bboyarm

When I tried for The Ultimate achievement I ran a non-ToI character alongside the ToI one and I noticed that my load times were becoming far longer on both characters as the game progressed. This had not been an issue in previous ToI playthroughs indicating that the size of the loaded save game wasn't the problem so i moved 90% of the non-ToI save files to a backup location outside the game directory, and this helped tremendously. If you are someone who currently has slow load times and a lot of saved games you might want to give this a shot.

Finished The Ultimate, what a wild ride. The White March part 2 was pretty easy, however the Kraken fight bugged on my TOI save and the Eyeless didn't spawn even though i did the fight 3 times on my non-TOI save and in all 3 they had. Also, i messed up the split for the Thaos fight which wasn't really an issue i was fine with killing him twice but I only had to kill him once, maybe my summons and I all hit him at the same time so it bypassed his spirit split. Here is an album with a few more screenshots i took during the playthrough. http://imgur.com/a/U6RY9

The animated weapons are from the level 15 incantation for chanters. Basically it summons an animated warbow, pike, and great sword. The pike has knockdown the bow has wounding shot and the sword has flames of devotion i think. Because the pike has weapon reach i used it to tank Gaf and not activate tail lash, but i realized that i could just rotate the pike behind him to dodge it at which point i flanked him with the great sword to make the dragon a little easier to hit. I think the fight took 15 minutes total. It would have been faster if my bow was Durgan-Reinforced and had a different lash than corrode. I also was considering using Cloak of the Frozen Hunt for the bonus ranged damage and accuracy to beasts but i figured +10 spell defense against the polymorph spell might be a life saver as it had killed me a few times in the non-TOI tests. I was hitting the dragons with around 110 accuracy with the dragon chant active so +6 accuracy wouldn't have made a big difference, honestly with the strategy i used as long as you can graze them you can win the fight it will just take longer. Another mistake i made was trying to use Concealhaut to cast his crushing doom and then dismissing him to resummon the animated weapons. As it turns out when you dismiss him the crushing doom ability stops working.

Llengrath and her dragons are dead, only the White March part 2 and Thaos left unless i have missed something out. Here is an album of a few screenshots. Thanks for all the suggestions http://imgur.com/a/FvN22

I made some more progress today and managed to defeat Llengrath on my non-TOI save on the second attempt. The only damage i took that was substantial was from Turisulfus when it was only him left and i decided to try and face-tank him ( bad idea). I managed to split Turisulfus and Llengrath from the main group using animated weapons, then killed the trash mobs with summoned animated weapons while i moved away with sword and shield in hand in case a xaurip tried to CC me. I split the weapons up so that Gafonercos' acid spit wouldn't hit them all. Once the trash mobs were down killing Gafonercos was easy. He will use tailwhip if you get too close but the animated pike has enough reach that it can tank him safely for a little while while the animated war bow and I shoot him, by this point i switched to the chant that gives bonus accuracy against beasts. Once the pike was killed i moved the animated great sword in to take a few hits and by that point i had 7 charges again. Rinse and repeat. With only Llengrath and Turisulfus left I drew the dragon's aggro and then summoned weapons to kill Llengrath. To kill Turisulfus i basically summoned weapons and made him chase them while i chased and fired arrows. Yeah i thought it was going to be much harder than it was. I didn't have shot on the run or marksman, though i did have 95 accuracy with persistence which was enough, i may end up sacrificing superior deflection for marksman or Weapon Focus: Peasant, i also think i left scion of flame in the mix which is useless with the strat i used. Yeah i've seen that fight. I'm thinking about trying that because it doesn't really hinge on having a great deal of fight RNG as oppose to my current method which relies on me separating Llengrath and Gaf. I think if i use the beast accuracy chant it would be quite potent.

I've been trying to complete The Ultimate with a Chanter by running a non-TOI character alongside it, so far it is going well. However, it has occurred to me that it would really suck if I manage to kill Thaos only to realize that I missed something. So this is the list as far as i know it: Main Quest Completed White March Part 1 Main Quest Completed White March Part 2 Main Quest Completed Adra Dragon defeated. Sky Dragon defeated. Alpine Dragon defeated. Turisulfus & Gafonercos defeated. Base game + WM 1&2 Bounties Concealhaut defeated. Llengrath defeated. If there is something i have missed out let me know. The struck items are those i have already completed in the current 'The Ultimate' save.