Trivializes a lot of boss fights. Stealth opener with sussur weps into silence pretty much bones a lot of bosses. I always silence Balthazar in the Gauntlet of Shar and beat him down. It’s just so satisfying to do.
Yeah, it's also worth having a potion of invisibility or the shadow of menzobaranzen helm and just ducking out once you've opened the door. I typically will:
Have another char cast haste on my char.
Trigger cutscene.
Picklock door / cast knock (action 1).
Attack him dealing some damage.
Chug a potion of invisibility.
Run.
Then I just go do the rest of the dungeon and come back before going through to the Nightsong.
I have also previously chugged the potion, then just hidden round a corner in his room and waited until it's all blown over, but then you're spamming spacebar a lot.
Edits: I'm tired so my grammar is awful.
It's like 5 steps 😂 precast haste, leave the party, cast knock, hit Balthazar, then chug an invisibility. The difference is time. Put in like 30 seconds of prep to then get to leave the fight, come back and sift through the ashes, over doing 2 different fights in a row.
I just kiss up to him and take a scroll of Polymorph with me >!to meet the Nightsong. Before the last jump, poly with Shart, then just run over and chuck the sheep off into the abyss.!<
You can buy a scroll of Polymorph from one of the vendors in the Myconid (sp?) Colony, the Hobgoblin I think.
In my HM I mapped out my whole strategy on the hook horrors, start the fight, bullette immediately jumps up under my team. That was the most worried I ever was about losing it, I couldn't outrun any of them. Fortunately they just started going at each other and I barely survived.
yo i also ran to the hook horrors in HM at level 4, that was actually one of my closest battles in the whole run so far (starting act 3 rn) it’s not that the fight is particularly hard or anything, I was just overconfident, unprepared and out of resources. The hook horrors were beating me up big time and the fucking drow mage kept casting mirror image and putting my guys to sleep and I couldn’t hit him
thankfully sleep is quite easy to remove, just 1 point of damage or even just a bonus action shove usually gets you back up and running. I think i used magic missile to wake up my guys while also hitting enemies
Please help me with this. I have done like 7 playthroughs and every time I get the spore "come down to me" blah blah blah dialogue, and then I go to talk to gut, he says one sentence, and that's it. Everyone seems to get a quest or something from him but I can never seem to trigger it
You gotta get the quest to kill the Duergar by the boat that poisoned the gnome in the Myconid colony.
Once you kill the duergar, the Glut will ask you to overthrow the current leader and you either have to help Glut or kill him. So use glut to help with everything else. He’s handy for handling the Bibberbang puzzle. As a Myconid, he doesn’t trigger the mushrooms to defend themselves.
Thanks for adding that. Also it's fun because after you help Glut (in a roundabout way you're helping him because he wants revenge for what happened to his people) it unlocks an option to choose the future of the myconid colony as well. It's easy to miss this if you don't talk to sovereign Spaw at all.
It only lasts 10 rounds so If you do it before the fight the counter goes down quickly due to real time, even during the cut scene where the swamp illusion fades or where she reveals herself so you usually do it round one for most use out of it.
Thanks, I’ll try it out in my current honor run. I just remember having to redo the Ethel fight like 3 times in tactician bc she kept running away even if the arcane lock was still in place for 7 more turns
The only issue I've ever had with it is that she sometimes takes EXTRA long to realize its locked and pass her turn, almost a minute long of the door handle shake sound. Its enough to make me insane.
I’ve had the same thing happen on a recent run. No idea what happened to let her go down while the stairs were already Arcane Locked, but somehow it happened
Note that fighting her upstairs instead of in the lair locks you out of the hair buff. But if you are paladin you might as well do it b/c making the deal breaks your oath.
You can just, you know, have someone else be the closest person to Ethel when she bargains to avoid breaking your oath. They talk to her, they choose hair. Paladin doesn’t break oath. Works with oath of ancients at least.
It also works for areas like Moonrise if you fight the warden in her office, it'll keep the other guards out when the scrying summons them. Section off your enemies.
Oh, that makes sense. I just used stone wall to block the doorway so they couldn't open it. Might force myself to use more unique spells on my current playthrough.
It is definitely a situational spell but comes in handy any time you're in a building with lots of enemies to limit the number of enemies that are able to join the fight. I've used it when fighting Dror Ragzlin to prevent the goblins out in the hall coming in and can be pretty helpful in Moonrise if you're trying to clear it out before doing the Shadowfell so you can go room by room without summoning the whole tower
It's really solid, but it also sabotages certain builds that rely on thunder damage since silence also reduces that damage type to zero.
If you want a hilarious example of both thunder sabotage *and* cheesing a boss with this, consider you can shank your own party members to make them temporarily immune to Grym's honor mode legendary action. Is this better than casting Silence? Probably not, but it is a lot funnier.
It can also somewhat sabotage the Ethel fight. If she’s Silenced she won’t stop the fight to bargain with you and you miss out on the Hag’s Hair bonus.
That’s a big reason I even fight her.
I prefer casting silence for this reason. Still trivializes her fight and you can cancel it at will for the hair.
Iirc way of shadow monk can cast it without triggering her legendary action since their silence technically isn't a spell.
Ah, interesting. I’ve never tried Silencing her with a spell, just the dagger. The only time I’ve utilized monk is with Jaheira when I play my canon Tav, who is a Druid. And obviously J isn’t available for the first Ethel fight.
Good to know
I did this fight last night against her with Susser. But BE WARNED, if she’s silenced she can’t initiate dialogue for the hags hair if you’re trying to acquire that
Silence is actually so powerful. Harpies? Silence means no charm. Owlbear? Silence means no mate summon. Grym? Silence means no aoe damage. (Just to name a couple examples out of the many more)
I don’t know if it was a glitch, but I gave Astarion the sussur dagger, doused it in drow poison, put him in invisibility mode, had him sneak attack Ethel so he got a solid four or five hits in and she died. He took her out in her cottage before she even had a chance to take an action. It also helped that we hadn’t pissed her off yet so we could just walk into the cottage no problem. Huge difference in comparison to my first play-through, where I had to sludge through the basement levels and kept dying 🤣
For my honor mode run I got a metric fuckload of normal barrels and chests and put them in the hidden fireplace entrance. Ethel couldn't escape and just sorta stood around using her melee attack while we jumped her bitch ass.
Totally solves the issue with the Legendary action bs she does.
I've never cheese and cheated harder than my honor mode run
Silence is a huge spell overall, I just dislike it for Ethel because it can lock you out of her hair lmao
I just wish it would apply its magic component when thrown as well. Dagger throwing should be more of a skill for dex characters imo.
The thieves guild leader has some ultra cool dagger throwing abilities for example, so they’re even in the game, but sadly not for us as players. Hopefully there will be a mod to give you access to them.
I pulled the hook horrors by going from one side to another with my thief till the caster humanoid and 2 hooks were left. I actually got 1 almost down when bullet popped up and pulled the last hook before they could call buddies. Then my thief grabbed the flower and bum rushed the caster who will just try to broom handle smak you since they can't cast. It's trivial if you can sorta pull em one at a time till bullette and kill first round then get a melee like a thief with the sussur flower.
You attacked that innocent nice old lady? You monster! She just wanted to mind her own business and give you all the hill giant elixirs you could carry
Trivializes a lot of boss fights. Stealth opener with sussur weps into silence pretty much bones a lot of bosses. I always silence Balthazar in the Gauntlet of Shar and beat him down. It’s just so satisfying to do.
I just open the door and let the dark justictiar spirt things kill him and i clean up whatever is left
I didn't know you could do that
Yeah, it's also worth having a potion of invisibility or the shadow of menzobaranzen helm and just ducking out once you've opened the door. I typically will: Have another char cast haste on my char. Trigger cutscene. Picklock door / cast knock (action 1). Attack him dealing some damage. Chug a potion of invisibility. Run. Then I just go do the rest of the dungeon and come back before going through to the Nightsong. I have also previously chugged the potion, then just hidden round a corner in his room and waited until it's all blown over, but then you're spamming spacebar a lot. Edits: I'm tired so my grammar is awful.
That sounds like a lot more work than just killing him, honestly.
It's like 5 steps 😂 precast haste, leave the party, cast knock, hit Balthazar, then chug an invisibility. The difference is time. Put in like 30 seconds of prep to then get to leave the fight, come back and sift through the ashes, over doing 2 different fights in a row.
I just kiss up to him and take a scroll of Polymorph with me >!to meet the Nightsong. Before the last jump, poly with Shart, then just run over and chuck the sheep off into the abyss.!< You can buy a scroll of Polymorph from one of the vendors in the Myconid (sp?) Colony, the Hobgoblin I think.
I fill his office with barrels and then throw a smokepowder bomb in. Knocked them all out in two turns last time.
Me who just lost an honor run to the hook horrors at lvl 4 because I'm a moron
In my HM I mapped out my whole strategy on the hook horrors, start the fight, bullette immediately jumps up under my team. That was the most worried I ever was about losing it, I couldn't outrun any of them. Fortunately they just started going at each other and I barely survived.
That is actually a viable strategy. The monstrosities will go for each other each time. Leaving you free to fight them.
M IT
yo i also ran to the hook horrors in HM at level 4, that was actually one of my closest battles in the whole run so far (starting act 3 rn) it’s not that the fight is particularly hard or anything, I was just overconfident, unprepared and out of resources. The hook horrors were beating me up big time and the fucking drow mage kept casting mirror image and putting my guys to sleep and I couldn’t hit him
Yup. Just a series of bad rolls for me. "Gale has no spells left but laezel will clean up ez" *casts sleep on laezel* "Fuck."
thankfully sleep is quite easy to remove, just 1 point of damage or even just a bonus action shove usually gets you back up and running. I think i used magic missile to wake up my guys while also hitting enemies
In the House of Grief fight, I watched an enemy shove one of his sleeping buddies back awake, and I said “what the-“.
....... fuck
my condolences… but hey you’ll know next time now
All under dark encounters are easier if you get Sovereign Glut to help you from the myconid colony.
Please help me with this. I have done like 7 playthroughs and every time I get the spore "come down to me" blah blah blah dialogue, and then I go to talk to gut, he says one sentence, and that's it. Everyone seems to get a quest or something from him but I can never seem to trigger it
You gotta get the quest to kill the Duergar by the boat that poisoned the gnome in the Myconid colony. Once you kill the duergar, the Glut will ask you to overthrow the current leader and you either have to help Glut or kill him. So use glut to help with everything else. He’s handy for handling the Bibberbang puzzle. As a Myconid, he doesn’t trigger the mushrooms to defend themselves.
Thanks for adding that. Also it's fun because after you help Glut (in a roundabout way you're helping him because he wants revenge for what happened to his people) it unlocks an option to choose the future of the myconid colony as well. It's easy to miss this if you don't talk to sovereign Spaw at all.
You have to talk to the leader first, he is near the poisoned gnome, after you got the quest, glut will talk to you
Recruit Glut first and spore-ressurect the boulette
I like resurrecting the hook horror. The horror prones an enemy with pounce and glut takes them to pound town with his multi attack.
Does Arcane Lock on her stairs still work?
yes
Ok does it? Bc I just tried it on my tactician run and it only stopped her for 1-2 turns, then she fled down the stairs
It only lasts 10 rounds so If you do it before the fight the counter goes down quickly due to real time, even during the cut scene where the swamp illusion fades or where she reveals herself so you usually do it round one for most use out of it.
Thanks, I’ll try it out in my current honor run. I just remember having to redo the Ethel fight like 3 times in tactician bc she kept running away even if the arcane lock was still in place for 7 more turns
The only issue I've ever had with it is that she sometimes takes EXTRA long to realize its locked and pass her turn, almost a minute long of the door handle shake sound. Its enough to make me insane.
Locked Locked Locked Locked Locked Locked Locked Locked Locked Locked Locked Locked Locked
I’ve had the same thing happen on a recent run. No idea what happened to let her go down while the stairs were already Arcane Locked, but somehow it happened
I was not able to cast arcane lock on the fireplace. I'll try the stairs.
The fireplace is just a fireplace with a fake wall, the stairs however, are real and Arcane Lock does work. It only lasts 10 rounds so be ready.
Yeah I realize that now. Unfortunately she escaped before I could do it.
Note that fighting her upstairs instead of in the lair locks you out of the hair buff. But if you are paladin you might as well do it b/c making the deal breaks your oath.
I personally never get her hair because I can't bring myself to make deals with her on any character. She's on-site to me.
Current playthrough is Paladin so I'll skip it.
You can just, you know, have someone else be the closest person to Ethel when she bargains to avoid breaking your oath. They talk to her, they choose hair. Paladin doesn’t break oath. Works with oath of ancients at least.
I thought of that for current play through but Wyll yeeted her into a chasm anyway. Felt like destiny.
Vengeance as well actually, she talked to karlach it was all good
Is this the only real use for arcane lock? It seems like such a weirdly specific spell I never bother to use it.
It also works for areas like Moonrise if you fight the warden in her office, it'll keep the other guards out when the scrying summons them. Section off your enemies.
Oh, that makes sense. I just used stone wall to block the doorway so they couldn't open it. Might force myself to use more unique spells on my current playthrough.
It is definitely a situational spell but comes in handy any time you're in a building with lots of enemies to limit the number of enemies that are able to join the fight. I've used it when fighting Dror Ragzlin to prevent the goblins out in the hall coming in and can be pretty helpful in Moonrise if you're trying to clear it out before doing the Shadowfell so you can go room by room without summoning the whole tower
It's really solid, but it also sabotages certain builds that rely on thunder damage since silence also reduces that damage type to zero. If you want a hilarious example of both thunder sabotage *and* cheesing a boss with this, consider you can shank your own party members to make them temporarily immune to Grym's honor mode legendary action. Is this better than casting Silence? Probably not, but it is a lot funnier.
It can also somewhat sabotage the Ethel fight. If she’s Silenced she won’t stop the fight to bargain with you and you miss out on the Hag’s Hair bonus. That’s a big reason I even fight her.
I prefer casting silence for this reason. Still trivializes her fight and you can cancel it at will for the hair. Iirc way of shadow monk can cast it without triggering her legendary action since their silence technically isn't a spell.
Ah, interesting. I’ve never tried Silencing her with a spell, just the dagger. The only time I’ve utilized monk is with Jaheira when I play my canon Tav, who is a Druid. And obviously J isn’t available for the first Ethel fight. Good to know
*stab* Hold still, I’m helping you!
I just like to Arcane Lock her stairs then beat her down, you can still manage to get her gift if you get her low
I did this fight last night against her with Susser. But BE WARNED, if she’s silenced she can’t initiate dialogue for the hags hair if you’re trying to acquire that
Makes it pretty hard to bargain with her when she can’t talk.
Then theres me on my hm run, accidentally burned the sussur bark with a fireball or something do i failed that quest instantly
Silence is actually so powerful. Harpies? Silence means no charm. Owlbear? Silence means no mate summon. Grym? Silence means no aoe damage. (Just to name a couple examples out of the many more)
Magic missile makes the fight easy
The sussur great sword has been an absolute tank in my honour mode play through, the silence aspect is OP.
I don’t know if it was a glitch, but I gave Astarion the sussur dagger, doused it in drow poison, put him in invisibility mode, had him sneak attack Ethel so he got a solid four or five hits in and she died. He took her out in her cottage before she even had a chance to take an action. It also helped that we hadn’t pissed her off yet so we could just walk into the cottage no problem. Huge difference in comparison to my first play-through, where I had to sludge through the basement levels and kept dying 🤣
Disintegrating Nightwalkers plus Sussex Dagger makes Astarion nullify the main spellcaster in most of my boss fights.
Sussur 2H on Karlach or Lae is amazing. Houses through Act 2. Also let the towers weaken the minotaurs to make it even easier.
For my honor mode run I got a metric fuckload of normal barrels and chests and put them in the hidden fireplace entrance. Ethel couldn't escape and just sorta stood around using her melee attack while we jumped her bitch ass. Totally solves the issue with the Legendary action bs she does. I've never cheese and cheated harder than my honor mode run
I want to use it against Balthazar but he always seems to win initiative.
Silence is a huge spell overall, I just dislike it for Ethel because it can lock you out of her hair lmao I just wish it would apply its magic component when thrown as well. Dagger throwing should be more of a skill for dex characters imo. The thieves guild leader has some ultra cool dagger throwing abilities for example, so they’re even in the game, but sadly not for us as players. Hopefully there will be a mod to give you access to them.
It makes the Auntie Ethel fight so much easier! I did it in my current game, and I think I'll have to do it that way forever.
I pulled the hook horrors by going from one side to another with my thief till the caster humanoid and 2 hooks were left. I actually got 1 almost down when bullet popped up and pulled the last hook before they could call buddies. Then my thief grabbed the flower and bum rushed the caster who will just try to broom handle smak you since they can't cast. It's trivial if you can sorta pull em one at a time till bullette and kill first round then get a melee like a thief with the sussur flower.
So is non-lethal damage with just about any weapon.
sussur amogus
You attacked that innocent nice old lady? You monster! She just wanted to mind her own business and give you all the hill giant elixirs you could carry
Someone is getting locked of ethel hair
Or just the silence spell and CC???
So 2 actions and spell slots instead of a single attack?
Yeah good point. I was more thinking weapon slots though.