Fire elementals? Yikes!

[TheSwamper]

OK, so I do the Lair of Summoning quest on my 3/2 rog/rgr. Things go fine until the end with the fire elemental. My cleric hireling dies fast, but since I had resist cold and resist fire pots running, my survivability was ok.

The ice elemental dies fast, but the fire elemental took forever to die. I don't have much in the way of uber gear yet at level 5, so I was trying all my weapons, mainly my +2 rapier and my +2 heavy mace.

It took me a good 10 minutes, plus many CLW pots and a few resist fire pots to drop this guy. Every time I hit him, his health bar would shrink by only a tiny sliver.

Am I doing something wrong, here? This was set on normal. If I am not doing anything wrong, I suggest that this quest is either overpowered or underrewarded for the PITA it is.

[Sneakee]

Try using opposite elemental weapons - eg....for Fire Ele's, use a rapier/mace of cold/acid/force.

For ice ele's - fire/acid/force

For all Elementals - weapons of Elemental Bane as well.

This is where collecting and hotbar-ing various weapons comes into play.

[Jukken]

Go with a group.
Wiz/Sor with maximized Niacs Cold Ray almost oneshots him.

[Allasar]

He's tough - always has been. In addition, he actually has Cold Resistance or Protection, so it can be tought to melee him. Be prepared with Fire Resist, Barkskin, etc. on the defensive side, and have some Bull's Strength available to increase your damage output - also Acid or Shock weapons will work well against him.

[rimble]

Yup, it's just one of those tough ones that surprise ya every now and then. There aren't any secrets to it.

[Arianrhod]

Sounds like they made that guy a little easier, actually...he used to dispel all your buffs and be invulnerable to cold - quite a deathtrap, that encounter was, especially with the mephits waiting to ambush anyone who tried running for the shrine ;)

[Zenako]

Actually, gonna toss you a compliment. Taking down that end boss with a new, fairly untwinked character is a nice accomplishment (even with scaling). I have seen that last fight wipe groups who were careless. Having EVASION helped a LOT as you found out, and resists are a must.

One thing to do is keep an eye out for special weapons, like Elemental Bane which boost your to hit chances and damage against things like Elementals (and Mephits). Often easier to keep track of, and sometime monsters might have unexpected resistence to elemental damage, but they never have resistence to Bane Weapons. Often see them on the weapon brokers in House D and sometimes right in the marketplace weapon broker.