Karador Help (Normal Paladin)

[Xenesis]

This battle has had me stuck for absolutely ages...in that I've gone around and levelled up 5 levels or so doing random quests and crap and I still can't trounce him.

Anyhow, setup:

Class: Paladin
Difficulty: Normal
Level 22
20 Atk, 14 Def, 14 Int, 60 Rage, 63 Mana

Army:
Lake Fairies
Inquisitors
Gryffins
Elven Archers
Black Unicorns

I don't have access to any Dryads, Sprites, Royal Thorns, Necromancers, Mana Spring, Necro Call. Only really useful spells I've found personally are Resurrection, L3 Bless and Magic Poleaxe/Lightning.

Resurrection of his troops coupled with the constant castings of Hypnosis are pretty much ruining me, coupled with his excessively high stats make it really hard for me to smash his stacks down.

Help?

[feathin]

You could use units that are immune to mind spells to prevent hypnosis.

To prevent him from resurrecting dead stacks either put your own units on top of them, maneuver him to move his own living units on top of them (best, since when that dies you only need to block 1 spot for 2) or use the rage wall or rage ice crystals to block off the dead stacks.

For attacking the crystal, use something with no retaliation like royal snakes, or black dragons as their immune to the crystal's retaliation.

Using those strategies, you can knock out the enemy troops and block them off, and then sit and whittle down the crystal at your leisure.

[Vulture]

This forum literally OOZES with hints on the Karador battle. There's a myriad of threads with requests and perfectly detailed and accurate answers to the problems this battle causes a player. For any class and any difficulty level.

The short version from me:

Your lineup is fairly useless (except the inquisitors and the black uincorns) and your choice of spells strikes me with wonder. Magic Poleaxe ? That's probably the worst spell in the entire game apart from last hero. You're a paladin, not a mage. Direct damage spells are as effective for you as throwing cotton balls at the enemy. Especially at 14 int. And especially with the worst direct damage spell there is...

What are your Distortion choices ? Got Gift, Phantom, Target, Trap, Magic Shackles, Magic Spring and alle the other usefull crowd controlling spells (leveled up) ?

Feathin's advice is valid: the key to the battle is blocking the dead stacks with anything you have. Ice Ball, Ice Crystals, not really wall, for it doesn't last long enough, summons, totems, your troops.
And later on in the battle, in order to restore losses with Time Back, Sacrifice or simply Resurrection you should keep one of his (non mind-immune) stacks alive and hypnotize it (Evil Beholders or Demonesses do the trick as well) and abuse the Cloud Of Poison and Magic Spring trick to get mana back. Hypnotize for the purpose of a) if Karador has no control over his last stack, he can't cast a spell but the fight isn't over either and b) the stack would hit one of your troops and die from retaliation, ending the battle.

But really... this forum is full of that. Just use the search function.

[Xenesis]

Yeah, I went back and searched most of the old threads for ideas.

Most of which were "Use Necro Call/Necromancers" to resurrect stacks so he can't.

Magic Poleaxe was my bread and butter damage spell throughout the game...served me well for all the other options I had.

Can't use Sacrifice - only get the scroll AFTER I beat Karador according to the scanner.

I have Gift L3, Don't have target, Trap L1. No Magic Spring.

Looks like my only recourse is to go hunt down some Dragons, because I lack most of the other options suggested in those other threads.

[Vulture]

By the point you're ready to face Karador you should normally have every option there is, mate. Unit wise, and mostly spell wise, except one or two if you're unlucky.
Are you sure you checked everywhere ? Did you snatch every flag/random map loot from Demonis and check every shop there ? I mean, it's hardly imaginable that your game (according to the scanner result) lacks MOST of the options suggested to you. I know there's some bad luck games but that I deem fairly impossible. All 3 dragon colours are pretty much guaranteed, too. There's eggs of each colour in the Grey Wasteland/Death Valley, plus the Dragon's Den in Ellinia for Greens. And then the "get me red eggs" quest dude who lets you buy Red Dragons afterwards.

Plus you might want to check what kind of items you're wearing. Your defense is quite high. I don't know how you equipped your hero but are there a little more ATK options available ?
Also, what are your talent choices ? For a paladin it's mostly (generally speaking) recommended to go for tolerance and no further (except the rune swapping talent) in the mind tree and go all the way down on the might tree. Frenzy, Onslaught, Dark Commander being the most important down there.

With your lvl 3 Gift and Inquisitors and Time Back you should actually be able to keep every living thing in your army on a high enough level number wise.
And as said to absolutely block each and every dead stack (best is to lure the enemy onto the same hex another stack died before) except one smaller one that is less dangerous (skeletons come to mind or so) that he can keep resurrecting (to keep him from casting hypnotize), you should be good.

Another good advice is the use of infernal swap or teleport to get your Griffins (Demons > Griffins because of the higher damage output and the Domination ability) right into Karador's side of the battlefield so you can leave the doors untouched (Ice Thorn block your side of the battle to prevent the Bone Dragons to fly directly over there) to keep the enemy melee from harming your Inquisitors and range damage department (Skeleton Archers + Dragon Arrows = even without special items a highly efficient damage dealer).

I could write a ton more on it but it has all been said before ^^

[Noghri]

Hi, for my first post I will write how I managed to beat the nice dead guy...

So first of all let`s start with the setup (not sure about the place names as I`m not home currently):

100 Horseman - You can get them at King Mark`s Castle
132 Dark Unicorns - You can get them in Elenia or the Land of the Dead
18 Ents - Giant Mushroom in Elenia
130 Necromancers - In the deamon land
140 Elven Archers - In Elenia

So the first turn I teleported my Ents straight in the enemy lines and start hitting on them (this is the cruicial move as ents have a lot of HP and can take and make a LOT of damage), I left other units on their main positions killing the bone dragons that flew in.
My second move was to teleport Black Unicorns as close to archers as possible and hitting them.
Third move was that I bashed the wodden wall with the knights and killed vampires. All this time all enemy units are hitting Ents.
Every time my necromancers were at move I checked is there any unit that I can totally kill with magic or rage to revive them.
After I killed the vampires I set the Horseman to hit the dark crystal, every hit 1000 points, and my other units were killing the field enemyies.
In the end I had huge army, and all Karador had was 10 necromancers which were killed with pleasure