Stuck at Maerwald on normal

[Litmusdragon]

This is my first IE game (I dabbled in Baulder's Gate but never very far). So far I'm really enjoying it. But Maerwald is kicking my ass. He one shots 3/4th of my party with his fire AOE thing.

 

Not sure if I'm

1) Too low level

2) Don't know what I'm doing

 

My party is

1) Human fighter (player char) level 3

2) Durance level 3

3) Kana level 3

4) Aloth level 3

5) 2nd level Aumaua Barbarian

6) 2nd level Godlike Druid

 

I recruited 5 and 6 after I had trouble clearing the undead in the courtyard. That helped, and got me as far as Maerwald, but he's just totally annihilating me.

 

Is there a particualr spell or something I should be using? I looked over all the spells but didn't see anything about resisting fire.

 

Or do I need to go back and explore maps and get to level 4 or something.

 

I know I could just set difficulty to easy but that's lame.

[BMac]

I had the same problem the other day.  I was able to beat him after a few tries when I started focusing on spreading my party out - sending half of them around the table to flank, and switching several of them (especially Durance, so he can heal anyone that survives) to ranged weapons.

 

Other ideas: knocking him down if you have Knock Down on your fighter (or with Durance's Repulsing Seal) could help take him out before he can cast too much, and Durance's Blessing buffs your reflex defense and may give you a chance to avoid some of the damage.  I also like Barbs of Condemnation when fighting single enemies, the reduced defenses can increase your damage output a lot.

[Tequilaflavor]

This is my first IE game (I dabbled in Baulder's Gate but never very far). So far I'm really enjoying it. But Maerwald is kicking my ass. He one shots 3/4th of my party with his fire AOE thing.

 

Not sure if I'm

1) Too low level

2) Don't know what I'm doing

 

My party is

1) Human fighter (player char) level 3

2) Durance level 3

3) Kana level 3

4) Aloth level 3

5) 2nd level Aumaua Barbarian

6) 2nd level Godlike Druid

 

I recruited 5 and 6 after I had trouble clearing the undead in the courtyard. That helped, and got me as far as Maerwald, but he's just totally annihilating me.

 

Is there a particualr spell or something I should be using? I looked over all the spells but didn't see anything about resisting fire.

 

Or do I need to go back and explore maps and get to level 4 or something.

 

I know I could just set difficulty to easy but that's lame.

 

I think you simply are too low level.

 

If I remember correctly, I was level 5 when I encountered Maerwald and the rest of my party was level 4 - I played without hired adventurers, though.

 

Enchanting your gear is also a really worthwile preparation and I was quite frankly stunned by the amount of enchants I could already throw out before reaching the first major city.

 

While fighting Maerwald, try to spread out as much as possible to get hit less by the AoE and try to use as many disables as possible on him (knock him prone, stun him, etc.).

 

Hope that helped a little.

[Tigranes]

Not necessarily. I just stomped Maerwald in about ten seconds with a level 4 no-customs party. I thought it was far too easy, then I died to some spiders in the next room. 

 

Maerwald's pretty squishy so if you have any paralysis spells then you're good to go. My cipher paralysed the fire elemental while Aloth paralysed Maerwald (both level 2 abilities), then Kana's arquebus and cipher's crossbow can get in ~40 damage per each (slow) hit. Maerwald barely got anything away. If you can't do that, then I suppose above poster's tips might help too.

[vyvexthorne]

I Immediately had durance cast halt on him and took care of the blights.. I think another character had something that paralyzes as well but I can't remember what.

I had found a ring of combusting wounds somewhere and had  stuck that on my chanter..( my mage has that spell as well.) I got rid of the blights rather quickly with combusting wounds on the wind one and kalkoth's sunless grasp on the fire one. I then had my fighter use his knockdowns on Maerwald, rogue using crippling strike..  and then just spammed combusting wounds on him with every turn while smashing him with whatever abilities/spells the other characters could. Seemed to work out rather well.

[Katarack21]

I sent my tank around the table and had durance using a reach weapon. It worked out okay--most of my party was *almost* dead at the end, but I survived.

Maerwald is a glass cannon--if you can get someone up to deal damage he'll go down quick. I'm having a much bigger issue with the Skaen Temple ending fight.

[Voss]

Moving is key, assuming you can't paralyze or otherwise insta-gib him (which a lot of firing squad parties can do easily).

 

While paused at the start of combat, starting giving orders:

Send someone forward to engage him (or the blights), then move one ranged character back, then move others behind the table- one directly behind, the other to the far side, now melee characters will have room to move up and engage (the various trappings in the room restrict movement terribly).  At that point the AoE doesn't matter much, and ranged characters should focus on Maer.  If you can engage him directly, with Eder or another fighter, tripping him is the way to go.  Slicken (or obviously, paralyze) may also work if you're more ranged focused.

 

At that point it should be fairly straight-forward.  As with most dialogue-start encounters when you're force-moved, staying in the default position is a bad idea.  I assume the developers like to do this just to punish people for existing.

[cavemandiary]

The key is to use mental binding with a cipher. He dies almost instantly after that.

[ManifestedISO]

Wait, we have to fight Maerwald, I thought we're going there to have a nice chat with Eder. 

[Dr. Snuggles]

I think you simply are too low level.

 

If I remember correctly, I was level 5 when I encountered Maerwald and the rest of my party was level 4 - I played without hired adventurers, though.

 

Enchanting your gear is also a really worthwile preparation and I was quite frankly stunned by the amount of enchants I could already throw out before reaching the first major city.

 

While fighting Maerwald, try to spread out as much as possible to get hit less by the AoE and try to use as many disables as possible on him (knock him prone, stun him, etc.).

 

Hope that helped a little.

 

 

I am playing on hard, my party was pretty weakened, when I encountered Maerwald. Still killed him first try, although he did a lot of damage with his fire aoe attack. Two of my members had level 2, the others level 3. So how on earth did you have level 5, while Litmusdragon and me were so low level? I am trying to do every quest and every fight to gain experience.

[Asmodan]

I was also Level 3 on normal and killed him first try, took me a lot of micromanagement. I didnt make Raedric's Hold yet because i think it would be too tough, maybe that is where the Level differnece came from? 

[Satris]

I had problems at lvl 3, but was finally able to kill that encounter using crowd control.  I kept using oil slick and daze (wizard lvl 1 spells) on him so he couldn't AoE.  Had my fighter take out the two baddies with him.  Once your fighter is only on Maerwald he can knockdown and interrupt.  Then he is pretty squishy.  Try and use more crowd control and interrupts is my suggestion.

[Emerwyn]

In Path of the Damned he's accompanied by three fire elementals, but even then you can play it as a pretty standard encounter. Myself, I sent my two melee in to hold the enemies together (Fighter tank Eder and Fighter Pollaxer main character), then spread the rest of the party across the room except my hired adventurer Priest that kept in range for the Level 2 pulse healing spell to affect both fighters (I always forget the spell names in PoE... will learn them in time ).

 

Used Aloth to cast the level 1 Frost AoE spell which decimated the elementals and hurt Maerwald good, and the rest was pretty much using all the per-encounter abilities at will and auoattacking Maerwald to death.

 

If I had known how the encounter played out beforehand, I'd have prepared some Elemental Resistance spells, which would probably make the whole thing quite trivial.

Edited March 30, 2015 by Emerwyn

[Bavarian]

Playing on hard.  Just fought him yesterday for the first time and it was touch and go.  I had cleared the spiders VERY easily so wasn't expecting him to put up such a fight and took it way too lightly.  I'm running double priest and had only one priest, Aloth (wizard) and Ender (fighter) by the end.  Priest was just dumping heals, fighter kept him stuck, and wizard popped off as many damage spells as possible.  When he dropped I was thrilled. 

 

When I do another run through, I'll concentrate on burning down the elementals, keeping distance with the rest of the party and using as many stun, interupt, self shields, elemental resistances, food, and potions as possible going full bore right from the get go.  Certainly not a fight to hold back on!

[Ashen Rohk]

If him or the Blight gets off a fireball, you're pretty much done for.

 

Like people have said, repulsing seal/halt/knockdown. He's squishy but when he hits he hits hard.

[Litmusdragon]

Just to update this post, I ended up equipping high damage crossbows on 3 of my characters and snipering him at the start of the encounter which was one of the suggestions above.

 

Tactics in this game are definitely a big pat of it. I'm getting better at them as I go. 

[praguepride]

Also as an FYI, if you're having problems early on with undead, get a custom Priest (or find Durance).... they have an AoE 1/encounter that heals friends and damages "vessels" which is pretty nice to have.