I hate the Reactor Battle

[Not creepy]

Time limits are never fun in games like this and should be an exception. The reactor battle comes pretty early and it makes me stop playing after every failed attempt, encounters like that suck the fun out of the game.

-Allied tech priests (controlled by AI) heal the main targets, this makes it even more ridiculous
-I can have a good run and then miss by random chance several rounds in a row
-Chaos spawns block the path and have high HP

It is a real ♥♥♥♥ encounter and whoever thought of this should learn how make encounters fun and challenging and not frustrating as hell.

[mayrc]

There is a time limit? I did that fight 3 times on DAring since i startet over with different convicitons to test reactions. But i never saw there is a time limit?
or maybe its because i always send 3 chars to each side and was fast enough. But surely it isnt a hard limit or?

[Magni]

Originally posted by mayrc:

There is a time limit? I did that fight 3 times on DAring since i startet over with different convicitons to test reactions. But i never saw there is a time limit?
or maybe its because i always send 3 chars to each side and was fast enough. But surely it isnt a hard limit or?

There is a hard time limit. It's right on the screen. Every time you kill one of the corrupted Electropriests, you get more time.

[Graevon]

I agree I thought this was a cheesy mechanic but honestly I did not have the problem of them healing or chaos spawns. I have run that fight about 5 times now including on unfair and only once did I get a chaos spawn but I just ignored it. It ended for me when I killed the last priest and the chaos mob just went away. The other thing is I always try to carry different types of grenades. Frags if you have them work wonders here and kill everything but the priests in one shot. However, my problem is grenades generally stop working and so do many of my aoes. So I have to keep different types and hope one of them will work for the combat. Also just rushing the priests with melee works well I had to do that on my last play through because again wonder of wonders my navigator, psyker aoes and grenades all stopped functioning in this fight.

[Revener]

Just focus down the electropriests, it is not even hard.
Longlas from the middle and you can reach all of them and Cassia can give you an extra turn to shoot again, every turn.
But it is not hard without doing that, just 3 chars each side and push in.

[MXSteel]

The only part i hated about this battle is that it doesn't indicate in any way you have to focus the electropriests.

Beat it on the 2nd try though, when I read that you actually have to do that.

[BenShinobi]

...pretty sure it's hard to miss the text in top middle of the screen saying how many turns are left.

Anyway, to try and be helpful to OP, this is a fight where it really helps to be able to maximise number of attacks/additional turns with an officer and heroic abilities. Not having these is still fine, but just means you are more at risk with the rng making every attack count, which isn't satisfying.

The chaff enemies are easy to take out with aoe attacks. If you can reduce their numbers on either side with Idira's chain lightning & Cassia's warp eye attack you set yourself up for whaling on the electro priests (which is who you want to maximise number of attacks on through officer abilities & heroic actions). It's important to go up both sides simultaneously, so if you get blocked on one side by the chaos spawn, your allies can still make their way round.

Things I've picked up that weren't immediately obvious to me to maximise movement:
Argenta can move, THEN use run & gun and follow up with dash if you gave her that ability, all while getting those 2 attacks. It makes her extremely mobile and positioning is everything for her to get kills.

Also for Warriors, the charge ability doesn't have to target an enemy. It can be used to get to any tile in range, so can be used after a move to really increase movement.

Because I had 2 officers on my team I was getting so many additional attacks/turns that this wasn't too hard, but if you're just dealing with limitations of 1 attack per turn you'll struggle.

[Morgian]

It is 2 rounds before the reactor blows up. +1 round for each dead priest.

The battle is not so hard, if you have a good party. But it can be if you missed the important abilties. Movement is very important, but that is the same in every game like this - if your melees cannot get to the enemy ASAP, they are useless. And you need to use your abilities at the right time with the right character. My personal problem was always the third priest on the left side, who is well covered, and where you can expect a chaos spawn.

- Go with three people left and three right.
- One officer per side, if possible. They make things easy. If not, send Cassia left.
- Make sure you have sniper weapons on the rear and don't use psyker powers with Idira. Her 5% chance is too risky in that fight.
- Bring area attacks for the start. Grenades are an option, you can have a flamer by then, and there is the electro rifle upstairs that shoots all in a small area.
- It is OK to use ultimates early to clear out the rabble fast. Word of the Emperor will take care of resolve anyway.
- Use the debuffs you have. Reducing enemy armor and dodge to zero does help with your misses and too little damage.
- Another option is to go left with two strong fighters and right with four, if two of them can snipe. You can shoot at the other side's priest across the chasm.
- Buff your damage dealers with Voice of Command, especially if you have the persistent version.
- Cassia's gaze is great, it stuns enemies so often. Used against the starting crowd it almost guarantees a head start on that side.
- Really, don't neglect movement abilities. The +2 movement, the navigator abilities for everyone (and later the grand strategist power), as well as Ramming Speed on warriors make a big difference. People have complained about the sniper in the spaceport fight, but you can actually reach him in round 2 with a warrior or Argenta, if you use every tool in the box.

[Brother Blood]

Originally posted by MXSteel:

The only part i hated about this battle is that it doesn't indicate in any way you have to focus the electropriests.

Beat it on the 2nd try though, when I read that you actually have to do that.

You have to choose the dialogue where you ask the heretek a question, i forgot which one. but she monologues and literally says the electro priests are fueling it and they ask you to kill them

[pascal.difolco]

My Sniper MC did most of the job, just sniping gunners then TechPriests from the balcony you start in, using R&G to fire twice then Heroic ability
What's missing is an indication of how the clock works, I didn't understand when it went from 2 to 3, back to 2 then I realized it went up again when I killed another TP
Chaff was deleted by Argenta flamer, Pasqal plasma pistol (area attack) and Cassia Aoe
Abelard and Heinrix charged each turn to go to melee up to the other side
No reload no real damage (maybe 30hp damage total taken..), Core diff

[Not creepy]

They need to fix this encounter and there is no amount of advice that will change it. I am not new to this genre and this fight makes me furious.
It is completly random, how do you get over this complete random nonsense? My allied tech priests are healing the main targets, sometimes more and sometimes less, so I just need LUCK so my allies don't heal the enemy.
Parry, Dodge etc. is random. The more randomness the more frustrating it can get, I have no control over all that crap.
If you were lucky or already played this game in the beta you obviously had less problems in this fight but it doesn't change the fact that is in fact broken.

Thanks to the genuine advice, but nothing helps I will just lower the difficulty and never think of this crap fight again.

[BenShinobi]

Originally posted by Not creepy:

They need to fix this encounter and there is no amount of advice that will change it. I am not new to this genre and this fight makes me furious.
It is completly random, how do you get over this complete random nonsense? My allied tech priests are healing the main targets, sometimes more and sometimes less, so I just need LUCK so my allies don't heal the enemy.
Parry, Dodge etc. is random. The more randomness the more frustrating it can get, I have no control over all that crap.
If you were lucky or already played this game in the beta you obviously had less problems in this fight but it doesn't change the fact that is in fact broken.

Thanks to the genuine advice, but nothing helps I will just lower the difficulty and never think of this crap fight again.

Yeah if you read the descriptions of the electropriests' traits it says they heal on taking shock damage. Don't hit them with shock damage. Now it could definitely be made clearer on weapons & some abilities what kind of damage an attack does (Idira's staff electric attack doesn't SAY it does shock damage, but you can guess), but with your techpriests' ability it literally tells you it causes shock damage if used against anything with 'reject the flesh' feature, which the electropriests have. Now I didn't get that dude into melee range, so not sure if the power axe does shock damage? but it should be really easy to avoid healing these guys.

It's about this time you need to right click on enemies & check their stats & abilities to see where you're going wrong if you can't kill things quick. Dodge & parry are not random, but do seem to have a series of calculations that aren't that easy to follow. Just look at your % chance to hit (I've had 95% chances miss twice in a row before but that's rng). This fight is not broken. It's very manageable.

[Not creepy]

Originally posted by BenShinobi:

Originally posted by Not creepy:

They need to fix this encounter and there is no amount of advice that will change it. I am not new to this genre and this fight makes me furious.
It is completly random, how do you get over this complete random nonsense? My allied tech priests are healing the main targets, sometimes more and sometimes less, so I just need LUCK so my allies don't heal the enemy.
Parry, Dodge etc. is random. The more randomness the more frustrating it can get, I have no control over all that crap.
If you were lucky or already played this game in the beta you obviously had less problems in this fight but it doesn't change the fact that is in fact broken.

Thanks to the genuine advice, but nothing helps I will just lower the difficulty and never think of this crap fight again.

Yeah if you read the descriptions of the electropriests' traits it says they heal on taking shock damage. Don't hit them with shock damage. Now it could definitely be made clearer on weapons & some abilities what kind of damage an attack does (Idira's staff electric attack doesn't SAY it does shock damage, but you can guess), but with your techpriests' ability it literally tells you it causes shock damage if used against anything with 'reject the flesh' feature, which the electropriests have. Now I didn't get that dude into melee range, so not sure if the power axe does shock damage? but it should be really easy to avoid healing these guys.

It's about this time you need to right click on enemies & check their stats & abilities to see where you're going wrong if you can't kill things quick. Dodge & parry are not random, but do seem to have a series of calculations that aren't that easy to follow. Just look at your % chance to hit (I've had 95% chances miss twice in a row before but that's rng). This fight is not broken. It's very manageable.

I am talking about the two tech priests you can get as support, they are controlled by AI, if the AI randomly heals the enemy the fight is broken and there is no need to discuss it further.

[PK_Thunder]

If you think that's bad, Act 3 will make you quit.

[DRITZZ_ZARCON]

Blew up first two tries, then i went with frag and gas grenades to clear out the troops early on and ensure at least two of your team have sniper rifles, one on each side. Melee people wont cut it as they wont get to the ones at the back fast enough. The solider was good with additional movement points. Good Luck!