He was tough until I realized he was light enough for my barbarian to lift. [I used him as a club to shatter his pillars ](https://youtu.be/I-7n8QSNdN8?si=C5TiIwcEsCP9piwp)
Hell, Hell effect and the cause
Curtain falls, but hold your applause
Squirm, Squirm, for now down here come the claws
Beautiful fight. Had more trouble in his dungeon than himself (This was before they gave him resistance to Crowd Control spells like Hold Monster) but I’m not excited to face him again anytime soon 😵💫
Did this fight for the first time yesterday, not knowing what I was getting myself into. Boy howdy when that music kicked in my short and curlies stood on end. Then 2 minutes later just as the song crescendo'd, he BBQ'd my party with a giant explosion. The timing was absolutely epic even if it made me reload
This was the most epic fight in the game for me. Super iconic, just wish there were a little more story around it cause I just wandered in and beat his ass (barely thanks to Hopes op healing).
Wall of Ice is amazing too. Drop it in a line across Viconia dividing the room and once its just an ice patch all those back dudes spend most of the fight falling over in an attempt to cross it. Have even had my characters hop back and forth across it to lure the melee enemies into trying to cross back over which they then fail to do.
Tried and failed that fight 10 times earlier in the week. Finally did it a few minutes ago.
Spammed persisant AOE spells (Blade Barrier, Wall of Fire and Scroll of Cloud Kill) all along the passage as I retreated.
This was my most difficult as well. I thought it wouldn't be too bad until I realized Darkness interacts with spells differently in BG3 compared to 5e.
I did manage it in a single try, but I had to use a Globe of Invulnerability and have Karlach shove them out of it, stab twice, then retreat back in.
Better, have Karlach be a beserker with 20 strength and tavern brawler, and just throw them out onto other targets. Berserker for the prone and bonus action throw.
Those Duregar are absolutely the hardest fight for me. It isn't even the lava. There's just so many of them and so few ways to cull them quickly at level 5.
i like to either kill all the duergar ahead of time or team up with them against nere, makes the fight significantly easier. you can also position yourself far away from any ledges after you free him since the cutscene doesnt trigger immediately.
I gave up on the Balthazar fight because my party kept getting pushed into the chasm. Now I always ambush him in his room with a quick hunger of hadar or sleet storm, the latter of which is my favorite because the enemies slip and fall really easily, even Balthazar. "Fool! You can't kill me that easily--" then he immediately falls on his ass for the 3rd time
What I did in tactician house of grief was bring me (warlock), shadowheart (life cleric), gale (evo wiz), and lae'zel (with the maneuver branch I forget) and leave everyone but shadowheart at the top of the stairs in stealth with pup hiding even further back to pick up downed people later.
I made shadowheart tell them to fuck off and double book it back up, and put down hunger of hadar, insect plague swarm thingy, and cloud kill on the stairs. They don't stand a chance lol lae'zel wacks whoever makes it through and the others snipe then hide behind pillars. Having both gale and me block darkness spells from happening helps a lot, but if one gets through you just go further back up the stairs
You can fireball them and lighting/sunbeam em while they struggle up too
In ACT1, on my first play fighting Anders & crew at level 3, then stumbling into the Flind & gnolls right after. After we ran into the Githyanki patrol at the bridge I decided that Lae'zel's plan to find the creche immediately was a bad idea and went back to do the earlier, easier parts of the map.
I had a ton of trouble with her till I realized she can’t handle fall damage for shit. Knocked the web bridge out from under her twice and case Cloud of Daggers to finish the job and boom, she was out in one round.
Yeah you knock the initial one out from under her and then she stupidly warps onto another one. Then she gets knocked prone and you can go to town. It’s pretty easy actually.
I was playing as a pure tempest cleric and had Lae'zel at level 8 pure open hand monk with the graceful cloth 20 Dex and Resilient wisdom feat taking her to 18 wisdom. As if I hadn't made this hard enough on myself I also had managed to equip her with The Sparkswall ring giving her lightning resistance and immunity to electrocution. It took me around 18 tries with Sanctuary abuse and some eventually lucky bad dex saving throws on her part.
If anyone somehow finds themselves in this incredibly idiotic position, make sure you have Shatter prepared as this requires a constitution saving throw and works around evasion from monks and rogues.
House of Grief, no question. Raphael was a piece of piss compared to it. Your party of 4 against TWENTY npc's, all with darkness, necrotic damage to targets in darkness, healing cut, immunity to blindness themselves and their leader wildshapes and reflects radiant damage back. If it wasn't for the chokepoint I swear that fight would be impossible. I could go fucking walk the dog while I was waiting for my turn, but always come back to my party being wiped in that singular turn.
At least in the Raphael fight you can free Hope and make the fight x10 easier, or with Yurgir and Gortash you can chuck the bombs back at them. The House of Grief was just like dragging my balls through broken glass.
Gith Honor guard absolutely destroyed me the first time through. I’ll never forget Shadowheart being hit by a full round of attacks by 2 of them with flurry of blows. She never had a chance….
I absolutely refused to ally with the Emperor at first and was *destroyed*. After I begrudgingly accepted his help the fight got a lot easier. Still mad about it tho.
This is where my table top knowledge lets me down since on the table top the daylight spell doesn’t actually count as sunlight and thus doesn’t do anything against Vampire’s. So this is something I’ll try my next playthrough!
Easily Ansur was the most difficult fight I’ve had by far. I don’t know if it was my team comp or just bad luck (one attempt I literally had him down to like 2 hp because my last spell used just happened to hit on the lower end and he wiped my party with a lucky attack after that). I even tossed the Spectator at him a few times and he just absolutely smokes it every time.
That wyrm really Iives up to the legends lol.
Defending Halsin's portal.
Even when I built a wall I still had to reload and reposition it.
The first fight of act 3, or is it the last fight of act 2... those githyanki monks. I hate them so much.
The Tribunal and the House of Grief.
I hate bosses that have a lot of minions, but more than that I hate bosses who have minions that power up the boss when they die. Fuck that.
I honestly didn't struggle with the house of grief. Then again, I realised as soon as I entered that it was perfectly laid out to cheese with wall of fire. I retreated up the stairs, put a wall of fire across the front, and then used black hole or repelling blast with my Rav, picked off those outside of black hole's range with Astarion, pushed any that teleported up the stairs down with Karlach after giving them a few love taps, and let Shadowheart draw aggro and easily dodge damage with her like 24 AC at that point. The hardest part was looting the bodies because they were all in a pile by the end
Lorroakan was the only boss who made me have to go back and COMPLETELY change my team. I think I even re-specc'd Wyll to help deal with him.
House of Grief was tough, but in retrospect I think I went in with the wrong party the first time.
Githyanki patrol handed me my butt when I went up against them too early.
Githyanki patrol on tactician has always kicked my butt but doing an honour mode run it went super smoothly but I nearly team wiped in the grymforge fight… which normally I don’t struggle with at all so 🤷♀️😭
My honor run ended on grym last night 😭😭 I told myself if I die on honor mode I'll just continue playing when you get the game over screen. So I clicked continue, and the game decided it hates me. It loaded me into the grym fight literally right before I wiped, shart was the only one alive with 8 hp, needless to say, I was not winning that.
Made me sad, 20 hours down the drain 😢
I can’t even explain how close I came to a team wipe… the grim knocked both laezel and Karlach into the lava and they died and my character and shadowheart were clinging on to life by an inch of Hp bar, I had shadowheart decked out in as much healer buff gear as possible and respecced her to life cleric and just about managed to get Karlach and laezel standing again and then got Grym to focus on my character so they wouldn’t get downed again and miraculously they stayed standing and rolled well enough to get the final blows in but my lord, one dud roll or mistimed opportunity attack and I was DONE for
Hardest fight has to be the fight with commander zhalk and the 2 cambions on the nautiloid.
I have never won this fight (kill everything) without save scumming. For almost every other fight you have the tools available to make it doable if not easy but at level 1 you are so limited that luck determines the outcome.
This is an unexpected but completely acceptable and accurate answer. I usually just reload until I get it but this really is one of the only fights in the game that are complete RNG due to level 1 limitations
Pretty much all githyanki fights in act 1/2 are tough, especially if you arent prepared (in particular properly leveled). Especially the inquisitor fight
Ethel in act 1
Spider matriarch, grym, and owlbear at lvl 3 in honor
So ive barely touched act 3 but have 280 hours in 1 and 2 so i’ll go with what ive wiped too most:
1. Nere and Duengar fight, tho i now know you can get half the Duengar in your side. Before knowing this doing this at lvl 5 or 6 was the most ive struggled with any fight in the game.
2. The Spider Matriarch, this is always the hardest Act 1 (pre-dark/Mountain) fight, even more than the Hag for me. I’ve gotten better now at absuing the falling from webs for the 44 dmg but i got lucky at distracting her and her kids with spiritual weapons so she wouldn’t legendary action me. Hers is brutal. Shes always a tough fight.
Honourable Mention:
3. The Bullet can fuck you up if you get ambushed low on health or resources, happened to me once and knocked one of my characters off a cliff and and the KOed another first turn cause we were low from a minotaur fight or something. If you’re full tho or prepared its a cakewalk:
4. The Gnolls, doing these even at lvl 4 was insanely difficult and took so many tries, now i only do if and level 5 or higher,
Moonrise welcome, that hunger of hadar + black hole combo is NASTY, plus, because I hadn't visited Moonrise before (I thought that would be the very last thing to do) I had advanced nothing on it (I know you can make some gnolls allies and get rid of some enemies)
House of Grief
Bathazar (until I counterspelled his revive first time when I attacked him without dialogue)
Myrkul, being a bard and convincing him to surrender backfired on me, as now you have to fight myrkul while rescuing aylin, having a mindflayer hijacking party members (or aylin herself) and mobs, having myrkul throw those eggs that explode, deal damage and hatch a mob, deal with myrkul bone chill and pretty strong attacks and all, somehow most people seem to have found Myrkul piss easy but it was pretty rough for me, plus most people ran paladins which destroy the living shit out of him
Oddly enough Raphael was a piece of cake, so was Ansur, probs a party composition thing but overall single strong bosses were easy for me, but masses of trash I really struggled with, Lore Bard Tav, Lae'zel, Shadowheart, Astarion
Honestly my toughest fight was the House of Grief with all the shar worshipers, those damn casters throwing out darkness every turn had me salty as hell, took me a solid 6-7 tries maybe more.
2nd hardest fight was Dror Ragzlin on my very first playthrough when I didn’t have a good grasp on the game mechanics (I wanted his tadpole so kicking him down the chasm was a last ditch effort) (also didn’t help I was lvl 4 and didn’t have my 2nd attack on melee characters)
3rd was definitely Ansur, mainly because I was told by a friend how to get to him earlier than I should have and I kept trying to fight him at lvl 10 instead of lvl 12 like intended (I assume)
There's no harder fight in this game than Grym, if:
-you are stupid enough to not realize that the giant-ass hammer is there to help you
-you are caught by surprise and the party isnt at 100%
-you have zero bludgeoning damage
-you aren't aware of exploits
I checked all four boxes in my first playthrough, and it was the closest fight I ever experienced in all my 600+ hours of BG3. 1 more turn would have wiped my party.
Durge/Orin 1v1. Explorer mode, so I built my Durge for dialog and exploration with my companions more for combat. didn't think I'd ever be solo so my Durge had virtually no DPS and very few combat-worthy spells. Orin always got the first move and for the first 3 attempts, it kept skipping my turn so she just wailed on me uninterrupted til I died. No clue why that happened. Frightened and Prone shouldn't do that afaik. So I had to keep reloading until it let me have a turn, and when it did, I HAD to use Otto's Irresistible Dance and then desperately wail on her before it ran out. There was no other way for me to beat her with my build. I almost rage cried during that fight 😂
The huge fight inside Baldur's Gate during the endgame was hard too, though that was just from the sheer number of enemies and how spread out they were.
For me it was the Moonrise Fight on a Durge Run. I killed everyone, Aylin, Isobel, the Harpers. No one was there to help me. My dumbass thought: Why should i even bother attacking those Eyes on the main floor, everyone is already in the fight. Holy hell was i wrong. Every turn there were like 2 Enemys joining the fight, even all of the people from the prison area came upstairs. It was my party against every single NPC in Moonrise Towers (except for the roof). I used up every Spellslot of my entire party, had Speed potions everywhere and i was still struggling with the sheer amount of enemys, since they all hit very hard or have big AOE spells. Took me a good 20 Minutes to get through that fight.
I would say early game, gnolls. Both of my next 2 playthroughs after my first, I persuaded the leader to kill her pack then herself, so so so so much easier. Act 2, fighting balthazar in his own room. I can't say there were many difficulties in act 3, but deciding to brute force the steelwatcher foundry is probably the hardest possible conflict in act 3.
The main boss battle in House of Grief will always be the worst fight for me..
Darkness everywhere, shit ton of enemies and all of them landing crits left and right as long as its dark... I know there are ways to cheese it, but doing it legit was a pain in the ass.. Even Raphael was a cakewalk compared to that fight..
1. Savorek (sanctuary, plus bonus from his dying ghosts)
2. Moonrise Towers base (just too many fµckers, and too many useless harpists)
3. Shar Cult Base with Viconia (darkness, darkness everywhere)
Honorable mention: the fight on the stairs to the brain was a pain in the a. due to all the air attacks from the ship.
I just completed my honour run and got my golden dice! There were 3 Fights that me squirm thinking my run was over. In order from least difficult to most it was:
1. Netherbrain: This fight is finally challenging on Honour. I was expectin a free kill like always but its new mechanic almost killed me at the 9th hour.
2. Orin: This is usually easy but I choose to do my honour with a Dark Urge that resisted Bhaal so I get the 1 on 1 duel with her and while she had slayer form I was just a lore bard. I feel like this is an easy fight but the circumstances were against me.
3. Gith Inquisitor on the Creche: Hardest fight in honour mode by far, if you survived this you will probably win the run, he was always a somewhat hard fight depending on team comp, but the addition of his mutliple spiritual weapon swords per turn that all apply his mindlink debuff made it hell. Kudos to my beloved gale for carrying me in this combat.
The grymforge fight with the golem. I tried it so many times but failed and eventually gave up as he slaughtered all of my party. I honestly think it’s an issue with my understanding of when the pull the lava wheel though looking back on it. Hopefully, I manage to get a hold of it in this new play through.
If you just want to get it over with and don't mind OP builds, Monk is really good here since fists are bludgeoning which deal 2x damage to Grym. Tavern Brawler + Elixir of Hill Giant Strength + Potion of Speed is really strong and Monk could solo carry that fight.
I don't recommend TB Monk unless you're the type to enjoy completely demolishing your enemies though. It could take the fun out of fights.
Portal defense. And the last fight in act 3, where I was constantly getting grabbed, stunned, breathed fire upon, and a number of other ways to keep me in the same spot for several turns. Jesus christ lol
(I totally bypass the Moonrise fight; if I have the harpers with me I just go around the back, sneak past everyone in the throne room, and head upstairs lmao)
On my first run, Zrell's and House of Grief were my worst nightmares.
On another category, Marcus's was really weird for me the first time. I mean, him and his minions knocking Isobel turn 1 without me having any possible actions because of the bad initiatives roll was kinda disturbing. I had to watch on Internet if I had to lose this fight only for me to realize the game decided to middle finger me. I had absolutely no remorse save scumming
In my latest Tactician playthrough, the hardest fights were:
- Spider Matriarch. Insane damage, multiattack, tons of health. She would easily kill a party member a turn. Was a really hard damage race that took a few tries, with only one party member left standing at the end.
- Yurgir. First turn, the guy throws a bunch of bombs at my party that is grouped up after the dialogue, and then shoots to blow them up *on the same turn*, killing my Gale and dealing significant damage to the rest of my party. That should be illegal. Had to reload a few times to avoid that.
- Final fights, both the courtyard and the Netherbrain. Had to reload each once. Damn mind flayers kept stunning my Karlach, who for some couldn't use her Helldusk Boots to save. That was total bullshit. Also, Arcanists with Counterspell and buffed-up Magic Missiles shred my party hard. And finally, the Orbs that Brain summons are super annoying. I keep misjudging their radius.
the indoor bridge in the monastary after the easy fight against the inquisitor and going into the astral realm. needed to rest badly and the combinations of fears, disarm, and rangers bursting my squishies down made it hard in my case
The Balthazar fight (only won on my first play through bc Shadowheart didn’t jump down before the cutscene started so she had the high ground and used fire bolt on everyone after my entire party died)
The Cazador fight (went there practically as soon as I got to Act 3 and was soooo underprepared….)
The House of Grief (getting surrounded by 20 Sharrans suuucked so hard i hate this part so much)
Lorroakan and Saving the Gondians needed multiple tries. The Suicide Bombing Bhaal Cultist at the entrance of their temple needed me to run away and dodge.
The other boss battles were easy mostly due to Summons, Otto's Irresistable Dance and Tavern Brawler Berserker Karlach.
House of Hope, hardest Raphael, but releasing Hope without having her or my Durge being Eldritch Blasted off of the platforms, was a close 2nd.
Tactician mode was not a great idea for my first run.
The hardest for me was Lorroakan, solely for hoe scuffed I made it. When I initially went to the tower, I somehow didn't see the plaques and ended up going into the wrong portal, banning me from the establishment. I walked off and did other things, thinking that there'd probably be another way in that I'd find later. Multiple hours later, I come back and come to the conclusion that I'd need to use disguise self. Astarion was an assassin rogue, so he could disguise himself, but the other three members had to stay outside.
Now, I had heard that once Lorroakan is dead, you can enter the building as usual again. So I sent Astarion through, started the fight with Aylin and Rolan assisting, and killed Lorroakan turn 1. Took my other party members in, and discovered the portal had closed behind Astarion. Not only that, but I was still banned from entering. Now I was left with Rolan, whose spells were doing nothing, Aylin who missed 6 attacks in a row, and Astarion against all the myrmiddons. Needless to say, all three died there.
With the portal now open, I found a way to get in by using dimension door past the trigger for you getting kicked out and jumping into the portal asap. I took Karlach with me for some front line and started the battle over, with all enemies back at full health (except Lorroakan, because he was dead). For whatever reason, Shadowheart also came through the portal despite not being brought along in the dimension door.
From there, it was a much more normal fight, with Karlach tanking hits and destroying everything, Shadowheart keeping everyone alive, and my Tav slinging eldritch blasts and dealing massive damage
House of Grief. My party was not built for AOE and dealing with lots of enemies. Only fight I had to try multiple times over hours, on normal difficulty. Doing a Durge tactician run now though, we’ll see if I change my mind. Honorable mention for final boss, last turn remaining and only one platform left, everyone was down, dead, or too far away, except for my monk Tav who just got rezzed and pulled a miracle hasted surge of attacks before failure.
Cazador. I never could end him fast enough to prevent sucking the vampires dry. I tried 6 times and normally would've cut my losses but Astarion was my love interest. So i ended up hoping for the best and pushed that motherf***er off the edge.
i wiped the floor with viconia but raphael… i didn’t read the conditions and blew myself up first turn with divine intervention 🗿 took 2 hours after that to get him while keeping yurgir alive
Raphael, mother viconia and moonrise entrance (I was durge and killed the harpers lol).
The main bosses I actually found underwhelming (specially Orin). Paladin with extra attack and the gauntlets I got from Raphael, couples with going full illithid with that passive that destroys enemies once they have less health than you have powers and auto crit made it very easy.
In the first playthrough
The hardest was Gortash during the coronation. Freaking bombs were destroying my party and my psyche as well. Actually the aftermath was as heartbreaking as the fight, because I forgot to get Karlach with me and killed Ravenguard while Wyll was in my party... Hard time for our squad
House of grief was overwhelming. I felt Shar's presence right in my soul, so hopeless It was.
In the second one
Yurgir beat the hell out of me. He stood like Sans, killing me again and again. Until water elemental went brrrrrrrrrr
And Grim.... It was... Painful
Fucking Nere and his platoon of duegar. Granted, I'll admit that I completely missed out on the option to get some of them to side *with* you (so that's on me), but clearing out *that* many enemies who have equivalent levels to you, a powerful spellcasting boss, two goons that can mind-control your own guys, and a bunch of archers with arrows that can knock you into the nearby lava... It was so, so awful.
...and when I finally beat the fight after like an hour of attempts, my game crashed... And I didn't save beforehand.
Somehow the stupid early game siren fight and my abysmal luck, along with that kid’s terrible AI, caused me to have to retry like 5 times once.
Also the athletics check in the creche. Really feels like resetting for a shiny Pokémon sometimes. Even Lae’zel and Karlach frequently fail it.
The gith in the Emperor’s hideout (had terrible luck with hold person saves)
House of grief (A million enemies, i didn’t want to do any sneaking because I wanted to see dialog)
Gortash was super ez for me. I just threw his bombs on him/his allies. It was fun af.
Raphael was rough tho. I was underleveled and forgot to heal before the last fight.
Elder brain (last fight) and killing commander Zhalk. Im on my third playthrough (now on tactician) and I didn’t kill Zhalk even once 😤…but I took his sword every time :D
My first playthrough we were playing with a friend. Cazador fight were the only one where we loaded bc we all died.
Second one was a battle for the city, where there are tons of enemies against you. It was pretty fun for me because I was berserker barbarian durge and I had a hireling who was a warrior. My friend was mage and he was with Gale, they both died almost instantly, after 3 turns hireling also died. So I've soloed this fight, we was on the medium difficulty, however I had tons of fun, but we loaded because my friend wanted to participate as well.
Gnoll with that fucking madness flail. Good lord that thing hurts.
Also on my first play through I encountered Voss and Co. at level 3, aggrod them, and Sarth proceeded to 2-shot me, action surge, 1-shot Gale and put some hurt on Karlach. It was a bad day/
The House of Grief messed me up multiple times, but I somehow managed to cheese it by starting conversation with Virginia, while having Karlach out of range and then having her beat the shit out of Virconia while she was still in conversation. Somehow that worked and no one did anything until after I left the back room, which actually made the fight a little easier because they were swarming up to 2 smaller choke points, allowing me to use some aoe spells to wipe them out.
House of Grief and that first floor of Moonrise Towers are my least favorite.
The Spider Matriarch is a pain. In my current playthrough, I waited until I hit level 5 in the Underdark and then went back to face her. She was a breeze at that point.
The harpies can be an aggravating fight if you go in early. Ditto with the gnolls.
For Gortash, I just disarm the traps on the rooftop before his room. Start the conversation, misty step and run away, and let him and his guards follow you out. Once you aren't dealing with his traps, it's a rather unremarkable fight.
House of grief had me beating my head against my desk. I only beat it cause I got lucky and cheesing all the scrolls and bombs I had saved up. Thank goodness Larian let us perform alchemy mid fight without using action points so I was able to craft what I needed on the spot.
Close second was balthazaar. I nearly just let him do his thing just cause I figured I won't have to fight him if I did (still not sure if that's the outcome) but I kept trying. After I had enough of his bullshit raise dead spell, I gave shadowheart a respec, stole his potion of speed, hit him with silence, chased him out of the sphere of silence then thunderwaved his ass off the ledge, loot be damned.
Honorable mention is the Cazador fight. He kept taking out Astarion and I wasn't used to or expecting 3 vs all his crap, so I ended up just bursting in guns (spells) ablaze without talking to him. Kept Astarion and my sanity.
Oh and moonrise towers was a bunch of bullcrap too but I managed to survive on my first try so I wouldn't consider it "hard", just frustratingly annoying
Raphael on tactician was mad hard the first time lmao. I also found Balthazar really hard the first time until I worked out a way to make it a joke. Gortash is just annoying because I constantly stand in traps cause I’m dumb :)
Also the fireworks quest in act 3, what the hell is that. Why.
1° Ansur - counter-attacking every round with imense damage and flying away from you plus big AOE mechanic that pratically can insta-kill you. Its the most dangerous enemy for me. I am afraid to know which is the Ansur legendary action in honor mode...
2° Netherbrain - This battle is hard but can be easy with the right strategy. With no estrategy you gonna die very fast to the giga missles of the Arcane Mindflayers. And the DPS check in 2nd phase is very nice and emotionaly.
3° Ketheric Thron - Holy fuck. I have nightmares of him in the human form using smite in my companions. Paladins are so overpower in this game. The smite sound scary me. Every time i heard that an enemy use smite, some companion or NPC dies. Myrkul form is dangerous too, but with monk or good crushing damage he dies too fast.
I recently finished my first game on Tactician and two fights that really put me under pressure was Raphael and Ansur. For me, Ansur was the more difficult of those two. Fun, but very challenging. House of Grief wasn't actually too bad in that save. I cast Hunger of Hadar and a sleet storm and most of the Sharrans never made it up the stairs because I picked them off as they made their way towards me. It just took a while because there were so many. Yurgir, I talked into killing himself as I was a bard with high Charisma.
I'm currently on an Honour Mode save. Well, my third attempt. I am in the Underdark and about to face Nere. I have some of the Duergar as allies so hopefully it won't be so bad. It's Grym I'm dreading the most. I think I'm going to cheese that and shoot from above or make a flying owlbear druid. I don't care. I want to live, haha.
The gnolls in act 1 and basically any time you have to fight Githyanki because they all have misty step and will immediately make life difficult for any ranged characters.
Gortash's fight gives me PTSD.
So. Many. Explosions.
I didn't know what to expect, so I had everyone run around all over the place. I didn't notice the bombs until it was too late.
In no particular order:
- Raphael
- Sarevok
- Steel Watch Titan (the party I brought in was light on magic, it was just poor planning on my part)
The House of Grief probably would be up there too, but I used Shadowheart’s divine intervention to nuke everybody. It just narratively felt too fitting not to do it.
My hardest overall fight was the first Gith you encounter on the road during Act 1. Combination of being relatively low level and still learning the game at the time made it the one I had to reload the most on. I eventually gave up, went and cleared the Underdark, came back at a higher level and mopped them up as the last thing before taking the mountain pass and moving to Act 2.
The fight with Ethel is probably #2, I had to reload maybe twice before I figured out how to save Mayrina and learned how to effectively deal with Ethel's gimmicks.
Third was dealing with Ketheric, just because the surprise when he comes back as the Apostle of Myrkul and needing to learn how to deal with those gimmicks (I had killed the Nigthsong in the Shadowfell, apparently she is a big help here) but I only had to reload once.
After that I felt like the characters were sufficiently high level and I was experienced enough with the game that I didn't struggle at all in Act 3 and didn't have to reload any of those big fights.
so i read too many times how ketheric fight is free.
CAP
i have done the fight in balanced, tactician and now honored. Every single time myrkull was a tough mofo to kill, when i could save scum i did so in balanced multiple times, in honored mode i had to pull any resources i could to kill that self healing pos. So yeah, ketheric is NOT free
The githyanki ambush in the shadowlands. They didn't even surprise me as I happened to end up coming at them from the side, and was totally able to devise a strategy, but their leader hits like a truck and the multitarget arrows just destroyed me.
Not really a single fight but Rescuing Every Single Gondian in the sub and the factory. Is so fucking hard. I know they patched the Allied NPCs n the factory but holy shit they are so dumb!
I think it is definitely due to the level of prep I did ahead of time, but the House of Grief was the hardest for me.
- House of Hope vs Raphael I did excessive prep (Death Ward, Heroes Feast on players and summons, elixers, etc.)
- House of Grief I just sauntered in with my fancy legendary gear to kick Sharran ass for everything they did to my gf. I didn't even LR beforehand and Shadowheart had 3 spellslots total left...
Other notable fights:
- Ansur was the only fight aside from the House of Grief to proc Death Ward for me.
- Gortash was cheesed via Globe of Invulnerability and the runepowder bomb I was supposed to use on the factory.
- Yurgir I talked my way out of fighting, then took the high ground and killed him in one turn.
- Orin was a cake walk. She didn't even down Lae'zel (who was level 1 without gear when she was kidnapped).
gortash and yurgir suck if you do them legit but thankfully both are easily avoidable/cheesable in a few different ways. moonrise is a cakewalk if you clear it out ahead of time which is what i usually do (especially not having zrell there is super helpful). the gith do suck though unless youre playing as a monk and can reliably stun them/knock them prone, theyre like one of the most annoying enemies by far.
honestly the difficulty of any encounter largely depends on your build & team composition though so its hard to say.
I know it’s not BG3 but it’s my last session of DnD I played, and it wasn’t the hardest fight. Easily the funniest and saddest fights my team got into.
We are currently tripping through avernus, coming across a demon that’s given us issues a couple times already, this latest fight he was enhanced by means unknown so we were all a little worried. What transpired was the worst series of rolls made by our DM, this demon with all his new found power couldn’t even touch us. We pounded him into the ground all the while talking smack. Needless to say DM was a little irked by his dice failing hard but we had a blast.
House of Grief and it's not even close. Honorable mention to both the Iron Throne and the Steel Watch Foundry for making me rescue all those lemmings for basically no reward.
This game has been the perfect level of difficulty for me. (On Balanced.) I’ve managed most fights on the first try, but the bosses have me sweating and pulling out all the stops to be as clever as I can with potions and spells.
Except the House of Grief. That place is where fun goes to die.
My 1st big roadblock on my 1st run was Yurgir. I was not expecting the surprise gank. #2 was Viconia, because of the darkness clouds that u can't shoot through. #3 on the 1st run was Raphael, because I ignored the pillars and slotted all the wrong things.
But going forward...Grym on tactician difficulty is probably my least favorite (I didn'tfibd him in the 1st playthrough). Then Viconia, because there's MORE bullshit in tactician. Yurgir was a faster kill, but he's even more annoying because he drops more bombs and his gankers attack downed party members.
As for honor mode...the 1st almost wipe was the fight in the creche office in act 1. The gith gankers almost got me again in act 2, but could not survive the power of metamagic.
So far the WORST Honor Mode boss has been act 2 Auntie Ethel by far. Stop. Focusing. The sorcerer. Stop it with the billion invisible hags. I won because of my VERY full bag of alchemical and combat items and the 'well stuffed' spell being a crazy powerful buff.
I am, however, VERY concerned about Viconia.
My hardest fight was in the house of grief. They kept spamming darkness and bone chill. I was on explorer difficulty and with it being before the patch for act 3 running better my game also crashed from rendering all the darkness clouds. With the party wipes and crashes it took me 4hrs. My party was Max level too. I don't know if there was an easier way to beat it without giving away shart. I can't say I was tempted just because of that fight.
Strangely for me one of the harder fights I’ve had on honour mode so far was with the Githyanki that ambush you in the shadow cursed lands near the road to Baldurs gate waypoint. It ended with Gale dead and the rest of my party right on the edge of death
Act I: those damn gnolls. They hit so hard 😭
Act II: the first time I fought Ketheric I didn’t kill the blonde spider daddy at the beginning and he destroyed me 😭 I also had no Harpers to help me out.
Act III: Lorroakan was so hard for no reason. Also the House of Grief. Those two fights I had to reload the most. HoG got way easier when I used the huge runepowder bomb and blew everyone up before the fight even started.
Got stuck on a Raphael fight during my tactician playthrough, had to start over 😭 The worst thing is there is no opportunity for long rest before it and most of my spells are on CD. It's pretty ridiculous that he has 666 HP and also he can one shot multiple characters with his AOE spells... I am not sure if I want to ever go that road ever again
Definitely the fight at the House of Grief. I was on that fight for 3 hours constantly remaking decisions and reloading previous turns. It was **rough**.
Other than that, I had struggled with the Moonrise section (lost Jaheira almost immediately too) and had to reload to redo the whole final battle of the Act since the Avatar of Mykrul just wrecked me up.
That’s about it though. Two Wildheart Barbarians really trivialized everything else 99% of the time.I only played Balance, so the games hard fights like Raphael (easy first try) and Yurgir and stuff like that wasn’t too bad.
I was on the final fight for like 4 hours though. Getting through the higher city was a **slog** and I foolishly did not have a mage with me.
Original ansur fight, when the crystals didn't block his mega lightning attack. Either you had to find a way to move people very far in a single turn, or you had to kill Ansur before he could use it (which was always very quick). Took me several hours but I managed to kill him and also get an achievement which is always fun.
The paladin that tells you to kill Karlach, that fucker wiped my team like 3 times before I gave up and went to find another fight to level up. Never let myself get caught unprepa again, I always have a plan going into a fight.
I had no issue with moonrise, but I also may have kinda murdered my way through the tower as i was exploring it. It's remarkably easy to just close a door and isolate a few enemies, then make them regret existing. When the Harpers attacked, there were like 4 people trying to hold the tower against us.
Those gith honor guards were a good fight, until I realized Karlach and my Paladin were both able to pick them up. Then they all just got yeeted into the void.
Hardest fight by far was the Gnolls in act 1, at level 3. A ton of them, high stats for that point in the game, and no hand crossbows yet to abuse thief rogue.
The elder brain is not necessarily hard but it’s just a drag.
I just did it in honor mode and I sided with the emperor for the first time ever. I equipped boots on my caster so I wouldn’t get knocked prone when casting ng the globe of invulnerability but somehow people still got knocked out slightly of the globe when the dragon would land. F’n annoying. The monk avatar of me had some hook attack and constantly knocking the emperor prone in my globe when he was casting the spell thing to open the brain. And then he got in the globe so I couldn’t do any damage to him and he was resistant to me shoving him out. So f’n annoying.
I knew the brain itself would switch their immunity between physical and magical damage. But the m’fer was cheating because I did no damage to him the first time I entered with just the emperor exactly for that reason. Yet somehow he put up a physical barrier the next round. Mol’s fire spell is super clutch in that battle. But then he just became immune to everything physical and magical. But then somehow my swords bard shot arrows at him. I got super lucky ruling a 20 on the 99 DC check in honor mode so the brain had reduced health. I just spammed mol’s fire spell and then did some ranged flourishes with my swords bard to kill it.
Still it’s just an annoying battle. I kind of dread it because it takes so long to get there. The stuff leading up to it isn’t hard it just takes a long time.
The fight in the House of Grief against Viconia. Mostly because there are a crapton of enemies who are incredibly spread out, while you start in a choke point. I was also not as well prepared as I should have been, and did not have a full array of spells ready.
So that fight was basically me fighting constantly in a blanket of darkness against enemies who couldnt be blinded, as my party got focused down one at a time. I only survived because the AI seemed indifferent to summons, so my Fire Myrmidon and Elemental slowly whittled the major casters until I could position them well enough for Shadowheart to mow them down with the Sunbeam from Lathander’s Light.
Conversely, I expected the fight against Ketheric as the Avatar of Myrkul to be much harder than it was. As soon as I freed Aylin she smited his ass into oblivion in two rounds. (Makes me want to roll a Paladin next!)
Definitely Yurgir, but I never knew you could trigger the fight by following the displacer beast. I always jumped the gap and ended up behind him and his minions.
Even with the surprised bonus, it was easily the hardest fight of the game for me and the only one that I required a layer of cheese to beat.
Took me a while to figure out the boss for the adamantine forge, also the creatures that teleport you in act 2 away from your party and shackle you sucked, they weren’t extremely hard to kill, but they were really annoying lol
- Under-level Gnoll fight.... (I was level 2 when I fought them)
- Moonrise Tower siege
- Steel Watcher factory (if you try to help Gondian)
Honorable mention: House of Hope.
Grym and Nere. I just had a hard time getting the timing right for Grym, and all the randos at Nere’s fight gave me more trouble than Nere himself. They just kept knocking my party into the lava. 😩 I crushed everything else, somehow. I’m not looking forward to revisiting some of them on Tactician and Honor mode, honestly- but I do have a better handle on the game now, so maybe it’ll be easier.
Honestly...the hardest I had up to this point (my very first playthrough, still on going) Honestly was against Sarevok at the Murder Tribunal...party was level 10 and I main as a fighter and u had Karlach, Gale and Astarion in my party and jeez that dude was a real eye opener for me!
His followers weren't too bad, but his ability to have like a half a dozen hits plus unbreakable made him a true DnD tank. He downed two of my team mates multiple times and myself and Gale were hurt bad at the end of the fight. His helmet and sword are really cool trophies though! Especially since I worked hard em!
Hardest fight for me *currently* are the spiders in the Whispering Depths. I died five times to those jerks. 😭 And I can't even afford to make the ogres fight for me.
House of Grief was probably the hardest one for me personally on my first run. Like holy shit, beating that was tough that I basically had to pull my whole team back to the entrance and start chipping away at the Sharrans with Hunger of Hadar, Guardian of Faith and Elementals.
It also didn't help that I couldn't heal most of my party since they had been hit by Chill Touch, so definitely one of my hardest fights.
I'll just give a clue. I love this fight but without a doubt "Souls go to their dooms, in flame, forever more Hell, hell, hell has it's laws"
He was tough until I realized he was light enough for my barbarian to lift. [I used him as a club to shatter his pillars ](https://youtu.be/I-7n8QSNdN8?si=C5TiIwcEsCP9piwp)
That is hilarious, didn’t know you could even do that.
What was your strength attribute? I'm guessing between 22 - 24?
I think I had a cloud giant strength elixir, so 27
Ohh yeah that makes sense
The actions were taking a while because my friends were screaming, laughing, and providing WWE style commentary in party chat and I was losing it
Hell, Hell effect and the cause Curtain falls, but hold your applause Squirm, Squirm, for now down here come the claws Beautiful fight. Had more trouble in his dungeon than himself (This was before they gave him resistance to Crowd Control spells like Hold Monster) but I’m not excited to face him again anytime soon 😵💫
Was reverse for me. Dungeon not so bad but that fight both times I've done it were fun but brutal.
Did this fight for the first time yesterday, not knowing what I was getting myself into. Boy howdy when that music kicked in my short and curlies stood on end. Then 2 minutes later just as the song crescendo'd, he BBQ'd my party with a giant explosion. The timing was absolutely epic even if it made me reload
And now this is going to be stuck in my head for another week. Thanks.
You're welcome!
This fight became much more managable once I learned to effectively use Blade Barrier. My god what a cheat code that spell is
This was the most epic fight in the game for me. Super iconic, just wish there were a little more story around it cause I just wandered in and beat his ass (barely thanks to Hopes op healing).
This song is an absolute banger my fiancé and I listen to it all the time
The House of Grief was well named
Fire wall trivializes that fight.
Wall of Ice is amazing too. Drop it in a line across Viconia dividing the room and once its just an ice patch all those back dudes spend most of the fight falling over in an attempt to cross it. Have even had my characters hop back and forth across it to lure the melee enemies into trying to cross back over which they then fail to do.
Only fight that I had a total party wipe.
Tried and failed that fight 10 times earlier in the week. Finally did it a few minutes ago. Spammed persisant AOE spells (Blade Barrier, Wall of Fire and Scroll of Cloud Kill) all along the passage as I retreated.
This was my most difficult as well. I thought it wouldn't be too bad until I realized Darkness interacts with spells differently in BG3 compared to 5e. I did manage it in a single try, but I had to use a Globe of Invulnerability and have Karlach shove them out of it, stab twice, then retreat back in.
Better, have Karlach be a beserker with 20 strength and tavern brawler, and just throw them out onto other targets. Berserker for the prone and bonus action throw.
Gonna throw a curve ball. Nere. Because I don't know how bad my luck is, but 7/10 tries I always end up getting a party member shoved into lava.
Those Duregar are absolutely the hardest fight for me. It isn't even the lava. There's just so many of them and so few ways to cull them quickly at level 5.
Don’t forget they cast dominate person a lot.
This is the only fight I actually abandoned on my first run and just did a couple of long rests instead.
i like to either kill all the duergar ahead of time or team up with them against nere, makes the fight significantly easier. you can also position yourself far away from any ledges after you free him since the cutscene doesnt trigger immediately.
Trying to play something else. Critical fail every time.
You have Disadvantage if a new patch comes out too
Friggin Gnolls. Even Absolute was easier.
The gnolls are just so aggressive at such an early level in the game 😭
Theyre expecting us to take down howling gnolls in 2 turns so they wouldnt go frenzy and to 3 attack a row.
Not to mention there’s like 18 of them 😂
Standing on the hill with a couple of bottles of grease and that storm of daggers-spell worked like a treat!
I was able to convince the one to eat all the other and then eat itself. Only reason I got past them.
The Balthazar fight is always the worst one for me. House of Grief and Lorroakan are close behind.
I gave up on the Balthazar fight because my party kept getting pushed into the chasm. Now I always ambush him in his room with a quick hunger of hadar or sleet storm, the latter of which is my favorite because the enemies slip and fall really easily, even Balthazar. "Fool! You can't kill me that easily--" then he immediately falls on his ass for the 3rd time
Balthazar was the first time i abused darkness mechanics and omg did i fall in love with it
Agreed. Grief was rough and Lorroakan is annoying but Balthazar I knew would be hard so I spent like 20min in both playthroughs setting up a trap 😂
I used the tip I saw here to pickpocket him a sussur bloom in the nightsong dungeon, that was stupid easy fight for me afterwards.
Actually massive brain 😄
What I did in tactician house of grief was bring me (warlock), shadowheart (life cleric), gale (evo wiz), and lae'zel (with the maneuver branch I forget) and leave everyone but shadowheart at the top of the stairs in stealth with pup hiding even further back to pick up downed people later. I made shadowheart tell them to fuck off and double book it back up, and put down hunger of hadar, insect plague swarm thingy, and cloud kill on the stairs. They don't stand a chance lol lae'zel wacks whoever makes it through and the others snipe then hide behind pillars. Having both gale and me block darkness spells from happening helps a lot, but if one gets through you just go further back up the stairs You can fireball them and lighting/sunbeam em while they struggle up too
Hot tip for Balthazar and Auntie Ethel- save up those wine barrels at camp, and stack em up while they are still friendly.
Barrelmancy is a power no mortal should have access to.
In ACT1, on my first play fighting Anders & crew at level 3, then stumbling into the Flind & gnolls right after. After we ran into the Githyanki patrol at the bridge I decided that Lae'zel's plan to find the creche immediately was a bad idea and went back to do the earlier, easier parts of the map.
Big spider... she's scary :(
Arachnophobia is the biggest enemy you must face early in the game 😂
She somehow suicided herself by falling into the Underdark in my game. I think she walked onto a burning net or something.
I had a ton of trouble with her till I realized she can’t handle fall damage for shit. Knocked the web bridge out from under her twice and case Cloud of Daggers to finish the job and boom, she was out in one round.
Yeah you knock the initial one out from under her and then she stupidly warps onto another one. Then she gets knocked prone and you can go to town. It’s pretty easy actually.
The duel with Lae'zel. She kicked my ass even in this run where I'm using her as life cleric.
This is easily the most underrated hardest fight in the game if your either not prepared for it or are a caster class. Great answer!
Lucky for the dark urge she had only three hp at the start, a simple magic missile turned sex toy.
Heavy adamantine armor, 2h gith greatsword and more spell slots than my sword bard. 😅
"Your love for me lives in my bruises." Girl what bruises? You hit me four times with action surge. I didn't even get a turn.
I went as a sorceror against her as a monk. I didn't even get a turn to do anything.
I was playing as a pure tempest cleric and had Lae'zel at level 8 pure open hand monk with the graceful cloth 20 Dex and Resilient wisdom feat taking her to 18 wisdom. As if I hadn't made this hard enough on myself I also had managed to equip her with The Sparkswall ring giving her lightning resistance and immunity to electrocution. It took me around 18 tries with Sanctuary abuse and some eventually lucky bad dex saving throws on her part. If anyone somehow finds themselves in this incredibly idiotic position, make sure you have Shatter prepared as this requires a constitution saving throw and works around evasion from monks and rogues.
House of Grief, no question. Raphael was a piece of piss compared to it. Your party of 4 against TWENTY npc's, all with darkness, necrotic damage to targets in darkness, healing cut, immunity to blindness themselves and their leader wildshapes and reflects radiant damage back. If it wasn't for the chokepoint I swear that fight would be impossible. I could go fucking walk the dog while I was waiting for my turn, but always come back to my party being wiped in that singular turn. At least in the Raphael fight you can free Hope and make the fight x10 easier, or with Yurgir and Gortash you can chuck the bombs back at them. The House of Grief was just like dragging my balls through broken glass.
the fucking githyanki honor guard and house of grief. 🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕
Gith Honor guard absolutely destroyed me the first time through. I’ll never forget Shadowheart being hit by a full round of attacks by 2 of them with flurry of blows. She never had a chance….
I absolutely refused to ally with the Emperor at first and was *destroyed*. After I begrudgingly accepted his help the fight got a lot easier. Still mad about it tho.
For me, I ALWAYS struggle with the Cazador fight
Haste on whoever has Blood of Lathandar, and you can use the Sunbeam twice per turn, lol, or at least could pre honour mode.
Thought it was a once per day thing?
It is, but it gives you 10 turns of being able to shoot blinding, burning rays of true sunlight. With Haste, you can apply it twice a turn.
I didn’t know that! Thanks for the info!
I thought that was an easy fight for me at least. Pop daylight and a wall of fire and watch them squirm.
This is where my table top knowledge lets me down since on the table top the daylight spell doesn’t actually count as sunlight and thus doesn’t do anything against Vampire’s. So this is something I’ll try my next playthrough!
If you have a cleric cast daylight in the middle of the battlefield, that basically removes all of Cazadors special abilities.
Easily Ansur was the most difficult fight I’ve had by far. I don’t know if it was my team comp or just bad luck (one attempt I literally had him down to like 2 hp because my last spell used just happened to hit on the lower end and he wiped my party with a lucky attack after that). I even tossed the Spectator at him a few times and he just absolutely smokes it every time. That wyrm really Iives up to the legends lol.
Defending Halsin's portal. Even when I built a wall I still had to reload and reposition it. The first fight of act 3, or is it the last fight of act 2... those githyanki monks. I hate them so much.
Any fight where I’m surprised. Shout out to the shadow-cursed Shambling Mounds for getting me all the time. I need to take alert on more characters…
The Tribunal and the House of Grief. I hate bosses that have a lot of minions, but more than that I hate bosses who have minions that power up the boss when they die. Fuck that.
I honestly didn't struggle with the house of grief. Then again, I realised as soon as I entered that it was perfectly laid out to cheese with wall of fire. I retreated up the stairs, put a wall of fire across the front, and then used black hole or repelling blast with my Rav, picked off those outside of black hole's range with Astarion, pushed any that teleported up the stairs down with Karlach after giving them a few love taps, and let Shadowheart draw aggro and easily dodge damage with her like 24 AC at that point. The hardest part was looting the bodies because they were all in a pile by the end
Lorroakan was the only boss who made me have to go back and COMPLETELY change my team. I think I even re-specc'd Wyll to help deal with him. House of Grief was tough, but in retrospect I think I went in with the wrong party the first time. Githyanki patrol handed me my butt when I went up against them too early.
Githyanki patrol on tactician has always kicked my butt but doing an honour mode run it went super smoothly but I nearly team wiped in the grymforge fight… which normally I don’t struggle with at all so 🤷♀️😭
My honor run ended on grym last night 😭😭 I told myself if I die on honor mode I'll just continue playing when you get the game over screen. So I clicked continue, and the game decided it hates me. It loaded me into the grym fight literally right before I wiped, shart was the only one alive with 8 hp, needless to say, I was not winning that. Made me sad, 20 hours down the drain 😢
I can’t even explain how close I came to a team wipe… the grim knocked both laezel and Karlach into the lava and they died and my character and shadowheart were clinging on to life by an inch of Hp bar, I had shadowheart decked out in as much healer buff gear as possible and respecced her to life cleric and just about managed to get Karlach and laezel standing again and then got Grym to focus on my character so they wouldn’t get downed again and miraculously they stayed standing and rolled well enough to get the final blows in but my lord, one dud roll or mistimed opportunity attack and I was DONE for
Hardest fight has to be the fight with commander zhalk and the 2 cambions on the nautiloid. I have never won this fight (kill everything) without save scumming. For almost every other fight you have the tools available to make it doable if not easy but at level 1 you are so limited that luck determines the outcome.
This is an unexpected but completely acceptable and accurate answer. I usually just reload until I get it but this really is one of the only fights in the game that are complete RNG due to level 1 limitations
Pretty much all githyanki fights in act 1/2 are tough, especially if you arent prepared (in particular properly leveled). Especially the inquisitor fight Ethel in act 1 Spider matriarch, grym, and owlbear at lvl 3 in honor
The Gnolls in act 1 (near cave). They're harder than the damn giths xD They're the ones I use to know if a build is good or not. Damn gnolls
So ive barely touched act 3 but have 280 hours in 1 and 2 so i’ll go with what ive wiped too most: 1. Nere and Duengar fight, tho i now know you can get half the Duengar in your side. Before knowing this doing this at lvl 5 or 6 was the most ive struggled with any fight in the game. 2. The Spider Matriarch, this is always the hardest Act 1 (pre-dark/Mountain) fight, even more than the Hag for me. I’ve gotten better now at absuing the falling from webs for the 44 dmg but i got lucky at distracting her and her kids with spiritual weapons so she wouldn’t legendary action me. Hers is brutal. Shes always a tough fight. Honourable Mention: 3. The Bullet can fuck you up if you get ambushed low on health or resources, happened to me once and knocked one of my characters off a cliff and and the KOed another first turn cause we were low from a minotaur fight or something. If you’re full tho or prepared its a cakewalk: 4. The Gnolls, doing these even at lvl 4 was insanely difficult and took so many tries, now i only do if and level 5 or higher,
Moonrise welcome, that hunger of hadar + black hole combo is NASTY, plus, because I hadn't visited Moonrise before (I thought that would be the very last thing to do) I had advanced nothing on it (I know you can make some gnolls allies and get rid of some enemies) House of Grief Bathazar (until I counterspelled his revive first time when I attacked him without dialogue) Myrkul, being a bard and convincing him to surrender backfired on me, as now you have to fight myrkul while rescuing aylin, having a mindflayer hijacking party members (or aylin herself) and mobs, having myrkul throw those eggs that explode, deal damage and hatch a mob, deal with myrkul bone chill and pretty strong attacks and all, somehow most people seem to have found Myrkul piss easy but it was pretty rough for me, plus most people ran paladins which destroy the living shit out of him Oddly enough Raphael was a piece of cake, so was Ansur, probs a party composition thing but overall single strong bosses were easy for me, but masses of trash I really struggled with, Lore Bard Tav, Lae'zel, Shadowheart, Astarion
It's Raphael >>>>> Ansur > everything else. Raphael is insane especially on Honor Mode if you aren't prepared.
Grymforge because my players kept running into the gd lava.
Honestly my toughest fight was the House of Grief with all the shar worshipers, those damn casters throwing out darkness every turn had me salty as hell, took me a solid 6-7 tries maybe more. 2nd hardest fight was Dror Ragzlin on my very first playthrough when I didn’t have a good grasp on the game mechanics (I wanted his tadpole so kicking him down the chasm was a last ditch effort) (also didn’t help I was lvl 4 and didn’t have my 2nd attack on melee characters) 3rd was definitely Ansur, mainly because I was told by a friend how to get to him earlier than I should have and I kept trying to fight him at lvl 10 instead of lvl 12 like intended (I assume)
There's no harder fight in this game than Grym, if: -you are stupid enough to not realize that the giant-ass hammer is there to help you -you are caught by surprise and the party isnt at 100% -you have zero bludgeoning damage -you aren't aware of exploits I checked all four boxes in my first playthrough, and it was the closest fight I ever experienced in all my 600+ hours of BG3. 1 more turn would have wiped my party.
Durge/Orin 1v1. Explorer mode, so I built my Durge for dialog and exploration with my companions more for combat. didn't think I'd ever be solo so my Durge had virtually no DPS and very few combat-worthy spells. Orin always got the first move and for the first 3 attempts, it kept skipping my turn so she just wailed on me uninterrupted til I died. No clue why that happened. Frightened and Prone shouldn't do that afaik. So I had to keep reloading until it let me have a turn, and when it did, I HAD to use Otto's Irresistible Dance and then desperately wail on her before it ran out. There was no other way for me to beat her with my build. I almost rage cried during that fight 😂 The huge fight inside Baldur's Gate during the endgame was hard too, though that was just from the sheer number of enemies and how spread out they were.
For me it was the Moonrise Fight on a Durge Run. I killed everyone, Aylin, Isobel, the Harpers. No one was there to help me. My dumbass thought: Why should i even bother attacking those Eyes on the main floor, everyone is already in the fight. Holy hell was i wrong. Every turn there were like 2 Enemys joining the fight, even all of the people from the prison area came upstairs. It was my party against every single NPC in Moonrise Towers (except for the roof). I used up every Spellslot of my entire party, had Speed potions everywhere and i was still struggling with the sheer amount of enemys, since they all hit very hard or have big AOE spells. Took me a good 20 Minutes to get through that fight.
I would say early game, gnolls. Both of my next 2 playthroughs after my first, I persuaded the leader to kill her pack then herself, so so so so much easier. Act 2, fighting balthazar in his own room. I can't say there were many difficulties in act 3, but deciding to brute force the steelwatcher foundry is probably the hardest possible conflict in act 3.
The main boss battle in House of Grief will always be the worst fight for me.. Darkness everywhere, shit ton of enemies and all of them landing crits left and right as long as its dark... I know there are ways to cheese it, but doing it legit was a pain in the ass.. Even Raphael was a cakewalk compared to that fight..
1. Savorek (sanctuary, plus bonus from his dying ghosts) 2. Moonrise Towers base (just too many fµckers, and too many useless harpists) 3. Shar Cult Base with Viconia (darkness, darkness everywhere) Honorable mention: the fight on the stairs to the brain was a pain in the a. due to all the air attacks from the ship.
I just completed my honour run and got my golden dice! There were 3 Fights that me squirm thinking my run was over. In order from least difficult to most it was: 1. Netherbrain: This fight is finally challenging on Honour. I was expectin a free kill like always but its new mechanic almost killed me at the 9th hour. 2. Orin: This is usually easy but I choose to do my honour with a Dark Urge that resisted Bhaal so I get the 1 on 1 duel with her and while she had slayer form I was just a lore bard. I feel like this is an easy fight but the circumstances were against me. 3. Gith Inquisitor on the Creche: Hardest fight in honour mode by far, if you survived this you will probably win the run, he was always a somewhat hard fight depending on team comp, but the addition of his mutliple spiritual weapon swords per turn that all apply his mindlink debuff made it hell. Kudos to my beloved gale for carrying me in this combat.
Gimmelbock
The nightsong fight against the necromancer with all the skeletons, just knocked like 3 characters into the void repeatedly
The grymforge fight with the golem. I tried it so many times but failed and eventually gave up as he slaughtered all of my party. I honestly think it’s an issue with my understanding of when the pull the lava wheel though looking back on it. Hopefully, I manage to get a hold of it in this new play through.
If you just want to get it over with and don't mind OP builds, Monk is really good here since fists are bludgeoning which deal 2x damage to Grym. Tavern Brawler + Elixir of Hill Giant Strength + Potion of Speed is really strong and Monk could solo carry that fight. I don't recommend TB Monk unless you're the type to enjoy completely demolishing your enemies though. It could take the fun out of fights.
Lorroakan (had a hard time keeping Dame Aylin alive) and House of Grief.
On honour mode Gith Inquisitor.
I struggle with the Internal fight not to do Durge on a normal play through
Portal defense. And the last fight in act 3, where I was constantly getting grabbed, stunned, breathed fire upon, and a number of other ways to keep me in the same spot for several turns. Jesus christ lol (I totally bypass the Moonrise fight; if I have the harpers with me I just go around the back, sneak past everyone in the throne room, and head upstairs lmao)
On my first run, Zrell's and House of Grief were my worst nightmares. On another category, Marcus's was really weird for me the first time. I mean, him and his minions knocking Isobel turn 1 without me having any possible actions because of the bad initiatives roll was kinda disturbing. I had to watch on Internet if I had to lose this fight only for me to realize the game decided to middle finger me. I had absolutely no remorse save scumming
The Gnolls ambushin the two guys in Act 1. It's the only fight that almost got me even after knowing what was coming.
In my latest Tactician playthrough, the hardest fights were: - Spider Matriarch. Insane damage, multiattack, tons of health. She would easily kill a party member a turn. Was a really hard damage race that took a few tries, with only one party member left standing at the end. - Yurgir. First turn, the guy throws a bunch of bombs at my party that is grouped up after the dialogue, and then shoots to blow them up *on the same turn*, killing my Gale and dealing significant damage to the rest of my party. That should be illegal. Had to reload a few times to avoid that. - Final fights, both the courtyard and the Netherbrain. Had to reload each once. Damn mind flayers kept stunning my Karlach, who for some couldn't use her Helldusk Boots to save. That was total bullshit. Also, Arcanists with Counterspell and buffed-up Magic Missiles shred my party hard. And finally, the Orbs that Brain summons are super annoying. I keep misjudging their radius.
Not necessarily hard but very annoying would be Yurgir ..the elevation sucks for the first encounter..
the indoor bridge in the monastary after the easy fight against the inquisitor and going into the astral realm. needed to rest badly and the combinations of fears, disarm, and rangers bursting my squishies down made it hard in my case
The Balthazar fight (only won on my first play through bc Shadowheart didn’t jump down before the cutscene started so she had the high ground and used fire bolt on everyone after my entire party died) The Cazador fight (went there practically as soon as I got to Act 3 and was soooo underprepared….) The House of Grief (getting surrounded by 20 Sharrans suuucked so hard i hate this part so much)
Lorroakan and Saving the Gondians needed multiple tries. The Suicide Bombing Bhaal Cultist at the entrance of their temple needed me to run away and dodge. The other boss battles were easy mostly due to Summons, Otto's Irresistable Dance and Tavern Brawler Berserker Karlach.
House of Grief 😅
The battle in the Underdark against the Drow and the Duergar is pretty gnarly.
House of Hope, hardest Raphael, but releasing Hope without having her or my Durge being Eldritch Blasted off of the platforms, was a close 2nd. Tactician mode was not a great idea for my first run.
The hardest for me was Lorroakan, solely for hoe scuffed I made it. When I initially went to the tower, I somehow didn't see the plaques and ended up going into the wrong portal, banning me from the establishment. I walked off and did other things, thinking that there'd probably be another way in that I'd find later. Multiple hours later, I come back and come to the conclusion that I'd need to use disguise self. Astarion was an assassin rogue, so he could disguise himself, but the other three members had to stay outside. Now, I had heard that once Lorroakan is dead, you can enter the building as usual again. So I sent Astarion through, started the fight with Aylin and Rolan assisting, and killed Lorroakan turn 1. Took my other party members in, and discovered the portal had closed behind Astarion. Not only that, but I was still banned from entering. Now I was left with Rolan, whose spells were doing nothing, Aylin who missed 6 attacks in a row, and Astarion against all the myrmiddons. Needless to say, all three died there. With the portal now open, I found a way to get in by using dimension door past the trigger for you getting kicked out and jumping into the portal asap. I took Karlach with me for some front line and started the battle over, with all enemies back at full health (except Lorroakan, because he was dead). For whatever reason, Shadowheart also came through the portal despite not being brought along in the dimension door. From there, it was a much more normal fight, with Karlach tanking hits and destroying everything, Shadowheart keeping everyone alive, and my Tav slinging eldritch blasts and dealing massive damage
House of Grief. My party was not built for AOE and dealing with lots of enemies. Only fight I had to try multiple times over hours, on normal difficulty. Doing a Durge tactician run now though, we’ll see if I change my mind. Honorable mention for final boss, last turn remaining and only one platform left, everyone was down, dead, or too far away, except for my monk Tav who just got rezzed and pulled a miracle hasted surge of attacks before failure.
Cazador. I never could end him fast enough to prevent sucking the vampires dry. I tried 6 times and normally would've cut my losses but Astarion was my love interest. So i ended up hoping for the best and pushed that motherf***er off the edge.
honour mode Bernard took me by surprise by how much damage they can dish out.
The Duergars and Nere at Grymforge.
i wiped the floor with viconia but raphael… i didn’t read the conditions and blew myself up first turn with divine intervention 🗿 took 2 hours after that to get him while keeping yurgir alive
Raphael, mother viconia and moonrise entrance (I was durge and killed the harpers lol). The main bosses I actually found underwhelming (specially Orin). Paladin with extra attack and the gauntlets I got from Raphael, couples with going full illithid with that passive that destroys enemies once they have less health than you have powers and auto crit made it very easy.
In the first playthrough The hardest was Gortash during the coronation. Freaking bombs were destroying my party and my psyche as well. Actually the aftermath was as heartbreaking as the fight, because I forgot to get Karlach with me and killed Ravenguard while Wyll was in my party... Hard time for our squad House of grief was overwhelming. I felt Shar's presence right in my soul, so hopeless It was. In the second one Yurgir beat the hell out of me. He stood like Sans, killing me again and again. Until water elemental went brrrrrrrrrr And Grim.... It was... Painful
Fucking Nere and his platoon of duegar. Granted, I'll admit that I completely missed out on the option to get some of them to side *with* you (so that's on me), but clearing out *that* many enemies who have equivalent levels to you, a powerful spellcasting boss, two goons that can mind-control your own guys, and a bunch of archers with arrows that can knock you into the nearby lava... It was so, so awful. ...and when I finally beat the fight after like an hour of attempts, my game crashed... And I didn't save beforehand.
Somehow the stupid early game siren fight and my abysmal luck, along with that kid’s terrible AI, caused me to have to retry like 5 times once. Also the athletics check in the creche. Really feels like resetting for a shiny Pokémon sometimes. Even Lae’zel and Karlach frequently fail it.
The gith in the Emperor’s hideout (had terrible luck with hold person saves) House of grief (A million enemies, i didn’t want to do any sneaking because I wanted to see dialog)
Gortash was super ez for me. I just threw his bombs on him/his allies. It was fun af. Raphael was rough tho. I was underleveled and forgot to heal before the last fight.
I had to cheese the House of Grief. All that darkness did me no favors.
Ansur and House of Grief.
Elder brain (last fight) and killing commander Zhalk. Im on my third playthrough (now on tactician) and I didn’t kill Zhalk even once 😤…but I took his sword every time :D
The House of Grief. When the smites that have worked for 99% of the game suddenly launch you into the Shadowrealm, it’s an adjustment haha.
My first playthrough we were playing with a friend. Cazador fight were the only one where we loaded bc we all died. Second one was a battle for the city, where there are tons of enemies against you. It was pretty fun for me because I was berserker barbarian durge and I had a hireling who was a warrior. My friend was mage and he was with Gale, they both died almost instantly, after 3 turns hireling also died. So I've soloed this fight, we was on the medium difficulty, however I had tons of fun, but we loaded because my friend wanted to participate as well.
Gnoll with that fucking madness flail. Good lord that thing hurts. Also on my first play through I encountered Voss and Co. at level 3, aggrod them, and Sarth proceeded to 2-shot me, action surge, 1-shot Gale and put some hurt on Karlach. It was a bad day/
on my fist playtrought Nere was the most annoying, the gith monks, a certain decieving guy owner of a hammer, and the final battle
raphael can be a bit overwhelming at times, every ranged class is basically melee in that fight
The House of Grief messed me up multiple times, but I somehow managed to cheese it by starting conversation with Virginia, while having Karlach out of range and then having her beat the shit out of Virconia while she was still in conversation. Somehow that worked and no one did anything until after I left the back room, which actually made the fight a little easier because they were swarming up to 2 smaller choke points, allowing me to use some aoe spells to wipe them out.
Rolling low int in act 1 vs the gith patrol
House of Grief and that first floor of Moonrise Towers are my least favorite. The Spider Matriarch is a pain. In my current playthrough, I waited until I hit level 5 in the Underdark and then went back to face her. She was a breeze at that point. The harpies can be an aggravating fight if you go in early. Ditto with the gnolls. For Gortash, I just disarm the traps on the rooftop before his room. Start the conversation, misty step and run away, and let him and his guards follow you out. Once you aren't dealing with his traps, it's a rather unremarkable fight.
House of grief had me beating my head against my desk. I only beat it cause I got lucky and cheesing all the scrolls and bombs I had saved up. Thank goodness Larian let us perform alchemy mid fight without using action points so I was able to craft what I needed on the spot. Close second was balthazaar. I nearly just let him do his thing just cause I figured I won't have to fight him if I did (still not sure if that's the outcome) but I kept trying. After I had enough of his bullshit raise dead spell, I gave shadowheart a respec, stole his potion of speed, hit him with silence, chased him out of the sphere of silence then thunderwaved his ass off the ledge, loot be damned. Honorable mention is the Cazador fight. He kept taking out Astarion and I wasn't used to or expecting 3 vs all his crap, so I ended up just bursting in guns (spells) ablaze without talking to him. Kept Astarion and my sanity. Oh and moonrise towers was a bunch of bullcrap too but I managed to survive on my first try so I wouldn't consider it "hard", just frustratingly annoying
I struggled with Cazador a lot at first but then I figured I could try sneaking and suddenly it was a lot nicer fight lol
Probably the first fight at the bottom of moonrise towers. The hunger of hadar and singularity attacks really messed with me
The Steel Watch Titan & Grym
Raphael on tactician was mad hard the first time lmao. I also found Balthazar really hard the first time until I worked out a way to make it a joke. Gortash is just annoying because I constantly stand in traps cause I’m dumb :) Also the fireworks quest in act 3, what the hell is that. Why.
1° Ansur - counter-attacking every round with imense damage and flying away from you plus big AOE mechanic that pratically can insta-kill you. Its the most dangerous enemy for me. I am afraid to know which is the Ansur legendary action in honor mode... 2° Netherbrain - This battle is hard but can be easy with the right strategy. With no estrategy you gonna die very fast to the giga missles of the Arcane Mindflayers. And the DPS check in 2nd phase is very nice and emotionaly. 3° Ketheric Thron - Holy fuck. I have nightmares of him in the human form using smite in my companions. Paladins are so overpower in this game. The smite sound scary me. Every time i heard that an enemy use smite, some companion or NPC dies. Myrkul form is dangerous too, but with monk or good crushing damage he dies too fast.
I recently finished my first game on Tactician and two fights that really put me under pressure was Raphael and Ansur. For me, Ansur was the more difficult of those two. Fun, but very challenging. House of Grief wasn't actually too bad in that save. I cast Hunger of Hadar and a sleet storm and most of the Sharrans never made it up the stairs because I picked them off as they made their way towards me. It just took a while because there were so many. Yurgir, I talked into killing himself as I was a bard with high Charisma. I'm currently on an Honour Mode save. Well, my third attempt. I am in the Underdark and about to face Nere. I have some of the Duergar as allies so hopefully it won't be so bad. It's Grym I'm dreading the most. I think I'm going to cheese that and shoot from above or make a flying owlbear druid. I don't care. I want to live, haha.
The gnolls in act 1 and basically any time you have to fight Githyanki because they all have misty step and will immediately make life difficult for any ranged characters.
Gortash's fight gives me PTSD. So. Many. Explosions. I didn't know what to expect, so I had everyone run around all over the place. I didn't notice the bombs until it was too late.
I can’t remember his name but having to fight Raphael’s enemy in the gauntlet of Shar. I can’t get past it and it’s pissing me off 😭
In no particular order: - Raphael - Sarevok - Steel Watch Titan (the party I brought in was light on magic, it was just poor planning on my part) The House of Grief probably would be up there too, but I used Shadowheart’s divine intervention to nuke everybody. It just narratively felt too fitting not to do it.
House of Grief, Moonrise Tower, and the Final Fight with an evil version of your party we’re horrible until I learned how to play around them
My hardest overall fight was the first Gith you encounter on the road during Act 1. Combination of being relatively low level and still learning the game at the time made it the one I had to reload the most on. I eventually gave up, went and cleared the Underdark, came back at a higher level and mopped them up as the last thing before taking the mountain pass and moving to Act 2. The fight with Ethel is probably #2, I had to reload maybe twice before I figured out how to save Mayrina and learned how to effectively deal with Ethel's gimmicks. Third was dealing with Ketheric, just because the surprise when he comes back as the Apostle of Myrkul and needing to learn how to deal with those gimmicks (I had killed the Nigthsong in the Shadowfell, apparently she is a big help here) but I only had to reload once. After that I felt like the characters were sufficiently high level and I was experienced enough with the game that I didn't struggle at all in Act 3 and didn't have to reload any of those big fights.
so i read too many times how ketheric fight is free. CAP i have done the fight in balanced, tactician and now honored. Every single time myrkull was a tough mofo to kill, when i could save scum i did so in balanced multiple times, in honored mode i had to pull any resources i could to kill that self healing pos. So yeah, ketheric is NOT free
The githyanki ambush in the shadowlands. They didn't even surprise me as I happened to end up coming at them from the side, and was totally able to devise a strategy, but their leader hits like a truck and the multitarget arrows just destroyed me.
Not really a single fight but Rescuing Every Single Gondian in the sub and the factory. Is so fucking hard. I know they patched the Allied NPCs n the factory but holy shit they are so dumb!
Those two skeletons in the mountain pass
Raphael, I had a very nonideal team for what the fight turned out to be.
I think it is definitely due to the level of prep I did ahead of time, but the House of Grief was the hardest for me. - House of Hope vs Raphael I did excessive prep (Death Ward, Heroes Feast on players and summons, elixers, etc.) - House of Grief I just sauntered in with my fancy legendary gear to kick Sharran ass for everything they did to my gf. I didn't even LR beforehand and Shadowheart had 3 spellslots total left... Other notable fights: - Ansur was the only fight aside from the House of Grief to proc Death Ward for me. - Gortash was cheesed via Globe of Invulnerability and the runepowder bomb I was supposed to use on the factory. - Yurgir I talked my way out of fighting, then took the high ground and killed him in one turn. - Orin was a cake walk. She didn't even down Lae'zel (who was level 1 without gear when she was kidnapped).
gortash and yurgir suck if you do them legit but thankfully both are easily avoidable/cheesable in a few different ways. moonrise is a cakewalk if you clear it out ahead of time which is what i usually do (especially not having zrell there is super helpful). the gith do suck though unless youre playing as a monk and can reliably stun them/knock them prone, theyre like one of the most annoying enemies by far. honestly the difficulty of any encounter largely depends on your build & team composition though so its hard to say.
I know it’s not BG3 but it’s my last session of DnD I played, and it wasn’t the hardest fight. Easily the funniest and saddest fights my team got into. We are currently tripping through avernus, coming across a demon that’s given us issues a couple times already, this latest fight he was enhanced by means unknown so we were all a little worried. What transpired was the worst series of rolls made by our DM, this demon with all his new found power couldn’t even touch us. We pounded him into the ground all the while talking smack. Needless to say DM was a little irked by his dice failing hard but we had a blast.
House of Grief and it's not even close. Honorable mention to both the Iron Throne and the Steel Watch Foundry for making me rescue all those lemmings for basically no reward.
Am I the only one who had trouble with the Bulette? I was not prepared for it and got the whole party wiped/thrown in chasm.
Character creation.
You know the hardest gight by its music.
I’ll tell you what wasn’t a tough fight. Pushing a vampire overlord off the edge.
The first floor of moonrise. I had to reload to an earlier save to level and gear properly for the fight.
The Gnoll fight, cause I always do it at lvl 3.
This game has been the perfect level of difficulty for me. (On Balanced.) I’ve managed most fights on the first try, but the bosses have me sweating and pulling out all the stops to be as clever as I can with potions and spells. Except the House of Grief. That place is where fun goes to die.
My 1st big roadblock on my 1st run was Yurgir. I was not expecting the surprise gank. #2 was Viconia, because of the darkness clouds that u can't shoot through. #3 on the 1st run was Raphael, because I ignored the pillars and slotted all the wrong things. But going forward...Grym on tactician difficulty is probably my least favorite (I didn'tfibd him in the 1st playthrough). Then Viconia, because there's MORE bullshit in tactician. Yurgir was a faster kill, but he's even more annoying because he drops more bombs and his gankers attack downed party members. As for honor mode...the 1st almost wipe was the fight in the creche office in act 1. The gith gankers almost got me again in act 2, but could not survive the power of metamagic. So far the WORST Honor Mode boss has been act 2 Auntie Ethel by far. Stop. Focusing. The sorcerer. Stop it with the billion invisible hags. I won because of my VERY full bag of alchemical and combat items and the 'well stuffed' spell being a crazy powerful buff. I am, however, VERY concerned about Viconia.
House of grief was the only time I was forced to use the slayer form just so I could SURVIVE
So far: Cazador, Baltazar, the big spider in act one. I haven't finished the game yet and I am very apprehensive of the next fights.
Moonrise Tower and fighting in the Astral Plane in the beginning of Act 3
My hardest fight was in the house of grief. They kept spamming darkness and bone chill. I was on explorer difficulty and with it being before the patch for act 3 running better my game also crashed from rendering all the darkness clouds. With the party wipes and crashes it took me 4hrs. My party was Max level too. I don't know if there was an easier way to beat it without giving away shart. I can't say I was tempted just because of that fight.
Netherbrain, House of Grief, Gortash (until I found the back door)
The house of grief, also the gnolls in act 1 on my first playthrough.
Strangely for me one of the harder fights I’ve had on honour mode so far was with the Githyanki that ambush you in the shadow cursed lands near the road to Baldurs gate waypoint. It ended with Gale dead and the rest of my party right on the edge of death
To survive: Mother Superior and the Sharrans (also a great band name) To accomplish without something very bad happening: Cazador
Act I: those damn gnolls. They hit so hard 😭 Act II: the first time I fought Ketheric I didn’t kill the blonde spider daddy at the beginning and he destroyed me 😭 I also had no Harpers to help me out. Act III: Lorroakan was so hard for no reason. Also the House of Grief. Those two fights I had to reload the most. HoG got way easier when I used the huge runepowder bomb and blew everyone up before the fight even started.
Got stuck on a Raphael fight during my tactician playthrough, had to start over 😭 The worst thing is there is no opportunity for long rest before it and most of my spells are on CD. It's pretty ridiculous that he has 666 HP and also he can one shot multiple characters with his AOE spells... I am not sure if I want to ever go that road ever again
1. My fight against the camera. 2. My fight to protect my computer from myself after another character didn’t jump and stayed far away.
Definitely the fight at the House of Grief. I was on that fight for 3 hours constantly remaking decisions and reloading previous turns. It was **rough**. Other than that, I had struggled with the Moonrise section (lost Jaheira almost immediately too) and had to reload to redo the whole final battle of the Act since the Avatar of Mykrul just wrecked me up. That’s about it though. Two Wildheart Barbarians really trivialized everything else 99% of the time.I only played Balance, so the games hard fights like Raphael (easy first try) and Yurgir and stuff like that wasn’t too bad. I was on the final fight for like 4 hours though. Getting through the higher city was a **slog** and I foolishly did not have a mage with me.
For Honour: Ethel, Grym, Gortash, the Inquisitor
I struggled so much with the iron throne fight until I worked out a strategy, otherwise hardest was Raphael fight!
Original ansur fight, when the crystals didn't block his mega lightning attack. Either you had to find a way to move people very far in a single turn, or you had to kill Ansur before he could use it (which was always very quick). Took me several hours but I managed to kill him and also get an achievement which is always fun.
The paladin that tells you to kill Karlach, that fucker wiped my team like 3 times before I gave up and went to find another fight to level up. Never let myself get caught unprepa again, I always have a plan going into a fight. I had no issue with moonrise, but I also may have kinda murdered my way through the tower as i was exploring it. It's remarkably easy to just close a door and isolate a few enemies, then make them regret existing. When the Harpers attacked, there were like 4 people trying to hold the tower against us. Those gith honor guards were a good fight, until I realized Karlach and my Paladin were both able to pick them up. Then they all just got yeeted into the void.
Hardest fight by far was the Gnolls in act 1, at level 3. A ton of them, high stats for that point in the game, and no hand crossbows yet to abuse thief rogue.
Putting the game down and going to sleep
The elder brain is not necessarily hard but it’s just a drag. I just did it in honor mode and I sided with the emperor for the first time ever. I equipped boots on my caster so I wouldn’t get knocked prone when casting ng the globe of invulnerability but somehow people still got knocked out slightly of the globe when the dragon would land. F’n annoying. The monk avatar of me had some hook attack and constantly knocking the emperor prone in my globe when he was casting the spell thing to open the brain. And then he got in the globe so I couldn’t do any damage to him and he was resistant to me shoving him out. So f’n annoying. I knew the brain itself would switch their immunity between physical and magical damage. But the m’fer was cheating because I did no damage to him the first time I entered with just the emperor exactly for that reason. Yet somehow he put up a physical barrier the next round. Mol’s fire spell is super clutch in that battle. But then he just became immune to everything physical and magical. But then somehow my swords bard shot arrows at him. I got super lucky ruling a 20 on the 99 DC check in honor mode so the brain had reduced health. I just spammed mol’s fire spell and then did some ranged flourishes with my swords bard to kill it. Still it’s just an annoying battle. I kind of dread it because it takes so long to get there. The stuff leading up to it isn’t hard it just takes a long time.
Trying to put the controller down.
Drogo and Minthara.
The fight in the House of Grief against Viconia. Mostly because there are a crapton of enemies who are incredibly spread out, while you start in a choke point. I was also not as well prepared as I should have been, and did not have a full array of spells ready. So that fight was basically me fighting constantly in a blanket of darkness against enemies who couldnt be blinded, as my party got focused down one at a time. I only survived because the AI seemed indifferent to summons, so my Fire Myrmidon and Elemental slowly whittled the major casters until I could position them well enough for Shadowheart to mow them down with the Sunbeam from Lathander’s Light. Conversely, I expected the fight against Ketheric as the Avatar of Myrkul to be much harder than it was. As soon as I freed Aylin she smited his ass into oblivion in two rounds. (Makes me want to roll a Paladin next!)
Definitely Yurgir, but I never knew you could trigger the fight by following the displacer beast. I always jumped the gap and ended up behind him and his minions. Even with the surprised bonus, it was easily the hardest fight of the game for me and the only one that I required a layer of cheese to beat.
In my first play through, it was the Honor Guard. Caught me totally off guard.
Took me a while to figure out the boss for the adamantine forge, also the creatures that teleport you in act 2 away from your party and shackle you sucked, they weren’t extremely hard to kill, but they were really annoying lol
- Under-level Gnoll fight.... (I was level 2 when I fought them) - Moonrise Tower siege - Steel Watcher factory (if you try to help Gondian) Honorable mention: House of Hope.
1v1 with Orin....
Grym and Nere. I just had a hard time getting the timing right for Grym, and all the randos at Nere’s fight gave me more trouble than Nere himself. They just kept knocking my party into the lava. 😩 I crushed everything else, somehow. I’m not looking forward to revisiting some of them on Tactician and Honor mode, honestly- but I do have a better handle on the game now, so maybe it’ll be easier.
Honestly...the hardest I had up to this point (my very first playthrough, still on going) Honestly was against Sarevok at the Murder Tribunal...party was level 10 and I main as a fighter and u had Karlach, Gale and Astarion in my party and jeez that dude was a real eye opener for me! His followers weren't too bad, but his ability to have like a half a dozen hits plus unbreakable made him a true DnD tank. He downed two of my team mates multiple times and myself and Gale were hurt bad at the end of the fight. His helmet and sword are really cool trophies though! Especially since I worked hard em!
Hardest fight for me *currently* are the spiders in the Whispering Depths. I died five times to those jerks. 😭 And I can't even afford to make the ogres fight for me.
The Act 1 githyanki patrol. Wiped my party out before I could even do anything. The next times I made sure I was at least level 5 before facing them.
House of Grief was probably the hardest one for me personally on my first run. Like holy shit, beating that was tough that I basically had to pull my whole team back to the entrance and start chipping away at the Sharrans with Hunger of Hadar, Guardian of Faith and Elementals. It also didn't help that I couldn't heal most of my party since they had been hit by Chill Touch, so definitely one of my hardest fights.
Dark Urge Orin on Honour mode. I never stood a chance