help! Final battle in CoD (spoilers)

[samopop]

  Any strategy help for the second part of the battle (once the seer lords come out to play) would be much appreciated since I have already died ~10 times and don't seem to have a viable path forward.

  I have a level 39 party on nightmare and the enemies are level 45.  All of the enemies do a minimum of 500 damage and the seer lords do 600 plus hefty elemental damage.   Obviously Selen is disabled, so her stats do not matter.  I have Kincaid, Fyona, and Kjarten left.  Kincaid is built as a dodge/parry tank (max cunning footwork, sure parry 6, flanking unity 6, storm of steel 2, flashing blades 2), Fyona has max holy strickening, max shield of cortias, zealous strikes 5, blessed aura 2 and reckoning 1.  Kjarten has max choking ash, firestorm 5, burning blades 5, meteoric shockwave 4, pureflame shield 3, and firebolt 2.

  I only have the ability to remove one AP (with Fyona's recokoning).  Selen was my other -AP source, but that doesn't help here.  The seer lord is left with 2 AP.  I use meteoric shockwave on him to reduce his accuracy, but he will still kill whoever he attacks in a single round.  Kjarten would die from one hit.  Fyona will always be hit twice with ranged attacks and despite her 100 armor and 1073 HP, will die pretty much every time.  I have tried to pump up KIncaid's dodge as much as possible to no avail.   Talent wise, I am almost maxed out and I could only get 2 more dodge through maximizing sure parry.  I have all three item slots pumping up dodge (+9, +6, +6).  Overall, he has a 40 dodge bonus.  His ranged/spell defense bonus is:
   evasion(6) + dodge (40+12) + dex(16)/knowledge(7)
  Despite all that, he still gets hit most times (although does successfully dodge ~20% of the time). He can barely take one hit and not die.  Two is well out of the question.

  So, any useful advice from the gurus out there on this battle?

[fallen]

samopop - thanks for the full dump of stats. Where are you in terms of mob management? Are there summoners at work filling the ranks, or have you managed to cut it down to just the Seer Lords?

[samopop]

I'm just at the beginning of the battle, so almost all of the enemies are still there. That includes summoners, but I haven't seen them yet since I only advanced a little and let the enemies come to me (most have waited out their turns instead of advancing). One seer lord along with a few skeletons and skeleton archers are the ones that are within attack range of me. The main (only?) problem I am having is the seer lord himself, whose accuracy and damage at level 45 is so great that I don't seem to have any useful counters. In previous encounters with the seer lords I could take them down to 1 AP using Selen and Fyona and then they were manageable.

[fallen]

samopop - ok, thanks for the info. If you're in a position where a single turn with a Seer Lord is nuking the team, you'll need to kite a bit I think. Retreat and let the enemies spread out. If you can get an SL alone, then you can rush with Fyona and hit with a -AP curse.

Also, check your item stash and see if you have any mighty incantations. Seer Lords are weak vs. holy, so do you have any +50 Holy Dmg attacks. Any scrolls that refresh your AP to 7? Any +MP scrolls that help you get Fyona in close to smack with the -AP curse?

If you lose, you could use a Restore Point and go back and find / loot / buy some scrolls and incantations to prepare better for the big fight.

[samopop]

Thanks for the hints. I have one scroll that refreshes my AP to 7 and I have already utilized a bunch of +MP and +holy damage scrolls. They don't go *too* far though when the seer lord can kill me in one round and has > 3000 HP (meaning even with all of those scrolls it will take many, many rounds to take him out). Nonetheless, I will try out some more strategies and see what happens.

[fallen]

samopop - it sounds like a big thing would be to isolate the SL, start the round out of range, charge in and hit with the -AP attack. Then, with 1 AP, he should not be able to do one-hit kills against you. Curse him as much as you can and pound him. Turn on the +50 Holy Dmg scrolls for someone who can attack 3+ times a turn - you should be able to turn out 50-100 extra Dmg a hit with that turned on.

I hope the thinking helps. If you do end up Restoring to your last Way Point, perhaps consider a Respec?

[samopop]

OK. I'll try it out and report back in a few days (I might not be able to play for a bit). Keep in mind that I currently only have the ability to remove 1 AP, so the seer lord is always going to have 2 AP to play with. A respec may be necessary (ie, Fyona w/ high reckoning so she can remove 2 AP, CS for Kincaid, max meteoric shockwave for Kjarten?).

Since the game strategy until now was building a team of four characters that complement and work well with each other . . . suddenly removing a character feels . . . inconsistent. Sure I can respec so that I have -2 AP with only three characters and optimize for one particular fight . . . but it feels off.

Anyway, I'm just griping. I'll try out more tactics and see if anything works.

[wascalwywabbit]

Having -ap of up to 4 is almost always effective at neutralizing the enemies without going overboard, especially when a good chunk comes with damaging cursing attacks.

But... my rule is respec only when out of other ideas.

You're probably gonna need to at least war of attrition this battle with run and gun with scrolls and potions at least tho cause you can't stand and take it or dodge it all. Of course fallen offered good advice.

[samopop]

I managed to win the fight (10-15 deaths later . . . good thing I'm not trying iron man)!

I take it all back. With some experimentation I discovered that my fully healed Fyona can take two attacks from the seer lord without dying. So, here is what I did (in case anyone is interested):

Everyone had mighty scroll/book buffs of +2 MP, +accuracy/damage, and either +holy or +fire damage. I switched Kincaid to using just a 1 AP blade. I parked Fyona next to the seer lord and made sure everyone else was not next to him. She cast max holy strickening on him and Kjarten (for the first one) cast max choking ash on him. Fyona would hit him three times each round for > 200 damage (using reckoning as appropriate to keep him down to 2 AP). If no other enemies were around, then Kincaid would stab him 7 times for ~100/hit (and occasionally criting for ~200). Kjarten (when he was around) would firebolt him for ~200/firebolt or finish off other enemies if needed. If there were any other ranged enemies nearby, Kincaid would immediately park himself next to the ranged enemies and try to kill them as quick as possible (which is pretty quick with 7 attacks/round). If there were other melee enemies around, Kincaid would try to park himself next to them too (so they would attack him, but if it became difficult to do that and attack the seer lord effectively, then Kincaid would kill off the melee enemy first). After every round, Fyona would make liberal use of strong healing potions combined with some group potions used by others to make sure she started off with full health always. Also, sustainment scrolls were liberally used as necessary to keep all buffs running. In this manner, I eventually took down both seer lords.

Whew!

[wascalwywabbit]

Congrats!

[fallen]

samopop - very nice work! Glad you found the strategy that worked. Once you got it solid, it sounds like it was a big success!

[Bobsoupnotloggedin]

I'm here now. I don't remember having difficulties a few years ago and I'd hate to respect now.

Basically my team is set up with Selen and Vincent as my two main damage causers.

Took out the guardians and blue seer Lord fairly easily. Now I've got Kincaid specialised in dodge/party and Fyona who is more balanced between health/tank (not really a specialist, I use her mainly to draw fire away from Vincent, and heal people as needed).

I like the balance of my team, it has served me well... But I feel completely nerfed with my two damage causers both removed from the team... And Emersai with the skeletons can take out Kincaid if he gets too close, despite being maxed in Dodge/parry/dexterity... But he's the only one capable of the occasional victory.

I may have to respect just for this one battle but I'd want to respect back afterwards.

[Bobsoupnotloggedin]

Gosh, I hate autocorrect... Lol... I think you know what I mean though. Kincaid isn't really set up to party. Respec not respect.

[fallen]

Jan 30, 2019 13:54:52 GMT -5 Bobsoupnotloggedin said:

I'm here now. I don't remember having difficulties a few years ago and I'd hate to respect now.

Basically my team is set up with Selen and Vincent as my two main damage causers.

Took out the guardians and blue seer Lord fairly easily. Now I've got Kincaid specialised in dodge/party and Fyona who is more balanced between health/tank (not really a specialist, I use her mainly to draw fire away from Vincent, and heal people as needed).

I like the balance of my team, it has served me well... But I feel completely nerfed with my two damage causers both removed from the team... And Emersai with the skeletons can take out Kincaid if he gets too close, despite being maxed in Dodge/parry/dexterity... But he's the only one capable of the occasional victory.

I may have to respect just for this one battle but I'd want to respect back afterwards.

Another way to approach it would be to use Restore Point, go back to town, load up on potions and then approach the battle differently. Knowing what you know, kill the necromancers and skeletons before taking out the Seer Lords and triggering the story sequence. Then, when you're down to 2, you can have a much easier fight.

[Bobsoupnotloggedin]

Nevermind... I found a trick.

1) I made sure to kill every skeleton BEFORE killing the seer lords (that way I kept Vincent around as long as possible)

2) I got both seer lords down to a few hundred before letting one of them die.

The blue one wasn't really a threat. Kincaid's sure parry (not sure party) kept him neutralized.

Emersai was a pain though because he attacks via range, I had to make sure he wasn't concentrating all his fire on one person and chance the RNG.

It was tough and I died a handful of times, but, the trick is not killing a seer lord too early and waiting to kill the blue one (Rink, Risc, something like that) until Emersai was almost dead.