astarion is mad for not giving him the uber vamp power.

I hope Larian reads this

[CrimsonAsh]

You can cheese the fight with a Cleric, by casting sunlight on your weapon, going sneaky behind his back and let the sun shine.

He'll take damage over time but won't launch the fight, so you can chill until he dies.

I didn't finish the fight (killing his minions etc.) and reloaded my game since it didn't feel satisfying :D

[Gaming Fox]

For me he always starts the fight by going right to one of the corners of the platform you fight on, repelling blast one shot him ezpz, could probably do the same thing with shove.

[Twitch]

I just kept astarion back and initiated the fight with a few guiding bolts from shadowheart who was hidden which made cazadors health basically go down to 60%. from there once the battle started he ran towards me and I used the the Eldritch blast and pushed him over the edge. Then used cloud kill in front of my team which killed most of the bats. From there it was just having to deal with the damn skeleton mage and the other creatures but with shadowheart they weren't too difficult

[Celestial]

I killed Raphael Devil today, he was resistant to almost everything and hard to hit.

I used a Hold Monster scroll during the middle of the fight, finished off the adds and then tunnelled him with everyone.

I have not reached Cazador yet, but the CC skills really help during tough boss fights.

[essi2]

Had to cheese this fight.

Polymorph Cazador to trigger the fight and then kept Astarion out of the arena while fighting

[Napalm®]

I lost half the party when he finally stopped turning into mist.
Then I threw him into the chasm.