Chapter 3 Final Boss

[Zink]

Title says it all.

Currently stuck at the final combat encounter for chapter 3, and I'm wondering if anyone who's beaten it yet has any advice? I'm playing on normal, and I don't want to wimp out and adjust the difficulty sliders even lower than that just yet.

General strategy so far has been abusing Rogue Trader Officer - Grand Strategist to put frontline zones down and use killzone strategem on them to whittle down the incubi, and mostly relying on Arch-Militant Argenta with a heavy bolter and some good perks to burst down the grotesques on the upper terrace as well as reinforcement skiff personnel. I've got abelard as my vanguard melee tank, yriel as a crit-exploit assassin, managed to recruit ulfar so he's been functioning as a backup beat-stick arch-militant and general distraction for everyone to shoot at while the rest of my characters do the work.

Cassia and Pascal are also available, but I've had the most success with the previously listed units - with exception to Marazhai, who seems to be the weak link. Being forced to take him really throws me off, and deprives me of a good slot for someone else.

Beyond general bad RNG whether or not her opening burst fire manages to conveniently kill Argenta, Yriel, or even her brother in a single salvo, I've only been able whittle about 4/5ths of her retinue before she manages to burst down a person or two and completely kill the run - my first and best attempt had me clear through 99% of her retinue, but the unlisted "regain all health at half-health/get a free turn/summon several turrets" threw me off, and I've never been able to get back to that point.

I've got a bunch of saves and even one before chapter 3 started, so I *can* roll back if I've somehow ♥♥♥♥♥♥ myself if this an optimization check, but any advice, no matter how helpful, would be really appreciated.

[RusticRevan]

BRUH im stuck on the same fight, i dont know what to do here. i was smoking everyone else, but this fight is something else.

[Sotanaht]

Haven't gotten there yet myself, but have you tried the whole 3 officers bonus turn stacking method yet? I mean I'm only in chapter 2 right now but I can burst first 4 times in a bonus turn for >400 damage per burst easy, at max accuracy, max dodge, dodge reduction etc. Armor is my bane, but my gun has a 40% armor pen and I still have an operator hanging around to debuff armor if necessary.

[Zink]

Chapter 3 forces you into the party you choose alongside new acquisitions, so I'd have to roll back, hire some bodyguards to fill those roles, and then work all the way back through chapter 3. It's doable, but I'm not quite ready to give up around 12 hours of my time just yet.

I really think the biggest problem here is Marazhai, I've just got no idea how to build him and he's far too squishy to survive the boss' attacks, especially that splinter pistol burst fire she always does at every opportunity.

That, or ulfar is a trap pick, and I'm better off sticking to pascal or cassia.

[Faptor]

What worked for me was to just run away down the stairs, throwing fire grenades to lay down damage zones along the way. Kill the big guys at the bottom, unleash hell on the narrow stairwell. When those troops start spawning they will die to your fire grenades AOE damage zone so dont even worry about them.

Good luck :D

[TiberiusGaben]

kill the named drukari . rest is luck

[Zink]

Just managed to get through that nightmare of a fight with some new tactics and a lot of luck, so I'll share some knowledge I gathered with my strategy.

Firstly, you can go back to the base of the spire to swap out companions - if you've brought cassia with you, and she has Held In My Gaze and Mastery of Time, absolutely bring her. She is vital to the victory here. Every time someone gets a bonus turn*, she gains a stack of Mastery of Time, which gives her 5+ wisdom per stack until the end of combat. If you lasted 7 rounds in the fight like I did, she'll have anywhere from 7 to 8 stacks of it from her giving orders (or you, if you're an officer), so Held In My Gaze will hit like a freight train.

Secondly, the grotesques on the upper terrace are bait. They've got fairly low characteristics for movement, and melee tanks can keep them readily occupied - the real threat are the incubi, and the archon's ability to give them a free turn. If you have cassia, and you can get her to act as soon as possible - like grand strategist using Take it Down as he's always first, use Held In My Gaze to lock one down (if you explored and got a navigator staff that lets you double cast abilities for self damage on the second, you can lock both of them down and invalidate them).

Thirdly, the Incubi. Their free turn comes right after the archon, if she gives them the order to, so it would be a good idea to heavily bank on an engagement where the incubi all go *before* your units. It may seem counter intuitive, but she doesn't appear to give the order unless she can't do anything else, and the incubi don't use their extra turns very well. A good spaced wall of your melee tanks in the center, or on the stairs as Faptor suggested will get them stuck and not harassing your lynchpin units, which would probably be your MC, cassia, and Argenta/whatever ranged dps you brought.

She really likes to use burst shot a lot, so keep everyone spaced enough that if she gets lucky, only one person will die. I got lucky and Marazhai died to a burst around round 4, but all the incubi were dead so his utility was pretty much spent. A melee character like adelbard or ulfar can keep her moving away from your units to use the burst shots until everyone's dealt with.

Her second wind happens at 50% health, and it only summons 2 turrets - I discovered you don't need to kill these at all, killing her just stops the fight outright. Otherwise, they spawn on the stair-side of the platform, and have darklances, so if you've got someone with low evasion they may hurt a bit.

A lot of what happened in that fight was pure luck, but abusing navigator powers really helped enable all of that. I'll leave the thread open so people stuck with this fight can share ideas for certain character orders and builds.

[RusticRevan]

can confirme i just completed the fight, but used the cheese tactics as said above, i just ran back to the base of the spirre and used fire bombs on bridge and took the fight slowly aas they came down and used alot of range and all my bombs,

[DeadlyGrub]

So. Cassia is broken if you have another leader and give her the super turn. If you basically give her all the scaling from tactical and the repeat abilities on the same target to amp damage she killed the boss in one turn for me. She did a total of 1.8k dmg in a single turn with the immobilise stare (Forgetting names because it's late at night) after the boss the fight was mostly junk adds that got parried to death by the tanks and again killed by cass. All you really need to do is remove her and the fight is a joke she just cheese heals at 50% hp out of nowhere. there are enough tools in the game that allow you to basically break it. Mostly being buffs. Seriously the buffs are very very overpowered. Tactical superiority is 4% per stack and you can stack it stupid fast with a high resolve team meaning cassia turns into a nuclear Armageddon in two turns at most. The highest Dmg per single stare I have gotten with her is 486. She is by far the strongest character in the game.

[Amardarial]

Yea, this whole fight seems overtuned, boss has silly high stats, can 1 shot basically anyone through whatever defensive layers you have (100%+ dodge, 99% parry, High Armor, etc), like everything else is trash, high health trash but trash, boss however full heals, gets a free turn, summons more trash every few turns, can't be locked down, dodges/parry's everything. Doesn't even feel like a fight of tactics (They really dont matter), but more a brute force and hope RNG is on your side. Also 1st fight I've had any real trouble with, mostly because again, nothing seems to work, and one bad RNG turn requires a full restart of the fight. (Literally killed everything but her round 1, and she managed to still wipe everyone in a single round herself).

[Amardarial]

Originally posted by TiberiusGaben:

kill the named drukari . rest is luck

♥♥♥♥ killing her is luck, her stats are nuts.

[OG Cach]

I'm playing "Daring" level but first time I am actually considering lowering the difficulty.
The fact that there are no way to heal any permanent trauma before the boss is killing me 100%...

[Zink]

Originally posted by OG Cach:

I'm playing "Daring" level but first time I am actually considering lowering the difficulty.
The fact that there are no way to heal any permanent trauma before the boss is killing me 100%...

Churgieon medkits heal trauma, and the haemonculus gives you, among other things, some kind of stim called "flesh graft" that heals 1 trauma. You just need to talk to him before the final arena fight and pay for his time, using loot you get from the arena monsters or the scourge. Ask him for his stock and he'll let you empty it out.

[Batailleuse]

Originally posted by Zink:

Title says it all.

Currently stuck at the final combat encounter for chapter 3, and I'm wondering if anyone who's beaten it yet has any advice? I'm playing on normal, and I don't want to wimp out and adjust the difficulty sliders even lower than that just yet.

General strategy so far has been abusing Rogue Trader Officer - Grand Strategist to put frontline zones down and use killzone strategem on them to whittle down the incubi, and mostly relying on Arch-Militant Argenta with a heavy bolter and some good perks to burst down the grotesques on the upper terrace as well as reinforcement skiff personnel. I've got abelard as my vanguard melee tank, yriel as a crit-exploit assassin, managed to recruit ulfar so he's been functioning as a backup beat-stick arch-militant and general distraction for everyone to shoot at while the rest of my characters do the work.

Cassia and Pascal are also available, but I've had the most success with the previously listed units - with exception to Marazhai, who seems to be the weak link. Being forced to take him really throws me off, and deprives me of a good slot for someone else.

Beyond general bad RNG whether or not her opening burst fire manages to conveniently kill Argenta, Yriel, or even her brother in a single salvo, I've only been able whittle about 4/5ths of her retinue before she manages to burst down a person or two and completely kill the run - my first and best attempt had me clear through 99% of her retinue, but the unlisted "regain all health at half-health/get a free turn/summon several turrets" threw me off, and I've never been able to get back to that point.

I've got a bunch of saves and even one before chapter 3 started, so I *can* roll back if I've somehow ♥♥♥♥♥♥ myself if this an optimization check, but any advice, no matter how helpful, would be really appreciated.

emmm... without debuff it will be hard.

i had idira with her "blind" skill totally helped, also helped that i have 2 psyker reducing ALL stats by 5 for all enemies on map after 6 cast of any psyker abilities.

Cassia can help you carry things if you built her right.
Picking Hold my gaze can help immobilizing enemies for a single AP point
Having an Infusing staff with the various buffs Cassia can provide will be a life saver (literally), she should be giving +7 all stats (includes weapon/ballistics) everytime she buffs someone.

Buffs are Glimpse of fate (5xWP%) to dodge/hit/resistance for 1 test.
Mend reality is an AOE buffs itself not useful, but its a 12 cell AOE and it basically will give everyone the Infusion Perk.
Revel in the light will give 4xWP to Toughness and Willpower.

the issue at this point is you have no way to respec your team, so unless they are good to go its hard. it's more or less a check if you did the whole act properly ... act 3 really is the worst by far i found.

[Jasta]

I beat it without Cassia or Idira or that much debuff (only on normal though).

Priorities are killing Yrrynnr or whatever the boss's name is but make sure you're spread out enough that her insta-free turn doesn't nuke half your team. Try not to expend all your nuke on getting her past 50% health as they get a free full heal after then anyway. Yriliet is critical here as she can two shot the boss if she's assassin specced. Just make sure you can pile on the boss once you trigger the 50% heal so it turns off the turrets and the repeating adds.

After that you need to kill the incubi - if you can knock off one or two before nuking the boss, great.

The grotesques are completely a distraction. Properly specced you should just have Abelard taunt and defensive stance as many as you can (and any incubi) and he will just shrug them all off as you pick them off one by one. The human adds are trash, the dark eldar with guns can hurt but Yrillet could kill both of them in one turn.

It sucked still... make sure you save practically after any turn that went well for you. Once I killed the boss I cleared the rest of the mobs (8+) with just Yriliet, Abelard and the Space Marine. Yriliet is the most critical though... if she goes down it just takes forever to kill things.

[Macius]

So far, I haven't had trouble with any fight until this one (default normal difficulty). It took me a while, but I beat it without Cassia or Idira. It took me five approaches to figure out the working scenario for my team (Yriliet, Abelard, Space Marine, Argenta, Marazhai). Retreat to the bottom of the stairs behind the party, first kill two Grotesque at the bottom (they only look big), then all Incubi, then focus on Yrrynnr after killing Incubi, she moves her ass downstairs (that allows her not to give Incubi additional turns and be far from summoned Turrets). It probably would be easier with Cassia and stacking buffs/debuffs, but it's not needed.