How do you deal with renders and reavers in Demon Assault on a DC caster?

[sephiroth1084]

Just ran this on EE, and nothing was landing. The fire reavers especially are problematic, because they are immune to Web, and I couldn't land a Hold even after hitting them with some debuffs. My Enchant DC is 74, and Necro is 81.


Did a search and found an old Lamannia thread discussing this very topic wherein I saw this post:

You might save time. Getting you the saves for all monsters (on all difficulties) is an insane amount of data to communicate and make sure we're as accurate as possible while knowing the numbers might still change.

Here's two.

Demon Assault - Epic Elite - Shavarath Dretch
Fortitude 89
Reflex 42
Will 27


Demon Assault - Epic Elite - Shavarath Fire Reaver
Fort 80
Reflex 36
Will 74

Those numbers are not necessarily on current Lamannia. And, of course, still subject to change, so communicating this now is probably a terrible idea since it will be quoted for years as "what saves are" when in fact we might never go to live with these numbers. There are so many reasons to not state these things as How Things Are. That it might change and mislead all players forever is not doing the community a service (besides making me a liar, which I dislike immensely but is in fact secondary to misleading players).

/probablyneverdoingthatagainthankyouverymuch

I don't know if things have changed since then, but that seemed about right--so, what is a Wizard supposed to do here? Prepping with Crushing Despair, I'm still not landing Hold, Web doesn't work, insta-kills don't work, running them through a Symbol of Death wasn't really working to help me land anything else. Neither was Cloudkill. Sure, a warlock has Black Tentacles, but what are wizards doing here? I can nuke them, but that drains mana too fast to sustain for the whole quest.

Personally, I think it's pretty ****** to put a super-high Fort and Will save on something that is immune to the Wizard's only real Reflex-based crowd control spell.

[Eth]

Solid Fog + Ice Storm to reduce movement by 50%. Then throw a sunburst to blind them for some more breathing room and nuke them down. You should be able to keep them close together that way, so you can keep it SP efficient.

For actual CC you could try cyclonic blast, but I find the hitbox to annoying to bother and it would blast away the fogs and dancing balls.

[noinfo]

Just ran this on EE, and nothing was landing. The fire reavers especially are problematic, because they are immune to Web, and I couldn't land a Hold even after hitting them with some debuffs. My Enchant DC is 74, and Necro is 81.


Did a search and found an old Lamannia thread discussing this very topic wherein I saw this post:



I don't know if things have changed since then, but that seemed about right--so, what is a Wizard supposed to do here? Prepping with Crushing Despair, I'm still not landing Hold, Web doesn't work, insta-kills don't work, running them through a Symbol of Death wasn't really working to help me land anything else. Neither was Cloudkill. Sure, a warlock has Black Tentacles, but what are wizards doing here? I can nuke them, but that drains mana too fast to sustain for the whole quest.

Personally, I think it's pretty ****** to put a super-high Fort and Will save on something that is immune to the Wizard's only real Reflex-based crowd control spell.

I had to laugh reading this as it was almost my exact same post when it came out. Even fully maxed out now with everything you will struggle. Reavers are very very weak vs reflex. (fire based will mean that web wont work) you can blind them though but even with 20 more dcs you will struggle.

The numbers are not right as I can't reliably hit the reavers with over 100 dc necro, I think the will is a bit higher too. Reflex targeting is best if you can.

[sephiroth1084]

As long as I'm not alone in this... heh heh.

[sephiroth1084]

Solid Fog + Ice Storm to reduce movement by 50%. Then throw a sunburst to blind them for some more breathing room and nuke them down. You should be able to keep them close together that way, so you can keep it SP efficient.

For actual CC you could try cyclonic blast, but I find the hitbox to annoying to bother and it would blast away the fogs and dancing balls.

Ooh! I haven't used Solid Fog in so long, I didn't even think of it. Was using Ice Storm and trying to keep them in it, but Fog would be good. Is there a reason to use Solid Fog over Acid Fog?

I need to remember that Sunburst is there for more than nuking stuff immune to cold...

Thanks.

[slarden]

Bring a friend with earthquake

[Eth]

Ooh! I haven't used Solid Fog in so long, I didn't even think of it. Was using Ice Storm and trying to keep them in it, but Fog would be good. Is there a reason to use Solid Fog over Acid Fog?

I need to remember that Sunburst is there for more than nuking stuff immune to cold...

Thanks.

Yes, acid fog slows significantly less than solid fog (also the reflex save debuff for free is nice).

[blerkington]

This quest can be frustrating on a DC caster and I've had exactly the same problems with it as you. The key saves are very high on LE and higher difficulties.

Despite that, I like the lesson it teaches about using alternative tactics. If you are in any doubt that your group mates don't understand the difficulties this quest presents a DC caster tell them before starting so they don't expect the usual web/hold/dance massacre of monsters that can't fight back.

Instakilling and CC still work well on the softer targets like tieflings, dretches and hezrou so use your usual spells on them. It still helps a lot if you can keep the archers, casters and weaker melee monsters still or kill them outright.

Prismatic spray is useful. If you hit the portal spawns while the monsters are still all bunched up usually a few will disappear and/or turn to stone. It may not be a reliable way to kill a particular target but the results will add up over the length of the quest and it is cheap to cast.

Even though symbol of death may not bring the monsters' saves down to where you can reliably instakill or CC them, the negative levels it gives strip off a fair amount of HP too. If you have aggro and run your pursuers through a symbol a couple of times it will weaken the ones that chase you while the melees can take care of the ones that don't.

Sleet storm might be worth looking at too. It slows movement like ice storm and adds a miss chance due to concealment, all in one spell rather than two. But make sure your party members all have FoM or there will be much cursing and some quick deaths. I've used scrolls of this spell to solo quests with big groups of monsters while on my melee rogue and I was very pleased with how much easier the spell makes it to handle that type of situation.

Power word kill and otto's irresistable dance are handy too. The spell pen requirements for reavers are high but not as high as their saves. These spells can get you out of trouble as well as further breaking up and reducing the spawn groups.

Thanks.