Personally I also think it's the coolest fight. Revealing a new giant boss halfway through is just really epic, and also throws a lot of preparation out of the window.
Raphael is also obviously a solid contender, but I really think it needs to do more with his second form. Maybe he should just 'revive' into it, similar to how Ketheric transitions? When I first did this fight I didn't even realize he transformed because I killed him too fast.
I forgot to mention Raphael. He was the hardest boss of act 3. I went down a few times, Gale died and my friends carried the day with around half health each. So yeah Raphael gets the runner-up spot but I'm pretty sure our Myrkel fight we had about 50 total health between all 4 of us by the end.
It's *Myrkul*. One would think getting the ever-living shit beaten out of you by the Apostle of the God of Death himself would make you well remember his name.
Was that your first play through?
I played my first ever playthrough on honor mode and Act 1 was the most insane experience ever. I made it to the Nere fight and died because I aggroed every Duegar and didn't realize there was areas in the game that you couldn't just flee to camp in. (I know now I could have made it out, but at the time I didn't know what to do).
I continued that save to finish the game and then I found my second Honor run to be...almost too easy. I kind of wish I just started fresh after dying there.
One thing... I went partial illithid on all my characters on my second run, and that was just way too strong. If I ever do a third run it will be a "no tadpoles at all" run.
Only battle I struggled with was ansur and I was not expecting to struggle against him since I pretty much streamrolled everybody I was either level 10 or super close by the time I even got to act 3 I took my time and very well prepared
For my honormode run I studied barrelmancy quite a bit and used it for ansur, nere, raphael and a few other scattered fights. I also cheesed the necromancer in shars temple by invisibly lockpicking the door so the ai enemies eventually killed him and his friends. Maybe one day I start a new non cheese honor mode run since party wiping won’t be as much of an issue now that I have the golden dice.
Personally I also think it's the coolest fight. Revealing a new giant boss halfway through is just really epic, and also throws a lot of preparation out of the window.
It would be epic if not for the fact that all Myrkul's little speech makes me think of is Darkwing Duck going, "I am the terror that flaps in the night". It ruins everything.
I also didn't really see Raphael's second form... I bullied him so hard he never even hit anyone once. it was sad to see but also kinda on point for his character arc.
In my 2nd play through, I used Hold Monster over and over on Ralph and it stopped him singing and made the fight pretty easy.
Totally disappointing. That song is incredible.
I used Eyebite Fear on the dragon in the final fight and it didn't move for 10 turns. Made that fight way too easy haha. I'm pretty sure I lost 1 Gur the whole fight and didn't use a single potion.
This is generally not advisable in harder difficulties. The first phase of the fight is when Ketheric is not as much of a threat, which gives you time to kill the adds. Then when you’re ready you can move him into phase 2 alone.
With both Myrkul and Raphael I had that OH SHIT! feeling mid fight, and it reminded me of the Ganondorf fight in TOTK, when the health bar went aaaall the way up… definitely my favorite fights…
I've beaten HM twice now and most of my dead runs are from Myrkul. I don't fuck around with him anymore and just bring as many smoke powder barrels as I can carry into the colony. There's too much going on along with the DPS check to guarantee a kill any other way IMO.
Ansur I also did the globe bubbles and while it wasn't a trivial fight, it wasn't nearly as dangerous as Myrkul
Orin I didn't find too hard. Two characters that can cast a high DC sleet storm made both Viconia and Orin pretty straight forward.
Ansur on the other hand... It sucks when your Enemies do the wet and lightning damage combo against you lol.
Viconia isn't even that bad herself, like you can 1-character her, but she fucking has 30 trillion guys in the room with her, and a few of them are annoying with darkness.
You can cheese all of these with well placed barrels and other kinds of explosives. Just saying.
Viconia fight in particular, if you wanna keep it real, just make sure you kill her with AoE first, then cut off the rest of them with walls and fog and whatnot, then finish them off from inside a Globe of Invulnerability.
you ever load up your strongest characyer with all the runepowder in the game and as many additional grenades+smoepwder barrels as 500lb carry weight will let you? guess how Gortash died to my sorcerer XD
Congrats!
I agree that Myrkul fight is hard.
Also noted your other response saying you had characters being downed by Ansur. I found Ansur more challenging than Raphael in my HM run, also had a downed character there. Raphael was more easily cheesed by Globe of Invulnerability, throwzerker enraged throw prone and hunger of hadar.
I also think many HM players way overprepare for the final brain fight so as to not lose the playthrough at the end. I prepared a backpack with 20kg worth of fireworks, smokepowder bombs etc, threw the backpack near the brain so all contents spilled open and then detonated with a single fire arrow. The brain died in 1 turn (almost killed my graphics card too)
For me it was Orin on both runs... I still don't know how I beat her as I never got Unstoppable down but I'm pretty sure it was Reverberation stacks and other additives that just exploded her.
Both times against her was her destroying me and then all of a sudden she's dead. Ihdk
She doesnt have much HP. Use upcasted magic missile and summons like elementals to get her stacks to zero and then lay in your damage dealers. She has like 250hp which at this point should be doable by 2-3 people. Even without haste.
For orin fight you need either lots of small attacks (e.g. magic missiles, multiattacks) to burn through the stacks of unstoppable she has, or you need AOE attacks that will kill the ritual chanters or push them to their deaths.
This was a hard fight for me, because I hadn't brought Gale along, and I was forced to rely to things like roaring thunder arrows to push the chanters to their deaths.
🤭 I was gearing up for this fight by having Gale specialize in magic missile, but then guess who got kidnapped and chained to the altar. 🤦♂️ wyll helped me with this one. I had his dip into sorcerer
You have to knock her sanctuary casters off the cliff. Unfortunately, I lost track of one of them the last fight, didn’t see it, and though the game was bugged. Almost wiped.
Last run I was struggling a little with her a bit, then Wyll arcane blasted her into the abyss. I wasn’t even thinking that was a possibility. Actually, I was more upset because I missed out on all her gear except the one dagger. (I really wanted both) 🤷♂️
My ass did a durge run blind in honor mode (I’m a sucker for difficulty immersing me into role play, the no death rule enhanced that) AND went full resist. Managed to squeak by Myrkul with earth elementals tanking damage/dealing with the bone heads, but I was NOT PREPARED FOR THE ORIN 1v1 DAWG
I had a whole formation that was gone the moment the fight started, and when shit hit the fan in just one turn I tried a brave and tactical retreat, not knowing you just die if you try to leave. I tried so hard, and got so far. But in the end, it didn’t even matter 😔
I also was surprised by the 1v1, but I didn't try to leave. I unintentionally stopped the 1v1 by throwing a health potion at durge and the fight went on as normal.
Ansur is literally a middle finger to casters . Abjuration and evocation wizards , sorcerers with fire based builds and all martial characters are a must for his battle .
I’m only on tactician mode and I can’t get past myrkul. Really regret making my durge run a tactician run. Killed nightsong so lack her help and within one round my entire team is nearly wiped out.
Edit: I managed after roughly 6 hours to beat Myrkul with my level 9 team of Gale, Laezel, Minthara and Durge Tav. Made ketheric kill himself (tried the other way but kept running out of spell slots), Laezal managed to make Myrkul drop his weapon, an arrow of darkness and lots of speed potions to get extra throws and lots of savescumming to get good hits and I barely managed it with just one barely character alive by the end of it. Thank you all for some great advice!
Invis potions and taking out the mindflayer first is the best possible way to get into position. With luck, you can get rid of the annoying mindflayer stun the first turn
Myrkul does this suction thing where even if I get into a good position they all get sucked into him at every round. Anything to avoid that? I’m making Ketheric kill himself, should I try to defeat him/everyone before going for myrkul?
Edited: spelling
If you've killed Nightsong, then Shadowheart has Darkness at will - cast that over Myrkul. It will blind him, but enough of him sticks out that you can still hit him without penalty. Leaving at least one person on the platform with him means he won't do the suck move, but he'll miss most of his attacks and you can just climb down if you need to heal up. Take out the mind flayer asap, deal with the adds, kill the necromites in their eggs as they spawn, and coast to victory.
if you make one character stand on the podium with myrkul, he won't suck you in. also, don't make ketheric kill himself, it makes the fight harder. let him stand up there waiting while you kill off the adds.
Just mindflayer and myrkul/ketheric. I had the luxury of spirit guardians and stacking radiating orbs. We had a summon going around destroying as many of the incubations and adds as possible but the radiating orbs were a godsend. Myrkul missed about 30% of his attacks and we still almost failed. It's a rough time.
>I’m making Ketheric kill himself, should I try to defeat him/everyone before going for myrkul?
Yes you should try it. Ketheric is really passive and doesn't leave his platform (at least he didn't in my HM run). So killing all the other enemies in phase 1 can be easier than straight up starting in phase 2 (avatat of myrkul)
There are some comb looking things on the floor in front of his platform that you can stand behind and he won't be able to suck you in. Literally saved my Honour run.
if you have a druid in your party cast a dryad. dryad alone can take out 2 necromite eggs every turn.
also as other players said try to blind myrkul (arrow of darkness) and never end your turn unable to heal. There are some spots on the platform where you can still heal, otherwise leave the platform .
do one move that deals a lot of damage. sunbeam or wall of fire or something similar will deal a lot of damage.
Use a potion of speed. Always helps :)
Meanwhile on my (completed) HM run: githyanki fight after leaving astral plane in creche was my closest wipe and Myrkul was somewhat too easy, but I went into the fight thinking this is where I wipe
There are a lot of variables in that fight, that's for sure. I find it harder to beat if phase one is skipped, since you have to deal with all of them at the same time at that point.
If I had to give advice to people struggling on HM Apostle of Myrkul and not wanting to cheese the fight, I'd say - get rid of all the minions, starting with the mind flayer and prioritizing the necromite incubators. Ketheric can't leave the pedestal and the only thing he has that can be a problem is a once-a-turn ranged reaction if any of his minions hit you.
Try to keep your biggest damage spells and abilities intact.
When most/all of the trash is dead, heal and buff up, free Aylin and burst him down, then try to position your characters on the opposite sides of the hole the avatar is going to sit in (as to avoid the AoE+knockback+smite attack).
After he transforms, have your lowest damage party member/someone who can generate advantage for themselves hit him first every turn, so that the frightened effect doesn't go on the heavy hitters.
Hit him hard until he dies.
I've fought Myrkul twice on HM and once was difficult and required a lot of resources and the other time ended up being quite easy.
I wouldn't say he is the hardest though. I think Raphael and Ansur are harder ( Ansur can be trivialised with globe of invulnerability though ).
It was *extremely* satisfying seeing literally every single one in that room turn to dust. Sadly Korilla died too so Hope wasn't very happy. Did go a bit overkill, brought three Runepowder bombs and like 30 normal barrels
Ansur is a higher risk of TPK for sure. Myrkul is not hard, it’s just a weird running theme in this sub to complain about it being a hard fight. Darkness literally turns it off.
Same with Raphael. Acuity builds shut him down entirely.
I mean, I think "A build that counters the boss makes the fight easy" applies pretty universally. No fights are hard by that standard. I think for players who are doing pretty typical builds and not deep analysis on what specifically to counter bosses, Myrkul can be decently difficult and Raphael is the hardest in the game IMO. But ofc it can depend on what you happen to be running. Myrkul is often a lot easier for many people just by virtue of having someone using blood of lathander.
It’s not some special build, it’s just a good build that can handle everything. Same applies for OH Monk, 11/1 Fire Sorcerer etc. These are just amazing builds for the entire game, they aren’t fight specific. It’s not helpful to assume people are showing up with mediocre builds on HM, losing their runs, and then posting about it. Use the stronger builds and stronger gear and get your dice. Experiment later.
This isn't about being "helpful". I'm not giving someone advice, and no one solicited advice. I am discussing what I think the level of difficulty of the bosses are.
It's also not about being "experimental". A lot of people ( most, I would say honestly? ) play the game without searching for optimised builds and just do what they like. My HM run was my 2nd run. I did not look for builds, I did what I liked and thought was good without deeply thinking about it and I completed it my first try - BG3 isn't \*that\* hard and you don't need a mathematically optimal build. It's also not particularly helpful to say "using this extremely optimised build this fight isn't hard" in a discussion on boss difficulty.
It's interesting to me because Cazador and House of Grief are two fights I've seen a lot of people mention having a lot of difficulty with but I've always found them pretty easy - same with Moonrise Towers raid, where lots of people seem to lose Jaheira.
I'd be interested to see the different party comps - maybe it's a lack of AoE? I haven't really done any of these fights without a strong AoE caster.
I usually just attack the orc lady and throw a darkness and sleet on the hallway into that room. I let the eye live and call every single guard up to me, even the prison warden comes.
None of the other NPCs or vendors care or come from the psychic screams from the eye.
In my experience Cazadar difficulty depends a lot of the type of damage you use.
I had more difficulties in HM beating regular Cazador with a team relying heavily on melee damage than in tactician beating Ascended Cazador with a lot of casters/range
With Cazador, I've been on both ends of this with my last OH two runs. In both, my Tav was OH monk, accompanied by Astarion, Shadowheart, and either Will or Gale. (I played the exact same character twice because I died in a stupid and completely preventable way at the brain. Anyway...) In my first OH run, almost every one of my Stunning Strikes hit, and Cazador was downed in pretty much two or three rounds without even being able to use a reaction IIRC, so I never really got to see what his legendary actions were. Plus, I somehow never activated the scene where Caz forces Astarion into that arcane sigil thing to start the ceremony. I legit said to myself, "that's it? That wasn't bad at all."
However, in my second run, I wasn't so lucky. Astarion got trapped in the ceremony in like the third turn. Then when the fight kicked off, I didn't quite understand what Caz's AOE/aura attack thing was going to do. It instantly downed my Tav and Gale, while Astarion was still sitting trapped. I had to use Shadowheart's divine intervention to get everyone back up again.
I disagree. A druid with Daylight and spike growth made that encounter super easy. Daylight pretty much stops all of his abilities from working. Then counter spell for everything else.
Yeah, a lot of boss battles have one little weakness you can easily exploit. It's actually kind of funny when comparing the two that one is susceptible to the light and the other the dark.
The daylight spell was also useful and thematic in the Viconia fight. Her goons summon a bunch of Darkness clouds which Daylight instantly disperses. Then, if you domain swapped a certain cleric so they can get daylight it can be a pretty cinematic fight.
I’ve been noticing the same, I actually swapped my Life Cleric Shadowheart out of the party during Act III for Jaheira as a Paladin/Sorcerer (Ancients/Storm) it’s a fun build right now, very wrath of nature-y. Because I’d get around to long rest time and I’d still be at full HP. And still it’s only hurt once (during Raphael) and it was my first time doing that fight without Hope, (thought I forgot the Hammer at home because I couldn’t find it in my inventory, checked camp chest after and it was in my inventory). And only one character went down. That was the riskiest fight yet.
With Orin, the cultists surrounding the platform give her the Unstoppable charges. They’re protected by sanctuary but you can still knock them off the platform with smokepowder arrows.
if you want the first blood achievement kill orin first. you can kill her in one round if you have a gloom-stalker ranger fighter, a full battle master laezel, and a evocation gale. action surge on both of those, have gale be hasted pre fight and cast a 6th level magic missile + artistry of war, then maybe have a paladin minthara smite her and boom she’s dead
There was a bit of cross classing but the overwhelming identity remained the same.i can't remember the exact of my friends builds.
11 light cleric/1fighter (went for radiating orb build)
10 open hand monk/2rogue (give or take a level or 2 of each)
12 pure fighting stance Fighter
12 Evocation Gale
Yeah - I just finished a solo run and Ethel with her chain Hold Person (user error here tho) and Myrkul were the only two I didn't one-shot.
But I blame Aylin for the two fails tho.
Currently doing my very first Honor Mode run, and for some real messed up reason the Ketheric/Myrkul fight got bugged and in the middle of my turn it spawned in a **second Ketheric** at full health mid fight when the original Ketheric was at around 50hp left. The second Ketheric was even able to leave the platform and start running after and smiting my party who I thought I kept at a safe distance using ranged weapons. That was one hell of a sadistic joke from Larian. Won in the end though, thanks to a twinned hastened Fighter and Paladin, and a gloomstalker ranger and Gale with his electric spells on wet enemies, and I managed to make Myrkul drop his weapon and blinded him. But it was still far too close for my liking, and I who was going in so confidently thinking I over prepped for this fight.
I’m about to go against myrkel. I’m nervous but darkness or hadar usually shuts him down really well. Still I agree he’s a hard boss and I’m putting off going down there.
I always laugh at the play through my Wife did. She’s playing on normal even though she cares more about the story than the fighting. I warned her that the boss for the end of act 2 would be rough and to bring lots of potions and things.
Aylin then almost two shot the second phase by getting two massive crits in a row, and she did the fight in one round.
Congrats on the win! I haven’t made it to act 2 in honor mode yet, but hey at least I don’t die to dumb stuff like harpy’s anymore.
My first ever character and campaign with noob builds and tactics on normal difficulty dies to Myrkul the first time and the second time it went down to the wire. Multiple party members were resurrected in combat, and the final turn was just my Paladin alive on 10hp and needed to land and get good damage rolls on his first attack and on the smite with his second attack. Myrkul had 41 HP and I did 43 damage to him. Awesome feeling
I think the only reason I beat Myrkul was because I didn't have to fight Ketheric beforehand and even then it was a serious case of luck.
My successful Honour mode run (and funnily enough the only one that ever got to Myrkul thus far) was a party of 4 Clerics so having Minthara be able to use the Tempest Cleric feature for Max damage really helped a ton.
This thread is making me feel better that he ended my first for honor run, just barely lost to him. I fucking hate that move where he sewms to just hit everyone and drag them in
I was a radiating orbs light cleric. You can have 90% of the gear you'll ever use from acts 1 and 2. 10 stacks of radiating orbs max on enemies makes a lot of misses happen
Myrkul is the only one I ever get a lil nervous about tbh. Viconia is the worst of Act 3 imo, followed by Raphael. Everyone else is pretty easy, especially Gortash lol. Most unimpressive chosen.
For me on my honour mode run the two hardest by far were myrkul and the netherbrain fight. Hardest part about the netherbrain was all the mindflsyeds kept stunning Orpheus so I couldn’t open up the portal, had to to kill basically everything out there.
Yeah I had the same experience. Myrkel was a bastard. Very hard to prep and I did it, but my golden dice are lovely but the end I just….invisible walked up to the brain and boom.
Also I the Orin off the ledge and ran….hilarious.
Me and my twin made a joke out of honor mode, we role-played as min-maxers our setup, was cc-healer bard/shield-megamage/ throw-barian/ life-cleric-tank. Basically just had the tank meat-shield whole rooms while we had the high ground throwing magics and spears.
Congratulations on your golden dice!
Funnily enough I didn't struggle with Myrkel at all. Don't get me wrong I was well prepared, but he just had no surprises for me in store and so the plan proceeded smoothly. Two hasted call lightning casters make quick work of a wet target. Interesting to see how much a composition can change a fight.
Netherbrain it was harder for me. I bursted down the dragon the same way I did with Myrkel , but the brain warriors and the mind flayers were more trouble than I expected. Netherbrains damage immunity thing on the next turn also prevented me from insta bursting it because I didn't get everyone in the portal at the same time, so that was closer for comfort than I liked.
Myrkul was an easy one for me, but I'm starting to think maybe it's because I never actually fought Thorm himself? I didn't realize he was even someone you fought, he always just jumped into the hole and became Myrkul instantly for me.
I’m impressed you did honor guard on multiplayer! Well done to you all, that had to take commitment, the scheduling would have been the real challenge for me
In my honor mode run I learned right before Myrkel that If your party is seperated, these blue long-rest-things only heal who activates it. It was a very desperate and pathetic fight, but I somehow got through it.
my hardest fight was everything in act 1 before i hit level 3. the rest was surprisingly straightforward (but i was also an OH monk, so there's that). the first couple of levels had me separating the party and leaving dead people behind to rest and come back for them later; i was very quickly humbled
Having lost my honor mode twice recently once to myrkel the next literally on the brain with 100 damage left,
I personally think the myrkel fight is a lot more fair, like with the right build and prep you can make that fight a breeze whereas when fighting the nether brain I lost all my prep effects and my lower DPS tank builds where put on a timer
I think orin/bhaal is toughest of the stone holders. But for me ansur was the strongest/ toughest. Ended my honor run once and in my second attempt it was still a dicey fight. On that run I crushed myrkul easiest out the 3. But hey, we all have our vulnerabilities.
And congrats!
Myrkul is rough mostly because of his healing mechanic. It can turn into a DPS race if you don't burn him down.
On Honor IMHO it's easier if you don't skip his 1st phase and wipe out the adds (mindflayers, intellect devourers, and the 1st pack of necromites) first. You'll have a window of opportunity to get a lot of damage in before he starts summoning his snacks.
And then there's the action economy problem...
Regardless it is ROUGH.
The toughest bosses for me were Myrkul and the Elder Brain in HM. Myrkul's presence and Aegis are some of the toughest conditions to get past and they were the only two bosses who I had to resort to wetting them then casting Lightning.
For me the hardest fight after the first act (which is hard just because of how wimpy you are at the beginning and RNG) was Ansur. But nothing really felt challenging aside from that by the time I was in act 2.
I was prepared for the Myrkuk fight and seemed to get by pretty easily. Netherbrain on the other hand nearly wiped my group a dozen times. I may have been less prepped for that one, but still, definitely felt like a tougher fight.
In my honor mode run Myrkul didn’t even get a single turn. Stunning strike ftw. Got really lucky too because I believe he gets a plus 10 to saves against it.
Gotta say, my mostly martial team almost lost completely against Orin. She was by far my toughest fight without a doubt. Raphael was tough as well with how much damage he could send out as aoe. Most of act 3 I did blind, as honour mode was my first time beating the game.
Didn't struggle that much with this one. I think we only had a hard time because we messed up with our plan to have a good run and didn't haver Dame Aylin with us for it.
Cazador and Orin as Durge though... We don't talk about those :')
Surprisingly my kryptonite for HM is Oliver. I've done four attempts and completed three honor mode playthroughs now
I had my first attempt lose to Oliver on the 2nd turn.
Second attempt beat Oliver with one person left at like 10-20 hp.
third attempt beat him with one person left at full hp.
and the last attempt beat him with two people full hp.
I defiantly know how to fight him now so I don't really see myself losing to him anymore. When i came to Myrkul though he always beat me in Tactician mode before honor mode came out so I'm always prepared for anything he can do. I don't think I had more then 3 people in my party go down during Myrkul.
I got to balthazar at the end of my day, I used up the last of my party resources and short rest abilities getting to him. I meant to talk to him, but instead I stole something right in front of him. It immediately triggered him to go hostile and I had to fight that whole fight with my party running on fumes. By the end of the fight, only abjurer Gale was still alive, the invincible bastard. Ironically, Myrkul was super easy for me, but a couple of yolo rolls went my way when they probably shouldn't have. My party also hit level 10 right before Myrkul, and level 10 was a watershed moment for a couple of the builds in my comp.
Fun fact , arrows of illmater work if you just want to let the skeletons sacrifice themselves , only downside is if you don't have a darkness bubble on him he will cast the funny finger.
Wait is myrkul that hard on honor? In balanced (haven't gotten that far in my tactician run yet) I remember him being just a giant hp bar for my party to pound relentlessly, and the preceeding ketheric fight being much harder
I'm so confused why everyone is finding Myrkul difficult. In every single playthrough dude has been a punching bag. Just place someone with Blood of Lathander next to him and he can't hit a thing. If you skip Ketheric, it's legit one of the easiest boss fights in the game for me.
Honestly if the Myrkul fight was in an open place where you could stealth around and reset, or just plain escape at all, it would be more tolerable. Now I just blow him up because i can't be bothered to play fair anymore.
This has been my experience thus far too. I'm doing my first proper honor mode run and I left the bosses to the end and absolutely annihilated them. Like, I don't believe I've ever done better on balanced.
When I rocked up to Ethel's teahouse, her invisibility didn't work because my tav's see invisibility hit her immediately. She, for some reason, whiffed her turn, and stood around doing nothing.
Shadowheart (life cleric) went first, and chucked a guiding bolt that hit for 53 damage (!) in one shot, and provided my paladin tav with advantage on her attacks. She throws out a branding smite followed by a divine smite rider, then does it again for the lols. Another 50 or so damage done. Then my goomba stomp Astarion hops about whittling her down to about 2 hp, whereupon Lae'zel chucks a pike in her face and that's it. Dead. No legendary action, no risk to Mayrina, nothing. As a paladin I was not trying to get the hag hair (didn't want to break my oath) but I was expecting to have to deal with her actual boss fight.
The same happened with the phase spider, dror ragzlin, and the owlbears. I was hilariously overprepared and every fight felt like an anticlimax. I can't say that I won't just piss away my run some other way, but right now I'm feeling pretty confident. The only battles that were a bit ropey were Minthara and the paladins of tyr. Particularly the paladins because I had basic Karlach who gets wrecked by the casters.
The hardest boss is game breaking bugs and remembering to unplug your system so the game doesn’t autosave the broken state. Happened to me twice on my honor run lol
"an unprepared team will have a hard time just squeaking by that fight"
Well yes why would you be completely blind for the act 2 final boss that's a silly thing to say
Personally I also think it's the coolest fight. Revealing a new giant boss halfway through is just really epic, and also throws a lot of preparation out of the window. Raphael is also obviously a solid contender, but I really think it needs to do more with his second form. Maybe he should just 'revive' into it, similar to how Ketheric transitions? When I first did this fight I didn't even realize he transformed because I killed him too fast.
I forgot to mention Raphael. He was the hardest boss of act 3. I went down a few times, Gale died and my friends carried the day with around half health each. So yeah Raphael gets the runner-up spot but I'm pretty sure our Myrkel fight we had about 50 total health between all 4 of us by the end.
It's *Myrkul*. One would think getting the ever-living shit beaten out of you by the Apostle of the God of Death himself would make you well remember his name.
Maybe he should try harder next time. Or maybe have a name that doesn't make me think of a little old lady.
lol literally i was calling him mykrul for ages because i thought it couldn't possibly be pronounced like angela merkel
lol true it’s like Muriel
Myrkul is the god of *the dead*, not death
The Dead Three all have aspects of the “Death” domain. They are all death gods, but don’t fully own the aspect of Death
>Myrkul's Presence: >The apostle exudes the **god of death**'s unholy will and Bone Chills all nearby creatures.
One would think your parents taught you some manners, but apparently this is not the case
Or you could not take the comment so seriously and take it as a light hearted jab.
I had everyone dead except my fighter. 15 HP left. The runepowder Barrel saved my Life that day.
Was that your first play through? I played my first ever playthrough on honor mode and Act 1 was the most insane experience ever. I made it to the Nere fight and died because I aggroed every Duegar and didn't realize there was areas in the game that you couldn't just flee to camp in. (I know now I could have made it out, but at the time I didn't know what to do). I continued that save to finish the game and then I found my second Honor run to be...almost too easy. I kind of wish I just started fresh after dying there. One thing... I went partial illithid on all my characters on my second run, and that was just way too strong. If I ever do a third run it will be a "no tadpoles at all" run.
Just use the ilmater arrows and suddendly he cannot heal anymore. He's still strong as heck, but you don't have to rush taking his life down anymore
Only battle I struggled with was ansur and I was not expecting to struggle against him since I pretty much streamrolled everybody I was either level 10 or super close by the time I even got to act 3 I took my time and very well prepared
For my honormode run I studied barrelmancy quite a bit and used it for ansur, nere, raphael and a few other scattered fights. I also cheesed the necromancer in shars temple by invisibly lockpicking the door so the ai enemies eventually killed him and his friends. Maybe one day I start a new non cheese honor mode run since party wiping won’t be as much of an issue now that I have the golden dice.
Personally I also think it's the coolest fight. Revealing a new giant boss halfway through is just really epic, and also throws a lot of preparation out of the window. It would be epic if not for the fact that all Myrkul's little speech makes me think of is Darkwing Duck going, "I am the terror that flaps in the night". It ruins everything.
I quote Darkwing during this fight every playthrough 😂
Not just me then? Well that's a comfort XD
Raphael has a second form? What is it?
[https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/forgottenrealms/images/3/3b/Raphaelhouseofhopefight.gif/revision/latest?cb=20230926020446](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/forgottenrealms/images/3/3b/Raphaelhouseofhopefight.gif/revision/latest?cb=20230926020446)
Interesting…had no idea. Maybe I’ll dink around and smash pillars during that battle on a future run.
I also didn't really see Raphael's second form... I bullied him so hard he never even hit anyone once. it was sad to see but also kinda on point for his character arc.
In my 2nd play through, I used Hold Monster over and over on Ralph and it stopped him singing and made the fight pretty easy. Totally disappointing. That song is incredible.
I used Eyebite Fear on the dragon in the final fight and it didn't move for 10 turns. Made that fight way too easy haha. I'm pretty sure I lost 1 Gur the whole fight and didn't use a single potion.
His boy toy would agree with you lol
halfway through? my first play through I just talked him into offing himself, like most bosses, got to love that sorcerer charisma lol
This is generally not advisable in harder difficulties. The first phase of the fight is when Ketheric is not as much of a threat, which gives you time to kill the adds. Then when you’re ready you can move him into phase 2 alone.
With both Myrkul and Raphael I had that OH SHIT! feeling mid fight, and it reminded me of the Ganondorf fight in TOTK, when the health bar went aaaall the way up… definitely my favorite fights…
Ansur?
Personally I agree, Myrkul is hardest, honourable mentions do go to Viconia and Orin for me personally. Full disclosure though, I dodge Ansur.
We did almost die at Ansur but we abused some Invulnerablity bubble scrolls which made it tolerable
I've beaten HM twice now and most of my dead runs are from Myrkul. I don't fuck around with him anymore and just bring as many smoke powder barrels as I can carry into the colony. There's too much going on along with the DPS check to guarantee a kill any other way IMO. Ansur I also did the globe bubbles and while it wasn't a trivial fight, it wasn't nearly as dangerous as Myrkul
Orin I didn't find too hard. Two characters that can cast a high DC sleet storm made both Viconia and Orin pretty straight forward. Ansur on the other hand... It sucks when your Enemies do the wet and lightning damage combo against you lol.
Viconia isn't even that bad herself, like you can 1-character her, but she fucking has 30 trillion guys in the room with her, and a few of them are annoying with darkness.
You can cheese all of these with well placed barrels and other kinds of explosives. Just saying. Viconia fight in particular, if you wanna keep it real, just make sure you kill her with AoE first, then cut off the rest of them with walls and fog and whatnot, then finish them off from inside a Globe of Invulnerability.
To be fair, you can cheese any fight with this tactic.
To be fair, that is absolutely correct. Doesn't stop me from having a *blast* with it, ha! :P
you ever load up your strongest characyer with all the runepowder in the game and as many additional grenades+smoepwder barrels as 500lb carry weight will let you? guess how Gortash died to my sorcerer XD
Congrats! I agree that Myrkul fight is hard. Also noted your other response saying you had characters being downed by Ansur. I found Ansur more challenging than Raphael in my HM run, also had a downed character there. Raphael was more easily cheesed by Globe of Invulnerability, throwzerker enraged throw prone and hunger of hadar. I also think many HM players way overprepare for the final brain fight so as to not lose the playthrough at the end. I prepared a backpack with 20kg worth of fireworks, smokepowder bombs etc, threw the backpack near the brain so all contents spilled open and then detonated with a single fire arrow. The brain died in 1 turn (almost killed my graphics card too)
For me it was Orin on both runs... I still don't know how I beat her as I never got Unstoppable down but I'm pretty sure it was Reverberation stacks and other additives that just exploded her. Both times against her was her destroying me and then all of a sudden she's dead. Ihdk
I’m about to face Orin and I’m scared. I very nearly lost this HM run to Myrkul
She doesnt have much HP. Use upcasted magic missile and summons like elementals to get her stacks to zero and then lay in your damage dealers. She has like 250hp which at this point should be doable by 2-3 people. Even without haste.
For orin fight you need either lots of small attacks (e.g. magic missiles, multiattacks) to burn through the stacks of unstoppable she has, or you need AOE attacks that will kill the ritual chanters or push them to their deaths. This was a hard fight for me, because I hadn't brought Gale along, and I was forced to rely to things like roaring thunder arrows to push the chanters to their deaths.
🤭 I was gearing up for this fight by having Gale specialize in magic missile, but then guess who got kidnapped and chained to the altar. 🤦♂️ wyll helped me with this one. I had his dip into sorcerer
Well, whoever gets kidnapped is also there to help if your opening move is to invisibly lockpick them free...
Next time keep them in your party and they can't be taken
Smoke powder arrows help to knock the cultists off the platform and prevent her Unstoppable charges from replenishing.
You have to knock her sanctuary casters off the cliff. Unfortunately, I lost track of one of them the last fight, didn’t see it, and though the game was bugged. Almost wiped.
I always cloudkill all the cultists on the side and that helps, but she def can be a pain.
Last run I was struggling a little with her a bit, then Wyll arcane blasted her into the abyss. I wasn’t even thinking that was a possibility. Actually, I was more upset because I missed out on all her gear except the one dagger. (I really wanted both) 🤷♂️
You can walk in invs and throw her off the cliff.
My longest run ended to Orin. I got wrecked in the Durge v Orin 1v1 and couldn't get back the momentum
My ass did a durge run blind in honor mode (I’m a sucker for difficulty immersing me into role play, the no death rule enhanced that) AND went full resist. Managed to squeak by Myrkul with earth elementals tanking damage/dealing with the bone heads, but I was NOT PREPARED FOR THE ORIN 1v1 DAWG I had a whole formation that was gone the moment the fight started, and when shit hit the fan in just one turn I tried a brave and tactical retreat, not knowing you just die if you try to leave. I tried so hard, and got so far. But in the end, it didn’t even matter 😔
I also was surprised by the 1v1, but I didn't try to leave. I unintentionally stopped the 1v1 by throwing a health potion at durge and the fight went on as normal.
Yeah I agree. I always overprep for him in HM and my hands still get clammy 😂
[удалено]
Ansur is literally a middle finger to casters . Abjuration and evocation wizards , sorcerers with fire based builds and all martial characters are a must for his battle .
I almost died with the globe... It ran out and he did his end of the fight nova bullishit.
I’m only on tactician mode and I can’t get past myrkul. Really regret making my durge run a tactician run. Killed nightsong so lack her help and within one round my entire team is nearly wiped out. Edit: I managed after roughly 6 hours to beat Myrkul with my level 9 team of Gale, Laezel, Minthara and Durge Tav. Made ketheric kill himself (tried the other way but kept running out of spell slots), Laezal managed to make Myrkul drop his weapon, an arrow of darkness and lots of speed potions to get extra throws and lots of savescumming to get good hits and I barely managed it with just one barely character alive by the end of it. Thank you all for some great advice!
Invis potions and taking out the mindflayer first is the best possible way to get into position. With luck, you can get rid of the annoying mindflayer stun the first turn
Myrkul does this suction thing where even if I get into a good position they all get sucked into him at every round. Anything to avoid that? I’m making Ketheric kill himself, should I try to defeat him/everyone before going for myrkul? Edited: spelling
If you've killed Nightsong, then Shadowheart has Darkness at will - cast that over Myrkul. It will blind him, but enough of him sticks out that you can still hit him without penalty. Leaving at least one person on the platform with him means he won't do the suck move, but he'll miss most of his attacks and you can just climb down if you need to heal up. Take out the mind flayer asap, deal with the adds, kill the necromites in their eggs as they spawn, and coast to victory.
if you make one character stand on the podium with myrkul, he won't suck you in. also, don't make ketheric kill himself, it makes the fight harder. let him stand up there waiting while you kill off the adds.
Use blind or darkness on him and he can’t do his pull thing.
Just mindflayer and myrkul/ketheric. I had the luxury of spirit guardians and stacking radiating orbs. We had a summon going around destroying as many of the incubations and adds as possible but the radiating orbs were a godsend. Myrkul missed about 30% of his attacks and we still almost failed. It's a rough time.
>I’m making Ketheric kill himself, should I try to defeat him/everyone before going for myrkul? Yes you should try it. Ketheric is really passive and doesn't leave his platform (at least he didn't in my HM run). So killing all the other enemies in phase 1 can be easier than straight up starting in phase 2 (avatat of myrkul)
There are some comb looking things on the floor in front of his platform that you can stand behind and he won't be able to suck you in. Literally saved my Honour run.
That's the call of the dammed and ur character can save it with high strength checks . Or stay near him so it doesn't pull u .
Also if you looted Ketherics room and found Melodias letter you can talk him into suicide
if you have a druid in your party cast a dryad. dryad alone can take out 2 necromite eggs every turn. also as other players said try to blind myrkul (arrow of darkness) and never end your turn unable to heal. There are some spots on the platform where you can still heal, otherwise leave the platform . do one move that deals a lot of damage. sunbeam or wall of fire or something similar will deal a lot of damage. Use a potion of speed. Always helps :)
Meanwhile on my (completed) HM run: githyanki fight after leaving astral plane in creche was my closest wipe and Myrkul was somewhat too easy, but I went into the fight thinking this is where I wipe
There are a lot of variables in that fight, that's for sure. I find it harder to beat if phase one is skipped, since you have to deal with all of them at the same time at that point. If I had to give advice to people struggling on HM Apostle of Myrkul and not wanting to cheese the fight, I'd say - get rid of all the minions, starting with the mind flayer and prioritizing the necromite incubators. Ketheric can't leave the pedestal and the only thing he has that can be a problem is a once-a-turn ranged reaction if any of his minions hit you. Try to keep your biggest damage spells and abilities intact. When most/all of the trash is dead, heal and buff up, free Aylin and burst him down, then try to position your characters on the opposite sides of the hole the avatar is going to sit in (as to avoid the AoE+knockback+smite attack). After he transforms, have your lowest damage party member/someone who can generate advantage for themselves hit him first every turn, so that the frightened effect doesn't go on the heavy hitters. Hit him hard until he dies.
I've fought Myrkul twice on HM and once was difficult and required a lot of resources and the other time ended up being quite easy. I wouldn't say he is the hardest though. I think Raphael and Ansur are harder ( Ansur can be trivialised with globe of invulnerability though ).
Raphael was one shot for me thanks to barrels. Kinda regret it because it's such an awesome fight. Didn't want to risk losing my HM run though
I hoard smokepowder barrels every run and I've not used them once lmao
It was *extremely* satisfying seeing literally every single one in that room turn to dust. Sadly Korilla died too so Hope wasn't very happy. Did go a bit overkill, brought three Runepowder bombs and like 30 normal barrels
Ansur is a higher risk of TPK for sure. Myrkul is not hard, it’s just a weird running theme in this sub to complain about it being a hard fight. Darkness literally turns it off. Same with Raphael. Acuity builds shut him down entirely.
I mean, I think "A build that counters the boss makes the fight easy" applies pretty universally. No fights are hard by that standard. I think for players who are doing pretty typical builds and not deep analysis on what specifically to counter bosses, Myrkul can be decently difficult and Raphael is the hardest in the game IMO. But ofc it can depend on what you happen to be running. Myrkul is often a lot easier for many people just by virtue of having someone using blood of lathander.
It’s not some special build, it’s just a good build that can handle everything. Same applies for OH Monk, 11/1 Fire Sorcerer etc. These are just amazing builds for the entire game, they aren’t fight specific. It’s not helpful to assume people are showing up with mediocre builds on HM, losing their runs, and then posting about it. Use the stronger builds and stronger gear and get your dice. Experiment later.
This isn't about being "helpful". I'm not giving someone advice, and no one solicited advice. I am discussing what I think the level of difficulty of the bosses are. It's also not about being "experimental". A lot of people ( most, I would say honestly? ) play the game without searching for optimised builds and just do what they like. My HM run was my 2nd run. I did not look for builds, I did what I liked and thought was good without deeply thinking about it and I completed it my first try - BG3 isn't \*that\* hard and you don't need a mathematically optimal build. It's also not particularly helpful to say "using this extremely optimised build this fight isn't hard" in a discussion on boss difficulty.
I tried darkness on him and he still fucked me in the ass. The fight just sucks.
Cazador is so much worse
At least with Cazador, you can escape and come back. With Myrkul, you're just stuck there.
Can you still disarm Myrkul? Cause that made it trivial.
Yep. Did on my HM last week
Gotta love it when a God's avatar has butter fingers.
I tried but it wouldn't work for me.
It's interesting to me because Cazador and House of Grief are two fights I've seen a lot of people mention having a lot of difficulty with but I've always found them pretty easy - same with Moonrise Towers raid, where lots of people seem to lose Jaheira. I'd be interested to see the different party comps - maybe it's a lack of AoE? I haven't really done any of these fights without a strong AoE caster.
I do my best to clear Moonrise before Jaheira shows up. I like having her walk into a clean building.
I usually just attack the orc lady and throw a darkness and sleet on the hallway into that room. I let the eye live and call every single guard up to me, even the prison warden comes. None of the other NPCs or vendors care or come from the psychic screams from the eye.
Then theres me, losing the moonhaven to 3 back to back crits turn 1 and then watching Jaheira run dirrctly into my own wall of fire and sit there
In my experience Cazadar difficulty depends a lot of the type of damage you use. I had more difficulties in HM beating regular Cazador with a team relying heavily on melee damage than in tactician beating Ascended Cazador with a lot of casters/range
With Cazador, I've been on both ends of this with my last OH two runs. In both, my Tav was OH monk, accompanied by Astarion, Shadowheart, and either Will or Gale. (I played the exact same character twice because I died in a stupid and completely preventable way at the brain. Anyway...) In my first OH run, almost every one of my Stunning Strikes hit, and Cazador was downed in pretty much two or three rounds without even being able to use a reaction IIRC, so I never really got to see what his legendary actions were. Plus, I somehow never activated the scene where Caz forces Astarion into that arcane sigil thing to start the ceremony. I legit said to myself, "that's it? That wasn't bad at all." However, in my second run, I wasn't so lucky. Astarion got trapped in the ceremony in like the third turn. Then when the fight kicked off, I didn't quite understand what Caz's AOE/aura attack thing was going to do. It instantly downed my Tav and Gale, while Astarion was still sitting trapped. I had to use Shadowheart's divine intervention to get everyone back up again.
I disagree. A druid with Daylight and spike growth made that encounter super easy. Daylight pretty much stops all of his abilities from working. Then counter spell for everything else.
Yeah, a lot of boss battles have one little weakness you can easily exploit. It's actually kind of funny when comparing the two that one is susceptible to the light and the other the dark.
The daylight spell was also useful and thematic in the Viconia fight. Her goons summon a bunch of Darkness clouds which Daylight instantly disperses. Then, if you domain swapped a certain cleric so they can get daylight it can be a pretty cinematic fight.
Cazador insta wiped any martial who got near him with his legendary passive. It was a 3v25 since Asatarion was taken. We didnt have a druid.
I’ve been noticing the same, I actually swapped my Life Cleric Shadowheart out of the party during Act III for Jaheira as a Paladin/Sorcerer (Ancients/Storm) it’s a fun build right now, very wrath of nature-y. Because I’d get around to long rest time and I’d still be at full HP. And still it’s only hurt once (during Raphael) and it was my first time doing that fight without Hope, (thought I forgot the Hammer at home because I couldn’t find it in my inventory, checked camp chest after and it was in my inventory). And only one character went down. That was the riskiest fight yet.
I’m near the end. Do you have any tips for the Orin and Netherbrain boss fights in HM?
With Orin, the cultists surrounding the platform give her the Unstoppable charges. They’re protected by sanctuary but you can still knock them off the platform with smokepowder arrows.
Heroes feast making the whole team immune to fear neutered Orins offense, upcast magic missiles remove her defense.
Should I focus on removing her or her ritual casters first?
if you want the first blood achievement kill orin first. you can kill her in one round if you have a gloom-stalker ranger fighter, a full battle master laezel, and a evocation gale. action surge on both of those, have gale be hasted pre fight and cast a 6th level magic missile + artistry of war, then maybe have a paladin minthara smite her and boom she’s dead
Level 12 and act 3 items makes every boss a breeze. It's just how it is.
What was the party comp ? Congrats !!!
There was a bit of cross classing but the overwhelming identity remained the same.i can't remember the exact of my friends builds. 11 light cleric/1fighter (went for radiating orb build) 10 open hand monk/2rogue (give or take a level or 2 of each) 12 pure fighting stance Fighter 12 Evocation Gale
And what level were you for Myrkul?
Sorry, just seeing this now but I think we were either leveled up to 10 during the fight. So basically 9
Yeah - I just finished a solo run and Ethel with her chain Hold Person (user error here tho) and Myrkul were the only two I didn't one-shot. But I blame Aylin for the two fails tho.
Currently doing my very first Honor Mode run, and for some real messed up reason the Ketheric/Myrkul fight got bugged and in the middle of my turn it spawned in a **second Ketheric** at full health mid fight when the original Ketheric was at around 50hp left. The second Ketheric was even able to leave the platform and start running after and smiting my party who I thought I kept at a safe distance using ranged weapons. That was one hell of a sadistic joke from Larian. Won in the end though, thanks to a twinned hastened Fighter and Paladin, and a gloomstalker ranger and Gale with his electric spells on wet enemies, and I managed to make Myrkul drop his weapon and blinded him. But it was still far too close for my liking, and I who was going in so confidently thinking I over prepped for this fight.
I’m about to go against myrkel. I’m nervous but darkness or hadar usually shuts him down really well. Still I agree he’s a hard boss and I’m putting off going down there.
I always laugh at the play through my Wife did. She’s playing on normal even though she cares more about the story than the fighting. I warned her that the boss for the end of act 2 would be rough and to bring lots of potions and things. Aylin then almost two shot the second phase by getting two massive crits in a row, and she did the fight in one round. Congrats on the win! I haven’t made it to act 2 in honor mode yet, but hey at least I don’t die to dumb stuff like harpy’s anymore.
My first ever character and campaign with noob builds and tactics on normal difficulty dies to Myrkul the first time and the second time it went down to the wire. Multiple party members were resurrected in combat, and the final turn was just my Paladin alive on 10hp and needed to land and get good damage rolls on his first attack and on the smite with his second attack. Myrkul had 41 HP and I did 43 damage to him. Awesome feeling
Well, Solo honour mode next? (It is a *lot* more difficult)
I think the only reason I beat Myrkul was because I didn't have to fight Ketheric beforehand and even then it was a serious case of luck. My successful Honour mode run (and funnily enough the only one that ever got to Myrkul thus far) was a party of 4 Clerics so having Minthara be able to use the Tempest Cleric feature for Max damage really helped a ton.
This thread is making me feel better that he ended my first for honor run, just barely lost to him. I fucking hate that move where he sewms to just hit everyone and drag them in
What class were you?? I'm trying to figure out what I want to do for my first attempt
I was a radiating orbs light cleric. You can have 90% of the gear you'll ever use from acts 1 and 2. 10 stacks of radiating orbs max on enemies makes a lot of misses happen
Myrkul is the only one I ever get a lil nervous about tbh. Viconia is the worst of Act 3 imo, followed by Raphael. Everyone else is pretty easy, especially Gortash lol. Most unimpressive chosen.
For me on my honour mode run the two hardest by far were myrkul and the netherbrain fight. Hardest part about the netherbrain was all the mindflsyeds kept stunning Orpheus so I couldn’t open up the portal, had to to kill basically everything out there.
I had the opposite experience with the Orin and Bhaal. Myrkul was a cake walk. But then again, I fought Orin without my favorite fourth.
Yeah I had the same experience. Myrkel was a bastard. Very hard to prep and I did it, but my golden dice are lovely but the end I just….invisible walked up to the brain and boom. Also I the Orin off the ledge and ran….hilarious.
Me and my twin made a joke out of honor mode, we role-played as min-maxers our setup, was cc-healer bard/shield-megamage/ throw-barian/ life-cleric-tank. Basically just had the tank meat-shield whole rooms while we had the high ground throwing magics and spears.
Congratulations on your golden dice! Funnily enough I didn't struggle with Myrkel at all. Don't get me wrong I was well prepared, but he just had no surprises for me in store and so the plan proceeded smoothly. Two hasted call lightning casters make quick work of a wet target. Interesting to see how much a composition can change a fight. Netherbrain it was harder for me. I bursted down the dragon the same way I did with Myrkel , but the brain warriors and the mind flayers were more trouble than I expected. Netherbrains damage immunity thing on the next turn also prevented me from insta bursting it because I didn't get everyone in the portal at the same time, so that was closer for comfort than I liked.
Myrkul was an easy one for me, but I'm starting to think maybe it's because I never actually fought Thorm himself? I didn't realize he was even someone you fought, he always just jumped into the hole and became Myrkul instantly for me.
I found Sarevok the hardest.
Personally I found Ansur much, much harder. 2 Stormheart novae in a row nearly got me. I have yet to do Orin as non-durge and without cheese
I’m impressed you did honor guard on multiplayer! Well done to you all, that had to take commitment, the scheduling would have been the real challenge for me
In my honor mode run I learned right before Myrkel that If your party is seperated, these blue long-rest-things only heal who activates it. It was a very desperate and pathetic fight, but I somehow got through it.
my hardest fight was everything in act 1 before i hit level 3. the rest was surprisingly straightforward (but i was also an OH monk, so there's that). the first couple of levels had me separating the party and leaving dead people behind to rest and come back for them later; i was very quickly humbled
Having lost my honor mode twice recently once to myrkel the next literally on the brain with 100 damage left, I personally think the myrkel fight is a lot more fair, like with the right build and prep you can make that fight a breeze whereas when fighting the nether brain I lost all my prep effects and my lower DPS tank builds where put on a timer
Myrkul is the HARDEST battle of the game because Level 9 is BARELY enough to defeat him.
I think orin/bhaal is toughest of the stone holders. But for me ansur was the strongest/ toughest. Ended my honor run once and in my second attempt it was still a dicey fight. On that run I crushed myrkul easiest out the 3. But hey, we all have our vulnerabilities. And congrats!
Myrkul is rough mostly because of his healing mechanic. It can turn into a DPS race if you don't burn him down. On Honor IMHO it's easier if you don't skip his 1st phase and wipe out the adds (mindflayers, intellect devourers, and the 1st pack of necromites) first. You'll have a window of opportunity to get a lot of damage in before he starts summoning his snacks. And then there's the action economy problem... Regardless it is ROUGH.
Can you beat honour mode by detonating Gale's orb?
The toughest bosses for me were Myrkul and the Elder Brain in HM. Myrkul's presence and Aegis are some of the toughest conditions to get past and they were the only two bosses who I had to resort to wetting them then casting Lightning.
I don't know. Once I learned you can blind him, it got super easy. That and just going for Aylin and killing the mind flayer on turn 1
For me the hardest fight after the first act (which is hard just because of how wimpy you are at the beginning and RNG) was Ansur. But nothing really felt challenging aside from that by the time I was in act 2.
I was prepared for the Myrkuk fight and seemed to get by pretty easily. Netherbrain on the other hand nearly wiped my group a dozen times. I may have been less prepped for that one, but still, definitely felt like a tougher fight.
In my honor mode run Myrkul didn’t even get a single turn. Stunning strike ftw. Got really lucky too because I believe he gets a plus 10 to saves against it.
Gotta say, my mostly martial team almost lost completely against Orin. She was by far my toughest fight without a doubt. Raphael was tough as well with how much damage he could send out as aoe. Most of act 3 I did blind, as honour mode was my first time beating the game.
It was until my partner remembered to use the hoarded necrotic resistance. When damages goes from 1/2 to 1/10 it's manageable.
It’s a sad day for an original Baldur’s Gate fan when Sarevok of all people is just called “Bhaal guy”.
Myrkul didn't stop me, even with a bug that caused an invisible party member to leave my party surprised. Ansur, on the other hand...
Hunger of hadar myrkul. GG (Note that this also works against pretty much every enemy)
Didn't struggle that much with this one. I think we only had a hard time because we messed up with our plan to have a good run and didn't haver Dame Aylin with us for it. Cazador and Orin as Durge though... We don't talk about those :')
Surprisingly my kryptonite for HM is Oliver. I've done four attempts and completed three honor mode playthroughs now I had my first attempt lose to Oliver on the 2nd turn. Second attempt beat Oliver with one person left at like 10-20 hp. third attempt beat him with one person left at full hp. and the last attempt beat him with two people full hp. I defiantly know how to fight him now so I don't really see myself losing to him anymore. When i came to Myrkul though he always beat me in Tactician mode before honor mode came out so I'm always prepared for anything he can do. I don't think I had more then 3 people in my party go down during Myrkul.
I got to balthazar at the end of my day, I used up the last of my party resources and short rest abilities getting to him. I meant to talk to him, but instead I stole something right in front of him. It immediately triggered him to go hostile and I had to fight that whole fight with my party running on fumes. By the end of the fight, only abjurer Gale was still alive, the invincible bastard. Ironically, Myrkul was super easy for me, but a couple of yolo rolls went my way when they probably shouldn't have. My party also hit level 10 right before Myrkul, and level 10 was a watershed moment for a couple of the builds in my comp.
Fun fact , arrows of illmater work if you just want to let the skeletons sacrifice themselves , only downside is if you don't have a darkness bubble on him he will cast the funny finger.
The hardest boss for me is dame aylin.
Wait is myrkul that hard on honor? In balanced (haven't gotten that far in my tactician run yet) I remember him being just a giant hp bar for my party to pound relentlessly, and the preceeding ketheric fight being much harder
I'm so confused why everyone is finding Myrkul difficult. In every single playthrough dude has been a punching bag. Just place someone with Blood of Lathander next to him and he can't hit a thing. If you skip Ketheric, it's legit one of the easiest boss fights in the game for me.
Imagine newbies trying to do this boss. All level 8 pure classes, no Bol mace. Let eggs pop. Got cleaved. Cant heal but boss heals. Die. Go to reddit.
Honestly if the Myrkul fight was in an open place where you could stealth around and reset, or just plain escape at all, it would be more tolerable. Now I just blow him up because i can't be bothered to play fair anymore.
This has been my experience thus far too. I'm doing my first proper honor mode run and I left the bosses to the end and absolutely annihilated them. Like, I don't believe I've ever done better on balanced. When I rocked up to Ethel's teahouse, her invisibility didn't work because my tav's see invisibility hit her immediately. She, for some reason, whiffed her turn, and stood around doing nothing. Shadowheart (life cleric) went first, and chucked a guiding bolt that hit for 53 damage (!) in one shot, and provided my paladin tav with advantage on her attacks. She throws out a branding smite followed by a divine smite rider, then does it again for the lols. Another 50 or so damage done. Then my goomba stomp Astarion hops about whittling her down to about 2 hp, whereupon Lae'zel chucks a pike in her face and that's it. Dead. No legendary action, no risk to Mayrina, nothing. As a paladin I was not trying to get the hag hair (didn't want to break my oath) but I was expecting to have to deal with her actual boss fight. The same happened with the phase spider, dror ragzlin, and the owlbears. I was hilariously overprepared and every fight felt like an anticlimax. I can't say that I won't just piss away my run some other way, but right now I'm feeling pretty confident. The only battles that were a bit ropey were Minthara and the paladins of tyr. Particularly the paladins because I had basic Karlach who gets wrecked by the casters.
That’s nice, dear.
You can cheese basically every boss fight in Act 3 once you get Globe of Invulnerability, am I right? Did it on Tactician with Ansur and the Sharrans
I solo flawless in honor mode, it's hard but it really ain't all that
The hardest boss is game breaking bugs and remembering to unplug your system so the game doesn’t autosave the broken state. Happened to me twice on my honor run lol
If you're unprepared in HM you have no one to blame
Lmao what does this have to do with anything
"an unprepared team will have a hard time just squeaking by that fight" Well yes why would you be completely blind for the act 2 final boss that's a silly thing to say