How the Heck do You Deal with a Tick Swarm...

[Antearz]

Seriously. Whats the Counter to this.
Usually a Fireball or some Alchemist Fire/Acid Flasks work against Swarms.
But the Tick Swarms just dont give a Crab.
It needs 3-4 Fireballs to Kill ONE Tick Swarm. And there is like 10 in that Cave.
They dont even care about Grenades. And they do 1-4 Constitution Damage so they Kill anyone in 5-10 Hits regardless of any HP or Defense.

This is Stupid beyond anything. And they dont even freaking give any Decent Exp or Loot for Heavens Sake.
So whats the Easy Counter to these ???
What am I missing that this supposed Trashmob is causing so much Trouble.

[.//slayer]

I'm not entirely sure which specific fight you refer to, but there's a couple of easy ways to deal with swarms. For tanking, you either need a character with undead immunities or a summonned creature with the same. Undead are immune to physical stat drain (STR, DEX, CON), so swarms lose their main strength against them.

If you have The Last Sarkorian DLC, you can buy Shepherd's Staff from one of the traders in Act 3 - it is a quarterstaff that deals full damage to swarms. A vital strike with such a weapon usually one-shots a swarm.

Other than that, swarms are slow - you can often poke them with a reach weapon or shoot an arrow and step away. Repeat till dead.

[Shadow]

Sometimes when faced with swarms, I just toss a bunch of summons in there as sacrificial lambs and then have all my characters use whatever will hurt them the most from a distance to bring them down as fast as possible.

[Duder]

Those are hard swarms. AOE spells of course, energy enchanted weapons, haste, the list goes on. They're supposed to be hard. Game is supposed to be hard.
You should have someone with Ascendant Element by that point that will cut through their resistances.

[Deo]

Originally posted by Antearz:

So whats the Easy Counter to these ???
What am I missing that this supposed Trashmob is causing so much Trouble.

Buy Last Sarkorians DLC. You get companion Ulbrig in Defender's Heart. He has Swarmbane Clasp on him - it's an amulet. Wearing Swarmbane Clasp makes you do full damage with weapons/unarmed/natural attacks to any Swarm, no matter what.

Leper Smile never been that easy.

At the start of Act 3 you get Phylactery of Stevanius the Rotten research (it's an item which your Crusade general can acquire). Turn it into Stevanius's Ring, then into Bane of Spirit. Now you can, as a free action, turn all your damage into Force. This allows you to do full damage to swarms and ghosts.

[Antearz]

Guys I am talking about the "Tick Swarm" Specifically.


Not the other Swarms.
The Swarms in Lepers Smile were Pushovers. I just threw some Skeletons into them to Tank and then threw some Acid Bottles on them so they would Die very Quickly.

But the Friggin Tick Swarms got 120 HP and AC 23 so its that Easy to Hit nor can You just Kill it with an AOE Spell Easily due to the High HP Counter.
I got Ulbrig with the Sheperds Staff. But he will just Die from Con Damage before the Swarm is at Half HP.
And since the Swarm has a 4d6 Melee Attack it Massacres Skeletons despite them not taking the Con Damage.

And its not about Overcoming Resistance I am not sure they got any Resistance.
The Fireballs, Ice Storms etc do Full Damage it seems.
But they got 120 HP so even if You Deal Full Damage they just take Forever to Kill.


Its like each of these Friggin Swarms is a Boss Fight. And they are clearly not Bosses

[Deo]

Originally posted by Antearz:

But they got 120 HP so even if You Deal Full Damage they just take Forever to Kill.

Bro I wonder what damage are you doing, that 120 HP is a lot for you. Sounds like trolling not gonna lie.
This cave is optional, and has no viable loot. Some club weapon, worthless.

[Invisible]

AOE Magic as the other say. If you have a quicken on your fireballs you can do two in a row. The caster should have some gear that do extra damage per dice rolled.

Defensivley you can smack out healing mud and other mass restoration spells.

[.//slayer]

Do you have a high-strength character with Vital Strike? If yes, it is easy to one-shot a swarm per turn with Shepherd's Staff. Enable Power Attack just to be sure.

[Antearz]

Originally posted by Deo:

Originally posted by Antearz:

But they got 120 HP so even if You Deal Full Damage they just take Forever to Kill.

Bro I wonder what damage are you doing, that 120 HP is a lot for you. Sounds like trolling not gonna lie.
This cave is optional, and has no viable loot. Some club weapon, worthless.

Not Sure what Damage I am Supposed to do.
But the Swarm takes 23-36 Damage per Fireball.

Ulbrig with the Staff does 12-45 Damage per Hit but Dies too Quickly.


But hey if its so easy maybe just tell me ??

[Antearz]

Originally posted by Invisible:

AOE Magic as the other say. If you have a quicken on your fireballs you can do two in a row. The caster should have some gear that do extra damage per dice rolled.

Defensivley you can smack out healing mud and other mass restoration spells.

I am aware. But that means I need to basicly spend all my Stuff on 1-2 Swarms.

How the Hell is this thing harder to Deal with than the Friggin Boss Demons ????

[Antearz]

Originally posted by .//slayer:

Do you have a high-strength character with Vital Strike? If yes, it is easy to one-shot a swarm per turn with Shepherd's Staff. Enable Power Attack just to be sure.

Nope.
Ulbrig has 22 Str I think.
But he only got Power Attack not Vital Strike.
With a Good Roll he needs 3 Hits.
But usually he need 6 or more and just Dies First.

[.//slayer]

Not Sure what Damage I am Supposed to do.
But the Swarm takes 23-36 Damage per Fireball.

You probably have some maximize metamagic rods or just access to maximize in general. Perhaps try to gather the swarms together by kiting them under Haste, then cast two maximized fireballs. If they fail a reflex save, that'll be 120 damage.

[Deo]

Originally posted by Antearz:

Ulbrig has 22 Str I think.
But he only got Power Attack not Vital Strike.
With a Good Roll he needs 3 Hits.
But usually he need 6 or more and just Dies First.

Well that's why you need 2-3 martials in party, and 1 ranged character preferably. With Bane of Spirit you can make all your martials do Force damage to Swarm, it dies in 1 turn.

Sohei Seelah has 4 attacks with Haste, Lann has 4 attacks too (due to 3 levels of Zen Archer).

Ticks are invisible, so cast See Invisibility Communal on your party (from Scroll, they sold right from Act 2) to spot them. Then use Bane of Spirit on whole party, and attack with ranger, who has 3 attacks at this point (with Haste). This will lead to surprise round, in which you can usually either kill or drop swarm to low hp, and kill on second round.

In case you have spellcaster party, Ticks are vulnerable to Electricity, Lightning Bolt with Lesser Empowered Metamagic rod (which is sold by vendors) does 86 damage to it (it's not even maximum damage).

You have tons of options at your disposal.

[Antearz]

Originally posted by Deo:

Originally posted by Antearz:

Ulbrig has 22 Str I think.
But he only got Power Attack not Vital Strike.
With a Good Roll he needs 3 Hits.
But usually he need 6 or more and just Dies First.

Well that's why you need 2-3 martials in party, and 1 ranged character preferably. With Bane of Spirit you can make all your martials do Force damage to Swarm, it dies in 1 turn.

Sohei Seelah has 4 attacks with Haste, Lann has 4 attacks too (due to 3 levels of Zen Archer).

Ticks are invisible, so cast See Invisibility Communal on your party (from Scroll, they sold right from Act 2) to spot them. Then use Bane of Spirit on whole party, and attack with ranger, who has 3 attacks at this point (with Haste). This will lead to surprise round, in which you can usually either kill or drop swarm to low hp, and kill on second round.

In case you have spellcaster party, Ticks are vulnerable to Electricity, Lightning Bolt with Lesser Empowered Metamagic rod (which is sold by vendors) does 86 damage to it (it's not even maximum damage).

You have tons of options at your disposal.

Guys thats not the Point.
I am already through that cave by doing that.
But thats exactly the thing.
I had to basicly expend my whole spells and stuff on just 3 of these Swarms.

The Question is if there is no Easy Way for this.

This is a frigging trashmob.
Not some Bossfight.

It should not require me to have a Full Buff up and Pack out the Nukes.
Its frigging Ticks. Not a High Level Demon.

How the Crab is a frigging Tick Swarm a Bigger Threat than the Brightclaw Demon in Drezen ????

[.//slayer]

How the Crab is a frigging Tick Swarm a Bigger Threat than the Brightclaw Demon in Drezen ????

They aren't - they just require a different approach from what you were used to before that point. Now you've adapted, know what to expect and will hopefully have fewer issues with swarms in the future.