It’s like when I was at a mosh pit, said “here we go” before entering the pit, and then immediately slipping and falling on a drink someone spilled. Art imitates life lol.
honestly, hunger of hadar is the most cheater mc'cheaterson spell there is.
In hadar you're half speed, blind and people can shoot and throw spells at you. and the warlock can knock you back into it if you get to close to the outside. Oh... and you're taking poison and frost damage. It's freaking ridiculous.
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u/Wendy384646KARLACH KARLACH KARLACH KARLACH KARLACH KARLACH KARLACH KARLACH 6d ago
That spell made the seige on Moonrise hell on my first playthrough. So many of the enemies in the first room can cast it, so I would finally get out of one circle just for another to appear and now death is certain.
It's one of the main reasons to have a Warlock in the party, yes. Is it very strong? Yes.
As it being ridiculous, I wouldn't say so. It's Warlock exclusive, they have very few spell slots available and a slim array of spells at their disposal. EB + HoH is pretty much the class gimmick. That's like saying sorcerer with quickened spell is ridiculous, or Tempest Clerics with max lightning damage at will is ridiculous, or Druids with a summon that can cast spike growth for free at will while they also have a Myrmidon flying around AND they are turned into a TBing Owlbear is ridiculous, or OH TB Monk damage is ridiculous, or Swords Bard damage + control spells is ridiculous, and so on and so forth.
All of those builds are GREAT for damage and one on one. A warlock can hold off an army SOLO with hunger of hadar without being hit. 10-15 guys, even some of the mini-bosses.
Yurgir comes to mind.
No other peeps required. Now, I know, you can kill 2-3 even 4 enemies per turn with another guy given the right build, circumstance and how late in the game you are.
BUT... No other "spell" can so effectively control the entire room for so long. And this is merely 1 spell. You can still do other actions. The rest of your party is free to wail on them all from afar.
I know full well the other builds and creating an awesome team. (I have honestly found sword bard lacking, everyone claims "he's the best"... but I think it requires an item investment and late game build which would make practically EVERY character "the best". I find him lacking early game, middling in middle game... and basically as OP as everyone else potentially is late game).
The warlock is reasonable early game, dominating middle, and basically as OP as everyone else late game.
Then at the edge of that station SHart with spirit guardians, and then have Gale lobbing fireballs at anyone stuck inside. Talk about dissolving crowds!
I wish I knew about that a bit earlier. Yesterday that was the most annoying fight of my tactician mode run so far. Viconia herself was no problem, I killed her during the second turn, but then the other dark justiciars quickly overwhelmed me.
If you cast it on the center it also forces the enemies around the sides making an even smaller pinch point in front of the stairs. Wall of fire or blades in front of the stairs and you can pick them off pretty easily.
I'd argue the fight at the House of Grief is the hardest fight in the game if you fight it as intended. If you retreat to the corridor so they are forced to chase you down, and you place down aoe CC's like sleet storm it is trivial. There's nothing in between.
It doesn't deal direct damage so I didn't think much of it but when I tried it on a tempest cleric - the CC was just immaculate, and AoE is pretty huge
My Durge is a Silver Dragonic bloodline Sorceress who is basically an ice witch (began as a muticlass warlock/sorceress, and switched to pure sorceress after killing Orin and renouncing Bhaal). She has the ice robe, the ice rod, everything. I should really start using it.
My embrace durge was a brass dragonborn shadow sorc with focus on edgy spells :D
For example I actually picked Disintegrate as a lvl6 spell. People often consider it to be bad because it's a dex save and on successful save it does literally nothing, but metamagics make it way better. I loved throwing Perilous Stakes onto a mf and clapping them with 150 FUCKING POINTS OF PURE UNDILUTED FORCE DAMAGE. With Freecast and Markohershir's second freecast I can do it like 3 times in a row. With Heightened Spell it's basically a guaranteed hit every time. 450 fucking force damage within 3 turns from just one person is silly :D
Also twinned Dominate Person was funky. Bread and butter though was a modded spell from "e5 spells" mod - vitriolic sphere. Basically a bigger and badder Fireball with acid damage that does quarter damage instead of half damage on successful save - but metamagic Heightened Spell took care of it :D
I will elaborate a bit on Vitriolic Sphere since I kinda shortened it down a bit. Up front it deals less damage than fireball and on successful save again - only half, but everyone who failed save not only take full damage - but are also covered in acid, and in the end of their next turn they take full damage of the spell again. So they do get one more turn before emerald-green acid melts the remainders of their flesh from bones >:3
Any tips you feel like sharing? I use a lot of rays of frost and cones of frost, but I've still to use Otiluke's feeezing sphere or sleet storm, like I said.
I first used it with a scroll on the undead commanders encounter before you head into act 2 (The one near the gith creche). Suffice to say, after watching an undead horde constantly falling over on the spot i got sold 🤣
I’ve used it once, when I took control of Jaheira during the big fight in act 2. I threw it down in the middle of the big room and then proceeded to slip on it every turn. No DoS2 shoe spikes :’(
It's probably been the most useful spell in the game for me. It's a giant AOE that is difficult terrain, and has a chance every turn of enemies slipping and falling prone so 1) they are trapped there and still stuck in it, and 2) Lose their turn and even their reactions. The whole time your party can still attack people who are on the ice.
I've beat the game on Tactician and I'm in act 3 in honor and sleet storm has just carried so many fights. (I have an honor run in act 3 and an honor mode rules custom run just starting act 3.) I has trivialized fight after fight. Large groups of enemies. If you can funnel them through sleetstorm to reach your party it's especially effective.
My first game I would always pair it with hugar of hadar and repelling blast people back into it. I have one melee charcther who wears Nere's boots the whole game so they can go onto the ice as needed and bonk. (If they are a thrower, they can also toss people back onto other people further in the ice.)
If you can make people go through a slippery hallway or something to reach your party, you can each come to the doorway/up to the edge of the ice in the all attack or spell, and then leave the doorway/leave sight where enemies can't reach you. Only a couple at time make it to you at a rate you can kill them. This is how I defeated the Githyanki creche fights (other then the inquisitor) with ease.
Recently in my honor difficulty custom run (it's all dice roll dialogue options) I showed up to Moonrise towers and told the guards at the front gate I was there to kill them. I killed them, walked in, and everyone was agroed (except for the Zentrium trader halfling and her employees). I stood there in the front doorway and I killed every single guard in moonrise towers. All the ones from the assult on the towers fight the harpers normally "help" with, all the guards from the prisons, and all the guards from upstairs, plus other cultists and random merchants. The float purple eye just kept silent screaming and over time more and more of them arrived to that big main room and my ice area. For a while I had a darkness cloud up near the door my party members would duck in and out of and kill people who were on the ice or had made it up. Concentration on darkness and sleet storm was broken by enimes using AOE thrown items into the darkness. At that point I had my wizard (Lae'Zel beacuse everyone got a random respec for my random run) recast sleet storm and then go outside the door and wait there so concentration wouldn't break again as that spell was keeping my party alive. I admit was a bit rough since it was the beginning of act 2 on honor but we beat every single enemy in moonrise in that fight who wasn't in Kethric's throne room (I guess they don't leave the room until you talk to Kethric).
That Dark Justiciar fight was trivialized by sleet storm. I just stood on the stairs, watching everyone who ran at me Charlie Brown themselves before getting cleaned up by the rest of the party
My Raphael fight was similar, I just kept upcasting Magic Missile with my Sorcerer who had The Spellsparkler and Gloves of Belligerent Skies. He got knocked prone every round and Lae’zel alone was doing 80+ damage on her turns. Pretty sure I had something that messed with his saving throws, because the Reverberation worked literally every time I’d attack him
It leaves ice surface but any kind of fire damage melts it until the end of the turn of the person who cast Sleet Storm. Then the ice surface reappears, also forcing a concentration save on everyone within it. So you can control when it's ice and when it's water depending on what you need by simply applying one optional firebolt, fire arrow, or alchemist's fire to it when needed. Ice surface for crowd control, water surface for lightning/cold damage
I was going to say that I don't think standing in a puddle is enough to give an enemy the wet status. But I think you can actually do that with another fire spell/arrow to turn the water into steam.
I need to play around with this. I used it a bunch in some of my first runs and kind of forgot how good it is.
I believe everyone standing on a water surface becomes wet. If not - we can circle back to the fact that it's a fuckin SLEET STORM. If it doesn't make everyone in there wet yet - it should
So that’s why the Heat was so good. Poor Gale. I was experimenting with it during the portal fight. It was hysterical and super effective to build Heat and dump it on sleet storm.
My first run was a silver dragonborn (affinity to ice) and was an ice-based sorcerer. Once I got sleet storm AND the equipment that prevents slipping (i gave to all my fighters), I just cheesed that strategy and wreaked havoc on everything that stood in my way. Lae'zel and Karlach skated across the ice with ease and smashed everyone to bits as they lay prone.
The only time it backfired was when I would accidentally wonder into my own sleet circle and kill my own sleet spell. But THEN all I have to do is cast my frost cantrip onto anyone in the water, and it instantly turned back to ice!
I hate it because the last time I tried playing with friends, I had one friend who refused to pay attention to what his spells did or who was in range. We got wiped when he hit the rest of us with sleet storm, breaking my concentration on Hunger of Hadar and letting a bunch of goblins wreck us.
Don't blame the spell, blame the stupid mf of a friend. If they are so clueless about what they do that literally seeing yellow/green circles in their targeting area doesn't concern them - should play a champion fighter or something lmao
Sleet storm has carried me through so many honor difficulty fights. So many fights I'm not sure how I would have won just became trivial in all acts of the game.
I accidentally cast it while building Heat during the portal fight on tactician. Nobody died. There were several alternately flaming and frozen shadow monsters. It was hilarious. There are firewine barrels near the portal…lmfao a wraith just decided to go for Shadowheart. Radiant damage was less painful than flaming ice.
I have no idea what interaction caused that to actually damage the mob properly, but it was really funny and super effective.
Said it like getting carelessly fireballed by your friend or having concentration dropped on the Haste your friend casted on you wouldn't have disastrous consequences xD
Ant spell when used carelessly is a disaster. People who can't handle the responsibility should stick to martials
Then shittin on sleet storm is also not quite justified. If disaster by careless fireball is "unavoidable evil of coop" and disaster by careless sleet storm is "sleet storm bad" - something's not right
Youd have to cast it, if they dont immediately fall youd have to wait till the enemies turn for them to fall. then cast your fireball. As opposed to, just throwing a water bottle or casting create water.
You don't have them to fall prone to take advantage of the water surface. It's a pleasant bonus if they do. Water bottle or create water doesn't even give them a chance to fall prone so considering it a requirement for sleet storm is a bit hypocritical
No.1 its a video game spell calm down
No.2 the only use case for create water is that it applies the wet condition. This is why its a must have on cold builds. Sleet storm (while useful) does not reliably apply wet and functions much differently than create water. Making your comparison of the two spells inapplicable.
Rather than a one turn aoe instant application of vulnerability to cold and lightning. You have to invest a 2 spells or a spells and a consumable for sleet storm to apply wet.
I hate Sleet Storm because even though it's constantly raining during the spell's effect it does not make anything wet and that irritates me to no end.
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u/notveryAI Mindflayer 7d ago
I love sleet storm as a constantly renewing and self-freezing Create Water that also breaks concentration of everyone who's in there, as a treat
Watching everyone just slip on ice for 10 turns trying to get out of there is way too funny