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Hello, all. Scrublord here needs your help once again.

I'm in the Wasteland, what I assume is right near the end. The Blue Dragonriders are insanely frustrating. Freeze apparently has no effect, or otherwise I'd wreck them. I'm a level 43 warrior and I'm just getting destroyed. Even with a Spell shield and vitality around 500, I'm getting mowed down in 2 hits. This is even worse than the Josephina fight. I have what seems to be pretty good resistances right now.

I'd rather not backtrack to my save right before the Council of Seven meeting that was a couple hours or so back, so could anyone give me some pointers here? If you need specific numbers for resistances and other stats, I will go back in the game and check out exactly what they were. I have 3 skill points left to use in case of times like this. Am I not a high enough level and I should just keep grinding levels against Imps, Sand Demons, etc.? Should I have gotten the Dragon Armor (I have the gloves, but that's it.)? I knew I should've expected that as soon as the Council of Seven met I wouldn't be able to do any other quests...

Any help is greatly appreciated.
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Raderofthelostark: Freeze apparently has no effect, or otherwise I'd wreck them.
Try the survivor's Curse skill. It can be cast repeatedly on a target to greatly lower their resistances, then followed up with elemental or poison damage, or skills that can be blocked by spiritual resistance.

The Burning Wall skill can also be very effective, even at level 1, with good timing and coordination (for best effect, you need to cast the spell and run in a tight circle around a target, or group, and it can also be used to slow and damage opponents trying to follow you). In my first game I found a spell book in Mardaneus' house, and it came in handy twice (for the spider at the bottom of the catacombs and the first heavy orc south of Aleroth in a large group), though I never used it after that.

If you've been collecting trap material, or happen to have some in recent loot, the survivor's Deadly Gift skill is good at level 1, with scorpion traps.

Check back with Kroxy periodically for potions (particularly restoration potions), equipment upgrades, spell books, etc; maybe also check the orc at the start of the wastelands (though he is more expensive). I don't recall if there is any hay/straw in the wastelands to make a place to sleep, but there are a few beds you can use (including in Kroxy's house) if you leave a teleporter pyramid beside one.
Do you have gold charms and equipment with open charm slots (to permanently add a bonus to the equipment)? The dragon armour set pieces are potentially some of the best pieces of the respective equipment types you're likely to find, but they are not essential. You may be able to find or buy stuff of comparable quality.

I was level 45 when I did the Blessing Ceremony, so moving to the wastelands brought me up to 50, and I got to 53 by the end of the game (skipped some of the mobs in the Black Ring dungeon); the average end level range is from the mid 40s to the low 50s.
I didn't have a problem with the group of dragon riders, even spending most of the fight frozen.
Clearing more of the wastelands to level should help somewhat.

Josephine is arguably the toughest opponent in the game (though if you attack right away and interrupt her summoning, she keeps trying to summon, and doesn't move on to her Blind + Hell Spikes combo).
The passive Stun skill helps with interrupting her. If you get blinded, you can use a shadow potion to wait out the effect, or switch to area effect skills that do not need a target (like Hell Spikes, which do physical damage, so can not be resisted... though as a warrior you probably don't have them at level 4 or 5, which is required to be really effective).

The techniques that work against Josephine should help with any strong opponent: Chasing Josie...
Post edited April 29, 2017 by Raze_Larian
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Raderofthelostark: Freeze apparently has no effect, or otherwise I'd wreck them.
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Raze_Larian: Try the survivor's Curse skill. It can be cast repeatedly on a target to greatly lower their resistances, then followed up with elemental or poison damage, or skills that can be blocked by spiritual resistance.

The Burning Wall skill can also be very effective, even at level 1, with good timing and coordination (for best effect, you need to cast the spell and run in a tight circle around a target, or group, and it can also be used to slow and damage opponents trying to follow you). In my first game I found a spell book in Mardaneus' house, and it came in handy twice (for the spider at the bottom of the catacombs and the first heavy orc south of Aleroth in a large group), though I never used it after that.

If you've been collecting trap material, or happen to have some in recent loot, the survivor's Deadly Gift skill is good at level 1, with scorpion traps.

Check back with Kroxy periodically for potions (particularly restoration potions), equipment upgrades, spell books, etc; maybe also check the orc at the start of the wastelands (though he is more expensive). I don't recall if there is any hay/straw in the wastelands to make a place to sleep, but there are a few beds you can use (including in Kroxy's house) if you leave a teleporter pyramid beside one.
Do you have gold charms and equipment with open charm slots (to permanently add a bonus to the equipment)? The dragon armour set pieces are potentially some of the best pieces of the respective equipment types you're likely to find, but they are not essential. You may be able to find or buy stuff of comparable quality.

I was level 45 when I did the Blessing Ceremony, so moving to the wastelands brought me up to 50, and I got to 53 by the end of the game (skipped some of the mobs in the Black Ring dungeon); the average end level range is from the mid 40s to the low 50s.
I didn't have a problem with the group of dragon riders, even spending most of the fight frozen.
Clearing more of the wastelands to level should help somewhat.

Josephine is arguably the toughest opponent in the game (though if you attack right away and interrupt her summoning, she keeps trying to summon, and doesn't move on to her Blind + Hell Spikes combo).
The passive Stun skill helps with interrupting her. If you get blinded, you can use a shadow potion to wait out the effect, or switch to area effect skills that do not need a target (like Hell Spikes, which do physical damage, so can not be resisted... though as a warrior you probably don't have them at level 4 or 5, which is required to be really effective).

The techniques that work against Josephine should help with any strong opponent: Chasing Josie...
I tried leveling up Curse twice, but that didn't seem to work. I leveled up and found a nice sword to use that helped me a little bit, but still got killed.

However, I think I found out the problem: my LIGHTNING resistance. I should've figured from the audio cue. I saw my other resistances were pretty good, but just realized that was not the case for lightning. Hopefully Kroxy has something for me. I also have some elixirs and super elixirs.

I had invested a couple skill points into the Charm skill, but so far haven't found stuff with much charm quality (took me a while to figure that out).

At least it doesn't look I will absolutely have to go back to an earlier save, so there's that. I will try out some of your suggestions some more and try to increase my lightning resistance and see if that works. If I absolutely had to, would I be able to skip around the dragonriders? I really don't want to though.
Looks like my lightning resistance was the major issue, at least for the lightning casting dragonriders (ran into a few that used fire, but my fire resistance is pretty high. Just started taking down a bunch of them with super elixirs, restoration, and Hell Spikes combo. I loaded up on restoration potions and found a ring that gives some vitality and lightning resistance. The dragonriders keep freezing me, so Hell Spikes came in incredibly handy. I will at least take a point or two in Curse though to help me out. Just took down five or six of them. I took Burning Wall as well.

I leveled up once and will try to level once or two more. bit it is good to know that I am pretty much in the typical range of end-game levels that people completed the game with. If you don't mind though, I'm going to keep this thread as "unsolved" in case I run into some more issues. Does Josephina basically do that same thing in the second fight as the first? I used Hell Spikes against her the first time too.

Thanks again for your help.
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Raderofthelostark: If you don't mind though, I'm going to keep this thread as "unsolved" in case I run into some more issues.
That's fine; I didn't care about reputation even when it was listed (before GOG implemented 'Developer' accounts). ;)
EDIT: Actually, the topic wasn't posted as a question, so AFAIK can not be marked as solved, anyway.

Yes, Josephine does do the same thing in the second fight (that is what I was referring to). I was actually looking forward to the second fight, with the rest of the wastelands being relatively easy (at level 53 with good equipment), but (with Stun maxed) all I did was run up and hit her until she died, never getting past starting to summon before being interrupted.
Moriendor (who uses a similar tactic) put up more of a fight, blinding my character and doing some damage with Hell Spikes; I used a minor restoration potion and withdrew into the hallway to let the blind effect wear off, and was able to quickly finish him when he came after me.
Post edited April 30, 2017 by Raze_Larian
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Raderofthelostark: If you don't mind though, I'm going to keep this thread as "unsolved" in case I run into some more issues.
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Raze_Larian: That's fine; I didn't care about reputation even when it was listed (before GOG implemented 'Developer' accounts). ;)
EDIT: Actually, the topic wasn't posted as a question, so AFAIK can not be marked as solved, anyway.

Yes, Josephine does do the same thing in the second fight (that is what I was referring to). I was actually looking forward to the second fight, with the rest of the wastelands being relatively easy (at level 53 with good equipment), but (with Stun maxed) all I did was run up and hit her until she died, never getting past starting to summon before being interrupted.
Moriendor (who uses a similar tactic) put up more of a fight, blinding my character and doing some damage with Hell Spikes; I used a minor restoration potion and withdrew into the hallway to let the blind effect wear off, and was able to quickly finish him when he came after me.
Off topic but it follows on something you said: the warrior-ranger skill of lower spiritiality arrows: what do they do, lower mana? Lower spiritual defense? Increased damage vs ghosts?
Post edited April 30, 2017 by lordhoff
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lordhoff: spiritiality arrows: what do they do, lower mana?
Spiritual Arrows reduce hit points, if they hit, but do spiritual based damage rather than physical.
Ghosts and undead tend to have high spiritual resistances (level 21 zombies and steel skeletons in Iona's dungeon about 36, for example, and level 29 and 31 ghosts, liche and mummies in the council hall 100).
Post edited April 30, 2017 by Raze_Larian
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Raderofthelostark: If you don't mind though, I'm going to keep this thread as "unsolved" in case I run into some more issues.
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Raze_Larian: That's fine; I didn't care about reputation even when it was listed (before GOG implemented 'Developer' accounts). ;)
EDIT: Actually, the topic wasn't posted as a question, so AFAIK can not be marked as solved, anyway.

Yes, Josephine does do the same thing in the second fight (that is what I was referring to). I was actually looking forward to the second fight, with the rest of the wastelands being relatively easy (at level 53 with good equipment), but (with Stun maxed) all I did was run up and hit her until she died, never getting past starting to summon before being interrupted.
Moriendor (who uses a similar tactic) put up more of a fight, blinding my character and doing some damage with Hell Spikes; I used a minor restoration potion and withdrew into the hallway to let the blind effect wear off, and was able to quickly finish him when he came after me.
Holy [censored] the Josephina fight is even more infuriating the second time around. The lowest I got her down to was half of her health. So I went to get a bit stronger and take out the other Black Ring members., and they were all laughably easy, especially in comparison. Freeze works against Moriendor and Cornelius, and I only needed a couple restoration potions to down Iona and Demona. Came back, and Josephina is still killing me. I can't run to her in time to whack her with my sword because she casts her protective spells and summons the Dreadknight before she appears on screen. The others just ran to me to make it even easier.

I'm going to go back in and see exactly what my stats and skills are (I wish I hadn't wasted two on Charm since I can't find any equipment with Charm Quality, and that is why I usually wait to make absolutely sure I pick the skills that I need) and post them here. I have some left over skill points and bonus points for my stats before I commit them. In the meantime after that, I will try out different things to see if I can finally end her once and for all.

Thanks for your help and patience. I'm not very well-versed in older RPGs so I am a bit of a scrub, haha.

EDIT: Ok, so here are my stats (some skills and stats bolstered by equipment):

Level 47 Warrior
Vitality 547
Magic 379
Strength 100
Agility 73
Intelligence 58
Constitution 82
Offense 63
Defense 62
Damage 63-96
Armor 283
Lightning Resist. 38
Fire Resist. 82
Poison Resist. 74
Spirit Resist. 95

I have 5 bonus points to use.

Some of my skills:
Freeze level 5
Shield level 4
Magic shield level 4
Bless level 4
Restoration level 3
Survivor's Curse level 2
Summon Dreadknight level 1
Lightning level 4
Meteorstrike level 5
Hell Spikes level 5
Spirit Forum level 1
Burning Wall level 1
Sword Expertise level 5
Axe Expertise level 2 (I do have an axe that has really good magic and vitality bonuses among other things, so I should probably wield that)

I have 4 or 5 skill points to use.

Some of my tactics I have used included taking Stun and leveling up to 4, using super elixirs, casting my shields, and spamming Hell Spikes. The two best fights I have had with her I was able to interrupt her summoning, but whenever I have had to pause to use Restoration potions she almost immediately uses her spells again. This fight is immensely frustrating but I want to win it so badly. What do you suggest?
Post edited April 30, 2017 by Raderofthelostark
HOLY [censored] I JUST DID IT!!!!

I whittled Josephina's health down some and then threw a crap ton of fully leveled Curse spells and then Freeze worked! Thank you so much for that spamming Curse suggestion, because I would have been stuck for quite a while if I did not spend points on it.

Now to finish this whole thing once and for all. Thanks again, Raze.
Congratulations.

Reading the first post I was going to ask if you tried Burning Wall.
Also, it isn't needed now, but iZakaroN's SaveEditor could undo the points you put into Enchant Weapon.
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Raderofthelostark: whenever I have had to pause to use Restoration potions
Using a hotkey to drink potions will not interrupt your standard attacks, or cause a delay when right clicking to use skills or spells. Open the potion menu, hover the mouse cursor over the minor or regular restoration potion stack, and press a function key (F1-F10, F12) to assign a hotkey.
Post edited May 01, 2017 by Raze_Larian
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Raze_Larian: Congratulations.

Reading the first post I was going to ask if you tried Burning Wall.
Also, it isn't needed now, but iZakaroN's SaveEditor could undo the points you put into Enchant Weapon.
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Raderofthelostark: whenever I have had to pause to use Restoration potions
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Raze_Larian: Using a hotkey to drink potions will not interrupt your standard attacks, or cause a delay when right clicking to use skills or spells. Open the potion menu, hover the mouse cursor over the minor or regular restoration potion stack, and press a function key (F1-F10, F12) to assign a hotkey.
Thank you. You have been a tremendous help. I just beat the whole thing. Used your Curse suggestion on the Demon of Lies and froze him for a bit. What handy spells to have! Didn't last the whole time, but held him off enough so that he and his summons weren't wailing on me for too long. Although I had over 60+ restoration potions and some super restoration potions, so I guess I was alright anyways.

I may come back to an earlier save to complete the quests I didn't do, but for now I have to take a break after powering through the game, haha. What a journey, clocking in at over 53 hours. Although frustrating at some parts, this was a fantastic game.

Also, it's really cool that you are so active in the community even as a developer. Thanks again, Raze.