Any advices on House of Grief fight?

[Nonomori]

This seem to be the most hard fight in the game so far. I have to fight a dozen of enemies who spam darkness, bonechill and hit for 50(!!!) each turn.

Like, what the actual heck? It's literally impossible to win unless you use some cheese strat Im not aware of. I tried so many people's advice here but unfortunately they fixed the bug that let you zap everyone during the conversation and they make it impossible to cast ice storms which only one of my casters has due to the darkness. Worse yet they can see in the dark and it doesn't affect them which is complete and utter ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. On top of that none of the light radius weapons and effects and spells do anything to dispel the darkness or prevent the darkness from affecting them, that includes darkvision. What the hell is the point of these effects if they don't even ever work?

[靐]

It is hard to say without knowing your build. I had 4 sorcery build and didn't even noticed that fight. Had alert on all of my heroes, used misty step on staircase, placed 4 cloud of daggers on enemies pathway and simply ran away. Only few of my enemies were able to get, but they simply got spell sniped. 0 friendly dmg lmao. Guess you can prebuff yourself with haste and simply win?

[Nonomori]

Originally posted by `JapaneseSchoolgirlツ:

It is hard to say without knowing your build. I had 4 sorcery build and didn't even noticed that fight. Had alert on all of my heroes, used misty step on staircase, placed 4 cloud of daggers on enemies pathway and simply ran away. Only few of my enemies were able to get, but they simply got spell sniped. 0 friendly dmg lmao. Guess you can prebuff yourself with haste and simply win?

I just want the story I don't want to cheese my way through every unbalanced ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ fight. I'm a lvl 11 Monk. I have ShadowFart, Astarion, and Gale with me

Immediately swamped in the initiative with darkness spells, if Gale counterspells one, there are three other casters every round that can also teleport away if I dash at them and am unable to one round kill them.

For some reason, darkness acts like an iron clad barrier against ranged attacks making Gale ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ useless as he can't exit the darkness without taking 20 attacks of opportunity against him. Even with mage armour and healing, he never makes it past round three.

Astarion is similarly useless once the darkness decends as he was really only there in case I came up against a locked door.

There are low-level trash enemies rushing me and ShadowFart doing necrotic damage for like a quarter of our total health in one hit and casting bone chill to prevent healing.

I just want to get through the damn story instead of spending my precious after work hours devising ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ plans with advise from sweatlords just to finish the game. But it seems this is what I have to do.

[Zogtar]

Originally posted by Nonomori:

Originally posted by `JapaneseSchoolgirlツ:

It is hard to say without knowing your build. I had 4 sorcery build and didn't even noticed that fight. Had alert on all of my heroes, used misty step on staircase, placed 4 cloud of daggers on enemies pathway and simply ran away. Only few of my enemies were able to get, but they simply got spell sniped. 0 friendly dmg lmao. Guess you can prebuff yourself with haste and simply win?

I just want the story I don't want to cheese my way through every unbalanced ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ fight. I'm a lvl 11 Monk. I have ShadowFart, Astarion, and Gale with me

Immediately swamped in the initiative with darkness spells, if Gale counterspells one, there are three other casters every round that can also teleport away if I dash at them and am unable to one round kill them.

For some reason, darkness acts like an iron clad barrier against ranged attacks making Gale ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ useless as he can't exit the darkness without taking 20 attacks of opportunity against him. Even with mage armour and healing, he never makes it past round three.

Astarion is similarly useless once the darkness decends as he was really only there in case I came up against a locked door.

There are low-level trash enemies rushing me and ShadowFart doing necrotic damage for like a quarter of our total health in one hit and casting bone chill to prevent healing.

I just want to get through the damn story instead of spending my precious after work hours devising ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ plans with advise from sweatlords just to finish the game.

That's some anger right there.

Chill out and eat a snickers.

...Or gtfo here, venting just brings in trolls who'll try to piss you off more.

[victorvnv]

I just go out there and solo all of them on tactician lol. I have at least 4-5 different builds to do it it’s really EZ mode if you know what to do :

Option 1:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-f5b365nFCo

Option 2:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AyXm5rfRXbk

Currently working on a paladin/ warlock one

[Pan Darius Cassandra]

Welcome to Larian's idea of combat - you cheat, or you die. You can't just fight using your parties skills, spells and abilities.

If you're losing, you're not using enough explosive barrels. Or double damage from cold/lightning. Or Thief/Ranger stealth snipe cheese. Or 50 Divine Smites/turn. Or 6 Fireballs per turn per caster.

Or whatever. The point is, if you aren't using constant exploits, you can't win. You cannot win by just fighting using what your base class gives you, you have to think like a cheater, because Larian is a cheater. Cheating IS the strategy and balance of combat in all of Larian's games.

[Nonomori]

Originally posted by Pan Darius Loveless:

Welcome to Larian's idea of combat - you cheat, or you die. You can't just fight using your parties skills, spells and abilities.

If you're losing, you're not using enough explosive barrels. Or double damage from cold/lightning. Or Thief/Ranger stealth snipe cheese. Or 50 Divine Smites/turn. Or 6 Fireballs per turn per caster.

Or whatever. The point is, if you aren't using constant exploits, you can't win. You cannot win by just fighting using what your base class gives you, you have to think like a cheater, because Larian is a cheater. Cheating IS the strategy and balance of combat in all of Larian's games.

Why not just install some trainer that gives you godmode and be done with it, if we're talking cheating.

[Luka Bryant]

i think what i ended up doing was just killing the boss lady with a bunch of barrels of powder and flame cantrip before they are aggro'd. They seem to not realize who killed her immediately, so you can go in but once you come out they can aggro. So you can just invis out of danger.

[ReadyToPlay]

Originally posted by Nonomori:

This seem to be the most hard fight in the game so far. I have to fight a dozen of enemies who spam darkness, bonechill and hit for 50(!!!) each turn.

Like, what the actual heck? It's literally impossible to win unless you use some cheese strat Im not aware of. I tried so many people's advice here but unfortunately they fixed the bug that let you zap everyone during the conversation and they make it impossible to cast ice storms which only one of my casters has due to the darkness. Worse yet they can see in the dark and it doesn't affect them which is complete and utter ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. On top of that none of the light radius weapons and effects and spells do anything to dispel the darkness or prevent the darkness from affecting them, that includes darkvision. What the hell is the point of these effects if they don't even ever work?

Did you get the dialog option that let you convince 5 Sharrans to defect and fight for you? That would make it a 9-against-15 fight instead of 4 against 20. Those extra 5 allies took some attention away from my party.

[Recjawjind]

This late into the game, it'll likely be less of a skill and more of a build issue.
By the time I got to that fight, i absolutely SMOKED it. (tactician)

Might be better to share your builds rather than ask for tactical advice, since I suspect that's where the issue lies.

[Warfrost]

That fight took me a few tries as well...I ended up using all the summons I could and having Gale and whomever else has Wall of Fire make said wall for as long as possible while backing towards the door (keep whomever casts WoF furthest back because it's a concentration spell). Doing this forces the enemies to run through the WoF and, as we all know, FIRE BAD. It made a huge difference and I was able to burn everyone down, literally. Good luck!

[ReadyToPlay]

When you are greatly outnumbered, you need to compensate with much AOE damage: Fireball, Ice Storm, Cloudkill, smokepowder bombs, smokepowder arrows, etc. While attacking single enemies, you need to up the damage too. Get extra action with Potion of Speed. Melee attackers should coat weapons with poison. Rangers should multiclass as a fighter and get Action Surge and Extra Attack.

All your characters should have at least 20 AC by now, even those who wear light armor. Many spells like Bone Chill use attack rolls, which means low AC will get you hit all the time.

Many spells also attack low WIS, so all your characters need high WIS saving throws. A cleric like Shadowheart has a level 6 spell called Heroes' Feast that prevents your party from getting poisoned, diseased, or frightened, AND gives your party advantages in WIS saves -- all until long rest.

You can always flee mid-combat and come back later. Enemies you killed will stay dead after you flee and come back. Flee, go to camp, get someone who can summon extra creatures so you'll be greater in number. The "Necromancy of Thay" quest gives you an unique spell called "Danse Macabre" that lets you summon 4 ghouls. If Wyll frees Mizora from the pod, he gets a weapon that lets him summon a tough cambion.

To flee, your characters need movement enhancement as well. You can only flee if you are at least 60 feet (18 metres) away from the nearest enemy. If your companions are slow and don't have teleporting spells, have them shoot "arrows of transposition" to teleport themselves 60 feet away without using movement. Everyone should equip a bow for that reason.

All these are just general tactics. There is nothing special about this fight that you need to do something special about. And this is far from being the toughest fight in the game (which is arguably the one against Raphael).

[Dread Swoop]

When I did the fight, Shadowheart's Spirit Guardians spell was amazing when up-cast to the highest spell slot. Everyone except for Viconia is vulnerable to holy (or whatever its called) damage, so most of the cultists that charge into melee will get crisped up very quickly. Just try to keep Viconia out of it due to the reflect effect she has. Use your other characters as human shields to keep Shadowheart from being hit in melee, forming a buffer at the base of the stairs worked for me.

While the casters are annoying, the Justiciar pair are the ones that will kill you. Do as much damage as you can to them before Darkness starts getting spammed so they die to Spirit Guardians quicker.

It's really a matter of keeping Shadowheart's concentration up until the melee wave breaks and the Justiciars are dead, then you can break formation and hunt down the casters ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ out Darkness.

I'd save Viconia for last unless you have the firepower to nuke her because she's far more dangerous in her normal form than as the wolf.

[靐]

Originally posted by Nonomori:

I just want to get through the damn story instead of spending my precious after work hours devising ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ plans with advise from sweatlords just to finish the game. But it seems this is what I have to do.

Well, this is why I took quad sorcery. Even without misty step I had alert and tons of aoe spells. Could just bring em peaceful atom. Other turn based games teached me "nuke first or loose". Yeah ofc you can consider some barrels placements / huge buffs / stealth exploits but it takes some IQ to perform. Good old double fireball resolves nearly anything.

[Haru]

I've done this a few times but the first time was the hardest when I defeated everyone in that room. I'd say use whatever summons you can and whatever AoE you can. Wall of Fire works wonders here.

[Spiral_Architect]

Void bulbs can be used to keep enemies inside your CC/Damage AOE effects. Useful in this combat encounter as well as others with large numbers of combatants. Void bulbs can also be used to place enemies at a distance by targeting the bulb behind them , but out of range of your party. A rather straight forward solution without the necessity of overhauling your characters. The elite Illithid power Black Hole is an upgraded version of the Void bulb if you are so inclined.