Mordus fight, really? (spoilers) and help please...

[PJM40]

I've played through D:OS, but I've been having a very frustrating time with D:OS 2. I do enjoy the game, but the contrived battles are begining to wear on me and I would love some help or pointers.

For example, the Alexander fight had a super powered worm that you essentially needed to run away from or suffer a wipe. The Lady Vengence fight again, massivly under manned and over powered and you need to use a ballista to win, and now the Mordus fight where I continue to wipe. I believe you need to cheese or telport him away from the adds. Even then, he morphs into a massive new enemy once one of your team dies. How do would you know that? How do you prepare for that?

My frustration is even using good tactics, like elevation, good team mix (range/DPS/Mage/Tank), proper level and good equipment, you are consistantly getting thrown a unfair curveball that requires a wipe & several reloads so you can anticipate it.

Mordus plus the adds are difficult enough, but to throw in his change? Give me a break. I loved the first game, but so far I am worried that this is going to be a reoccuring theme. You'll face these overpowered and outgunned situation and you'll have to figure out some contrived tactic or item to beat the fight.

Any guidance would be helpful. Maybe skills that you have found very successful or general strategies that seem to keep you progressing through the fights. Finally, is it common knowledge the tthe battles I've listed tend to have balancing issues for a lot of players?

[Yaldabaoth]

Kill the boss first, doesn't transform.

[PJM40]

Yes, I do know that, but getting to that point is the issue.

[Ashera]

Mordus is fairly easy with a physical group.
A bit more challenging with mages.

Anyway....
Start off, from the area that you get ambushed by the voidwoken and your party split...
Teleport one member down there, use them to teleport mordus directly to you.

DO NOT, kill his friends. He needs a corpse to transform (either his friends, or yours).
Beware, he has 30% perserverance (after a stun, he gains 30% shields back this can slow things down ALOT, especially with water spells freezing him... sigh)
He is weak to water damage. I struggled with this fight on my recent playthrough of all mages.
I had 7 deaths so many broken ashel idols of rebirth, ended up having one person escape... Run all the way back to the cave, stood at where the initial party member jumped down from, and abused that range/height as mordus can not ever get up there. That is cheese though, but I was low on scrolls at that point and didn't want to bash my face into a wall.

If you do not wish for cheese... Come back to Mordus at level 13 imo.

Either:
a- stun lock him without killing a single other member of Mordus's troupe. (slower due to perseverance) - this is the long method, low risk.

b- burn him before he kills one of your guys and transforms (a spiders kiss, ashen idol of rebirth will stop him from transforming too early, as he does kill you fast in human form) - short method - HIGH risk

c- cheese it like a girl, like i did. I was unable to do A or B as a mage group. I was level 11 though. - No risk, feel bad about your life.

Remember... Mordus is a BOSS. If the bosses aren't "curve balls", why should it be a boss?

[Apotheotic Otter]

There are multiple ways to approach each fight. Take the Lady Vengeance fight, for example. I simply used a mind maggot grenade and charmed 4 enemies for 4 turns on turn 1. Turned the fight trivial. Or, for the Mordus fight, positioned on wooden dock, it was possible to alpha strike him so he died on turn 1. Really, if straight forward battle doesn't get progress, regardless of how well you've mastered it, look for alternative options.

[Biggs]

I didn't run from the worm, I ran the dopey magisters into it and picked off the stragglers...

The LV ship battle I did not use ballistas I just zerg'd Malady and popped everything I had to make it to that golden turn # to get my win.

It's what you make of it, and winning is a pain in the ass.

[PJM40]

Originally posted by arctichound85:

There are multiple ways to approach each fight. Take the Lady Vengeance fight, for example. I simply used a mind maggot grenade and charmed 4 enemies for 4 turns on turn 1. Turned the fight trivial. Or, for the Mordus fight, positioned on wooden dock, it was possible to alpha strike him so he died on turn 1. Really, if straight forward battle doesn't get progress, regardless of how well you've mastered it, look for alternative options.

Where did you get those two things? I thought I saw and did everything in Fort Joy...

[Ashera]

Originally posted by arctichound85:

There are multiple ways to approach each fight. Take the Lady Vengeance fight, for example. I simply used a mind maggot grenade and charmed 4 enemies for 4 turns on turn 1. Turned the fight trivial. Or, for the Mordus fight, positioned on wooden dock, it was possible to alpha strike him so he died on turn 1. Really, if straight forward battle doesn't get progress, regardless of how well you've mastered it, look for alternative options.

Alpha strike isn't in this game. I highly doubt any build level 10-13 can one shot Mordus, even lonewolf. MAYBE clear his entire armor in one turn for one character and knockdown or something. But not all health/armor with one turn.... Let alone, one ability.

[BoogieMan]

Yeah, I attacked him from the elevated position and burned him down super fast, I think he got one attack off.

But then again the difficulty of each encounter is highlly affected by the order you experienced them in since gear can change so massively in just a few levels. Mordus was on the last few things I did at that point of the game and he was utterly without challenge.

Other fights I struggled with, so it is hard to say really what you need to do to make certain fights easier. The way the steep gear progress curve goes when combined with the open nature of the game I imagine 100 players could easily have very different impressions of a specific fight's difficulty.

When I first encountered the dude with the wargs in the lumber mill I was like there is NO chance I can take this guy right now. Came back later and curbstomped him easily. It's very erratic.

[Diablerie]

Mordus is easy, I usually just had one party member speak to him while I stealthed and positioned my team mates into advantageous positions either above him or somewhere close where they could attack without wasting their AP just getting near him. Alexander fight, I funneled the enemy to that alcove and passageway that leads to the broken section of bridge that has a lone chest on it. forcing his ranged support to reposition to try and hit me. Eventually the worm shows up which does a good job of distracting his help, then I focus on killing him and then just let the worm do it's thing, keeping clear of it and letting it butcher the Bishop's goons.

The ship battle is tricky if your party members don't have skills that allow them to move about the battlefield such as tactical retreat, cloak and dagger, spread your wings etc. I have them leap as close to Malady's position as possible, the priority targets are the gheists since they do a load of damage with the backstabs and armor ignoring hits., have your team focus on one at a time, ignoring the other gheist since you want to get rid of the armor on one of them as quickly as possible. At this point if you can't manage to kill it in one turn, break out the crowd control, polymorph, knockdowns whatever, keeping in mind the goal is to keep the enemy busy and you don't need to necessarily kill everyone.

[Gregorovitch]

Originally posted by Ashera:

DO NOT, kill his friends. He needs a corpse to transform (either his friends, or yours).

That is interesting, I did not know it. The implication of that is the encounter is specifically designed around isolating Mordus and killing him before he can kill one of you. I.e what some would call cheese. Additional evidence is that you get meaningfull dialog with him after you down him.

I eman that's exactly what I did on tactician after first getting wiped by him and is adds before he even trasnformed, then a second wipe after I did a little better and he turned monster on me. It may be possible to win this straight on Explorer, but on Tactician......diffficult to say the least.

OP: I agree that these battles can only really be won with devious tactics and also that you can't possibly know what's going to happen. They are designed like that deliberately. But from a roleplaying perspective, if we were not so conditioned by countless previous RPGs to go in, talk the guy, probably start a fight etc, and expect the encounter to be balanced for a reasonable chance first attempt blind we might look at it differntly.

For example, surveying the scene from your vantage point on the ship deck as you arrive, you may consider:

1. Is Mordus a nice guy? Er, no.
2..Any redeeming qialities? Well, there's no compelling evidence of such.
3. Is he a boss, is he likely to have some nasty surprises up his sleave? Duh.
4. Is he surrounded by minions brisling with big bows and staffs in advantageous positions? Er, gulp.
5. Is he likely to invite us in for a cup of tea, a slice of cake and a bit of a chat? /eyeroll
6. All in all then, what's the end game here? Mordus dead. Definitely.
7, So is there any good reason to bugger around with this? I suppose not.

So, conclusion? Let's kill the ♥♥♥♥♥♥ in the safest and quickest way possible. Let's have a look. Suppose we......

I mean, if you were playing honour mode, I dare say these sort of considerations would become pretty standard procedure - if you wanted your run to last for more than five minutes that is :)

[zenebatos1]

Like everyone else said there is more then one or two ways for a fight.

For example i din't know that you could use a ballista on the Lady Vengeance, i simply CC'd and stalled long enough for Malady to do her thing and get out of there.

For Alexandar and the Worm fight i simply positioned my team behind the corners of the huge Arch got in with one of my Char, started the discussion, then hauled arse back to the arch and kitting Alexandar, the Knight and the Gheist, the archer and the metamorph stayed where they where wasting their turns or going the long way around.

Killed the knight got Alexandar to 50% then the Worm shows up, i hauled arse with everyone and left Alexandar & the Gheist fight the worm, once the worm killed the Gheist and Alex was back at 50% and the worm at 60% i ran back in killed them, and called it a day.

For Moruds in TPed him out of the zone and Stunned him, killed the guys, then he changed form and focused on him with everyone, not easy, but still not that difficult.

A way to get around difficult fights is to get the Rez Idols from the Spider lady in the Arena of Driftwood, do the quest involved for each character and they all will have an Auto rez item.

[Ashera]

Originally posted by zenebatos1:

A way to get around difficult fights is to get the Rez Idols from the Spider lady in the Arena of Driftwood, do the quest involved for each character and they all will have an Auto rez item.

If this item gets consumed, on your next turn of ANY character (if single player) you can craft a revive scroll and the drained Idol to restore it... For 1ap. it is then ready to be used again.

Last time I fought mordus with full mages, 3 of my party died over and over and over and over while slowly whittling down his health due to this OP item.

[nyanko]

I didn't know Mordus could transform. I watched it in a youtube video after I finished my own playthrough. Just kill him right away and the fight will be rather trivial.

[AssFat]

kill him in one turn maybe 2 and he wont turn and the fight is over. i was actually bummed you could accidentally cheese it. his pals die when he dies

[scaryoutcome1]

Tip take out Mordus before worrying about his Allys.. otherwise he turns and becomes very difficult on low levels..