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?

[Pan Darius Cassandra]

Messaggio originale di Lime:

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.

Surprise surprise.

[Haru]

Oh. If you're using illithid powers, black hole is useful too.

[Grumpy]

Aaaah yes i remember ! I think i used the wall of flame thingy and burned half of the room.

[Falmari]

I struggled with this on my first tactician run. Like you I was being over run. on the stairs into the room. In the end I used cc to slow them down.

Evard's Black Tentacles from the necklace on Karlach on the stairs down into room and Spike Growth from my ranger on the stairs to the right to force the ones on the far right not in the tentacles to run across the room to and come in from the right.

Lae'zel and Shadowheart finished the two on the left stairs. After that it was not that difficult just take the out when they finally got to my party. Never had to fight more than two at a time.

Evard's Black Tentacles worked well they struggled to break free even the boss.

Nothing special about my party no multiclassing or illithid powers powers though I did have the items from House of Hope as I had already killed Raphael.

[Mike Garrison]

I routinely kill everyone in that room and take little or no damage except to Shadowheart.

The following works well if you have a wizard (Gale will do), a warlock (Wyll will do), and Shadowheart:

Leave everybody else by the door and send Shadowheart down to talk with Vicky. Make sure Shadowheart can misty step. Fight will kick off, and if you get poor initiative or unlucky status effects on Shadowheart, she may get overwhelmed on first turn. If so, just reload.

Otherwise she'll probably take some damage, but run/misty her back up to where the rest are waiting. Then cast Hunger of Hadar over the area at the bottom of the steps that every one will have to try to pass through.

This will cause them to get stuck in the HoH, where they are very tempting targets for fireballs, ice storms, and other major AOE. Reserve all your reactions for counterspelling darkness. It is also great help if Shadowheart (or somebody) casts daylight where you are standing. If any of them manage to get through the HoH, just push or pull them back into it. Illithid black hole is particularly effective.

Keep AOEing them from the outside until everyone is dead.

No barrels, no cheese, just using the spells that you have available to you.

If anyone does manage to hit you with darkness, kill that caster ASAP. Darkness is a concentration spell, and if they die, so does the darkness.

[Celestica]

just leave your party in the hallway behind the door and let shadowheart walk in by her self to initiate cutscene and battle. then misty step out shadowheart have them come up the stairs. once they are all gathered up in the stairs use aoe spells such as ice storm and hunger of hadar. ice storm will make them to slip and fall, which makes it so much easier for ur melee chars like laezel to just whack them to the death, and hadar well.. it will make them miserable. sunbeam works well as well since they would be all lined up.

or if you have many powder barrels saved up, lay them down on the stairs and once they are all gathered up around it blow them up. will probably wipe out most of them np.

[TinglesTheBard]

You can always go grab smokepowder barrels, have PC talk to The leader while the rest of the party stays back. Then Pop off a firebolt and watch big bad go boom. Also, Try having Gail pop some summons before you go in and you can try to use them to pull aggro. Just a couple ideas to help!

[Kaisha]

Messaggio originale di 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.

This guy gets it.

A few tips as well.

1) Use resist elixers, almost all their damage is necrotic and so you can straight up reduce all damage by 1/2.

2) After your guys walk forward and talk (like in every encounter) you're always stuck in the middle surrounded on all sides. It's stupid, but it is what it is (unless you want to cheese, skip the dialog, and just attack from stealth). Run back and use the pillars to funnel them. Large AOEs like Insect swarm or Hungar work wonders here.

3) Just leave it to the end of the game and out-level/out-gear the encounter. Do Ansur and Raphael first, and then just demolish them because they have no chance against a legendary wielding monk, bard, or barbarian.

4) Bring a Warlock, bind your pact weapon, haste pot, and go nuts.

[Kaisha]

Messaggio originale di Mike Garrison:

No barrels, no cheese, just using the spells that you have available to you.

Proccing the fight with a lone character then misty stepping out is cheese. Which is fine, but it is what it is.

Any AAA title would force everyone in the Arena, and close the door so you can't kite away, so kiting cheese wouldn't be possible.

The fact that the 'proper' way to play the encounter, is totally opposite to how it's presented, shows just how poorly these encounters are designed.

[victorvnv]

Messaggio originale di 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.

None of the things you mentioned are “exploits”.

These are all valid strategies that uses powerful class abilities that synergies with each other .

How is a rogue using stealth to snipe enemies and hide an “exploit “ when that’s literally what the class is build for?

How is 6 fireballs a turn an exploit when twin spell is what makes a sorcerer sorcerer?

Or divine simile crits which are literally the core of the paladin class.

I am not sure what point you are trying to make . Are you saying that using your class strengths to create a strategy that wins is an exploit ? Or are you saying that all encounters should be about going face and just clicking the “hit” button until the enemies dies like Diablo ?

I have soloed this encounter on Tactician with like 5-6 different builds with different gear and strategies- some of them like tempest / sorc relies on hard nukes, some like my bard relies on mobility and kitting, some like my assasin/ ranger relies on sneak and snipe.

All valid strategies and I fail to see how they are “cheating “ or “exploits” when they all use whatever my classes / multi classes relies on for the said builds …

Bard/ Fighter can solo it
Gloomstalker/ Assasin can solo it
Tempest Cleric/ sorcerer can solo it
Sorc/ warlock can solo it

Etc etc, the only class with disadvantage in this fight is paladin due to radiant retort but then the paladin class can one shoot almost every other boss so it’s ok to have a fight or two where it doesn’t excel

[Kaisha]

Messaggio originale di victorvnv:

None of the things you mentioned are “exploits”.

Sure they are. I get it, that's the point of the game is to 'exploit' your way through it, but don't pretend it isn't what it is.

If the devs gave 2 shts about balance, strategy, or tactics, these 6 fireball, insta-delete stealth, 12+ attacks per turn, and other stupid OP builds would have been nerfed a LONG time ago. It's just poor game design.

I am not sure what point you are trying to make . Are you saying that using your class strengths to create a strategy that wins is an exploit ? Or are you saying that all encounters should be about going face and just clicking the “hit” button until the enemies dies like Diablo ?

Like tactician solo builds are any different? It doesn't take skill to insta-delete a boss that can never fight back, or have so many attacks you can clear an entire encounter just by right clicking 'until the enemies die' (which is pretty much every bard/fighter derivative build). Or 'lol misty step' cheese so the AI gets confused and just mindlessly funnels through a choke point unable to land a single attack.

This community is so dumb. They think they're the first gamers to ever cheese an encounter. Gamers have been doing this since the first games were created. Just because Larian is too lazy/stupid to fix the cheese, doesn't make it any less of an exploit.

[victorvnv]

Messaggio originale di Kaisha:

Messaggio originale di victorvnv:

None of the things you mentioned are “exploits”.

Sure they are. I get it, that's the point of the game is to 'exploit' your way through it, but don't pretend it isn't what it is.

If the devs gave 2 shts about balance, strategy, or tactics, these 6 fireball, insta-delete stealth, 12+ attacks per turn, and other stupid OP builds would have been nerfed a LONG time ago. It's just poor game design.

I am not sure what point you are trying to make . Are you saying that using your class strengths to create a strategy that wins is an exploit ? Or are you saying that all encounters should be about going face and just clicking the “hit” button until the enemies dies like Diablo ?

Like tactician solo builds are any different? It doesn't take skill to insta-delete a boss that can never fight back, or have so many attacks you can clear an entire encounter just by right clicking 'until the enemies die' (which is pretty much every bard/fighter derivative build). Or 'lol misty step' cheese so the AI gets confused and just mindlessly funnels through a choke point unable to land a single attack.

This community is so dumb. They think they're the first gamers to ever cheese an encounter. Gamers have been doing this since the first games were created. Just because Larian is too lazy/stupid to fix the cheese, doesn't make it any less of an exploit.

To “fix” the game the way you want it they have to literally delete half the mechanics.

Like what how do you suggest balancing invisibility, the dark urge cloak, the one with shadows and stealth in general? You want them to limit it as once per battle? But then rogues and stealth classes in general would be useless as rogues on their own are the worst class currently…

Or needing multiple attacks but that mean needing like all classes as the ones who doesn’t have stealth and invisibility have many attacks to compensate or huge nuke spells and skills..

There is no balancing this they need to completely redo every single class and boss fight if they do. It’s not like there is one single class that dominates there are a dozen builds at least

[Kaisha]

Messaggio originale di victorvnv:

To “fix” the game the way you want it they have to literally delete half the mechanics.

Not at all. What it does show is a clear and obvious lack of imagination in the D&D community. All these mechanics (and MANY more) have all been done 1000x now in other games. They can certainly be balanced.

Like what how do you suggest balancing invisibility, the dark urge cloak, the one with shadows and stealth in general? You want them to limit it as once per battle? But then rogues and stealth classes in general would be useless as rogues on their own are the worst class currently…

You present these as insurmountable problems. They certainly are not. And giving even worse solutions isn't a valid counter argument.

Or needing multiple attacks but that mean needing like all classes as the ones who doesn’t have stealth and invisibility have many attacks to compensate or huge nuke spells and skills..

There is no 'compensation'. Certain builds are BY FAR better than others. They didn't try to balance it, period.

There is no balancing this they need to completely redo every single class and boss fight if they do.

Oh yee of little imagination. I'm just going to assume you've never played another game before BG3. All these mechanics have been done 1000x over. It is not some insurmountable problem.

It takes some time and effort on the devs part, which is why most studios have someone dedicated to this. Larian apparently can hire a million VAs but can't afford a single game designer.

I mean by all means, cheese away, that's clearly the way the game is meant to be played; but don't pretend it isn't what it is. The amount of self-delusion in the D&D community is mind-numbing....

[Quacksalber]

I deal with this fight by spamming black hole and other aoe stuff at them.

[General Malaise]

I have done this fight twice on Tactician, and on both occasions I failed before I won it.

The second time I failed, because I thought Dome of Invulnerability might be helpful, and maybe it would be, if Gale hadn't lost concentration.

The last time I did it, I wouldn't call it cheese, but I did Haste 2 characters with my main(Twinspell), and had him try and keep away behind the door, using Eldritch Blast on his turn(Think he got 3 turns of Haste from Potion of Speed.

Lae'zel has the bow Gontr Mael, so can Haste herself, and never get Lethargic. It would be wrong not to take Shadowheart, but she's built around Radiant damage which you can't use. She's mostly using Glyphs and Magic Missile.

I don't think I took Viconia out first the first time I did the battle, but the second time I did - Mostly with Gale using Art of War, or whatever it's called.

I do agree it's the hardest battle. I actually lost the Raphael fight more times than I lost this one, but now I have that sussed out, and can do fairly easily.

Give yourself as many buffs as you can, that's all I can say.

Oh, I'm pretty sure it's 20 enemies, so you're underestimating at a dozen.