I cannot survive the away camp

[Hopeless Necromantic]

Firstly,

The rhino and the spider, Lworthless
Fighter, L20 (Ivory Blade)
Valkyrie, L18 (Dread Spear)
Priest, L19
Bishop, L17 (alchemy and psionics)
Bard, L20 (up front, using Fang)
Mage, L19
Expert difficulty.

The main problem seems to be that half my party, including the priest, is knocked unconscious within the first few rounds, which takes away Purify Air, Heal All, and Restoration. After that, at least 50% of the attempts to use an item fail due to nausea, and soon after people in the party start falling to the Templar Knights.

My latest attempt didn't turn out so well: I gave everyone a canned elemental which they used immediately - the elementals fell victim to Toxic Cloud and were knocked out or nauseated, that when added to their natural slow speed, rendered them even more useless than normal.

Any help?

Thanks.

[ 01-24-2005, 06:09 PM: Message edited by: Hopeless Necromantic ]

[Sinteuil]

I have to admit I haven't tried this battle on expert difficulty, but I have managed to kill them all in a solo game on normal. I usually save this for last before Ascension Peak, after I've dealt with Nessie, the Sea Caves, and all of Rapax Castle. Personally, I never recruit Rodan or Drazic until all the Rapax are already dead. In my experience, death bombs are very useful here, and it's good to have quite a few of them since those Rapax are all over the map! Asphyxiation and Hex can help too. Also, I'd check the magic resistance levels of your characters, particularly air resistance in this case. You can boost it up using ring of breezes or shield of winds (I believe Crock or Bela will sell them) which often makes all the difference. One problem with elementals is that it's difficult to time things so that they get buffs like element shield and soul shield at the same time the rest of your characters do, so I usually don't rely on them in magic-heavy battles. Melee is probably your best bet against the templars, because they always have missle shield up, so your fighter, valkyrie, and bard should be able to take them down, especially if you give them high air resistance so they don't fall to the clouds so easily. Hope this helps!

[Scatter]

Got Magic Screen? that should be on PL7 all the time. How'bout Element Shield? That should be up in the first round of combat. Bishop and Mage should be able to cast some nice iceballs/freeze flesh. Get some death bombs to throw instead of elementals.

Also, start combat inside one of the bigger tents, so only the enemies right outside it can get to you.
(1-go up the tower to open the gate 2-talk to king 3-start the fight 4-keep restarting the fight when you get near groups, but drag them away from other groups. Any keys you need will drop from kills just as they would from conversation)

[ 01-24-2005, 07:37 PM: Message edited by: Scatter ]

[Sinteuil]

Alternately, of course you can skip the battle altogether by simply portaling out after recruiting Rodan and Drazic. You'll still get all the experience for completing the alliance without really missing anything, and you'll still have the satisfaction of killing the Prince later on...

[Hopeless Necromantic]

I didn't think of porting out - I thought I had to kill the King and Prince to finish the quest. I'll just escape into the valley behind the holding cells, end combat and port out. Finishing them from the front gate should be easier.

Thanks for the replies.

[Nightowl2]

I absolutely agree. Grab the prisoners and bop on out of there. Did this fight once on normal, and decided it was too much of a pain. Best thing would be to set a portal near Z'Ant (he's the one to see first) and go right there as soon as both are in the group.

Also, to save a little time, unlock both cages before talking to either of them.

Nightowl2

[Kakero]

Don't go out in the open, choose to fight inside the camps on some tight area. Thus you'll be facing 1 or 2 rapax at a time.

[Sinteuil]

But if you have some death bombs, the more Rapax you can hit with them at one time, the better! It's alot of fun seeing about ten of them explode at one time! For me it's always an all or nothing battle. I either skip it altogether, or I prepare myself with all the buff and resistance items I need and get right in the middle of it!

By the way Nightowl2, I often find it a problem to go to Zant first because he goes hostile, even if I pay off He'li and knock off Kunar, though I don't think I've tried giving him the Chaos Moliri at that point, which would probably work too. Anyway, I always have a portal at Yamir because I can't stand those caves!

[babar]

hmm, I've won this battle on expert, but I forget what I did. I remember it took several tries before I made it without anybody dying (and I did not take Rodan and Drazic because yes worthless). I think the strategy involved a long/thrown distance fighting followed by running up and dispatching the Rapax one by one. I don't recall using any elementals. I guess it's easier if you can fight small groups and not the whole friggen camp. I keep dropping boulders on the tower archers until they died before moving back towards the entrance.

[Wereboar]

As others said, first priority is protection. Magic screen (and missile shield) are always up, i assume. Elemental shield is top priority.

You have (at least) two characters which are able to cast purify air. In addition, mages usually have a high artifact skill, and can use a ring of breezes. Clearing the air in the round after the cloud is cast should be no problem. In the rare case that both (all) caster are unconscious after the first round, use smelling salt on them.

If you priest is slow (as mine usually are), you could even cast purify air every round, if you are paranoid. In this case, you cancel the bomb before it does any harm. Or you could even cast eye for an eye on an opponent, and cast a level 1 toxic could on him eyery round with a slow character. The reflected spell will supersede the high level spell cast before.

Death bombs and asphyxiation are quite useless in this fight in expert difficulty. The enemy usually have elemental shield up in the first round of combat, and are very unlikely to die. Even a death wish (which isn't affected by the elemental shield) very rarely succeeds.

Well, your bishop is too low level. But with a psionic, the fight can be very fun. Start the fight from the top of of the rock in the entrace area, are just cast mindwave after mindwave.

If you start the fight from the entrance, and are in very bad trouble: Run. Run back to south east wildernesse, heal and cure, and come back to continue the fight.

I always do this fight, and find it the most exciting one in the whole game. Much better than the army in AP, or the end fight, or the SE temple fight. Just one big slaughtering.

I usually play expert ironman, often with smaller parties, so i'm usually a bit higher level (around 22) before i risk this fight. But i've only lost one party so far. And that was because i didn't keep an eye on the duration of the elemental shield spell. It did run out at the moment when my only caster was knocked out by the cloud. And then (second mistake) i continued to fight and try to wake up the character, instead of running.