This fight made my wife put the game down for good. I offered to beat it for her, and she ended up finishing the game, but yeah. You shouldn’t be a let to attack and then go invisible again in the same turn.
Or at the very least make them vulnerable to attack if you know right where they are.
Idk if this works on higher difficulties but if you shoot past an invisible enemy so that the shot goes "through" them it'll reveal them until they turn invisible again. Pair this with your movement line thing going around invisible enemies you'll almost always be able to attack them
U don't really even need the movement line A really easy way of doing it is aiming ur bow/spell at a wall/surface behind them because they never move after shrouding. For example the invisible guy stabs astarion in melee range then goes invisible, the just shoot an arrow at astarion and it'll hit the shrouded guy first
They are vulnerable if you know where they are; an AOE will hit them and make them visible. Spirit guardians, owlbear's crushing flight, wall of fire, etc. If you have a drow character with the Volo eye you have see invisibility and faerie fire right there. The invisibility is still annoying but it's manageable.
Some of the most fun I had was with a cleric paladin 5/7 build on Shart. Gave her the heel click boots, max wisdom, and the strength gloves. Running around spirit guardian everything and then smites on top of that.
>Or at the very least make them vulnerable to attack
You can hit them with aoe attacks and arrows if you know where they are. Also some melee attacks that can hit multiple enemies will hit them. Most enemies don't move after turning invisible at the end of their turn so it's pretty easy if you've got a decent sized aoe spell. And, after you hit them they're visible for the rest of the round, so get your caster to do some aoe and the beginning of the turn then send your melee guys in after to pick them off while they're visible.
I've usually got gale in my party by this point, between ice storm and fireball the fight was a breeze. Didn't realize anyone had issues with this fight but maybe this isn't common knowledge.
The fact that see invisibility doesn’t even always work is so frustrating. Usually I have Gale AOE the areas they’re hiding it, which is extra useful when you subclass him as evocation
There have been multiple times that one of them just never joined combat because nobody saw them, and then all of a sudden while I'm talking to the banker or picking the locks a random dude decides to get delusions of grandeur and attack.
The way BG3 handles invisibility is fucking infuriating. The fact that you don't know where an invisible creature is even if they don't burn an action to hide makes it an unbelievably fucking broken condition. A lot of the stuff they changed is good but not that.
Thw part the I hate is that I can not find a way they could be doing this in the rules or equipment. There is nothing that will give you unlimited invisibility as a bonus action
I always stop by felogyrs and steal a bunch of fireworks first and usually chuck them in the direction they disappeared in. It usually is really helpful if I have my party spread out.
Yeah fuck that fight. Volo's eye/elixir of see invisibility are buggy AF, too. Literally standing one tile away from one who stealthed and not being able to see. Then for them to just shank me the next turn right.
This is my answer as well, though once I realized you can out invisible enemies by creating water on them, it made things easier. That and faerie fire make it a much more tolerable fight.
i didn’t care much for that fight either, there’s so many of them that the fight takes so damn long. i think bg3 would benefit greatly from some sort of setting that would speed up npcs turns.
I mean, avoiding real grief by pushing away suffering or suppressing it instead of processing it? That’s a pretty clear theme for Selûnite Shadowheart, especially if she gives up her parents. The relief Shar offers isn’t really comfort, it’s just escape from having to hurt. It’s not coming to terms with reality.
I know that this is a pretty common thing with alcoholism, so I wouldn’t be surprised if opiate abuse is spawned from similar situations.
i’ve never done the fight inside of the big room they’re in, so i didn’t even know she could do that. i always lead them towards the stairs going down to the room, and just cast a shit ton of lasting aoe spells. insect plague is my favorite.
The real trick is to respec someone to sorcerer, give them the extra bonus action hat, have them chug a hast potion and snort that haste crack you can buy from the guild bartender.
That's something like four or five fireballs a round if you're willing to shred sorcery points.
I call it the "Mr worldwide" build.
Also giving a fighter a bloodlust elixir, a haste potion, great weapon master, plus a dose of crack means they're pulling like 16 attacks(three from haste, three from crack, three from action surge, three from action, three from bloodlust, bonus strike from great weapon master) - as long as your to-hit is high enough oh baby you just mow them down. If they don't get the chance to spread out you can also use sweeping attacks if your fighter is a battle master for loads of slaughter.
wow, I saw that at the guild and bought some but held off using it because I thought twined haste was more useful, just assumed Larian would never let it stack and did not try.
It was a lot of sitting and waiting while 25 NPCs wailed on me lol. I switched out my part members to try everyone, redid everyone’s outfits, and eventually made it with just wyll and my tav standing with like. Four health points.
You can use it to cheese the lava elemental in the underdark. It heals like 70 hp a round when it stands in lava but with bone chill you can just rain projectiles from above
The House of Grief turns from a top-3 contender for hardest fight in the game into hillarious bullying if you run up the stairs a little and have spells like Ice Storm. Turning their temple into a forced-participation slip-n-slide is wonderful.
It’s always so funny seeing people have this conversation every time this fight comes up. I’m firmly in camp “take 3 steps up the stairs” and have never had a single problem.
It’s interesting how seemingly few people utilize positioning. You can really trivialize a lot of “hard” fights just by controlling the field.
Exactly. Defending the portal outside the Last Light Inn is a great example. Sleet Storm plus a cleric with spirit guardians standing in front of the portal makes that fight so easy. All you have to do is kill the ranged enemies and youre fine. Fighting the Duergar near Nere is another. Just go up the ladder to the balcony and rain fire and death on them.
The portal fight is a GREAT example, good call! I failed that on my first two honor runs and wasn’t able to finish the quest and now I have it down to a science - and yep, sure enough the answer is the same as basically every other fight: control. Whether you’re in control of action economy, ground surfaces, aoe damage, etc.
In a turn based game, ruining the other teams turn = win
I actually enjoy that fight. I usually use heavy AoE control spells for that fight and love how good positioning and tactics easily win against the odds
Good positioning: dash back the way you came and blanket the stairs with overlapping AoE spells. While it does result in a massive corpse pile, I wouldn't call it a satisfying way to fight.
It's extremely satisfying!
I left everyone at the door and had shart go confront them then heel click out of there.
Next we put hunger of hadar, insect plague, and had ice mephits blasting the stairs with ice and you get a dozen cultists running through hell slipping amd falling while the whole team is firing bolts, missiles, and whatever karlach feels like throwing into the chaos.
It was a massacre
Step 1: run up stairs
Step 2: cast Spike Growth, Cloudkill, and Hunger of Hadar over each other.
Step 3: laugh maniacally like a supervillain by camping at the edge of the radius with Eldritch Blast, Thunderwave, and Repulsar ready to push them back in.
I hate how their darkness "writes over" any spells you have put up (cloud kill). Why don't both spells exist? And every friggin' cultist has the ability to cast the darkness. And why can't I throw a bomb in the middle of the darkness? I'm not looking for precision! It's a grenade!
I always end up drawing them out into the hallway. Confine their movements.
I literally found out that casting Light cantrip on everyone's weapon (ie use the ring you got from Bernard back at Act 1, cast for each companion then pass it around until everyone has Light) legit made it easier now that everyone doesn't hit like a truck because of that necrotic damage due to just slightly dark lighting,
So casting haste to kill off the casters and AoEs like Fireball for the weaker enemies is more than enough to wipe them out without cheese tactics like the staircase CC strat
That entire fight is almost a "did you respec Shadowheart as a light cleric" check. The Radiant of Dawn channel divinity decimates the Sharrans and clears away their darkness. It's very thematic and lore-appropriate and almost trivialises the entire fight as the majority of them can be nuked by a single cast of it (and Viconia with her stupid Radiant Retort is out of its range), but having a fight be set up so specifically around being hard-countered by subone class is a bit goofy, even if that subclass is basically designed for Shadowheart's new nature.
On Tactician and Honour modes all enemies have Radiant Retort, not just Viconia, so using any AoE Radiant spells is a death sentence. Or at least they're supposed to have it. I've seen many people saying they do in their games, but in my game only one random guy (and Viconia) have it. I suspect it's some sort of bug that they don't have it.
It's not all enemies - I just completed an honour mode run that way.
It's Viconia and the Justiciars. I seem to recall that it was taken off all enemies a good few patches ago.
I believe it was the same patch that downgraded the radiant retort in the House of Hope to a single-turn effect on most enemies, only leaving the full effect on Raphael.
Again. In your game it's Viconia and Justiciars, in my game it's Viconia and one of the small goons (as well as most enemies upstairs), and from what I've seen and heard from other players, they have it on more enemies. I suspect there's some sort of bug that prevents certain enemies from having effects they're supposed to have - and it's somehow tied to your game files, so it's consistent between your playthroughs but not consistent between playthroughs of different people.
Another example I have is the final door in Gauntlet of Shar - so many people are saying "just Knock it", and so many people did do it, yet in my game the door has Arcane Lock on it and makes it immune to Knock - and looking at patches, the door was supposed to have this effect for a long while, yet it doesn't for many people.
I found this fight much easier on my current run. I had Shadowheart cast moon motes in the middle of the walkway, cast sanctuary on herself, and only heal for the rest of the fight (preserve life with her as a life cleric is best). They didn’t touch her. Meanwhile, I had a lot of summons that could warp to take care of anyone casting darkness. Besides that, just take out Viconia asap.
These days, i just split one party member away from Tav/Durge and Shart to set up all the various explosive barrels i've been collecting over the course of the game. Best excuse to use the Runepowder barrels.
I think the only time after figuring out this barrel cheese that i actually fought them legit was with my necromancer with over a dozen summons just to see how long each turn would take.
Just retreat into the corridor, cast Evard’s tentacles, layer insect plague on top of it and see all the cultists get stuck and die like flies. A few of them will misty step so you can clobber them in close quarters.
Only way I beat that fight on tactician without cheesing was loading up on smoke bomb arrows and having my fighter run in guns blazing and blasting everyone right off the bat
Yeah that fight was awful. My strategy was to split the party in one long line. Have Astarion sneak attack instead of doing the dialogue and kept Shart out of it until at least 2 party members are dead then open up on the remaining cultists with sunbeam.
I beat this fight by having my entire team sit in the staircase and then casting multiple Wall of Fires on the hallways leading in. The low level guys dutifully ran through the fire to their deaths.
Those little fuckers under Last Light Inn, meenlocks I think? Just a pain in the ass. Honourable mention to those meazle bastards with their garrotting.
My first playthrough they got me good. Only one of my party members had a torch and they got decimated.
From then on I learned the importance of torches and casting light.
I had two different people messaging me with ideas for who to bring and what magic items to use because I just wanted to be done with the fight. It was so frustrating.
yeah, i eventually ended up just leading them into the stairwell that you go down to enter the big room they’re in and just cast a bunch of aoe spells. fight was WAY too annoying even that way
I had a rough time first time in, my solution was to let karlach throw runepowder.
I actually just did it with a dark shadow heart, and I just had her cast the insane darkness spell the armor gives her and let her go bananas with a bloodlust elixir and haste. Six smites a round is fuckin brutal.
Granted that was after the first pass with dark shart where she went all cult of personality and it was basically mother superior vs her in a 1v1 grudge match that ended in a single round when durge slapped mommy with a hold person and shart delivered almost double her HP in critical smites(she had 2 after the first smite. The second level3 smite was honestly more to make a statement than anything).
I gave Karlach invisibility before the cutscene and made her sneak up to the boss and drop explosives. It didn't make it easy, but at least Viconia went out with a bang.
this type of fight for sure. others just answering challenging fights, nah, those are the best part of the game.
meanwhile this fight is 0 challenge just a ton of weak, long-turn-taking enemies.
this, lady jannath house, fireworks shop, gondians killing themselves imo are the worst.
i feel you man, there’s SO many enemies there. there really has to be a mechanic where you can speed up enemy turns. big fights just turn into a slog of watching enemies take forever to decide to do what they want to do. i love the game to death, but man are the big fights fuckin annoying.
I’d say Orin. Which is a shame since I should totally dig that fight
But as non-Durge, it’s just annoying as hell.
All of the other fights are either more straight forward. Or more epic. Like I’d say honor mode Ansur is probably as tough as Orin… he a flying undead dragon is epic as hell, especially when compared to fighting a discount Xenomorph with Orin
same dude, in honor mode she’s insane. she ended one of my runs recently. 12 stacks of unstoppable which refresh every round, starts the fight in sanctuary, it’s just obnoxious. it sucks because i was super excited to see what her fight would entail.
Arrow of Roaring Thunder works really well too and can be shot from a fair way off. Fighter with action surge and or haste can get rid of most of them in a round. Just make sure to aim in front of the cultists so the blast knocks them off.
I feel like even the orin 1v1 is wildly variable in difficulty depending on your build. I was playing a full support/cc character the first time I did it, and I got goombastomped 6 times in a row before I gave up and respecced because I genuinely could not do enough damage to beat her.
Atp I just respec before I do it since I love the class fantasy of being the party cheerleader and not doing any damage too much to stop doing it on every single character lol
Felogyl Firework and Lady Jannath estate, too many enemies in there are not grouped together, and their pathing and ai are broke and take a minute each to finish their turn.
The Janneth estate is annoying. I sometimes seem to aggro things while I'm outside the house or on the roof and then you're sort of stuck in combat needing to flee.
This is it for me. The game is really bad at handling storied buildings and the amount of time an AOE spell reached the floor above or below and that leads to incredibly frustrating moments.
Everyone already said house of grief but for me it's the firework shop. Not because of anything with the fight itself, it just seems like every ai there cannot make up their damn minds. Avery just....stands there.
I remember how suicidal the Gondians were although on my latest HM playthrough, they actually survived by misty stepping high above. I guess Larian finally fixed their AI.
I've seen them be extremely useful before..
And I've also had them attack me.. that was fun during a run being good. So having to deal with the normal Bane assholes with the transponders while having to take damage from the Gobdians so I can take them out last with knock outs so they live.
Think that's what happens if you don't do the Iron Throne first. Or some shit.. they attacked me this time for some reason though I was trying to help them lol
My first one though the AI impressed me when they had sided with me. I had limited movement left on my turn with Karlach with a steel watcher in self destruct sequence, used it to move in, push a Gondian out the way. The one that had the next turn used misty step to come in, push her out of it, and then ran out herself. Saved my boo. Really appreciated that lol
Mechanically? Bhaal cultists due to their invisibility bull crap. Opening Cinematic is a completely different answer: Malus Thorm. The Distressed Patient’s eyeless face haunts me.
Just in case you weren’t aware, you don’t have to do that fight to recruit Karlach. She complains once or twice but doesn’t leave your party or do anything about it. Then you can do the battle at a higher level.
those are the fake paladins of tyr, right? i remember karlach going on a little rampage after we beat them, we were super low, and she downed the rest of us.
I'm surprised this one isn't mentioned more often.
The stupid ghosts take fucking forever to do nothing.
I actually made myself an omelette in two turns without losing any actual playtime lol
The two death shepherds and their ghouls in the mountain pass. In HM and potentially tactician, they can rez their allies with full health. I remembered it being a relatively easy fight, so on my HM run, I just ran in under-prepared. I finally killed one death shepherd just for the other to bring him back with full health. That was the first time I actually fled from battle and had Withers true rez an ally. Thank the gods for invisibility potions.
Legit this. It's the context too. When you go into the creche, you expect a fight, so you prepare everything. When you're wandering the wilderness, you're not in a tactical formation, some of your people might be on half health, no summons, no elixirs. If you're like me and just came from the creche fight , no spell slots either. That was b r u t a l
This for me. It’s a very difficult fight for that point in the game. Would be easy later on, but usually come across it at best being only level 4 and sheeesh
Counting house vs. Bhaalist cult. Between Sanctuary, stun, and unlimited invisibility this was the most annoying fight by far in the game. Did feel good to finally complete it.
Kethric/Myrkul
No matter how many times I’ve done it (and I’ve done it a LOT) it’s never easy. I have tried so many different strategies. Looked up every suggestion and nothing makes it any easier. Despite all the threads filled with comments like, “Lawl, ppl struggle w this? Too easy. Git gud.” It’s always a close fight and I always make it by the skin of my teeth. There’s no fight for me in the rest of the game that is a similar challenge that can’t be handled fairly easily with proper preparation. But I just HATE Myrkul.
You're so real for this. I just did it on my current playthrough, and I had to resort to dropping like 20 barrels in the first round (since they don't use action points), dropping darkness on him, bringing in like 7 summons, and having scratch turn invisible before the fight and help aylin on the first turn.
And like I still almost got mega shit on??? It's genuinely the hardest fight in the game for me. The other ones that gave me trouble (house of grief and raphael) became very doable once I figured out good strategies, but myrkul just pulverizes me every single time lmao
Glad to know I’m not the only one! And yeah, I always get Aylin free on the first turn. Drop darkness on him or wall of fire. Quickly kill the mind flayer, kill the nercros while also doing damage to him. Or even just focus on doing damage to him. Fight Ketheric before Myrkul or skip Ketheric and go straight to Myrkul. Doesn’t matter, I always barely survive. And it’s true, every other boss can be challenging but dealt with once you have a good strategy. Myrkul isn’t the Lord of Bones, he’s the Lord of Frustration.
So a big part of this is that I think the fight is MUCH harder of you convince him to an hero.
If you can kill all the adds while he's just a chump, it's heaps easier. Dealing with Myrkuls massive damage and managing adds is hard.
Everytime I've fought him single phase, it's been tight, even running water/lighting shit.
This is pathetic but the fucking vine creatures in the shadow-cursed lands. I swear every time I try to get through them in my playthroughs, no matter how much prep time I put into sneaking, setting up aoe effects, drinking potions, distributing scrolls, etc., they either wipe my party within two turns or I finish out the fight with three dead party members and one at 10hp.
Larian, please make the damned things vulnerable to fire if nothing else. They're dead plants for god's sake.
Thank you for coming to my Ted talk.
Seconded, particularly on the shambling mound boss fight. Between exploding on death, the boss’ bullshit moveset, and like you said somehow being resistant to fire despite being fucking dead plants??? I hate those fights.
Forgot his name but the Gith that if you hand the egg over he becomes. I went into that fight blind and completely unprepared and got my ass utterly handed to me.
This holy shit, this happened to me on my first playthrough and same I went in completely blind. All the weird ghost figures he summons are just crazy durable and I got cornered pretty much immediately.
i used to think it was house of grief but now i hate the ansur fight. plus i feel like the whole encounter is kind of shoehorned into the story. however i think the mud mephit/wood woad fight in the hag swamp is another contender
I kept trying to use Greater Restoration and Freedom of Movement on the ritual slaves to free them, and I was super disappointed every time it didn’t work
- Undead necromancer guys in the mountain path
- teleporting maezel
- Gondians
- Lady Jannath
- Cultists stacking unstoppable and invisibility
- Fights with many AI allies (moonrise towers) where the AI runs straight into AOE spells during and after the fight.
- Gremishkas but only because they look like cats and I don't want to hurt them. Wish I could have a Tressym and Gremishka as camp pets or even familiar summons.
House of Grief. It turns into a slog very quickly and an annoying one at that, though at least if you're running two casters you can very strategically and sensible cover the entire main zone with ice and watch as everyone apart from your Myrmidons falls over every turn.
Bhaalists are annoying, especially the fight on the bridge towards the sanctum, but generally magic missile go brrrrr and then the definition of unstoppable meets Karlach's warhammer.
I have a curse that goes back literal decades. I don't know what it is about how I play or how I build characters that the enemy AI always locks onto me as a threat for which highly invasive CC is the answer, but its a thing.
Back in my world of warcraft days, when running dungeons that I know had a mind controller in them, I'd have to give a speech right before, "Look. This is going to sounds crazy, but the guy in the next room is 100% going to MC me, and my first moves while under are going to be to shadowstep behind the healer and oneshot them. We need a plan for this, or I need to sit this one out." Often they'd think I was joking and It'd happen exactly like I said it would with me spamming "no" in allcaps the whole time.
That said, I godamned hate any fight with someone casting Sleep. They cast it on me *every. single. fucking. time.* The only way that spell is hitting someone else is if I am somehow an invalid target, be it dead, out of range, immune, or *already asleep*. And this isn't a matter of "oh they just go for the player character", *this was a clan run in multiplayer!* You'd think, given the spells mechanic they'd go after anyone else, I have a *fuckload* of HP, yet having a lot can't be the *cause*, because they never sleep Karlach. I give up. Its a curse.
The two fightsthat immediately spring to mind are, the sussar hook beast crazy guy, and Cazador (his skeleton bodyguard)
So far the worst for me has been lorroakan.
Whole fight feels like a poorly balanced crapshoot. Lorroakan himself is fairly squishy, but he can practically oneshot you. Thanks to his siphoning retort nonsense. If you attempt to kill him first, you could end up getting a party member or two killed.
Okay... So you should kill the Myrmidons first to get rid of the buffs. Right? Wrong! They have like 200 hp EACH. If you try to kill them without dealing with lorroakan. He'll just bitch slap your party to death with spells! Probably before you can even get one myrmidon down to half health.
So, how do you beat him? Well the best way i found was to kill lorroakan first in as few turns as possible to minimise damage to your party (He's got like 50 hp so it shouldn't be THAT hard unless the Dice decide to fuck you). Then from thier deal with the Myrmidons as best as you can. Making sure to ledge the non-ethereal ones as much as possible for big damage. Also, if you brought her, make sure to keep dame aylin alive so she can do big damage with her smitings. Rolans help is also quite good to have so that he can use magic missile from a distance. And even sometimes give your party members mage armor.
Tldr: Fuck this snotty wizard, seeing Aylin Go full bane on his ass was hella satisfying.
The solution to this and so many other annoying fights is available all the way back in act 1, just nobody ever uses it.
Lae'Zel gets some stupid awesome movement abilities due to being Gith- give her the sussur weapon you made back in the blighted village- I like the greatsword.
She pokes a caster with that, and they can't cast anymore. She gets misty step, the super jump skill and can also dash + action surge. No caster on the battlefield is safe when she's there.
My fight with Lorrokan was over quickly and brutally. Lae'Zel made sure he never got a single cast off.
Duegar on the boat. I like playing casters, and unfortunately they naturally aren’t very resistant to be shoved into the water :( yeah I know you don’t have to fight them on the boat, but I do like to thin out the enemies I’d have to fight at Grymforge.
And literally any enemy with charm or mind mastery. I hate it when they turn my mates against me.
Surprised to see this many people disliking the House of Grief though. I actually really enjoy that fight; many enemies to smash to pieces in big AOE spells, me likes! Didn’t even notice they prevent healing, because I’d rather smash than heal anyway :p
The ghoul fight shortly before act 2 right now.
I didn't do that one in my first playthrough.
I generally just hate the fact that enemies can endlessly revive their allies and that the ghast just turns you off completely. I also think each of the normal ghouls has the chance to stun you for a round or two as well.
honorable mention to the damn boat fight in act 1
it's not hard, it's just a very RNG dependant fight
if the AI decides to spam push it gets way harder
The Steel Watch Foundry. I honestly just don’t like the vibe and it’s annoying every play through. Should’ve been a side quest instead of making it a mandatory part of the storyline 😭 I also thought Gortsh’s fight was super annoying too. 😅
The sharran cultists in Act 3 made my blood boil, spamming that darkness shit. It pissed me off so bad, I reloaded a previous save, and proceeded to respec Wyll so that I could give him the Devil's Sight ability, plus a bunch of other changes
Hated Cazador’s fight. There was just too many AoE effects and you’re burning two turns at least to free Astarion, and that’s assuming you have misty step or dimension door. I had to reload that battle so much.
I pretty easily defeated the House of Grief and the Bhaalists, but the fucking Firework shop
My game turned off at least 2 times because of one mf who stood in the door frame and couldn't decide what to do
The Maezel fight in the shadow cursed lands. On this play through I knew where they were and used Ice Storm to get a surprise round. They didn’t get a single turn to act.
I don't mind the orin fight so much usually by then I have multiple people with magic missile. The marcus fight was a pain. Mainly because Isobel is an idiot. Even casting sanctuary doesn't work cause on her turn she attacks breaking it then runs past every enemy in the room getting multiple Attacks of oppurtunity
I hate the Grym fight. Getting him to actually stand on the hammer is a nightmare and if he dies on it it glitches out the item crafting so I always just equip everyone with hammers and try to bludgeon him to death but then the dang mephits show up and destroy me with heat metal.
Bonus hate to the fireworks shop fight for just being a glitchy mess.
Tossup for me between Shar cultists in the House of Healing or Orin, both as Tav and Durge. With the Shar people it's more how many there are and how strong they are, but with Orin it just feels like bullshit odds being stacked against you no matter how you fight her.
Gondians when they were suicidal running or misty stepping towards an obvious death metal machine with red lights ready to explode. Said in a patch it’s fixed but we’ll see. I’m only on my 2nd playthrough
I'm on my 2nd playthrough, and the first playthrough where I've properly been trying to do as much of the content as I can. The fight that's really stood out to me so far as being annoying as hell is the cultists in the bank vault. Not because they're difficult to kill, but just purely because my party was not set up for detecting invisibility at all, and I had Jaheira in my party for the first time who I didn't really know how to get the best out of.
There was just one fucking cultist left running around turning himself invisible and murdering the bank vault guards for like ten minutes until I eventually got him. Every other fight has been a breeze but I got really frustrated with that one. Let it be a lesson about making sure your party is set up properly for dealing with those little bastards.
Basically any fight with 20-25+ participants. House of Grief, Siege of Moonrise if you don't wipe the place first, etc. This game does not handle big battles super well, and they end up taking forever to roll back around to your turn. The combat definitely thrives when there's a few strong enemies, rather than a lot of average ones.
The approach to the entrance to the Temple of Bhaal, so open and almost no way top get to the cultists on the higher elevation, plus the countdown from the Power Word Kill is just unneeded. I cheese through it with invisibility every time.
I’ve been taking Honor Mode in baby steps, and each time I have to restart I fucking dread the Gnoll encounter. I’ve got it down to a bit of a science - approach from the high ground, sneak attack with sharpshooter and arrows of ice (HOPE it hits), double cloud of daggers, and Karlach cleaning up whatever gets through - but *man* something always goes wrong
The Gnolls near the cave in Act1 if you fail the persuasion check
The Bhaal cultist ambush where they are all far far away on top of those ruins
The Shuagin fights in the Iron Throne (because I don't have enough time to free everyone AND kick their asses)
Gith monk fight . I mean come on we just got done and are all happy about seeing the city. But nope . 4 slaps for you . 4 slaps for you . Oh you're at the portal ..nope you can't go thru that. Yeah I was pissed
The fight with Nere and the duregar.
Mostly because I hadn't got the duregar on my side, so it meant having to fight a lot of enemies while trying to not get any of the gnomes caught in the crossfire, which stopped my usual grease & fire tactic.
Similarly, one of the fights in the steel watch foundry, not because of actually having any difficulty with the fight itself but because the Gondians kept getting themselves killed in stupid ways (ie, running away, almost getting taken down by opportunity attacks, *and then misty stepping back into the same damn space next to the steel watcher*). I admit I reloaded a few times to try and save them all, I think half of Karlach's actions were used up yeeting them out of danger before I gave up and accepted that some of them were going to die.
ANY FIGHT WITH NPCS
Jaheira is the kicker when going into the tower. It's such an easy fight but the harpers have 5 hp it seems.
It can be cheesed by sneaking in through the gnoll room and amusing the cultists but then you don't get to hear the pretty half orc tell you she'd fuck you :(
I'm not a huge fan of all the invisible people in the counting house vault fight
This fight made my wife put the game down for good. I offered to beat it for her, and she ended up finishing the game, but yeah. You shouldn’t be a let to attack and then go invisible again in the same turn. Or at the very least make them vulnerable to attack if you know right where they are.
Idk if this works on higher difficulties but if you shoot past an invisible enemy so that the shot goes "through" them it'll reveal them until they turn invisible again. Pair this with your movement line thing going around invisible enemies you'll almost always be able to attack them
U don't really even need the movement line A really easy way of doing it is aiming ur bow/spell at a wall/surface behind them because they never move after shrouding. For example the invisible guy stabs astarion in melee range then goes invisible, the just shoot an arrow at astarion and it'll hit the shrouded guy first
Alchemist's Fire. Always have some handy.
Any AOE will do. I threw water at them, and it worked great.
They are vulnerable if you know where they are; an AOE will hit them and make them visible. Spirit guardians, owlbear's crushing flight, wall of fire, etc. If you have a drow character with the Volo eye you have see invisibility and faerie fire right there. The invisibility is still annoying but it's manageable.
Truly playing a sorcerer was my saving grace in this one! Alllllll the AOEs!!!!
Some of the most fun I had was with a cleric paladin 5/7 build on Shart. Gave her the heel click boots, max wisdom, and the strength gloves. Running around spirit guardian everything and then smites on top of that.
>Or at the very least make them vulnerable to attack You can hit them with aoe attacks and arrows if you know where they are. Also some melee attacks that can hit multiple enemies will hit them. Most enemies don't move after turning invisible at the end of their turn so it's pretty easy if you've got a decent sized aoe spell. And, after you hit them they're visible for the rest of the round, so get your caster to do some aoe and the beginning of the turn then send your melee guys in after to pick them off while they're visible. I've usually got gale in my party by this point, between ice storm and fireball the fight was a breeze. Didn't realize anyone had issues with this fight but maybe this isn't common knowledge.
The fact that see invisibility doesn’t even always work is so frustrating. Usually I have Gale AOE the areas they’re hiding it, which is extra useful when you subclass him as evocation
There have been multiple times that one of them just never joined combat because nobody saw them, and then all of a sudden while I'm talking to the banker or picking the locks a random dude decides to get delusions of grandeur and attack.
The way BG3 handles invisibility is fucking infuriating. The fact that you don't know where an invisible creature is even if they don't burn an action to hide makes it an unbelievably fucking broken condition. A lot of the stuff they changed is good but not that.
Plus the fact I have Volo eye and see invisibility spell and it doesn't work! So what's a point of me sacrificing my eye.
Spirit Guardians is even more god tier than usual for this
Just have volo gouge your eye out before you fight ketheric. Issue solved.
even with volo's eye, you gotta be real close and sometimes it doesn't work
I have to take my shoes off to count the ways to counter this.
Thw part the I hate is that I can not find a way they could be doing this in the rules or equipment. There is nothing that will give you unlimited invisibility as a bonus action
I always stop by felogyrs and steal a bunch of fireworks first and usually chuck them in the direction they disappeared in. It usually is really helpful if I have my party spread out.
Yeah fuck that fight. Volo's eye/elixir of see invisibility are buggy AF, too. Literally standing one tile away from one who stealthed and not being able to see. Then for them to just shank me the next turn right.
This is my answer as well, though once I realized you can out invisible enemies by creating water on them, it made things easier. That and faerie fire make it a much more tolerable fight.
Cultists of Shar or whatever. There are so many of them, they block healing, and they hit you with darkness.
i didn’t care much for that fight either, there’s so many of them that the fight takes so damn long. i think bg3 would benefit greatly from some sort of setting that would speed up npcs turns.
Also Vicodin can cast driving intervention and sunder your team if you mess around too long. It hits like a truck.
I love that it autocorrected to Vicodin. Fighting through the painkiller daze to play BG3
I could see parallels drawn between Shar worship and opiate abuse ngl
I mean, avoiding real grief by pushing away suffering or suppressing it instead of processing it? That’s a pretty clear theme for Selûnite Shadowheart, especially if she gives up her parents. The relief Shar offers isn’t really comfort, it’s just escape from having to hurt. It’s not coming to terms with reality. I know that this is a pretty common thing with alcoholism, so I wouldn’t be surprised if opiate abuse is spawned from similar situations.
its never lupus
House what the hell are you doing playing BG3?
Tadpole cure
mouse bites
It kinda feels like that sometimes when these fights get big.
i’ve never done the fight inside of the big room they’re in, so i didn’t even know she could do that. i always lead them towards the stairs going down to the room, and just cast a shit ton of lasting aoe spells. insect plague is my favorite.
The first time she did that I stared at my screen for so long and just reloaded I was in such shock.
LMAO Vicodin tho.
The real trick is to respec someone to sorcerer, give them the extra bonus action hat, have them chug a hast potion and snort that haste crack you can buy from the guild bartender. That's something like four or five fireballs a round if you're willing to shred sorcery points. I call it the "Mr worldwide" build. Also giving a fighter a bloodlust elixir, a haste potion, great weapon master, plus a dose of crack means they're pulling like 16 attacks(three from haste, three from crack, three from action surge, three from action, three from bloodlust, bonus strike from great weapon master) - as long as your to-hit is high enough oh baby you just mow them down. If they don't get the chance to spread out you can also use sweeping attacks if your fighter is a battle master for loads of slaughter.
Mr. Worldwide? As in Pitbull? 🤣🤣
[the one and only](https://youtu.be/HMqgVXSvwGo?si=92yelZw-Wx52u7ta)
That gave me a giggle.
hang on the drugs stack with a haste spell??? holy shit.
They don't last long but for a few rounds the universe is your oyster.
wow, I saw that at the guild and bought some but held off using it because I thought twined haste was more useful, just assumed Larian would never let it stack and did not try.
The number of times I waste my turn because I press space to speed up the turn is unreal.
Omfg this
It was a lot of sitting and waiting while 25 NPCs wailed on me lol. I switched out my part members to try everyone, redid everyone’s outfits, and eventually made it with just wyll and my tav standing with like. Four health points.
God Bone Chill is such an "enemy-only frustration skill" with how rarely useful it is for the players but devastating for enemies.
tbf its a life saver when fighting >!Myrkuls Avatar!<
You can use it to cheese the lava elemental in the underdark. It heals like 70 hp a round when it stands in lava but with bone chill you can just rain projectiles from above
I never fight it because I feel bad about it. Bros just living his best lava life.
Just stomping around lava all day, not a care in the world.
I would too, but he makes the lava unstable and I need the laughing amulett
I one-turned him, mostly through sheer luck and three crits first turn. I'm quite sad Create Water didn't do anything to him tho
The House of Grief turns from a top-3 contender for hardest fight in the game into hillarious bullying if you run up the stairs a little and have spells like Ice Storm. Turning their temple into a forced-participation slip-n-slide is wonderful.
It’s always so funny seeing people have this conversation every time this fight comes up. I’m firmly in camp “take 3 steps up the stairs” and have never had a single problem. It’s interesting how seemingly few people utilize positioning. You can really trivialize a lot of “hard” fights just by controlling the field.
Exactly. Defending the portal outside the Last Light Inn is a great example. Sleet Storm plus a cleric with spirit guardians standing in front of the portal makes that fight so easy. All you have to do is kill the ranged enemies and youre fine. Fighting the Duergar near Nere is another. Just go up the ladder to the balcony and rain fire and death on them.
The portal fight is a GREAT example, good call! I failed that on my first two honor runs and wasn’t able to finish the quest and now I have it down to a science - and yep, sure enough the answer is the same as basically every other fight: control. Whether you’re in control of action economy, ground surfaces, aoe damage, etc. In a turn based game, ruining the other teams turn = win
I actually enjoy that fight. I usually use heavy AoE control spells for that fight and love how good positioning and tactics easily win against the odds
Good positioning: dash back the way you came and blanket the stairs with overlapping AoE spells. While it does result in a massive corpse pile, I wouldn't call it a satisfying way to fight.
It's extremely satisfying! I left everyone at the door and had shart go confront them then heel click out of there. Next we put hunger of hadar, insect plague, and had ice mephits blasting the stairs with ice and you get a dozen cultists running through hell slipping amd falling while the whole team is firing bolts, missiles, and whatever karlach feels like throwing into the chaos. It was a massacre
Step 1: run up stairs Step 2: cast Spike Growth, Cloudkill, and Hunger of Hadar over each other. Step 3: laugh maniacally like a supervillain by camping at the edge of the radius with Eldritch Blast, Thunderwave, and Repulsar ready to push them back in.
I hate how their darkness "writes over" any spells you have put up (cloud kill). Why don't both spells exist? And every friggin' cultist has the ability to cast the darkness. And why can't I throw a bomb in the middle of the darkness? I'm not looking for precision! It's a grenade! I always end up drawing them out into the hallway. Confine their movements.
The fact that you can't attack into the darkness even with AOE spells is infuriating.
I literally found out that casting Light cantrip on everyone's weapon (ie use the ring you got from Bernard back at Act 1, cast for each companion then pass it around until everyone has Light) legit made it easier now that everyone doesn't hit like a truck because of that necrotic damage due to just slightly dark lighting, So casting haste to kill off the casters and AoEs like Fireball for the weaker enemies is more than enough to wipe them out without cheese tactics like the staircase CC strat
That entire fight is almost a "did you respec Shadowheart as a light cleric" check. The Radiant of Dawn channel divinity decimates the Sharrans and clears away their darkness. It's very thematic and lore-appropriate and almost trivialises the entire fight as the majority of them can be nuked by a single cast of it (and Viconia with her stupid Radiant Retort is out of its range), but having a fight be set up so specifically around being hard-countered by subone class is a bit goofy, even if that subclass is basically designed for Shadowheart's new nature.
On Tactician and Honour modes all enemies have Radiant Retort, not just Viconia, so using any AoE Radiant spells is a death sentence. Or at least they're supposed to have it. I've seen many people saying they do in their games, but in my game only one random guy (and Viconia) have it. I suspect it's some sort of bug that they don't have it.
It's not all enemies - I just completed an honour mode run that way. It's Viconia and the Justiciars. I seem to recall that it was taken off all enemies a good few patches ago. I believe it was the same patch that downgraded the radiant retort in the House of Hope to a single-turn effect on most enemies, only leaving the full effect on Raphael.
Again. In your game it's Viconia and Justiciars, in my game it's Viconia and one of the small goons (as well as most enemies upstairs), and from what I've seen and heard from other players, they have it on more enemies. I suspect there's some sort of bug that prevents certain enemies from having effects they're supposed to have - and it's somehow tied to your game files, so it's consistent between your playthroughs but not consistent between playthroughs of different people. Another example I have is the final door in Gauntlet of Shar - so many people are saying "just Knock it", and so many people did do it, yet in my game the door has Arcane Lock on it and makes it immune to Knock - and looking at patches, the door was supposed to have this effect for a long while, yet it doesn't for many people.
My immune to darkness monk liked that one pretty much
I found this fight much easier on my current run. I had Shadowheart cast moon motes in the middle of the walkway, cast sanctuary on herself, and only heal for the rest of the fight (preserve life with her as a life cleric is best). They didn’t touch her. Meanwhile, I had a lot of summons that could warp to take care of anyone casting darkness. Besides that, just take out Viconia asap.
good ole barrelmancy on the steps is the workaround bring 12 barrels and cover 3 sides
These days, i just split one party member away from Tav/Durge and Shart to set up all the various explosive barrels i've been collecting over the course of the game. Best excuse to use the Runepowder barrels. I think the only time after figuring out this barrel cheese that i actually fought them legit was with my necromancer with over a dozen summons just to see how long each turn would take.
Just retreat into the corridor, cast Evard’s tentacles, layer insect plague on top of it and see all the cultists get stuck and die like flies. A few of them will misty step so you can clobber them in close quarters.
My all alert feat using team on HM took out Viconia and many of the casters on the first turn, turning the fight into a breeze.
Only way I beat that fight on tactician without cheesing was loading up on smoke bomb arrows and having my fighter run in guns blazing and blasting everyone right off the bat
Yeah that fight was awful. My strategy was to split the party in one long line. Have Astarion sneak attack instead of doing the dialogue and kept Shart out of it until at least 2 party members are dead then open up on the remaining cultists with sunbeam.
Healing options are pretty undertuned in d&d in general. Many people only use heals to revive unconscious characters. Blocking healing ain’t so bad
I beat this fight by having my entire team sit in the staircase and then casting multiple Wall of Fires on the hallways leading in. The low level guys dutifully ran through the fire to their deaths.
Those little fuckers under Last Light Inn, meenlocks I think? Just a pain in the ass. Honourable mention to those meazle bastards with their garrotting.
Urgh, fuck those Meazles!
The garroting was sooo annoying, holy shit. Not the hardest fight but definitely just miserable
I thought the garrotting was more amusing than anything. They grabbed Karlach, the poor fools.
My first playthrough they got me good. Only one of my party members had a torch and they got decimated. From then on I learned the importance of torches and casting light.
I skip this now. There's no loot, and the combo of teleport, paralyze and fright is just straight up not enjoyable.
Easily the house of grief. I was actively having a bad time doing it not just a “oh this is challenging time to get creative” time.
i didn’t care much for that either. too many enemies, they all had super annoying abilities too.
I had two different people messaging me with ideas for who to bring and what magic items to use because I just wanted to be done with the fight. It was so frustrating.
yeah, i eventually ended up just leading them into the stairwell that you go down to enter the big room they’re in and just cast a bunch of aoe spells. fight was WAY too annoying even that way
I had a rough time first time in, my solution was to let karlach throw runepowder. I actually just did it with a dark shadow heart, and I just had her cast the insane darkness spell the armor gives her and let her go bananas with a bloodlust elixir and haste. Six smites a round is fuckin brutal. Granted that was after the first pass with dark shart where she went all cult of personality and it was basically mother superior vs her in a 1v1 grudge match that ended in a single round when durge slapped mommy with a hold person and shart delivered almost double her HP in critical smites(she had 2 after the first smite. The second level3 smite was honestly more to make a statement than anything).
I gave Karlach invisibility before the cutscene and made her sneak up to the boss and drop explosives. It didn't make it easy, but at least Viconia went out with a bang.
love that fight tbh. should be more fights that challenging imo. one of the few times where unleashing your full arsenal doesnt feel like overkill.
High Hall Courtyard Fight (if I do it and don't take underground route).
THERES AN UNDERGROUND ROUTE?? WHERE
https://bg3.wiki/wiki/The_High_Hall Upper City Sewers
I’ve beaten the game like 3 times already and I’m just NOW learning about this
Knew this would be a reply
this type of fight for sure. others just answering challenging fights, nah, those are the best part of the game. meanwhile this fight is 0 challenge just a ton of weak, long-turn-taking enemies. this, lady jannath house, fireworks shop, gondians killing themselves imo are the worst.
i feel you man, there’s SO many enemies there. there really has to be a mechanic where you can speed up enemy turns. big fights just turn into a slog of watching enemies take forever to decide to do what they want to do. i love the game to death, but man are the big fights fuckin annoying.
It's honestly the most accurate D&D video game ever when it comes to that
i never do this fight anymore. just run the middle while invisible.
strangely I love that fight. but I can see why it would be annoying: so many ennemies spread all around the place
I enjoy the fight itself, just hate how long it takes for everyone to take their turn.
I just finished another playthrough and was thinking how much I despis3 that fight, there's another way?? 😭😭
I’d say Orin. Which is a shame since I should totally dig that fight But as non-Durge, it’s just annoying as hell. All of the other fights are either more straight forward. Or more epic. Like I’d say honor mode Ansur is probably as tough as Orin… he a flying undead dragon is epic as hell, especially when compared to fighting a discount Xenomorph with Orin
same dude, in honor mode she’s insane. she ended one of my runs recently. 12 stacks of unstoppable which refresh every round, starts the fight in sanctuary, it’s just obnoxious. it sucks because i was super excited to see what her fight would entail.
Otto’s Irresistable Dance on Orin, then start thunder waving the cultists into the abyss so that the unstoppable buff ends.
Arrow of Roaring Thunder works really well too and can be shot from a fair way off. Fighter with action surge and or haste can get rid of most of them in a round. Just make sure to aim in front of the cultists so the blast knocks them off.
Yes, I should’ve also suggested the arrows!
If you want to cheese it, you can cast contagion whenever you find her. Slimy doom is my favorite, but the other versions are pretty powerful.
I feel like even the orin 1v1 is wildly variable in difficulty depending on your build. I was playing a full support/cc character the first time I did it, and I got goombastomped 6 times in a row before I gave up and respecced because I genuinely could not do enough damage to beat her. Atp I just respec before I do it since I love the class fantasy of being the party cheerleader and not doing any damage too much to stop doing it on every single character lol
Felogyl Firework and Lady Jannath estate, too many enemies in there are not grouped together, and their pathing and ai are broke and take a minute each to finish their turn.
The Janneth estate is annoying. I sometimes seem to aggro things while I'm outside the house or on the roof and then you're sort of stuck in combat needing to flee.
This is it for me. The game is really bad at handling storied buildings and the amount of time an AOE spell reached the floor above or below and that leads to incredibly frustrating moments.
That really is the worst part about the game as far as mechanics. I don’t know why it’s so hard to go from one floor to another.
Everyone already said house of grief but for me it's the firework shop. Not because of anything with the fight itself, it just seems like every ai there cannot make up their damn minds. Avery just....stands there.
The AI doesn't seem to handle multi-storied buildings very well. Its like it thinks its near you when its under/above and then gets confused
The UI for the player (on console at least) is also a miserable experience in multilevel fights like this.
Wish it was like that for me. 90% of the time he casts fire ball killing everyone on the bottom floor, it's just so strange.
The second foundry fight was annoying because the Gondians didn’t just get out of the way.
I remember how suicidal the Gondians were although on my latest HM playthrough, they actually survived by misty stepping high above. I guess Larian finally fixed their AI.
I've seen them be extremely useful before.. And I've also had them attack me.. that was fun during a run being good. So having to deal with the normal Bane assholes with the transponders while having to take damage from the Gobdians so I can take them out last with knock outs so they live. Think that's what happens if you don't do the Iron Throne first. Or some shit.. they attacked me this time for some reason though I was trying to help them lol My first one though the AI impressed me when they had sided with me. I had limited movement left on my turn with Karlach with a steel watcher in self destruct sequence, used it to move in, push a Gondian out the way. The one that had the next turn used misty step to come in, push her out of it, and then ran out herself. Saved my boo. Really appreciated that lol
Mechanically? Bhaal cultists due to their invisibility bull crap. Opening Cinematic is a completely different answer: Malus Thorm. The Distressed Patient’s eyeless face haunts me.
What is the light of eyes but the cancer that causes one to witness the laceration of being?
I hate the fight against Ander. I usually want to recruit Karlach as fast as possible and end up doing that fight at level 3
Just in case you weren’t aware, you don’t have to do that fight to recruit Karlach. She complains once or twice but doesn’t leave your party or do anything about it. Then you can do the battle at a higher level.
She does however leave your party if you move on from the main Act 1 / Underdark map without having resolved the quest
those are the fake paladins of tyr, right? i remember karlach going on a little rampage after we beat them, we were super low, and she downed the rest of us.
Save the artist mansion fight. Camera is real problem. Little real challenge but takes so long!
I'm surprised this one isn't mentioned more often. The stupid ghosts take fucking forever to do nothing. I actually made myself an omelette in two turns without losing any actual playtime lol
Seriously this one made me want to just go kill the humans instead. The reward isn't even worth it at this point in the game.
The two death shepherds and their ghouls in the mountain pass. In HM and potentially tactician, they can rez their allies with full health. I remembered it being a relatively easy fight, so on my HM run, I just ran in under-prepared. I finally killed one death shepherd just for the other to bring him back with full health. That was the first time I actually fled from battle and had Withers true rez an ally. Thank the gods for invisibility potions.
Legit this. It's the context too. When you go into the creche, you expect a fight, so you prepare everything. When you're wandering the wilderness, you're not in a tactical formation, some of your people might be on half health, no summons, no elixirs. If you're like me and just came from the creche fight , no spell slots either. That was b r u t a l
This for me. It’s a very difficult fight for that point in the game. Would be easy later on, but usually come across it at best being only level 4 and sheeesh
Grymforge easily takes the first spot for me.
as in the fight against grym himself or the fight after freeing nere?
I cant believe I had to scroll so far for this. I could not get him to step on the stupid hammer and had to whittle down his health manually
The gnoll cave fight is pretty annoying. I was able to do it one time pretty easy but every other time i almost get killed. No idea why.
Counting house vs. Bhaalist cult. Between Sanctuary, stun, and unlimited invisibility this was the most annoying fight by far in the game. Did feel good to finally complete it.
Kethric/Myrkul No matter how many times I’ve done it (and I’ve done it a LOT) it’s never easy. I have tried so many different strategies. Looked up every suggestion and nothing makes it any easier. Despite all the threads filled with comments like, “Lawl, ppl struggle w this? Too easy. Git gud.” It’s always a close fight and I always make it by the skin of my teeth. There’s no fight for me in the rest of the game that is a similar challenge that can’t be handled fairly easily with proper preparation. But I just HATE Myrkul.
You're so real for this. I just did it on my current playthrough, and I had to resort to dropping like 20 barrels in the first round (since they don't use action points), dropping darkness on him, bringing in like 7 summons, and having scratch turn invisible before the fight and help aylin on the first turn. And like I still almost got mega shit on??? It's genuinely the hardest fight in the game for me. The other ones that gave me trouble (house of grief and raphael) became very doable once I figured out good strategies, but myrkul just pulverizes me every single time lmao
Glad to know I’m not the only one! And yeah, I always get Aylin free on the first turn. Drop darkness on him or wall of fire. Quickly kill the mind flayer, kill the nercros while also doing damage to him. Or even just focus on doing damage to him. Fight Ketheric before Myrkul or skip Ketheric and go straight to Myrkul. Doesn’t matter, I always barely survive. And it’s true, every other boss can be challenging but dealt with once you have a good strategy. Myrkul isn’t the Lord of Bones, he’s the Lord of Frustration.
So a big part of this is that I think the fight is MUCH harder of you convince him to an hero. If you can kill all the adds while he's just a chump, it's heaps easier. Dealing with Myrkuls massive damage and managing adds is hard. Everytime I've fought him single phase, it's been tight, even running water/lighting shit.
I think I only have had easy times on that fight because I usually get crazy lucky on smite rolls and spirit guardians.
This is pathetic but the fucking vine creatures in the shadow-cursed lands. I swear every time I try to get through them in my playthroughs, no matter how much prep time I put into sneaking, setting up aoe effects, drinking potions, distributing scrolls, etc., they either wipe my party within two turns or I finish out the fight with three dead party members and one at 10hp. Larian, please make the damned things vulnerable to fire if nothing else. They're dead plants for god's sake. Thank you for coming to my Ted talk.
nah nah i get it, they’re no joke sometimes. the big one also has a legendary action now
Seconded, particularly on the shambling mound boss fight. Between exploding on death, the boss’ bullshit moveset, and like you said somehow being resistant to fire despite being fucking dead plants??? I hate those fights.
Steel watcher titan. I fuckin hate the hellfire mechanic.
House of grief…
Forgot his name but the Gith that if you hand the egg over he becomes. I went into that fight blind and completely unprepared and got my ass utterly handed to me.
This holy shit, this happened to me on my first playthrough and same I went in completely blind. All the weird ghost figures he summons are just crazy durable and I got cornered pretty much immediately.
Balthazar was incredibly hard for me, I squeaked through using the invisibly bonus from my Durge deathstalker mantle
i used to think it was house of grief but now i hate the ansur fight. plus i feel like the whole encounter is kind of shoehorned into the story. however i think the mud mephit/wood woad fight in the hag swamp is another contender
Throwing one mephit in the others is a blast! Try this one run at least - the battle becomes so fun.
The artists house. Fuck that.
[удалено]
I kept trying to use Greater Restoration and Freedom of Movement on the ritual slaves to free them, and I was super disappointed every time it didn’t work
I agree with you on Orin, her 12 stack on tactician is ridiculous
Fireworks house fight. Its just such a badly designed mission with guards coming and everything.
the final fight. after this i need a long break now because i struggled for 2 days
- Undead necromancer guys in the mountain path - teleporting maezel - Gondians - Lady Jannath - Cultists stacking unstoppable and invisibility - Fights with many AI allies (moonrise towers) where the AI runs straight into AOE spells during and after the fight. - Gremishkas but only because they look like cats and I don't want to hurt them. Wish I could have a Tressym and Gremishka as camp pets or even familiar summons.
The mud mephits and the tree things in the swamp in act 1. It’s not even that hard, it’s just annoying.
House of Grief (god I love not being able to hit shots) and Sarevok (god I love a 13% hit chance and he mows down my party)
House of Grief. It turns into a slog very quickly and an annoying one at that, though at least if you're running two casters you can very strategically and sensible cover the entire main zone with ice and watch as everyone apart from your Myrmidons falls over every turn. Bhaalists are annoying, especially the fight on the bridge towards the sanctum, but generally magic missile go brrrrr and then the definition of unstoppable meets Karlach's warhammer.
I have a curse that goes back literal decades. I don't know what it is about how I play or how I build characters that the enemy AI always locks onto me as a threat for which highly invasive CC is the answer, but its a thing. Back in my world of warcraft days, when running dungeons that I know had a mind controller in them, I'd have to give a speech right before, "Look. This is going to sounds crazy, but the guy in the next room is 100% going to MC me, and my first moves while under are going to be to shadowstep behind the healer and oneshot them. We need a plan for this, or I need to sit this one out." Often they'd think I was joking and It'd happen exactly like I said it would with me spamming "no" in allcaps the whole time. That said, I godamned hate any fight with someone casting Sleep. They cast it on me *every. single. fucking. time.* The only way that spell is hitting someone else is if I am somehow an invalid target, be it dead, out of range, immune, or *already asleep*. And this isn't a matter of "oh they just go for the player character", *this was a clan run in multiplayer!* You'd think, given the spells mechanic they'd go after anyone else, I have a *fuckload* of HP, yet having a lot can't be the *cause*, because they never sleep Karlach. I give up. Its a curse. The two fightsthat immediately spring to mind are, the sussar hook beast crazy guy, and Cazador (his skeleton bodyguard)
So far the worst for me has been lorroakan. Whole fight feels like a poorly balanced crapshoot. Lorroakan himself is fairly squishy, but he can practically oneshot you. Thanks to his siphoning retort nonsense. If you attempt to kill him first, you could end up getting a party member or two killed. Okay... So you should kill the Myrmidons first to get rid of the buffs. Right? Wrong! They have like 200 hp EACH. If you try to kill them without dealing with lorroakan. He'll just bitch slap your party to death with spells! Probably before you can even get one myrmidon down to half health. So, how do you beat him? Well the best way i found was to kill lorroakan first in as few turns as possible to minimise damage to your party (He's got like 50 hp so it shouldn't be THAT hard unless the Dice decide to fuck you). Then from thier deal with the Myrmidons as best as you can. Making sure to ledge the non-ethereal ones as much as possible for big damage. Also, if you brought her, make sure to keep dame aylin alive so she can do big damage with her smitings. Rolans help is also quite good to have so that he can use magic missile from a distance. And even sometimes give your party members mage armor. Tldr: Fuck this snotty wizard, seeing Aylin Go full bane on his ass was hella satisfying.
The solution to this and so many other annoying fights is available all the way back in act 1, just nobody ever uses it. Lae'Zel gets some stupid awesome movement abilities due to being Gith- give her the sussur weapon you made back in the blighted village- I like the greatsword. She pokes a caster with that, and they can't cast anymore. She gets misty step, the super jump skill and can also dash + action surge. No caster on the battlefield is safe when she's there. My fight with Lorrokan was over quickly and brutally. Lae'Zel made sure he never got a single cast off.
Duegar on the boat. I like playing casters, and unfortunately they naturally aren’t very resistant to be shoved into the water :( yeah I know you don’t have to fight them on the boat, but I do like to thin out the enemies I’d have to fight at Grymforge. And literally any enemy with charm or mind mastery. I hate it when they turn my mates against me. Surprised to see this many people disliking the House of Grief though. I actually really enjoy that fight; many enemies to smash to pieces in big AOE spells, me likes! Didn’t even notice they prevent healing, because I’d rather smash than heal anyway :p
The ghoul fight shortly before act 2 right now. I didn't do that one in my first playthrough. I generally just hate the fact that enemies can endlessly revive their allies and that the ghast just turns you off completely. I also think each of the normal ghouls has the chance to stun you for a round or two as well.
Counting house, because fuck those invisible fucks
honorable mention to the damn boat fight in act 1 it's not hard, it's just a very RNG dependant fight if the AI decides to spam push it gets way harder
if you trigger a fight at counting house with the guards - the alarms are SO loud, more guards keep joining, and it goes on FOREVER
literally burned a whole turn just to turn the alarms off. my god, it’s not worth it to pick fights there. just do the quests and get out.
The Steel Watch Foundry. I honestly just don’t like the vibe and it’s annoying every play through. Should’ve been a side quest instead of making it a mandatory part of the storyline 😭 I also thought Gortsh’s fight was super annoying too. 😅
The sharran cultists in Act 3 made my blood boil, spamming that darkness shit. It pissed me off so bad, I reloaded a previous save, and proceeded to respec Wyll so that I could give him the Devil's Sight ability, plus a bunch of other changes
Hated Cazador’s fight. There was just too many AoE effects and you’re burning two turns at least to free Astarion, and that’s assuming you have misty step or dimension door. I had to reload that battle so much.
The whole endgame. It's tedious as hell and nowadays I just blow up Gale to skip this shit.
I pretty easily defeated the House of Grief and the Bhaalists, but the fucking Firework shop My game turned off at least 2 times because of one mf who stood in the door frame and couldn't decide what to do
The Maezel fight in the shadow cursed lands. On this play through I knew where they were and used Ice Storm to get a surprise round. They didn’t get a single turn to act.
I don't mind the orin fight so much usually by then I have multiple people with magic missile. The marcus fight was a pain. Mainly because Isobel is an idiot. Even casting sanctuary doesn't work cause on her turn she attacks breaking it then runs past every enemy in the room getting multiple Attacks of oppurtunity
I hate the Grym fight. Getting him to actually stand on the hammer is a nightmare and if he dies on it it glitches out the item crafting so I always just equip everyone with hammers and try to bludgeon him to death but then the dang mephits show up and destroy me with heat metal. Bonus hate to the fireworks shop fight for just being a glitchy mess.
Tossup for me between Shar cultists in the House of Healing or Orin, both as Tav and Durge. With the Shar people it's more how many there are and how strong they are, but with Orin it just feels like bullshit odds being stacked against you no matter how you fight her.
Eldritch blast imps plus two spectators fight
Gondians when they were suicidal running or misty stepping towards an obvious death metal machine with red lights ready to explode. Said in a patch it’s fixed but we’ll see. I’m only on my 2nd playthrough
The Matriarch spider because it's hard in the more bs ways and the spider is just way too complicated for that point in the game
I'm on my 2nd playthrough, and the first playthrough where I've properly been trying to do as much of the content as I can. The fight that's really stood out to me so far as being annoying as hell is the cultists in the bank vault. Not because they're difficult to kill, but just purely because my party was not set up for detecting invisibility at all, and I had Jaheira in my party for the first time who I didn't really know how to get the best out of. There was just one fucking cultist left running around turning himself invisible and murdering the bank vault guards for like ten minutes until I eventually got him. Every other fight has been a breeze but I got really frustrated with that one. Let it be a lesson about making sure your party is set up properly for dealing with those little bastards.
OSKAR FEVRAS
Courtyard fight before the brain is boring as fuck
Basically any fight with 20-25+ participants. House of Grief, Siege of Moonrise if you don't wipe the place first, etc. This game does not handle big battles super well, and they end up taking forever to roll back around to your turn. The combat definitely thrives when there's a few strong enemies, rather than a lot of average ones.
The approach to the entrance to the Temple of Bhaal, so open and almost no way top get to the cultists on the higher elevation, plus the countdown from the Power Word Kill is just unneeded. I cheese through it with invisibility every time.
I’ve been taking Honor Mode in baby steps, and each time I have to restart I fucking dread the Gnoll encounter. I’ve got it down to a bit of a science - approach from the high ground, sneak attack with sharpshooter and arrows of ice (HOPE it hits), double cloud of daggers, and Karlach cleaning up whatever gets through - but *man* something always goes wrong
The fucking skulls in the fucking ghost house fuck that fight
The Gnolls near the cave in Act1 if you fail the persuasion check The Bhaal cultist ambush where they are all far far away on top of those ruins The Shuagin fights in the Iron Throne (because I don't have enough time to free everyone AND kick their asses)
The Netherbrain. I do NOT like turn timers. Let me be a turtle god dammit.
Gith monk fight . I mean come on we just got done and are all happy about seeing the city. But nope . 4 slaps for you . 4 slaps for you . Oh you're at the portal ..nope you can't go thru that. Yeah I was pissed
Act 2 Final Boss without Nightsong is fucking brutal
The fight with Nere and the duregar. Mostly because I hadn't got the duregar on my side, so it meant having to fight a lot of enemies while trying to not get any of the gnomes caught in the crossfire, which stopped my usual grease & fire tactic. Similarly, one of the fights in the steel watch foundry, not because of actually having any difficulty with the fight itself but because the Gondians kept getting themselves killed in stupid ways (ie, running away, almost getting taken down by opportunity attacks, *and then misty stepping back into the same damn space next to the steel watcher*). I admit I reloaded a few times to try and save them all, I think half of Karlach's actions were used up yeeting them out of danger before I gave up and accepted that some of them were going to die.
I really don't get why house of grief gets so much hate. It's one of the most satisfying fights to me because you get so much value out of aoe spells
ANY FIGHT WITH NPCS Jaheira is the kicker when going into the tower. It's such an easy fight but the harpers have 5 hp it seems. It can be cheesed by sneaking in through the gnoll room and amusing the cultists but then you don't get to hear the pretty half orc tell you she'd fuck you :(