The mechanics for the final battle

[Belsirk]

I have played the game with a Paladin (before the third patch come out) and a Cipher ( after the patch 1.06) in the latest difficult setting, using the official NPC and everyone at level 12.  So, this is not a topic about how to beat Thaos and the statues, but how  they  work with the  game mechanics (WTF happens in that battle).

 

The 3 entities are able to regenerate by means of spells,  seem you can't destroy the statues as Thaos will restore their energy with a special  spell, the statues protect Thaos with a special sequence, yet is possible to kill him before the special event trigger   (happened to me with the Cipher).

 

However, this bring my questions , 

 

1- Thaos is a cleric with unlimited use of spells  (This was a general issue but I though was fixed with a patch) which is problematic when you tactic is surround him with summons (or with anything) as he will  uses the pillars spells always, seem that the only viable option there is to knock/paralyze/terrified him, but  I have notice that the knockdown and the special fighter talent  Clear out  never hit him, with my cipher game Durance was able to use  Repulsing seal with him, yet with my paladin game Thaos always resisted it (Same might attribute, but different intelligence). 

 

2- Thaos  resistance is something weird,  he only has 15 universal (I think a little more with electricity but lower than 20) yet  he  survive more than the Adra golems from the endless path with higher DR (Eder alone is unable to defeat him even with a weapon with the kith bane property, yet is my favorite against the adra golems). By survived more, I mean I took me more effort to bring him near to Badly injury or worse.

 

3.a - Point 2 could be explained if Thaos  has a lot of HP, but don't seem to be the case, in the first  6-9 rounds, I'm able to surround him, using Durance to buff the party and using my paladin or summons (with the cipher) for distracting the statues (after that, Thaos already debuffed me,  and begin to kill my party). when I'm bringing down  Thaos  (he is  badly jury or even near to death)  the statues many times are able to  heal him before my 4-5  NPC defeat him, restoring him to injury state,  but sometimes Durance fire seal (or the auman fire chant) can immediately trigger the  sequence (that is, I injury him severely, the statues heal him, come the spell and the sequence begins).

 

3.b Wit the Cipher game I did all the damage I could in the short time possible:    the druid 6th-level  raw areas spells, the cipher 6th-level raw spells, Aloth 6th-level raw damage (once Thaos was badly jury) and the venonm attacks from Eder (or Pallegina because both of them have the talent) usually can't  bring him quickly down before the statues heal him,   yet in my sixth , due  good luck with two consecutive critical hits from Eder and Pallegrina, togheter a seal fire,  Thaos die even before the first sequence, but I'm not sure if that was a (blessed) glitch in the game or not.

 

4 - Thaos uses the highest cleric spell for ending the offensive status quickly, and each  of the statues seem able to  cast similar spells,  my paladin  (and Pallegina) have the talent  Deprive the Unworthy to disable any positive magical protection, yet when Thaos   cast again the protection  (or the statues) seem to override the duration of the talent (I based this  in the fact that in the first seconds  Eder and Pallegina are able to make more damage).

 

5 - Some of the area spells of Thaos seem to be too much powerful, yet don't have special visual effects,  Durance bring the special light armor with the property to resurrect , Eder bring his own armor and  my cipher/paladin bring the other heavy armor with the same property.  Yet, there is a special area attack of Theos, which not only can kill quickly them  but again after they are resurrected, even before they can drink a potion or get healed. This is a standard cleric spell?  (If it is I'm not using correctly the poor Durance).

 

6 - The statues alone are a big problem due their constantly prone area attack, but  I only have one single question about them, are they vessels creatures?  Actually this bring another question,  anyone know the exact  statistics of them ? I know that Grieve Mother and  my cipher can hit them (Thus generating focus point) but  not with Thaos.

 

 In general, with my cipher  the strategy was repulsing seals plus a lot of  raw damage, but the suddenly Thaos death helped a lot.    With my paladin (second in deflection after the adra dagon)  was to distract the statues with the paladin and focus the other members in Thaos (plus  Repulsing seal, but less efficient), in both cases debuffing to Thaos is happening from Aloth 4th spell or from the paladins or even Durance 6th level spells.

[gkathellar]

The Thaos fight is really kind of an obnoxious trawl on PotD, I agree.

 

1. Virtually all of the spellcasting enemies in PoE have unlimited spells, and many of the non-spellcasters have numerous uses of abilities that are 1/encounter or 2/encounter for players. As best I can tell, enemy abilities have cooldowns, rather than limited uses, which is honestly just loathsome.

 

2. As to Thaos' ungodly resilience ... well, he has very high defenses, but in particular the Shields of the Faithful dropped on him at the start of the battle is really nasty. To be honest, I'm not convinced it's actually the same spell players have access to, given its hundred-second duration. Until it expires, most characters can basically give up on hitting him with deflection-based attacks. I think the best way to handle him is really just to stick a tank on him to soak up his offense while the rest of the party takes down the golems.

 

3.a. Yeah, I dunno. Taking down the statues first is generally a better bet, so ...

 

3.b. I'm pretty sure you just got lucky with crits. It happens.

 

4. It may be that they have natural duration reduction for CC. There are a couple of items and spells that do such, so it's definitely in the game.

 

5. I think you're talking about Shining Beacon, which is a pretty sick spell in general. Will-based DoT Burn damage with a defense penalty in a Foe AoE? Yes please.

 

6. The statues are Vessels, yes.

[MalVeauX]

Heya,

 

I've tried just fighting Thaos... not a good idea.

Separating and singling out the Statues seems to work the best.

Once the Statues are down, Thaos is a different fight all together.

I agree they're pretty crazy on defenses, but I would expect the final fight to be really hard in PoTD, or any mode really. It all builds up to that fight.

 

It helps loads to lock them up, drink a bunch of potions of bulwark vs elements and start increasing defenses, while debuffing the statues when/if possible. And just weather those statues down.

 

Very best,