Daemonette fight WTF!!

[ApathicAlpaca]

So yes, I already deployed some advice from others like going around the side to ambush from the corridor.
Using stun grenades myself to shut down that f*cked up uber-stunner guard.
Focusing fire on the summoner (can't be stunned by the way, eventhough she has no trait to prevent it... great design Owlcat!).

I still die horribly every single time. Level 20.
This fight, like some others, is complete and utter garbage in terms of balancing. It's OK to have a tough fight now and then but this kind of endless enemies + overpowered CC + ridiculous damage even on tanky warriors is not OK.

My 5th attempt now and I am not sure what else I can do differently. The daemonettes deal up to 22 or so damage (per hit!) to my tanks and the burst gunners decimate the rest of the squad because I cannot just hide in the corridor.

I am at a complete loss here. AND I reduced difficulty to normal already.
Ideas? I have 2 sniper rifles (one of them assassin), a grand strategist who can start combat as 1st and throw stun grenade, 2 warrior (vanguard and the weaponswitching class), flamer/aoe soldier.
I really hate to have to manually save before every encounter just in case it's another ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up difficulty jump.

[BirdDinosaur]

I feel like people who have difficulty with this game are lacking a fundamental understanding of the game's complex mechanics. I don't know what your situation is but are you reading the stuff written in your perks and talents and combining them together to make the game easier? Are you stacking debuffs and buffs? A lot of the buffs and debuffs in this game stack with each other to the point that you can 1 shot enemies. Are you using your team in ways that they synergize with each other?

[ApathicAlpaca]

Obviously I use buffs and debuffs although since I don't know all talents by heart I am certainly not 100% perfect in the builds. But that's not supposed to be necessary on normal difficulty. What I do lack is an officer, left her on the ship. I guess with an extra attack from snipers it could (!) become easier.

[provokastoras]

Originally posted by ApathicAlpaca:

Obviously I use buffs and debuffs although since I don't know all talents by heart I am certainly not 100% perfect in the builds. But that's not supposed to be necessary on normal difficulty. What I do lack is an officer, left her on the ship. I guess with an extra attack from snipers it could (!) become easier.

That fight for me lasts like 1 round... my officer goes as forward as possible cassia goes next to him, my officer goes first give casia his turn cassisa kills everything. if not gets them to half health and destroys cover. then my officer gets his normal turn casia had provoke his ulti so he gives casia another turn and casia kills whats ever left exept maybe the governor who is hiding in her room :P .
alternatively if you have any officer in your group that has picked up seize the initiative talent you can just equip them with a shotgun and have them destroy the summoners cover then they can pass their turn to yviet and she will wipe the floor with the summoner. ...
if you don't have an officer in your group you could have idira stun the whole room with her ae shout... i never thought that fight as hard tbh i mean unless you have made unoptimized builds for everyone and noone can do damage... in which case you should be concerned cause starting act 3 opponets have upwards of a few thousand hp...

[provokastoras]

that being said even if you don't have an officer in the group and just have a proper melee fighter he should be parrying EVERY attack from the demonnetes if your front line is not parrying everything they do you build them wrong too.

[Hidetsugu]

Uh... sorry, but that fight was easy for me even on my 1st playthrough. I think the hardest battles I had in the game were in the "Drifting voidship". Anything after that gets way easier to the point of battles being a breeze even on über unfair.
But, if you want me to tell you a really broken strategy, which works even if all your other builds suck - it is called "Armor Stacking". How you do it - have your party grouped in a GS frontline, preferably with a Combat Locus stratagem on it. Add sanctic Shield of the Emperor. Have Idira or Pasqal (or both) be grand strategists, fully invested in INT, and have taken Tactical Knowledge. Enjoy taking 0 damage even on your light armor wearers.

[ApathicAlpaca]

Well, I can see I need to re-do the builds of some of my characters with the knowledge gained so far. Seems I stacked some weird talent and ability choices that don't make much sense. Good thing 1st repecs are free.
Also gotta have at least 1 officer with me all the time, no way around it. Still unsure if 1 or 2 warriors but the amount of melee enemies you face it's probably best to have 2 meatshields just in case. (plus they deal some good damage too)

My new party will be 2 operatives (grand strategist sniper & bountyhunter plasma-boi), 1 officer (master tactician, flexible weapon) and 2 warriors (both vanguard, melee + CQC ranged weapon I guess). The ability of vanguard to taunt away all nearby enemies from allies is almost OP so I will abuse that.

I also found that the grenadier talent is pretty broken, at least if you have some gamechanging grenades like stun so I'll give it to at least 2 characters.

What I would really focus on but it's very difficult to do is getting more than 1 attack per round as often as possible. For example, bountyhunter can get extra attack when hitting stunned or immobilized AND he can immobilize himself so that's cool. Assassins have a (low damage, dot) extra attack every turn. But other than that there seems to be very few options. Advice welcome!

[Hidetsugu]

Let me write down here the ultimate tank Abelard build, that never fails. He should be immortal on normal/daring even without support:
Warrior: TGH>WS>STR stats
Skills: Athletics>Carouse>Medicae
Abilities: Taunt, Sworn Enemy
Traits: Thick Skin, Clenched Teeth, Duelling Mastery, Hardened Scars, Defensive Stance, Combat Master, Epicentre of Slaughter, It Will Not Die

Vanguard - same as warrior for stats and skills
Abilities: Bulwark, Defensive Stance, Wall of Rockcrete
Traits: Know no Heresy, Resilient Beacon, Centre of Attention, Counter-Attack Stance, Char Training: TGH, Char Training: WS, Enduring Shield, Beacon of Might, Wall of Ferrocrete, Renitent Beacon, Char Training: STR

How you use him - you rarely attack (So you do not lose your defensive stance bonus - charge is fine. Heaviest armor possible.) Basically you put him in front of the enemies and Taunt as many enemies as possible, then you activate Endure, Bulwark, Defensive Stance and Wall of Rockcrete and let them punch themselves.

[ApathicAlpaca]

After the respec the fight became a piece of cake. Two actual tanks are worth their weight in gold, taunt is kinda OP to be honest.
That stun scream of Lady Banshee is a gamechanger too.
Not to forget 4 characters with grenadier trait will f*ck up enemies big time.

Hooray.

[sbszine]

As a different approach to this one you can just sit at the far end of the map with a sniper rifle / assassin build and use the officer to trigger multiple shots on the demon summoner. Abelard can clean up anything that's left.

[Psycohitman]

the game is not that deep... officer with a heavybolter char and u are good to go to win every fight. after testing builds after builds most guns are not a viable option, ap eco is totally broken with 1 or 2 buffs but other builds are so underperforming its amazing how they stuff so many useless talents in the skilltree. cassia for example needs 1 skillshoot to clear rooms and even gets a second if u choose right. new players are overwhelmed by a whole not of useless crapskills and they stop reading on every level up.