Fighting Nightmares...

[random]

Since this is a Difficult Content strategies forum, perhaps we should share strategies for beating Nightmares. I'm going to jump straight to one of the more difficult ones (that we can actually beat, that is) because I finally took down my first Doom Guard Soldier today. Context: Level 41 Vampire Warrior with a heavy concentration in Blunt, wielding two Indigo maces, one bronze with Acid brand damage, one Ice, set to Ice + additional Cold brand damages. Full set of blues, extremely high AC (a lot of agility) and lots of reflection. Because (and I'm not sure if this is a bug or not) extra blows apparently don't work against the Doom Guard -- I got one hit a round, period -- I first hit him with a Shattering Blow, then proceeded to Dizzy Smash him every round. I had double damages/half damages and 50% magic return for my Paragon Monster powers.

The problem was, he teleported rather frequently, and could do so for great distances. So I did something extremely tedious -- I filled half the dungeon level with trees, then left two spots open with a tree tile inbetween them. Then I just planted myself there in the middle and hit him as he jumped between the two spots. After a very long time, I finally managed to kill him.

This was my 3rd try, btw. The first two times, he eventually pierced my resistance and killed me with one hit. Basically, I got lucky here in the sense that I managed to finish him off before he did this, since there wasn't much I could do to avoid it in the long run.

Now on to Nightmare Shadow Mistresses and Death Drakes, the two listed in Variaz's Nightmare Abilities thread that I have yet to beat.


Edit: Just beat a Restless Lich. Much easier than the Doom Guard. Strategy? Whack at it for all I was worth.

[Variaz]

Nice one on the Doom Guard! He has a unique counter-attacking ability, which indeed make extra blows particularly dangerous to use against him. Not sure it's working as intended, as it seems what it did was to prevent you from getting more than one blow. What it was SUPPOSED to do was to attempt to one-shot you every times you hit him. But one blow limit is pretty bad too, so that doesn't make your victory any less glorious. Congratulations!

Restless Lich doesn't have that, though you might have been a bit lucky and got the first strike, because he does have 5 spells per moves, and yet a single of them would probably have killed you.

Death Drake you might beat, it's a simple monster. It just has really high stats and lives.

But I really want to see how you'll fare against Nightmare Shadow Mistress, which I consider to be one of the toughest monsters in the game.

[random]

Yeah, I think his special power wasn't working as it's supposed to. He definitely got the counter-attack in (which is what killed me the first two times, since I could dodge/resist/reflect his spells well enough to survive them and step away to heal) so that part worked properly. There just weren't multiple blows.

And I certainly got lucky with the Restless Lich. I was feeling c0cky after killing the Doom Guard, so I just Jumped next to the Restless Lich and finished him off before he could attack me. But now that I know how dangerous he is, I'll avoid being c0cky in the future.

The Nightmare Shadow Mistress might be a bit much for me. The other times I've attacked one, I pretty much died before I could raise my weapons. The only exceptions have been when she teleported before I could reach her.

Do stealth and/or invisibility work with Nightmares? I'm thinking of developing a strategy involving them sort of, y'know, ignoring me while I pummel them

[Variaz]

Stealth CAN work, technically...they just have a *5 multiplier to their rolls, and crazy stats to begin with. So you might get a few lucky moves, but don't expect it to work.

In any cases, stealth doesn't work against invisible enemies, and the Nightmare Shadow Mistress is invisible, so that rules out this strategy for her.

[random]

Okay. I wouldn't have known, given that most people who survive long enough to meet a Nightmare Shadow Mistress should have See Invisible and thus wouldn't know their opponent isn't normally visible.

Of course, your current final bosses can take away our powers (the Fear might have been the death of me, considering I'm melee-oriented and hadn't prepared a way to overcome it. Luckily, I could hide until the Fear went away.) So I'm sure you aren't above being evil enough to make a monster invisible even to players with See Invisible.

[random]

Tip request. A simple one

Can Nightmare Beasts be killed? I have one that I've dealt literally hundreds of millions of points of damage to over the course of a looooong fight, and all I've gotten is it being knocked out temporarily. :/

I did manage to kill an Elemental Elemental and a Mechanized Golem, though. My firsts.

Edit: took another crack at the Nightmare Shadow Mistress. I could survive, but...she evaded/blocked almost everything I could throw at her. On the rare times I even landed a blow, she evaded the damages. I eventually just gave up in frustration.

[Variaz]

Defeating Nightmare Beast requires a special strategy! You MIGHT get some insight from it's description:

"An embodiement of pain and death in the form of a huge black beast with glowing red eyes. Looking at this monster's face, it seems like it is smiling, taking a strong pleasure in tearing apart it's victims with it's sharp claws and using it's magical powers to cause even more agony. Because it is an embodiement of pain and death, anything that would attempt to harm or kill it is bound to fail, making this sadistic creature immortal."

Another clue: Tia in the town of Ophelia, north of Jindar, might be of help. Good luck!

[random]

Awesome. Took me a while to find another Nightmare Beast, but I finally did.

Since I've never gone the appropriate route as a player, I'd never even bothered with doing "that" (avoiding spoilers, unless people want them) even before I figured out how to use it to beat the Nightmare Beast with your clues. That was a clever twist.

Incidentally, the Sphere of Essences fights are buggy. I keep getting error messages. The fight itself works -- I killed it -- but kept getting messages about "...lib\scripts\elements.lua:1631: array indexing out" etc etc.

[random]

Okay, I beat a Nightmare Shadow Mistress and a Death Drake. Now I've beaten every Nightmare in the game except the Vortex Lord. I...I can't even hit it. It resists everything I throw at it and blocks every attack. It can't harm me, I can't harm it, I wasted a 1/2 hour figuring that out.

The Death Drake scale was pretty neat. I assume it can be used to craft armor. Unfortunately, I don't think I have the spare points to get a build capable of doing that.

[Variaz]

You don't need crafting, you just need to visit a dwarf, and he will make the armor for you. (it's in Ivhala)

It's a soft armor, but it has 200 base AC.

And congratulations on the Nightmare Shadow Mistress kill! I'm curious on how you did it, and at which level, and what sort of gear. Of course, I'm only half surprised, what with the insane numbers of 0.4... don't worry, the 0.5 shadow mistress will be back with a vengeance!

As for Vortex Lord, it is meant to be nearly impossible to beat. You need a "Always Hit" ability. If you don't have one, you can't beat it. Otherwise, it's just a really powerful foe. I admit it's not a very fun design. If it comes back in 0.5(not sure, I might remove some of the "less evil" nightmares, such as most nightmare elementals), it will be a more interesting and complex fight, worhty of a powerful being like the Vortex Lord. Not just some "you one-turn-kill it" or "you can't beat it" ala 0.4.

[random]

I basically "cheated" in the sense that I scummed for blue items with a bunch of Nightmare Scout "Eye of Misfortune" abilities using Twist Dungeon and Twist Items to go as low as I could. Then I wandered around levels 2-3 with just enough misfortune to get the Nightmares in question. The first Nightmare Shadow Mistress killed me in one round, but I managed to finish off the second one after several rounds without getting hurt. I used a level 42 Earth Lord axe-wielding dwarf with lots of Elemental Knight and Counter Attack, with two green axes and lots of extra attacks. I power-punched (not sure if this is a bug, since I could power punch while wielding axes with a lot more accuracy than I can "Chop") several times as combat feats, which I assume lowered her defense like it would any other monster.

Oh, and I had speed above 100 (the top meaningful speed is in the 70s, right?) so when she teleported, I'd wait around a corner and get in the first attack when she approached me. That helped a lot too. I doubt I would have beaten her had I been at any dungeon level lower than 3 or so.

I'll search out that dwarf. I like new items I've never seen before. Soft armor is good -- I do a lot of spell-casting, especially Earth attacks, so the more SP, the better.

Edit: What dwarf? It's been a while since I completed the game, so I've forgotten things.

Edit Part 2: Never mind, I remembered where to find him. That armor is very nice indeed. I now want to track down the Ice Drake scale. I'm not sure if I've done that before.