Paths of Cad Nua Level 3 - Ogre Trouble

[Mk1]

So... I'm level 6, decided to take a look in the Paths, Level 2 was really easy and then I immediately got stomped by the Ogres on the 3rd level.

 

Ordinary ones are no trouble, can handle a couple at a time without any effort, could probably take on 3-4 of those if I had to.

 

But the fight with the Ogre leader, Druid and their Ogre mook seems impossible. They do tons of damage, I just can't heal and hit back fast enough, and no combination of debuffs I found so far seems to do anything meaningful.

 

Is this something I should skip for now, and continue to level 4? Will exploration reveal some secret that will make this easier? Or are the Paths best tackled at a higher level?

 

(My party consists of my Barbarian main, not min-maxed, Eder, Aloth, Sagani, Kana and Durnace)

[Lord Wafflebum]

I actually did the Ogre level when I was level 5. It was brutal, and I very nearly didn't get through it. You may want to adjust your tactics. I recommend using Aloth to do some crowd control, or get GM to help out with status effects. Or you can wait until you level up a couple more times, but I've also gone through with a level 12 party and you can take quite a bit of damage if you're not careful.

[Katarack21]

Ogre's are brutal, just in general. Ogre Druids especially.

[Crucis]

Mk1, I'd probably suggest waiting until you've gained another level or 2.  I don't remember what level my party was when I completed the Ogre level, but I'll give you this suggestion. How I've managed working the Endless Paths dungeon was to only do a level or so of it at a time, and then go back to working quests on the surface for a while.  And when I decided to come back to Cad Nua, I'd work the dungeon again for another level or so.

 

There are a number of advantages to doing this.  First, your party will be getting stronger, level wise as you go to the deeper levels of the dunegon.  Second, it helps prevent any boredom or frustration from the long dungeon crawl of the Endless Paths (and it's a BIG dungeon).  Also, I suggest completing the major quest over in the Heritage Hill section of Defiance Bay before you get much deeper into the dungeon.  Won't tell you why, but it is absolutely worthwhile.

 

As for dealing with the Ogres when they have orge druid back up, yeah, they're tough.  Trying to take them all down with nothing but physical force is probably going to be difficult.  I know it's been that way for me.  Orges have a LOT of health and can take a LOT of damage before they finally keel over.  One spell that seems to work well is the level 4 wizard confusion spell.  Don't remember it's new name, but it's just the ol' Confusion spell.  It'll confuse everyone in its area for a decent time and maybe get them attacking each other.  Let them attack each other, and only attack the "red" ones.   Or if by chance you've managed to get all of the ogres confused, pick one of the druids and attack him, turning him "red" again, and hope that the other "green" ogres will turn on him.  And even if they don't turn on him, you only have a single active enemy for a short while to focus everyone on.  Just don't use any area effect damaging attacks (like Fireball) on a mob of confused (green) Ogres, since doing so just turns them red again.  Let them stay green as long as possible except for one, if you've had to turn one red to try to get the other green Ogres to attack him.  Confusion seems to work very, very well against the Ogres, probably because they have a very low Will defense.  (Indeed, any attacks against Will defenses would probably work well.  Something to keep in mind.)

[Mk1]

Thanks for the replies - I'm in no huge hurry, and I'm about 2/3 of the way to level 7, so I'll probably save this for later.

[Katarack21]

Cad Nua is deliberately scaled so that the difficulty progresses faster than the levels it provides; your are *supposed* to go out and do other stuff, then come back. Of course this doesn't work if you are over leveled when you start it.

[Ichthyic]

regular ogres have poor will saves.

if you have confusion, either via spell or scroll, you can really limit how much damage ogres can do to you.

if you have any charm spells or items, now is the time to use them (use them ONLY on the regular ogres; druids have decent will saves).

painful interdiction is very useful, as it weakens them quite a bit.

fear also weakens them.

use aloth's level 2 paralyze spell on ogre druids from stealth (it will allow you to get close enough to get it off without being pummeled first).

slick, and the seal spells from durance work well to knock them over.

in long hallways you can kite them with ranged attacks, especially if you use something like web.

anything that can sicken them works well.

focus your firepower on the druids first, and make sure to take them down before they really get rolling, as they are quite a bit stronger than regular ogres in every way.

lastly, they are very weak to corrosive damage.  again, level 3 aloth spell "noxious burst" is brutally efficient here.


I'd say ogres were the second (after early phantoms) good test of your builds and tactics.

you should be able to do them at level 5, for a hard challenge, level 6 for a reasonable challenge, and by level 7, they should barely present a problem for you.  if they still do... you really need to review your builds and tactics.

[Jasta11]

-Use their poor Will saves against them. A Cipher especially can keep them CCed for a long time

 

-If there are no druids, you can kite them. Ogres are slower than player characters.

 

-If there IS an ogre druid, kill or CC it first. Always. They are exceptionally deadly. At worst, try to tie it up in melee with a tank or summons, better it hit you with its club than unleash its deadly spells.

 

-Charm is your friend. Ciphers and Chanters have charm spells, even one ogre wailing on his friends instead of you is a huge boon.

 

-Scrolls are always useful. Scrolls of paralysis especially are quite common and very effective vs them.

 

-If you can get past the Ogres, you basically have a smooth sail until evel 7 at least. I truly have no idea why they put the Ogres so early, they are one of the hardest floors by far. Don't be afraid to leave and go back, I myself managed to clear the floor at level 6 but I retried the boss a good 6 times., and only won because I critically charmed Zolla who spent a good half of the fight hitting her comrades in the face.

[Elgyn]

So... I'm level 6, decided to take a look in the Paths, Level 2 was really easy and then I immediately got stomped by the Ogres on the 3rd level.

 

Ordinary ones are no trouble, can handle a couple at a time without any effort, could probably take on 3-4 of those if I had to.

 

But the fight with the Ogre leader, Druid and their Ogre mook seems impossible. They do tons of damage, I just can't heal and hit back fast enough, and no combination of debuffs I found so far seems to do anything meaningful.

 

Is this something I should skip for now, and continue to level 4? Will exploration reveal some secret that will make this easier? Or are the Paths best tackled at a higher level?

 

(My party consists of my Barbarian main, not min-maxed, Eder, Aloth, Sagani, Kana and Durnace)

The ogre level really isn't bad at all as long as you have a Cipher (You can just create one to replace Sagani with for this level if you need/don't have GM, then just have the Cipher spend the rest of his or her days running errands in the keep for you.). Mental Binding taking the Ogre Druids out of the fights really changes the difficulty for the whole level. Kana actually did a lot of work for me in that level as well by summoning Reny Daret's Ghost. 

 

You can actually pull the second pack in the leaders room without pulling the leader. I usually set up in the corner outside the southern entrance, and then have Aloth drop a low level aoe at one Ogres feet, and then wipe the pack out after it crosses the door. After that you can engage the leader and her bodyguards and it's really not that horrible of a fight anymore.

 

I'll do the first five levels of Nua before stopping and heading back to the main quest without too much hassle so you shouldn't worry about needing to overlevel it, but seven levels is really doable as long as you are good with Aloth's placement, have a decent meatshield, and have some sort of hard CC. 

[Crucis]

Cad Nua is deliberately scaled so that the difficulty progresses faster than the levels it provides; your are *supposed* to go out and do other stuff, then come back. Of course this doesn't work if you are over leveled when you start it.

 

On a side note, I didn't realize the value of building the Game Warden's house in the Stronghold until well after I'd done it.  The bounties that the Game Warden has are fairly straight forward ways to earn some XP, money, and an occasional item.

 

And speaking about Ogres, one of the bounties in the first set of 4 is a bounty on a pack of ogres ... which was easily the toughest of the first 4 bounties.  (They spanked my party around bad until I replaced Kana with Grieving Mother and came back later and returned the favor.)