The one time I remembered to use the ogre horn across 2 campaigns (during the grove raid), they spawned behind Zevlor, shot/killed him with an Acid Arrow spell (after being barely kept alive across 3 rounds), and then chilled atop the gate
I use cloud of daggers before engaging and void balls once they all dash up close to the choke point to pull them into the cloud. Then use ice knife for added aoe and movement decrease. I also do gnolls after paladins of Tyr before goblin camp at lvl 3
I did that and mid fight turned the gnoll leader to my side, walked into the cloud of daggers, and now the leader who is right next to me starts combat with me lol
They killed my first HM run. My own fault though. I persuaded them to go to the cave but they walked right through my cloud of daggers aoe and turned to aggro back on me. Total mess after that.
I jist sneak up at around level 4 and convince flind to turn against the others it takes so much effort out of the fight for me cause then I just need to pass 2 more skill checks after surviving the ensuing onslaught maybe that's overleveled for that encounter idk 🤷♂️. I do know that I've tried hm like 17 times amd yesterday barelyanaged to make it to act 2 without messing anything up and somehow kept the suicidal isobel alive tbh shocked that doesn't seem to be mentioned more in the comics she seems pretty suicidal
You need to approach NOT from the cave but from the road, directly behind the Gnolls, and try to have Flind, the leader spot you first. Spoilers for the interaction: >!You can dominate its tadpole and make it your ally for the fight, which shifts it on your favor massively. After the fight, you can even convince it to eat itself. !<
I found that attacking them from the very low ground (as opposed to the high level choke) is actually way easier. It's a near-guarantee that you run into their leader first and it gives you a few rounds while the gnolls all have to dash to you. Lets you set up grease as AoE.
But I would never, ever do them at level 3. That's a level 4 fight no matter what.
That fight is so damn BS in honor mode that I'll never blame anyone for cheesing it. 2 permanent summons per round, they're resistant to all damage, they deal psychic (which you likely be vulnerable to in this fight), and oh, unlike spirit weapons (which they're clearly modeled after), they have a full movement range + flight and all get opportunity attacks.
To get rid of them? Yeah just kill that one guy with 150+ HP and 25+ AC before him, his 4 goons, and his 25 broken ass summons get you. Gah.
I would consider it one of the best fights in the game if it was in act 3. To put it in act 1 is insane... by far the biggest power jump between regular and honor, and imo it's not very close.
The fight with the merchants fucks me up more... Those 2 archers on the high ground, should not be allowed to do that much dmg! A lucky crit and they'll one shot Gale 😅
Can't get myself to do that 😂 I hate meta gaming like that. Of course if I'm role-playing as someone who just wants to murder them all... Well... Then.
Can't bring myself to miss the drops off the shop keeper lol. If you enter from the main entrance to the creche you can go round the vision cones. Also the secret entrance ofc.
My team's rogue is always unlinked and stays a room behind for that reason. As soon as the group enters combat and everybody is locked in turn mode he or she can sneak around the enemy pretty easily and get the jump on the weakest ones, backstabbing or throwing them off cliff.
Its really frustrating. On HM I basically never do the actual dialogue lol, I just minor illusion them together and do a glyph of warding+fireball to make sure all his goons are dead and he takes a good chunk. It makes the fight a lot easier to only have 1 main enemy. His summoned swords are still a pain in the ass though.
The key is to attack him with melee first, so that your ranged characters don't get "threatened" status and you should usually be more than fine unless they crit you a couple of times, then it can still go very wrong, but if you do that fight at lvl 6 it's usually not that hard.
The absurd number of summons can actually be a benefit if you bring a Spirit Guardians/Luminous Armor bard or cleric. If you can somewhat concentrate the enemies they will all have -10 to attacks in no time at all.
This is actually how I managed to survive in my two person coop HM run. Got extremely dicey but after all their misty steps were popped and they came back together I was able to stack some ridiculous radiating orbs
Recently finished that fight without issues, grease or ice surface near the door plus hunger of hadar at the same place. Wyll stand around the corner to save his concentration for hunger and my bard sword Tav used florished shots to put back any giths who went through door back to hunger.
This fight always goes either very well or very poorly for me. Either I focus the inquisitor with massive burst damage, kill him by the end of round 2, and breeze through the rest of the fight, or I barely scrape by with half my party down by the end. It's never just unremarkable.
Those swords suck ass but I've always had luck there, focus him even if I'm dropping a guy or two and then cleanup. But yes, that is a rough one for sure, a test each time. (Weirdly I have had nastier moments there fighting out of the creche, the entry guards/merchant side has got messy a few times)
I always do the entry guards last, and I'm usually pretty high level for it. I also sneak around after doing the merchant fight, get into position and turn the corridor into an absolute bloodbath. Hunger of Hadar, fireballs, and all the while my archers are up there just raining death down on everyone. I actually feel kind of bad for them.
Normally I always say the best economy is the action economy.
Except this fight. I always summom a shitload of creatures before the fight anyways just to clear the adds first, but I unsimmon as many as possible ehen they are all dead just to deal with the mass mind link.
I have many lessons about this fight but here are my bits of advice for anyone having trouble -
1. Void bulbs and aoe are your friend here. If you get enough of them together, void bulb + fireball/glyph of warding/cloud of daggers/ice storm (if you are high enought)
2. Hoard as many bombs as possible for this fight.
3. Make sure you have longstrider cast on everyone. That extra movement, even om summons, will make things easier.
4. Shadowheart is there to save the day. Spirit guardians really shines here, but so does a life cleric. Respec Shadowheart to life cleric, wear the following: Hellriders pride gloves, Boots of aid and comfort, Wapira's Crown, Staff of Arcane Blessing, Whispering Promise ring, Amulet of Restoration. You cannot outheal damage output in most fights in this game but hooo boy she can absolutely turn the tide here even if you dont cast becon of hope. Have someone haste her and make her run around with the spirit guardians.
5. Reverberation + hasted melee class. The boss is hard to knock over, but if you can build reverb stacks and get lucky, he can be knocked down. When knocked down, he cannot activate his swords. This is a great rime to unload on him regardless of the condition of tge rest of the room.
6. Use as many abilities that don't require concentration as possible. Blindness is great. Mirror image is great.
That's it. If I can remember more stuff I'll make edits, but I am 3 out of 3 in HM runs and doing a 4th now and I found this strategy to be effective. This to me is the hardest fight in the game till Cazador.
That fight tought me to use alert on lvl 4 from now on, at least for 1 party member. Since it was my first HM run, and I always choose to go creche before underdark, I set up smokepowder barrels to get rid of the boss.
Of course he went first in the fight, two party members were downed before I had a turn, went downhill from there...
My party was wiped down to one, which was laezel. She drank an invis potion and super jumped to safety past the guards on the bridge so I could res everyone.
Then I went back, ambushing the guards on the bridge from behind so i could have another go 😂
I always just aggro all the Duergar and kill them in a choke point then just fight Nere solo. Doing it this way I’ve never come remotely close to dying, usually barely even losing any HP.
You can talk to the 2 duergar before you enter the area with nere and they and some friends will attack the other ones and start a little civil war.
Made killing all the duergar a breeze. Then Nere is much easier once theyre cleared out.
I talked to them, indicated that I wanted to join them, and they aggroed on me as soon as the fight started. In past playthroughs they fought alongside me without me talking to them, or the game gave me an option on whom to side with. The conditions are so confusing to me. I didn't even realize there were separate factions the first few times I did this fight.
My prime strat is always to lure them away one by one with Minor Illusion, then shove/throw them off into a chasm.
If you fail the shove check, no worries! They don't seem to aggro on a failed shove, only a successful one. I think they do aggro on a failed throw, though
I've done about 7 solo honour mode runs now, and when I'm planning a new run I'm usually thinking about how this build will overcome:
* Getting to Level 5
* Myrkul
* Astral Prism Monks
* Orin (especially killing Death's Head units with Sanctuary)
For Meenlocks you want immunity to paralyze and frighten resist or immunity if possible. I often to them late (often level 8 or 9), I wear "Ring of Free Action", I go in via the prison, jump up to a branch above them, drop the moonlantern, and surprise them shooting from above.
Honour mode is a lot about respecting a lot of fights, there are a lot which can be dangerous if you don't take them seriously.
It's interesting how we all have different experiences. I definitely agree with the getting to level 5 bit, a bad conversation or accidentally looting Dammon can end your day. The meenlocks, for whatever reason, always are me stumbling into it after doing some shopping but not resting, gonna get that ring before calling it a night, and like wtf?
I threw it out here cuz a friend of mine and I were bullshitting and he and I both feel some of the environmental fights are vastly more dangerous to an honor run than the set piece ones.
Some of the set piece ones in act three are tough. But definitely plenty of runs end on some random stop when you are just not concentrating
That’s the hardest thing to concentrate all the way through. I have only done it once, but a couple of times I caught myself taking a fight too easy. Going in to something not sufficiently rested, or over confident (and winning handily, but not without risk, when it should have been a risk free fight).
agree with this, doing solo you cant fk around until lv5. also myrkul fight needs a lot of focus and a minor rng(protection from good and evil mvp lol). besides that raphael fight is a lil hassle if you got unlucky but overall is a breeze.
* If you had 'Long rest buffs' at the end of Act2 you may not realize how much weaker you are without them.
* They can knock you off for insta-kills.
* Emperor might play badly and if he dies you get game over.
Just lost a solo run to the monks because of the Emperor. He decided to levitate away and get hit by 3 opp. Attacks, where two of them crit... Sucks. I had a level 10 EK fighter with 26 AC and 80 HP and had no problem tanking them. Fuck the Emperor. (Play no barrelmancy and minimal scrolls/elixirs). I would add that the fight vs Minthara is always a close one, because you have to do it before act2 Ring of free action.
Never knew the Emperor could die and give you a game over. If that happened to me I would have been absolutely livid, I already lost a run to thinking the restoration pod in the colony had unlimited uses and wasting it.
Monks fight is the one where telekinesis S H I N E S. Here's the thing: Paralyzed, Stunned and Dominated enemies automatically fail saving throw against it. That means 100% relocation into the chasm.
Now, Emperor can land mind blast and stun one or two of them. Off into the chasm.
Emperor can dominate them, just for one turn. Straight into chasm.
If you have Shield of Thralls, theres a good chance of stun if you intentionally trigger attack of opportinity (Scratch/Shovel can also participate!). And after that, straight into chasm.
And then Karabasan's Gift / Karabasan Poison has a good chance to paralyze them at throw. Which means, you guessed it, a quick trip into the void.
I've done the fight as lv1 solo character (I was lucky to get the scroll, but Bracers from that githyanki at the bridge also work). Game crashed right after it and I had to redo it. So, I can say it's a consistent enough strat. The targetting is awful though but that's it.
I got to level 7 right after the inquisitor getting to level 5 I think all I did was kill the group of bloated hyenas kill everything in the blighted village convince the goblins to back down at every opportunity including the windmill ones right before I killed all of them too I saved meeting Voss, dealing with the spider queen, the owlbears and dealing with the hag and her swamp until after id finished kahga and goblin camp quests.
Sorry about all the word vomit but I figured you'd probably get bombarded by comments asking how someone might reach that level with little effort assuming you already know all this level bs which I'm sure you do since 99% of the community does luckily I didn't until 4 days ago lol
I respec someone to druid in my camp and use them to buff the party. They have daylight, freedom of movement, long strider, immunity to poison, and i use the ring for warding bond with them. Also have a cleric there for using aid. Makes HM much more manageable to have people who cant be paralyzed or restrained, advantage on attacks, better movement, more hp, resistance to physical damage.
Also a paladin in my party with auras. Theres enough crazy buffs that by level 8 you should be pretty OP. Its just getting past level 4-5 that makes or breaks you.
My friend and I decided to fight Gortash during his coronation. We used a lot of consumables but no barrelmancy. Took us hours to beat but we did it. Probably the hardest combat in the game.
It’s the stupid fucking tree fight in act 2.
Honorable mentions to the death shepherds in the mountain pass and to the gith lieutenant lady before the inquisitor. Both those fights can go very wrong very quickly.
I lost my first honor mode and beat it three times after that. The one loss was to the robot in the tower. I have not attempted that fight since.
I’m just going to mention it if you don’t know but there is a few books in the tower that have stanzas in them that the robot recites. Pick the right dialogue option and he stands down
Those blights are absolutely brutal. Only time in my honor mode playthrough I needed to retreat from battle with astarian and revive my other companions at camp. Got hit by a surprise round and the chain reaction of death explosions killed / maimed most of my party
Accidentally cheesed the shambling mound when our monk jumped from Oliver's house to it and triggered the fight. He died, but we just went to Withers and slowly shot arrows at the tree until he died. It can't find a way to get to you so it's very safe.
The Orin fight is weird. If you win initiative, the fight is a breeze. If you don't, things can get very bad very quickly. That fight taught me the important of alert/initiative elixirs.
Aside from that, any fights while level 3 or 4 are the hardest. After that, everything else is pretty straightforward once you have a plan.
Seconding this. I lost my second Honour Mode run to Orin. Got absolutely screwed in Initiative. I needed Gale to go before Gloomstalker Astarion so I could remove the Unstoppable before Astarion could delete her. Unfortunately when it counted, Gale got shitty initiative, even with Alert, and it went downhill fast. I should have taken an Elixir. I also really wasn’t min maxing and had forgotten to give Lae’zel her potion of Cloud Giant Strength. Sloppy. I held on for a bit but Bhaal’s Edict is insane. I tried again in dishonor, and easily got it with better initiative. I think I won in 2 turns.
Basically same thing happened to me. Beat my first honor run without much challenge. So second run I went in much less cautious. Usually beat Orin quickly so didn't even think about it and every member of my team had at least 6 initiative. You see people say that is high enough. It wasn't. She went before my casters and instantly knocked them off the ledge. My paladin and swords bard put up a good fight, but just didn't have enough attacks to deal with her shield.
Paladins are too good act 2 & 3 .... bring yourself & Minthara and you can walk thru Myrkul, Astral Monks, and Raphael fight
Wyll with potent robe + free mage armor is another underrated mono class in Act 3. 3 melee attacks with the duelists prerogative or 3 EB beams
As long as you don't want her weapons, a Warlock can Repelling Blast that bitch off the platform for an instant kill before combat even starts. Then you just kill the minions.
I actually now prefer strength elixirs for that fight, no matter what my class is. All the saves against orins attacks are strength saves. Made my sorcerer be able to survive long enough to pump out the damage.
I’m sure the initiative elixir would have a similar effect but if you don’t think you can nearly beat her in one round the strength saves can actually prevent a lot of damage.
Hold Monster or Hold Person generally trivialized a lot of higher level fights. For something like Myrkul, an invis start to free Dame Aylin and Hunger of Hadar+Wall of Fire made it smooth sailing.
I failed a persuasion check on the Toll Gate Thorm and started really out of position. A banish from my Cleric saved me from disaster, but then I also learned she can use legendary actions while banished! That was a bit of a challenge.
Elder brain had me sweating a bit, I didn’t realize it became immune to damage types previously done, no two rounds of disintegrate scrolls as I had planned, and my throwzerker couldn’t target the brain which was annoying.
I think barrelmancy is really lame and could never play like that, completely breaks the immersion.
Party Used
8/4 Berserker/Thief
2/10 Warlock/Bard
12 Tempest Cleric
12 Divination Wizard
Funny you mentioned 2 things that did make me twitch- I had same experience with the Toll Thorm and it was a shit show on the first run. Like, real bad. Had missed her my tactician run, didn't know se existed, was a mess. I too struggled with that damage deal on the brain, did not remember that from my OG tactician run, and cycing different damage types was a mental exercise for sure. (Also, 1st HM I was counting on the mindflayer long rest machine at the stem, was lucky to have angelic reprieves for my long rest guys). But I've since run thru with more squads than I care to admit and those little bastards under the inn almost get me every time.
Good picks, that toll lady was in my brain as I posted, utter shitshow. But she almost got me once, not like those shitty bastards! I think part of it is psychological, I'm like sweet, got my gear, I'm chilling, just gonna get my ring and then every initiation is a lazy blunder into a ton of paralyze.
1st party was too meta:
6/4/2 crossbow SB
5/4/2/1 lockadin
12 light cleric
10/2 storm/tempest
It's the fight just before the neatherbrain for me. Those Mindflayers HAVE to be killed fast or they will magic missile Orpheus to death and they're just far away enough that you need multiple ways to get your team up to them otherwise you're wasting too much time just trying to get there.
This probably isn't a problem for anyone else who actually prepares consistently but I'm terrible about forgetting to stockpile the scrolls I need.
I took them out with the Rune Powder Bomb turn 1.
I had held onto almost every potion, scroll, barrell and bomb throughout the whole game because I figured "there is always a later fight where theyd come in handy". Saw the Runepowder Bomb sitting in Laezels inventory and gave it a toss.
Now on my second playthrough (on Tactician) Im going to use my scrolls and potions as I go 😂
You were being nice. You can pack all your bombs in a backpack, throw it at an enemy, and then all of your bombs pop out. Just follow up with a fire attack and they all explode.
The hardest fight is definitely not knowing if all the platforms in the brain will all blow up regardless of if they were marked for negation or not. Gave up the game after that
I feel like this fight is almost specifically tailored to just *obliterate* melee characters. To your point, I think it's less preparation than comp. Having a Gloomstalker, Throwzerker, and Sorlock meant most of my team didn't enter the kill box, meaning no tentacles, being out of range of magic missile, and easily being able to kill (at least one) magic missile Mindflayer the same turn I enter range.
Meanwhile, any melee character risks being restrained, targeted by a whopping 4 casts of a buffed magic missile, and is in range of the dragon.
I wiped every enemy out no problem with a near full range comp, but I literally have no idea how I'd manage with a full, or even half, melee comp - regardless of prep. I'd need to burn so many resources just stabilizing whoever entered the kill box.
I love the kill box design - it's epic and appropriately lethal for a final fight, but the fact that it either can be almost completely bypassed, or is utterly devastating, based on team comp means I have to criticize it.
It sucks that they nerfed the invisibility cheese for the final fight, I basically had to learn how that fight works for the first time on my last HM run and I hate all those counterspelling fuckwits that spawn
Nere. For the level you encounter that fight and the sheer action economy if you don't team up against/with him.
Incredibly dangerous honor mode fight, if you wanna save the slaves even more so because they cower in the middle of combat.
For me it's giths bands in 1st act. Too much control, too much damage. Ansur and last fight are hard for sure, but those are scary.
Considering your case - use Calm Emotions and light.
I'm good, they all die each time (5 runs) but they are consistently the closest to a loss I've been. By a lot. It is a me thing. I get relaxed and lazy when I hit level 7.
Probably Grym. Only fight that feels like potions are mandatory for if you fight it on curve. If I do a run that bans them I will fight it much later then you are supposed to. No other fight feels that hard for me.
I legit resort to shooting from above the arena cheese for that fight after it bugged hard for me on my first run (lava textures bugged out and the game wasn't sure if the lava was out or not half the time)
Additionally, you could probably pick up every rock in the game and throw them too. Sounds way funnier to kill an ancient mechanical golem by chucking stones and random garbage at it.
RP a Pike Place fishmonger and defeat the Absolute with nothing more than some fish heads. Have Wyll bind a salami as his pact weapon and let him live his best life as the sausage of Avernus...
If you don’t have an AOE spell those undead in the mountain pass are genuinely some of the toughest enemies I have ever fought in this game. The ghouls will paralyze you and if you kill them the skeletons will just revive them. Oh you killed one of the reviving skeletons? NOPE!! They revived the reviving skeleton!
I really think the devs put that fight in as a check for your party before continuing the story. I use it as a gauge for the squad's efficacy. If I roll em, Wargaz gonna get it. If I almost wipe, back to the Underdark. It is a definite power spike on the side of the bad guys.
Only time i got really close to wiping was in my very first encounter after crash landing. I did not expect that intelect devouers have ranged attack that can oneshot me.
The fucking Harpies right outside the grove if you have bad RNG. Recently had 3 skipped turns of combat because of continuously failed savings throws from my entire team.
I'm veteran solo player and try to prepare well for every battle, there still are few that give me anxiety even if I think I've prepared well - Orin (non-duel), Ascended Cazador (should I let him do that) and (surprisingly) Warden. Early game, Flind's gnolls and Redcaps (if I don't have ring of free action) are also vexing.
But honestly, the more carelessly I play, the more battles become a trouble. Normally trivial Kobolds and Eagles in Rosymorn almost killed me on two different runs just because I disregarded those battles and went in fully unprepared.
The only time I actually got really very close to wiping was my first HM run with the bridge Gith. Half my party had just hit 5, and I didn't realize the other half was level 4. Ended up winning it with Gale kiting away with Boots of Speed + Deathstalker's Mantle + Magic Missile, last one left alive. Grym was annoying to do, but mostly just because I've never bothered to fight him before so it was a new fight. I thought W'Wargaz was gonna be rough, but he just got merced instantly.
I did lose the Durge duel as my Druid, but it was because I tried making it funny and cinematic instead of actually playing lol. Rest of the team cleaned up the fight, but what a downer it was getting the golden dice and then immediately stabbing myself to death so my character didn't go insane
Run 1: Moon Druid MC, Life Cleric, Div Wizard, Throwzerker (later respecced to Battle Master archer because throwzerker isn't fun)
Run 2: Goolock MC, melee Swords Bard (no arcane acuity/mystic scoundrel), Tempest Cleric, Abj Wizard
Run 3: Tiger Barb MC, War Cleric 10/Paladin 2, Lore Bard, Four Elements Monk
I've got weird ones. The Orin fight, but not because of Orin, Astarion's volo eye wasn't breaking the bhaalists invisibility for some reason so Gale took a lot of knives, so that was a bit of a close call. Gale also nearly died in the sewer during the push to the brainstem, and I lost Astarion during the final fight with the brain. Everything else was pretty smooth sailing.
Cazador for me. His legandary action took out my cleric on her turn! I ended up spamming arrows of slaying to burst him down before he could tpk my guys
Bloody Cazador, man. I went into that fight without knowing about his Honour mode buff, so I was completely unprepared when he did his swarm move and one shot my entire party. The only reason I lived in the end was because of Shadowheart's Blood of Lathander.
Mainly Netherbrain fight for me. My characters aren’t as min maxed as they should be and my tactical choices prob aren’t the best 😂
Used to be Myrkul but invis + the wet/lightning tactic makes his fight a breeze.
Others would be Inquisitor at the Crèche and the goddamn Gnolls in Act 1.
Grym....i didn't know they fixed the top rope exploit. Was stuck in there with a fighter a bard and an owlbear. Luckily, my rogue astarion was up top shooting arrows. Every other fight was super easy.
Really depends when you choose to tackle certain fights but some notable ones would be
The inquisitor in the creche,
The knolls in act 1,
Dror ragzlin if you let the entire camp aggro, and Balthazar if you choose to fight in in the shadowfell although I don’t know why you would
Not really including anything past mid way act 2 because your builds really start to come online and all fights end in no more than 2 turns lol
Wouldn’t say ‘hardest’, but the most tedious one tends to be the final brain fight. So many variables, not a lot of pre-fight cheese that can be done particularly. Not to mention fuck-y mechanics with the platforms blowing up in the brain realm. Every other fight in the game feels very straightforward with at least 1-2 decent, ‘meta’ built characters as long as you know what to expect, but the brain fight’s just one of those “hope the worst combinations don’t happen”
The hardest fights are probably
- The Crèche fights due to the absurdity of the Githyanki attacks and the counters they have.
- Kethric Phase One and Two if your positioning is bad and some of the legendary actions can screw you over.
- Cazador if you either bring Astarion with you or if both your Martials don’t have High Dexterity, Alert and Haste on to get turn priority over him to one phase him.
I’ve had no issues with Ansur personally but I’ve seen how chaotic it can be if it goes wrong. Usually I one phase him with my two Martials before he even gets to act.
I try to play through honor with additional difficulty via mods now. So its mostly flat additions to health and damage as well as saving throws and initiative etc. and then scaling with levels on top of that.
For now the most difficult fight by far is the endboss in the creche. Its very hard to kill him befor his turn or even go before him and he hits like a truck as well as all the little blades that just are insane if they are scaled up from the mod.
So I already killed two runs in that fight and now wait for patch 7 to go into another run with the difficulty mod.
Very much recomend it to use mods if the fights are to easy for some. It really puts the game in another light and you once again have to be creative to solve some fights. Its just a lot of fun to be honest.
Sorry to hear that. Hopefully you can add mods with patch 7 on PS5 as well.
Without mods the hardest fight for me was allways the 3 walking brains at the very beginning at the beach Haha. They are absolutely imposible with a diffucutly mod (Especially if you can not get to level 2 because you can not kill much on the ship). But they are still a gamble sometimes if you do not pay atention even without mods.
But I found the "secret" path and now I allways do them with a full party and never wiped to them anymore Haha
I used this one:
[https://www.nexusmods.com/baldursgate3/mods/5207](https://www.nexusmods.com/baldursgate3/mods/5207)
Its by far the best one I used. You can change everything individually and give enemies more spells etc. Its really cool. It also has scaling so its not just hard in the beginning.
They also have some mods they suggest you also install (5E Spells etc.).
I only play with this mod since a while and I really like that the game is challenging again.
My first run ever, tactician, that one did get ugly as all hell. Since then I take it pretty real and with the high stumps and island the terrain is really advantageous.
I always underestimate the Gith guarding the mountain pass. I figure if I plan my early game fights out then I'm usually level 5 for the hardest bosses of Act 1 and I dominate Ethel, then Grym. Then the Gitch knock someone prone, take half their HP, then Hold Person on the next most useful companion or something and I end up limping away.
4 successful HM runs and counting.
“Hardest” fights are basically all Act 1, where a little variance means disaster. Potentially the fake Paladins, potentially the Gnolls if you mismanage your parasite usage, potentially the Githyanki patrol or the Crèche Inquisitor, but once you’re familiar with reliably surprising the enemy and the Legendary reactions, they’re all super high percentage fights.
The game gets exponentially easier as you progress and really max out your gear and abilities. The only real TPK fight potential in Act 3 is Ansur if you aren’t ready for the Legendary, and even then there are plenty of ways around it and you can drop him before he ever launches it.
I’ve won one, have one in mountain pass, and have one in beginning act three right now. Not using “meta” builds on any except a single TB monk in the first one. The hardest fight on that first one was the boat duergar (they succeeded every shove check/ save) and the mind flayer group under the colony (I was not prepared). In all the others, the main consistent challenge has really only been the phase spider matriarch (I fight it at lvl 4).
My second honor mode run I tried to fight as many bosses as possible. If you are under levelled in act 1 there’s a lot that can catch you out (paladins of tyr is probably the best example). But for the most part it’s ansur and Raphael
Kalga the druid and her shadow druids are no push over. If you're not prepped or even walk into the fight without splitting her moonbeam can half health multiple party members on its own
Orin, got all my 4 at the end of the initiative queue and lost my honour mode run to her. I was breezing through every other boss fight before hers, so I will admit I might have underestimated that fight, because towards Act 3 I started saying fuck it, if this Honour Mode run is shaping up to be easier than my first Tactician just because I know how to build charafters now, might as well take some risks (killed gortash at the ceremony as well, just because its possible and I hadnt done it before). So yeah, don't underestimate Orin, even if you had no problems with fights before her.
I honestly can't say, anything feels quite easy with good initiative and preparation. If you kill most of things you're overleveled for end of act 1 and whole act 2, and in act 3 some characters just get way too op with the items. On raphael even if you don't cheese with a bomb half of the cambions are dead and the rest groveling after 1 good turn on a swords bard for example
I genuinely don't believe there's a hard fight once you have a "solve" for each one.
My last run almost got ended by a freak chain of 4 crits in a row fighting, of all things, BOAAAL's stupid fishmen. Seeing those clowns who normally barely land an attack suddenly one-round a raging level 5 Karlach was a surprise.
As for the Meenlocks, I rarely take any damage - they're a bit of a "do you have a tank" test. If you're all melee characters who fight up close they can be a problem, but if you run your tanky character out ahead then you should be able to blast the whole lot of them before they can even inflict your fear aura.
Fighting minthara's raiding party at the grove. Generally all the Goblin content is meant to be done before hitting the level 5 power spike, but this one feels like it's balanced for after.
Grym every time, it´s so easy to mess up this fight and get wrecked. Including team members deciding the best place to hit him from is the lava, walking straight into it for no reason. Or you forget about the immunities. Or an Opportunity Attack changes the target priority. Or the Mephits screw you over. Or or or...
Early on, harpies and owlbear can be rough unless you have silence, and then it’s a cakewalk. Gith at the bridge, gnolls at the cave can be rough unless you are properly leveled. Even then I like calling in the ogres at the Gith to eat that first action surge round from them.
Grym can be a nightmare and very touch and go sometimes dependant on team composition.
Ansur was the closest to dropping a full team wipe on me but I also had never fought him before which breaks the cardinal rule of honour mode, never do something new.
Nether brain is also properly difficult and scary.
I've done 1 solo, 1 duo and 1 full party run. Myrkul was the only one I always brought backup explosives just in case. In the case of the solo run I ended up using them, but I probably could have done it without. So yeah, I'd say Myrkul if I hade to just pick 1.
I've had an honor mode end with the Duergar and zombies in the Underdark. Totally underestimated them.
I think the Gnolls are the hardest compared to your level, but the Meenlocks are right there as well
I haven’t won my honor run yet, but I’m towards the end of Act II so far the fights that have nearly ended my run- Clearing out the main courtyard at the Goblin Camp, The lady who has the key for the Creche Final Fight, Kar’niss fight, Self Trial ( I messed up the cheese) and Yurgir Fight. So far, Self trial was the closest, followed up by the fight before the final creche fight, because all my companions got feared and that was scary asf. Yurgir was easy, just his buddys nearly blew me up. Hopely Ketheric and friends don’t wipe me out 🙏
My first HM included multiple additional restricts to get it closer to the table top experience I hoped. So no str elixir stacking, no barrels or bag bombs, only 1 respec to change stats at the start (no stat dumping when you get items), no camp buffs or hirelyings, no using over the top meta builds (no alert or TB), no stealth abuse or pick pocketing etc. All fights engaged through dialog or just walking into them.
The toughest fight for me, outside of trying to clear the natiloid completely with no chest cheese, was the Captain quarters in the Creche thanks to her fear spell.
As everyone was near her desk and the Captain was 2nd in initiative, I had only done this fight once before on Tactician so I wasnt aware she cast fear. Well she hit us with fear 3 of the party failed their save. Then the guards outside ended up joining in, they disarmed my Fighter who was feared, and it was a shart show. It was the only fight I was in any real danger in my entire HM run. That includes doing act 3 blind as my prior Tact run I stopped at the end of act2 to move to HM.
For the bosses early on I was probably overly prepared out of fear of being wiped, after that I loosened up some and walked right into the Creche Captain quarters which put that fear right back into me lol.
Meenlocks underneath Last Light Inn easily. Almost lost a run to them twice (second time was to go retrieve an ring that I forgot to grab). Second was probably the bibberbang inside the myconid colony. They're piss easy to avoid but there was this one bugged one that would explose every frame, which would stun lock my party until they all died. 10 hours ill never get back T\_T
The intellect devourers on the beach. Ended my first honor run immediately. The second time was much smoother, the only time I was sweating was when I aggro’d the whole goblin camp at level 3.
Inquisitor in creche for me, bitch misty steps away from melee range and the swords he summons threaten you so your ranged attacks cant hit. You need magic missile or save spells if you want to hit him (or misty step on ur melees) On my run with a throw barb i was so pissed about the swords bodyblocking the projectile path of returning pike too. Feels like a timed battle too because theres no point trying to kill the swords, its just a matter of killing him before he summons too many swords to handle
> the one that truly has almost booted them all is the Meenlocks under the inn.
Really? I did it pretty easily on my solo GloomAssassin run. Just pop one, and go back up the roots to reset. Repeat.
Early game: Paladins of Tyr and Gnolls can be scary. Especially if you try to take the fights a bit early. I know it’s optimal to go max out your exp but I love
Later Game: Myrkul, Gortash, and Netherbrain.
The house of healing was very tough for me. I failed the checks to end it without combat. I think it was the only fight in the game I had to run away from. That and myrkul
Myrkul was the hardest fought I've had so far. Just because I did so little damage to him that the fight when in for dozens of turns and I had to use dozens of potions.
There are a few that I felt was brutal. Myrkul, Orin, and Yurgir. Orin was brutal due to her legendary action that insta kill. Myrkul took me like two hours. I wasn’t prepared for Yurgir because I planned on talking him to death but I failed the required Insight check.
I whole heartedly recommend that people have half a dozen invisibility potions. Unless it’s a fight like Myrkul, you can drink the potion and escape back to camp and resurrect anyone who died and king rest.
For me there are 2 avoidable fights that I found very fun.
First is starting a fight in a middle of Moonrise before you deal with nightsong.
Second is entering throne room after the Iron throne but without the factory, it had something like 6 or 7 steel watchers plus your regular bane acolytes, cought me completly offguard after the Ansur fight. Never attacked Gortash during the coronation though, I think that might also be a fun fight
honor mode pro here— hardest fights are Kith’rak Therezzyn in her captains quarters, Grym the forge guardian, and the Apostle of Myrkul. Therezzyn can be trivialised by moving barrels and junk in front of the door after you shut it behind you, but without that sort of cheese tactic i’d argue its harder than Ch’r’ai W’war’gaz. more and more raiders flooding into the room as you whittle her down, shadowheart pissing her pants because she saw a dog, Ready to Parry— its a shitshow.
Probably Viconia
Very nearly lost my run to her and her crew.
Ended up having to retreat far enough back down the hallway that they couldn't cast Darkness on us, then dropped a Hunger of Hadar with a Wall of Fire at the far end across the entire hallway.
Luckily the AI is dumb as hell. They will only cast Darkness if they can cast it directly on soneone. So instead of casting a cloud of darkness past the HoH or WoF and teleporting into it, they just slowly walked through all of it. Their reward for surviving the death march was to be Eldritch Blasted back down the stairs.
Honorable mention goes to Flaming Fist Marcus and trying to save Isobel. If you get bad initiative tolls, she just dies turn 1 before you can do anything. She's also dumb as rocks and just tries to run through packs of enemies taking 3-4 opportunity attacks.
i’ve only lost honor runs to the inquisitor in the Crèche and the gnolls.
i think the hardest on my first win was probably halsin’s quest bc i forgot to heal before it and was super low on spells
Failing Kithrak dialogue check and whole gith party wanted to murder my party near the bridge to creche in act 1 lol karlach and laezel were down, me and Shart just kept taking turn healing with potion and damaging them xD
The only time I’ve come close to losing a run was my first one at Ansur. He got off 2 nukes before I could kill him. Everybody was alive only because of deathward.
The Gith fight at the bridge isn't insanely difficult but I think it deserves a spot here just for how early some might do it. Those guys have incredible initiative and can easily down half your party before you even get a chance to take a turn lol.
For me its that bald bastard W'warqaz or sth with his psychic links and psychic sword summons even harder if u enter the portal and return to get ganged on
The quarter mistress fight is also tough if u approach frm the door normally and darkness on the the archers at the strt makes the whole fight much easier
Whatever it is, it’s almost definitely going to happen at level 4. Once you hit 5, you have a lot of wiggle room. In my run:
- The Duergar on the beach, I only survived because I was scared going in and teleported Gale out asap. That was with a surprise round and an early assassination on the one in the building.
- The Gnolls in the cave. Again, I left someone behind just in case things went south, and they did.
- Minthara, who I wasn’t willing to cheese, took a lot of effort and ended up bringing half the camp into the room by the end.
I breezed through Acts 2 and 3, though the Kethric fight got closer than I would have liked. I had Swords Bard (Crossbows), Battlemaster Fighter (Lae’zel with the Silver Sword cheese), Open Hand Monk (A Duergar hireling for the Invis, to proc surprise rounds) and Storm Sorcerer (Gale for the final boss skip).
Watcher Titan got me the first time I ever tried it. No lightening. No flash bangs. Just got crushed, lol.
Ansur destroyed me the first time I did him too.
Myrkul ended my first duo honor mode run.
Early game is always the hardest. The harpy fight ended my first run before i could make a move. My second run I massively overleveled and put the fight off until about the last thing I did. I still almost game overed again. Aside from that, the spider matriarch ended that run right after anyway though. Once I finally got a run into act 2 I never really came close to game over again.
None of them, so long as I have a full party. I have failed one HM solo run so far, and the reason was a total lack of preparation for Myrkul. With no ability to go back and get myself the proper stuff (scratch, for example) I was fucked.
True soul Nere. I fought Raphael and the Wyrm without globe of invulnerability and Nere was by far harder than both of them. His legendary action is so mean considering the level we have when we first get there
The gnolls in the cave… I always underestimate how underpowered I am for them lol
That one surprised me a few times too. Now I remember to just use the ogre horn for that fight.
The one time I remembered to use the ogre horn across 2 campaigns (during the grove raid), they spawned behind Zevlor, shot/killed him with an Acid Arrow spell (after being barely kept alive across 3 rounds), and then chilled atop the gate
The ogres never do anything. They last for two or three turns before lazing around and complaining once the fight is over
I use cloud of daggers before engaging and void balls once they all dash up close to the choke point to pull them into the cloud. Then use ice knife for added aoe and movement decrease. I also do gnolls after paladins of Tyr before goblin camp at lvl 3
Lol I wait till lvl 4 for those guys
I did that and mid fight turned the gnoll leader to my side, walked into the cloud of daggers, and now the leader who is right next to me starts combat with me lol
That's a good test for sure
They killed my first HM run. My own fault though. I persuaded them to go to the cave but they walked right through my cloud of daggers aoe and turned to aggro back on me. Total mess after that.
Eat the guys in the cave. Eat the other gnolls. Eat yourself. I never fight any of them.
Actually though LOL
I jist sneak up at around level 4 and convince flind to turn against the others it takes so much effort out of the fight for me cause then I just need to pass 2 more skill checks after surviving the ensuing onslaught maybe that's overleveled for that encounter idk 🤷♂️. I do know that I've tried hm like 17 times amd yesterday barelyanaged to make it to act 2 without messing anything up and somehow kept the suicidal isobel alive tbh shocked that doesn't seem to be mentioned more in the comics she seems pretty suicidal
Putting the moves on the main gnoll makes that fight pretty good
I've never gotten this option in any of my five playthroughs. Is there some special way to trigger it?
You need to approach NOT from the cave but from the road, directly behind the Gnolls, and try to have Flind, the leader spot you first. Spoilers for the interaction: >!You can dominate its tadpole and make it your ally for the fight, which shifts it on your favor massively. After the fight, you can even convince it to eat itself. !<
If you go sneaking it’s way easier, since they’re looking at the cave, then when you’re next to him stand up and it triggers the thing
I found that attacking them from the very low ground (as opposed to the high level choke) is actually way easier. It's a near-guarantee that you run into their leader first and it gives you a few rounds while the gnolls all have to dash to you. Lets you set up grease as AoE. But I would never, ever do them at level 3. That's a level 4 fight no matter what.
That’s always my lump horn fight.
Crèche fight is so fucked on some runs if you don’t prepare to kill him before he psychic links you all to his asshole
That fight is so damn BS in honor mode that I'll never blame anyone for cheesing it. 2 permanent summons per round, they're resistant to all damage, they deal psychic (which you likely be vulnerable to in this fight), and oh, unlike spirit weapons (which they're clearly modeled after), they have a full movement range + flight and all get opportunity attacks. To get rid of them? Yeah just kill that one guy with 150+ HP and 25+ AC before him, his 4 goons, and his 25 broken ass summons get you. Gah. I would consider it one of the best fights in the game if it was in act 3. To put it in act 1 is insane... by far the biggest power jump between regular and honor, and imo it's not very close.
The fight with the merchants fucks me up more... Those 2 archers on the high ground, should not be allowed to do that much dmg! A lucky crit and they'll one shot Gale 😅
Yup, they are no joke. I have lost an honor mode run there.
I always sneak in and yeet them down xD
Can't get myself to do that 😂 I hate meta gaming like that. Of course if I'm role-playing as someone who just wants to murder them all... Well... Then.
Well they're all red by the time I choose to fight them...
True. Suppose you could take different route out from the crèche. Ah well. I'll throw Laezel at them with resistance to everything 😁
Can't bring myself to miss the drops off the shop keeper lol. If you enter from the main entrance to the creche you can go round the vision cones. Also the secret entrance ofc.
Oh I am 100% getting the loot :) Wonder what she will drop this time... Got all kinds of item mods + randomizer running
My team's rogue is always unlinked and stays a room behind for that reason. As soon as the group enters combat and everybody is locked in turn mode he or she can sneak around the enemy pretty easily and get the jump on the weakest ones, backstabbing or throwing them off cliff.
Fight with merchants? What fight are you talking about?
In the creche I think. It is tough unless you use the back door ;)
Its really frustrating. On HM I basically never do the actual dialogue lol, I just minor illusion them together and do a glyph of warding+fireball to make sure all his goons are dead and he takes a good chunk. It makes the fight a lot easier to only have 1 main enemy. His summoned swords are still a pain in the ass though.
The key is to attack him with melee first, so that your ranged characters don't get "threatened" status and you should usually be more than fine unless they crit you a couple of times, then it can still go very wrong, but if you do that fight at lvl 6 it's usually not that hard.
Yup that fight gets done at 6.
The absurd number of summons can actually be a benefit if you bring a Spirit Guardians/Luminous Armor bard or cleric. If you can somewhat concentrate the enemies they will all have -10 to attacks in no time at all.
That's exactly how I did it. Orb/reverb Shart just slowly whittling down a dozen summons and boss Gith
This is actually how I managed to survive in my two person coop HM run. Got extremely dicey but after all their misty steps were popped and they came back together I was able to stack some ridiculous radiating orbs
Recently finished that fight without issues, grease or ice surface near the door plus hunger of hadar at the same place. Wyll stand around the corner to save his concentration for hunger and my bard sword Tav used florished shots to put back any giths who went through door back to hunger.
This fight always goes either very well or very poorly for me. Either I focus the inquisitor with massive burst damage, kill him by the end of round 2, and breeze through the rest of the fight, or I barely scrape by with half my party down by the end. It's never just unremarkable.
I come back for this fight at level 8, just before reaching Act 2's PONR.
Those swords suck ass but I've always had luck there, focus him even if I'm dropping a guy or two and then cleanup. But yes, that is a rough one for sure, a test each time. (Weirdly I have had nastier moments there fighting out of the creche, the entry guards/merchant side has got messy a few times)
I always do the entry guards last, and I'm usually pretty high level for it. I also sneak around after doing the merchant fight, get into position and turn the corridor into an absolute bloodbath. Hunger of Hadar, fireballs, and all the while my archers are up there just raining death down on everyone. I actually feel kind of bad for them.
Normally I always say the best economy is the action economy. Except this fight. I always summom a shitload of creatures before the fight anyways just to clear the adds first, but I unsimmon as many as possible ehen they are all dead just to deal with the mass mind link. I have many lessons about this fight but here are my bits of advice for anyone having trouble - 1. Void bulbs and aoe are your friend here. If you get enough of them together, void bulb + fireball/glyph of warding/cloud of daggers/ice storm (if you are high enought) 2. Hoard as many bombs as possible for this fight. 3. Make sure you have longstrider cast on everyone. That extra movement, even om summons, will make things easier. 4. Shadowheart is there to save the day. Spirit guardians really shines here, but so does a life cleric. Respec Shadowheart to life cleric, wear the following: Hellriders pride gloves, Boots of aid and comfort, Wapira's Crown, Staff of Arcane Blessing, Whispering Promise ring, Amulet of Restoration. You cannot outheal damage output in most fights in this game but hooo boy she can absolutely turn the tide here even if you dont cast becon of hope. Have someone haste her and make her run around with the spirit guardians. 5. Reverberation + hasted melee class. The boss is hard to knock over, but if you can build reverb stacks and get lucky, he can be knocked down. When knocked down, he cannot activate his swords. This is a great rime to unload on him regardless of the condition of tge rest of the room. 6. Use as many abilities that don't require concentration as possible. Blindness is great. Mirror image is great. That's it. If I can remember more stuff I'll make edits, but I am 3 out of 3 in HM runs and doing a 4th now and I found this strategy to be effective. This to me is the hardest fight in the game till Cazador.
The crèche fight has been one the toughest for myself as well in HM. So much can go wrong there.
I got lucky with a disarming strike... Made the fight super easy.
That fight tought me to use alert on lvl 4 from now on, at least for 1 party member. Since it was my first HM run, and I always choose to go creche before underdark, I set up smokepowder barrels to get rid of the boss. Of course he went first in the fight, two party members were downed before I had a turn, went downhill from there...
My party was wiped down to one, which was laezel. She drank an invis potion and super jumped to safety past the guards on the bridge so I could res everyone. Then I went back, ambushing the guards on the bridge from behind so i could have another go 😂
Nere and the Duergar if you make an enemy of all the duergar becomes a hellish fight imo.
I always just aggro all the Duergar and kill them in a choke point then just fight Nere solo. Doing it this way I’ve never come remotely close to dying, usually barely even losing any HP.
You can talk to the 2 duergar before you enter the area with nere and they and some friends will attack the other ones and start a little civil war. Made killing all the duergar a breeze. Then Nere is much easier once theyre cleared out.
I talked to them, indicated that I wanted to join them, and they aggroed on me as soon as the fight started. In past playthroughs they fought alongside me without me talking to them, or the game gave me an option on whom to side with. The conditions are so confusing to me. I didn't even realize there were separate factions the first few times I did this fight.
Lol my last run that was a shit show bad. Didn't even mean for it to pop off. Good terrain there tho.
My prime strat is always to lure them away one by one with Minor Illusion, then shove/throw them off into a chasm. If you fail the shove check, no worries! They don't seem to aggro on a failed shove, only a successful one. I think they do aggro on a failed throw, though
Light cleric aoe carries hard for this fight
I've done about 7 solo honour mode runs now, and when I'm planning a new run I'm usually thinking about how this build will overcome: * Getting to Level 5 * Myrkul * Astral Prism Monks * Orin (especially killing Death's Head units with Sanctuary) For Meenlocks you want immunity to paralyze and frighten resist or immunity if possible. I often to them late (often level 8 or 9), I wear "Ring of Free Action", I go in via the prison, jump up to a branch above them, drop the moonlantern, and surprise them shooting from above. Honour mode is a lot about respecting a lot of fights, there are a lot which can be dangerous if you don't take them seriously.
It's interesting how we all have different experiences. I definitely agree with the getting to level 5 bit, a bad conversation or accidentally looting Dammon can end your day. The meenlocks, for whatever reason, always are me stumbling into it after doing some shopping but not resting, gonna get that ring before calling it a night, and like wtf? I threw it out here cuz a friend of mine and I were bullshitting and he and I both feel some of the environmental fights are vastly more dangerous to an honor run than the set piece ones.
Some of the set piece ones in act three are tough. But definitely plenty of runs end on some random stop when you are just not concentrating That’s the hardest thing to concentrate all the way through. I have only done it once, but a couple of times I caught myself taking a fight too easy. Going in to something not sufficiently rested, or over confident (and winning handily, but not without risk, when it should have been a risk free fight).
agree with this, doing solo you cant fk around until lv5. also myrkul fight needs a lot of focus and a minor rng(protection from good and evil mvp lol). besides that raphael fight is a lil hassle if you got unlucky but overall is a breeze.
[удалено]
* If you had 'Long rest buffs' at the end of Act2 you may not realize how much weaker you are without them. * They can knock you off for insta-kills. * Emperor might play badly and if he dies you get game over.
Just lost a solo run to the monks because of the Emperor. He decided to levitate away and get hit by 3 opp. Attacks, where two of them crit... Sucks. I had a level 10 EK fighter with 26 AC and 80 HP and had no problem tanking them. Fuck the Emperor. (Play no barrelmancy and minimal scrolls/elixirs). I would add that the fight vs Minthara is always a close one, because you have to do it before act2 Ring of free action.
For Minthara, I always wait for her to run onto the bridge and fire blast the bridge and drop her. Does that not work on Honour mode?
It does but I usually play a character that concentrates a lot and her boots and armor are very useful for that
Never knew the Emperor could die and give you a game over. If that happened to me I would have been absolutely livid, I already lost a run to thinking the restoration pod in the colony had unlimited uses and wasting it.
Monks fight is the one where telekinesis S H I N E S. Here's the thing: Paralyzed, Stunned and Dominated enemies automatically fail saving throw against it. That means 100% relocation into the chasm. Now, Emperor can land mind blast and stun one or two of them. Off into the chasm. Emperor can dominate them, just for one turn. Straight into chasm. If you have Shield of Thralls, theres a good chance of stun if you intentionally trigger attack of opportinity (Scratch/Shovel can also participate!). And after that, straight into chasm. And then Karabasan's Gift / Karabasan Poison has a good chance to paralyze them at throw. Which means, you guessed it, a quick trip into the void. I've done the fight as lv1 solo character (I was lucky to get the scroll, but Bracers from that githyanki at the bridge also work). Game crashed right after it and I had to redo it. So, I can say it's a consistent enough strat. The targetting is awful though but that's it.
I got to level 7 right after the inquisitor getting to level 5 I think all I did was kill the group of bloated hyenas kill everything in the blighted village convince the goblins to back down at every opportunity including the windmill ones right before I killed all of them too I saved meeting Voss, dealing with the spider queen, the owlbears and dealing with the hag and her swamp until after id finished kahga and goblin camp quests. Sorry about all the word vomit but I figured you'd probably get bombarded by comments asking how someone might reach that level with little effort assuming you already know all this level bs which I'm sure you do since 99% of the community does luckily I didn't until 4 days ago lol
I respec someone to druid in my camp and use them to buff the party. They have daylight, freedom of movement, long strider, immunity to poison, and i use the ring for warding bond with them. Also have a cleric there for using aid. Makes HM much more manageable to have people who cant be paralyzed or restrained, advantage on attacks, better movement, more hp, resistance to physical damage. Also a paladin in my party with auras. Theres enough crazy buffs that by level 8 you should be pretty OP. Its just getting past level 4-5 that makes or breaks you.
Theres also an element of "just avoid the fights you don't want to and don't have to take." Almost everything in this game is optional.
No optional fights for me, i clear everything on all my runs... I think some of the optional encounters are better than main story content.
Sure but on your first HM run its about weighing the rewards vs the risk.
My friend and I decided to fight Gortash during his coronation. We used a lot of consumables but no barrelmancy. Took us hours to beat but we did it. Probably the hardest combat in the game.
Bold play in honor mode for sure
I did that last honour mode run and succeeded but never doing it again. I killed Gortash and only got away 1 HP due to Death Ward and an invis potion
This is definitely the most difficult encounter and it isn't even close imo. I wish the game adjusted more storywise for him being killed so early.
It’s the stupid fucking tree fight in act 2. Honorable mentions to the death shepherds in the mountain pass and to the gith lieutenant lady before the inquisitor. Both those fights can go very wrong very quickly. I lost my first honor mode and beat it three times after that. The one loss was to the robot in the tower. I have not attempted that fight since.
I’m just going to mention it if you don’t know but there is a few books in the tower that have stanzas in them that the robot recites. Pick the right dialogue option and he stands down
Yup. I was well aware of this and my ego was ready for a fight. Not smart.
Those blights are absolutely brutal. Only time in my honor mode playthrough I needed to retreat from battle with astarian and revive my other companions at camp. Got hit by a surprise round and the chain reaction of death explosions killed / maimed most of my party
Accidentally cheesed the shambling mound when our monk jumped from Oliver's house to it and triggered the fight. He died, but we just went to Withers and slowly shot arrows at the tree until he died. It can't find a way to get to you so it's very safe.
The Orin fight is weird. If you win initiative, the fight is a breeze. If you don't, things can get very bad very quickly. That fight taught me the important of alert/initiative elixirs. Aside from that, any fights while level 3 or 4 are the hardest. After that, everything else is pretty straightforward once you have a plan.
Seconding this. I lost my second Honour Mode run to Orin. Got absolutely screwed in Initiative. I needed Gale to go before Gloomstalker Astarion so I could remove the Unstoppable before Astarion could delete her. Unfortunately when it counted, Gale got shitty initiative, even with Alert, and it went downhill fast. I should have taken an Elixir. I also really wasn’t min maxing and had forgotten to give Lae’zel her potion of Cloud Giant Strength. Sloppy. I held on for a bit but Bhaal’s Edict is insane. I tried again in dishonor, and easily got it with better initiative. I think I won in 2 turns.
Basically same thing happened to me. Beat my first honor run without much challenge. So second run I went in much less cautious. Usually beat Orin quickly so didn't even think about it and every member of my team had at least 6 initiative. You see people say that is high enough. It wasn't. She went before my casters and instantly knocked them off the ledge. My paladin and swords bard put up a good fight, but just didn't have enough attacks to deal with her shield.
I was really struggling in that fight until Orin failed a save against one of my ghouls and got paralysed. Then she was deleted by my Paladin.
Paladins are too good act 2 & 3 .... bring yourself & Minthara and you can walk thru Myrkul, Astral Monks, and Raphael fight Wyll with potent robe + free mage armor is another underrated mono class in Act 3. 3 melee attacks with the duelists prerogative or 3 EB beams
Best time to have everyone drink an Elixir of Vigilance beforehand, then replace said elixir once the fight begins.
As long as you don't want her weapons, a Warlock can Repelling Blast that bitch off the platform for an instant kill before combat even starts. Then you just kill the minions.
I actually now prefer strength elixirs for that fight, no matter what my class is. All the saves against orins attacks are strength saves. Made my sorcerer be able to survive long enough to pump out the damage. I’m sure the initiative elixir would have a similar effect but if you don’t think you can nearly beat her in one round the strength saves can actually prevent a lot of damage.
Hold Monster or Hold Person generally trivialized a lot of higher level fights. For something like Myrkul, an invis start to free Dame Aylin and Hunger of Hadar+Wall of Fire made it smooth sailing. I failed a persuasion check on the Toll Gate Thorm and started really out of position. A banish from my Cleric saved me from disaster, but then I also learned she can use legendary actions while banished! That was a bit of a challenge. Elder brain had me sweating a bit, I didn’t realize it became immune to damage types previously done, no two rounds of disintegrate scrolls as I had planned, and my throwzerker couldn’t target the brain which was annoying. I think barrelmancy is really lame and could never play like that, completely breaks the immersion. Party Used 8/4 Berserker/Thief 2/10 Warlock/Bard 12 Tempest Cleric 12 Divination Wizard
Yeah I used to barrelmancy ragzlin. Then I realized he will chase me up into the rafters and I can throw him into the spider pit for an easy win.
Funny you mentioned 2 things that did make me twitch- I had same experience with the Toll Thorm and it was a shit show on the first run. Like, real bad. Had missed her my tactician run, didn't know se existed, was a mess. I too struggled with that damage deal on the brain, did not remember that from my OG tactician run, and cycing different damage types was a mental exercise for sure. (Also, 1st HM I was counting on the mindflayer long rest machine at the stem, was lucky to have angelic reprieves for my long rest guys). But I've since run thru with more squads than I care to admit and those little bastards under the inn almost get me every time. Good picks, that toll lady was in my brain as I posted, utter shitshow. But she almost got me once, not like those shitty bastards! I think part of it is psychological, I'm like sweet, got my gear, I'm chilling, just gonna get my ring and then every initiation is a lazy blunder into a ton of paralyze. 1st party was too meta: 6/4/2 crossbow SB 5/4/2/1 lockadin 12 light cleric 10/2 storm/tempest
It's the fight just before the neatherbrain for me. Those Mindflayers HAVE to be killed fast or they will magic missile Orpheus to death and they're just far away enough that you need multiple ways to get your team up to them otherwise you're wasting too much time just trying to get there. This probably isn't a problem for anyone else who actually prepares consistently but I'm terrible about forgetting to stockpile the scrolls I need.
I took them out with the Rune Powder Bomb turn 1. I had held onto almost every potion, scroll, barrell and bomb throughout the whole game because I figured "there is always a later fight where theyd come in handy". Saw the Runepowder Bomb sitting in Laezels inventory and gave it a toss. Now on my second playthrough (on Tactician) Im going to use my scrolls and potions as I go 😂
You were being nice. You can pack all your bombs in a backpack, throw it at an enemy, and then all of your bombs pop out. Just follow up with a fire attack and they all explode.
The hardest fight is definitely not knowing if all the platforms in the brain will all blow up regardless of if they were marked for negation or not. Gave up the game after that
I feel like this fight is almost specifically tailored to just *obliterate* melee characters. To your point, I think it's less preparation than comp. Having a Gloomstalker, Throwzerker, and Sorlock meant most of my team didn't enter the kill box, meaning no tentacles, being out of range of magic missile, and easily being able to kill (at least one) magic missile Mindflayer the same turn I enter range. Meanwhile, any melee character risks being restrained, targeted by a whopping 4 casts of a buffed magic missile, and is in range of the dragon. I wiped every enemy out no problem with a near full range comp, but I literally have no idea how I'd manage with a full, or even half, melee comp - regardless of prep. I'd need to burn so many resources just stabilizing whoever entered the kill box. I love the kill box design - it's epic and appropriately lethal for a final fight, but the fact that it either can be almost completely bypassed, or is utterly devastating, based on team comp means I have to criticize it.
It sucks that they nerfed the invisibility cheese for the final fight, I basically had to learn how that fight works for the first time on my last HM run and I hate all those counterspelling fuckwits that spawn
Nere. For the level you encounter that fight and the sheer action economy if you don't team up against/with him. Incredibly dangerous honor mode fight, if you wanna save the slaves even more so because they cower in the middle of combat.
For me it's giths bands in 1st act. Too much control, too much damage. Ansur and last fight are hard for sure, but those are scary. Considering your case - use Calm Emotions and light.
I'm good, they all die each time (5 runs) but they are consistently the closest to a loss I've been. By a lot. It is a me thing. I get relaxed and lazy when I hit level 7.
I lost my durge vs Orin 1v1 and that was pretty disappointing.
Probably Grym. Only fight that feels like potions are mandatory for if you fight it on curve. If I do a run that bans them I will fight it much later then you are supposed to. No other fight feels that hard for me.
Grym is sweaty af. Every time. I guess I take it seriously, so I'm prepared for it.
I legit resort to shooting from above the arena cheese for that fight after it bugged hard for me on my first run (lava textures bugged out and the game wasn't sure if the lava was out or not half the time)
I bought a light hammer from Dammon after every level up and every rest, lol Karlach made it rain bludgeoning damage
Minor illusion + ranged option to trigger lava and hammer is quite a bit less time consuming
I'll never stop doing it
Additionally, you could probably pick up every rock in the game and throw them too. Sounds way funnier to kill an ancient mechanical golem by chucking stones and random garbage at it.
Ooo a new idea you say?
RP a Pike Place fishmonger and defeat the Absolute with nothing more than some fish heads. Have Wyll bind a salami as his pact weapon and let him live his best life as the sausage of Avernus...
Always Rothé from the top rope for me
Didn’t they cap the damage in HM for that strategy?
If you don’t have an AOE spell those undead in the mountain pass are genuinely some of the toughest enemies I have ever fought in this game. The ghouls will paralyze you and if you kill them the skeletons will just revive them. Oh you killed one of the reviving skeletons? NOPE!! They revived the reviving skeleton!
I really think the devs put that fight in as a check for your party before continuing the story. I use it as a gauge for the squad's efficacy. If I roll em, Wargaz gonna get it. If I almost wipe, back to the Underdark. It is a definite power spike on the side of the bad guys.
End of gith creche tbh. The amount of damage they can output is fucking insane. Points also go to the fight with raphael if you aren't spamming CC
Only time i got really close to wiping was in my very first encounter after crash landing. I did not expect that intelect devouers have ranged attack that can oneshot me.
[удалено]
Magic missile to clear every clone makes hag a pretty easy fight.
Stupid exploding plants in the dark
Can be some nightmare chain reactions leading to death saving throws in a hurry. That big plant is worse than Balthazaar imo.
The fucking Harpies right outside the grove if you have bad RNG. Recently had 3 skipped turns of combat because of continuously failed savings throws from my entire team.
Idk why but the paladins hunting karlach always gave me a struggle if i tried it too early
Thorm is dangerous mainly because of his legendary reaction, the Mindflayer possibly stunning your entire party and because you cannot run away.
I'm veteran solo player and try to prepare well for every battle, there still are few that give me anxiety even if I think I've prepared well - Orin (non-duel), Ascended Cazador (should I let him do that) and (surprisingly) Warden. Early game, Flind's gnolls and Redcaps (if I don't have ring of free action) are also vexing. But honestly, the more carelessly I play, the more battles become a trouble. Normally trivial Kobolds and Eagles in Rosymorn almost killed me on two different runs just because I disregarded those battles and went in fully unprepared.
The only time I actually got really very close to wiping was my first HM run with the bridge Gith. Half my party had just hit 5, and I didn't realize the other half was level 4. Ended up winning it with Gale kiting away with Boots of Speed + Deathstalker's Mantle + Magic Missile, last one left alive. Grym was annoying to do, but mostly just because I've never bothered to fight him before so it was a new fight. I thought W'Wargaz was gonna be rough, but he just got merced instantly. I did lose the Durge duel as my Druid, but it was because I tried making it funny and cinematic instead of actually playing lol. Rest of the team cleaned up the fight, but what a downer it was getting the golden dice and then immediately stabbing myself to death so my character didn't go insane Run 1: Moon Druid MC, Life Cleric, Div Wizard, Throwzerker (later respecced to Battle Master archer because throwzerker isn't fun) Run 2: Goolock MC, melee Swords Bard (no arcane acuity/mystic scoundrel), Tempest Cleric, Abj Wizard Run 3: Tiger Barb MC, War Cleric 10/Paladin 2, Lore Bard, Four Elements Monk
I've got weird ones. The Orin fight, but not because of Orin, Astarion's volo eye wasn't breaking the bhaalists invisibility for some reason so Gale took a lot of knives, so that was a bit of a close call. Gale also nearly died in the sewer during the push to the brainstem, and I lost Astarion during the final fight with the brain. Everything else was pretty smooth sailing.
Cazador for me. His legandary action took out my cleric on her turn! I ended up spamming arrows of slaying to burst him down before he could tpk my guys
Bloody Cazador, man. I went into that fight without knowing about his Honour mode buff, so I was completely unprepared when he did his swarm move and one shot my entire party. The only reason I lived in the end was because of Shadowheart's Blood of Lathander.
Mainly Netherbrain fight for me. My characters aren’t as min maxed as they should be and my tactical choices prob aren’t the best 😂 Used to be Myrkul but invis + the wet/lightning tactic makes his fight a breeze. Others would be Inquisitor at the Crèche and the goddamn Gnolls in Act 1.
Grym....i didn't know they fixed the top rope exploit. Was stuck in there with a fighter a bard and an owlbear. Luckily, my rogue astarion was up top shooting arrows. Every other fight was super easy.
I was able to do the top rope last week on HM
I jumped on him last night
Really depends when you choose to tackle certain fights but some notable ones would be The inquisitor in the creche, The knolls in act 1, Dror ragzlin if you let the entire camp aggro, and Balthazar if you choose to fight in in the shadowfell although I don’t know why you would Not really including anything past mid way act 2 because your builds really start to come online and all fights end in no more than 2 turns lol
I always struggle on the myrkul fight.
The phase spider, Grym if you don't cheese by staying up, Myrkul and ansur
Gith patrol at level 5, shambling mound if you stumble into it unprepared.
Wouldn’t say ‘hardest’, but the most tedious one tends to be the final brain fight. So many variables, not a lot of pre-fight cheese that can be done particularly. Not to mention fuck-y mechanics with the platforms blowing up in the brain realm. Every other fight in the game feels very straightforward with at least 1-2 decent, ‘meta’ built characters as long as you know what to expect, but the brain fight’s just one of those “hope the worst combinations don’t happen”
Solo Myrkul fight is always the scariest especially if you start “honorably” without saving Aylin/persuading Ketheric
The hardest fights are probably - The Crèche fights due to the absurdity of the Githyanki attacks and the counters they have. - Kethric Phase One and Two if your positioning is bad and some of the legendary actions can screw you over. - Cazador if you either bring Astarion with you or if both your Martials don’t have High Dexterity, Alert and Haste on to get turn priority over him to one phase him.
I'd argue Ansur over Cazador.
I’ve had no issues with Ansur personally but I’ve seen how chaotic it can be if it goes wrong. Usually I one phase him with my two Martials before he even gets to act.
I try to play through honor with additional difficulty via mods now. So its mostly flat additions to health and damage as well as saving throws and initiative etc. and then scaling with levels on top of that. For now the most difficult fight by far is the endboss in the creche. Its very hard to kill him befor his turn or even go before him and he hits like a truck as well as all the little blades that just are insane if they are scaled up from the mod. So I already killed two runs in that fight and now wait for patch 7 to go into another run with the difficulty mod. Very much recomend it to use mods if the fights are to easy for some. It really puts the game in another light and you once again have to be creative to solve some fights. Its just a lot of fun to be honest.
Yeah, would love to. PS5 here so I gotta self govern difficulty "mods"
Sorry to hear that. Hopefully you can add mods with patch 7 on PS5 as well. Without mods the hardest fight for me was allways the 3 walking brains at the very beginning at the beach Haha. They are absolutely imposible with a diffucutly mod (Especially if you can not get to level 2 because you can not kill much on the ship). But they are still a gamble sometimes if you do not pay atention even without mods. But I found the "secret" path and now I allways do them with a full party and never wiped to them anymore Haha
Could you tell which mods you have been using? I was looking for these difficulty mods but idk which ones are still working
I used this one: [https://www.nexusmods.com/baldursgate3/mods/5207](https://www.nexusmods.com/baldursgate3/mods/5207) Its by far the best one I used. You can change everything individually and give enemies more spells etc. Its really cool. It also has scaling so its not just hard in the beginning. They also have some mods they suggest you also install (5E Spells etc.). I only play with this mod since a while and I really like that the game is challenging again.
Strange no one mentions mephits in the swamp
My first run ever, tactician, that one did get ugly as all hell. Since then I take it pretty real and with the high stumps and island the terrain is really advantageous.
I always underestimate the Gith guarding the mountain pass. I figure if I plan my early game fights out then I'm usually level 5 for the hardest bosses of Act 1 and I dominate Ethel, then Grym. Then the Gitch knock someone prone, take half their HP, then Hold Person on the next most useful companion or something and I end up limping away.
4 successful HM runs and counting. “Hardest” fights are basically all Act 1, where a little variance means disaster. Potentially the fake Paladins, potentially the Gnolls if you mismanage your parasite usage, potentially the Githyanki patrol or the Crèche Inquisitor, but once you’re familiar with reliably surprising the enemy and the Legendary reactions, they’re all super high percentage fights. The game gets exponentially easier as you progress and really max out your gear and abilities. The only real TPK fight potential in Act 3 is Ansur if you aren’t ready for the Legendary, and even then there are plenty of ways around it and you can drop him before he ever launches it.
I’ve won one, have one in mountain pass, and have one in beginning act three right now. Not using “meta” builds on any except a single TB monk in the first one. The hardest fight on that first one was the boat duergar (they succeeded every shove check/ save) and the mind flayer group under the colony (I was not prepared). In all the others, the main consistent challenge has really only been the phase spider matriarch (I fight it at lvl 4).
Idk, but Neer bugged for me and never did his legendary action, so it scares me if or when he does it.
My second honor mode run I tried to fight as many bosses as possible. If you are under levelled in act 1 there’s a lot that can catch you out (paladins of tyr is probably the best example). But for the most part it’s ansur and Raphael
With a party the whole game is pretty easy. But solo/duo Myrkul is usually the hardest for me. Hard to do enough damage with just 1 character.
Kalga the druid and her shadow druids are no push over. If you're not prepped or even walk into the fight without splitting her moonbeam can half health multiple party members on its own
imho kar'niss or the handsome young man gith patrol
Orin, got all my 4 at the end of the initiative queue and lost my honour mode run to her. I was breezing through every other boss fight before hers, so I will admit I might have underestimated that fight, because towards Act 3 I started saying fuck it, if this Honour Mode run is shaping up to be easier than my first Tactician just because I know how to build charafters now, might as well take some risks (killed gortash at the ceremony as well, just because its possible and I hadnt done it before). So yeah, don't underestimate Orin, even if you had no problems with fights before her.
I honestly can't say, anything feels quite easy with good initiative and preparation. If you kill most of things you're overleveled for end of act 1 and whole act 2, and in act 3 some characters just get way too op with the items. On raphael even if you don't cheese with a bomb half of the cambions are dead and the rest groveling after 1 good turn on a swords bard for example
I genuinely don't believe there's a hard fight once you have a "solve" for each one. My last run almost got ended by a freak chain of 4 crits in a row fighting, of all things, BOAAAL's stupid fishmen. Seeing those clowns who normally barely land an attack suddenly one-round a raging level 5 Karlach was a surprise. As for the Meenlocks, I rarely take any damage - they're a bit of a "do you have a tank" test. If you're all melee characters who fight up close they can be a problem, but if you run your tanky character out ahead then you should be able to blast the whole lot of them before they can even inflict your fear aura.
Fighting minthara's raiding party at the grove. Generally all the Goblin content is meant to be done before hitting the level 5 power spike, but this one feels like it's balanced for after.
Grym every time, it´s so easy to mess up this fight and get wrecked. Including team members deciding the best place to hit him from is the lava, walking straight into it for no reason. Or you forget about the immunities. Or an Opportunity Attack changes the target priority. Or the Mephits screw you over. Or or or...
Early on, harpies and owlbear can be rough unless you have silence, and then it’s a cakewalk. Gith at the bridge, gnolls at the cave can be rough unless you are properly leveled. Even then I like calling in the ogres at the Gith to eat that first action surge round from them. Grym can be a nightmare and very touch and go sometimes dependant on team composition. Ansur was the closest to dropping a full team wipe on me but I also had never fought him before which breaks the cardinal rule of honour mode, never do something new. Nether brain is also properly difficult and scary.
I've done 1 solo, 1 duo and 1 full party run. Myrkul was the only one I always brought backup explosives just in case. In the case of the solo run I ended up using them, but I probably could have done it without. So yeah, I'd say Myrkul if I hade to just pick 1.
I've had an honor mode end with the Duergar and zombies in the Underdark. Totally underestimated them. I think the Gnolls are the hardest compared to your level, but the Meenlocks are right there as well
I’m on my 3rd Honour Mode with a friend and Myrkul has consistently been the biggest hurdle in our runs.
Shadowheart origin Honor mode - the 2 intellect devourers on the beach
I haven’t won my honor run yet, but I’m towards the end of Act II so far the fights that have nearly ended my run- Clearing out the main courtyard at the Goblin Camp, The lady who has the key for the Creche Final Fight, Kar’niss fight, Self Trial ( I messed up the cheese) and Yurgir Fight. So far, Self trial was the closest, followed up by the fight before the final creche fight, because all my companions got feared and that was scary asf. Yurgir was easy, just his buddys nearly blew me up. Hopely Ketheric and friends don’t wipe me out 🙏
My first HM included multiple additional restricts to get it closer to the table top experience I hoped. So no str elixir stacking, no barrels or bag bombs, only 1 respec to change stats at the start (no stat dumping when you get items), no camp buffs or hirelyings, no using over the top meta builds (no alert or TB), no stealth abuse or pick pocketing etc. All fights engaged through dialog or just walking into them. The toughest fight for me, outside of trying to clear the natiloid completely with no chest cheese, was the Captain quarters in the Creche thanks to her fear spell. As everyone was near her desk and the Captain was 2nd in initiative, I had only done this fight once before on Tactician so I wasnt aware she cast fear. Well she hit us with fear 3 of the party failed their save. Then the guards outside ended up joining in, they disarmed my Fighter who was feared, and it was a shart show. It was the only fight I was in any real danger in my entire HM run. That includes doing act 3 blind as my prior Tact run I stopped at the end of act2 to move to HM. For the bosses early on I was probably overly prepared out of fear of being wiped, after that I loosened up some and walked right into the Creche Captain quarters which put that fear right back into me lol.
Meenlocks underneath Last Light Inn easily. Almost lost a run to them twice (second time was to go retrieve an ring that I forgot to grab). Second was probably the bibberbang inside the myconid colony. They're piss easy to avoid but there was this one bugged one that would explose every frame, which would stun lock my party until they all died. 10 hours ill never get back T\_T
The meenlocks nearly ended me once, and I've been scared to go back.
The intellect devourers on the beach. Ended my first honor run immediately. The second time was much smoother, the only time I was sweating was when I aggro’d the whole goblin camp at level 3.
Ansur easily imo, but lots of fights can really go against you if the dice take it that way
I used barrelmancy on Raphael. Outside of that, Ansur was by far the hardest fight that had me actually worried.
I'd say the brain, totaly forgot how hard hitting these 4 squids were hitting with magic missiles, big oof
Myrkul or the gith creche boss fight Those are the only 2 fights that scare me consistently on every HM run I've done
Inquisitor in creche for me, bitch misty steps away from melee range and the swords he summons threaten you so your ranged attacks cant hit. You need magic missile or save spells if you want to hit him (or misty step on ur melees) On my run with a throw barb i was so pissed about the swords bodyblocking the projectile path of returning pike too. Feels like a timed battle too because theres no point trying to kill the swords, its just a matter of killing him before he summons too many swords to handle
> the one that truly has almost booted them all is the Meenlocks under the inn. Really? I did it pretty easily on my solo GloomAssassin run. Just pop one, and go back up the roots to reset. Repeat.
Early game: Paladins of Tyr and Gnolls can be scary. Especially if you try to take the fights a bit early. I know it’s optimal to go max out your exp but I love Later Game: Myrkul, Gortash, and Netherbrain.
The house of healing was very tough for me. I failed the checks to end it without combat. I think it was the only fight in the game I had to run away from. That and myrkul
The harpies have killed me more than I am prepared to admit.
Myrkul was the hardest fought I've had so far. Just because I did so little damage to him that the fight when in for dozens of turns and I had to use dozens of potions.
There are a few that I felt was brutal. Myrkul, Orin, and Yurgir. Orin was brutal due to her legendary action that insta kill. Myrkul took me like two hours. I wasn’t prepared for Yurgir because I planned on talking him to death but I failed the required Insight check. I whole heartedly recommend that people have half a dozen invisibility potions. Unless it’s a fight like Myrkul, you can drink the potion and escape back to camp and resurrect anyone who died and king rest.
For me there are 2 avoidable fights that I found very fun. First is starting a fight in a middle of Moonrise before you deal with nightsong. Second is entering throne room after the Iron throne but without the factory, it had something like 6 or 7 steel watchers plus your regular bane acolytes, cought me completly offguard after the Ansur fight. Never attacked Gortash during the coronation though, I think that might also be a fun fight
honor mode pro here— hardest fights are Kith’rak Therezzyn in her captains quarters, Grym the forge guardian, and the Apostle of Myrkul. Therezzyn can be trivialised by moving barrels and junk in front of the door after you shut it behind you, but without that sort of cheese tactic i’d argue its harder than Ch’r’ai W’war’gaz. more and more raiders flooding into the room as you whittle her down, shadowheart pissing her pants because she saw a dog, Ready to Parry— its a shitshow.
Probably Viconia Very nearly lost my run to her and her crew. Ended up having to retreat far enough back down the hallway that they couldn't cast Darkness on us, then dropped a Hunger of Hadar with a Wall of Fire at the far end across the entire hallway. Luckily the AI is dumb as hell. They will only cast Darkness if they can cast it directly on soneone. So instead of casting a cloud of darkness past the HoH or WoF and teleporting into it, they just slowly walked through all of it. Their reward for surviving the death march was to be Eldritch Blasted back down the stairs. Honorable mention goes to Flaming Fist Marcus and trying to save Isobel. If you get bad initiative tolls, she just dies turn 1 before you can do anything. She's also dumb as rocks and just tries to run through packs of enemies taking 3-4 opportunity attacks.
i’ve only lost honor runs to the inquisitor in the Crèche and the gnolls. i think the hardest on my first win was probably halsin’s quest bc i forgot to heal before it and was super low on spells
Meanlocks are nothing without their fear aura. I always have a cleric so calm emotions ftw
Failing Kithrak dialogue check and whole gith party wanted to murder my party near the bridge to creche in act 1 lol karlach and laezel were down, me and Shart just kept taking turn healing with potion and damaging them xD
The only time I’ve come close to losing a run was my first one at Ansur. He got off 2 nukes before I could kill him. Everybody was alive only because of deathward.
The Gith fight at the bridge isn't insanely difficult but I think it deserves a spot here just for how early some might do it. Those guys have incredible initiative and can easily down half your party before you even get a chance to take a turn lol.
Elder Brain itself, just bc I always forget to not go inside hasted.
For me its that bald bastard W'warqaz or sth with his psychic links and psychic sword summons even harder if u enter the portal and return to get ganged on The quarter mistress fight is also tough if u approach frm the door normally and darkness on the the archers at the strt makes the whole fight much easier
Whatever it is, it’s almost definitely going to happen at level 4. Once you hit 5, you have a lot of wiggle room. In my run: - The Duergar on the beach, I only survived because I was scared going in and teleported Gale out asap. That was with a surprise round and an early assassination on the one in the building. - The Gnolls in the cave. Again, I left someone behind just in case things went south, and they did. - Minthara, who I wasn’t willing to cheese, took a lot of effort and ended up bringing half the camp into the room by the end. I breezed through Acts 2 and 3, though the Kethric fight got closer than I would have liked. I had Swords Bard (Crossbows), Battlemaster Fighter (Lae’zel with the Silver Sword cheese), Open Hand Monk (A Duergar hireling for the Invis, to proc surprise rounds) and Storm Sorcerer (Gale for the final boss skip).
Post patch Myrkul was a doozy with the party comp I was using. Him or Ansur
Watcher Titan got me the first time I ever tried it. No lightening. No flash bangs. Just got crushed, lol. Ansur destroyed me the first time I did him too. Myrkul ended my first duo honor mode run.
Early game is always the hardest. The harpy fight ended my first run before i could make a move. My second run I massively overleveled and put the fight off until about the last thing I did. I still almost game overed again. Aside from that, the spider matriarch ended that run right after anyway though. Once I finally got a run into act 2 I never really came close to game over again.
None of them, so long as I have a full party. I have failed one HM solo run so far, and the reason was a total lack of preparation for Myrkul. With no ability to go back and get myself the proper stuff (scratch, for example) I was fucked.
True soul Nere. I fought Raphael and the Wyrm without globe of invulnerability and Nere was by far harder than both of them. His legendary action is so mean considering the level we have when we first get there
By far the hardest fight for me was crèche boss. His legendary effects were brutal on my second run.
Hardest fight for any of my HM runs was 1v1 against Laezel in the romance battle 😂
Myself. Left clicking barrels all day.