What is the hardest fight in the game?

[KalkiKrosah]

Probably was asked before but figured I would bring it up again. What fights stand out?

[DeciNinja]

I think it might be the version of the Balthazar fight where you're captured in his lab. All your characters start in pods that prevent spellcasting and must be broken using weapon attacks (which of course takes forever for casters), but the enemies can attack you just fine. I gave up on that one pretty quickly though, so I'm not quite sure.

[Cruddy]

This heavily depends if you're Honour mode or not.

Myrkul is the hardest to prepare for as you can't get spotted and can't setup barrels.


If you don't disable the steel Watch Gortash is a slog.

Raphael is very hard if you fight him the intended ways. Nearly lost my honor run to his unique Fireball even when I used barrelmancy, only got him because I hit Hold Monster. when he was the last one.

[attiladafun]

I walked into every fight without preparing or cheese and didn't lose a single person except for Ansur. I thought it would be easy because its just one enemy but the AOE attacks wrecked my team.

[Brian_the_Brute]

Githyanki Creche inquisitor fight under-leveled in honor mode. Mind flayers on beach with 2 in party as stated earlier is likely the one that TPKs the most though. Especially if you don't hit level 2 before trying it.

Some of the other fights later on might be harder in theory, but once you gain access to globe and have access to so many items and high level abilities, they can all be handled with the right team composition and tactics.

[Danielrica1]

You can't forget how challenging the battle against the hyenas was. That fight is complicated because of the number of hyenas attacking at once and the way they surround you, in addition to the low level of the characters in your party. In my opinion, it's a pretty tough battle!

[Jonny Boy]

Grym Iron golem in Act 1 probably especially the first time you do it . Then probably myrkul fight in act 2. Act 3 has no hard fights.

[Razör]

Originally posted by Lord Cumquad:

the framerate in act 3

Framerate? More like all of act 3

[Sentient_Toaster]

Gnolls or Gith Patrol, if you happen to hit them before reaching level 5.

Grymforge fight difficulty depends a lot on party composition, or more precisely, what sorts of damage types your party is built for.

[alanc9]

Originally posted by Millenia:

There are none. You can cheese pretty much anything and people will do just that. Larian wont fix exploits either for some insane reason.

Some of us refuse to play that way, of course.

[andylaugel]

Originally posted by Detective Costeau:

Depends how we're defining 'hardest'.
E.g. if we're measuring by 'highest percentage of TPKs' I suspect the fight with the Intellect Devourers on the beach probably has one of the highest kill rates in the game.

That may be true, but the fight itself is pretty easy with some basic tactics.

Here is a list of some memorable difficult fights I recall, from easiest to hardest.

• The bank vault fight in Act 3 (and a few other places) have a couple of foes that would attack and vanish on their own turns. I had to learn how to attack foes I couldn't detect or target directly, and it didn't help that my party at the time lacked area attacks.
  
• The boat fight in the Underdark is pretty brutal because you've got at least one NPC who can throw your party members in the river, effectively killing them instantly and ditching all their stuff. I had a lot of reloads on that...
  
• The Forge in Act 2 can be very challenging if you didn't pay attention to the books about it and/or were improperly equipped (Hint: it helps to equip blugeoning weapons first). The main foe has a very limited weakness.
  
• There's a big fight in Shadowheart's old home where I had to accept my PC being dropped and losing some permanent effects when resurrected. It's a large fight where your initial placement is up close.
  
• A late fight in Astarion's personal questline literally had me losing him and having my surviving party members stun-locked for over 20 rounds. I was about to force-close the game before I finally got the chance to act.
  
• The House of Hope's last fight is pretty notorious, and is a bit of a marathon.
  
• The last fight in the game is pretty hard, and I'll admit I've taken the alternative to fighting it to close out my first playthrough.

Most fights though can be pretty easy if you go in with the most effective tactics/builds/equipment/party members for said fight. Examine your foes to learn their damage immunities, resistiances, weaknesses, and special features.

Examples:

• Against those early intellect devourers, you can attack them at range before combat is triggered. Those NPCs are melee only, so keep distance. Put your highest AC party member in front to tank blows from the enemy. Delivering a killing blow means you don't have as many enemies to fight for the rest of the battle. They've got blindsight, so don't bother with Darkness. They've got Opportunity attack, so don't provoke any by running away.
  
• There are a few fights with hordes of low-hp foes. A single Spirit Guardians spell can be super effective.

[KalkiKrosah]

The submersible fight was pretty difficult for my party. I tried saving everyone (I succeeded) and it's not a straightforward fight. The objective isn't to kill enemies, it's traveling the map, freeing captives and defending them to the extraction zone. I don't think my party took more than 20 damage across all 4 of them, but I was low on spell slots. Misty stepped and dimension gated my way to victory in gat one. I was pleasantly surprised that the friendly AI actually knew how to traverse dimension gated! Kinda proud of Larian coding that in.

[shi-foo]

VICONIA, FAR THE MOST HARDEST. ( So much enemies asf), hard in any difficult

Regardless of the difficulty, so many enemies cannot support 4 little people, no matter how they are armed, built, there are an absurd number of clouds of blindness per turn. And even more difficult if you take Shadowheart (although I think after the romance scene in act 3 on the beach he stops being afraid of wolves)

[PJ]

Originally posted by Slav Mcgopnik:

Originally posted by ♂PUDGUS♂:

Did... did you read the link you posted? It literally says there in your link that globe does not work like it does in the game.
In 5e it blocks spells under a certain level. In game it makes you invulnerable to e v e r y t h i n g.

You also can’t shove people or otherwise push them around in tabletop 5e, which makes getting some out from under the globe much harder.

Can't I just say to the DM that I want to shove someone?

[Sentient_Toaster]

Originally posted by PJ:

Originally posted by Slav Mcgopnik:

You also can’t shove people or otherwise push them around in tabletop 5e, which makes getting some out from under the globe much harder.

Can't I just say to the DM that I want to shove someone?

Sure, there are rules for that.

It requires the Attack action, but for anybody that has the "Extra Attack" feature one can replace one regular attack with one shove (it is not a bonus action). Notably, monsters with Multiattack cannot replace one of the sub-attacks with a shove; e.g. if a hydra wants to shove a player character, it effectively gives up *all* its bite attacks for that turn in order to take the Attack action rather than Multiattack.

The shover needs to be no more than one size smaller than the target, and makes an opposed check -- Strength (Athletics) vs. either Strength (Athletics) or Dexterity (Acrobatics). Failure wastes the attack, while success lets you *either* shove the target prone, or shove them 5' away.

[[TG] zac]

Originally posted by Slav Mcgopnik:

Originally posted by ♂PUDGUS♂:

Did... did you read the link you posted? It literally says there in your link that globe does not work like it does in the game.
In 5e it blocks spells under a certain level. In game it makes you invulnerable to e v e r y t h i n g.

You also can’t shove people or otherwise push them around in tabletop 5e, which makes getting some out from under the globe much harder.

This is actually one of the many reasons my group for table top swapped over to pathfinder 2e where all those actions can play a huge part in combat.

We grew up on second edition and 3.5 and in both anyone who was trained in athletics could shove, trip etc.. as one of their attacks (or do so for free along with the attack if it was a crit, which was also easier to get back then).
Not being able to do that well anymore (since everything has a stupid high save against it) kinda just took what little incentive there was to play a martial and said why bother.

Our current group consists of a giant instinct barbarian, Gunslinger (the 5e version of it was created off the pathfinder one but is basically neutered since all the abilities won't transfer over) a war cleric and a rogue archetyping into primal sorcerer for a limited spell selection of nature themed spells and self polymorph effects (all their druid style transformations use spell slots in the system and what you can turn into scales based off spell slot used)

The groups magic is very limited (practically to healing alone) and even though they are in a world full of it they do fine even though player deaths and considered to be expected (going down is a lot more punishing in PF2e)