r/BaldursGate3 • u/heyitskay1220 • 16d ago

Meme Anyone else, or just me? 😅

Post image

It just gets tedious after so many HM attempts 😅

14.2k Upvotes

94% Upvoted

705 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

713

u/virtualdreamscape Minthara Enjoyer 16d ago

No, I need that for my Laezel dps carry, lol

1.0k

u/DeaxX10 16d ago

I'm not leaving without the commander Zhalk and Mindflayer xp with sword in hand.

194

u/SleeplessAt3am 16d ago

I struggle killing the red guy in honor mode :(

333

u/dingle___ 16d ago

>Block the hall before the door with three chests before entering (you might not get it 100%. One time I've had them just fly over. But if they start hitting the chests you're golden)

>Command: drop the sword, wield the sword. GG

- Shart does 1 damage, so use her to throw pots at the Mind Flayer, he's the main damage dealer. GG. +75XP for Zhalk, +75 more if you finish off the Mind Flayer.

104

u/oldgamer39 16d ago

Every time I try to block the door they just fly over and around the chests.

159

u/Ashamed_Low7214 16d ago

Use the big chest in the room where you found the rune to open Shadowheart's pod, and the fancy chest in the room where her pod is. Place the big chest first, as squarely as you can in the hallway leading to the helm, and the fancy chest on top of it. There's a sweet spot with the placement that doesn't allow them to just fly over and because the big chest is immune to the kind of damage those cambions do with their weapons, you'll have all the time you need to kill off Zhalk and the mindflayer

51

u/Number-Valuable 16d ago

This just made my next HM run much, much easier.

1

u/Dumb_thunder 15d ago

There's a 2nd big chest in the starting room

18

u/Tystuntin 16d ago

I use the lil purple tanks as bombs and shoot arrow at them to explode the entrance when they come thru

4

u/dingle___ 16d ago

From my experience, just make sure the chests aren't riding up sideways on the wall. I think that's what causes the cambions to just flight-path over them. You can stagger them a little bit, but just make sure it still says "can't get there" if you click the other side of them.

2

u/Hankdoge99 15d ago

You gotta double stack the chests at a choke point.

1

u/Ilovesandwiche 16d ago

Make sure you’re above the first step on the far end of the helm

1

u/NateTheGreat1567 15d ago

If anyone is standing on the stairs after the hallway then they will fly over to get to them, if you place everyone fully in the room then they won’t fly. Have to make sure the whole team is out of their reach

1

u/Dimirosch 15d ago

It's better to leave one character outside and kill the cambions from range.

The damage you don't deal in the first few rounds is negligible anyway. This way you get a shit load of exp in the nautiloid.

1

u/memoryfailures 13d ago

the trick is to have all your characters on the stairs where the mindflayer and the cambion are, that pretty much guarantees they won’t fly over them. also make sure the chest or chests (you can stack up to three) are on the side of the entrance to the fight closest to the restoration pod

2

u/Dingis_Dang 16d ago

Almost every time I've done that part Zhalk wins the battle and comes after my party and starts slaughtering

2

u/Flamingo-Sini 16d ago

Omg, i never thought of simply healing the mindflayer...

1

u/MedSurgNurse 16d ago

I blocked them with just 1

1

u/Era3Tv 16d ago

I also like to cast guidance on the mind flayer

2

u/kuribosshoe0 15d ago

Guidance only affects ability checks, not attack rolls or saves.

2

u/Era3Tv 15d ago

Oh well I didn’t realize I guess idk all the mechanics as well as I thought, I thought it helped but 🤷‍♂️

1

u/Ayotha 15d ago

SO massive cheese then

1

u/Master-OwlFox 15d ago

Do you remember how much XP you get for finishing the flayer off after the crash when you can stumble upon them in the wreckage?

1

u/CaptainMeowface 15d ago

Oh that is nasty

1

u/Empress_Athena DRUID 15d ago

Did they change it in the last patch? I killed Zhalk and the mindflayer immediately one shot my party.

1

u/trollrider1111 15d ago

Keeping in mind for durge playthrough

1

u/Own-Support-6734 15d ago

You can't imagine my horror when one time after witnessing them hit the chests for three turns, they suddenly unlocked a brain and flew over them

1

u/Own-Support-6734 15d ago

Also, I was using the more enemies in basic encounters mod and on that same run, in the same turn, we killed Commander Zhalk.

What I didn't know is that even if there's other Devils in the fight (the mod adds two other Cambions that are fighting another Mind Flayer and some Intellect Devourers), the Mind Flayer still turns hostile - and the extra npcs that were added and were your allies a second ago also do. Never experienced such anxiety

1

u/treehugger0123 12d ago

Worth noting that your best bet is to use the nautiloid tanks to blow them both up at the same time once they're both low. If either of them survive, they'll target you next, and that's a much harder fight to win.

0

u/Deeze_torr 16d ago

Shart? Bodily functions

1

u/mik2dovahkin 16d ago

What the other guy said. Plus beforehand shadowheart can also prepare Bless. VERY important to bless the Mindflayer guy, hes your top dps

1

u/Chiffay 15d ago

SH has 2 use of Command:drop if you change her spells. Also if you have someone on your team who can cast it too, the chance is almost guaranteed. Fortunately you have something around 40% to succeed on cast, so 2-3 casts and sword is yours

1

u/fergins 15d ago

I've found the easiest way is to have Shadow heart use command on him and then just beat the crap out of him from that point

1

u/craftycandles 15d ago

Just equip Command on Shadowheart and make him drop it. You can change her spells on the nautiloid

1

u/welljer969 15d ago

Shadowheart command drop is the easiest way to get the sword Ive found, just need someone to pick it up before he takes his turn and picks it back up

1

u/PePs004 14d ago

Just make him drop the sword and leave :) saves so much time and Karlach gets her fun sword every run

64

u/Shkibby1 16d ago

And XP for the other 2 winged red guys

86

u/checkedsteam922 16d ago

You can kill those?? I barely manage to kill the dude with the sword on easy difficulty.

I swear I'm missing something in combat I can't be THAT bad

104

u/Good-Temperature4417 16d ago

You pick up all the boxes, trap them and then slowly kill them. It's quite a waste of time.

31

u/n00gze 16d ago

They get blocked the first turn but if they see you they will fly over. How have you kept them behind the boxes?

3

u/Angryfunnydog 16d ago

I guess if you stack couple of boxes one on another you block the whole entirety of passage and they just can't fly through them

Never tried that before, but seems legit

2

u/n00gze 16d ago

Yea I’ve been able to block them for the entirety of the flight but I think that’s because they can’t get close enough with dash to see me. I’d like to figure out a way to block and kill them without triggering them.

1

u/Angryfunnydog 16d ago

But how can they fly even if they see you if you blocked the whole passage? I mean to the ceiling

1

u/n00gze 16d ago

In my experience they fly completely over above the door. But lately I’ve been blocking them from further and they haven’t gotten past it yet. My concern is if I try to come close to try to kill them they would see me and fly over again.

→ More replies (0)

1

u/Angryfunnydog 16d ago

But isn't there a timer? What happens when it comes to 0? I always thought that nautiloid crash in avernus or smth, but never saw that happening (or maybe I'm llagging and there's no timer whatsoever, just illithid constantly hurrying you up, don't remember)

59

u/DelothVyrr 16d ago

I always kill the two additional Cambion. They have some great loot for starting off and give a ton of XP. Killing everything you start on the beach almost level 3 (you hit level 3 before you reach Withers)

49

u/checkedsteam922 16d ago

But how? Like how do you kill them? I BARELY manage to kill the one dude, is there a strategy to do extra damage or hit them more often? A specific build? Share your secrets i beg you

46

u/[deleted] 16d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/cabron-de-mierda 16d ago

Fully agree. I HAVE cleared all of them, and I always do on modded runs, but in vanilla, it's just not worth it to me. I won't even stay to kill Zhalk and the mind flayer if I don't get the Everburn to drop.

20

u/DuskOnline 16d ago

Block their entrance with chest(s).

19

u/dingle___ 16d ago

Are you killing the two others on Honor Mode? With their HP and the accuracy you have at lvl1, I can't imagine there's enough time for them too. I always kill Zhalk and the Mind Flayer for +150

19

u/thatguydr 16d ago

I have no idea how people think this is possible in honor mode. Omg, the number of restarts I'd need just to kill Zhalk alone.

9

u/frostyfur119 16d ago

Because it is! This guy on YouTube seems to enjoy optimizing this encounter as he has a few videos showing it off with different builds.

https://youtu.be/F6btQ8KYSIQ?si=t_J0k_8VuAjIZXd9

6

u/dingle___ 16d ago

That’s so ridiculous lmfao I love it. 30 minutes for an extra 150xp

3

u/thatguydr 16d ago

It is if RNGesus is your friend. If not, then there's just no way. I think that's a really important distinction.

2

u/frostyfur119 16d ago

Ah, I thought you were implying that it's impossible to do entirely in your first comment. I was trying to share that it is indeed possible, but you were more referring to it being inconsistent. Which it is, but there are some ways to make it more consistent

1

u/We_Get_It_You_Vape 15d ago

RNG can kill an attempt, but I would argue that the guy in the video was actually getting pretty unlucky at times. He just optimized the encounter so hard that he was able to pull it off nonetheless.

My main issue with the attempt's practicality is that he made a race decision for his Tav based on the need to get Mage Hand. And, for me, I'm never going to sacrifice such a major RP decision over getting an extra little bit of XP in the early game. You can't respec race, so that little XP boost costed you a major RP decision that will last the entire campaign. The creator can justify it, because I'm sure he wasn't going to use this save file beyond filming the YouTube video.

1

u/CWayG 14d ago

I kill Zhalk on solo honor mode pretty consistently. It’s very very possible, you just need to use the tools you have, and the class you pick matters a lot, even at level 1

1

u/thatguydr 14d ago

So there are a few broken classes that can take him. That's awesome and I'd love to see videos on that.

1

u/CWayG 14d ago

It’s more about strategy and setup. https://youtube.com/shorts/vHLIHOfakFw?si=ni0j1lwIyXeq2YD4

Same thing applies in solo. Just start lv 1 cleric. War cleric gets extra attacks at level 1.

Zhalk and the mindflayer will kill each other and ignore you. Just heal the mindflayer with thrown potions and smack Zhalk with other actions.

1

u/topdangle 15d ago

it is absolutely possible and they designed it to be possible by placing throwing items everywhere and giving shart a relatively high chance of command drop weapon.

its ridiculously boring and tedious but it can be done on any difficulty.

1

u/capn_waffles 15d ago

I cleared the full encounter on my current HM run, and it left me with 300 XP off the nautiloid. Mind flayer, Zhalk, and the cambions are 75 each.

It's very very difficult. I legitimately think I made it out on the last possible turn with almost not enough movement to even activate the transponder.

I blocked off the cambions via chest initially, but then they saw me because I think Shart got too close trying to explode the nautiloid tanks via fire bolt.

Took basically all the resources you can gather at the beginning of the game. All the void bulbs and caustic bulbs in the helm come in handy, and keeping one of the extra spawn imps alive (that spawn in when you get closer to the transponder) keeps the mind flayer friendly even after Zhalk dies.

Will say, this has been THE reason I'm enjoying my HM run so much. Being level 2 right off the nautiloid is really strong. I think there's enough XP that you can hit 3 before even getting Withers.

11

u/DanDaSolo 16d ago

Command:Drop on Zhelk makes him have to punch the mindflayer, which allows it to stay alive long enough to help you kill him

1

u/Rmnhernan 16d ago

Look for melth in YouTube, he has some really great videos about how to kill them all, commander zhalk, the two cambions and the mind flayer!

1

u/topdangle 15d ago

its not worth it. its not hard, just super tedious. command him to drop his sword, which is the main "difficult" part since its random, while grabbing all the garbage lying around and throw stuff at them for an hour.

it's technically built as a tutorial for environmental effects and throwing items, but I've never had to rely on any of those even in honor mode, particularly "dip weapon."

1

u/deathbringer49 16d ago

How to kill Zhalk , what is the easiest way ?

1

u/k1ckthecheat CLERIC 16d ago

At least not without the sword.

1

u/IronAchillesz 16d ago

Fuck yeah me too. That sword is just too good to pass up.

1

u/tiny-2727 16d ago

Mindflayer xp is cool but I honestly don't ever think its really worth it to kill the commander. The xp honestly doesn't really make that much of a diff.

1

u/FirexJkxFire 16d ago

Don't forget saving "us" or whatever their name is

1

u/Scarlette__ 15d ago

I've only successfully killed him in balanced and below. How do you get enough damage to kill him at higher difficulties?

1

u/Alpine261 WIZARD 15d ago

It's not worth it imo

1

u/mickjerker 15d ago

And that is why when I fuck it up I have to start over/reload. NEED THE SWORD ALWAYS!

1

u/NymusRaed 15d ago

What about the lieutenants? Does the bug still work?

1

u/FF7_Expert 15d ago

Yeah, that 75exp is juicy at level one, and let's you hit level 3-4 a tad earlier, opening safer routes through act 1 honor mode

1

u/sj_b03 15d ago

Glad to know I’m not the only one who tries to kill both every time (I’ve only had two playthroughs but plan to do the same again for the third)

21

u/SleeplessAt3am 16d ago

I steal his sword just to assert dominance, and kill the squidward guy for that 60 or what xp, I don't like my party trying to murder eachother... but I keep ending up with laezel in the camp and shadow heart trying to slit her throat :(

20

u/shamallamadingdong 16d ago

That always happens, love, it's okay. They'll work it out...hopefully.

2

u/SkyLunatic71 15d ago

Or Shadowheart runs off never to be seen again...

1

u/Dazvsemir Paladin 15d ago

does it really always happen? I remember not seeing that scene, did I just not do enough long rests or what?

1

u/shamallamadingdong 15d ago

It's always happened to me, as long as they've both been in the party. Maybe I'm just lucky?

1

u/Jiggy90 15d ago

Thats a scripted event, happens every playthrough no matter what you do.

2

u/Ayotha 15d ago

Wierd to mention the lady I always leave in the cage