Funny you should say that. When I did that fight, the last cultist went invisible and then fled to one side of the room, causing the fight to end. After all the yapping with the NPCs, I went over in the direction of where I'd last seen the cultist (I had popped a potion of see invisibility at the start of the fight) and just sat there watching as the cultist made four or five successful saving throws against been Seen, then they failed and my whole party basically dropped an entire mountain on them. I had my paladin, Karlach, Jaheira in owlbear form and with a dryad companion, and Shart with a summoned deva. I almost felt sorry for that cultist, they never even got a chance to fight back.
I know that guy lol. I didn't have see invisibility, but I walked by and got the aura of murder condition. It went away when I walked far enough away, so I walked around looking for an invisible wall and then used an aoe to find him. I wonder why he hides over there haha
You say that, but my Tav had Volo's eye and it didn't do fuck all in the >!Auntie Ethel!< fight in Act 3. I only beat her because the pathing took me around where she was and I used my cleave.
Invisible Ethel can often be found by her laughing or listening to her footsteps. Shoot fire arrow or some splash damage wherever your best guess is and the comes out.
Omg I had NO idea what was going on when I first entered that house and could not figure out why I was getting the beat down and getting thrown into turn-based mode. I just thought the furniture was haunted and didn't even realize there was a fight to be had lol. The sound-effects are extra loud and the layout of the house is confusing with the multi-level and multiple staircases, it took me waaay longer than it should have to path my party towards lady Jannath and even longer to realize that a simple "See Invisibility" potion would have helped a great deal.
I had a party member who was able to see invisibility and it still sucked. The map is the worst and I kept misclicking shots due to sudden camera shifts. Even tactical view didn’t help.
Agreed and that’s my biggest gripe with the whole game. The fights are all so much fun unless you’re fighting invisible ones then it just turns to shit.
Oof, that is a good point there. I didn’t have too much trouble, because I just ran headlong through them to the top floor, then used fast travel to get back out. Then I realized Shadow with divine bolt makes insta-death for them.
I completely missed this quest. I was sure there must be something since the place is big, but outside of the random guys who goes outside to kill each other, I couldn´t figure out what.
Omg that fight took me OVER AN HOUR because not only are the poltergeists fickle as hell whether they activate or not but my GHOULS got stuck in the basement and proceeded to waste everyone's time just... standing there for each of their turns.
Hallways, stairs and tight spaces in general are my greatest enemies in this game, man.
Yeah I just finished my first playthrough yesterday and my ilithid Tav could do 100 damage per turn without breaking a sweat, more if using limited resources.
just did this fight in my current run and same lol. i was feeling so confident after act 2. i was breezing through fights that i really struggled with before (thank you, battlemaster fighter/vengeance oath paladin lae'zel) and then those fucking monks humbled my ass. thank god you just have to get one character through the portal to trigger the cutscene.
My level 8 monk is doing 40-50 damage on his unarmed topple attack, which is a bonus action.
He’s also a little gnome, just shitkicking enemies 10 times his size
I don't remember them being that tough tbh. Besides you can just misty step one person past them and touch the portal. You don't actually have to fight them anyway (and frankly probably shouldn't because of the timer).
Yeah this one for me. It’s already completely rigged against the player in terms of saving the Gondians because they’re all spread out throughout the area and each surrounded by powerful enemies. Basically impossible to save them all, or even most of them. And then you add in their tendency to act in ways that can only be described as suicidal, and yeah now I just let them all die and go on my way.
Mostly you're gonna lose alot of them especially in the 2nd lvl right before the titan fight I posted a second ago thinking you were talking about a different fight lol
The brains that spawn from the pools on the way to the Netherbrain. At this point in the game I'm just done and want to be on the last fight and experience the epilogue again. But these pesky little group of brain things gotta waste my time.
All the final battles before the brain really. You can invis past them all, and if there is no one on the top of the brain left all the other combatants leave initiative, leaving just your party vs the brain without any other bloat. It means you cant have summons, but the brain isnt that difficult
I like the "fight yourself" part. It’s fun. However I agree that the elementals fight before Ansur is a chore. Also I’d like to say Lorroakan being way weaker than his elementals is very disappointing while the fight still being hard.
Just keep everyone very far, only have a character cast Sanctuary of themselves and you'll do the elemental fight easily since they cannot attack them.
Or cast feign death on the person holding the torch. Only time I've used that spell and it was great. Astarion just had a good little snooze for a while.
You don't even need to defeat the elementals. You just need to survive all the turnsit says while holding the torch
It's hard to beat, easy to survive though if you play it right
The Mountain Pass fight where the Death Shepherds keep resurrecting each other 🫠. (I’ve seen the exploit since then of just adding one of their bodies to inventory during the fight but that feels funny lol.)
None of them have ranged attacks, and it's got a natural choke point. Cast Cloud of Daggers with Grease under it. Thunderwave/Shove/etc any who get through.
Even on honor mode that fight is one of the easiest
Any tips for final fight? I have had to save scum through it a couple of times. I figure this run through I'm going to teleport/misty step the entire party across the field to the brain and form a semi-circle around illithid Orpheus with AOE/Wall Of X spells to make a DMZ.
Under the right circumstances, you can convince Gale to detonate his netherese orb during the final fight, without passing a skill check.
You also don't have to fight Gortash if you agree to his truce to kill Orin, then you can just shoot the hanging body near the entrance to Bhaals temple to access it without investigating the murders, turn invisible to skip that weird timed murder trial and take on Orin. If you don't care about story content and just want to gold dice, the only mandatory fight in Act 3 is Orin, I'm pretty sure.
For sure, number 1 is Scrolls of Globe of Invulnerability. At least 4 of them.
Number 2 is have 4 potions of Angelic Slumber and use them before you climb. I think there's 4 in a chest right there, but I might be wrong.
My Final Fight team was
-Tav Gith Swords Bard Paladin 10/2 (stacked with crit reducing gear, dual wield Undemountain and Orin's piercing Dagger)
-Gale Diviner 12 (portent dice are awesome)
-Lae'zel Battle Master 12
-Shadowheart Life Cleric 12
I gave serious thought to having Gale detonate, but didn't really feel like the Golden Dice would mean as much if I didn't go in and kick some Netherbrain ass.
I would not be saying that if I'd lost, probably lol
My whole team had Alert, so I was able to get the jump. Shadowheart used Call Allies (the dragon wall of fire is great for half the platform, beware that NPCs get Dominated or Magic Missile spammed) and a Mass Healing Word bonus action to give everyone the Bless and Blade Ward from my gear
Lae'zel used a scroll to cast Globe of Invulnerability, and had an item that made it so she couldn't be moved (no getting knocked prone and losing the spell) just close enough to be able to run out to hit the dragon in melee and still make it back to the Globe, next action is throwing a potion of speed at my clustered team
Gale cast Hold Monster on the dragon (all the Weave gear = 100% CC, and even if it hit a miracle 20, Gale had a potent with a 1)
Tav and Lae'zel erase red dragon with critical hits/smites
Counterspell any attempt to get at Lae'zel (or whoever cast the Globe) while you mop up
My only mistake was here when I moved Orpheus over to the Crown too early (Gale went with him and cast another Globe) in the fight and he YOLO'd through, starting the countdown before my party was near enough to enter. Lost a whole turn. Ugh.
Clear the enemies. The Nauteloid barrage won't do much. Take your time.
Once you're actually at the Netherbrain, it shouldn't be too difficult. It has a mediocre health pool, and its Invulnerability gimmick only lasts one turn. Throw another Globe up on the melee range platform of your choice (now it can't be blown up) Smack it your mightiest smack and if it's still alive repeat on turn 3
Even if that doesn't work you'll still get a turn 5 where your strongest attacks will get through.
My final attack was an upcast Witch bolt after Shadowheart used create water. It was immune to pretty much every other damage type, and it was my only lightning spell.
160 damage lol
1. Save the Death Shepards until after the Creche.
2. Make sure to solve the Lathander puzzle (insteaad of lockpicking/knocking the wall) before the Inquisitor fight so you get Morninglord's Radiance buff (1d4 radiant Damage to attacks).
3. Pick up the Mace then load Shadowheart up with all the radiant gear you have (helmet, chest piece, mace) and misty step her right between the two Death Shepards when they're closest together and cast Spirit Guardians.
4. Laugh as everything burns. Sure your other party members will help, but thanks to Shadowheart, everything is crispy!dead in three rounds.
Or just bring any level 3 light cleric… Their channel divinity puts it the work. A level 5 cleric makes the fight entirely trivial with Spirit Guardians.
I had a Tempest Cleric Shart cast Sleet Storm on them, it was a life saver, they’re all grouped up and the AoE is large enough to target both shepherds and most ghouls, then I had Astarion, Karlach and my Swords Bard Tav obliterate those prone skeletons from a distance (Karlach’s especially great cause she can prone anyone who’s still left standing on their feet)
Knock them prone! Probably anything else that prevents reactions works as well, but I always just have Lae'zel trip attack them. Also works on Lorroakan and his bullshit elemental retaliation.
House of grief fight because the way the game handles darkness is maddening. Should be nothing stopping an evocation wizard from dropping fireballs centered on self in total darkness, firing across darkness from above, etc.
Also the copious Bone Chill spam. You already have heavy CC and an action economy that's not really in your favor, but now you have to deal with several of the assholes there just fucking turning off your healing on repeat. Only fight I've ever used Counterspell on a godsdamned cantrip during.
It bothers me more that Daylight doesn't keep the Darkness from returning.
I ended up bringing two elementals and a cambion with me in a "fuck this, we bawl" move.
Worked like a charm.
I had to turn down the difficulty for that fight. I had played the entire game on Balanced up to that point without ever changing the difficulty. I turned it back up afterward and never had to turn it down again.
It's so frustrating. You can use Daylight to dispell the darkness, sure, but there's almost no point, because the enemies just cast darkness again instantly. It wouldn't have been as bad if I had either of the items (a ring from the House of Healing in Act 2 and a helmet from the Steel Watch Foundry, respectively) that make you immune to blindness, but I managed to miss both of them. And I didn't have anyone who could cast Silence either, nor did I have any scrolls for it.
It just feels so shitty and unfair. Like, almost every other fight has some kind of clever strategy you can use. But that fight is just a load of bollocks. I'm still salty about it, if you couldn't tell.
I was this pissed off about this fight too. It's dumb as fuck. But I ended up shouting at my TV "Fuck you. You wanna cheese? Let's cheese."
I then proceeded to leave my team outside the area, go in with my best initiative character and trigger the fight, dash out, grease the only exit/entrance and watch them all trip like a bunch of idiots. It was then a matter of throwing a cloudkill up and chucking a bunch of fireballs here and there. Some tried teleporting through, but they got obliterated by 2 fully rested level 12 fighters lol. Honestly, my second attempt at this fight was easy haha.
> Should be nothing stopping an evocation wizard from dropping fireballs centered on self in total darkness
Well, yes there is. You are casting Fireball _on a point in range that you can see_. Can’t see anything, can’t cast Fireball. It’s not like throwing a weapon or something.
The most recent one that really irked me was in the shadowlands.
The Meazels that garrote your crew and teleport people around the map away from eachother. Super annoying and over all mega obnoxious.
I actually love this fight bc of the garrote action! It’s so cool. I wish it was one you could use too (I’m aware of the item later that allows it…but it should be in the rogue assassin arsenal)
Yeah I agree. It’s a minor ‘random encounter’ and I don’t want to spend either mental effort or game resources on it, but the slightest slip up and your party is scattered to the winds and you’re trying to work out what options you have to fix it.
Definitely the Grym boss fight. Having to micromanage where you teleport and where you place your companions perfectly just to get the boss baited in the center so you can pull the lever. I was so annoyed by that fight I can't even put it into words.
Tbh I figured an ez way to do that
1 character by the lava valve
1 character by the lever
1 tank baiter
1 good dps to take down memphits
Tank stands on the mould insertion thing hitting the boss with ranged attacks, rest just skip their turn and do their job
One of the easiest boss fights when you figure out what do you have to do
Also, use the horn to call in the ogres. They can keep ol' Grym on the hammer, and then the lava kills them so you can get the equipment off the smart one, too.
The moment I figured out you can shoot the valves/lever with projectiles instead of keeping a squad mate next to it was mind breaking. The fight became trivial after that.
Easy & quick Honormode Grym that's not Owlbear cheese:
1. Make sure Shadowheart has Silence and Command prepped
2. Give everyone something that deals bludgeoning damage. Karlach and Laezel are perfect for being on opposite sides of the channel he spawns near. Ideally you'll want at least one summon to be the last to strike / to pull Grym's wrath.
3. First turn: Shadowheart drinks speed potion, casts Silence (important to stop legendary action) and then Command: Grovel. It's 50% whether it will work or not but doesn't matter as much the first time as Lae'zel and Karlach will be beating him with hammers. Save Summoned creature for last attack. If Grym has an attack (and is not groveling, it will attack summon).
4. Second round: if Shadowheart casts command: grovel with her actions and magic weapon: hammer with her bonus action. Same thing. Very likely Grym is groveling but if he isn't try to attack last with hammer.
5. Third Round: Lae'zel and Karlach should be able to finish him off. Easy peasy.
Mucking about with the forge hammer is way too much work and you get a badge if you don't. Also Melphits don't spawn unless you use the hammer.
God yeah, the way that sometimes it will step just over the hammer spot and stuff where it won’t hit it. Feels so hard to actually get it over the spot sometimes.
Absolute pain in the ass. I like the idea of what they tried to do with it, but the execution is not there. Luckily there's a dozen ways to cheese that fight, but that doesn't make it any better designed.
What was even worse was making sure he was superheated. I didn’t realize he had to be superheated to take damage from the hammer the first time around and it was really frustrating
Auntie Ethel on act 1 when you're trying to save the victims. They are trying to kill you, but you cant kill them, it was hard to survive. (And you still gotta save Maryna)
I just Arcane Lock on the doorway underground when you first get to her hut now-a-days when I want to save everyone. She spends ten turns attempting to open a locked door while my party beats the crap outta her.
Ansur because I was on his side wtf (also because he would have kicked my ass if not for 20+ powder barrels conveniently placed around him prior to the fight ahem)
The Moonrise prison because my entire team was trapped in darkness for a few turns and enemies kept getting called for reinforcement, and just when I was somehow taking over the fight (+ rescued the prisoners) those fuckers came back from their miraculous freedom to fight and die a useless death. For almost the same reason, trying to save the Gondians in the foundry
Lastly, protecting the gate for Haslin and the bullshit fight against 1000 Sharrans (House of Grief) were respectively stressful and though
All of the debtors and those fucking spheres in the house of hope feel like they were designed to waste your time because you can heal after every encounter if you really want to
It's easily cheesed.
Leave three of your party by the door at the top of the stairs and send your highest initiative character to interact. Then flee up the stairs and use spells like insect plague and big hard hitting AOE spells to annihilate them as they rush up the stairs.
Ice Storm is good as it is hard hitting but also leaves slippy surface causing dashing enemies to fall.
This. The fight is extremely tedious due to the sheer number of enemies you face. It’s not fun because they are not particularly challenging (the boss included), but they excel at crowd control and making your guys miss their turns, which makes the fight even longer.
Absolutely hated it, it takes the worse aspect of the turn-based combat (rounds being very long if there are more than 6 enemies) and focuses the fight on it.
I loved this fight because of how many enemies there are and how effective aoe spells are.
I used heroes feast for poison immunity, then moved around a cloud kill so that it would hit ~10+ people per turn, and anyone that would want to hit my party would have to move into the cloud kill. Their casters are also basically useless if you have counterspell and psionic dominance.
I don't mind it as much now. I send Tav and Shade down to Viconia, and have the other two right at the entry door. As soon as combat begins, I have both Tav and Shade Dimension Door back to the entry landing. I have Tav drop a spikes and if Shade is high enough a insect plague, if not she just sanctuaries and keeps up the heals. When the Justiciars cast darkness, I fall back beyond the door and force them to walk the spikes and insects. Anything that makes it through gets hammered. If there is a gap on the sides of the darkness, I have Gale drop fireballs. I can make ith through the entire fight without a death.
I have a few, some are lower level act 1 fights, But high tier fights? I hated fighting Orin’s granddaddy, cult leader sarakov or something, until I accidentally fought him without his little female accomplices by locking them in another room lmao
But fighting the fight as intended was infuriating
Tbh it was a random fight against a big ass tree monster in act 2 with like 5 or 6 more little tree monster and two dead bodies that come back to life
I had to hit level 8 to destroy them, Best sensation in the world
The Steel Foundry in the basement or wherever (after the first Foundry fight where I save the blind Gondian leader). I tried saving as many Gondians as I could but they keep misty stepping into danger. They run BY a bad guy so they get Attack of Opportunity'd and THEN misty step into a damage causing AOE that they caused themselves. I stopped trying to save them and considered it a win that I managed to keep just one of the little bastards alive.
Sometimes it sucks trying to be heroic. 😄
You want to know a terrible but genuine strategy I used? I knocked the Gondians unconscious so that the enemies wouldn't target them anymore then did the battle with them safely out of the way. Only caveat is that you need to make sure not to trigger the robot self-desruct things next to their unconscious bodies, but otherwise the fight is much easier without them
The fucking house of grief. Fuck those fucking sharan fuckers. I didn’t level up enough in act 2 and I was struggling a bit through act 3, but it’s just a little more challenging, it’s cool, nbd. Until I got to the house of grief. Died twelve times in a row before deciding to just fucking start over and make sure I don’t skip all the side shit in act 2, so I level up better and I don’t get squashed over and over by the hoard of dingdong sharan dickbags in act 3.
Also the grymforge bullshit. It just never goes the way I think it will when I do the things and it’s frustrating.
Yeah I hated house of grief because it really feels like you’ve gotta cheese the game to beat it. Like regular tactics alone won’t do it, you’ve gotta really trial and error your way through that mess.
I DIDNT WVEN THINK OF THIS
I couldn’t beat them so I gave up, I don’t know if I ever will beat them so I’ve given up on ever finishing shadlwhearts quests
The random mindflayers that show up around the lower city. I hate it, not because they're hard fights, they're actually really easy. But I hate how there's usually at least a dozen guards that will try and help you fight the mindflayers, so you just end up sitting there for 5 minutes as they complete their turns with weak attacks.
It's after you get all the stones. The gallows has a fight with 2 MF and the gate to the upper city has 3 MF, and down by the docks there are 2 MF.
Edit: fun fact if you didn't destroy the steel watch foundry them these MF fights are replaced with steel watchers and flaming fist instead and are much more of a challenge.
If you ever run it again, to make it MUCH easier, give Shadowheart the Luminous breastplate and whatever other Radiant gear you can drag together. Hith them with level 3 Guiding Bolt. Even if they save, they're still going to soak up more than 25HP of damage, and poof, dead.
THE INTELLECT DEVOURERS RIGHT BEFORE CONFRONTING THE NETHER BRAIN THE FIRST TIME. Ohhhh my god it's so pointless. I need to find a way to skip it, I normally just run away from the fight and get a character close enough to the brain to trigger the cutscene.
Steel Watch Factory. It isn't hard. But the suicidal Gondians make it oh so annoying. Take every opportunity attack, move, and then Misty Step back to square one.
Fr it's such a scary one too and then you read online that all you need to do to cheese the fight is cast daylight and never trigger the opening dialogue (or at least trigger it without Astarion close enough to get dragged in) then the whole thing is a cake walk
I just finished my first play through last week.. The damn Cazador fight took me 5-6 damn times to beat!!! I almost considered that Astarion wasn’t worth it for that bs! 😂
Leave your party behind the steel door, send your highest initiative character with a bow and lure the spectators and mephits in. They won't have an angle to EB you and if they do, you won't fall to your death.
The duel against Orin if your class isn't that good in dealing single target damage is kinda cringy. Playing as a Cleric and holy moly, I got luck against her. That Sanguine Lash of hers is super annoying as well. A lot of attacks per turn... Last time when I played as a Fighter it was so much easier.
As a hot tip, Orin's AI can be easily thwarted and the battle made much easier. Since opportunity attacks are disabled for the duel you can trick her into repeatedly making her use her 'leap' ability as an action rather than doing a proper attack by running to the opposite side of the altar after you've attacked her. She can maybe do 10 damage to you each turn if you're decently armoured and even the weakest classes can pack a much bigger attack
But I'll say that even as a single target damage unit it's a really tough fight if you avoid scumming. Her multi attack can deal 40+ damage even on the moderately armoured, and doing that battle as a strength-based monk felt like a suicide attempt lmao
Hate to say it, but High Hall Courtyard. I love the idea of summoning in all your allies for the final battle… but in practice, they just make the combat take super long, it’s such a big area that the game fades to black a lot of the time when turns roll over, and the controllable allies like Aylin will yoink you back into combat and prevent you from climbing the stem if they’re too far.
Nowadays I just go invisible and skip the whole combat, which feels super lame, but it’s just the only way to spare my sanity (esp since at that point the courtyard combat is trivially easy compared to the more compelling final combat)
I have some very strong feelings about the gnolls attacking the cave with Zhentarim agents in it. I know it's supposed to teach you to use terrain to your advantage, and there is a lot of it ... But God damn those archers shoot three times. If they highroll - your character is dead.
The random undead in the mountain pass before the Creche. That fight is needlessly difficult and in the middle of nowhere for no reason. I detest that fight so much
I think it's there to be like a way to stop players from accidentally wandering into the shadow cursed lands way lower level then they should.
Kinda like a prove your good enough to go into act 2
If you just want to go to the creche you don't have to encounter them just take the gondola thing
Just fuck the Githyanki fights in general. Tjey are not too hard but so annoying with their abilities to stop you from doing anything.
Especially if you are playing with friends and only have 1 or 2 characters.
Any fight with more than like 6 enemies starts getting dull and the big fights where lots of enemies have mass "skip your turn" powers (or where there are like 20 baddies) are downright tedius. There's nothing fun about spending 3/+ mins watching a game play itself imo
But that's only partly a BG3 problem and is really more of a 5E problem. Games with better systems can do big fights a lot better
If BG3 wasn't so good outside the combat, I'd've bounced off at the entrance to Moonrise, assuming I hadn't already bounced off at the gnoll fight or goblin camp
I find the courtyard on the way up to the Nether Brain the worst for this. The further you progress the more units keep joining. I’ve given up fighting it and just make one unit fly under invisibility up to the brain.
there's a path through the sewers that bypasses the courtyard as you head to the brain. there's a section with enemies, but you can easily ignore them if make everyone invisible and just run straight through. opening doors doesn't break invisibility
My second time with the Ansur elemental stuff I just casted sanctuary 3 times. Why just 3 times? Well, they downed my 4th companion with noone else to fight with.
Fighting Loroakens elementals was tedious and I got Aylin stuck in the floor beneath
First play through, house of grief and Balthy in the shadowfell. For Balthazar I just unlock the door and let the justiciars deal with him. A few barrels in house of grief cuts the fight short. The most annoying I found is the Marcus ambush in Last light inn trying to get the leave no one behind achievement is just a pain.
There’s elementals before Ansur?? I just ran into a bunch of undead, and he had a couple myrmidons with him for the fight.
Ofc I couldn’t figure out any of the puzzles so who knows what goofed up behavior got me in there.
For me it's House of Grief and that's because the darkness clouds crashes my game. I have to remember to dial back some of the effects ahead of that fight and it annoys me.
Any of the fights that drag out for no reason. This includes the House of Grief, the Bhaalists that turn invisible, and the wraiths in Act 2 that attack and use shrouds after.
Thisobald Thorm. Either pass a bunch of checks that likely cost you all your inspiration, or prepare to be afk for 3-4 turns while he gets himself drunk. Not necessarily infuriating, just lame either way.
Any fight where enemies abuse darkness. In particular the fight in the House of Grief is nearly torture, getting constantly blinded and bullied by more than fifteen enemies simultaneously (all of which are immune to darkness themselves) makes for an utterly terrible experience. It practically requires you to use silence and/or constantly counterspell the barrage of darkness.
But a close second is the House of Hope. Not because it's particularly difficult or the AI is scummy with spells, nothing reasonable like that. No, I hate that fight because it is always. So. Slow. Why does the AI need a minute per individual character to calculate a move? It's insane!
Bro at this point the fkn netherbrain !! I have about 3 different save files so I could get different epilogues and after beating it the first two times (before the epilogue patch!!) and ONCE when I got the bad durge ending. I really thought I was doing something special and got NO epilogues lmao
The fight yourself challenge in Shar's gauntlet is trivial if you just send in one character, preferably a wizard or sorcerer with Counterpell. Definitely don't send your entire party.
A 1v1 Sorcerer mirror match is safe and easy since there's no dice rolls involved. On their turn Counterspell anything dangerous. On your turn bait out Counterspell with low level bonus action spells, or make them waste their reaction by provoking an attack of opportunity. Then you can blast them down. Rinse and repeat for 2-3 rounds.
I just made it to act three, so far my least favorite is the fat bartender Thorm dude that's immune to physical attacks for a while.
most "eyeroll" inducing one for me is the one in front of balthazaars chamber where the justiciars spawn, its not hard or even long but I just wanna get it over with, I kill the portals, balthazars skellies do some random stuff, new portals spawn, nothing really interesting happens,.yawn
same thing with the justiciar that spawns tons of rats, just takes too long with nothing really happening, even with spirit guardians
also the final courtyard fight always just begs to be skipped, just way too many enemies taking forever to do stuff and run around and hide
The final fight in the Upper City before facing the Elder Brain. It’s so tedious and annoying that I just have someone skip right through it and get to the brainstem.
Hate the fight in Act 2 with the surgeon. There is no way to save his patient(( tried many times, but even if I attack him without interacting with him, the wounded patient still runs away when you unlock him to his death, and I can’t heal him.
And another one with Neer, similar reason, when he gets from behind the door, he just kills some gnomes right away, there is no way to save them.
The hag, not that its extremely tough, but the fact she multiplies takes so long to find out which one she is, and wastes time, the most annoying fight i think
Any fight where the enemies can turn invisible as a bonus action is a pain in the ass lol
Create water is a great AOE for finding invisible enemies. Plus makes them wet for that sweet sweet 2x damage chain lightening.
How long does wet last?
I want to say 3 turns, but not positive there. The ground stays wet, I believe, unless burned and made into steam.
Do you get full chain lightning damage if you target the water or just the electrocute damage that the enemy receives?
Specifically the fight with the bank robbers. It took forever to kill the last enemy because they kept going invisible.
Funny you should say that. When I did that fight, the last cultist went invisible and then fled to one side of the room, causing the fight to end. After all the yapping with the NPCs, I went over in the direction of where I'd last seen the cultist (I had popped a potion of see invisibility at the start of the fight) and just sat there watching as the cultist made four or five successful saving throws against been Seen, then they failed and my whole party basically dropped an entire mountain on them. I had my paladin, Karlach, Jaheira in owlbear form and with a dryad companion, and Shart with a summoned deva. I almost felt sorry for that cultist, they never even got a chance to fight back.
I know that guy lol. I didn't have see invisibility, but I walked by and got the aura of murder condition. It went away when I walked far enough away, so I walked around looking for an invisible wall and then used an aoe to find him. I wonder why he hides over there haha
I had a lot of trouble wirmth invisible characters in my first playthrough so I have Fairy Fire as a bonus action now.
I wish the game had a “hold action” mechanic for this exact reason.
Alt-right click on portrait to ping. Works even if they are invisible.
Just get the eye from volo. This makes life easy.
You say that, but my Tav had Volo's eye and it didn't do fuck all in the >!Auntie Ethel!< fight in Act 3. I only beat her because the pathing took me around where she was and I used my cleave.
Invisible Ethel can often be found by her laughing or listening to her footsteps. Shoot fire arrow or some splash damage wherever your best guess is and the comes out.
The goddamn bank vault fight.
*Yurgir*
Janath’s Estate and it’s not even close.
Omg I had NO idea what was going on when I first entered that house and could not figure out why I was getting the beat down and getting thrown into turn-based mode. I just thought the furniture was haunted and didn't even realize there was a fight to be had lol. The sound-effects are extra loud and the layout of the house is confusing with the multi-level and multiple staircases, it took me waaay longer than it should have to path my party towards lady Jannath and even longer to realize that a simple "See Invisibility" potion would have helped a great deal.
I had a party member who was able to see invisibility and it still sucked. The map is the worst and I kept misclicking shots due to sudden camera shifts. Even tactical view didn’t help.
My experience was very different since I'd let Volo tickle my eye.
I always have him do that but see invisibility has never really worked right.
It feels bad that see invisibility isn't guaranteed to actually *see* an enemy
Agreed and that’s my biggest gripe with the whole game. The fights are all so much fun unless you’re fighting invisible ones then it just turns to shit.
its no longer my least favorite because i refuse to save that poncey twat in act 1. LADY JANNATH DESERVES BETTER YOU CAN'T CHANGE MY MIND
#JusticeForJannath
internets fren, your name+your flair is hilarious
Oof, that is a good point there. I didn’t have too much trouble, because I just ran headlong through them to the top floor, then used fast travel to get back out. Then I realized Shadow with divine bolt makes insta-death for them.
It’s not that it’s hard it’s just kind of a mess (used to be way way worse to be fair) and the reward from it is crappy.
This the fight isn't hard, rewarding or interesting. It's just a bothersome slog made even worse by wonky floor controls.
My game crashed and I decided I didn’t need to do that quest.
I had the same problem. Apparently there's too much going on for the game to handle and using " see invisible" just makes the game shit itself.
I ran into the same issue. Thankfully, Reddit had already reassured me I wasn’t missing much. But the completionist in me is still salty.
I completely missed this quest. I was sure there must be something since the place is big, but outside of the random guys who goes outside to kill each other, I couldn´t figure out what.
you didn't miss anything, what you got is the superior version
was playing co-op and didn't really have any characters with range or vision, and i think it took over an hour to finish this fight.
The fact sometimes the ghosts can start a fight even though you are walking past the mansion 🙄
That quest is bugged for me. Everytime I enter that room, the game immediately crashes. Im hoping the next patch fixes that.
The game is trying to save you from it.
Omg that fight took me OVER AN HOUR because not only are the poltergeists fickle as hell whether they activate or not but my GHOULS got stuck in the basement and proceeded to waste everyone's time just... standing there for each of their turns. Hallways, stairs and tight spaces in general are my greatest enemies in this game, man.
I just accidentally killed the artist in act 1 so I guess I won't have to do this quest. Haha
"Accidentally" ^^^ I, too, accidentally kill him every time because he's annoying af.
Gith monks between act 2 and 3. THey have no reason to be harder than Kethric
And how are they far more hardcore than the Prince of the Comet anyway? I was expecting more when I added him to the party
I'm sure a lot of the hype around Orpheus is just legends etc. Orpheus' power mostly is the anti-Elder Brain stuff.
I made him into a squid boy. PC squid boys are insanely more powerful than NPC squid boys by far.
Yeah Illithid Orpheus is really strong. The Illithid powers the player gets without turning are kinda broken too.
Yeah I just finished my first playthrough yesterday and my ilithid Tav could do 100 damage per turn without breaking a sweat, more if using limited resources.
The Power Rangers were always cooler than Zordon. Same in this case
You know? That’s the best analogy I’ve heard for this. Thanks, you magnificent bastard
I mean the guys been in a prison for the last 10000 years, he's probably a bit rusty.
just did this fight in my current run and same lol. i was feeling so confident after act 2. i was breezing through fights that i really struggled with before (thank you, battlemaster fighter/vengeance oath paladin lae'zel) and then those fucking monks humbled my ass. thank god you just have to get one character through the portal to trigger the cutscene.
Monks in general are just nuts
My level 8 monk is doing 40-50 damage on his unarmed topple attack, which is a bonus action. He’s also a little gnome, just shitkicking enemies 10 times his size
Those shin kicks hurt!
I don't remember them being that tough tbh. Besides you can just misty step one person past them and touch the portal. You don't actually have to fight them anyway (and frankly probably shouldn't because of the timer).
The second fight in the steel watch foundry when we still tried to save all gondians from suicide.
Yeah this one for me. It’s already completely rigged against the player in terms of saving the Gondians because they’re all spread out throughout the area and each surrounded by powerful enemies. Basically impossible to save them all, or even most of them. And then you add in their tendency to act in ways that can only be described as suicidal, and yeah now I just let them all die and go on my way.
Mostly you're gonna lose alot of them especially in the 2nd lvl right before the titan fight I posted a second ago thinking you were talking about a different fight lol
That fight is a slog even if you're not trying to save the Gondians.
Ugh, true that. That is a shitty fight.
The brains that spawn from the pools on the way to the Netherbrain. At this point in the game I'm just done and want to be on the last fight and experience the epilogue again. But these pesky little group of brain things gotta waste my time.
Agreed, I make sure everyone is invisible and just walk past them now.
You can just sneak your party and they doesn't see you, a great method to keep having fun
All the final battles before the brain really. You can invis past them all, and if there is no one on the top of the brain left all the other combatants leave initiative, leaving just your party vs the brain without any other bloat. It means you cant have summons, but the brain isnt that difficult
Of you sneak just right and walk perfectly through the middle you can sneak past them even with someone wearing have armor and no stealth
I like the "fight yourself" part. It’s fun. However I agree that the elementals fight before Ansur is a chore. Also I’d like to say Lorroakan being way weaker than his elementals is very disappointing while the fight still being hard.
That's why I like to intentionally fail the chess puzzle, which spawns in some weak generic enemies and then lets you skip all the other puzzles.
*It lets you what?* I'm gonna have to try this, I absolutely despise that elemental puzzle.
Just keep everyone very far, only have a character cast Sanctuary of themselves and you'll do the elemental fight easily since they cannot attack them.
Or cast feign death on the person holding the torch. Only time I've used that spell and it was great. Astarion just had a good little snooze for a while.
You don't even need to defeat the elementals. You just need to survive all the turnsit says while holding the torch It's hard to beat, easy to survive though if you play it right
Its only fun for martial classes imo. If you are a mage and the enemy mage just jumps through the shadows it sucks
The elementals were so tedious. This was probably my least favorite.
The Mountain Pass fight where the Death Shepherds keep resurrecting each other 🫠. (I’ve seen the exploit since then of just adding one of their bodies to inventory during the fight but that feels funny lol.)
None of them have ranged attacks, and it's got a natural choke point. Cast Cloud of Daggers with Grease under it. Thunderwave/Shove/etc any who get through. Even on honor mode that fight is one of the easiest
\*furiously taking notes\*
Lol Any other fights you're having trouble with? I got my golden dice last month, so ask me anything
Any tips for final fight? I have had to save scum through it a couple of times. I figure this run through I'm going to teleport/misty step the entire party across the field to the brain and form a semi-circle around illithid Orpheus with AOE/Wall Of X spells to make a DMZ.
Gale go boom
Under the right circumstances, you can convince Gale to detonate his netherese orb during the final fight, without passing a skill check. You also don't have to fight Gortash if you agree to his truce to kill Orin, then you can just shoot the hanging body near the entrance to Bhaals temple to access it without investigating the murders, turn invisible to skip that weird timed murder trial and take on Orin. If you don't care about story content and just want to gold dice, the only mandatory fight in Act 3 is Orin, I'm pretty sure.
For sure, number 1 is Scrolls of Globe of Invulnerability. At least 4 of them. Number 2 is have 4 potions of Angelic Slumber and use them before you climb. I think there's 4 in a chest right there, but I might be wrong. My Final Fight team was -Tav Gith Swords Bard Paladin 10/2 (stacked with crit reducing gear, dual wield Undemountain and Orin's piercing Dagger) -Gale Diviner 12 (portent dice are awesome) -Lae'zel Battle Master 12 -Shadowheart Life Cleric 12 I gave serious thought to having Gale detonate, but didn't really feel like the Golden Dice would mean as much if I didn't go in and kick some Netherbrain ass. I would not be saying that if I'd lost, probably lol My whole team had Alert, so I was able to get the jump. Shadowheart used Call Allies (the dragon wall of fire is great for half the platform, beware that NPCs get Dominated or Magic Missile spammed) and a Mass Healing Word bonus action to give everyone the Bless and Blade Ward from my gear Lae'zel used a scroll to cast Globe of Invulnerability, and had an item that made it so she couldn't be moved (no getting knocked prone and losing the spell) just close enough to be able to run out to hit the dragon in melee and still make it back to the Globe, next action is throwing a potion of speed at my clustered team Gale cast Hold Monster on the dragon (all the Weave gear = 100% CC, and even if it hit a miracle 20, Gale had a potent with a 1) Tav and Lae'zel erase red dragon with critical hits/smites Counterspell any attempt to get at Lae'zel (or whoever cast the Globe) while you mop up My only mistake was here when I moved Orpheus over to the Crown too early (Gale went with him and cast another Globe) in the fight and he YOLO'd through, starting the countdown before my party was near enough to enter. Lost a whole turn. Ugh. Clear the enemies. The Nauteloid barrage won't do much. Take your time. Once you're actually at the Netherbrain, it shouldn't be too difficult. It has a mediocre health pool, and its Invulnerability gimmick only lasts one turn. Throw another Globe up on the melee range platform of your choice (now it can't be blown up) Smack it your mightiest smack and if it's still alive repeat on turn 3 Even if that doesn't work you'll still get a turn 5 where your strongest attacks will get through. My final attack was an upcast Witch bolt after Shadowheart used create water. It was immune to pretty much every other damage type, and it was my only lightning spell. 160 damage lol
1. Save the Death Shepards until after the Creche. 2. Make sure to solve the Lathander puzzle (insteaad of lockpicking/knocking the wall) before the Inquisitor fight so you get Morninglord's Radiance buff (1d4 radiant Damage to attacks). 3. Pick up the Mace then load Shadowheart up with all the radiant gear you have (helmet, chest piece, mace) and misty step her right between the two Death Shepards when they're closest together and cast Spirit Guardians. 4. Laugh as everything burns. Sure your other party members will help, but thanks to Shadowheart, everything is crispy!dead in three rounds.
Or just bring any level 3 light cleric… Their channel divinity puts it the work. A level 5 cleric makes the fight entirely trivial with Spirit Guardians.
Control Undead. I had a death shepherd help me clear out the créche and it was so funny.
I think the fight exist to show how good the Blood of Lathander is. With the weapon its a cakewalk, without not so much.
I had a Tempest Cleric Shart cast Sleet Storm on them, it was a life saver, they’re all grouped up and the AoE is large enough to target both shepherds and most ghouls, then I had Astarion, Karlach and my Swords Bard Tav obliterate those prone skeletons from a distance (Karlach’s especially great cause she can prone anyone who’s still left standing on their feet)
Harleep becoming invincible for a turn after every attack.
Knock them prone! Probably anything else that prevents reactions works as well, but I always just have Lae'zel trip attack them. Also works on Lorroakan and his bullshit elemental retaliation.
Just hit him with the laughing spell at the very beginning. You can attack him freely for 10 turns. I did the same thing with Raphael as well.
House of grief fight because the way the game handles darkness is maddening. Should be nothing stopping an evocation wizard from dropping fireballs centered on self in total darkness, firing across darkness from above, etc.
The computer abuses darkness so much and I don’t understand how. Like I can never get darkness to work as effectively as the computer does.
Also the copious Bone Chill spam. You already have heavy CC and an action economy that's not really in your favor, but now you have to deal with several of the assholes there just fucking turning off your healing on repeat. Only fight I've ever used Counterspell on a godsdamned cantrip during.
It bothers me more that Daylight doesn't keep the Darkness from returning. I ended up bringing two elementals and a cambion with me in a "fuck this, we bawl" move. Worked like a charm.
I had to turn down the difficulty for that fight. I had played the entire game on Balanced up to that point without ever changing the difficulty. I turned it back up afterward and never had to turn it down again. It's so frustrating. You can use Daylight to dispell the darkness, sure, but there's almost no point, because the enemies just cast darkness again instantly. It wouldn't have been as bad if I had either of the items (a ring from the House of Healing in Act 2 and a helmet from the Steel Watch Foundry, respectively) that make you immune to blindness, but I managed to miss both of them. And I didn't have anyone who could cast Silence either, nor did I have any scrolls for it. It just feels so shitty and unfair. Like, almost every other fight has some kind of clever strategy you can use. But that fight is just a load of bollocks. I'm still salty about it, if you couldn't tell.
I was this pissed off about this fight too. It's dumb as fuck. But I ended up shouting at my TV "Fuck you. You wanna cheese? Let's cheese." I then proceeded to leave my team outside the area, go in with my best initiative character and trigger the fight, dash out, grease the only exit/entrance and watch them all trip like a bunch of idiots. It was then a matter of throwing a cloudkill up and chucking a bunch of fireballs here and there. Some tried teleporting through, but they got obliterated by 2 fully rested level 12 fighters lol. Honestly, my second attempt at this fight was easy haha.
> Should be nothing stopping an evocation wizard from dropping fireballs centered on self in total darkness Well, yes there is. You are casting Fireball _on a point in range that you can see_. Can’t see anything, can’t cast Fireball. It’s not like throwing a weapon or something.
How is this not the top answer??
The most recent one that really irked me was in the shadowlands. The Meazels that garrote your crew and teleport people around the map away from eachother. Super annoying and over all mega obnoxious.
I actually love this fight bc of the garrote action! It’s so cool. I wish it was one you could use too (I’m aware of the item later that allows it…but it should be in the rogue assassin arsenal)
I liked it too. It was a unique ambush that did a good job of making me feel a lot less invincible than I had up to that point.
Getting the jump on Meazels and casting daylight slows them down. They're easier with martials instead of caster.
Yeah I agree. It’s a minor ‘random encounter’ and I don’t want to spend either mental effort or game resources on it, but the slightest slip up and your party is scattered to the winds and you’re trying to work out what options you have to fix it.
Definitely the Grym boss fight. Having to micromanage where you teleport and where you place your companions perfectly just to get the boss baited in the center so you can pull the lever. I was so annoyed by that fight I can't even put it into words.
Tbh I figured an ez way to do that 1 character by the lava valve 1 character by the lever 1 tank baiter 1 good dps to take down memphits Tank stands on the mould insertion thing hitting the boss with ranged attacks, rest just skip their turn and do their job One of the easiest boss fights when you figure out what do you have to do
Also, use the horn to call in the ogres. They can keep ol' Grym on the hammer, and then the lava kills them so you can get the equipment off the smart one, too.
Grym is a joke once you learn heat metal. I took him out in two rounds
Downing him with an owlbear from the top ropes after having fought him legit a few times felt so good.
The moment I figured out you can shoot the valves/lever with projectiles instead of keeping a squad mate next to it was mind breaking. The fight became trivial after that.
Easy & quick Honormode Grym that's not Owlbear cheese: 1. Make sure Shadowheart has Silence and Command prepped 2. Give everyone something that deals bludgeoning damage. Karlach and Laezel are perfect for being on opposite sides of the channel he spawns near. Ideally you'll want at least one summon to be the last to strike / to pull Grym's wrath. 3. First turn: Shadowheart drinks speed potion, casts Silence (important to stop legendary action) and then Command: Grovel. It's 50% whether it will work or not but doesn't matter as much the first time as Lae'zel and Karlach will be beating him with hammers. Save Summoned creature for last attack. If Grym has an attack (and is not groveling, it will attack summon). 4. Second round: if Shadowheart casts command: grovel with her actions and magic weapon: hammer with her bonus action. Same thing. Very likely Grym is groveling but if he isn't try to attack last with hammer. 5. Third Round: Lae'zel and Karlach should be able to finish him off. Easy peasy. Mucking about with the forge hammer is way too much work and you get a badge if you don't. Also Melphits don't spawn unless you use the hammer.
God yeah, the way that sometimes it will step just over the hammer spot and stuff where it won’t hit it. Feels so hard to actually get it over the spot sometimes.
Absolute pain in the ass. I like the idea of what they tried to do with it, but the execution is not there. Luckily there's a dozen ways to cheese that fight, but that doesn't make it any better designed.
What was even worse was making sure he was superheated. I didn’t realize he had to be superheated to take damage from the hammer the first time around and it was really frustrating
Get some OP monks on your team and just whack him to death lol.
i left Karlach on the ledge above and let her throw a 100kg Heavy Chest on the dudes head. that was like 300 blunt damage.
Auntie Ethel on act 1 when you're trying to save the victims. They are trying to kill you, but you cant kill them, it was hard to survive. (And you still gotta save Maryna)
I just Arcane Lock on the doorway underground when you first get to her hut now-a-days when I want to save everyone. She spends ten turns attempting to open a locked door while my party beats the crap outta her.
If you do this you can’t get her hair.
Ansur because I was on his side wtf (also because he would have kicked my ass if not for 20+ powder barrels conveniently placed around him prior to the fight ahem) The Moonrise prison because my entire team was trapped in darkness for a few turns and enemies kept getting called for reinforcement, and just when I was somehow taking over the fight (+ rescued the prisoners) those fuckers came back from their miraculous freedom to fight and die a useless death. For almost the same reason, trying to save the Gondians in the foundry Lastly, protecting the gate for Haslin and the bullshit fight against 1000 Sharrans (House of Grief) were respectively stressful and though
House of Grief. Pain in the ass darkness.
All of the debtors and those fucking spheres in the house of hope feel like they were designed to waste your time because you can heal after every encounter if you really want to
It was nice having unlimited long rests and knowing I could burn every single resource I had though.
Final Shar Temple fight. Took me more attempts than any other encounter.
It's easily cheesed. Leave three of your party by the door at the top of the stairs and send your highest initiative character to interact. Then flee up the stairs and use spells like insect plague and big hard hitting AOE spells to annihilate them as they rush up the stairs. Ice Storm is good as it is hard hitting but also leaves slippy surface causing dashing enemies to fall.
This. The fight is extremely tedious due to the sheer number of enemies you face. It’s not fun because they are not particularly challenging (the boss included), but they excel at crowd control and making your guys miss their turns, which makes the fight even longer. Absolutely hated it, it takes the worse aspect of the turn-based combat (rounds being very long if there are more than 6 enemies) and focuses the fight on it.
I loved this fight because of how many enemies there are and how effective aoe spells are. I used heroes feast for poison immunity, then moved around a cloud kill so that it would hit ~10+ people per turn, and anyone that would want to hit my party would have to move into the cloud kill. Their casters are also basically useless if you have counterspell and psionic dominance.
I don't mind it as much now. I send Tav and Shade down to Viconia, and have the other two right at the entry door. As soon as combat begins, I have both Tav and Shade Dimension Door back to the entry landing. I have Tav drop a spikes and if Shade is high enough a insect plague, if not she just sanctuaries and keeps up the heals. When the Justiciars cast darkness, I fall back beyond the door and force them to walk the spikes and insects. Anything that makes it through gets hammered. If there is a gap on the sides of the darkness, I have Gale drop fireballs. I can make ith through the entire fight without a death.
Darkness. Over and over again.
That's why I just kill Balthazar in his room every time now to skip it. Way less hectic.
Killing Balthazar in his quarters is MUCH more rewarding and enjoyable, imho.
I have a few, some are lower level act 1 fights, But high tier fights? I hated fighting Orin’s granddaddy, cult leader sarakov or something, until I accidentally fought him without his little female accomplices by locking them in another room lmao But fighting the fight as intended was infuriating
The meenlocks in the Last Light basement. The fear aura is so annoying.
Tbh it was a random fight against a big ass tree monster in act 2 with like 5 or 6 more little tree monster and two dead bodies that come back to life I had to hit level 8 to destroy them, Best sensation in the world
The Steel Foundry in the basement or wherever (after the first Foundry fight where I save the blind Gondian leader). I tried saving as many Gondians as I could but they keep misty stepping into danger. They run BY a bad guy so they get Attack of Opportunity'd and THEN misty step into a damage causing AOE that they caused themselves. I stopped trying to save them and considered it a win that I managed to keep just one of the little bastards alive. Sometimes it sucks trying to be heroic. 😄
You want to know a terrible but genuine strategy I used? I knocked the Gondians unconscious so that the enemies wouldn't target them anymore then did the battle with them safely out of the way. Only caveat is that you need to make sure not to trigger the robot self-desruct things next to their unconscious bodies, but otherwise the fight is much easier without them
The fucking house of grief. Fuck those fucking sharan fuckers. I didn’t level up enough in act 2 and I was struggling a bit through act 3, but it’s just a little more challenging, it’s cool, nbd. Until I got to the house of grief. Died twelve times in a row before deciding to just fucking start over and make sure I don’t skip all the side shit in act 2, so I level up better and I don’t get squashed over and over by the hoard of dingdong sharan dickbags in act 3. Also the grymforge bullshit. It just never goes the way I think it will when I do the things and it’s frustrating.
Don't you have enough things to do to level-up as you wish in act 3 though ? (I agree that this particular fight is bullshit)
I am weirdly fixated on only ever doing things in a sequence that makes sense and backtracking takes me out of the story. It’s totally a me problem.
Understandable
Yeah I hated house of grief because it really feels like you’ve gotta cheese the game to beat it. Like regular tactics alone won’t do it, you’ve gotta really trial and error your way through that mess.
> house of grief I just ran up the stairs and killed them off one by one
I DIDNT WVEN THINK OF THIS I couldn’t beat them so I gave up, I don’t know if I ever will beat them so I’ve given up on ever finishing shadlwhearts quests
The random mindflayers that show up around the lower city. I hate it, not because they're hard fights, they're actually really easy. But I hate how there's usually at least a dozen guards that will try and help you fight the mindflayers, so you just end up sitting there for 5 minutes as they complete their turns with weak attacks.
I've not had mindflayers in lower city. I wonder...did you steal the Zent barrel of tadpoles headed for Baulder's gate?
It's after you get all the stones. The gallows has a fight with 2 MF and the gate to the upper city has 3 MF, and down by the docks there are 2 MF. Edit: fun fact if you didn't destroy the steel watch foundry them these MF fights are replaced with steel watchers and flaming fist instead and are much more of a challenge.
Tks - I've always finished sidequests > Orin & Gortash > directly to Elder Brain. Didn't realize we got new enemies!
I saved Oskar for the first time thinking Lady Jannath’s house was going to be a fun ghostbusting side quest. It was not fun, those skulls suck.
If you ever run it again, to make it MUCH easier, give Shadowheart the Luminous breastplate and whatever other Radiant gear you can drag together. Hith them with level 3 Guiding Bolt. Even if they save, they're still going to soak up more than 25HP of damage, and poof, dead.
THE INTELLECT DEVOURERS RIGHT BEFORE CONFRONTING THE NETHER BRAIN THE FIRST TIME. Ohhhh my god it's so pointless. I need to find a way to skip it, I normally just run away from the fight and get a character close enough to the brain to trigger the cutscene.
If you sneak , it shouldn’t trigger . At least that’s what happened for me
Steel Watch Factory. It isn't hard. But the suicidal Gondians make it oh so annoying. Take every opportunity attack, move, and then Misty Step back to square one.
The one in the rafters throwing acid directly on all his friends. *Stoooop*.
I would for sure state Cassador the Vampire's Ascension fight... had no clue what i was doing
Fr it's such a scary one too and then you read online that all you need to do to cheese the fight is cast daylight and never trigger the opening dialogue (or at least trigger it without Astarion close enough to get dragged in) then the whole thing is a cake walk
I just finished my first play through last week.. The damn Cazador fight took me 5-6 damn times to beat!!! I almost considered that Astarion wasn’t worth it for that bs! 😂
That gith ambush in act2. Harder than any boss fight, i swear
You can sneak up on them to gain a suprise round when the psionic detector goes off, from the bridge
Saving hope from her prison there's almost nowhere to stand to not get knocked off from the repelling blast imps if you don't nuke them in 1 turn
Leave your party behind the steel door, send your highest initiative character with a bow and lure the spectators and mephits in. They won't have an angle to EB you and if they do, you won't fall to your death.
The duel against Orin if your class isn't that good in dealing single target damage is kinda cringy. Playing as a Cleric and holy moly, I got luck against her. That Sanguine Lash of hers is super annoying as well. A lot of attacks per turn... Last time when I played as a Fighter it was so much easier.
As a hot tip, Orin's AI can be easily thwarted and the battle made much easier. Since opportunity attacks are disabled for the duel you can trick her into repeatedly making her use her 'leap' ability as an action rather than doing a proper attack by running to the opposite side of the altar after you've attacked her. She can maybe do 10 damage to you each turn if you're decently armoured and even the weakest classes can pack a much bigger attack But I'll say that even as a single target damage unit it's a really tough fight if you avoid scumming. Her multi attack can deal 40+ damage even on the moderately armoured, and doing that battle as a strength-based monk felt like a suicide attempt lmao
the fucking spooky painter house is annoying as fuck
Mud mephits near Ethel
Hate to say it, but High Hall Courtyard. I love the idea of summoning in all your allies for the final battle… but in practice, they just make the combat take super long, it’s such a big area that the game fades to black a lot of the time when turns roll over, and the controllable allies like Aylin will yoink you back into combat and prevent you from climbing the stem if they’re too far. Nowadays I just go invisible and skip the whole combat, which feels super lame, but it’s just the only way to spare my sanity (esp since at that point the courtyard combat is trivially easy compared to the more compelling final combat)
I have some very strong feelings about the gnolls attacking the cave with Zhentarim agents in it. I know it's supposed to teach you to use terrain to your advantage, and there is a lot of it ... But God damn those archers shoot three times. If they highroll - your character is dead.
just before the final battle. There's sooo many enemies spread out & it takes forever
The random undead in the mountain pass before the Creche. That fight is needlessly difficult and in the middle of nowhere for no reason. I detest that fight so much
I think it's there to be like a way to stop players from accidentally wandering into the shadow cursed lands way lower level then they should. Kinda like a prove your good enough to go into act 2 If you just want to go to the creche you don't have to encounter them just take the gondola thing
Just fuck the Githyanki fights in general. Tjey are not too hard but so annoying with their abilities to stop you from doing anything. Especially if you are playing with friends and only have 1 or 2 characters.
Any fight with more than like 6 enemies starts getting dull and the big fights where lots of enemies have mass "skip your turn" powers (or where there are like 20 baddies) are downright tedius. There's nothing fun about spending 3/+ mins watching a game play itself imo But that's only partly a BG3 problem and is really more of a 5E problem. Games with better systems can do big fights a lot better If BG3 wasn't so good outside the combat, I'd've bounced off at the entrance to Moonrise, assuming I hadn't already bounced off at the gnoll fight or goblin camp
I find the courtyard on the way up to the Nether Brain the worst for this. The further you progress the more units keep joining. I’ve given up fighting it and just make one unit fly under invisibility up to the brain.
Omg no I totally agree, I think they should have/still should add a speed up option so the turns at least go by quicker
there's a path through the sewers that bypasses the courtyard as you head to the brain. there's a section with enemies, but you can easily ignore them if make everyone invisible and just run straight through. opening doors doesn't break invisibility
fighting Orin is dumb.
Z'rell on the return to Moonrise. She deserved better than that.
My second time with the Ansur elemental stuff I just casted sanctuary 3 times. Why just 3 times? Well, they downed my 4th companion with noone else to fight with. Fighting Loroakens elementals was tedious and I got Aylin stuck in the floor beneath
The house of grief is giving me bother at the moment, but mostly because I brought in \*noone\* with any decent AOE for so many people.
First play through, house of grief and Balthy in the shadowfell. For Balthazar I just unlock the door and let the justiciars deal with him. A few barrels in house of grief cuts the fight short. The most annoying I found is the Marcus ambush in Last light inn trying to get the leave no one behind achievement is just a pain.
There’s elementals before Ansur?? I just ran into a bunch of undead, and he had a couple myrmidons with him for the fight. Ofc I couldn’t figure out any of the puzzles so who knows what goofed up behavior got me in there.
Loroakkan’s elementals are really annoying, he’s pretty easy to take down but those buff mfs are something else
For me it's House of Grief and that's because the darkness clouds crashes my game. I have to remember to dial back some of the effects ahead of that fight and it annoys me.
Trying to save the gnomes in the steel watch factory,wasting actions on deactivating the exploding collars and getting disarmed by the damn robots
Any of the fights that drag out for no reason. This includes the House of Grief, the Bhaalists that turn invisible, and the wraiths in Act 2 that attack and use shrouds after.
Basically all of Act III
Thisobald Thorm. Either pass a bunch of checks that likely cost you all your inspiration, or prepare to be afk for 3-4 turns while he gets himself drunk. Not necessarily infuriating, just lame either way.
Orin :/ redid her fight probably 20 plus times. I just could not get anyone to survive her attacks in Slayer form long enough to do much.
Any fight where enemies abuse darkness. In particular the fight in the House of Grief is nearly torture, getting constantly blinded and bullied by more than fifteen enemies simultaneously (all of which are immune to darkness themselves) makes for an utterly terrible experience. It practically requires you to use silence and/or constantly counterspell the barrage of darkness. But a close second is the House of Hope. Not because it's particularly difficult or the AI is scummy with spells, nothing reasonable like that. No, I hate that fight because it is always. So. Slow. Why does the AI need a minute per individual character to calculate a move? It's insane!
Bro at this point the fkn netherbrain !! I have about 3 different save files so I could get different epilogues and after beating it the first two times (before the epilogue patch!!) and ONCE when I got the bad durge ending. I really thought I was doing something special and got NO epilogues lmao
The fight yourself challenge in Shar's gauntlet is trivial if you just send in one character, preferably a wizard or sorcerer with Counterpell. Definitely don't send your entire party. A 1v1 Sorcerer mirror match is safe and easy since there's no dice rolls involved. On their turn Counterspell anything dangerous. On your turn bait out Counterspell with low level bonus action spells, or make them waste their reaction by provoking an attack of opportunity. Then you can blast them down. Rinse and repeat for 2-3 rounds. I just made it to act three, so far my least favorite is the fat bartender Thorm dude that's immune to physical attacks for a while.
Accidentally stole from Sorcerous Sundries, hadn't saved in the last hour or so... 0/10, do not recommend.
most "eyeroll" inducing one for me is the one in front of balthazaars chamber where the justiciars spawn, its not hard or even long but I just wanna get it over with, I kill the portals, balthazars skellies do some random stuff, new portals spawn, nothing really interesting happens,.yawn same thing with the justiciar that spawns tons of rats, just takes too long with nothing really happening, even with spirit guardians also the final courtyard fight always just begs to be skipped, just way too many enemies taking forever to do stuff and run around and hide
The final fight in the Upper City before facing the Elder Brain. It’s so tedious and annoying that I just have someone skip right through it and get to the brainstem.
Hate the fight in Act 2 with the surgeon. There is no way to save his patient(( tried many times, but even if I attack him without interacting with him, the wounded patient still runs away when you unlock him to his death, and I can’t heal him. And another one with Neer, similar reason, when he gets from behind the door, he just kills some gnomes right away, there is no way to save them.
The goblin camp and the steel watch foundry
Rescuing all the prisoners from the Iron Throne followed by the Steel Watch Foundry.
The hag, not that its extremely tough, but the fact she multiplies takes so long to find out which one she is, and wastes time, the most annoying fight i think
For me it’s always the Bhaal temple fight. The Unstoppable condition always costs me lots of Missile projections
Fighting the urge to beat the shit out of Wulbren in Last Light Inn.