Stormsong Cavern

[kcboomop]

I thought I knew how to play RPG games. I guess I was wrong. I am stuck on the Stormsong Cavern battle. I have run the scenario at least twenty times and have never ever come close to winning. I am running a ranger who is 5th level going on 6th. I must be missing something but I sure can't figure out what. Any help will be greatly appreciated.
Steve

[lirmont]

There are basically three things you have to do for this fight. The first one is good advice for the whole game: get familiar with always moving around, always being ready to block, always being ready to dodge, and always building focus back up to dump on blocking or DPS. Then there are the other two specific things for this battle. One, you must not walk through the purple trap zone that one of her abilities leaves behind; they will overrun you, and there's no real benefit to you in that scenario. Two, the fight is much easier after you take out Vera's witch henchwomen; roll-dodge right from the beginning of the fight as far away from Vera as possible, and then carefully take out the non-bosses while you avoid spawning skeletons.

It's probably easier for you if you keep in the back of your mind that you'll need to dodge every so often when the arena-wide purple bolt flies across the screen while you're killing the non-boss enemies. When they're done, roll-dodge down to Vera, and make sure you spend enough time to recognize her telegraphing. There's at least a safe time to DPS her down. Roll-dodge away when it's not. Roll-dodge next to her when it is. Repeat.

If you don't like dodging going forward, focus on the Retaliation and the Block stats (regardless of character), and make sure you always have focus. Everytime anything hits you that you blocked (remember, you're responsible for blocking; there is no auto-block), it will take the damage you have on Retaliation, which means you take very little damage and are doing damage at the same time for a small cost of focus gauge.