Best Way to Beat Honour Mode?

[zacctheartoonist]

I have tried several times to beat Honour mode but it is hard as all get out. Is there a best way to tackle this mode? My best guess is to cut out fighting any unnecessary bosses like Cazador and play the bare bones of the game but I'm not sure. It's a pretty brutal mode.

[Angel]

yep skip everything optional you don't think you can stomp, pick really powerful classes to play with, use sneak attacks liberally

have gale blow the elder brain up so you don't even have to fight it gg ez

[Mike Garrison]

What worked OK for me was to play the game on Custom mode several times with all the Honor Mode rules. Get used to the fights and the extra abilities the bosses have (and how to counter them). Then just play the game.

Grym is a notorious Honor Run ender, so think about whether you really want to try it (or whether you want to cheese it). I compromised a little by leaving one player up top and having the other three exposed to Grym. If the battle had gone badly, that one player could hopefully have run off to Withers. Turned out that I won the fight with no deaths, so that was OK.

In my recent run I chose not to fight Cazador and Ansur, but other than that fought every major opponent.

I made a decision not to use the Gale shortcut for the final battle, but I seriously came close to getting killed in the final battle, so it's certainly something to think about.

[[TG] zac]

Originally posted by Mike Garrison:

What worked OK for me was to play the game on Custom mode several times with all the Honor Mode rules. Get used to the fights and the extra abilities the bosses have (and how to counter them). Then just play the game.

Grym is a notorious Honor Run ender, so think about whether you really want to try it (or whether you want to cheese it). I compromised a little by leaving one player up top and having the other three exposed to Grym. If the battle had gone badly, that one player could hopefully have run off to Withers. Turned out that I won the fight with no deaths, so that was OK.

In my recent run I chose not to fight Cazador and Ansur, but other than that fought every major opponent.

I made a decision not to use the Gale shortcut for the final battle, but I seriously came close to getting killed in the final battle, so it's certainly something to think about.

Unless you are willing to use scrolls to cheese that final fight & running multiple casters for AOE its an absolute PITA.
Same more or less for Cazador though its easier to do if you don't have Astarion there or have let him "accidently" die before hand and just rez him later. (he cant do the ritual if he is dead)

[@%thesock10150alpha49]

High burst damage. Most encounters can be ended in 1 or 2 turns, minimizing your exposure to mechanics. Grab at least 2 meta damage builds and 1 controller, then try to nuke whatever the biggest threat is immediately in every combat.

[アンジェル]

Originally posted by zacctheartoonist:

Best Way to Beat Honour Mode?
I have tried several times to beat Honour mode but it is hard as all get out. Is there a best way to tackle this mode? My best guess is to cut out fighting any unnecessary bosses like Cazador and play the bare bones of the game but I'm not sure. It's a pretty brutal mode.

Do two runs at the same time with the same builds. One tactician one honour mode. Then you advance on the tactician mode like four hours, switch to honour mode and repeat the switches. That way you create yourself "an advance party which scouts the challenge ahead". Honour Mode is still more difficult, but it works greatly to avert "miscalculations".

[@%thesock10150alpha49]

Originally posted by アンジェル:

Do two runs at the same time with the same builds. One tactician one honour mode. Then you advance on the tactician mode like four hours, switch to honour mode and repeat the switches. That way you create yourself "an advance party which scouts the challenge ahead". Honour Mode is still more difficult, but it works greatly to avert "miscalculations".

When your campaign IS truestrike

[アンジェル]

Originally posted by @%thesock10150alpha49:

Originally posted by アンジェル:

Do two runs at the same time with the same builds. One tactician one honour mode. Then you advance on the tactician mode like four hours, switch to honour mode and repeat the switches. That way you create yourself "an advance party which scouts the challenge ahead". Honour Mode is still more difficult, but it works greatly to avert "miscalculations".

When your campaign IS truestrike

Pretty much.

You can even advance that suggestion using backup savegames.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3103820559
But that is something each has to consider for themselves, while I still recommend backups for technical purposes after every game session.

Most runs fail, after all, because the player underestimated the challenge. It is actually unheard of veteran players losing battles due to rows of bad rolls.

[Bumc]

After initial semi-blind playthrough on tactician I'm doing a followup one on Honor and it feels like every fight is easy if you come in with a plan that doesn't involve standing in melee and trading blows and have a high initiative character to (almost) always go first.

I.e. Cazador folds if you start combat with just 2 people bring invisible Scratch to pull Astarion from the pole on round 0 and enough summons to stand on all circles.
Then you can cast Daylight in the middle while being outside the battle still and freeze the battlefield to have all the ghouls and werewolves keep falling down
Grym can be cheesed with zero characters entering the arena and Rahael's room is very conveniently completely in range of a single runepowder bomb if you manage to save it by aiding Gondians

[Mander]

Originally posted by zacctheartoonist:

I have tried several times to beat Honour mode but it is hard as all get out. Is there a best way to tackle this mode? My best guess is to cut out fighting any unnecessary bosses like Cazador and play the bare bones of the game but I'm not sure. It's a pretty brutal mode.

Ehi OP, I'm completing my first honor run as a pure Spore Druid and I’ve to say, until now at least, I’ve not skipped any fight.
I’m at the House of Hope now, with only 2 close calls on TPK (singing harpies, frick them and the 2 spectators in the House of Hope: as I discovered, they both have their legendary actions on).

What worked for me was planning: the game fortunately doesn’t skip on resources and so I felt compelled to hoard any useful potions and resource that could be useful down the line. Barrels included.
BUT surprisingly enough, I only used them twice to cheese a fight (more details later).
In short, my strategy for the party has been: Gale as the alchemist of the group, churning out as many potions of speed as possible and other useful compounds (oil of accuracy).
I choose Spore Druid because I love the class (don’t disregard this: it’s better to play something you enjoy than a gimmick) and because I’m a cerebral gamer. Spore Druid is all about terrain manipulation and planning, and I was in the party for that, while the rest provided spike damage (or added on AoE).
Karlach was respecced as another fighter, because there are enemies capable of fully one shot you without medium to heavy armor (I’ve seen kobolds at level 5 with const modifier -1 have the same amount of life points of a level 10 character with const +2).
All of the others followed their initial specialization (pure class)… except Astarion.
He got stabbed and his corpse stashed in the camp chest (don’t leave its corpse for Cazador to find!)

To succeed in honor mode, you have to know your build/ class inside and out. Plan your build painstakingly, without skimping on possible synergies (having 3 people in your party learn “Hold Person” is 1 people too much for example).
Don’t leave potential useful gear at camp either: barrels /bombs/potions are your emergency resource and use them every time you’re in need.
For example, the Githyanki Inquisitor in the creche was an enemy I didn’t even try to fight: it’s a pain in the butt already at tactician. So I nuked him with barrels, because the risk of TPK was too much.
Same for Grym: I cheesed the fight, using this strategy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_A1m4DBlqk&ab_channel=GamingBirch

FOR ALL THE REST OF THE STORY though, I challenged every adversary (up to some silly things in ACT III, like doing Orin and House of Grief without a Long Rest in between) and, thanks to the hundreds of hours spent in tactician, managed to win. Until now at least (crossing fingers) XD.
The fights I still dread in this Honor Run of mine are the second round with Ethel (dat poison damage) and Ansur…
But I’m hopeful, and I’m planning to do them regardless, even if they scare me a little.

[SMUUTI]

Spoiler Albert. Dont know how to cover things up so it's my best attempt to warn you!


There is a "cheese" to most fights. Best is to leave 1 member in camp and If 3 die, that 1 Will resurrect others. Oh and Withers dont mind pickpoceting. For a grim fight you can stay up on the stairs and for Orin you can turn invisibe and just throw her off the cliff with Lae'Zel. Only really hard part is Myrkul fight because all must be presented in there. And yes make sure you friends with Gale and he Will offer to go kaboom. I had it done with 4th run.

[Nek]

huh , are you sure you get the achievement if you use Gale in the 2nd act? i didn't get achievement so i thought you have to go all the way to the end.

[Bumc]

You don't get the achievement for blowing up things in the 2nd act, but you can still blow up nether brain in the third act skipping some battles.

[Panda]

You can play how you want, if you already have completed the game that knowledge should be enough.

You can complete with it with or without pre-buffes/cheese and etc.

Just in general keep in mind that it’s quite a good idea to have a frontline user and sorcerer for double haste or 100% hold person/monster/hypnotic pattern.

Any other 2 slots can be whatever you want.

P.S tiny races passives are broken, you can abuse them.

[★REM★]

in honor mode, the party synergy is crucial as well as taking those defensive buffs that you normally dont take in normal mode.
Another very important tip is to use the environment at your advantage, in honor mode the barrels etc are your best friends.

Basically, be sure to have a party that work well together, be sure to have enough defensive layers (buffs), and use the map to tackle enemies.

[guard65]

Personally if you have already completed the game you know what to expect. Unless your enhancing the game to be more difficult that knowledge is your key to success. And a good supply of pots.