Baal on hard mode as a mage

[Annex]

Level 55 mage, hard mode, on last boss (Baal). Just cant get him down (killed him on Normal mode no problem). Previous bosses were cake on hard. He however just destroys me. Tried many combinations of units and the best I can do is get him down to 25%. Few things that happen:

- He does his sword thing at the start, which I can generally avoid throughout most of the fight but at the start it hurts quite a bit
- He uses the sword thing whenever he summons units as I cannot reach him fast enough to prevent him from doing so
- He will sometimes summon twice in a row, creating a vast barrier between myself and him
- My front line units are Paladins and Knights. I keep Stone Skin on them at all times. I use haste level 3 to get them to the boss in the first round
- Have five wanderer spells going including attack, defense, intellect, crit and 20% leadership stack
- Been casting Magic Spring on one or two units to keep my mana pool sustained
- Been casting resurrection to bring back fallen units
- Been using Archmages for their shield buff
- My remaining two units (in my last attempt) have been Cyclops for ranged attack and Bone Dragons or Black Knights to be used as a double stack to try to convince the boss to attack the knight/paladin instead of using his flying sword

Now, few observations. I cannot use any non-retaliation units as they get annihilated in the first turn by the flying sword. I bring in 500 royal snakes and I lose 400 in the opening volley. Bill Gilberts forces get annihilated quickly, and his ranged units are too fricking stupid to move when the ground collapses so losing those two ranged units hurts.

Any advice?

[karabaja]

how about impossible difficulty and no loss fight against baal? many people have done it, there are many different tactics on how to do it, here is one of them:

- use only one stack of paladins
- make sure you have phantom & stone skin spells (must have!). some other spells like divine armor, mana spring & phoenix would be nice as well
- some items that add to physical resistance and inquisitor set would be nice too
- summoner & frenzy + high intellect can help too

- in first round you cast stone skin (bill gilbert will add divine armor to your stone skin and you will be already very tough to hurt, even for a baal ) and haste.
- concentrate your attacks on baal first!
- all you need now is to phantom your paladins & resurrect your main stack + repeat stone skin. use mana spring if needed as well.
- phoenix can be used as second unit but don't use him for attack, he's here because of his high initiative only, if you need to cast some spells early or at the end of turn. if he dies, don't revive him right away (he's worth to you more dead than alive ), wait for 2 turns, and revive him at the end of 3rd turn.
- you can use other spells as well, but use 'em wisely so that you don't run out of mana needed for stone skin & phantoms.
- don't forget that your phantoms can do damage too + provide extra turns for your main stack

- optional: keep one stack of imps alive (but reduce their number, we don't need 500 imps attacking us, do we?) and cast mana spring on your palladin for infinite mana if it's needed for final resurrection

and that's it

i apologise for my bad english, hope you can understand what i ment to say

cheers

[Zechnophobe]

Try using a unit that summons things. Dryads for instance. Phantom them at some point, and use the phantom + thorns to try and force 'two stack attack' from him on bill's forces. Using real units like Bone dragons or black knights isn't efficient for the most part.

I'd also consider not using Archmages. As much as the shield is nice, their lack of damage isn't.

Mass SPells effect Bill too, so casting Mass Demonslayer can really help take down 'walls' of demons pretty quick.

Hope that helps!