Dev-mode

[Lord Ludwig]

I indeed payed little attention in the last part of the game. Once I reached level 40+ all battles were so easy I just squandered money dismissing armies to try new ones. However, even considering I should have played more carefully and come to the final bosses better prepared (it was impossible difficulty after all) I don't see how distortion lvl 3 and maybe an all-demon or all-lizardmen army would make much difference. If I can find the "very detailed" thread by Dobrev I'll be happy to read it.

The way I see it, as a mage you get two options against Baal:

1) you pound him with offensive spells the way I always did with all other opponents, including Gremlion and K'Tahu. However his fire resistance makes my best spells useless. So you can go with: a) poison skull, probably the best damage/mana ratio available against him, but since on average it does little more than 4k damage it would take about 35 rounds to kill him. Since my leadership gives me only 150 paladins they are death before round 15; b) pole axe, guaranteed damage of close to 6K, slightly worse damage/mana ratio so maybe you'll have to resort to calm rage, anyway even if you could keep casting it pole axe requires close to 40 castings, thus with higher magic let's say 32-33 rounds. Same problem as with poison skull; c) ice snake: does slightly more than 7k damage per round, still meaning 30+castings, about 25 rounds with higher magic. But as it costs 30 mana you won't be able to cast it all turns; d) death star: does on average 9k damage but costs 50 mana AND will wipe out your own troops in such cramped space. So the nuking does not work.

2) you protect your best troops (paladins and knights) with stoneskin, divine armor and phantom them. Nice, they will take little damage (but still their numbers are going down) but what's left to harm Baal with? If they attack, given they can come close to him in the first place, the most damage I've seen is still below 5k (on a critical) and with Baal's counterstrike, protection or not, I still lose 10-12 paladins per round. If I start casting resurrection mana goes down fast, and in the end maybe I can keep my troops alive longer than in strategy 1, but even if I reach turn 20 Baal's health is not even halfway down.

Now if exorcism was to work on him (why doesn't it? He's the final boss, but he's still a demon, or is he?) that could MAYBE make it doable otherwise I just don't see how a mage can do it. Maybe a warrior with twice my leadership and 300-400 paladins, but a mage... I have maybe not all the very best items, but still have staff of the archmage, 2x robe of the magess, battle mage helm, the elven companion, various +2 regalia, that ring that gives +5 int... only no good boots, best I got is spiked boots (+2 def, +1 att).