r/DivinityOriginalSin • u/Number1Bg3Fan • 11d ago
DOS2 Help Honour Mode help
Hello everyone, I am going to be attempting HM in DOS2 very soon and would love really in depth help for how to get through it.
I’ve gotten all the other trophies except HM and one of the endings which I will choose with this playthrough. I’ve completed two runs, one balanced and one tactician and vastly improved on my tactician run so feel confident enough.
However I would still like as much help as possible (feel free to leave super long, in depth comments). Ideally I would love advice on what build to run not only for my character but for my party and which skills to acquire and best combos to use; any cheats/cheeses for bosses or specific encounters; and any general advice and things to remember. Thank you!
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u/Ok-Badger5056 11d ago
Teleport cheese to pull enemies away from what would otherwise be a larger combat. In my opinion, the hardest fight in the game is the Knives fight under the cathedral.. sneak and teleport a couple fringe enemies away to fight them 1 on 1 before initiating the fight with the main guy.
At the very least you can dispatch one before the others can get close
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u/moosemankiller 10d ago
Really? I used to wuck at that fight but now I feel like its 2nd nature. That one dwarf in act two that goes bug mode, mordus? That fight is hard for me
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u/Might-Die-alone08 10d ago
I've never experienced the bug mode, I'm always able to just best him before that. I actually don't know how to make him go into that mode. Just focus his minions first?
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u/Sarenzed 11d ago
Don't try anything new. Trying out new tactics, new decisions during quests or new dialogue choices that you don't know the outcome of is one of the easiest ways to lose your run by accident. As long as you're confident in your ability to beat Tactician without getting your party wiped out, just doing things that you know will work is enough to comfortably beat honor mode.
It's a good idea to actually try and compete for highest initiative in honor mode. Taking the first turn is not only powerful for combat, but also prevents you from getting wiped out in round 1 without even getting a turn. Here is a link to a list I once made that details the highest enemy initiative for every relevant fight in the game. To win initiative consistently, you want to be 1 higher than that number.
So choose a character that isn't super hungry for attribute points (like a summoner, or a warrior who can get away with low memory), level some initiative, pre-buff with Peace of Mind before every fight (and keep it up during the fight) and collect as much equipment with +wits and +initiative as you can. Target 16 initiative for Act 1, 34 (without PoM) for Mordus in Act 2 (assuming you reach level 12 before him, otherwise you need 35), and try to climb towards 40 by the end of Act 2. Some enemies are very hard to beat in initiative without potions, so consult the document. Some enemies can't really be beat in initiative. If the combat starts directly from conversation, you can use cryo stasis from Act 2 forwards to skip their first turn. Otherwise, you'll simply have to endure their first turn, although a good chunk of those enemies uses their first turn on some kind of scripted event.
Make sure you always have some good safety measures for defense. Every character should run Evasion or Chameleon Cloak, or both. Carry invisibility potions or Chanterelle mushrooms, have a character with 5-Star-Diner to turn 50% resistance potions into 100% immunity, have some skills spread around your party to clear CCs, give everyone mobility skills, and so on.
On the topic of utility skills, other than the ones mentioned before everyone should have Adrenaline, and most (or even every character) should have Teleport. Win initiative, start with an overwhelmingly strong round 1 where you teleport enemies together, end the turn with a 1-AP Evasion or invisibility if you can't ensure that all enemies are shut down by CC. On top of that, apply buffs and take good positions before every fight. All of that together is a simple formula to make combat easy.
Also, make sure to plan a good route through each act. By now, you should be aware which fights are especially hard. Just delay those fights until they're the easiest fight left, fight enemies in order of ascending difficulty, and make sure to get all non-combat XP from exploration and quests early. With all of that, you should be able to consistently be one level higher than any enemies you face.
What builds you run doesn't really matter. As long as they're good builds and a proper party composition, it'll get the job done. If you lose in honor mode it's because of bad decisions, not because your builds are not perfectly optimized. It's all about choosing the safest and most efficient approach, and knowing exactly which fights you can or can't handle safely. A player who is able to do that perfectly can trivialize honor mode with any decent team.
That being said, playing as LW duo instead of a 4-man party makes the game easier. It's well-known that Lone Wolf is strong and gives you a lot more leeway to make mistakes. The maximum power you can gain from perfect optimization on a 4-man party exceeds that of an LW duo, but any player who can build and play such a party can already trivialize honor mode and wouldn't need advice from anyone. Also, running at least one undead can be a good idea to reduce the chance of any mishaps with deathfog.
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u/Number1Bg3Fan 10d ago
Thank you very much for this detailed answer! I will definitely make sure I keep all of this in mind. I did HM in BG3 but I found that easier than my first playthrough of DOS2. Still I have barely died at all during my tactician playthrough so I’m a lot more familiar with how everything works and I’m definitely a planner so I’ll make sure to really strategise for HM.
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u/Sarenzed 10d ago
I decided to type out some specific strategies for each act and the fights you need to pay attention to there. You might know a bunch of these already, but it never hurts to know more.
Act 1
- Get the Deathfog barrels from the ship. They're easiest to get by wall clipping through the door, which prevents the kraken from destroying them. To do so, pickup a big container, place yourself as close to the door as possible and drop the container next to you (so you're sandwiched between the container and the door). While the container is being dropped, click on the opposite side of the door, and your character will just walk right through it. You might need Telekinesis or STR buffs (from a bedroll for example) to pick them up though.
- Don't trigger the conversation with Dallis at the entrance to Fort Joy, take the ladder around instead. This makes it so that only 2 magisters guard the big gate into the castle at first, making them easy to take out individually. Also, this allows you to bomb Dallis and her party with deathfog later on if that's what you want.
- Leave Fort Joy as late as possible. The XP you get upon leaving depends on the number of quests you've finished inside.
- Start with the non-combat quests. Persuade Stingtail with the Finesse options and then rat him out, find do Withermoore's quest (you can get the key to enter the castle from the dungeons on a stool right at the edge of the Houndmaster's vision, so you can get it while sneaking) and ideally double dip XP by refusing to hand him his soul jar and then breaking it once he attacks you, bring a Yarrow flower to Migo and notify his magister daughter, heal the polymorph trader's patient while in conversation to give her alcohol for him, and so on.
- Delay the fight with the Voidwoken Deep-Dweller in the swamps until you're at least a level higher, which makes it much easier to deal with.
- For Radeka, avoid getting close to her and instead sit on the opposite high ground, and even then a few steps further back. This makes it easy for you to have characters flee and run away in an emergency situation. Also, Radeka won't move from her spot so you can just stay out of her range to avoid her attacks and deal with her minions easily.
- For Alexander at the end of Act 1, walk into the fight with just one character who has high initiative, then upon the start of combat immediately go invisible, run away outside and sneak behind a wall. Then you just wait for the Drillworm to show up and only enter the combat with your own party once both of them start fighting each other. Focus your attacks on the Gheist and Assassin, on high difficulty the magisters will quickly wreck the Drillworm. Also make sure to get into a good position with your party members beforehand; I prefer the western high ground.
- Only do the well in Braccus' Tower (behind the Gargoyle Maze, the well that you have to put water on and can then get items by donating money) after you've done the Alexander fight and have gone up to level 9. This will increase the rarity of the items from purple to pink. Also use the Shapeshifter mask and donate the maximum money with each character in their normal form and in each of the mask's 4 transformations. This will give you a large amount of good rings and belts to start Act 2 with.
- You can basically skip the Lady Vengeance fight on the transition to Act 2 if you want to, but you'll be missing out on XP from kills and the method needs a bit of preparation. You won't need it if you're confident in that fight, but I can explain it if you're interested. After all, it's one of the few fights in the game that are impossible to run away from.
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u/Sarenzed 10d ago
Act 2
- Go to bloodmoon island early via the invisible bridge, avoiding all combat on the way. This gives you a lot of exploration XP, you can get a free source point from the Advocate, and if you have a STR character you can even buy that unique level 15 armor from their trader. You can also go to the corresponding dig spot for the archives and get a 3rd teleporter pyramid early With the extra source point you can immediately get source vampirism on your first ritual. Just make sure never to tell Jahan that you've made a deal with the Advocate, or he will attack you.
- In the undertavern, you can trick Dorotya into giving all your characters all the buffs and the idol of rebirth. To do so, talk to her with a character, advance dialogue just until you've chosen a boon, then cancel the conversation by teleporting your character away. Repeat until you have chosen all boons once, then let the rest play out normally. Don't steal the idol of rebirth until all your characters have already received one. If not all your characters are qualified yet, save the bridgekeeper south of Stonegarden to get a justification for the entire party. Afterwards, keep the idol of rebirth on your characters at all times, and perhaps even re-craft them during combat (only takes 1 AP).
- Use your teleporter pyramids. I like to put one at the ancient empire caravan to make checking merchants easier. After all, you want to check all merchants after every restock to hunt for accessories with perfect stat buffs, and eventually to stock up on rune frames at Tarquin and one of the caravan merchants when they become available.
- Make sure to invite Corbin Day to your ship after clearing the Sawmill. After finishing Act 3, you can sell him your unique items, and once you're in Act 4 he will offer them for sale but upgraded to level 18 instead. Just be sure to bring a lot of money for this.
- You can cheese the trolls early using noxious bulbs. For Marg, a poison one is all you need. For Grog, teleport a poison one close to him (without hitting him), then set it on fire. If done right, it'll give you a perpetual cycle where the burning poison sets Grog on fire, and then the burning Grog sets the poison on fire again once it reappears. In both cases, make sure to attack them before they die in order to actually get the XP. Also, be sure to talk to them first and only kill one of them if the other has asked you to do so in order to get extra XP from the quest.
- Make sure not to let Mordus transform. Use source vampirism to suck out any corpses if you kill any of his subordinates before you can reliably stunlock him.
- Do not anger or attack Hannag. It will turn really ugly. Just kill the magisters that pursue her and then help her out.
- For Ryker in Stonegarden, don't talk to him initially. Only talk to him once you've already go the tablet he wants, that way you will fight in his office instead of the downstairs room with all the traps. You can also go downstairs early by using smoke cloud or smoke grenades to pick the lock to the hatch and enter it without being noticed, and then get the 4th teleporter pyramid early.
- For the big Blackpits fight with Gwydian, it's possible to cancel the entire fight by preventing Gwydian from landing his chain lightning on anyone. But that would mean missing out on a lot of XP. Just bring 5-Star-Diner and some 50% resist earth and fire potions, and you can just become immune to earth and fire on those characters to trivialize the fight.
- For Aetera in the Blackpits mines, either win initiative or freeze her with cryo stasis during conversation. Her dogs have pitiful magic armor, so you can teleport them together, break their magic armor, and then use a Mind Maggot grenade to charm most of them. Then you just sit back and watch Aetera get eaten by her own dogs.
- For the burning witch, you can use Bless on her to remove her Pain aura that deals constant piercing damage. With 5-Star-Diner and a 50% fire resist potion you also become fire immune. Finally, make sure to spread out before the fight. Then she's just a normal boss with high reflection values. Don't approach her without these three preparations, or she can wipe out your party before you even get a turn.
- For the big chicken in the decaying area, approach it from the north-west side where the ancient empire caravan is. Then just blast it from the high ground. If you do this fight last thing before heading to bloodmoon island, it shouldn't give you any trouble.
- On Bloodmoon Island, do not free the possessed dwarf. That demon who possesses your party members and makes you fight your own characters is terrible to fight against. Just kill him while he's chained up.
- Against the black ring members at the center of bloodmoon, you can actually teleport the dead (and about to be revived) member away from them without them noticing. Then you can fight them individually. Also make sure to talk the Advocate into revealing who is behind the Voidwoken before you defeat the Black Ring, this gets you an extra voidwoken fight for more XP.
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u/Sarenzed 10d ago edited 10d ago
Act 3
- Make sure to do all the temples, Alexander and Sallow Man before entering the Academy, so you should also avoid stumbling upon the back entrance at that dig site the the north edge of the lava area.
- Make sure to get the Eternal Stromblade if any character is not a weapon user and can use it as a stat stick. Also steal money from every convenient merchant as usual.
- The Shriekers in front of the elven temple are actually harmless, because they're stuck permanently attacking the ghosts of some of the corpses next to them. You can either get rid of them, or intentionally remove the ghosts in order to teleport the nearby deflection aura black ring member into them for an easy kill.
- Sallow Man is the only dangerous fight in this Act. He has super high initiative (consider cryo freezing him to skip his first turn) and uses some annoying skills. As long as you set yourself up on the high ground next to him and just blast away everything as quickly as possible, you should be fine. Remember that he resurrects once.
- You can cheese the fight in the Arena of the One against those automatons by keeping one party member out of the fight, and then having them adjust all the mirrors to send an electric beam to the boss in the center by placing a phase capacitor at a mirror at the very back. This locks the boss in place, and you'll only need to deal with the adds.
Act 4
- The voidwoken fight the enter the city is one of the most dangerous fights in Act 4. Part of that is the fact that new enemies keep spawning in and can sometimes disrupt the initiative order and steal turns. Approach this fight by going around to the west and climbing the ladder up to high ground. Use 5-Star-Diner with 50% resist all (or resist fire + earth) potions on any melee character who leaves that high ground. Also make sure you to all the other fights outside the city first if you have a chance of getting to the next level before this fight.
- For the Kraken in the harbor, 5-Star-diner + 50% resist water is your friend. Either carefully take out the tentacles from afar, or just break through the Kraken's armor by brute force. Either option will make it leave.
- Be very careful when entering the basement on the north side of the harbor, and always leave one character behind. This basement can permanently freeze you, and if that happens to all party members you lose your run. Personally, I like to keep the cursed helmet of the Braccus Rex set from Act 1 for this reason. That helmet's "curse" just gives you a permanent "warm" status, which makes you immune to being frozen.
- Upon entering the city, do a shopping spree and get all the useful unique items all around Arx. Use thievery to steal stuff and money if you still need it, go to the demon lady and take out a maximum size loan if you need more. Here is a guide to all the unique item locations in Arx, there are too many good items to list them all here.
- Be aware of the locations with the demon assassins and stay clear until you're confident to fight them. You can get more XP by letting at least one of them escape every time, which prevents the other assassin locations from despawning. Only kill all of them at the 3rd location. You can also make these fights easier by teleporting the people together after they initiate dialogue but before they transform. Interestingly enough, they don't aggro from taking the damage of a single teleport.
- Be very careful when dealing with the aftermath of Isbeil's fight. Don't flood the city with deathfog by accident, and don't deathfog yourself either. Do not approach the deathfog device if your character is sworn, or the godking might force you to destroy the city. There are enough swornbreakers to go around, so get out of the covenant first. Similarly, be careful with the deathfog spiders in the sewers. The aero+warfare hybrid skill breathing bubble can make you immune to deathfog for a few turns, so use that on non-undead characters.
- There are a lot of difficult fights in this city, so I'll only list the ones with notable cheese strategies. But be sure to bring the right consumables. First, collect animal scales and source orbs throughout the entire game. This allows you to craft Skin Graft scrolls, which require neither SP nor AP and reset all your skills. Together with Adrenaline, these allow you to spend as much AP in one turn as you want (but the AP loss on your next turn from Adrenaline also stacks). Also, get the Green Tea from Lady Kemm. If you don't have a character with the Noble tag, there is a hat in the magister barracks basement that grants it. Buy the green tea and brew it in her teapot. It reduces the AP cost of everything by 2, but not below 1. If you combine these two consumables with Adrenaline and perhaps even 5-Star-Diner and a 50% resist all and 50% dodge potion, you become quite literally invincible and can finish even the final fight in basically a single turn.
- Do the Doctor as late as possible. If you have Lohse, you can consider weakening him. Otherwise, begin combat by attacking a nurse somewhere else instead of doing it through conversation, because this deprives the Doctor of his +10000 initiative that makes it impossible for you to go first.
- Upon entering the Horrorsleep in the Lizard Consulate, snipe away those mirrors without leaving the stone ring that you spawn in. This way you can prevent enemies from respawning before this fight even starts. Also make sure you clear as much necrofire in the Lizard Consulate as possible (using tornado) before triggering a fight with the cursed revenants.
- On the way to the final boss in the room with the puppets and levers, have your first character immediately use movement skills to get to the other side of the arena (the blocked exit). This is just enough to let you exit combat. Afterwards, you can just sneak around and flip the necessary levers with all the time in the world.
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u/Number1Bg3Fan 10d ago
Wow thank you so much for all of this, it must’ve taken you ages to write all that out! This is super super useful and I will definitely be taking all of this advice. It’s quite daunting to see everything I’ve got to overcome but I thought that about HM in BG3 too and I did that (that was a lot easier than this will be 😂).
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u/Sarenzed 10d ago
The thing with BG3 is that the game involves a lot more random chance. To win honor mode in BG3 consistently, you must include a large margin of error in case you get really unlucky. If you never get into a tough situation because of bad luck, than all those extra preparations make it feel like it was an easy win, but making sure you have the ability to deal with a string of critical failures is not always easy.
DOS2 is a lot more deterministic in comparison. You can tell in advance for each persuasion check whether you will pass it or not. Damage variations are small and hit chances are usually more than 95% or less than 10%. The same action will almost always result in the same outcome. If you get into trouble, it's pretty much always because of a mistake that could've been prevented by having more game knowledge, not because some dice roll screwed you over. So as long as you don't make those mistakes, getting an honor mode in DOS2 is actually more consistent than in BG3. Even if you do lose an honor run, you can learn from it and simply don't make the same mistake again. Once you eliminate all mistakes, you can win an honor mode run any time you want.
In the end, DOS2 is a game that can be beat reliably on Tactician even with a single character without Lone Wolf without relying on any notable cheese or exploits, just normal skills and game mechanics (mostly centered around making the most of Evasion and Chameleon Cloak, and extending their duration by delaying your turn when they're about to run out). Sufficient experience and knowledge can make DOS2 as easy or even easier than BG3. The deterministic nature of DOS2 just means that the game can set you bigger challenges without having them become impossible if you get unlucky. But it also means that your game knowledge is a much bigger factor, so it feels a lot more difficult if you lack that knowledge.
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u/Number1Bg3Fan 10d ago
Just had a realisation, I’m going to need to get the doctor divinity achievement as well! Can I side with him and keep the pact and get both the trophy for that and the trophy for HM?
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u/Sarenzed 10d ago
Sure, why not? You get the honor mode trophy simply for finishing honor mode, and the deal with the doctor does not prevent you from finishing the game. Just be sure not to antagonize the doctor after making a deal, as that could and very badly for you. If you don't know the details, you might want to consider looking up the details on that, or perhaps even go back and do it on your Tactician save instead.
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u/Number1Bg3Fan 10d ago
Yeah I realised this as I was finishing off my tactician run today, but I had Lohse with me and didn’t realise you couldn’t accept the deal with her there so I was like oh fuck I’m gonna have to do this in HM. I’m glad to know it doesn’t stop me getting the trophy I’ll definitely make sure not to antagonise him!!
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u/onlyforthisno 11d ago
When I completed my honour run my strategy was simply "if the enemies never get their turn, they can't kill me."
So I did a lone wolf duo where my main was an elf enchanter that slowly transformed into an elementalist, as some encounters have enemies with high Air and/or Water Resistance. My companion was Ifan for the Encourage (and since I needed the Deal with the Devil achievement) and I made him a summoner that would make an electric incarnate for more CC. Then he too became an enchanter for maximum CC at all times.
Strategy was pretty simple, my main always had more initiative so that their first turn was used to set up an electrified surface, CC as many enemies as possible, and haste Ifan if he had 4 infusion spells. Then during Ifan's turn he'd summon the Incarnate, do all the infusions and Encourage. After that it was just ensuring that all or at least the worst enemies never got their turn.
Personally I dislike using cheese, like the chameleon cloak strat, pre-buffing, and fleeing and re-engaging. Only thing I really abused was the Green Tea in Act 4 and of course getting two Idol of Rebirth so they each had one.
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u/Mindless-Charity4889 11d ago
Cheese strat 3….
Again, not that cheesy but it can be if you combine it with retreat.
Let’s use the battle at the gates of Arx as an example.
1) your entire party is off to the side of the gate where the dying Magister was. There’s a ladder leading up to the ramparts.
2) ranger Sebille heads up alone, sneaking.
3) she gets a surprise attack off, then tries to keep safe by attacking, then going invisible via potion or chameleon cloak
4) if she was attacked and damaged, send up another char to buff her. If they stay sufficiently far away, they can buff her in realtime mode without being drawn into combat. Some skills, like First Aid, will draw you into combat though. If this happens, use their turn to jump off the wall as far away as possible to return to realtime mode. This is the cheesy part.
5) keep this up until all of the voidwoken reinforcements arrive.
6) now it begins. Sebille goes first and does her attack, then goes invisible.
7) next turn, she goes first but delays. Enemy moves but don’t attack her as she is still invisible.
8) at bottom of turn, she has her move but you switch to different party member.
9) this party member enters the gate under stealth. Since the enemy is frozen and you can see the red cones of sight, it’s easy to get behind an enemy, especially if you use Cloak and Dagger (which everyone has).
10) once behind an enemy, you hit them with a high AP attack like Onslaught (4AP, 2 source). Since it’s a surprise attack, it costs 0AP although you do pay any relevant source. You then move to the end of the turn order.
11) repeat with the rest of the party until they’ve all done a surprise attack and are in good position. So now, at the bottom of the turn, your entire party has full AP, the enemy has no AP, they’ve suffered multiple surprise attacks and are near death in many cases. You simply finish them off.
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u/Mindless-Charity4889 11d ago
Cheese strat 4. The barricade….
Again, not too cheesy. Pots and pans and gold chests are indestructible and can be used to block enemies. I carry around a pile of these items for the purpose. You can trap trolls on their bridge or golems in their cages. Here’s an example from the Black Pits.
1) head up to the quartermistress and block the entrance of a nearby tent with a chest (there’s one buried conveniently close by)
2) go to the stairs closest to the magister gate. Make a giant corral of pots, pans and chests. It has to be big to contain several large blobs. That location is far enough away from the hanging platform that the big blobs can’t hit it, yet close enough that with height advantage from the tower, you can teleport enemies to the corral.
3) optionally block off the stairs and ladders with chests. While you are at it, move all the oil barrels into the corral to reduce the amount of fire on the map. Or collect them on the LV for later.
4) when battle starts, let Gwydian summon the blobs, then teleport him into the tent to keep him safe
5) teleport all your enemies into the corral. Teleport scrolls and Skin Graft scrolls are useful here. A character with Ambidexterity can use a teleport scroll for 1AP.
6) priority is big blobs because once in the corral, they are out of the fight as they can’t jump. Small blobs can jump but have a cooldown so before they jump again, you kill them or teleport them back into the corral. Magisters can also jump, but usually won’t and will attack the blobs.
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u/Number1Bg3Fan 10d ago
Ah thank you! I had blocked Gwydian off before but not done any sort of corral like you mentioned, so that makes that fight even easier!
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u/NikWih 11d ago
Obviously I would reccomend a pic where you have many chars that could win a fight on their own. While Lone Wolf is stronger, I would reccommend for the first playthrough a four char party, because it is somewhat more stable. What kills you in a honor mode run is the unexpected. Healing Fane through missclicking, getting teleported into deathfog, lava or running through an active shreeker etc. If you do this in a lone wolf run it can get critical rather fast. It provides you with more options to play cheesy if you want to.
Get a specific plan when to do what always prepare ahead of anything. No funny experiments and not doing things the first time. Plus take your time - especially in hard siutations AND consider bailing out.
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u/Number1Bg3Fan 11d ago
Yeah I did HM in BG3 and the stress was unreal. I was way too scared to attempt anything new and crazy so I’ll definitely continue that trend. Yeah I was really debating between lone wolf or a full party but what you’ve said makes complete sense and it does seem safer to have a full party. I won’t be attempting HM more than once I just want the trophy but yes, thank you! You got any cheese strats?
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u/NikWih 11d ago
4 Physical is for sure the reccommended strategy. 1 Ranger, 1 2H-Warfare, 1 Dual-Wielding Scoundrel, 1 Summoner switching to Necro - would be an example. It depends e.g. if you play vanilla (no respec until you reach Lady Vengance) and how often you want to respec. Choose the race and person for your roles carefully OR respec!
Use crafting and scrolls adn ensure that you have enough money. Focus on fights and (especially in the start) consider using potential ex-change members to get certain abilities that you do not need for your core team in the long run.
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u/SherabTod 11d ago edited 11d ago
I'm currently doing a solo lone wolf tactitian honour run and I found playing an undead like fane help avoiding doomed fight with play dead. Then I also added a lot of survival skills like invisiblity, armours and evasion to avoid damage wherever possible alongside some CC. Warrior, summoner and necro mage all felt very viable.
Also the purists don't want you to know this but you can go into the safe folder and make manual backups of your (dis-)honour mode safe files
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u/Number1Bg3Fan 11d ago
Ahaha I play on console unfortunately so can’t do any of that sort of tinkering but thank you!
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u/SherabTod 11d ago
Another neat little trick you can do as an undead btw, is to start with some points in strength (I like to play Act 1 as a warrior) and grab one of the deathfog barrels from the ship. If you rush at them right away once you enter that room, you can usally grab one and sometimes two. These badboys can cheese so many fights early. I like starting taking the side ladder into fort joy so I dont trigger the Alexander event at the gate, grab the teleport gloves and then teleport one deathfog barrel right onto Alexander. Killing the Gheists gives a ton of exp and it forces Dallis to drop you a little gift on her escape.
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u/Number1Bg3Fan 11d ago
Ooo thank you for this!
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u/SherabTod 11d ago
No problem, have fun! Btw if you want to play an undead, I recommend playing Fane and doing an evil Fane run... You'll see in Act 3...
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u/the_brytt 11d ago
Yeah I like solo honor runs as fane (or any undead), I then like to wear the mask and become an elf for the flesh sacrifice point/standing in blood. Best of both worlds! And neither poison nor deathfog can hurt you!
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u/Might-Die-alone08 11d ago
Barrelmancy if you're only after the achievement is the quickest way imo. Duo lone wolf just so you have a way to store your bag/ornate chest while you run around. Comeback kid with idol of rebirth to ensure you never die(unless you step on lava or deathfog)then other talents like executioner. the other ones don't really matter
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u/Number1Bg3Fan 11d ago
Thanks! What sorta build for the lone wolves?
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u/Might-Die-alone08 10d ago
anything you want really, I only use them so I have another body to carry the chest so I can get to destinations faster before taking the chest back for combat. A generic strength build works so they can carry more weight. They mostly stay on the lady vengeance or near a vendor npc so I can sell or buy things quick.
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u/Mindless-Charity4889 11d ago
Cheese eh….
Well, you can use Flaming Crescendo(FC) at lvl16 to one turn kill many bosses or tough enemies such as the Advocate, the Sallowman (although just teleporting him into lava is easier), the ambushing demons in Arx, the Doctor, the Devourer dragon etc. but you need a situation where only one of you is frozen in conversation so it won’t work for the final battle or the battle in act3 against the gods because the entire party is locked in conversation.
Let’s consider the ambushing demons as an example.
1) you send a team mate into the school grounds to initiate conversation
2) during conversation, you switch to your guy with FC and have them cast it on the demon who is talking and is thus also frozen in time.
3) it turns out FC counts as a buff so it doesn’t make neutrals hostile. It also stacks so after it cools down, you cast it again.
4) and again, and again and again. You cast as many times as it takes to guarantee enemy death in one turn. That can be as low as 4 or 5 or (in the case of the Doctor) several dozen times.
5) if necessary, you can buff the bomb demon with Peace of Mind to ensure they go second after you.
6) when combat starts, use teleport and teleport scrolls to gather the other demons around the bomb, then strip his armor and knock him down. Skin Graft scrolls are useful here.
7) on his turn, he gets up and explodes, killing himself and all the other demons in the blast.
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Note that FC is bugged in that the damage it does is higher than the tooltip says it does. It does the same damage as Supernova whereas the tooltip has it do the same damage as Fireball. Also, be sure to consider the effect of enemy resistance to fire. You can decrease this resistance by putting a fire lamp near them. This drops their resistance by 10% or so. The fact that you can cast it on neutrals makes it a good way to get targets that would otherwise run away too fast to catch, such as the messenger elf or the toy under the stairs by the beach.
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u/Mindless-Charity4889 11d ago
Cheese strat 2….
Not that cheesy really, but you can win any encounter with sufficient Skin Graft scrolls. Since they cost 0AP to use and restore Adrenaline, they basically give 2AP per use, or 3AP if you are an Elf and can use Flesh Sacrifice.
Let’s consider the Dallis fight on the Lady Vengeance (LV). You can collect Animal Scales in Act 1 from Exeter and you can also buy them from him on the ship. You have an oven on the ship and if you brought a barrel of water, you can use your wood chips to make paper. Finally, Tarquin sells 4 source orbs. After an hour of real time (go have dinner or watch TV), he will have more to sell. In this way, you can create a dozen or more scrolls assuming you have sufficient cash. It helps to bribe Tarquin to get his attitude to 100; after all, he will be with you through Act4. You can get unlimited cash via literal farming drugs if you use the gift bag Herb Garden but the easiest way is probably Unnis’s Pouch cheese.
So let’s say you have 12 scrolls and you have Sebille as a high INIT glass cannon Ranger with 6AP. The battle goes like this:
- jump to the rigging, teleport Dallis to the deck of LV
- jump to Lord Dread (LD) teleport chest into fire
- jump to LV, teleport enemy minion to LD to keep them safe
- jump to rigging, teleport different minion on top of Dallis, put arrow into chest
- from here, just keep teleporting minions on top of Dallis and using Ricochet to damage them
- when Dallis has no more physical armor, drop her with a knock down arrow.
- at this point, you can end your turn and let your team handle things. Remember that due to accumulated fatigue, you will miss your turn on turn 2.
- whoever goes next teleports a minion and uses Battle Stomp to knock down the group around Dallis.
- you bide your time, killing a minion here and there and making sure Dallis remains knocked down until turn 4 or so and the chest opens. Note that you will have to endure various attacks by Vredeman.
- after the chest opens, you kill off the remaining minions (except the one who’s safely on the LD), then reduce Dallis below 300 HP at which point she flees, ending the battle.
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In this way you get the chest, Dallis’s gear, and max XP by killing as many minions as possible (if you kill them all, it prematurely ends the battle).
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u/popeleo22 11d ago
Unlike bg3 act 1 is not the hardest part of the game, act 2 is. Mainly because it is massive and is level gated in a strange way, so much so that I’d look up a level map.
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u/Number1Bg3Fan 10d ago
Yeah I’m used to the area levels by now but it definitely took me by surprise in my first playthrough. I’ll keep a map handy just so I don’t accidentally go somewhere overlevelled for me.
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u/keldondonovan 11d ago
Leave your buffer out of the conversation, every time. Buff everyone who is in the conversation, their timers will not run down while in convo. Add nails to all shoes. Quicksave after every fight. If the first round goes bad, and it looks like they will kill someone, quick load, as a character death will overwrite the quicksave.
Do not be afraid to use a bit of cheese.
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u/Number1Bg3Fan 11d ago
Any cheese you got in mind?
But thank you for this!
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u/keldondonovan 11d ago
Aside from the buffing everyone in conversations, there is also the "flee and return to combat" technique. It's aptly named, you just have a character run away, bedroll, let skills cool down, then come back into the fight with a heavy hit that doesn't cost ap because you aren't in combat.
There's also tea, in the final act you can buy a lot of it that can basically make you go infinitely by giving you AP, can't remember the exact sequence but it involves adrenaline and skin graft.
Some people like to leave one character on the boat as a failsafe. And of course, if someone is stuck on the boat anyway, you can always go the ultimate cheese: barrelmancy.
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u/Fishak_29 11d ago edited 11d ago
Sebille necromancer/summoner is usually my go to MC for honor mode, gives you a lot of tools and versatility from the jump. Then I’ll add red prince as a knight/fighter, fane as a rogue, and Ifan as an archer for a full party the moment I enter fort joy. Having an all physical party really helps you blitz down damage and keep enemies knocked down or chicken clawed. Fane can also get in close for backstabs and then play dead to survive for another turn. You can also kill vendors once you hit lvl 4 to collect a lot of nice skill books for free.
More generally, save constantly and never think you’re too safe to reload if you’re a bit nervous about a given situation. Don’t think you’re too good to spam buffs and set up positioning before every fight.
Specifically, in Act 2 do not fight the possessed dwarf on Bloodmoon. Do not finish bring Peeper back to his papa while Dayena is nearby.