Very embarrassing to ask this since everyone else is having no problems but I think I must have gone seriously wrong somewhere in my character building. Basically I can't even beat Jul or Deceit even on easy. I guess my party was too survival based rather than offensive because no matter what I do Deceit just spams cleanse and I just can't do 600 damage in the space of a few turns. I bought the best equipment I could find have as much anti-paralysis equipment for my back row but no matter what I do he just keeps spamming cleanse. I have played the entire game on normal so far with no problems but this battle is just beyond me not a complaint at the game though I have really enjoyed what the game has to offer and I get the feeling I have clearly gone wrong somewhere. Jul's succubus kiss just drains so much and when she isn't draining my life she just survives with cleanse again. Is there anyway not to trigger cleanse?



My levels range from 17-19. Am I just too low level and will have to try again next playthrough?

Do I need certain skills for victory?

Is the battle locked after chapter 3?

I don't mind doing the game again after all I do love it a lot but I would hate to be denied ever seeing a certain ending due to my own incompetence. Would appreciate any tips to beating them. Also thanks for this great game shame I suck at it so much

What version of the game do you have and which twins combo? Hunter/Ranger? Druid/Ranger? Hunter/Druid? Some delay was added for Cleanse in 0.9.7, if you're playing with an earlier version, loading the newest one might help.

If you and/or more people REALLY can't beat that on Easy I can disable the cleanse completely in Easy mode but I'd like to hear more opinions before doing such a "drastic change"!

Well I managed to do it without buying armor or new weapons in act 3. Biggest issue for me was the constant paralysis on the back row (had to put a mage in front row so he could remove it!). As for cleanse, while it was annoying, you just need some mage spells to attack him and maybe some slow as well. Cleanse only heals for 300hp or something anyway.

Very embarrassing to ask this since everyone else is having no problems

"http://www.winterwolves.net/viewtopic.php?f=40&t=3464&start=60#p29962"... >_>



A lot of it comes down to what skill Deceit chooses to use and if your characters miss their attacks at critical times (Jariel > ).

If you and/or more people REALLY can't beat that on Easy I can disable the cleanse completely in Easy mode but I'd like to hear more opinions before doing such a "drastic change"!

On Jul, the Succubus Kiss is way more of a pain than Cleanse. I wouldn't say remove it though. Worst case, halve the heal amount on Easy.

Troyen, the problem is that vexingaura can't beat those fights on EASY. Not Nightmare, not hard

I don't know, seems impossible to not make it in Easy, at least with the saves I got from fabula, and with yours too, I could just go there and bash the bosses. I didn't even had to heal maybe the problem is in the equipped gears, or skill picked?

I had the same problem, too, at first. After getting along with AoE-flooding, Deceit/Jul just trashed me from one corner into the other.



Problem for me was, that I did not plan for a combo with single-target-overflow-DPS. But this is just what you need for Deceit - sadly, the really first time in the game. Most other fights are tough because the dudes/tentacles/what ever heal each other so you wanna take them down together.



I defeated Deceit with the following combination:



Jariel: Song which's name I forgot: make your enemy frightened, so physical damage is increased

Vaelis: Mark your oponent and then bash/solo-attack him. Should do ~ 110-120 dmg or more per attack on easy with his personal hawk hatches and dual wielding. Since you attack quite often due to the speed of your regular attack, and Deceit needing ~7 rounds to cleanse, it should work just fine. Maybe you need 1-2 tries for the timing of the debuffing so you can burst-dmg him to his afterlife.



Put heal or debuff in front to do something against the paralysis in the back row so you can use one or two strategic spell casters to buff vaelis even more or debuff deceit with a short additional physical dps debuff.

I'm playing on normal and I can't seem to kill Deceit either. I can get him down to 200 hp or so (down from 900+) but then he gets one of his double turns and casts cleanse twice, undoing all my work.

I'm playing a hunter/druid duo, and my strategy is to keep my main damage dealers buffed with haste + rally and keep him debuffed as much as possible, then set up big hits like my hunter hide in shadows + take aim + critical hit.



Personally I see a few problems with this fight:

- cleanse is way too powerful; 300 hp heal + removing all debuffs with almost no delay and pretty low sp cost? That feels like a cheap move tbh.

- the boss has got pretty much infinite sp thanks to his sp drain and the fact you can't sp drain him (I hate arbitrary boss immunities btw, why exactly doesn't sp drain work on bosses?), and thanks to cleanse, infinite hp as a result, meaning it's impossible to win a fight of endurance. The problem is, unless you've set up your party to be offence-focused, you also don't have enough dps potential to take him down faster than he can heal himself.

- the boss isn't dangerous enough. That seems a weird thing to say considering I just said I couldn't beat him, but so far I've only had 2 deaths in my 5 fights against him, and I lost only because I ran out of sp/consumables while he was still going on with his infinite healing thing.



In my opinion, the fight is a bit boring because Deceit's his offensive spells seem much weaker than his defensive ones. IIRC he's got chain lightning which does 75 damage to everyone, Death something that does 150 + poison to 1 guy, and mass paralysis that does almost no damage. The problem is that all of those are more nuisances that can easily be managed just with a few consumables than genuine threats to my group's lives who all have 300+ hp.



That goes for the rest of the game too, at least on normal. My group was never in any danger of being wiped out (except by Deceit if I hadn't given up before he could get around to it I guess), but pretty much every 6 vs 6 fight was a long slog, especially once you've killed 1 or 2 enemies, since you've pretty much won at this point, but you still have the other 4 enemies to mop up.

I know you can't exactly change the game at this point, but for the next one you should really make enemies more dangerous but less resilient.



Regarding the Deceit fight, a few solutions to the invincibility problem would be :

- nerf cleanse by upping delay to 10 and/or sp cost to 40. It shouldn't be spammable considering how powerful it is.

- either allow Rowinda's sp drain and Rilay's Mana burn to work on bosses, or make Deceit's sp drain have a huge delay. Or give us a way to prevent sp drain.

- buff his offensive spells and lower his defences. Against a demon lord I should always be scared for my party's lives, not just wondering how I can do enough damage to overcome his regeneration.



My preferred solution would be to raise cleanse's sp cost, raise his sp drain's delay, and double the damage his offensive spells can do as well as changing his AI to make him more likely to use offensive spells instead of cleanse/mass dispel.

Then you'd have to scramble to keep your party alive while doing damage instead of having a fight that's just an endurance fight you're bound to lose.





*Update*: I just tried the fight on easy, and I finished him off before he could even cleanse himself once, so I don't think you need to nerf him on easy. You just need to bring people who can do high single target damage, like Vaelis, a hunter or a druid.

Even with only 2 of those + haste potions + debuffs from Riley and slow potions, you should be able to do around 600 damage before he gets another turn.

I'm playing on normal and I can't seem to kill Deceit either. I can get him down to 200 hp or so (down from 900+) but then he gets one of his double turns and casts cleanse twice, undoing all my work.

I'm playing a hunter/druid duo, and my strategy is to keep my main damage dealers buffed with haste + rally and keep him debuffed as much as possible, then set up big hits like my hunter hide in shadows + take aim + critical hit.

I already made Jack change the delay on Cleanse to 8. You should not be seeing a double Cleanse. Make sure you're on 0.9.7. He can still Paralyze then Cleanse, but that's different.

- the boss has got pretty much infinite sp thanks to his sp drain and the fact you can't sp drain him (I hate arbitrary boss immunities btw, why exactly doesn't sp drain work on bosses?), and thanks to cleanse, infinite hp as a result, meaning it's impossible to win a fight of endurance. The problem is, unless you've set up your party to be offence-focused, you also don't have enough dps potential to take him down faster than he can heal himself.

I have the same complaint about arbitrary immunities.

- the boss isn't dangerous enough. That seems a weird thing to say considering I just said I couldn't beat him, but so far I've only had 2 deaths in my 5 fights against him, and I lost only because I ran out of sp/consumables while he was still going on with his infinite healing thing.



In my opinion, the fight is a bit boring because Deceit's his offensive spells seem much weaker than his defensive ones. IIRC he's got chain lightning which does 75 damage to everyone, Death something that does 150 + poison to 1 guy, and mass paralysis that does almost no damage. The problem is that all of those are more nuisances that can easily be managed just with a few consumables than genuine threats to my group's lives who all have 300+ hp.

Actually, this is true on nm even. Otoh, I find Jul far more dangerous but less status crippling. I suppose its just boss flavor.

That goes for the rest of the game too, at least on normal. My group was never in any danger of being wiped out (except by Deceit if I hadn't given up before he could get around to it I guess), but pretty much every 6 vs 6 fight was a long slog, especially once you've killed 1 or 2 enemies, since you've pretty much won at this point, but you still have the other 4 enemies to mop up.

I know you can't exactly change the game at this point, but for the next one you should really make enemies more dangerous but less resilient.

Strongly agree here. That was my biggest frustration in the other thread. Fights are generally long but not super threatening except for the occasional boss fight. I've really only struggled on Mormont, Yeldin, Riley's Golem, and Deceit/Jul. (I'm on nightmare). I think it's too late at this point to change it and retest everything given the sheer number of fights and tiny testing team, but I recommend improving on this in future games.



I kind of wish the SP drain/reduction skills were more useful. I don't take them because of the boss restriction, which is typically the only time I want to trade damage for SP drain.



It sounds like you aren't on 0.9.7. I'd suggest trying again on normal and see how the Cleanse delay changes things. If cleanse still has no delay then maybe there's a bug on lower difficulties.

Troyen, the problem is that vexingaura can't beat those fights on EASY. Not Nightmare, not hard

I don't know, seems impossible to not make it in Easy, at least with the saves I got from fabula, and with yours too, I could just go there and bash the bosses. I didn't even had to heal maybe the problem is in the equipped gears, or skill picked?

I know, just letting him know he's not alone.



My Druid was specifically a single target nuker since AoE sucks for the first half of the game on nightmare. From what it sounds like, the OP's Druid specialized in AoE skills and does low single target damage. (I probably would have too on Easy when AoE actually can kill stuff.)



OP, if you want to upload your save, or send it to Jack, he can take a look at what skills and stats you are dealing with. Maybe you have a build he didn't expect.

I could change all the enemies (except the bosses maybe since they are fine-tuned) to have more attack and less HPs, but the problem would be the testing If I knew that enough people would replay it all to make sure it's not too hard, I could do it even tomorrow.

Maybe I have an idea, I will try to include a "cheat mode" which pressing a key will change the battles that way. So I still have the already tested version, and anyone who wants can try the "shorter fights" version. If enough people play and confirm it's OK, I will probably use that as final version since I don't think anyone wants to play long fights!

I've only ever played high offense, high speed parties (in gear and skils), and this means that in these hard fights all I need is for the mobs not to disable my entire party with paralyze or madness, because I can't last very long. This also means that fights that go badly will be over quick (only a few boss fights have a chance to go that badly though). I completely focus on AoE skills, but if I switch to basic attacks on single targets, speed alone kills them. All on Easy of course.



I think the problem here is doing a defensive party on lower difficulties. Enemies have so many strong healing skills throughout the game that you'll have much longer fights and when you do get to the tough fights, you might not be winning the catch up game.



At least Taleweaver should be happy that Deceit has become the menace he desired for that optional ending.

Hmm enemies starts to heal properly only in act3 though (with the new AI). Before they have healing skills but they don't use them as well as in act3.

Anyway yes, maybe is not a problem that can be easily solved tweaking enemies values. I'm going to add it as optional/unofficial cheat menu and see what happens

Oh, there are some mobs that love to resurrect and heal like crazy in Act II.

^^Act2: Arena slave fights. Those healers.... Also Gamesh mercs now love to fling those healing potions around. If one doesn't have enough killpower, those fights can drag. Galanna BattleMages. Unless they go straight for the IceSpikes and the ShadowHunters for Shadow of Deaths. Now, without a survival build & fragile, but high speed and attack crew, those Galanna merc fights were deadly for me on many occasions in NM. (maybe I should call that a gambling build? or maybe I just suck fighting )



So, having said that.. after a couple of trials of the early game, I chose in general not to go for the survival build and saved most AoE-building until Rowinda & Jariel came along. High speed and ability to cause High single enemy damage seems to lead to very different battle experience throughout the game and in this fight in particular. I don't know what the average HP values for crews are when people play, either, and probably having really high HP and relatively low attack power will make this Deceit fight feel extra long and devoid of danger of dying. On NM, his Chain of Lightning (if he isn't confused) can easily cause 120-200 (can go over that, depending on Madness) dmg to each member. My crew's HPs were at level 20-22 from 260 to 350. So on NM, that strike isn't quite harmless. I do agree that for whatever reason he often doesn't use that when it would be most beneficial to him (he can make your whole crew stagger with that),



To add to the feel of danger...here's a devil.suggestion: One way would be to scale his attack power so that it would increase according to people's HP, but that would probably lead to a lot of complaints that leveling up against him would work even less. We saw already how "well" the enemy level and HP scaling went early on... (I'm not really suggesting this! )

I personally think the boss fights are OK. They CAN have lot of HPs. Also some skills like cleanse would lose all the power if they had less HP. Remember that is just ONE enemy while your party is of 6 So even if it heals for 300HP, it is still not versatile as a full party which could heal and debuff. That's the reason I put some very powerful skills to him, otherwise was too easy to beat. The problem with those single enemy boss fights is that a small tweak can unbalance everything and turn an impossible battle in a "too easy" battle. Just look the Cleanse, went from 2 to 6 delay and was already enough to change the difficulty completely!



Regarding the non-boss fights instead, going to post my thoughts in the main update thread since I'm uploading a new build now

My trick for defeating Deceit is putting my mages in the front and the warriors in the back row. Riley hits with slow, druid hits with the single target airspell and rowinda hits with lightning bolt while the warriors just heal the mages and replenishes their sp since Deceit always casts mass paralysis on the back row. At least that's how it was for me and I was fighting him in the Madness reduces everything to 1 version of the game.

Yes that's a good strategy indeed. The Madness bug was quite a game changer though

Managed to beat him because my druid had purification. So I was only under the Madness bug for 1 turn at best. It just made the fight last much longer than it should cause Deceit kept Cleansing himself every few rounds but the the slow effect that remained still worked wonders.

Wow so many replies so quickly I have to say thank you to everyone who contributed still at work right now but didn't expect so many quick responses. I will post more in detail information when I get back and edit the post. From what I have read so far I clearly went very wrong somwhere as I heard that someone was doing 110! While I only do around 60 on easy even with debuffs. It is just strange though because I have beaten everything else on normal with no problems at all for example I haven't had anyone Ko'd even once throughout the game. That is why I just found it wierd that the party I am using right now is having so much difficultly when it hasn't in the past. I will post more details and check out if my version is 9.7.



Once again thank you for the game and thank you to the members of this great community I really appreciate it