The Battle of Grimgnaw - Share Your War Stories, Please

[Legacy_Countn Coup]

               hi there. nope I did not use Tony K's AI. What I have read so far leads me to believe I should try it out though
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Balduvard]

               I felt this fight was not too hard, on Very Difficult with Tony K's AI. Darkness effectively disables much of their offensive actions and enabled my party to clean house (even without True Seeing). Balpheron was my last target since his buffs made him more hardened than the rest (targets in order: Grimgnaw, Koth Uth-Kalin, Maugrim, Crimson, Balpheron). Knockdown immunity on myself and Aribeth, for what it's worth.

Party
-My character: Flurry of Arrows build that I use online (9 Monk/1 Wiz/15 AA by the time of this fight)
--North Wind Bow +8 (forged to +10), Prisimatic Dragon Boots, and Merkil's Helmet
-Aribeth
--Astral Blade +8, Dragon Slippers, and the Helm of Righteousness
-Nathyrra
--Risktaker
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_HipMaestro]

               

Balduvard wrote...
I felt this fight was not too hard, on Very Difficult with Tony K's AI. Darkness effectively disables much of their offensive actions and enabled my party to clean house (even without True Seeing).

Ahhh... yes, good 'ol reliable darkness. Interesting that the custom AI can't deal with it any easier than most other environments. '>

Just used an enchanter wiz to dominate the minotaur while standing in the untriggered doorway.  That is a real cheesy way to gain an extra party member but then I don't think I got any XP for killing it as the Grimgnaw crew did it for me '>  I bought Aramil's Blade (+6 w/vorpal) for Aribeth in that battle, so the party was PC/Aribeth/minotaur against 4 short-lived nasties.

BTW, Balduvard... is that build link to a PRC forum?  Never checked that out before and the class refs are totally alien to me. '>
               
               

               

                     Modifié par HipMaestro, 28 novembre 2010 - 11:54 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_jmlzemaggo]

               I've only played evocation wizard. Tempting...
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Balduvard]

               

HipMaestro wrote...
BTW, Balduvard... is that build link to a PRC forum? Never checked that out before and the class refs are totally alien to me. '>

Monk/Wizard/Arcane Archer? No, Higher Ground does not use PRC. The subraces however would likely be alien to anyone that doesn't play there (I used a plain Elf for my character, with a similar ability distribution to the Aquatic Elf variant mentioned in that post).

If you were looking at the build forums for Quasiclasses, those are scripted additions that involve combinations of existing classes.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Balduvard, 28 novembre 2010 - 03:29 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_BelgarathMTH]

               Interesting tidbit about using Darkness - I didn't realize it would help much, since it never seems to hamper me when they cast it on me. I don't know if it's because I usually have Blind Fight pretty early in my builds, or if it's because I can still target easily by just moving the cursor around until it highlights something in red.

Having found both those pairs of Dragon Slippers would have made a huge difference for me. I didn't find either one of them.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par BelgarathMTH, 28 novembre 2010 - 05:31 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Balduvard]

               

BelgarathMTH wrote...
Having found both those pairs of Dragon Slippers would have made a huge difference for me. I didn't find either one of them.

The Dragon Slippers were available from one of the merchants you encounter in Chapter 3 (Gru'ul), as I recall to my chagrin having only the Prisimatic boots (which are hard to miss if following the "grab everything not nailed down" methodology, west of Lith My'athar) when dealing with Vix'thra.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Vaalyah]

               Ehm, to say the truth, my battle was incredibly easy. While I had had some difficulties with the dracolich (thanks Hip for your help ^^ ), this battle went smooth... thanks to a lot of luck :-D I knew there were a big battle ahead, so I buffered myself (epic cleric), Valen and Deekin with all the "buffable" possible, then we enter the room. After the dialogue, the lich stopped the time, and I was already trembling.

As the time started again, I resisted the spells, Valen and Deekin did their saving throws and we attacked. I use 2 bastard swords and I got (luckily!) 2 critics damages, so the lich has been killed in just one round. Valen killed randomly 2 other guys, and Deekin started casting spells all around. Everybody was killed in about 30 seconds.

O_O
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Xovian]

               Ohhh yes I remember this fight, and the many posts on the original bioware forums about this exact encounter during the first few weeks after release, and still some to this day it seems. '>



Pretty much everyone unless they have seen a spoiler is going to run into it their first time and get creamed. No buffs, maybe not even rested (my case) or even remotely prepared for the battle that is coming. The Bio team did great in that regard. It's something I've tried to have matched in my "challenge" mods I build.



If you go in prepared depending on the type of character your using, it can be fairly easy or very hard. Difficulty level also plays a good part on this encounter. Always play on hardcore mode myself, since it tends to stick with the default D&D rules. The other big thing for the fight is if a player uses the pause feature or not, in the heat of battle, being able to click on your res rod and res a fallen member can change the fight quickly.



I will say this, I liked this specific encounter so much that I have played HotU with various characters just to see how well they do. I haven't used TK's AI, knew about it, but always preferred to leave most official products unscathed. I will have to try it soon. I may end up adding it to some of my own modules to see how much more difficult (if any) it makes them.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Velkyn Velve]

               Paladin/CoT with Nathyrra and Airbeth.  Hardcore rules, no haks.

My first move on that fight was: Using a spell to buff cha, then lay on hand to the lich (the guy dind't had a chance). Nathyrra chased the assasin that was running all over the place while Airbeth engaged the minotaur.

Then Grimgnaw went frenzy and started to attack me while Maugrim just keep buffing himself (how selfish). Then Airbeth killed the minotaur, but recived huge damage, so I told her to hold position.

In the menatime, Nathyrra finally started to fight melee with the assasin and ended voctrious. Then I was still fighting the crazed monk , but managed to defeat him with divine might and well placed hits. Airbeth healed herself with a potion and started to fight against overbuffed Maugrim. Nathyrra and I joined her and we 3 took down Maugrim (that kept buffing himself)

The battle was a mess, and when it ended I said to myself "what the...was that" It developed way to fast, but the result was good. I tink I won because I went for the lich first and I was rested. But I had no idea of the encounter so it was a lucky rest. By the way, Nathyrra is great as an assasin if she is told not to use any spell...
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Velkyn Velve, 11 juillet 2011 - 08:33 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Guest_Lowlander_*]

               Just played this recently.  Just me (Ranger/Ftr/Rogue) and Aribeth at this point. Aribeth with the recently found +8 Astral blade and me with a fully upgraded Enseric +10 Greatsword. Dragon slippers and prismatic boots to eliminate the knockdowns.


This is the toughest fight in HotU.  I forgot where it was and walked in unprepared and got creamed the first time (again).   I got nailed on my second attempt where I tried to take out the spell casters first(my usual strategy), but they had so much protection, that Grim and the Minotaur chewed me up while I had my attention on the spell casters.

Finally I switched my strategy to taking out the Minotaur first(counter-intuitive), then Grimgnaw, then the spell casters and lastly the Archer. That actually went quite smooth. Enseric also had the strength sapping black perl upgrade and this time targeting the Minotaur directly first, he barely seemed to connect after I hit him a couple of times, the rest fell like dominoes after that.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Maic23]

               Cheezed my way through them with a Wiz/Rngr/Assa. xD

Prebuffed my kukri with Flame Weapon, GMW (doesn't really do anything at this stage but then again it saved me alot of gold during Ch1, bit of a habit casting it) and Keen.  Also did a prebuff on myself with Cat's, Bull's, Ultravision, Gtr Stone Skin and Imp Invisibility. Told my henchmen to stand ground then as soon as they started attacking I clicked defensive casting and started to cast Darkness.  As soon as the darkness was out, they didn't do anything, they just stood still (except for Crimson, she ran away and started attacking us using her crossbow).

Death attacks killed them in no time.  My henchmen tried to joined the fight but with a 50% concealment bonus, they didn't do that much damage. Casted true sight to Aribeth to make things easier. Balpheron's Death Armor, Elemental Shield and Mestil's Acid Sheath almost took me down though. Had to back up and heal for a moment and took him down.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Maic23, 25 juillet 2011 - 11:23 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_bututoy]

               Excuse me..

Where can u find that tony K ai?

I fought with grimnaw's gang. Took some reloads, but my lvl 26 or 27 dex-based ranger was able to dispatch them all, no henchman on very difficult setting.. Killed grimnaw first (FE dwarves plus knockdown feat) and minotaur, then maugrim and that rogue, last, that wizard lich.. I'm always running around to avoid spells..

Maybe tony K's ai hak can make a difference..
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_HipMaestro]

               

bututoy wrote...
Excuse me..
Where can u find that tony K ai?

on the Vault

I fought with grimnaw's gang. Took some reloads, but my lvl 26 or 27 dex-based ranger was able to dispatch them all, no henchman on very difficult setting.. Killed grimnaw first (FE dwarves plus knockdown feat) and minotaur, then maugrim and that rogue, last, that wizard lich.. I'm always running around to avoid spells..
Maybe tony K's ai hak can make a difference..

It's quite easy even on the hardest difficulty soloing with just about any build.  Compare with the custom AI and you will notice how the actions have been altered to make it challenging.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_bututoy]

               thanks for the link