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I finally made it to the very end of the game and thought I'd prepared myself fully for the fight with Melissan. So I loaded it up, watched the nice little film of the abyss and got ready to fight. Let's just say I got my tookus kicked. Holy crap! I probably got about 5 seconds into the first fight when Melissan and her minions took out Minsc and Jan. :eek: That left four people left, and I knew I was doomed. What in the heck do I do? Doesn't it get tougher from here? Melissan beat me so badly, I turned off the game, shook my head, and walked away, unsure of trying that again. It was just ugly, man. Plain, plain ugly.... [img]graemlins/1dizzy.gif[/img]

[ 10-14-2003, 07:08 PM: Message edited by: Shotgun ]

What is your party and there levels? Is this Ascension Final battler or "standard"?

[ 10-14-2003, 04:33 PM: Message edited by: Xen ]

ADD A SPOILER TAG YOU HAVE A MAJOR PLOT SPOILER IN YOUR POST SHOTGUN!!!!

SPOILER
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Some people do not know that mellisian is evil yet!!!

Dar'tanian, the title of the thread contains the words "spoiler" and "final battle."

Shotgun: THIS is where you need to go nuts with everything you've got. But be wary of using Time Stop: Certain enemies are immune, which means that those enemies have 3 rounds to chop up your party members, all of whom (except the one that cast TS) can't do jack. So cut loose with Improved Alacrity and your best spells, Greater Whirlwind, and if you value your life, stick a character under Protection from Magic Weapons right in Melissan's face and keep him/her there. Also, watch out for Level Drain.

Save at least 3 9th-level spellslots for Wish, and don't use them until you've got some time to breathe and heal up. Then chug a Potion of Insight and hope for the best.

[ 10-14-2003, 06:18 PM: Message edited by: SixOfSpades ]

Yeah, it's Ascension. I didn't really realize what that meant until now. Any way to go back to normal mode?

As for levels, if I remember correctly (I don't have it on), most of my characters are level 25 or so. I took Aerie on later, so she's actually below 20, I think. I've already done WK and pretty much every single side quest available. I did carry 6 party members with me, so had to split XP points among them. Here's my party:

Anomen
me (female mage--only has 4 level 9 spell slots available)
Minsc
Jan
Mazzy
Aerie

So, am I screwed? [img]smile.gif[/img]

[ 10-14-2003, 07:12 PM: Message edited by: Shotgun ]

Level 25?!? 25?!?!? That's... that's low, isn't it?!? I swear my own party were at least in the thirties range when we fought Mel and crew.

Thing is, you can't fight this as a normal battle. Remember, this is the FINAL FINAL battle. Empty your potion sacks and scroll cases of useful stuff. Make sure everyone has oils of speed, potions of strength, wands aplenty, healing thingumies, protections evenly spread. Hit the shops and blow what gold you have left on useful, powerful supplies. Check through all those bits of loot and find anything that might be useful.

What do you mean, you sold it all? Buy it all back, now! [img]smile.gif[/img]

You need to be prepared for anything and able to keep track of absolutely everything at all times. Pausing a lot helps. As an example, you don't need to pull people out of danger if they're getting killed - you need to have had them out of there BEFORE they started getting killed, see?

It might be worth getting your butt kicked a couple of times just to watch and analyse the various amounts of damage and types of attack your foes are using... the better to plan a defence.

[ 10-14-2003, 07:56 PM: Message edited by: Tancred ]

To remove tougher Amellysan (spelling), just open up ascension setup, and go through the installations one by one. When it asks about tougher Final Battle, just chose no.

And Improved Final Battle is tough. Remember, there are SPOILERS here!!!
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I believe it's Balthazaar that is immune to time stop. Don't bother casting time stop, or else he will just tear apart and completely destroy your characters. And, like already stated, don't say, "Oh, I want to save that potion for later." There won't be a later ;)
Each time Amellysan leaves, and you go to fight the creatures on one of the three platforms, save the game. Yes, that's right, if you put your whole party on one of the platforms after you've wiped out those creatures, you can save the game. It may help out.
BTW, for a fighter, GWW+Deathblow+Smite+Hardiness+Protection from Magical Weapons= Amellysan destroying machine [img]smile.gif[/img]

But if you did a good job before Balthazar won't tear YOU apart :D

Actually, Tancred, the difference between level 25 and 30 is slim, except that you get 5 extra HLA's. Useful, but not necessary.

A popular tactic if you have no way to free yourself of this battle is simple to cast on Protection from Magic scroll on Sendai, and one of Abazigal. Ilasera, trust me, is a pain in the butt. You will always want to have Protection from Magical WEapons for your MAges. Otherwise, she'll dispel their Stoneskin/whatever, and then, with her 10 attacks per round (Greater Whirlwind), cut them open like a can of tuna fish. Keep some unenchanted arrows for Mazzy, and also some Arrows of Dispelling.

Balthazar is very annoying, but I've never actually had to face him, because I've always had him on my side.

So you end up fighting all of the children of Bhaal you got rid of earlier in the game? I barely got 5 seconds into the first fight with Melissan once I arrived in the abyss that I have no idea what happens after that. Fear, I tell you, kept me from trying again! [img]smile.gif[/img]

Ctrl-Y works pretty well.

<font color=gold>
If that's the only action you take, it isn't.....

And beat me over the head with an ugly-stick: isn't Ammellyssann also immune to TS? I remember something like that during my asenscion....
Hey, nice time round, try redemption as well, you'll break your keyboard over your head for sure, just like me [img]tongue.gif[/img]
</font>

melly is immune to cntrl-y as well...

her finmel undroppable item includes immunity to cntrl-y, immunity type 13...

now i have no specific tactic for ascention, except this...

demons are immune to fire, but casting protection from magic energy on a sorceror, and loading up triple skulltraps via spell sequencer, and casting the spell sequencer on yourself, (the dreaded skullfire spell) will kill most of them, and hurt the rest...

and before the final battle, you face a lot of demons...during the final battle too...


i usually cheese my way thru it...

knowing where sendai will spawn, invisible, i place a sorc loaded up with skulltraps and remove magic in sequencers, triggers and contingencies and g acuity to kill sendai with as much area effect damage spells as possible...he's immune to elemental damage

then my prebuffed fighters attack and kill yaga shura, and go for the rest of the fighters...sola triggers g acuity and moonray blasts to blind as many as possible, a potion swap with chain contingency scroll for jaheira and she unloads a triple nature's beauty...once they're blinded, they are so much easier to kill...

or heck, i just abuse project image and set up a greeting party of 5 planetars and 5 devas... ;)

yeah if i can remember right melly is amune to TS dont bother to use it or ull just get raped badly basically everything u have use it

She isn˙t immune to TS. [img]smile.gif[/img]

She isn˙t immune to TS. [img]smile.gif[/img] </font>[/QUOTE]that so? she is, atleast, in the regular ToB. dont see why they would have removed this in an attempt to make the battle harder...

<font color=gold>
If that's the only action you take, it isn't.....

And beat me over the head with an ugly-stick: isn't Ammellyssann also immune to TS? I remember something like that during my asenscion....
Hey, nice time round, try redemption as well, you'll break your keyboard over your head for sure, just like me [img]tongue.gif[/img]
</font> </font>[/QUOTE]what does redemption add? tell me straight and true, does it add

MAJOR MOD SPOILER:
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the first battle including Irenicus, Bodhi, Slayer Imoen, a few fallen planetars and stuff? if it does, then what does regular ascension add?(ive played so many mod games, i dont remember which one does what)

No that is Ascenison what you have mentnied. But it ads a possbilitly that SoA Final Boss can join you.

right, thanks for clearing that up, Xen

No problem! [img]smile.gif[/img]


Back on topic:so how is the fight going?

Spoilerish maybe, silly to think it isn't.
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Actually here I have a problem, not with the fight, but the way things work. I have Ascension and also Tactics installed.

When the final battle starts, Melissan rattles some and then summons Irenicus. Sarevok stays with me, as he at some point suddenly said "It is a good thing that I joined up with you, after all", and this made me go "Huh? That's Sarevok?" and when I checked his alignment, he was Chaotic Good. Nice, I know that it is possible for him to turn, but never got it before..

Anyways, Sarevok is with me and Balthazar is running around too. Irenicus comes out and we chat and he's still grumpy just because I kicked him, time and gain. Bodhi gets summoned too, but since I am a "good" person, have Balthazar with me, she wont join me (she can join some evil parties, which have no Balthazar with them. Mind that there's NO ONE ELSE! Just my party, Balthazar, Irenicus, Bodhi. Is that supposed to be so?

Imoen turns into Slayer, but I keep her alive and party members and she turns back eventually and re-joins us. By this time Bodhi and Irenicus are dead (party members are all well over lvl 30, and Ravager works damn good, heh). Now it's just Melissan and the goons she summons at times. At some point, Balhazar tells that she's getting her power from the pools (thanks, Sherlock) and we gotta disrupt these. Fine, finally bridges appear. I go to all three pools, kick the guardians. Note - NO FIVE anywhere still.

I am able to "drain" 2 pools and also gain them powers, nice but useless in a way some of them at that point, BUT! Whatever I do, however I try, I cannot drain ONE pool. Simply nothing happens, nothing at all. And STILL no Five. So, frankly, the fight can probably go on indefinately (or at least very long time, since I have craploads of resources gathered), but it's annoying me already.

Mind it that I have played through SoA + ToB + Ascension before and never had any issues at all, this is actually first time when I installed Tactics (and damn, with Tactics weird things started all over, buggy mod, though nice extra XP) and am going through the game with it. Anyone has idea what the heck is going on?

OK, finally somehow it worked and I was able to deactivate the last pool. Guess what? I had 2 Melissans then. And in last fight, both went nuts and I had at one moment over 40 enemies on screen. Good thing they were incompetent...

Now however it's still bugged, because Balthazar last talk is looping and I can't get past it. So the descision has been made - Tactics gotta go. Way too buggy.

Yes, very buggy. For me, some of the summons have incredibly long names that sound like part of a convo:

<font color=skyblue>Minsc Attacks:</font> Irenicus, you should never have doen this to me. You shall be struck down and suffer forever while I am victorious over you." [img]graemlins/hehe.gif[/img]

Of course, I just made that line up, but they're usually even longer than that.