Undead Azunite Archer Hero WTF

[Shekelstein]

So here you are running through a nice level 30 area on normal killing enemies left and right....

And then you meet an Undead Azunite Archer Hero.

Level 45.

What in the actual ♥♥♥♥.

Were the DEVs high or drunk when designing this? And no it's not a secret area meant for later. It's directly on the main quest path.

[LucasRCD]

Yeah I have no idea why that elite enemy in particular is 5 levels higher than the final boss or even the enemies in the secret area. Good thing you don't have to necessarily fight them to proceed, you can just collect the Champion Masks and then un away as fast as possible.

[Xextreem]

Some areas are made for later. The game has a lot of backtracking. And some parts are not for now but for later on. Avoid going there for now.

[Shekelstein]

Originally posted by Xextreem:

Some areas are made for later. The game has a lot of backtracking. And some parts are not for now but for later on. Avoid going there for now.

Did you even read the whole post?

[InconspicuousBlackVan]

It's a bug introduced by Broken World. They messed with some of the monster templates and it caused monsters scaled for the BW campaign to spawn in a couple spots in the original campaign, essentially bricking a couple side-quests until the end of the game.

I think it's the same with the Heirloom quest in the desert in Act 1. You are about level 16 and in the tomb with the sword, there are level 35 or so undead Azunites. From what I remember, that was not the case in vanilla DS 2.

The one spot where backtracking is intentional is the Blacksmith quest in act 1. There are level 22-24 Tacklak guarding an item for the Blacksmith, but you can do this quest even before you finish act 1.

[LucasRCD]

Originally posted by InconspicuousBlackVan:

It's a bug introduced by Broken World. They messed with some of the monster templates and it caused monsters scaled for the BW campaign to spawn in a couple spots in the original campaign, essentially bricking a couple side-quests until the end of the game.

I think it's the same with the Heirloom quest near the start of act 2. You are about level 16 and in the tomb with the sword, there are level 35 or so undead Azunites. From what I remember, that was not the case in vanilla DS 2.

The one spot where backtracking is intentional is the Blacksmith quest in act 1. There are level 22-24 Tacklak guarding an item for the Blacksmith, but you can do this quest even before you finish act 1.

Actually, the Azunites are the same levels in the vanilla game as they are in Broken World. I know this because, as a kid, I have vivid memories of cheesing an encounter with the Undead Azunite Mage Hero that spawned by aggro'ing it out of the tomb aaaaaall the way back to the soldiers near the portal, who cannot die and will slowly pelt it to death with arrows as it will stay aggro'd to them. Ironically, no Undead Azunite Archer Heroes appear in the actual Broken World campaign, in the one side dungeon where they make a resurgence in Part 2.

I think you're supposed to just grab the Heirloom and run, or tough it out and reap the rewards if you take advantage of powers like Invulnerability and Thunderous Shot (with it having the longest stun duration of any power in the game). Funnily enough, Broken World actually makes doing both quests in Act I much more feasible in higher difficulties because the level curve is far smaller than in Mercenary due to the introduction of the expansion's campaign; the Taclak are level 55-56 and the Undead Azunites are level 59-60.

Granted, yes, the levels are a bit buggy for certain things, like the summons the Dark Wizards in Act III being way too high level in Mercenary but too low level in every difficulty afterwards. A few creatures also seemingly don't give out experience or trigger Bestiary entries (Giant Thrusk Channeler, the Rust Guards in the Aman'lu Arena, the Durvlas and Bralls in the rooftop in Act II). There's a mod that fixes most of those oddities, although it does unfortunately come with the side effect of turning many secondary quest minibosses into tedious damage sponges.

[InconspicuousBlackVan]

Originally posted by LucasRCD:

Actually, the Azunites are the same levels in the vanilla game as they are in Broken World. I know this because, as a kid, I have vivid memories of cheesing an encounter with the Undead Azunite Mage Hero that spawned by aggro'ing it out of the tomb aaaaaall the way back to the soldiers near the portal, who cannot die and will slowly pelt it to death with arrows as it will stay aggro'd to them. Ironically, no Undead Azunite Archer Heroes appear in the actual Broken World campaign, in the one side dungeon where they make a resurgence in Part 2.

I played through that part in BW just yesterday and it spawned a melee undead azunite hero in the heirloom room for me. One hit from him instantly killed (not even KO'd) any character in my party. I chewed through the 5K or so health with my single archer character, kiting and doing 6-15 damage per shot while I parked the rest of my party in a safe spot. Took a while.... Not to mention the side rooms, which are also filled with regular undead azunites, including archers and mages (who resurrect the others). Spent like 90 or so minutes clearing that tomb.

I'm currently running through the first act again without BW (due to the horrendous framerate with BW), so will see what exactly is the situation in the tomb. But I can already tell that the game seems a lot more balanced. Normal enemies are not completely irrelevant and elite enemies actually hurt now. I had pretty much zero issues with BW installed and was constantly overlevelled for the areas because the density seems to have been increased. With fewer enemies, they can actually keep up in levels now. Funny as I thought BW was supposed to make the game harder.

Back when I played the first time, I played from a retail box, which was version 2.0. It's possible the bug/change happened in some of the intermittent patches (2.1-2.3)

[LucasRCD]

Originally posted by InconspicuousBlackVan:

Originally posted by LucasRCD:

Actually, the Azunites are the same levels in the vanilla game as they are in Broken World. I know this because, as a kid, I have vivid memories of cheesing an encounter with the Undead Azunite Mage Hero that spawned by aggro'ing it out of the tomb aaaaaall the way back to the soldiers near the portal, who cannot die and will slowly pelt it to death with arrows as it will stay aggro'd to them. Ironically, no Undead Azunite Archer Heroes appear in the actual Broken World campaign, in the one side dungeon where they make a resurgence in Part 2.

I played through that part in BW just yesterday and it spawned a melee undead azunite hero in the heirloom room for me. One hit from him instantly killed (not even KO'd) any character in my party. I chewed through the 5K or so health with my single archer character, kiting and doing 6-15 damage per shot while I parked the rest of my party in a safe spot. Took a while.... Not to mention the side rooms, which are also filled with regular undead azunites, including archers and mages (who resurrect the others). Spent like 90 or so minutes clearing that tomb.

I'm currently running through the first act again without BW (due to the horrendous framerate with BW), so will see what exactly is the situation in the tomb. But I can already tell that the game seems a lot more balanced. Normal enemies are not completely irrelevant and elite enemies actually hurt now. I had pretty much zero issues with BW installed and was constantly overlevelled for the areas because the density seems to have been increased. With fewer enemies, they can actually keep up in levels now. Funny as I thought BW was supposed to make the game harder.

Back when I played the first time, I played from a retail box, which was version 2.0. It's possible the bug/change happened in some of the intermittent patches (2.1-2.3)

Oh yeah, I should specify that I was almost level 20 by the time I reached that tomb, mostly because I was doing some item farming and doing all the secondary quests I could, so I was able to dispose of both the Taclak and Undead Azunites with relative ease. My party consisted of my character (Fist of Stone, dual wielding), Sartan (melee Combat Mage hybrid, 2-handed), Deru (crossbow user), and Vix (Blood Assassin). Stone Form, Thunderous Shot, Staggering Blow, and Take Aim are all things I used, plus a summon or two to distract them. Also, enemy spawns are semi randomized, so that explains why you may have gotten a Soldier Hero instead of a Mage Hero, I think in a previous playthrough I even got unlucky enough to have had an Archer Hero spawn.

I can't comment on the balance of the base game, as the copy I had wouldn't play further than the first Skath in the Azunite Desert and so the dialogue that makes them aggressive never triggered. All I know is that I'm sorta having the same experience as you're having but instead it's with Veteran difficulty in Broken World. In a now-deleted thread I made (that I deleted because the only reply I got said I was full of crap and embarassed me), I commented on how it somehow felt more balanced because there's less chances for you to be overleveled, making even regular enemies relevant, unlike the Mercenary difficulty.

I still find it a shame that Broken World isn't bundled anymore, because playing between Mercenary and Veteran really does feel like playing through pretty different games with different balancing; Mercenary has its spikes in difficulty (Uhn Blasters deal waaaaay more damage than anything else in Act III for some reason, making the mines the hardest dungeon in the main story) but is quite manageable if you stick to the main story, meanwhile Veteran makes regular enemies an actual threat, especially fast and small targets that swarm you, those can catch you incredibly off-guard, and the tighter level curve allows for doing backtrack-requiring quests much earlier than in Mercenary. I wouldn't have played Veteran on the base release, but I'm actually enjoying myself on Veteran in Broken World.

[InconspicuousBlackVan]

Originally posted by LucasRCD:

I can't comment on the balance of the base game, as the copy I had wouldn't play further than the first Skath in the Azunite Desert and so the dialogue that makes them aggressive never triggered. All I know is that I'm sorta having the same experience as you're having but instead it's with Veteran difficulty in Broken World. In a now-deleted thread I made (that I deleted because the only reply I got said I was full of crap and embarassed me), I commented on how it somehow felt more balanced because there's less chances for you to be overleveled, making even regular enemies relevant, unlike the Mercenary difficulty.

Never mind, it didn't last long. By the Kalrathia caves, it's going pretty comparably to BW and will probably get somewhat easier due to the more powerful skills before BW nerfs. But most of act 1 can actually be surprisingly tough. The 2 elites guarding the last tower was a tough nut to crack. The crossbowman was chunking Deru for ~40% HP per hit.

One interesting thing though, it seems aggro is behaving slightly differently without BW. At least it seems that enemies are more likely to go after my damage characters, unless I taunt them.

I plan on going until Elite without BW, so will see. I remember it being pretty easy by late Veteran ages ago, which is where I stopped playing. I heard that BW was supposed to make the game harder, with the skill and armor nerfs especially. But it was a steamroll in Mercenary until mid act 2, where I stopped due to the framerate. Maybe it gets better in later difficulties, I don't know.

Originally posted by LucasRCD:

I still find it a shame that Broken World isn't bundled anymore, because playing between Mercenary and Veteran really does feel like playing through pretty different games with different balancing; Mercenary has its spikes in difficulty (Uhn Blasters deal waaaaay more damage than anything else in Act III for some reason, making the mines the hardest dungeon in the main story) but is quite manageable if you stick to the main story, meanwhile Veteran makes regular enemies an actual threat, especially fast and small targets that swarm you, those can catch you incredibly off-guard, and the tighter level curve allows for doing backtrack-requiring quests much earlier than in Mercenary. I wouldn't have played Veteran on the base release, but I'm actually enjoying myself on Veteran in Broken World.

I actually like that fact. If it was, there would no longer be a way to play the game without BW.

Same for DS 1. LoA changes a ton of stuff and actually impacts the original campaign quite negatively. I played through everything DS 1 before I got back to DS 2. Played vanilla campaign, Yesterhaven and Utraen Peninsuala first and only after that installed LoA and played through it + Return to Arhok.

That's honestly one of my main gripes with digital distribution. You are usually only given the latest version with the latest patch and can't do anything about. I loved the days when you installed 1.0 from the disc and then patched as you saw fit.

EDIT:
Can confirm a couple of things now:
1) Without BW, the Azunites in the tomb were level 28, hero 30.
2) The game is much easier at this point. I could fight them pretty much normally at level 16. My tank had about 60% more armor than with BW. Could even tank through the hero (mage this time),

Would have preferred the harder game TBH, but when the choice is terrible framerate or easier game, I'll take the easier game.

[LucasRCD]

The Kithraya Caves are always swarming with creatures, that much I can remember. The way armor works can certainly be felt, particularly there seems to be a much harsher multiplier on level differences that makes it less viable to tank stuff if you're underleveled, hence why if you're 15 levels below the Archer Hero, you'll be two shot if you have absurd armor but outright killed if your armor is below 200. The balance changes are more so felt in the expansion's campaign and later difficulties than in the base game's campaign, as it's mostly just carried over effects: the harsher enemies with gimmicks and immunity to certain elements, plus the increased aggression. Even being overleveled doesn't help much sometimes, like in the Mines of Kaderak, where the Uhn Blasters can both take a beating AND can take off 40% of your HP with each attack even 5 levels above them. Scorchers and Bombers are a nightmare to deal with, even more so with a full party because, fun fact, enemies get extra HP past the 4 party member initial limit in addition to each difficulty's stat multiplier, and they scale with each additional party member, capping at 6, including bosses, hence why if you check the Bestiary, the numbers won't line up if your party has 5+ members. Using mods to remove the party member restriction in Mercenary and Veteran, I was able to witness Valdis with 150K HP and the Overmage's first form having a whopping ~80K HP instead of 20K.

Here's a tip: If you're planning on taking on the Undead Azunite Archer Hero while underleveled, bring in summons. The archer actually targets characters randomly, and that includes summons. If you can get some high HP summons to attract aggro and get lucky that it only attacks them and not your party, so long as you chug a crapton of Mana Potions, you can keep doing that until it dies. Also remember, Thunderous Shot is broken and when leveled up to level 3, can literally stun minibosses for over 10 seconds, which pairs well with the War Pedestals encountered in the rooms they're found in. Also, if you have a Blood Assassin in your party, USE THE MARK OF HARVEST WITH EXECUTE. IT CAN BRING BACK DEAD PARTY MEMBERS AND RESTORES 30% HP FOR THE WHOLE PARTY FOR EVERY MARKED TARGET ALONGSIDE HAVING THE HIGHEST BASE DAMAGE FOR EXECUTE, MAKING IT UTTERLY BROKEN. That last bit is also the only way I was able to even remotely try the Mysterious Shrine and its 9 evil party member miniboss rush, and even then it took me 6 tries and probably a million gold spent on Super Rejuvenation Potions.

Anyway, you can blame copyright laws for Legends of Aranna and Broken World not being bundled anymore. Dungeon Siege as an IP now belongs to Square Enix due to studio acquisitions, meanwhile the expansions for the first two games were developed by different studios than the base games, meaning that by a technicality, their copyright belongs to different companies. Rather than attempting to settle the copyright kerfuffle, they decided the next best thing was to just take the expansions off of digital stores.

[InconspicuousBlackVan]

Just ran into the level 45 guy. Didn't know where exactly to expect him so he got the jump on me and immediately sniped Taar. Instant knockout from full health. Tried kiting him around until Taar came to and tried to heal her. He instantly turned on her and instakilled her at 75% or so health. Fair enough. Now that I knew what I was dealing with. I baited him on my tank while Deru went in with a Res scroll to revive Taar. After that, it was an intricate dance of positioning where i had to make ABSOLUTELY sure the he was shooting my tank at all times. Ranged enemies have a tendency to randomly retarget on your backline so I used the pillar in the middle of the tomb and made sure Taar was line of sighting him 100% of the time, since she was at a risk of getting one shot. Deru could take one hit and live with 10% or so health.

But surprisingly, my tank could handle him. Just potions would have been enough. With heals from Taar, he had no chance. Just had to make sure that every time he retargeted, I paused the game and meticulously kept positing my 3 party group in a way where the archer could only shoot my tank. That meant mirroring his movements with my tank, always moving between him and his target so he absorbed the shots meant for the other party members (mostly Deru since Taar wasn't attacking) while circling the pillar with Taar to avoid getting randomly one shot.

Went down pretty smoothly. If he didn't get the jump on me (really didn't expect him to stand immediately behind the doors :P), would have been even more manageable.

At this point in the game, your tank SHOULD be able to take facetank him with heals and potions. Also had 50% Ranged Resistance on my tank at the time, so that definitely helped. If you don't have a tank, RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!!!!

The quest in the desert in Act 1 is a much bigger problem if you want to complete it right away, especially if you also want to clear the side rooms.

[LucasRCD]

Originally posted by InconspicuousBlackVan:

Just ran into the level 45 guy. Didn't know where exactly to expect him so he got the jump on me and immediately sniped Taar. Instant knockout from full health. Tried kiting him around until Taar came to and tried to heal her. He instantly turned on her and instakilled her at 75% or so health. Fair enough. Now that I knew what I was dealing with. I baited him on my tank while Deru went in with a Res scroll to revive Taar. After that, it was an intricate dance of positioning where i had to make ABSOLUTELY sure the he was shooting my tank at all times. Ranged enemies have a tendency to randomly retarget on your backline so I used the pillar in the middle of the tomb and made sure Taar was line of sighting him 100% of the time, since she was at a risk of getting one shot. Deru could take one hit and live with 10% or so health.

But surprisingly, my tank could handle him. Just potions would have been enough. With heals from Taar, he had no chance. Just had to make sure that every time he retargeted, I paused the game and meticulously kept positing my 3 party group in a way where the archer could only shoot my tank. That meant mirroring his movements with my tank, always moving between him and his target so he absorbed the shots meant for the other party members (mostly Deru since Taar wasn't attacking) while circling the pillar with Taar to avoid getting randomly one shot.

Went down pretty smoothly. If he didn't get the jump on me (really didn't expect him to stand immediately behind the doors :P), would have been even more manageable.

At this point in the game, your tank SHOULD be able to take facetank him with heals and potions. Also had 50% Ranged Resistance on my tank at the time, so that definitely helped. If you don't have a tank, RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!!!!

The quest in the desert in Act 1 is a much bigger problem if you want to complete it right away, especially if you also want to clear the side rooms.

Interesting, so does this mean he was level 45 in the base game too? If so, I'm impressed. I wouldn't say the Archer's all too difficult in Broken World, just annoying to fight if you have a party of 4, because one wrong move and that can result in a domino effect.

That's why I had the brilliant foresight of giving each party member at least one level in Nature Magic so they could heal anyone who falls unconscious, and I kept spamming my Colossal Health Potions (thanks Deru) because outside of Deru, my party wouldn't die in one hit, my main character may not have been a tank but he IS a Fist of Stone with Dual Wielding so he has respectable resistance and health but even more damage, meaning that they'll quickly get up after being knocked unconscious because a potion that's drank before getting knocked out will restore you faster, especially the higher the tier of potion. It just took a while, and the only time I wiped out to an Archer Hero was immediately after defeating the Dark Wizard boss, I ran out of potions and couldn't heal.

[InconspicuousBlackVan]

Originally posted by LucasRCD:

Interesting, so does this mean he was level 45 in the base game too?

Nope.

I went back to my BW party as the vanilla DS 2 was starting to get pointlessly easy.

I can say that most of the nerfs were quite warranted. Funny how they barely touched Absorption though, as that is by far the most overpowered skill in the entire game by such a margin it's not even funny.

[LucasRCD]

Originally posted by InconspicuousBlackVan:

Originally posted by LucasRCD:

Interesting, so does this mean he was level 45 in the base game too?

Nope.

I went back to my BW party as the vanilla DS 2 was starting to get pointlessly easy.

I can say that most of the nerfs were quite warranted. Funny how they barely touched Absorption though, as that is by far the most overpowered skill in the entire game by such a margin it's not even funny.

I see. What an oddity. Personally I think the most busted thing I never gave attention to prior to my most recent playthrough were the Summon skills. Aether Blast is legitimely busted, and stacking equipment that increases Summon Damage allows for summons outdamaging regular characters sometimes.

I'm thinking of eventually doing a challenge run solely with Summons, because I can see them being quite fun to use. Just a party of summoners. I can see it starting out excrutiatingly slow but becoming quite fun after getting access to Aether Blast, or just the summon damage upgrades in general.

[InconspicuousBlackVan]

Originally posted by LucasRCD:

I can see it starting out excrutiatingly slow but becoming quite fun after getting access to Aether Blast, or just the summon damage upgrades in general.

I also never really built around summons. Always just took them as an extra body on the battleflied. But the 3 summon passives do offer very decent bonuses (4 if you count the attack speed from CM). Aether Blast scales off of the summon's HP? I can see it doing insane damage when properly geared for it.

But Absorption in the unshakeable top spot. Makes every single enemy that does not deal physical damage absolutely irrelevant once you get around 10 points in it. 12 points gives you 60% absorption. Absorption is another defense layer that completely negates the stated % of damage. Any magic resists you have further reduce the damage that goes through absorption.

Usually around mid-Veteran, I level every character to 36 NM, just to get Absorption. It's that good. You can then gear fully for physical resists and basically ignore the rest. Not to mention that you also get mana from the magic damage directed at you.

[LucasRCD]

Originally posted by InconspicuousBlackVan:

Originally posted by LucasRCD:

I can see it starting out excrutiatingly slow but becoming quite fun after getting access to Aether Blast, or just the summon damage upgrades in general.

I also never really built around summons. Always just took them as an extra body on the battleflied. But the 3 summon passives do offer very decent bonuses (4 if you count the attack speed from CM). Aether Blast scales off of the summon's HP? I can see it doing insane damage when properly geared for it.

But Absorption in the unshakeable top spot. Makes every single enemy that does not deal physical damage absolutely irrelevant once you get around 10 points in it. 12 points gives you 60% absorption. Absorption is another defense layer that completely negates the stated % of damage. Any magic resists you have further reduce the damage that goes through absorption.

Usually around mid-Veteran, I level every character to 36 NM, just to get Absorption. It's that good. You can then gear fully for physical resists and basically ignore the rest. Not to mention that you also get mana from the magic damage directed at you.

Yeah, I found out how busted Aether Blast was once I got Taar back in my party during Act III, where she was level 35 after I last left her at level 12 in Act I. Turns out leaving party members in the Inn and waiting for them to scale to two levels below you gives them greater skill growth than you'd get normally, and so I was able to experiment with adding a crapton of summon upgrades to her.

Absorption might be good, but I've been able to get just as much mileage out of the summon equivalent, the one that divides damage between the summon and the caster if one or the other is being attacked. With enough upgrades, your summon will have likely double or triple the HP of your caster, PLUS you can heal your summons to further extend your survivability. Get a party full of Nature Mages and watch as they heal your summon to full every time in one cast.

I'm currently running Taar and Finala as summoners with AOE magic spells (Fireball and Iceball being my go-to spells because of Ignite and Freeze on multiple enemies at once, the former literally dealing hundreds of damage per second), they basically can't run out of MP and only get knocked unconscious if they're swarmed by dozens of mooks at the same time. Taar has an almost complete Beastmaster set (4/5 pieces) while Finala has the full Circle of the Four set.