Volsalex

What difficulty are you playing on? If it is PoTD, it looks like this zone has been affected by the 3.1 PoTD difficulty change. Before it, I had a run through this zone and as far as I can remember risen creatures had 1-2 skulls (+1-2 lvl) for my lvl 8 party. If my suspicion is correct, they could just forget to update the quest level restriction/description. However, it is still possible to finish this quest at lvl 7-8, there are several tips how to fight enemies in Hanging Sepulchers that might be useful: - Don't use weapons/spells with piercing damage, all risen creatures are immune to it. Blunt damage weapons (scepters for ranged chars, maces/warhammers for one-handed melee chars, morningstars for two-handed) should be quite effective against them. - Use weapons/abilities with high penetration as risen fighters and especially champions have high Armor Rating, even more on PoTD difficulty. The weapons mentioned above all have both decent Penetration and 1-2 damage types including Blunt damage. - In a fight where tons of small skeletons appear, consider using heal-on-kill pets (like Abraham) and spells (like Crusader's Triumph), they will provide a big amount of healing that can help survive high ST damage from risen fighters/rogues and AoE damage from risen mages - In a fight with traps there are small passages which you could block with your melees/summons to keep ranged characters relatively safe and place the fire wall before them so that enemy melee fighers will have to stand right on it to deal damage - In a fight with Dargules/Rotghasts, focus the Dargules first as their vampirism is very irritating and can be hard to overwhelm when your party is out of ability charges. Your tank could also get abducted by a Wraith so having additional melee off-tanks or summoning creatures right at the beginning of combat to keep enemy melees busy is recommended. - Consider using characters that can summon controllable summons (like Pallegina specced into Herald class). You can use your summons to fight enemy mages in melee, then they usually stop annihilating your party with AoEs and start using protective spells/ST damage spells and become much less a threat. These summons can also be used to distract enemy melee fighters from your tank(s), so it is easier to keep him(them) alive. - If you have Serafen specced into Cipher/Witch in your party, consider using Puppet Master, especially on enemy mages/priests. This can completely change the pace of battles as priests won't save/heal enemies, mages won't harm your party with their Arcane Dampeners,etc. If the enemy's Will is too high, you can greatly reduce it with his auto-learned Tenuous Grasp spell at first. Its cost is low, duration is decent, so even its graze can be sufficient to use Pupper Master successfully.

It is used when you target the spell affected by this passive (which has an icon over it) and via using zoom buttons (mouse wheel for example), this will change the spell's AoE and Power Level. Some additional info about Spell Shaping for those interested in it: Spell Shaping: - Is a passive ability available at Power Level 4 for Chanter, Wizard, Druid and Priest classes. - Affects most targeted circular/cone AoEs. Doesn't affect "wave" spells and AoEs that are cast around the caster. - Provides three states for the spells it affects: general AoE, smaller AoE, larger AoE, they can be switched via zoom buttons. - Larger version increases area of effect by ~30-40% and reduces PL of the spell by 5, bonus area is "foe only" (only the second targeting circle is increased) - Smaller version reduces area by ~40-50% and increases PL of spell by 1, also removes safe zone from Intellect and makes the area "friend-or-foe only" (except "foe-only" spells)

I made several tests with Spell Shaping and found several features and a minor bug I'd like to share. I will also add some already posted info to sum it all up in a single post for people who still don't have access to the passive but want to know some details about it. I tested Wizard spells only, but I suppose the option is similar for all classes. Spell Shaping: - Is a passive ability available at Power Level 4 for Chanter, Wizard, Druid and Priest classes. - Affects most targeted circular/cone AoEs. Doesn't affect "wave" spells and AoEs that are cast around the caster. - Provides three states for the spells it affects: general AoE, smaller AoE, larger AoE, they can be switched via zoom buttons. - Larger version increases area of effect by ~30-40% and reduces PL of the spell by 5, bonus area is "foe only" (only the second targeting circle is increased) - Smaller version reduces area by ~40-50% and increases PL of spell by 1, also removes safe zone from Intellect and makes the area "friend-or-foe only" (except "foe-only" spells) Bug: for some DoT spells, PL change is not indicated in the description of its damage/duration (tested on Concelhaut's Corrosive Siphon, description of its damage/duration was the same for all three states). I support the idea of smaller version adding 2 PL to the spell instead of 1 as the large area penalty and safe zone loss is quite a big tradeoff for only 1 PL. Such a change could also make smaller version much more flexible as it could be used not only to land more powerful or carefully targeted hits against tight/mixed packs, but also to slightly increase the spell's Penetration to match bigger Armor Rating of enemies at the cost of hitting less targets. I also support the idea of larger version penalty getting reduced to 4 PL because of the Penetration reason as well. -5 PL loss removes 1.25 points of Penetration which would often lead to actually losing two points of Penetration and suffering additional damage reduction, while 4 PL is a steady loss of only 1 point of Penetration, while still being a big reduction to the spell's damage/duration.

Does the cleansing strike from the boss have big area of effect? And is it used often?

With such restrictions, I suppose Cipher should get this passive as well. It is pretty much a useful versatility tool where you can choose between bigger/longer effect or possibility to affect more targets losing a significant amount of power/duration (~20-25%).

Several more questions about spellshaping: 1) Can you change the area of any "wave" spells (Rolling Flame, Crackling Bolt, etc.) or "cone" spells (Fan of Flames, etc.). If so, does it increase wave/cone length or its size? 2) Is the extended area from Spell Shaping for circular spells foe-only, or does it scale both friend-foe and foe zones equally?

Thank you very much for the info! Several more questions regarding these features: Rymrgand Challenge: 1) Do food ingredients have any spoil time? (Spices, for example). 2) Is the duration of food effects the same as without the challenge (a period between rests)? Spell Shaping: 3) Can you change the area of any "wave-like" spells (Rolling Flame, Crackling Bolt, etc.) or "cone-like" spells (Fan of Flames,etc.). If so, does it increase wave/cone length or wave/cone size? 4) Looks like the extended area from shaping for circular spells is foe-only (second targeting circle), can you confirm this? 5) How big is Power Level loss for the max radius shaped spell?

Nice patch! I'm really looking forward to the spellshaping feature and hope it is available for most 1.5 m radius spells to make them more competitive with other AoEs. A small question about PoTD difficulty changes - will they appear in already-in-progress playthrough (at least the unexplored parts of it where changes have been made), or do I have to start a new playthrough for them?