A cleric is having fun ...

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Incredible stuff the truth! Keep going! Don't give up!

 

UPDATE


Ooookay ... I had enough

Since I wanted to FINISH this long game and mostly because I wanted to see that B...h DEAD , I decided to set the difficulty on Core rules for this very last battle.

I will give more details and screenshots, of what exactly happens on insane, later.
And if I feel masochist enough,maybe I will try again on insane...


Final Battle :


I was at the last pool with Balthazar and 3 charmed Cambions.
Before clicking the last pool I buff my cleric with the usual : Death Ward,Ch.Commands, A.of Faith,H.power,R.Magic,Boon then I drink an oil of speed and a potion of Magic protection (for >100 MR).
Also I decided to wield the Shield of Reflection (Illasera).

We were ready for the final battle.I click the last pool ...

Melissan comes in,bringing the Five as well and Sarevok too (how many time do I have to kill him in this game ? ).
The fight starts and immediately I send the 3 Cambions to attack Abazigal,Gromnir and Illasera.Balthazar attacks Sarevok and Sendai starts casting a spell...

... wait a minute ,I knew this sound...
Yes, it must be a timestop .
I cast Focus immediately (new ability gained from the last pool which, if the timing is good,gives immunity to timestop for some seconds).

Indeed it was a timestop and I was immune to it
I start casting a Harm and then attacked the immobile Yaga-Sura.Of course it was successful and with one more hit from my FoA, Yaga-Shura was the first to fall.

Sendai in the meantime with her improved Alacrity emptied her entire spell-book on poor Balthazar killing him.
And Melissan before leaving,had dominated back my 3 Cambions (one more reason that makes the new ability Control Demons useless).

Now it was only me against Sendai,Abazigal,Gromnir,Illasera and Sarevok.

I knew that if I killed one more of the Five,Melissan would return and this would make things much more complicated.So my tactic was (like in my fighter's solo) to bring all of them near death before start killing them.

Again I wanted to keep my Energy Blades for Melissan so I was attacking with my flails or with Erinne sling, running away to heal myself when badly injured.
I was moving always at 4x speed (oils and boots of speed) so I didn't have any problems to keep my cleric at a safe distance from the others.Something that became easier when Sendai ran out of haste spells.

Sendai was the toughest because of her protections and offensive spells.
I took a lot of damage but she could not kill me.And her spells were not infinite.
I was mainly attacking her and a couple of times I managed to use my powerful Dispel Magic , which dispelled both Abazigal's and Sendai's protections.
Soon Sendai ran out of stoneskins,ironskins,m.images and it became easier.

After a LOT of time everyone was Near Death and Illasera and Sendai in Morale Failure .
Keeping a safe distance from them, I casted my final buffs, used more potions and I kill :

a) Sarevok .
This made Melissan reappear .

b) Abazigal .

Melissan starts casting a spell.
Oops...One more timestop - One more Focus

c) Illasera .Dead in Melissan's timestop.

d) Gromnir .

e) All were dead except from Sendai.I did more than 500 damage ! to her but she didn't want to die (a known bug of Ascension ) .And I didn't want to use CTRL-Y.
Some minutes later she decided, suddenly, to die while I was not attacking her

Now it was only me against Melissan.
I casted Righteous Magic and Energy Blades and I attack her.
But after seeing that the blades could do ONLY 3 dmg/hit at her,I realized how stupid was my decision to not use them in the previous battles
Melissan has more than 500 HPs ! I could never kill her with the Blades...
Anyway with my buffs I had 4 attacks/round and FoA once again proved to be the perfect weapon for every situation.I was attacking in melee and running away from her when she casted Divine Mantle (immunity to +5 weapons or less) or when I needed to heal myself.

At last she was near death.She casts again D.Mantle and while she was casting one of her offensive spells I had the time to cast a Dispel Magic and then to finish her off .

The Solar appeared,convinced Melissan that ...she was dead and I made my choise ...


PS : I don't consider this solo-run successful.It should have been played on insane till the end .

 

NO WAY! You have proven to be the king of soloers, really! Your attempt is succesfull, truly!

It has been a grand epic tale, in all of its respects!

CONGRATULATIONS! And good choice in the end! Very well done!

I don't think Ascension on insane is suited for non-mage soloers, so don't worry! You have done what you could!

PS:Well I see Melissan is casting a Bone Blades spell on your PC, and he makes A LOT OF saving throws to resist it. (death, polymorph etc) What does the spell do? I am curious! I have never noticed her casting this spell.

 

Nice job, TT. You almost make me want to give Ascension a try myself. ALMOST.

 

Confession: I don't like final battles because they mean that game is over. Sometimes I'll leave the final battle of a game for months while I play other games. But sooner or later, I usually come back to finish it.

Advice: Keep the save. When (and if) you want to try to finish it again, this time on insane, it'll be there for you.

 

I'm much like Felinoid in that the final battles are often all I have left. But Unlike him it depends on if I finish them or not. Primarily because I might not even remember what I did with my party or not or even what strategy I was using I've left it so long and my memory not being the best so I tend to go back into games I've left with some relearning. Which can be bad with a final battle. Playing all of the game already this is my weakpoint is finishing that last little piece.

 

@ Silverstar

I think that it would.But some Demons (Mariliths) cast Pierce Shield that removes D.Ward ...
I am not sure if the Baalors' hits have a % chance of insta-killing or if with any hit you have to make a save vs. Death (penalty ?) or die.
And improved Baalors have permanent Aura of Flaming Death (cleric HLA)

Bone Blades is like a small Insect Plague with a much smaller duration, BUT which does over 100 dmg on insane.
Instead of the insects a horde of small blades attack the target doing slashing dmg.The animation is very cool but I had turned off many spell effects in this battle,because of poor game performance ...
I don't know what happens if you fail a save and I don't want to think about it either


@ Felinoid,Starwalker


I understand what you are saying ,but I would prefer to finish it now, on insane.
The problem is that I can't ...


And some info of what happens on insane :


1) On insane if I kill any of the Five or Sarevok, Melissan reappears immediately.
That means that I cannot Harm Yaga-Shura and then follow my tactic of bringing them all Near Death...
And if I try to kill Yaga-Shura with hit&run tactics I need to spend more than 1 hour dealing with the 5.

2) Even if it will take a LOT of time, with the above tactic I can kill the 5 without difficulty on insane.
BUT I cannot save the game during this fight and if I get killed by a Demon later I will have to play AGAIN the whole battle...

3) Sendai uses Harm . This is what happened to Balthazar...

4) Melissan, sometimes,during her timestops attacks my cleric in melee
3-4 hits and I am dead. And if I am lucky to cast focus in this chaos, I am still not safe.
This is what happened in one of my attempts
I cast focus before Melissan's timestop, but immediately after Sendai casts timestop too.
And both of them attacked in melee,killing me...

5) But the most crazy part of this battle,on insane, are Melissan's Demons .

I really can't believe that I beat them with a 4 members party (and with no cheese).
All of them are the improved Demons I described in my previous posts.
Melissan summons them and if you attack her, she teleports away and then summons again NON-STOP
The Demons can be randomly :

- Alu Fiends: Cast Domination and Charm.
Ch.Commands get dispelled from other demons and if I wield shield of Harmony instead of S.of Reflection I get killed from the many arrows of the Demons...
But even worse they cast Haste ...

- Babaus : they cast Demon Fear and Backstab for >100 dmg/hit .OK I have Enkidu's Full Plate but even with the backstab failed they do incredible damage.
Here is how I got killed, after 2 more babaus attacked me.

- Mariliths : They keep casting Telekinesis, Cloud Kills and Pierce Shield...
Result? All the Demons are immune to the damage (high MR) but NOT my cleric

- Fallen Solars : I have described them in my previous posts... This is what they can do and while attacking invisible


Are you still not convinced that it's impossible for my cleric on insane ?
Here is how ended my last attempt on insane ... * sigh *


PS : Oh, and :

...you won't ...

 

Well in all honesty I think Sane is over rated and an invalid basis for beating the game anyway. I think that as long as you manage it on Core you are doing hell of a job.

Specially considering there are a lot of people like me that can't even play the game over the Core Difficulty anyway.

 

@thetruth: Wow...I've really been out of it not to have noticed this for so long...I blame Oblivion!

Anyway...thetruth! Dude...you ROCK!

I didn't have the sheer patience required to beat it on Insane with a Wild Mage/Cleric, and you've beaten it already? NICELY DONE!

 

Gongraz Dude! Incredible! It was fun (again) to read about your solo campaign.

So, whats next? What class You are planning to take (almost) godhood?

 

Solo beastmaster!!!

Solo archer!!!

Solo Kensai...single class! I know he did a fighter...but a Kensai is a whole different ball game...no helms, bracers, armor...hehehe.

thetruth...I am waiting eagerly!

 

hehe my goodness we're like a bloodthirsty mob for thetruth's amazing solo threads

 

Tis what happens when you become a beacon of hope for a game which is what...6 years old? Its the mother of all RPGs true...but its hard to get over excited about it nowadays...hence the hype and mania for thetruth's amazing exploits!

Speaking of which...where's the man? Any comments old chap?

 

Hehe,thanks guys. I am here
I just needed some days to ... recover from the traumatic experience of Ascension

I don't know yet, although I have some options :

1) I would like to try the Fade NPC mod.Maybe a duo, but I don't know what class to choose for my PC.

2) An Icewind Dale 1 solo (never soloed it).


3)

Now this is a coincidence .These days I was thinking that an Archer-solo would be very challenging with the same mods.
And since I have never soloed an archer before I am quite sure that it will be my next solo.

As for the others:

Beastmaster: I am quite sure that it is doable.More difficult than my fighter's solo mainly because of the lack of FoA and Azuredze.Also a Beastmaster will not have protection from Level Drain (improved Bodhi ), but Armor of Faith+Hardiness can help a lot.

Kensai: This is the most difficult solo IMHO. As Faraaz said no Armor,no Vhailor's helm,no shield of Reflection and not Arrows of Dispelling.It will be extremely difficult with all those mods.And probably he is the only character who can't defeat improved Illyich (and his duergars) since he can't use a bow.

 

@ 2) An Icewind Dale 1 solo (never soloed it).

No problems at all, I soloed with fighter, and I believe every class or multiclass can do it.

 

@ Westhardus

I was thinking of soloing a fighter too.
I have started playing on HoF mode although I don't see it very doable (I have posted in the IWD forum )

 

Wow. I just read this. I kept me reading without stop.

I stand in awe.

This is even more cool then this guy who finished IWD with level1 chars.

 

Now somebody needs to Turn this thread.

 

No turning of this thread please. It was an excellent read. For those of us who have not been members for more than a year or two, we don't mind reading old threads with great content. Now my work is piling up, better get back to it!

 

There's a thread somewhere here where thetruth soled a plain fighter with Ascension installed.

Edit: found it