3 knights vs. The Crone

[SadeDude]

I've reached the second battle against The Crone with my party of 3 knights, difficulty locked as absurd.

After having beaten the game couple of times using regular mage-knight-musketeer parties, I decided to try something different.

Until now the game has been pretty manageable, even more so than I initially thought. This battle, however, changed it all.

I really wouldn't want to give up, but I've completely run out of options. Defensive approach seems pretty useless, since my PCs receive far more damage than Brace or Recover could ever deflect; going all out offensive manages to reduce The Crone's health only to about half before my party gets crushed.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

[SadeDude]

Woah... Finally managed to beat the battle. I have to admit that it was hard, absurdly so.

But that just means that the victory tastes even better.

[Brickman]

Did you try Fortify? The entire point of having different defensive skills is that some are more effective in certain situations than others, and the Crone represents the pinnacle of situations were Fortify should be effective and where Brace should be worthless. Also, you should be using hack for the shield, but that seems too obvious to mention.

That and patience. As long as you can keep one knight alive you don't lose and the others can recover.

[SadeDude]

Fortify? Hmm. I haven't used that skill nearly at all, because ~50 damage reduction seems pretty weak when enemies are hitting for more than 500.

Is the increased armor effect cumulative? Or is it a complete waste of energy to cast Fortify with many PCs at the same time?

By the way, what strategy/skills should I use to beat the Crypt? I can barely reach the part where you acquire the sword.

[ROD]

[SadeDude]

After about 50 tries to get through the Crypt with 0 Thunderstrike, I decided to max the skill and blasted my way out of that pit.

I have been doing pretty well since that; the difficulty hasn't got too ridiculous.

However, I've run into another problem. A problem called Ick Thelloth. Previously I've just spammed Smokescreen to make the battle a cakewalk, but there's no chance to do that now.

I find that quince-hitting magic attack especially problematic. It does over 2000 total damage that can only be decreased by a fraction using Brace or Fortify. What should I do?

[ROD]

[SadeDude]

Finished the game. Thanks for all the help I've got.



Some (quite trivial) questions came to my mind:

1) What purpose does the "laugh attack" of Ick Thelloth have? Is it merely a taunt or something?

2) Why everyone says that the Black/Blackest Death swords can only be used by Kaltos? Each member of my party seemed to be able to use them with no problems.

3) Is it possible to completely beat the "Test of Strength" thingy with 3 absurd knights in the Promenade? Not that the extra ~200 credits would really matter.

4) Are the fancy Item Effects like Tangleweb or Imp Summon worth using? Are there really any items with Poison or Damn All?

[Tiavals]

2) As far as I know, Blackest Death increases in power when Kaltos kills enemies with it. Meaning that you can use the sword with anyone, but you should use it with Kaltos for it's full potential. Might be wrong though.

4) Tangleweb is superb in my opinion at least, but then, I haven't played with Absurd too much.

[ROD]

Congrat!

2) maybe that´s a minor bug, I think it´s not supposed to work with any other knight. I noticed something similar with Denevers Ring - I could use it on other members but not in every world afair

3) In Absurd mode afair I did succeed there only with three Priests (overridden Bless to overidden Bless to overidden Strike or something...), so it might be impossible, I´m also curious

4) I´ve found Imp summon pretty useful - especially on absurd mode and with multiple melee enemies, one completely blocked assault once in a while seems to make a lot of difference sometimes (more than a healing item eg), I never trusted the Tanglewood thing, but that´s because of TSE1. If you´r eplaying with Mericious you´re bound to find some Poison All Item along the way