Tips for Defeating Cazador, plz

[Suggin]

Hi I am playing on Balanced Difficulty and I just had a bad encounter with Cazador, the vampire lord, in Act 3. I brought Astarion along with me, as I enjoyed the choice words he had for his former master. Unfortunately, ol' Asty got sucked into some sort of ritual condition thingy and I couldn't use him for the fight! A hard enough battle as it is, but I am already out 1 party member from the get-go, thanks to that. I hate Cazador. His very name reminds me of the scourge of the Mojave Wasteland, from Fallout: New Vegas. Curse him!! How do I defeat this foe?? Any advice??

[Ironwu]

Check the Internet for some tips and walk through articles.

[Bufnitza]

No advice, as I haven't gotten that far into the game, but his name literally means Hunter in Spanish, so I guess he delivers

[Moonbane]

Cast Daylight on him. He is hypersensitive to sunlight. Also, you can rescue Astarion, Warp over to him and use the help command on him to free him.

When I last fought Cazador, I opened up outside dialogue range with daylight, battle started and Astarion was not abducted.

[Orion Invictus]

Daylight and throw him off the edge.

[Moonbane]

Also, if you want Astarion to become a vampire ascendant, make sure to read the scroll held by the skull in Cazador's chambers. And do not kill any of the trapped ritual participiants for the empowering ritual.

[Stania]

You can use the good old pushing off the edge with thunderwave. Don't worry, you won't lose his loot since the real Cazador is inside the coffin in the middle of the room

[Moonbane]

More like he turns into mist and flees to the coffin if defeated to heal.

[TamTroll]

if you got the "blood of lycander" mace from the Gith Creche, having someone hold that and then run into melee with Cazador will dispell his mist form due to his sunlight sensitivity.

you see those orange lines / circles beneath the various sacrifices? if you stand on them, you get the buff associated to that particular sacrifice, and it's removed from Cazador. this can be used as a way to stop him from ascending, though it does mean your character needs to remain in that spot, or else it goes back to him.

the "spirit guardians" cleric spell is useful for taking out the bats, as they just walk in there and instantly die. so if you have Shadowheart on your team, popping that will help reduce the bat population.

Beyond that, try and shove Cazador and his other minions off the ledges if you can. Cazador will still be lootable at the end of the fight, and the other minions don't have anything of particular value on them.

[Suggin]

Thank you, fellow players. This has been helpful advice. I don't feel so overwhelmed about facing him now.

[ahsanford]

1) Daylight spell is absolutely vital IMHO

2) Use at least two runners -- stand on the runes (or kill the spawns in place) to block the ritual and lower the benefit he receives. one runner should be super fast, have Misty Step or Haste to free Astarion ASAP.

3) Blood of Lathander hurts via proximity

4) Blood of Lathander or a cleric can cast sunbeam

5) Spirit guardians (radiant) also very helpful

1 + 2 are musts to me, the rest are just helpful.

- A

[Moonbane]

Dont need runners, just stock up on dimension door scrolls and get there instantly. Everyone can use them.

[victorvnv]

I gut him before he does anything on tactician solo.
You can push him over the edge and 1 shot him or just nuke him and he dies easy

[victorvnv]

Also he has zero resistance to Ottos irrsitable dance so you can make him dance and gut him with ease

[Clever Name]

In two different playthroughs (balanced diff), I beat him both times by throwing him off the edge of the platform. He naturally seems to flee towards the edge, which makes it easier. Something I did the second time, also: just attack him without talking first. This won't stop him from 'stealing' Astarion from you when the latter gets close enough to trigger a conversation, but it will allow any rogue in your party to get a free sneak attack on him.

First time I had Wyll in my party and he had the fully upgraded Eldritch blast (with knockback effect), and that did the trick.

Second time I had respec'ed Karlach into an Open Hand Monk (I really hate Barbarians, thus I never had her in my party until I changed her class), and her flurry of fists or whatever has an optional knockback effect, which pushed him over the edge on her first attack. She reached him easily on the first turn because she has 50-foot movement per turn. If you put haste on a Monk to exploit their enhanced movement and multi-attack capabilities, that makes things even easier.

Also, last bit of advice: don't go in underlevelled. On my first playthrough I was stupidly underlevelled because I had missed/skipped a lot of content both because of stupidity and laziness. On a following 'perfect' run where I did almost everything possible, and thus had much more XP, I was level 12 for all the major endgame sidequests and it made everything much, much easier.