[Rataxes]

The Ilyich team is very possible as a solo fighter if you divide them. Taking out the Golem and luring away the Demon are almost always essential things to take care of prior to battling the rest of the team. If you can keep the demon at bay while doing all of the below, until you get a weapon strong enough to kill him - then by all means do so. I'd just trap him behind a set of doors though, the Golem can so far only be killed by the Quarter Staff +1, but it's a very weak golem.

Luring Ilyich away from his gang is often easy since he's the by far quickest to react, and the 2nd quickest in the group. Ideally, you want to be able to go to the central Otuygh room and shut the door after Ilyich is in (just avoid his Land war in Asia ability) or keep going another set of doors till you're in the trapped room with the nymphs. It's Hit and Run tactics all the way from there since you will most certainly not be able to outlast Ilyich in a straight face-to-face fight (he's got 3 or 4 Potions of Extra healing as well). So just tap him once and get out of there, he's got an amazing speed factor and can basically swing at you the instant you enter his reach, but this is one of the few viable ways for a solo fighter. The other one would be to weaken him with arrows and then finish him off with Hit and Runs, but believe me, all the arrows in the entire dungeon wont be enough to damage him more than 2-3 normal swings from your katana would, and you'll probably run out of Oils of Speed (did I mention that you basically have to be hasted vs Ilyich? There are two Oils of speed on lvl 1 fortunately) before even getting past his healing potions.

Well, like I said - Hit him and then run away, hit him again and then keep on repeating the process, I made extreme use of the pause function during this battle to be able to time my swings and avoid his). When he's dead, you'll have some back-up in the form of his magical acorns (gives you a Moose and two Nymphs).

You have a few alternative ways of taking out his remaining gang (or you could just skip them since their death isn't required for any quest), you could either attempt to draw them out one by one and kill them like you killed Ilyich. They're all considerably weaker than him, but they also tend to stay closer together. You could also just try to break them by force, cast Hold Person with the nymphs and rush to interrupt Zhivago in his process to summon a Deva, then take out whoever saved from the dual Hold Persons (take out Karamazov first if both saved). The Moose can serve as a human shield but will most likely die in 3-4 hits, and he's really better at dealing damage (bring him out to attack the one who got Held).

About the Mephit Portals, I usually take out the one furthest away from the door, since those mephits can easily knock you unconscious, pretty much dooming you, one of those Invisibility potions really comes in handy in that battle.

[ 01-14-2003, 02:30 AM: Message edited by: Rataxes ]