Vale of Twilight: Planar Gateway

[Kaervas]

Are there any wizard tricks to killing this thing?

On my previous character (cleric) I was fine with throwing up all the damage enhancing buffs, slapping on an off-hand weapon, and going to grab a drink and stretch my legs.

My new Wizard on the other hand, even taking into account hitting the gateway on a 2+, still can't deal a whole load of damage to it. The portal has loads of resistances/immunities, even more HP, high SR, great saves, and crit immunity. It has enough melee damage reduction that I generally only hurt it with the bonus damage die on my weapons (thankfully, the 'good' damage works).
As far as I can see spell-wise, I can only land Disintegrates on it (which it makes the save against), so killing it with one SP bar isn't really happening. Being an inanimate object with ridiculous SR, saves, and resists, it's immune to everything else that I've tried.

Should I just stick to meleeing it, or perhaps even skip it entirely? If it ends up taking me upside of 20 minutes of melee to kill then it's hardly efficient in chests/time.

[MissErres]

Magic/Force missles, charm baddies to help and just hack away. Disintegrate works too. Auto-attack on and go make dinner. That's about all you can do.

[hydra_ex]

On my wizzy, I just usually avoid it

[RTN]

Portal beaters. Every caster should carry a pair anyway.

[Kaervas]

Ah, I hadn't tried Force damage yet. It's good to know one more thing that works on it, though just like Disintegrate, there's no way I'm killing it in one SP bar with force spells either.

I did a quick forum search and found out about the portal beaters (I'm still pretty new to this), guess I'll be looking for a pair of Holy Burst Heavy/Light Picks of Greater Construct Bane.
Correct me if I am wrong, but on a wizard user, I won't be able to bypass the physical DR 99% of the time so the base weapon damage hardly matters, so I am choosing Picks to get the x4 multiplier to give maximum damage die on Holy Burst. This would let me deal 2d6 good + 3d6 bane damage with each hand and another 5d6 good on a crit.
Unless I am misunderstanding something, even though the portal is immune to critical hits, it is still subject to the bonus burst effects, which is in-line with what I have seen while just trying my Puncturing weapon on it on a whim. The -1d6 Con effect still triggered on a resisted critical (it was immune, of course).
My coin pouch is cringing in the corner, any of those won't be cheap for sure and I have so much else that I need to buy as well.

I'll slog on with taking it down once for the Rare Encounters quest, and after that I'll probably end up skipping it until I get at least one portal beater. As much as passing a free chest irks me, the time spent obtaining it could get me 5-10 more by doing more rounds of the squishier stuff.
Once I get the portal beaters it'll probably be quick enough that killing it is painless... and by that time I will be desperate for every scrap of treasure I can get to refund the cost of the things!

Thanks for the info.



Edit:
I started attacking the portal when it was late evening in game, now the sun is rising over a lovely morning in the Vale.
At least there are forums to browse!

[richieelias]

You're a wizard right? Dual wield the nicked maces, cast extended heroism, bulls strength, and tensers transformation on yourself. Standard melee rules then apply. And everything is subject to burst on crit effects, crit immune or not.

It's probably not worth it except for that 1 time you need to kill it to fill out your rares.

[RTN]

Portal beaters are good to have in any case. While the greater bane ones are best, you can also use Holy Burst of Pure Good and I believe Anarchic Burst of Pure Good. Both of those are cheaper. I've been told bludgeon works best vs portal DR, so grab a couple heavy maces or warhammers. Yes, you won't be proficient, but you don't miss so that doesn't matter. It doesn't affect the damage, only the to hit and you won't miss portals. That's also why you should dual wield them.

When you Shroud, casters should be jumping in anyway when they're out of SP or not doing anything else. Speeding up the raid is always a good idea. All my characters carry portal beaters for this reason, even the non melee ones.

Keep yourself hasted, as well. GH is irrelevant since it only affects to hit, not damage.

The other thing you can do is set up an LFM and let people know the portal is up and that you want help destroying it.

[Caine52184]

Portal beaters. Every caster should carry a pair anyway.

Yes!....haste yourself and hit auto attack...step away from the computer for about 5 mins

[Bladedge]

Buy the highest level dps hireling that you are allowed to and have it attack the portal while you go off and kill more stuff.

[wamjratl1]

Pull a bunch of baddies next to it and mass sugesstion. Bring a hireling and some wands of MM / Force Missile. Done!

[Zenako]

Portal beater...

Pulled a nice one on my Wiz recently (Anarchic 2HD sword of GCB). With some STR already, getting the 2H damage bonus helps enought to get useful numbers and beat it down in a meaningful way and time. Hit RAGE on yourself too for some extra damage to cut the time down more. Prayer CLickies can speed it up as well. OF course be sure to have HAste going.

[DANTEIL]

As someone trying to slooooowly level a wizard, I'm trying to stay on top of future things I'll need etc etc.

So, my question is: What's a portal beater?

[RTN]

Portals appear in the Vale quests, I don't think I remember any before then. A portal beater is a weapon that does good damage to them. They're constructs, so construct bane is useful. They also take Holy and Anarchic damage, as well as Pure good. So weapons that have those are all useful. Holy of Greater Construct Bane (GCB) is about the best, but are also very expensive. IIRC, Bludgeoning weapons do a better job of bypassing a portal's DR, so those are better than piercing and slashing.

Since you don't miss portals, you're usually best dual wielding.

[zooble]

unless wand of mm/force does 100x damage good luck killing it with less than 20 of those wands



haha try do the weapon shipment portal solo while going afk

4-6 archers shooting you from higher ground and 2 respawning bearded devils

i had better luck swapping out a +4 holy with a +4 bodyfeeder on my cleric that couldn't touch those archers

[sirgog]

Pull a bunch of baddies next to it and mass sugesstion. Bring a hireling and some wands of MM / Force Missile. Done!

This is definitely the way to go - I have soloed it on my sorc before the charms wore off doing this, and that was pre-Dungeon Scaling (and pre-Hirelings)

[Sydril]

Get your caster to level 20 and reincarnate as a melee, or do all that other stuff, whichever is easier for you.