SoA and ToB difficulty, strategy, items (major spoilers probably ;))

[philip]

Well the first 2 fights with Melissan are easy but I can't seem to get past the 3rd. All those demons keep on killing me. I tried different ways but there doesn't seem a good way to keep my mages away from those that see invisibility. I tried killing the 4 initial slayer shadows but by the time these are dead she has summoned a complete army of more. Then I tried just attack Melissan with all I had but before I get her to barely injured most of my party's already dead.

What annoys me most is that she shadow doors away behind the green of the throne. Like that I can never see what she's doing.

Any tips?

[Magness]

philip, use summons.

In fact, summons 2-4 monsters BEFORE trigering the battles with melissan and have them placed so that they draw the attention of Melissan's summons.

You don't really need to kill those summons, per se. Mel is your only real concern. But it doesn't hurt to kill those shadow slayers if you have a chance.

I'd suggest trying a Lower Resistance spell, followed up with some heavily damaging spells against Mel.

Like I said previously, last time I played TOB, I was using traps. And it's been a long while since I'd played before that. I know that I've defeated Mel without traps, cuz I only use traps when I'm playing a thief. My experience is that the 3rd battle against Mel is always the toughest, because she'll just teleport up to the top of the screen and it gets real tough to deal with her then.

IIRC, one tactic I've used after she teleports is to summon a tough monster right next to her to force Mel to deal with it while I move my party closer to her.

[philip]

Originally posted by Magness: philip, use summons. In fact, summons 2-4 monsters BEFORE trigering the battles with melissan and have them placed so that they draw the attention of Melissan's summons.

I used a deva but I'm running out of deva spells so I like to keep one for the real last battle. I also have a lot of Skeleton warriors but she just kills them. Last thing I have is spider spawn but those don't last really long unless I keep a tanks near them.

You don't really need to kill those summons, per se. Mel is your only real concern. But it doesn't hurt to kill those shadow slayers if you have a chance.

The problem is that when I've killed those she has summoned about 20 monsters extra already. Looks like I have to replay and get a lot of summon abilities.

IIRC, one tactic I've used after she teleports is to summon a tough monster right next to her to force Mel to deal with it while I move my party closer to her.

She always puts blade barriers on so I need a mage there as well which is killed by anything she summons. If I deal with the summons first (which is possible since they don't do very much damage on theirself) the problem is that Melissan just comes back. But I'll try again.

[Magness]

Hmm...

A few points.

Don't really bother having the summons attack Mel, except if/when she TP's to the top of the screen. Use summons to counter her summons.

Mel's blade barrier: Check out the Deva's spells. You don't have to have a deva or planetar go into melee to be nasty. Perhaps she can cast her own dispel magic.

[philip]

Thanks for that tip I didn't know devas and planetars had spells. Maybe I'll just reload the complete battle with Edwin having all his level 9 spells summon fallen planetar [img]smile.gif[/img]

[Froberg]

You only need one tip against dragons.

BIG - METAL - UNIT

[philip]

Originally posted by Froberg: You only need one tip against dragons. BIG - METAL - UNIT

Don't have it But I assume that's no fun. I like long fights with dragons. Those were the best battles in the games I found.