How to kill Baal; mage on impossible

[ckdamascus]

I am a little surprised, but I cannot win against Ktahu even with 290 black knights! (using flaming eye scroll and the helm + staff)

I am a level 54 mage with all the nifty spells. However, I do not have frenzy. Does frenzy increase attack rating over time? Should I be using hells' breath? My black knight's attack rating is merely around 62ish or so. How are you guys getting it up to 100+?

Stone skin works, but mark of death seems to counter it. If I had any phys resistance items, I probably sold them by now.

Eviln is strong, but it takes casting time and a turn from the black knights to recover. Not to mention most of the time, the enemies swarm over the bodies or the Tirex's will eat them before I could use them anyway. Maybe I am using eviln improperly?

I really could use the splinter of darkness by now, but I got moro too late, so I just killed him. Maybe I should just use royal griffons instead with insane buffs?

Seems pretty sad that my mage has a LOT of trouble against the bosses. I barely beat the gremlin boss by using black knights, but lost about half of them (simply no bodies to evilN back, and I was a bit too impatient in waiting for a summoning box just to evilN them back). Is it me? Or is that boss fight really tedious? Is there a faster/stronger way to womp these bosses? I don't mind good tactics, but I really hate tedious battles. Is it faster and more fun with a warrior?

I have already re-started a new campaign with the gift pack, but if I cannot figure out why I am severely losing now, I don't think replaying this is going to get me there.

[dashcunning]

I would say your problem is that you aren't playing to your strengths. Or you haven't built your strengths to support the style you are trying to play. Black Knights without splinter of darkness doesn't make much sense. You are missing out on 10 attack, 2 morale (+20% current attack/defense and +30% current crit), and unlimited retaliations. That's huge IMO. Black Knights are a good unit by themselves, but you didn't do the things necessary to make them a great unit. It's not surprising you are having trouble.

Frenzy increases a unit's attack by 2/4/6 for every enemy unit that is killed by your unit. Nice to have, but not that big of a deal. 100+ attack is pretty easy: 28 base attack, +14(50% undead bonus), +20(hero attack), +10(splinter of darkness), +6(nighttime operations), +7(power of darkness), +17(20% from morale) equals 102 total.

You shouldn't have sold resist items, they are some of the best items. Better than a few points of attack/defense/intelligence or whatever else you could put in that slot.

It sounds like Black Knights aren't a good fit and that you would be better off with units that take advantage of the equipment and skills you have. What units those may be can't be said without knowing what the skills and equipment actually are.

[ckdamascus]

Thanks for your response!

I agree. While a lot of people here seemed to survive without a few key ingredients, I think I put myself in the perfect situation where I am missing EVERY key ingredient. That's what I get for misreading a lot of different threads with different intentions.

That said, I am a high level mage, so I wouldn't have expected to hit attack 100ish easily, but I thought I read some mages here were able to do so.

I have around 63 intelligence before the wanderer scroll, and nearly every nifty spell. I have plenty of money so I can swap to any other troop fairly easily. The only unit I don't think I recall seeing in my game is archdaemons.

I do not have any special attack items / combos / sets. I just have mana items, int items, etc. I pushed more towards defense if anything. I have maybe 23-28ish defense.

I was under the impression that there are just certain combinations of troops that could do well, regardless of equipment. Mind you, I am a mage, so I figured some of that gear isn't quite as important, I mean things like raising archer critical% and such, not the physical resists.

I am loathe to go with paladins, knights, royal griffons with some phantom mania assault. But I even wonder if that team could survive.

[dashcunning]

Mages with good Black Knights is doable, you just have to ration your magic runes so you can trade them for might runes. Do you really need level 3 order magic? Or summoner? Honestly though, if you want to do a single stack Black Knights game, you should just go warrior as that's most suitable.

Personally I'm not a fan of attack spells, others will disagree, but I just don't find them particularly effective. Therefore, I can't speak with much experience as to what would work well for your high intelligence build. In my mage impossible game, I was doing the phantom royal griffin thing until I lost interest.

[ckdamascus]

Well, I was trying to "salvage" my game and I heard people say "ooh, you don't even need splinter, just 130 black knights and eviln, and you instant win!"

So, I don't have a particular love for black knights. As an aside, in my new game (impossible mage again) with the gift bag mod, I almost have splinter already (level 20).

I was sort of pushing for voice of the dragon with this mage, but I have not committed the runes yet. I really like dragons, but wow, this requires a TON of runes.

Would you say one point in frenzy, with splinter will make my black knights a real killing force? This is an insurance policy in case I go through the whole game again only to realize "oops, I did it again": I can't beat the big bosses.

I didn't realize frenzy gives you an attack point per kill. The description made it sound like it gives you a mere +3 attack. This seems like the summoning bosses are really asking for it by 'feeding' the black knights especially with unlimited retaliation.

I don't think I need the Power of the Undead either. Am I correct in that splinter + one point in frenzy should nearly guarantee victory in case my other plans fail?

[dzeris]

Originally Posted by ckdamascus

I do not have any special attack items / combos / sets. I just have mana items, int items, etc. I pushed more towards defense if anything. I have maybe 23-28ish defense.

I was under the impression that there are just certain combinations of troops that could do well, regardless of equipment. Mind you, I am a mage, so I figured some of that gear isn't quite as important, I mean things like raising archer critical% and such, not the physical resists.

I am loathe to go with paladins, knights, royal griffons with some phantom mania assault. But I even wonder if that team could survive.

Singing Dagger. +5 attack, +15 rage, +15% damage by allied lizards and +20% damage to K'Tahu.
Miner's helmet. +20% attack in the evening and at night.

Items matter.

When I fight bosses in normal level, two strong stacks attack boss from different sides and other three deal with summoned creatures. If there are no summons, units with remote attacks attack boss. If boss relocates, closest attack unit attacks him while main stacks walk to boss. Dersu Kumatu goes down in two turns (paladins and griffons). Driller spends first two incarnations retreating and does not have time to summon repair droids. Main problem with K'Taku - summoned tirexes.

[ckdamascus]

Originally Posted by dzeris

Singing Dagger. +5 attack, +15 rage, +15% damage by allied lizards and +20% damage to K'Tahu.
Miner's helmet. +20% attack in the evening and at night.

Items matter.

When I fight bosses in normal level, two strong stacks attack boss from different sides and other three deal with summoned creatures. If there are no summons, units with remote attacks attack boss. If boss relocates, closest attack unit attacks him while main stacks walk to boss. Dersu Kumatu goes down in two turns (paladins and griffons). Driller spends first two incarnations retreating and does not have time to summon repair droids. Main problem with K'Taku - summoned tirexes.

Normal level as in normal difficulty? I am talking about impossible with no-losses until the gremlin boss. I believe you have taken my comment out of context, and I don't know if you play a mage.

Hitting intelligence levels which are divisible by 7 gives you an additional 15% spell damage. Unless you are suggesting melee is better than magic damage in impossible boss matches, which might be the case since I cannot nuke out a bosses's HP in a non-stop volley without running out of mana.

However, in normal difficulty due to the bosses lower HP, I could easily use anything and win.

That said, I did use the singing dagger, it didn't really help but it wasn't obvious to me if it helped my spell damage.

Also, I am using the staff which lower undead leadership requirements by 15%. Your suggestion would reduce my black knights by about 30.

[dzeris]

Originally Posted by ckdamascus

Normal level as in normal difficulty? I am talking about impossible with no-losses until the gremlin boss. I believe you have taken my comment out of context, and I don't know if you play a mage.

I play this game for fun and not for max difficulty. Normal difficulty level, finished as warrior and paladin, now fighting as 10 level mage. I might be wrong, but you can't fight all boses with black knights and expect to win. Each boss requires different strategy and fighting only with black knights is no different than me doing "Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead"

[KongMysen]

there are tons of different lineups vs bosses, but most of these require a few things item-wise-

If you're going with the split stack repair droids, the badge lowering leadership is essential or at least very beneficial.
- Griffins really gets so much better with the Portrait and the banner.
- Fairies benefit alot from the +1 dmg items.
Etc.

Black Knights are clearly optimized by a lot of stuff especially the helmet and the splinter. using all the beneficial stuff for BK's really make them an overpowered unit. In my Black Knight battles vs the bosses (no-loss impossible mage), I kinda had all the nessesary stuff to make the battle easy. Also including Moro for yet another +1 morale. If you have no resistance items at all, you've really made things hard for yourself, since they are key items vs Ktahu and Baal.
An example can be with the Black Knights. With the Medal + stoneskin, they will recieve 23% physical dmg, but if you wear the boots adding another 15% resistance, you'll only recieve 8% of any physical dmg with the BK's. that a reduction on almost 2/3

Defensive lineups and playstyle are really the way to be succesful in KBAP
I bet you've seen several strategies including horsemen, Knights and Paladins and these are good strats because you start with high resistance on all troops. Mage has the advantage of being able to cast stoneskin twice pr round, securing all units in just a few rounds.

Your Paladin, knights, Royal Griffin suggestion will properly work well, but it may be alot of struggle, since you lack these resistance items. I still think you should go for it. Just make sure, that you always have stoneskin on all troops especially your Paladins, as it is essential to keep them strong for the phantoms to be of any use. If you haven't sold the Inquisitor sword, that's a great item for paladin lineups. Also the Griffins Banner and/or Portrait of the Griffin King would help alot.
Focus getting Stoneskin on the troops. If you get a chance to cast anything else, Mana spring or the rage-to-mana spell (forgot the name).
If you have mana AND stoneskin use a Geyser/Death Star to clean up, but save the Higher Magic rounds for dual casting stone skin

It's funny how the right build can change the tide of a battle completely. I never had any doubt, that I would succeed with the BK's. But without the splinter and resistance items, you are having a hard time, forcing you to choose a different strat. That is what's so great about this game.