Baltazar Battle

[Mirror Image]

Okay, I got creamed. I got through killing sendai, abazigal, and finished watchers keep (I left Demogorgon where he was, the abyss is best not having him). Any way I got rid of the mercenaries; took five trips to the temple to unload everything. Then I let our favorite smuggler take me past the gate. I knew it was some sort of trap, but who cares, I was in. Now the only open door leads straight to balthazar. And he wipes me out twice.

First time he casts some spell and my team goes flying against a wall. My character is trapped and can't escape balthazar's attack.

Second I got clear long enough to see Balty finish Sarevok. I converted into the Slayer, wacked some of his monks, got time stopped, then stuned, then weent after him. Longest time as a slayer without nasty side effects. By the way he then wacked Minsc, and then the Slayer.

His spells are too great. My team just can't remain standing near him. Its worse then tangling with a dragon.

I'm going to try again tomorrow. I'll prep with everything I have and see what happens. In the mean time any ideas. Even little hints

[LennonCook]

Use your high level abilities, and try to focus all offense on Balthazar. Once he's down, you'll spend maybe another 30 seconds killing off his lackies.
Remember that Balthazar is a monk. Remember what this means - particularly about his weapons, APR, and movement speed. And his immunities and resistances.
Do you have any characters, particularly mages, who use quaterstaves alot? If so, use the most powerful quaterstaff you have - it's bound to do alot of damage.
Do you have ascension installed? If you do, there are atleast three things I can think of that could make this easier for you, especially since you have Sarevok and Minsc in your party.
Tanks could help you in this battle - you need someone who can just stand there and take damage. This means, good armour, good shield, good helmet, good dex, good con, good defensive weapon, lots of healing potions. Get that person to take all of the damage, while the rest of your party deals alot of damage.
Finally, can you give us specifics about your party? Who do you have, what levels are they? What class is your PC, what level are they?

[CerebroDragon]

Like Lennon-Cook says, you only have to take out Balthazar (the game will immediately teleport you away to the Pocket Plane when you do) so focus all firepower, including heavy steroid aids for your tanks - at Balthazar. Ideally, keep your PC back and away from him - as some of his monk abilities can be vicious. You might want to use some summons to keep the monks busy while you focus on Balthazar.

I managed to win this battle on my second reload - I was quite surprised! However, I had Edwin and Viconia cast energy blades (a definite favourite of mine) before the battle started which helped keep Balthy at bay immensely. I then charged Korgan and Sarevok, who kept him busy. Like everyone else, he'll soon fall.... [img]smile.gif[/img]

[Lord]

Keep in mind that Balthazar has special abilities such a lunar stance as well. That seems to work like sunray I think, so using Spell Immunity: Evocation might do the trick, although it may be a completely differnet thing.

[teardropmina]

Balthazar's special attack can stun you, quick, with high magic resistance, and he's immune to time stop. In the original Balthazar fight though, I always finished him quick and clean. The improved Balthazar, however, is indeed very tough, he's quicker and uses his abilities more, and more agressively. In my experience, the most efficient way of fighting him is
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implosions + tanking. If you have two (or more) priests casting implosions at him (between the spell-casting, throwing energy blades) and two tanks with summons surrounding him, the battle should be brief.

[Dundee Slaytern]

Erm-hrm. When Balthazar is not glowing gold... do the following.

Smite, followed by several Greater Whirlwinds. The fight will be over before you even know it.

[Mirror Image]

The fight did end quickly, but the credit goes to (trumpet sound please) Lennon Cook. I moved my PCs +3 Staff into the hands of Sarevok and then had him use the Rune Hammer giant strength spell to give him a big boost. It was over so fast after Baltazars first Lunar spell that my PC barely had time to get back up the stairs before the group was in the pocket plane. After that getting rid of the ravager was easy and now its time for melessan.

[SixOfSpades]

Originally posted by teardropmina: Balthazar's .... immune to time stop.

A slight correction--he has an ability that can temporarily make him immune to Time Stop.

To make this post worthwhile, a brief anecdote showing why you should (pretty much) never cast TS against someone immune to TS:
My party, led by Sanctimonia the Undead Hunter, went up against Balthazar. My spellcasters launched a few spells at him to help soften him up, but bounced off his Magic Resistance. So Jan cast a Time Stop, in order to buy a few free castings of Lower Resistance, Greater Malison, etc. Well, time stopped, Balthazar's Monks stopped, Sanctimonia stopped, by other 4 party members stopped....but Balthazar just kept right on comin', and beat the living snot of of Sanctimonia in about 8 seconds, with only poor Jan to try & stop him.

Ooops.

[Lord]

If you've ever played that fight in the Sola mod, then you'd know that the people you fight are immune to timestop, so they cast it all the time, although Sola becomes immune to it to (only for that fight, though). IMHO, it's complete trash and is impossible to beat with out cheating (so many Mordi's Swords, timestops where you'll get whipped out in a second, etc). The same goes for this fight like Six said. If you're going solo, however, feel free to use the TS spell all you want.

[bjorn]

i experienced a funny thing in this battle once.
Balthazar used his Solar stance (i think), the one that works kinda like sunfire, the fire hit his monk allies and they rushed towards him and started beating him.

only lasted for a round or two but it was funny too look at. [img]smile.gif[/img]