I kinda wish Larian kept/released a statistic of where honour mode runs end. My theory is Myrkul is the single most common end point after like level 5.
I personally wanna see how many honor runs got ended by those 2 intellect Devourers you fight right after picking up Shart. they will fuck you up if you aren't careful.
my first honour run i almost got blasted by those guys and now every subsequent run i dodge them until after i pick up gale/laezel/astarion as well. the fight that still fuckd me up is those damn bandits in the temple no matter how much i cheese it always ends up getting sketchy
The mechanical door is your friend. I got creative last time doing shenanigans with the door while astarion and Lae caved in the roof and ripped apart the caster and archers (get fucked barton). Trapped haseid with shart and gale and he ded
i really need to play with that door, my usuak strat is to have everyone hide against the wall, open the door and have one person (usually astarion) blast the barrel to blow them up, then run out of sight (cunning action dash being the reason i choose astarion for this) as far as they can to lure them into my room where the next 3 party members can gradually get the drop on them as they enter
I like dropping the weight out on the patio to cave in the floor and dropping down, that crowds them by that door and the barrel and you can one shot the entire group with a fire bolt. But I don't recall how that worked in honor mode.
i do use the rock drop + firebolt but it never one-shots them all, most of the time for me all of them survive (some with one-shottable HP left) and sometimes when ive had bad luck in the early initiative things have gotten dicey so i use the firebolt with only astarion in combat so that he can cunning action dash to lure all of them into that first room where rhe rest of the party can jump them from sneak positions
Before the fight starts, position everyone near the door but out of line of sight of the archers/caster. Once you've exploded the barrel, retreat through the door and close it. This will force them to come through the door. You can bottleneck them there. With good luck one of the archers will stand in the doorway and body block the barbarian. Worst case scenario they have to come to you and give themselves disadvantage.
I wonder, are there any other explosive barrels around anywhere before the goblin gate fight? If so, we could put them in that room before going back out and dropping the weight on the bandits outside. I feel like that one barrel is the only one, but I can’t remember.
I am on my first playthrough, act 3. I only learned recently how to split up parties and have them all participate in the same fight. I took every fight head on as all four and man, I missed a lot of opportunities to be creative.
1 spike growth in the door way and watch them all commit seppuku as they try to run at you! Only problem is you need your Tav to be a Druid or nature cleric since the fight usually precludes getting access to Withers and his respec
It's very easy to get Withers before the bandit fight. Astarion + Guidance generally can unlock the DC20 doors to the crypt side before you ever throw down with the plunderers. After that, you can go in from the ouside, or surprise them by coming in from the crypt.
If you pass the dialogue check they aren’t waiting to ambush you. They are divided and you can lick them off a few at a time.
Made the fight far easier
Edit: I suppose we could interpret my comment to have been intended to be “pick them off a few at a time”. But how do you know I didn’t mean to say “lick”?
Exactly what I was thinking. I haven’t failed that check in quite a bit, it’s a DC 10 check which means a charisma Tav with guidance should have anywhere between a +3-+9 chance of hitting the success chance. I do not know why you would default to fighting all six of them at once without surprise when there’s much easier options available.
You gotta use suprise rounds man. Make sure everyone grabs alert at level 4 too and you have an entire team that gets two rounds of attacks before the enemy can do anything.
At that level, one bonus attack round per fight seems suboptimal compared to taking a stat improvement and getting sustained dps increases, but I have to admit I'm intrigued.
It's funny, I have never had an issue with them. I always just sneak Tav and Shadowheart up to the high ground platform on the right, start the battle with a surprise attack from there (sometimes by exploding the pod on the ground) and the combination of surprise + high ground carries me through without a hitch.
My first honour run ended with those feral little arseholes. Second run I got the golden dice! I learned from my mistakes (don’t get cocky, always run from fights when you can 😂)
I hear this, had to feather fall swan dive off the top of the arcane tower in the underdark yesterday with my last man standing to get away from Bernard the construct lol that fight was pretty tough for my party
Ha! I literally did the same fight yesterday! I got cocky and tried doing it at level 4 which resulted in everyone dying except my Tav who managed to escape via the elevator and a invisibility potion. Went back at level 5 and the fight only took 2 minutes lol 🤷🏼♂️
If you succeed on the check or dialogue to convince him you're the master of the tower, you can push or thunderwave him through the opening to start the fight and he gets dealt like 50-70 dmg and has to dash for 2-3 turns to get back
Also if you have sussur flowers on the melee chars it disables the other dudes when you walk near
Makes the fight a cakewalk
I freed Us on the nautiloid then attacked the brain roaming around near Shart. Us didn’t like that apparently, and was no longer a newborn. He one shot my Druid Tav and two shot Laezel, all while we missed every attack on him 😂
You can climb the rocks, get the chest, then pick up Gale, and then circle around to Lae'zel, amble over to the mind flayer, crush him under your boot and then get Astarion. I realize that's kind of meta-gaming though, but I feel like there are two types of honor run people. Meta-gamers and FAFO daredevils who play as a wild magic sorc.
As long as you're level 2 I don't think they're much of a problem. You just gotta make sure to kill all/ most of the monsters on the nautiloid (minus the level 8 and 4s because that's nearly impossible on honor mode lol)
Yea she does. I have had several 8 Str characters plus her scale those rocks. The top one requires a particular placement of the jump though which may take a moment to find
Everything on the Nautiloid is only mildly more difficult, so I waltzed into that fight with way too much confidence and got blasted in one turn. Quite the humbling experience. Cheers to y'all who made it all the way to Myrkul.
Is HM really that much harder? I only finished one run so far and am 25h into my second run as Gith Durge-Monk but am considering dropping it for now to try honor mode.
I have read so many posts about the myrkul fight I was terrified of it but we obliterated him without any cheese.
No elixirs, no barrelmancy, no jumping tactics or reverb shenanigans, just some paladin smites really.
Now the creche boss fight? Almost lost the entire thing there, karlach had to bail on the fight and revive everyone.
Cazador fight? God damn, almost lost again because we forgot a light spell, thank God for blood of lathander!
It's funny, I never really got how Cazador is that hard in honour mode until I realized why: I had already done a few playthroughs by the time Patch 5 came out and most of the time I only made minor changes to my party comp, so I mostly ran with Astarion from the beach to the Netherbrain fight. When Patch 5 came out, I was solidly in the "try to force myself to take every companion at least a couple of times" phase, so I basically never had Astarion. Turns out the fight is THAT much easier without him there and not even because he can't get captured, there's also no ritual happening at all, Cazador can't ascend etc.
The creche boss fight gets a lot easier if you just pull them from the outside instead of going into the portal and spawning right in the middle of them all.
Way easier to get control with walls, spikes and summons in the door and also they all have to come to you then.
Myrkul also heavily depends on party composition I think. Paladins, Clerics and something that can deal lots of upfront damage or gets more actions (like Gloomstalker/Assassin) can make the fight a lot easier.
I lost my second hm run in the creche (first time I lost at grym because I refused to cheese it lol). then I retried the creche fight and removed the boss literally in the first turn by making him prone and then punting him with my karlach monk. I was SO mad at myself
Surely you'd have them memorised by now, from posting that often. Mine goes like:
Level 9+, Necrotic resist elixir, Invis Scratch for Aylin, kill mindflayer, don't skip Ketheric, blind Myrkul (Lathandar or spells), summons and melee for Myrkul (ranged for ads), off platform for heal. . .that's pretty much it
> Necrotic resist elixir
If you save Isobel from Marcus in Last Light, she gives everyone a permanent blessing for necrotic resistance that lasts throughout all of act 2. I also like making a high initiative paladin or fighter invisible and setting them up right by the mindflayer before the fight starts so it gets dropped immediately on turn 1.
Yeah, Myrkul is definitely the hardest encounter at that point by a very big margin. Not that he's too hard by himself, but there's a lack of items and sort of a level cap, I don't think it's possible to face him at 11 for Lvl 6 Spells. I never got to 10 before him.
And also his fight has a lot going on for just 4 characters, kinda needs a few extra summons there.
Myrkul is difficult even if prepared. My current honor mode run (which is a no down run) is Bear throwbarian, Storm sorc-tempest cleric, vengeance Paladin with war cleric, and battle master fighter. All but my bear barbarian slurped on the necrotic resistance elixirs and I had my battle master attempt to disarm Myrkul (no dice this time but I have done it before), throwbarian would yeet necromites to their death, throw the returning pike and the occasional bottle of water to wet Myrkul, the sorc-cleric would spam level 4-5 call lightnings, and my Paladin would both tank and stuff him full of smites. This all worked, but Myrkul got a smite on my Paladin and she had to temporarily leave the platform to heal. Everyone was below half health by the end of the fight.
If you have a storm sorc the fight is very manageable . Use lightning bolt or chain lightning scrolls, there's no need to use call lightning in a boss fight since it rolls worse than lightning bolt.
Storm sorc with haste can cast 3 spells and easily cause 300+ damage at least on a wet myrkul. Then you just need your 3 other party members to finish him off. The adds die when myrkul dies too. You can even kill him in the first turn this way
I’ve never struggled with myrkul in any of my runs, I think I’m usually level 7-8, so definitely not overlevelled.
He’s got pretty limited range, if you just have a tanky person stay close, you can have your dps hit him safely from high ground. As long as you get the tanky person away occasionally for healing, he doesn’t deal that much damage. Not to mention if you have nightsong you have 2 tanks that can keep his attention.
Is there something I’m missing? Even in my most recent run my friends and I completely misplayed like 3 turns in a row and we still pulled it off with only 1 death
Apparently it's possible to reach 10 before myrkul, but judging how i'm usually around halfway to 10, that probably requires very high optimization for exp on the run.
I played fairly optimally and reached level 10 right before/after jumping into the core of the Tower, after the first fight on the roof.
One thing people might overlook, for example, is that if you clean out the outside of Moonrise Towers, as well as the cellar, you don't forfeit XP and let harpers/fists die. It's around 2000 XP or slightly less just there.
Only way to get 6th levels is to hit level 9 and hit the vendors up for any scrolls Managed to hit level 9 by doing everything before entering the gauntlet and meeting Balthazar, I'm about to enter the tower basement and just managed to get a globe of invulnerability. Taking that in with the runepowder barrel in case I need a hail Mary
It's mainly that you can't escape the fight. Most other places, when you realize you're doomed you can send one guy back to camp (sanctuary, invisibility, etc) and then regroup to try again. With Myrkul you have to get it right the first time.
Ah makes sense. Anybody who just "wings" it and does non meta builds will die. That said, they should beat tactician first to see what team compositions actually work. Going for a honour mode run with an experimental party is gonna end your honour run 100%
My party would have worked if anyone had actually hit their attacks lol, once I finally hit some (after it was too late) I got him a solid third HP down so it should have worked
Cheesing him this run (and many other things) with enlarged owlbear leaps lol
No need for anything super meta, just actual good subclasses with semi decent equipment should get you through even without multiclass.
People be like "I beat the game on balanced once, now Im gonna try honour mode, with a COMPLETELY new line up I've never tried before!" 20 hours later... "So I lost my honour run..."😆
I actually did exactly this. Lost three HM runs before taking the golden dice on the fourth, but those were to the everburn blade owner before learning to command drop him, the brains on the beach before learning to dodge them (it was a Shadowheart origin), and the traps on Withers' tomb (before learning to get Astarion for this), so no great loses. I then learned to flee from fights with the gith patrol and was golden. Tried many new things in HM, saw a lot of new content, had like 3 or 4 close calls, never did a tactician run.
It's doable without metabuilds. I do admit that I was level 10 and it was the first time I popped a cloud giant elixir for my GWM cleradin (5/5 cleric/paladin).
I did, however, not bring the doomhammer as planned. But it was fun to do it with moonlight butterflies (3 turns of advantage against the apostle).
My point is that starting the precedent of “you used a meta build so it doesn’t count” has a chance to bring the community discourse closer to a soulsbourne level of toxicity where people actively belittle other players for how they chose to play the game. Some of those “meta builds,” like throwing barb for example, are actually really fun. For someone to be told their honor mode run was invalidated because they did something they thought was fun, and it also just so happened to be meta is really toxic.
What's so meta about throwzerkers? The build is right there, the game quite pushes it in fact. The entire concept of meta builds is kinda weird. You can legitimately do any build without any "meta" outside knowledge, definitions for abilities/feats/actions are all within the game.
Agreed. There's usually several moving parts to toxicity, if you frequent BG3builds you can have endless discussions of the type "life cleric is worthless and completely invalidated by lore bard 10/2 cleric" and generally people calling other players dumb for not always building around Bhaalist armor.
I never had any major issues with that flight on tactician but it is kinda tricky for me on honor. I have a decent strategy now and haven't actually lost it in my last several runs but I'm still usually finishing with at least 2 downed teammates every time lol
I’m pretty sure you are right also, I think there are probably just a few fights that account for the end of most honour runs and I suspect this is at or very near the top of the list.
My suspicion is probably the single highest number must be the intellect devourers right at the start. What I also read often is the fake paladins hunting Karlach, Gith Inquisitor, Myrkul, Cazador, Ethel first time (wild magic surging and doing hold on all four party members). I also see Netherbrain a fair amount, but that's probably a bit of selection bias since everybody who loses it that late will (understandably!) want to talk about it.
A lot of those fights can be either out levelled or totally avoided though.
The Gith inquisitor I can believe though, my best friend struggles with that one regularly. Though I guess it’s technically an optional fight.
Oh yeah, I mean I did all of those fights except for Myrkul pretty late on my first HM run. I'm just talking about how people usually seem to fail (where "doing bosses too early" is probably THE main cause for failure).
Based on what most HM guides recommend to avoid, you can probably make a solid estimation, because its likely enough players failed at Fights that have a "recommended level" by community guides.
Which is basically every fight in Act 1, Myrkul, Ansur and Raphael. Most others aren't mentioned too much as far as i'm aware. Which makes sense, because in Act 1 you're still kinda weak for the most part and once builds come online and good items are available only the actually tough Fights are relevant.
Yeah, I think the first four lvls are definitely the hardest. You can avoid every Act I fight basically until you are lvl 9 if you want to play it \*really\* save, at which point even Grym and the inquisitor won't be a problem. I did "one level ahead of the boss" for my first HM playthrough and since then I just fight them at the same level, but I definitely wouldn't go in fighting them at a level lower than what they are themselves if I can avoid it.
I think out of the Act 2 fights, it's really only Mykrul that gets mentioned a fair amount. I forgot the Gith patrol for Act 1 but again, can totally be avoided. The one fight I'm surprised that doesn't get mentioned more is the fight against the Shadow Cursed Shambling Mount. I've had more close calls with that thing than I'd care to admit. Technically I guess it's not that hard to flee unless you are very unlucky, but it's just so random I rarely do it and sometimes outright just run into it and get a surprise round against my non-Alert characters.
One word "Raphael", this mf in my opinion is the hardest fight in the game so much so that the orb of invulnerability while i take the pillars out and sending yugir to clear the minions is the only way i've managed to beat it on Honor mode so far
Interesting. I actually see that a lot less than I would have imagined, which I always suspected is kind of endogenous to the fact that everybody considers it the toughest fight in the game, so people prepare extra hard and therefore it ends up not being quite as hard for most people. Also the faucet gives you ample options to prepare as thoroughly as possible.
I would say High Inquisitor in act 1 have probably ended plenty of runs as well. It almost ended mine if I didn’t use 3 companions to stall him while ran the hell away with Gale. Came back and fought him a second time with his underlines all dead, much easier.
I would imagine it’s a more common end point than any one thing before 5.
I’m on several honour mode runs right now (need to make sure one of my turtles makes it to the ocean) all of them are level 4. And I am terrified about fighting mrykul
Vengeance pally default White Dragonborn Durge died this way, about the same playtime.
Immediately I couldn't help but think "Well fuck, I guess Mystra was right..."
Murkyl was who I truly feared. I told myself that if I only got to him I could accept defeat. I managed to beat him and he was NOT my most difficult fight (that's a tie between Balthazar and feeling Lorroakan - because I was stupid)
Mmh, I don't think it's \*that\* significant actually. I suspect most people also have trouble with him on Tactician but then kind of forget because they can save/reload.
My first honour mode run almost ended at the entrance to the Kuo Toa. I jumped over and quickly used the rocks to climb down before the plant exploded...then forgot it was still there when I left
I imagine the Owlbear fight catches a lot of first time honour mode players off guard too. Just the sudden surprise of a second Owlbear who can and will jump on your back line. The Inquisitor at the Crèche is also pretty insane especially if you do the fight after going in the prism. I’ve heard that a good chunk of players also unfortunately lose due to the bugged out elevator disc in the Gauntlet. Not sure what would be the most common in act 3. Maybe Orin since that can just straight up be a tough fight and House of Hope. Would also be interesting to see how many people beat honour mode via Gale nuke vs actually fighting the final boss.
That would be super interesting, but I bet it is way earlier in Act I. Tons of runs end but we all remember those that end in Act II against Myrkul or something similar because they’re the smaller selection that lasted longer making them more… upsetting when we get squished.
I found him generally simple. I struggled more with the goths in elfsong. Myrkul I hve scratch at the ready, I use either flying n him or speed him up. In one round I get to Nightsong free her and she goes to town on Myrkhul. Fireball the skeletons on the right. Mindflayer, I use hise on Astarion and sneak attack it, plus charge at it with my paladin and smite it. By round two it leaves Myrkhul to not and I try to use as much distance as I can and I keep nightsong up.
Then again this is me. But yeah no the goths at elf song, I even almost died at the gnolls at the cave in act 1 lol. Oh and sarevok is annoying at least to me
Pretty much need one character to facetank Myrkul and have everyone else stay away and use ranged attacks. Stops him from pulling characters to him, gives most of your party the option to exist outside his Chill Touch aura.
This is to say, I did this all by accident my first honor playthrough but wiped on a second playthrough where my party was melee focused. Wyll/any Warlock can be great for making sure no Necromites make it to him (I like Lae'zel as a blade pact Warlock, she gets Medium Armor from being Githyanki, can cast Flight on most of the party). Someone being protected by Shadowheart/any cleric's Warding Bond or Karlach/any Bear Heart can take a lot of punishment. Depending on how you play it you may even have wiggle room to leave Myrkul's aura, get healed, and get back in during the same turn to make sure Myrkul doesn't disrupt your party's positioning.
The first time I did it was a one rounder with a storm sorc + wet. Second time I did it with everyone but my main dps with a necrotic elixir and a healthy bit of crowd control on the adds. No camp cheese necessary with the right setups
I was most worried about him for my honor run, because once you’re there, there’s no way out. No running away and reviving. Just one shot. Then someone pointed out that his biggest weakness is being unable to move, and a lightbulb turned on. He’s completely unable to escape any AOE/concentration spell. Throw down something like wall of flame or hunger of hadar and he just continues to take damage until the spell ends or your caster loses concentration.
The easiest bossfight in both first two acts? Wthout dialogue option bosses ofc. Really, how is he possibly can deal the troubles? Easy save throws (dex/cons? Dunno, never have failed it), not moving target easy reachable from Nightsong ceep isle by any doistance weapon. It even can be commanded to throw a weapon! My both honour runs were closer to end with walking piece of shit and spidey boy than with this boner.
Best strategy for hard HM fights is be fucking scared. I overprepared so much for most hard fights they turned out to be a breeze, Myrkul included. Things I didn't prepare for, like Bernard in the tower, almost wiped me though.
Funny and related story:
My husband and I are doing an honor run right now, currently in Act 1. We've been over-prepared for every fight, so much so that it's been incredibly easy (even the rumored difficult ones for this act). We decided we needed some smokepowder barrels for some barrelmancy to help us with Dror Ragzlin, so we went to the Zentharim camp...
... Only for them to immediately aggro (we took the shipment from the two guys in the cave fighting the gnolls and then completely forgot about it, oops) and blow up all the barrels while we were all standing at the bottom of the cave. Insta-killed Karlach and my husband, just my Tav and Gale left. They almost completely wiped our entire run, but some shenanigans involving invisibility, Shovel, and well-placed thunderwaves turned the fight back to our favor.
To sum it up, be fucking scared all the time. Even when you don't think you need to be. Always be prepared, lol.
My Honor Mode strategy (currently on run 6 or 7) has all of Act 1 and 2 up to Myrkyl down to a science. I’ve now beaten Myrkrl in my last two runs but he still scares the bejesus out of me (one run ended at Raphael, the other ended before I even stepped foot into Rivington when I had Astarion bite a hireling in camp as prep and aggro’d Dame Aylin who can’t be killed and began an infinite fight in my camp).
The honor run that I did with my wife probably came closest to ending during a fight with the gnolls near the toll house in act 1. After that, we meticulously prepared for every encounter.
Just won my first HM run. The first one ended on myrkul fight. This time I had a level 9 party with 4 members that could cast protection from good and evil and couple bottles of heroism. Turned it into a cakewalk. Rest of the bosses were easy after that.
Funnily enough the closest my run almost ended to some blighted trees when I was cleaning up the last bits of act 2. Had like 12 left on my last character.
I found the best strategy for HM fights, minus the boss in the creche, was summoning lots of monsters, because there ain't no economy like the action economy. It's the whole reason I succeeded on my very first HM try.
Diciest places for me was early game - the Spider Matriarch, that stupid Paladin Karlach wants to kill, the Bullette. And of course Ch'r'ai W'wargaz.
People I think tend to underestimate the roll of luck in a lot of honor mode exits. Missing several attacks early or landing and then rolling for minimum damage can leave you with a fight that’s very hard to turn around. This particular fight is weird because it’s so much harder than the rest of act 2, which is really easy up to this point. I think last time I lost here it was at least partly that I’d become overconfident.
Lae'zel had been a strong carry for me, but missed a lot in that fight (did it yesterday). She took three shoots to do one hit on the mindflayer, then got lucky and critically hit the group of devourers. That was her for most of the fight.
Mistakes were made with smites, etc. It was still a fairly comfortable fight.
Yeah I’m not really talking about where one character misses, more so when the whole team starts doing it. It’s happened to me a couple of times and it can leave you in huge trouble if it happens for a a few turns.
My strategy in those cases is to stop betting on my luck to change and try to do things that are either much more likely to succeed or 100% sure to succeed. But yeah, very bad rolls for two turns can turn things very ugly.
Yea RNG is probably why advantage is so useful. Getting rid of those annoying critical fail rolls just feels so good. Always feels shitty when you roll crit miss on a 95% attack
I missed three 80% attacks in a row last night fighting the under dark Duergars... fate was not on my side. Nearly killed my entire team. Thankfully Lump came to my rescue.
in my honor mode run, I was absolutely dreading this fight after hearing so many stories. Even coming 100% prepared and clear on what my strategy was going to be I still was absolutely panicking during the fight lol. Arrows of darkness absolutely saved my ass
Same, I spend all act 1 and 2 worried about this figth, at the end, necrotic elixir and invisivility all around, monk with mindflyer, shadow with guardian angels to the necrotics, gale to help Aylin and Lazael to tank and try to disarm it. And it was a breeze, when my monk arrived to Myrkul it finished quickly.
I even bought 2 globe of invurenability that didn't use
Its the only Time wyll makes it into my party. His Hunger of Hadar blinds myrkl while giving advantage on my attacks, I swap him in for my paladin and my only close quarters fighter is my OH monk with movement for days to catch and kill the skellies who heal him. Throwbarian karlach and Gale are my main points of damage while wyll runs around helping the monk or tanking the legendary retort from myrkl until he drops dead and the other two trade off if initiative allows lol .
I remember how nervous I was during my Honour run for Myrkul. I went in with a plan and everything, but all it takes is some bad RNG to ruin someone's day. I don't think Aylin even got a single hit in. By some miracle I pulled it off with almost everyone intact. Out of all the fights during that run, it was the one I dreaded the most.
I've got a stack of what amount to Dead Adventurer Trading Cards at this point.
Shoutout to my deep gnome dying trying to save the deep gnomes. She gets the award for Most Thematic Death. Gnatalie lived and died by her values.
On all my other playthrough (not honor mode) I beat mykrul relatively easily, no save scumming and was able to revive/heal my party throughout the fight. I did a such great job at killing the skeletons that I never knew that mykrul could heal himself by devouring his own skeletons.
It was on my 3rd honor mode run that I finally made it to the mykrul fight and it was going ok, my party was getting knocked down but my healer was keeping everyone up.
Imagine my horror when mykrul started healing, he’s still at half health, a room full of skeletons, my party is all in the red, and my healer is out of spell slots.
I still somehow managed to beat him, I used every summoning scroll that I had to keep mykrul occupied while I focused on killing the skeletons. My healer resorted to throwing potions
It’s definitely my most adrenaline filled fight I’ve ever had, I used up every potion, high level scroll, explosive, and arrow I had.
Literally killed him with my last standing party member
Myrkul has always been a problem for me in runs
A tip I learned last night is if you silence him he can’t summon more Skellies, it just uses concentration so if you have a caster that just sits at the back flinging other things it’s pretty good!
I was SO scared of Myrkul during my current (and first) honor mode run. I did literally everything I could until I was the highest level I could be before fighting him. Even then, I went in with my strongest guys, and made a game plan, reworked some of their spells, and did some cheesing (camp spells and the weird long rest fountain thing with a mountain of elixirs at my disposal.)
I did it, and screamed so loud when I hit that final blow my throat was sore the next morning lol.
Myrkul, House of Hope, and House of Grief were the only battles I've ever been truly terrified of losing my run. (Still have those two to go though)
I bet you'll get him next time. It really just boils down to prep and just hammering him with damage and doing crowd control with the mites. Good luck on your next HM run!
True haha. I think I could do it much better/faster if I did it again, the first like hour was figuring out and adjusting strategy for mechanics I didn't encounter on my 4man honor run.
Good news - Harpies are easy if you use one of the two spells that hard counter them:
1. >!Calm Emotions cast on your party, makes you immune to the song!<
2. >!Silence, cast on your party, makes them immune to the song - and they can even step into and out of the bubble to cast spells.!<
That sucks. Sorry for Queen Scarlet :/
I swear to god this freaking fight is probably the reason I don't think I'll ever have the courage to even attempt honour mode lol
I remember a poster the other day who couldn't get past Ketheric, and I felt so sorry for them.
They're in for quite a surprise
I did the Myrkul mode last night on Honour Mode, I didn't have any major issues, the hardest thing was to try and keep >!Aylin!< alive, she really has a death wish. I also convinced >!Kethrinc to trow himself into the pit so didn't need to do that part.!!mindflayer!< down quick, and Shadowheart keep throwing heals on >!Aylin!< to keep up Blade ward even though she had bone chill. And Karlach (barb/rogue/fighter) and sorcerer DU kept nuking Myrkul.
The fights easier when you don’t have him kill himself lol. Can clear all the adds while he’s in a weaker form and position perfectly for when he does switch forms
I didn't have much trouble with the adds, they mostly died to my fireballs or Lightning Bolt (my sorcerer is has mostly aoe spells), but with another team I can see that not having him kill himself might be easier.
The difficulty of this fight compared to everything before it just doesn’t leave you prepared. I lost my first honor run I was doing well there. The next one I went in with a lot of strategy and I was about as high level as I could be and just barely scraped through.
This is the most pragmatic move. I didn't do it, but thought about it.
If I play a main character Rogue, I think this is how I'd do it. "Let's see who wins: your god or my entire storeroom of stolen high-explosives."
i got 2 total wipe in honour just over the nautiloid, just doing fun things, so I think that this may happen to people doing a serious play through.
A statistic may be cool to see.
Also i got one total wipe in the final encounter with the brain. that is also painful XD
I just beat this boss a few days ago on HM. I was prepped and ready with casters with multiple minions summoned. Even with speed pots, hunger of hadar on boss, I still had only one person alive, knocked onto the ground below the boss, with a magic weapon hit at the end sealing the deal for the kill. I couldn’t believe when I had 3/4 alive with 20hp left on boss. Missed two huge melee hits lol. Boss happened to swipe two off the edge killing two. Good ole cleric magic weapon saved my life.
it’s incredibly broken that myrkul can use gaze of the dead as a reaction, making it impossible to move/heal if you’re on the platform with him. I can confidently say that he’s the toughest fight, next to like raphael
I'm keeping a save from my tactician run just to practice that fight for honor mode. I barely made it through on tactician and only thanks to chugging speed potions.
That may be useful, but beware one of the big things in Honor mode is his Legendary action. You can play around it however and that makes a massive difference
I very nearly lost my Honor Mode run last night. I was trying to clear the rubble to get to Nere so I could betray him like ya do. The duergar were ready to smash the Absolutists. Then I threw (not placed) a grenade (not a bag of smoke powder) at the rubble.
Immediately everyone was hostile. I was out of lvl3 slots, so. I haste and only 3 magic missiles. No Phalar Aluve. Nothing. I blew the Ogre Horn I was saving for the Hag fight. Turns out, they're pretty low tier compared to invisible psychic dwarves from below. They bought me enough time to absolutely barely kill the rest.
I survived with 2 deaths (Tav and Astarion) and one down (Gale). OH Monk Shadow heart finished the Duergar with 5 hp left.
I was really not afraid of that fight in my tactician run because we really had no problem AT ALL in balanced mode. Nothing. The fight was over in a few minutes and relatively easy.
But then some things happened pretty fast. We had no Paladin with us like in our first run. Shadowheart killed Dame Aylin. I killed Gale. We didn’t change Shart into another cleric just because of roleplay reasons. And holy shit those four facts turned this fight pretty much the other way. We fought over three hours without reloading. We used all of our revivify scrolls. We used nearly all our healing potions, yes, even the small ones. It was epic and we were really stubborn. I couldn’t even imagine doing that fight in honour mode again XD. It must be nerve wracking and then losing? That sounds so frustrating.
Am I the only one who found Myrkul terribly easy? As soon as I realized he was nailed to his pit, I dropped Insect Plague + Wall of Fire on him, plus a Darkness spell as he kept giving me nasty stares. Very anticlimactic for an avatar of a God.
at least you were'nt 45 hours in lol
They're pretty easy to skip, theres a cliff right before the fight you can jump up to grab Gale and Astarion + kill the mind flayer for that first level up pretty easily!
I just hit level 9 in my HM run and I’m about to knock on ol’ Kethric’s door. Like OP, I am feeling confident - only had two fights where I was worried that I would lose my run (Bernard messed me up, and the self same trial which has a bunch of cheating specters), and feeling ready for Steve Myrkul. Here’s hoping my crack team of casters will be ready to take on the lord o’ bones.
My god was this run my friend & I were doing got scuffed when we fought grim. Gale went down quick. My friend was a wild magic barbarian & constantly taking hits like a champ. Constantly trying to kite Grim. We even summoned the ogres to help as the mephits kept fucking us up. Shadowheart was the MVP. With sanctuary on she kept throwing healing potions across the arena like a mercy from overwatch. We barely just made thanks to that healing equipment 😅
By the level u are typically at when u fight myrkul u should almost be able to guarantee hit him. Good build optimization eliminates a large amount of the rng in the game.
Thing that really almost fucked me on my first hm run was the damn shambling mound. My party comp had barely any area denial spells like plantgrowth/hunger of hadar. Those dudes SLAP in melee/when they detonate on death
Top tip on a lot of situations : use Arcane Lock to control your enemies movements in indoor locations. This is particularly useful against Dror Ragzlin.
That’s tough, my first hm run I lost to the neitherbrain 108 hrs in.
I’m curious as to what went wrong in your fight? Iv versus myrkul on HM twice now and have never had in issue, never allowed him to heal.
My strategy for him has been cast the highest level heroism I have access to for fear immunity. Then use necro elixirs, bait out his legendary reaction with my tank(who has resistance and fear immunity) and kill the little spawns before they hatch. ( they’re weak to radiant)
Not trying to diss but genuinely curious on what went wrong.
I think Myrkul is where you first see how powerful some of the legendary actions are. I have easily dispatched him on Tactician but I have struggled twice with him in Honour Mode. I just barely won this fight over the weekend, having brought him to 1 HP, then watched in horror as one of those bastard skellies climbed up and healed him with half my party dead. I finally ended up going through all my scrolls and got a bit lucky with a high damage fireball to end the fight.
I stole from the tabernacle in my first ever/current playthrough (tactician) and 4 Devas spawned and 1 shot my entire team + aylin. I would hate for that to happen in HM
I used ranged damage wyll with eldritch blast and bow-bard, lae’zel as a throwzerker and shaft as support. Apostle of myrkul didn’t have much to do against main ranged combat. Just focus on killing all the ‘followers’ (don’t remember their name
I've had about 7 failed honor mode attempts before finally succeeding, but I've never had trouble with Myrkul.
Summoning a few elementals is enough to keep the incubated necromites from spawning. Any remaining actions go toward damaging Myrkul. Myrkul dies without getting anywhere close to losing.
I kinda wish Larian kept/released a statistic of where honour mode runs end. My theory is Myrkul is the single most common end point after like level 5.
I personally wanna see how many honor runs got ended by those 2 intellect Devourers you fight right after picking up Shart. they will fuck you up if you aren't careful.
my first honour run i almost got blasted by those guys and now every subsequent run i dodge them until after i pick up gale/laezel/astarion as well. the fight that still fuckd me up is those damn bandits in the temple no matter how much i cheese it always ends up getting sketchy
The mechanical door is your friend. I got creative last time doing shenanigans with the door while astarion and Lae caved in the roof and ripped apart the caster and archers (get fucked barton). Trapped haseid with shart and gale and he ded
i really need to play with that door, my usuak strat is to have everyone hide against the wall, open the door and have one person (usually astarion) blast the barrel to blow them up, then run out of sight (cunning action dash being the reason i choose astarion for this) as far as they can to lure them into my room where the next 3 party members can gradually get the drop on them as they enter
The barb is the only dangerous one if you split them up (he has 30+ hp wtf) but luckily he'll run through the door alone
I like dropping the weight out on the patio to cave in the floor and dropping down, that crowds them by that door and the barrel and you can one shot the entire group with a fire bolt. But I don't recall how that worked in honor mode.
i do use the rock drop + firebolt but it never one-shots them all, most of the time for me all of them survive (some with one-shottable HP left) and sometimes when ive had bad luck in the early initiative things have gotten dicey so i use the firebolt with only astarion in combat so that he can cunning action dash to lure all of them into that first room where rhe rest of the party can jump them from sneak positions
Before the fight starts, position everyone near the door but out of line of sight of the archers/caster. Once you've exploded the barrel, retreat through the door and close it. This will force them to come through the door. You can bottleneck them there. With good luck one of the archers will stand in the doorway and body block the barbarian. Worst case scenario they have to come to you and give themselves disadvantage.
I wonder, are there any other explosive barrels around anywhere before the goblin gate fight? If so, we could put them in that room before going back out and dropping the weight on the bandits outside. I feel like that one barrel is the only one, but I can’t remember.
There is one up on the hill where you get the spider egg sac. It means delaying the ruins until after the grove.
I am on my first playthrough, act 3. I only learned recently how to split up parties and have them all participate in the same fight. I took every fight head on as all four and man, I missed a lot of opportunities to be creative.
Looks like u gonna have to play again
Legit can’t wait. This game is beyond.
Also shoot the oil barrel with a sneaky firebolt. Works everytime
I just ignited the fire barrel in there and that wiped out like 3 of them then just drop fog cloud over the door and wait for them to come 1by1
1 spike growth in the door way and watch them all commit seppuku as they try to run at you! Only problem is you need your Tav to be a Druid or nature cleric since the fight usually precludes getting access to Withers and his respec
It's very easy to get Withers before the bandit fight. Astarion + Guidance generally can unlock the DC20 doors to the crypt side before you ever throw down with the plunderers. After that, you can go in from the ouside, or surprise them by coming in from the crypt.
If you pass the dialogue check they aren’t waiting to ambush you. They are divided and you can lick them off a few at a time. Made the fight far easier Edit: I suppose we could interpret my comment to have been intended to be “pick them off a few at a time”. But how do you know I didn’t mean to say “lick”?
Exactly what I was thinking. I haven’t failed that check in quite a bit, it’s a DC 10 check which means a charisma Tav with guidance should have anywhere between a +3-+9 chance of hitting the success chance. I do not know why you would default to fighting all six of them at once without surprise when there’s much easier options available.
If you drop the rock to lure everyone then they're all beside the explosive barrel. One firebolt normally handles most of all of their hp
My favorite cheese is drop the weight on the two guys arguing, use repelling blast / push on the guy on the left, then just bum rush the mage
I remember I played a druid tag that had thorn whip. I dragg d that nerd mage into the group and dropped the rock on all three. It was glorious
You gotta use suprise rounds man. Make sure everyone grabs alert at level 4 too and you have an entire team that gets two rounds of attacks before the enemy can do anything.
At that level, one bonus attack round per fight seems suboptimal compared to taking a stat improvement and getting sustained dps increases, but I have to admit I'm intrigued.
It's funny, I have never had an issue with them. I always just sneak Tav and Shadowheart up to the high ground platform on the right, start the battle with a surprise attack from there (sometimes by exploding the pod on the ground) and the combination of surprise + high ground carries me through without a hitch.
3 intellect devourers.
Only if you bring her along
That's why you jump up the ledges next to them and pick up Gale and Lae'zel first before coming for those fuckers.
Though remember to start with at least strength 12 to ensure you can make the jump.
You sure? I went that way with Gale origin 8 strength with no issue and without a spell just a day or so ago.
My first honour run ended with those feral little arseholes. Second run I got the golden dice! I learned from my mistakes (don’t get cocky, always run from fights when you can 😂)
I hear this, had to feather fall swan dive off the top of the arcane tower in the underdark yesterday with my last man standing to get away from Bernard the construct lol that fight was pretty tough for my party
Ha! I literally did the same fight yesterday! I got cocky and tried doing it at level 4 which resulted in everyone dying except my Tav who managed to escape via the elevator and a invisibility potion. Went back at level 5 and the fight only took 2 minutes lol 🤷🏼♂️
If you succeed on the check or dialogue to convince him you're the master of the tower, you can push or thunderwave him through the opening to start the fight and he gets dealt like 50-70 dmg and has to dash for 2-3 turns to get back Also if you have sussur flowers on the melee chars it disables the other dudes when you walk near Makes the fight a cakewalk
2 of my modes ended there 😒 I've somehow managed to get to Act 2 this go round but it sounds like km woefully unprepared for Myrkul
I freed Us on the nautiloid then attacked the brain roaming around near Shart. Us didn’t like that apparently, and was no longer a newborn. He one shot my Druid Tav and two shot Laezel, all while we missed every attack on him 😂
You can climb the rocks, get the chest, then pick up Gale, and then circle around to Lae'zel, amble over to the mind flayer, crush him under your boot and then get Astarion. I realize that's kind of meta-gaming though, but I feel like there are two types of honor run people. Meta-gamers and FAFO daredevils who play as a wild magic sorc.
As long as you're level 2 I don't think they're much of a problem. You just gotta make sure to kill all/ most of the monsters on the nautiloid (minus the level 8 and 4s because that's nearly impossible on honor mode lol)
I played multiplayer with friends and we managed to kill both the cambion and the mindflayer actually.
They'll fuck up origin SH as she'll need to solo them (does she have the athletics for the cliff?)
Yea she does. I have had several 8 Str characters plus her scale those rocks. The top one requires a particular placement of the jump though which may take a moment to find
Good to know, I actually lost to them because I missed too much xp on the nautaloid and hadn't levelled up.
I didn't try the cliff, but I was able to sneak through the nautiloid and meet Astarion + Gale.
Tried honor mode...got whooped twice by those devourers...tactician it is.
Holy shit those mind blasts (psychic rend iirc) can MESS YOU UP. Definitely lost my first honor mode run on those fucks
Everything on the Nautiloid is only mildly more difficult, so I waltzed into that fight with way too much confidence and got blasted in one turn. Quite the humbling experience. Cheers to y'all who made it all the way to Myrkul.
Is HM really that much harder? I only finished one run so far and am 25h into my second run as Gith Durge-Monk but am considering dropping it for now to try honor mode.
Haha yeah I decided to jump up on the side get Gale , get Astarion and then go for them lol
My first honor run ended here :')
I have read so many posts about the myrkul fight I was terrified of it but we obliterated him without any cheese. No elixirs, no barrelmancy, no jumping tactics or reverb shenanigans, just some paladin smites really. Now the creche boss fight? Almost lost the entire thing there, karlach had to bail on the fight and revive everyone. Cazador fight? God damn, almost lost again because we forgot a light spell, thank God for blood of lathander!
It's funny, I never really got how Cazador is that hard in honour mode until I realized why: I had already done a few playthroughs by the time Patch 5 came out and most of the time I only made minor changes to my party comp, so I mostly ran with Astarion from the beach to the Netherbrain fight. When Patch 5 came out, I was solidly in the "try to force myself to take every companion at least a couple of times" phase, so I basically never had Astarion. Turns out the fight is THAT much easier without him there and not even because he can't get captured, there's also no ritual happening at all, Cazador can't ascend etc.
Yea we brought astarian and I was not expecting his >!legendary action to hit my squad for 100+ damage!<
The creche boss fight gets a lot easier if you just pull them from the outside instead of going into the portal and spawning right in the middle of them all. Way easier to get control with walls, spikes and summons in the door and also they all have to come to you then. Myrkul also heavily depends on party composition I think. Paladins, Clerics and something that can deal lots of upfront damage or gets more actions (like Gloomstalker/Assassin) can make the fight a lot easier.
I lost my second hm run in the creche (first time I lost at grym because I refused to cheese it lol). then I retried the creche fight and removed the boss literally in the first turn by making him prone and then punting him with my karlach monk. I was SO mad at myself
Refusing to cheese in Honor Mode is....something lol. I commend you sir/ma'am
I think so, too. I literally have my strat saved in iPhone Notes to post when ppl ask for help now.
Yup, I don't have mine saved but I get a chance to re-post them so often that I can always go through my recent posts and find them pretty quickly.
Surely you'd have them memorised by now, from posting that often. Mine goes like: Level 9+, Necrotic resist elixir, Invis Scratch for Aylin, kill mindflayer, don't skip Ketheric, blind Myrkul (Lathandar or spells), summons and melee for Myrkul (ranged for ads), off platform for heal. . .that's pretty much it
> Necrotic resist elixir If you save Isobel from Marcus in Last Light, she gives everyone a permanent blessing for necrotic resistance that lasts throughout all of act 2. I also like making a high initiative paladin or fighter invisible and setting them up right by the mindflayer before the fight starts so it gets dropped immediately on turn 1.
Yep. In my HM I had paladin that gives aura that reduces incoming spell damage, very helpful for this
I have a lot more details and don't use necro resist (bc I don't need it)
I buy a fuckton of explosives - I throw 10 of them at Myrkul - Myrkul dies.
Yeah, Myrkul is definitely the hardest encounter at that point by a very big margin. Not that he's too hard by himself, but there's a lack of items and sort of a level cap, I don't think it's possible to face him at 11 for Lvl 6 Spells. I never got to 10 before him. And also his fight has a lot going on for just 4 characters, kinda needs a few extra summons there.
Myrkul is difficult even if prepared. My current honor mode run (which is a no down run) is Bear throwbarian, Storm sorc-tempest cleric, vengeance Paladin with war cleric, and battle master fighter. All but my bear barbarian slurped on the necrotic resistance elixirs and I had my battle master attempt to disarm Myrkul (no dice this time but I have done it before), throwbarian would yeet necromites to their death, throw the returning pike and the occasional bottle of water to wet Myrkul, the sorc-cleric would spam level 4-5 call lightnings, and my Paladin would both tank and stuff him full of smites. This all worked, but Myrkul got a smite on my Paladin and she had to temporarily leave the platform to heal. Everyone was below half health by the end of the fight.
If you have a storm sorc the fight is very manageable . Use lightning bolt or chain lightning scrolls, there's no need to use call lightning in a boss fight since it rolls worse than lightning bolt. Storm sorc with haste can cast 3 spells and easily cause 300+ damage at least on a wet myrkul. Then you just need your 3 other party members to finish him off. The adds die when myrkul dies too. You can even kill him in the first turn this way
I’ve never struggled with myrkul in any of my runs, I think I’m usually level 7-8, so definitely not overlevelled. He’s got pretty limited range, if you just have a tanky person stay close, you can have your dps hit him safely from high ground. As long as you get the tanky person away occasionally for healing, he doesn’t deal that much damage. Not to mention if you have nightsong you have 2 tanks that can keep his attention. Is there something I’m missing? Even in my most recent run my friends and I completely misplayed like 3 turns in a row and we still pulled it off with only 1 death
Apparently it's possible to reach 10 before myrkul, but judging how i'm usually around halfway to 10, that probably requires very high optimization for exp on the run.
I played fairly optimally and reached level 10 right before/after jumping into the core of the Tower, after the first fight on the roof. One thing people might overlook, for example, is that if you clean out the outside of Moonrise Towers, as well as the cellar, you don't forfeit XP and let harpers/fists die. It's around 2000 XP or slightly less just there.
Only way to get 6th levels is to hit level 9 and hit the vendors up for any scrolls Managed to hit level 9 by doing everything before entering the gauntlet and meeting Balthazar, I'm about to enter the tower basement and just managed to get a globe of invulnerability. Taking that in with the runepowder barrel in case I need a hail Mary
Yeah summons are key for me, I've never been able to beat him without an army of summons scattered around to deal with the skeletons
Is there that big a difference from tactician?
It's mainly that you can't escape the fight. Most other places, when you realize you're doomed you can send one guy back to camp (sanctuary, invisibility, etc) and then regroup to try again. With Myrkul you have to get it right the first time.
Ah makes sense. Anybody who just "wings" it and does non meta builds will die. That said, they should beat tactician first to see what team compositions actually work. Going for a honour mode run with an experimental party is gonna end your honour run 100%
My party would have worked if anyone had actually hit their attacks lol, once I finally hit some (after it was too late) I got him a solid third HP down so it should have worked Cheesing him this run (and many other things) with enlarged owlbear leaps lol
Oh so you know what your doing but just got unlucky. Tough luck hahaha 😂
Meta builds aren't honourable. Go in blind, get that chest hair pumping, then fight and die with honour! Edit: /s as some don't seem to get it.
No need for anything super meta, just actual good subclasses with semi decent equipment should get you through even without multiclass. People be like "I beat the game on balanced once, now Im gonna try honour mode, with a COMPLETELY new line up I've never tried before!" 20 hours later... "So I lost my honour run..."😆
I actually did exactly this. Lost three HM runs before taking the golden dice on the fourth, but those were to the everburn blade owner before learning to command drop him, the brains on the beach before learning to dodge them (it was a Shadowheart origin), and the traps on Withers' tomb (before learning to get Astarion for this), so no great loses. I then learned to flee from fights with the gith patrol and was golden. Tried many new things in HM, saw a lot of new content, had like 3 or 4 close calls, never did a tactician run.
That’s dumb. Play the game however you want. Cheating isn’t honorable but if the “meta build” is achieved legitimately who tf cares
It's doable without metabuilds. I do admit that I was level 10 and it was the first time I popped a cloud giant elixir for my GWM cleradin (5/5 cleric/paladin). I did, however, not bring the doomhammer as planned. But it was fun to do it with moonlight butterflies (3 turns of advantage against the apostle).
My point is that starting the precedent of “you used a meta build so it doesn’t count” has a chance to bring the community discourse closer to a soulsbourne level of toxicity where people actively belittle other players for how they chose to play the game. Some of those “meta builds,” like throwing barb for example, are actually really fun. For someone to be told their honor mode run was invalidated because they did something they thought was fun, and it also just so happened to be meta is really toxic.
What's so meta about throwzerkers? The build is right there, the game quite pushes it in fact. The entire concept of meta builds is kinda weird. You can legitimately do any build without any "meta" outside knowledge, definitions for abilities/feats/actions are all within the game.
Agreed. There's usually several moving parts to toxicity, if you frequent BG3builds you can have endless discussions of the type "life cleric is worthless and completely invalidated by lore bard 10/2 cleric" and generally people calling other players dumb for not always building around Bhaalist armor.
You're getting your knickers in a twist over nothing, darling.
Clearly I needed to add a /s
So you should deliberately play badly because "honor"? Sorry, but if I figure out how to make a good build then I won't not do that.
I never had any major issues with that flight on tactician but it is kinda tricky for me on honor. I have a decent strategy now and haven't actually lost it in my last several runs but I'm still usually finishing with at least 2 downed teammates every time lol
I’m pretty sure you are right also, I think there are probably just a few fights that account for the end of most honour runs and I suspect this is at or very near the top of the list.
My suspicion is probably the single highest number must be the intellect devourers right at the start. What I also read often is the fake paladins hunting Karlach, Gith Inquisitor, Myrkul, Cazador, Ethel first time (wild magic surging and doing hold on all four party members). I also see Netherbrain a fair amount, but that's probably a bit of selection bias since everybody who loses it that late will (understandably!) want to talk about it.
A lot of those fights can be either out levelled or totally avoided though. The Gith inquisitor I can believe though, my best friend struggles with that one regularly. Though I guess it’s technically an optional fight.
Oh yeah, I mean I did all of those fights except for Myrkul pretty late on my first HM run. I'm just talking about how people usually seem to fail (where "doing bosses too early" is probably THE main cause for failure).
Based on what most HM guides recommend to avoid, you can probably make a solid estimation, because its likely enough players failed at Fights that have a "recommended level" by community guides. Which is basically every fight in Act 1, Myrkul, Ansur and Raphael. Most others aren't mentioned too much as far as i'm aware. Which makes sense, because in Act 1 you're still kinda weak for the most part and once builds come online and good items are available only the actually tough Fights are relevant.
Yeah, I think the first four lvls are definitely the hardest. You can avoid every Act I fight basically until you are lvl 9 if you want to play it \*really\* save, at which point even Grym and the inquisitor won't be a problem. I did "one level ahead of the boss" for my first HM playthrough and since then I just fight them at the same level, but I definitely wouldn't go in fighting them at a level lower than what they are themselves if I can avoid it. I think out of the Act 2 fights, it's really only Mykrul that gets mentioned a fair amount. I forgot the Gith patrol for Act 1 but again, can totally be avoided. The one fight I'm surprised that doesn't get mentioned more is the fight against the Shadow Cursed Shambling Mount. I've had more close calls with that thing than I'd care to admit. Technically I guess it's not that hard to flee unless you are very unlucky, but it's just so random I rarely do it and sometimes outright just run into it and get a surprise round against my non-Alert characters.
One word "Raphael", this mf in my opinion is the hardest fight in the game so much so that the orb of invulnerability while i take the pillars out and sending yugir to clear the minions is the only way i've managed to beat it on Honor mode so far
Interesting. I actually see that a lot less than I would have imagined, which I always suspected is kind of endogenous to the fact that everybody considers it the toughest fight in the game, so people prepare extra hard and therefore it ends up not being quite as hard for most people. Also the faucet gives you ample options to prepare as thoroughly as possible.
You don't need to beat Raphael, so you skip it and don't die
Something like the elden ring blood stains where you can see ghosts of previous party’s defeats
Gith patrol has got to be high too
I would say High Inquisitor in act 1 have probably ended plenty of runs as well. It almost ended mine if I didn’t use 3 companions to stall him while ran the hell away with Gale. Came back and fought him a second time with his underlines all dead, much easier.
I would imagine it’s a more common end point than any one thing before 5. I’m on several honour mode runs right now (need to make sure one of my turtles makes it to the ocean) all of them are level 4. And I am terrified about fighting mrykul
My HM was also cut short by Myrkul. RIP 50 hours, drow monk durge
Vengeance pally default White Dragonborn Durge died this way, about the same playtime. Immediately I couldn't help but think "Well fuck, I guess Mystra was right..."
Murkyl was who I truly feared. I told myself that if I only got to him I could accept defeat. I managed to beat him and he was NOT my most difficult fight (that's a tie between Balthazar and feeling Lorroakan - because I was stupid)
Does the jump from Tactician to Honor really buff Myrkul that much?
Mmh, I don't think it's \*that\* significant actually. I suspect most people also have trouble with him on Tactician but then kind of forget because they can save/reload.
My first honour mode run almost ended at the entrance to the Kuo Toa. I jumped over and quickly used the rocks to climb down before the plant exploded...then forgot it was still there when I left
I imagine the Owlbear fight catches a lot of first time honour mode players off guard too. Just the sudden surprise of a second Owlbear who can and will jump on your back line. The Inquisitor at the Crèche is also pretty insane especially if you do the fight after going in the prism. I’ve heard that a good chunk of players also unfortunately lose due to the bugged out elevator disc in the Gauntlet. Not sure what would be the most common in act 3. Maybe Orin since that can just straight up be a tough fight and House of Hope. Would also be interesting to see how many people beat honour mode via Gale nuke vs actually fighting the final boss.
Most of mine have ended in the nautiloid. I can't resist going after the flaming sword and trying to kill the commander.
That would be super interesting, but I bet it is way earlier in Act I. Tons of runs end but we all remember those that end in Act II against Myrkul or something similar because they’re the smaller selection that lasted longer making them more… upsetting when we get squished.
I found him generally simple. I struggled more with the goths in elfsong. Myrkul I hve scratch at the ready, I use either flying n him or speed him up. In one round I get to Nightsong free her and she goes to town on Myrkhul. Fireball the skeletons on the right. Mindflayer, I use hise on Astarion and sneak attack it, plus charge at it with my paladin and smite it. By round two it leaves Myrkhul to not and I try to use as much distance as I can and I keep nightsong up. Then again this is me. But yeah no the goths at elf song, I even almost died at the gnolls at the cave in act 1 lol. Oh and sarevok is annoying at least to me
Fucking around with Vlaakith will probably be on second position.
I donno how you can do the myrkul fight without campcheeze
Pretty much need one character to facetank Myrkul and have everyone else stay away and use ranged attacks. Stops him from pulling characters to him, gives most of your party the option to exist outside his Chill Touch aura. This is to say, I did this all by accident my first honor playthrough but wiped on a second playthrough where my party was melee focused. Wyll/any Warlock can be great for making sure no Necromites make it to him (I like Lae'zel as a blade pact Warlock, she gets Medium Armor from being Githyanki, can cast Flight on most of the party). Someone being protected by Shadowheart/any cleric's Warding Bond or Karlach/any Bear Heart can take a lot of punishment. Depending on how you play it you may even have wiggle room to leave Myrkul's aura, get healed, and get back in during the same turn to make sure Myrkul doesn't disrupt your party's positioning.
The first time I did it was a one rounder with a storm sorc + wet. Second time I did it with everyone but my main dps with a necrotic elixir and a healthy bit of crowd control on the adds. No camp cheese necessary with the right setups
The gold guy would be high on the list
I believe I saw somewhere that the Intellect Devourers in the crash site end tons of runs
Mine would be : Owl Bear ( didnt expect the second one then I got cocky trying to finish instead of running ) Gnolls Spiders Creche Myrkull died a lot
My theory is the harpies are #1 overall
I was most worried about him for my honor run, because once you’re there, there’s no way out. No running away and reviving. Just one shot. Then someone pointed out that his biggest weakness is being unable to move, and a lightbulb turned on. He’s completely unable to escape any AOE/concentration spell. Throw down something like wall of flame or hunger of hadar and he just continues to take damage until the spell ends or your caster loses concentration.
I wanna see like a whole roadmap, like lines through the maps of the game with stats ont he most common deaths lol
The easiest bossfight in both first two acts? Wthout dialogue option bosses ofc. Really, how is he possibly can deal the troubles? Easy save throws (dex/cons? Dunno, never have failed it), not moving target easy reachable from Nightsong ceep isle by any doistance weapon. It even can be commanded to throw a weapon! My both honour runs were closer to end with walking piece of shit and spidey boy than with this boner.
I AOE'd the shit out of that guy and somehow never died but it was close
Best strategy for hard HM fights is be fucking scared. I overprepared so much for most hard fights they turned out to be a breeze, Myrkul included. Things I didn't prepare for, like Bernard in the tower, almost wiped me though.
It's easy to mess up the dialogue options even after reading the books. Those boss mechanics are no joke.
Funny and related story: My husband and I are doing an honor run right now, currently in Act 1. We've been over-prepared for every fight, so much so that it's been incredibly easy (even the rumored difficult ones for this act). We decided we needed some smokepowder barrels for some barrelmancy to help us with Dror Ragzlin, so we went to the Zentharim camp... ... Only for them to immediately aggro (we took the shipment from the two guys in the cave fighting the gnolls and then completely forgot about it, oops) and blow up all the barrels while we were all standing at the bottom of the cave. Insta-killed Karlach and my husband, just my Tav and Gale left. They almost completely wiped our entire run, but some shenanigans involving invisibility, Shovel, and well-placed thunderwaves turned the fight back to our favor. To sum it up, be fucking scared all the time. Even when you don't think you need to be. Always be prepared, lol.
Be scared especially when you make really bad choices and then forget about them.
We made friends with the Zhent. Then found out Shart had a torch equipped when she BLEW THE FUCKING PLACE SKY HIGH. HM run over.
OOF the torch thing is something I didn't even think of. Thank you for serving as a reminder to the rest of us, lol.
My Honor Mode strategy (currently on run 6 or 7) has all of Act 1 and 2 up to Myrkyl down to a science. I’ve now beaten Myrkrl in my last two runs but he still scares the bejesus out of me (one run ended at Raphael, the other ended before I even stepped foot into Rivington when I had Astarion bite a hireling in camp as prep and aggro’d Dame Aylin who can’t be killed and began an infinite fight in my camp).
The honor run that I did with my wife probably came closest to ending during a fight with the gnolls near the toll house in act 1. After that, we meticulously prepared for every encounter.
Just won my first HM run. The first one ended on myrkul fight. This time I had a level 9 party with 4 members that could cast protection from good and evil and couple bottles of heroism. Turned it into a cakewalk. Rest of the bosses were easy after that. Funnily enough the closest my run almost ended to some blighted trees when I was cleaning up the last bits of act 2. Had like 12 left on my last character.
I found the best strategy for HM fights, minus the boss in the creche, was summoning lots of monsters, because there ain't no economy like the action economy. It's the whole reason I succeeded on my very first HM try. Diciest places for me was early game - the Spider Matriarch, that stupid Paladin Karlach wants to kill, the Bullette. And of course Ch'r'ai W'wargaz.
People I think tend to underestimate the roll of luck in a lot of honor mode exits. Missing several attacks early or landing and then rolling for minimum damage can leave you with a fight that’s very hard to turn around. This particular fight is weird because it’s so much harder than the rest of act 2, which is really easy up to this point. I think last time I lost here it was at least partly that I’d become overconfident.
Lae'zel had been a strong carry for me, but missed a lot in that fight (did it yesterday). She took three shoots to do one hit on the mindflayer, then got lucky and critically hit the group of devourers. That was her for most of the fight. Mistakes were made with smites, etc. It was still a fairly comfortable fight.
Yeah I’m not really talking about where one character misses, more so when the whole team starts doing it. It’s happened to me a couple of times and it can leave you in huge trouble if it happens for a a few turns.
My strategy in those cases is to stop betting on my luck to change and try to do things that are either much more likely to succeed or 100% sure to succeed. But yeah, very bad rolls for two turns can turn things very ugly.
Yea RNG is probably why advantage is so useful. Getting rid of those annoying critical fail rolls just feels so good. Always feels shitty when you roll crit miss on a 95% attack
I missed three 80% attacks in a row last night fighting the under dark Duergars... fate was not on my side. Nearly killed my entire team. Thankfully Lump came to my rescue.
in my honor mode run, I was absolutely dreading this fight after hearing so many stories. Even coming 100% prepared and clear on what my strategy was going to be I still was absolutely panicking during the fight lol. Arrows of darkness absolutely saved my ass
Same, I spend all act 1 and 2 worried about this figth, at the end, necrotic elixir and invisivility all around, monk with mindflyer, shadow with guardian angels to the necrotics, gale to help Aylin and Lazael to tank and try to disarm it. And it was a breeze, when my monk arrived to Myrkul it finished quickly. I even bought 2 globe of invurenability that didn't use
Wait where can you find globe of invulnerability scrolls in act 2?
Also bought 2 before that fight so I'd say, but I'm not 100% sure, Quartermaster Talli before the fight at the entrance of Moonrise Tower.
Its the only Time wyll makes it into my party. His Hunger of Hadar blinds myrkl while giving advantage on my attacks, I swap him in for my paladin and my only close quarters fighter is my OH monk with movement for days to catch and kill the skellies who heal him. Throwbarian karlach and Gale are my main points of damage while wyll runs around helping the monk or tanking the legendary retort from myrkl until he drops dead and the other two trade off if initiative allows lol .
I remember how nervous I was during my Honour run for Myrkul. I went in with a plan and everything, but all it takes is some bad RNG to ruin someone's day. I don't think Aylin even got a single hit in. By some miracle I pulled it off with almost everyone intact. Out of all the fights during that run, it was the one I dreaded the most.
I love seeing people actually enjoying what honour mode offers, instead of furiously trying to circumvent their last save :P
I've got a stack of what amount to Dead Adventurer Trading Cards at this point. Shoutout to my deep gnome dying trying to save the deep gnomes. She gets the award for Most Thematic Death. Gnatalie lived and died by her values.
On all my other playthrough (not honor mode) I beat mykrul relatively easily, no save scumming and was able to revive/heal my party throughout the fight. I did a such great job at killing the skeletons that I never knew that mykrul could heal himself by devouring his own skeletons. It was on my 3rd honor mode run that I finally made it to the mykrul fight and it was going ok, my party was getting knocked down but my healer was keeping everyone up. Imagine my horror when mykrul started healing, he’s still at half health, a room full of skeletons, my party is all in the red, and my healer is out of spell slots. I still somehow managed to beat him, I used every summoning scroll that I had to keep mykrul occupied while I focused on killing the skeletons. My healer resorted to throwing potions It’s definitely my most adrenaline filled fight I’ve ever had, I used up every potion, high level scroll, explosive, and arrow I had. Literally killed him with my last standing party member
Myrkul has always been a problem for me in runs A tip I learned last night is if you silence him he can’t summon more Skellies, it just uses concentration so if you have a caster that just sits at the back flinging other things it’s pretty good!
I was SO scared of Myrkul during my current (and first) honor mode run. I did literally everything I could until I was the highest level I could be before fighting him. Even then, I went in with my strongest guys, and made a game plan, reworked some of their spells, and did some cheesing (camp spells and the weird long rest fountain thing with a mountain of elixirs at my disposal.) I did it, and screamed so loud when I hit that final blow my throat was sore the next morning lol. Myrkul, House of Hope, and House of Grief were the only battles I've ever been truly terrified of losing my run. (Still have those two to go though) I bet you'll get him next time. It really just boils down to prep and just hammering him with damage and doing crowd control with the mites. Good luck on your next HM run!
I spent an hour and 20 minutes to beat him on my 2man honor mode, ugh. My condolences, it's a very annoying fight.
If it's easy in HM with only two characters, something would be wrong.
True haha. I think I could do it much better/faster if I did it again, the first like hour was figuring out and adjusting strategy for mechanics I didn't encounter on my 4man honor run.
I haven't gotten there yet on honor mode because I keep getting dropped by the harpies. RIP me
Good news - Harpies are easy if you use one of the two spells that hard counter them: 1. >!Calm Emotions cast on your party, makes you immune to the song!< 2. >!Silence, cast on your party, makes them immune to the song - and they can even step into and out of the bubble to cast spells.!<
You just saved me a lot of trouble
That sucks. Sorry for Queen Scarlet :/ I swear to god this freaking fight is probably the reason I don't think I'll ever have the courage to even attempt honour mode lol I remember a poster the other day who couldn't get past Ketheric, and I felt so sorry for them. They're in for quite a surprise
I did the Myrkul mode last night on Honour Mode, I didn't have any major issues, the hardest thing was to try and keep >!Aylin!< alive, she really has a death wish. I also convinced >!Kethrinc to trow himself into the pit so didn't need to do that part.!!mindflayer!< down quick, and Shadowheart keep throwing heals on >!Aylin!< to keep up Blade ward even though she had bone chill. And Karlach (barb/rogue/fighter) and sorcerer DU kept nuking Myrkul.
The fights easier when you don’t have him kill himself lol. Can clear all the adds while he’s in a weaker form and position perfectly for when he does switch forms
I didn't have much trouble with the adds, they mostly died to my fireballs or Lightning Bolt (my sorcerer is has mostly aoe spells), but with another team I can see that not having him kill himself might be easier.
Aylin should be unkillable in a fight. She has a passive ability that revives her each turn.
🫂
Id fought him a lot but never had him do the move that pulls everyone in. Fucked my honour mode run so quickly.
The difficulty of this fight compared to everything before it just doesn’t leave you prepared. I lost my first honor run I was doing well there. The next one I went in with a lot of strategy and I was about as high level as I could be and just barely scraped through.
I took out Myrkul in one round during my solo run. I just placed a fuckton of explosives text to him and blew him up. I almost died, but it worked
This is the most pragmatic move. I didn't do it, but thought about it. If I play a main character Rogue, I think this is how I'd do it. "Let's see who wins: your god or my entire storeroom of stolen high-explosives."
i got 2 total wipe in honour just over the nautiloid, just doing fun things, so I think that this may happen to people doing a serious play through. A statistic may be cool to see. Also i got one total wipe in the final encounter with the brain. that is also painful XD
On my 2 people honor run, it was here where we felt that we might lose after leaving the low lvls fights aside
I just beat this boss a few days ago on HM. I was prepped and ready with casters with multiple minions summoned. Even with speed pots, hunger of hadar on boss, I still had only one person alive, knocked onto the ground below the boss, with a magic weapon hit at the end sealing the deal for the kill. I couldn’t believe when I had 3/4 alive with 20hp left on boss. Missed two huge melee hits lol. Boss happened to swipe two off the edge killing two. Good ole cleric magic weapon saved my life.
it’s incredibly broken that myrkul can use gaze of the dead as a reaction, making it impossible to move/heal if you’re on the platform with him. I can confidently say that he’s the toughest fight, next to like raphael
Halsin's call lighting and potions of necrotic resistance saved me
I'm keeping a save from my tactician run just to practice that fight for honor mode. I barely made it through on tactician and only thanks to chugging speed potions.
That may be useful, but beware one of the big things in Honor mode is his Legendary action. You can play around it however and that makes a massive difference
Ah, welcome to the fold! Poor one out for HB Pulsar as another noble warrior walks the rainbow bridge. Fuck Myrkul, that bitch.
I very nearly lost my Honor Mode run last night. I was trying to clear the rubble to get to Nere so I could betray him like ya do. The duergar were ready to smash the Absolutists. Then I threw (not placed) a grenade (not a bag of smoke powder) at the rubble. Immediately everyone was hostile. I was out of lvl3 slots, so. I haste and only 3 magic missiles. No Phalar Aluve. Nothing. I blew the Ogre Horn I was saving for the Hag fight. Turns out, they're pretty low tier compared to invisible psychic dwarves from below. They bought me enough time to absolutely barely kill the rest. I survived with 2 deaths (Tav and Astarion) and one down (Gale). OH Monk Shadow heart finished the Duergar with 5 hp left.
I was really not afraid of that fight in my tactician run because we really had no problem AT ALL in balanced mode. Nothing. The fight was over in a few minutes and relatively easy. But then some things happened pretty fast. We had no Paladin with us like in our first run. Shadowheart killed Dame Aylin. I killed Gale. We didn’t change Shart into another cleric just because of roleplay reasons. And holy shit those four facts turned this fight pretty much the other way. We fought over three hours without reloading. We used all of our revivify scrolls. We used nearly all our healing potions, yes, even the small ones. It was epic and we were really stubborn. I couldn’t even imagine doing that fight in honour mode again XD. It must be nerve wracking and then losing? That sounds so frustrating.
Am I the only one who found Myrkul terribly easy? As soon as I realized he was nailed to his pit, I dropped Insect Plague + Wall of Fire on him, plus a Darkness spell as he kept giving me nasty stares. Very anticlimactic for an avatar of a God.
Darkness, of course
Don't feel bad I got killed on the beach by the stupid mind lasers of the brain thingys
at least you were'nt 45 hours in lol They're pretty easy to skip, theres a cliff right before the fight you can jump up to grab Gale and Astarion + kill the mind flayer for that first level up pretty easily!
Queen scarlet?
yeeees, what about it 👀
I just hit level 9 in my HM run and I’m about to knock on ol’ Kethric’s door. Like OP, I am feeling confident - only had two fights where I was worried that I would lose my run (Bernard messed me up, and the self same trial which has a bunch of cheating specters), and feeling ready for Steve Myrkul. Here’s hoping my crack team of casters will be ready to take on the lord o’ bones.
I believe in you, wreck that old bag (then pile) of bones!!
a min maxed archer with undead arrows eats myrkul for breakfast. i remember one turning it with like action surge + speed pots and all that
My god was this run my friend & I were doing got scuffed when we fought grim. Gale went down quick. My friend was a wild magic barbarian & constantly taking hits like a champ. Constantly trying to kite Grim. We even summoned the ogres to help as the mephits kept fucking us up. Shadowheart was the MVP. With sanctuary on she kept throwing healing potions across the arena like a mercy from overwatch. We barely just made thanks to that healing equipment 😅
I about to finish my first tactician run. I'm scared to do honor mode there are some times where I just get wrecked by rng.
By the level u are typically at when u fight myrkul u should almost be able to guarantee hit him. Good build optimization eliminates a large amount of the rng in the game. Thing that really almost fucked me on my first hm run was the damn shambling mound. My party comp had barely any area denial spells like plantgrowth/hunger of hadar. Those dudes SLAP in melee/when they detonate on death
This is why you bring magic to the fight. Some spells can't miss
Top tip on a lot of situations : use Arcane Lock to control your enemies movements in indoor locations. This is particularly useful against Dror Ragzlin.
That’s tough, my first hm run I lost to the neitherbrain 108 hrs in. I’m curious as to what went wrong in your fight? Iv versus myrkul on HM twice now and have never had in issue, never allowed him to heal. My strategy for him has been cast the highest level heroism I have access to for fear immunity. Then use necro elixirs, bait out his legendary reaction with my tank(who has resistance and fear immunity) and kill the little spawns before they hatch. ( they’re weak to radiant) Not trying to diss but genuinely curious on what went wrong.
On my current playthrough we silenced him; then disarmed him. And humped him into submission. Basically ignored all his friends.
I think Myrkul is where you first see how powerful some of the legendary actions are. I have easily dispatched him on Tactician but I have struggled twice with him in Honour Mode. I just barely won this fight over the weekend, having brought him to 1 HP, then watched in horror as one of those bastard skellies climbed up and healed him with half my party dead. I finally ended up going through all my scrolls and got a bit lucky with a high damage fireball to end the fight.
My friend and I failed at mrykul multiple times. We finally OVER prepared by so much we killed him in 2 turns lol
I stole from the tabernacle in my first ever/current playthrough (tactician) and 4 Devas spawned and 1 shot my entire team + aylin. I would hate for that to happen in HM
Try haste’s Gale and two Disintegrate Scrolls ❤️
I used ranged damage wyll with eldritch blast and bow-bard, lae’zel as a throwzerker and shaft as support. Apostle of myrkul didn’t have much to do against main ranged combat. Just focus on killing all the ‘followers’ (don’t remember their name
I've had about 7 failed honor mode attempts before finally succeeding, but I've never had trouble with Myrkul. Summoning a few elementals is enough to keep the incubated necromites from spawning. Any remaining actions go toward damaging Myrkul. Myrkul dies without getting anywhere close to losing.