Deceit and Jul

[vexingaura]

Very embarrassing to ask this since everyone else is having no problems but I think I must have gone seriously wrong somewhere in my character building. Basically I can't even beat Jul or Deceit even on easy. I guess my party was too survival based rather than offensive because no matter what I do Deceit just spams cleanse and I just can't do 600 damage in the space of a few turns. I bought the best equipment I could find have as much anti-paralysis equipment for my back row but no matter what I do he just keeps spamming cleanse. I have played the entire game on normal so far with no problems but this battle is just beyond me not a complaint at the game though I have really enjoyed what the game has to offer and I get the feeling I have clearly gone wrong somewhere. Jul's succubus kiss just drains so much and when she isn't draining my life she just survives with cleanse again. Is there anyway not to trigger cleanse?

My levels range from 17-19. Am I just too low level and will have to try again next playthrough?
Do I need certain skills for victory?
Is the battle locked after chapter 3?
I don't mind doing the game again after all I do love it a lot but I would hate to be denied ever seeing a certain ending due to my own incompetence. Would appreciate any tips to beating them. Also thanks for this great game shame I suck at it so much

[fabulaparva]

What version of the game do you have and which twins combo? Hunter/Ranger? Druid/Ranger? Hunter/Druid? Some delay was added for Cleanse in 0.9.7, if you're playing with an earlier version, loading the newest one might help.

[jack1974]

If you and/or more people REALLY can't beat that on Easy I can disable the cleanse completely in Easy mode but I'd like to hear more opinions before doing such a "drastic change"!

[Deeros11]

Well I managed to do it without buying armor or new weapons in act 3. Biggest issue for me was the constant paralysis on the back row (had to put a mage in front row so he could remove it!). As for cleanse, while it was annoying, you just need some mage spells to attack him and maybe some slow as well. Cleanse only heals for 300hp or something anyway.

[Troyen]

Very embarrassing to ask this since everyone else is having no problems

"Everyone else"... >_>

A lot of it comes down to what skill Deceit chooses to use and if your characters miss their attacks at critical times (Jariel >:| ).

If you and/or more people REALLY can't beat that on Easy I can disable the cleanse completely in Easy mode but I'd like to hear more opinions before doing such a "drastic change"!

On Jul, the Succubus Kiss is way more of a pain than Cleanse. I wouldn't say remove it though. Worst case, halve the heal amount on Easy.

[jack1974]

Troyen, the problem is that vexingaura can't beat those fights on EASY. Not Nightmare, not hard
I don't know, seems impossible to not make it in Easy, at least with the saves I got from fabula, and with yours too, I could just go there and bash the bosses. I didn't even had to heal maybe the problem is in the equipped gears, or skill picked?

[DunKalar]

I had the same problem, too, at first. After getting along with AoE-flooding, Deceit/Jul just trashed me from one corner into the other.

Problem for me was, that I did not plan for a combo with single-target-overflow-DPS. But this is just what you need for Deceit - sadly, the really first time in the game. Most other fights are tough because the dudes/tentacles/what ever heal each other so you wanna take them down together.

I defeated Deceit with the following combination:

Jariel: Song which's name I forgot: make your enemy frightened, so physical damage is increased
Vaelis: Mark your oponent and then bash/solo-attack him. Should do ~ 110-120 dmg or more per attack on easy with his personal hawk hatches and dual wielding. Since you attack quite often due to the speed of your regular attack, and Deceit needing ~7 rounds to cleanse, it should work just fine. Maybe you need 1-2 tries for the timing of the debuffing so you can burst-dmg him to his afterlife.

Put heal or debuff in front to do something against the paralysis in the back row so you can use one or two strategic spell casters to buff vaelis even more or debuff deceit with a short additional physical dps debuff.

[Minamber]

I'm playing on normal and I can't seem to kill Deceit either. I can get him down to 200 hp or so (down from 900+) but then he gets one of his double turns and casts cleanse twice, undoing all my work.
I'm playing a hunter/druid duo, and my strategy is to keep my main damage dealers buffed with haste + rally and keep him debuffed as much as possible, then set up big hits like my hunter hide in shadows + take aim + critical hit.

Personally I see a few problems with this fight:
- cleanse is way too powerful; 300 hp heal + removing all debuffs with almost no delay and pretty low sp cost? That feels like a cheap move tbh.
- the boss has got pretty much infinite sp thanks to his sp drain and the fact you can't sp drain him (I hate arbitrary boss immunities btw, why exactly doesn't sp drain work on bosses?), and thanks to cleanse, infinite hp as a result, meaning it's impossible to win a fight of endurance. The problem is, unless you've set up your party to be offence-focused, you also don't have enough dps potential to take him down faster than he can heal himself.
- the boss isn't dangerous enough. That seems a weird thing to say considering I just said I couldn't beat him, but so far I've only had 2 deaths in my 5 fights against him, and I lost only because I ran out of sp/consumables while he was still going on with his infinite healing thing.

In my opinion, the fight is a bit boring because Deceit's his offensive spells seem much weaker than his defensive ones. IIRC he's got chain lightning which does 75 damage to everyone, Death something that does 150 + poison to 1 guy, and mass paralysis that does almost no damage. The problem is that all of those are more nuisances that can easily be managed just with a few consumables than genuine threats to my group's lives who all have 300+ hp.

That goes for the rest of the game too, at least on normal. My group was never in any danger of being wiped out (except by Deceit if I hadn't given up before he could get around to it I guess), but pretty much every 6 vs 6 fight was a long slog, especially once you've killed 1 or 2 enemies, since you've pretty much won at this point, but you still have the other 4 enemies to mop up.
I know you can't exactly change the game at this point, but for the next one you should really make enemies more dangerous but less resilient.

Regarding the Deceit fight, a few solutions to the invincibility problem would be :
- nerf cleanse by upping delay to 10 and/or sp cost to 40. It shouldn't be spammable considering how powerful it is.
- either allow Rowinda's sp drain and Rilay's Mana burn to work on bosses, or make Deceit's sp drain have a huge delay. Or give us a way to prevent sp drain.
- buff his offensive spells and lower his defences. Against a demon lord I should always be scared for my party's lives, not just wondering how I can do enough damage to overcome his regeneration.

My preferred solution would be to raise cleanse's sp cost, raise his sp drain's delay, and double the damage his offensive spells can do as well as changing his AI to make him more likely to use offensive spells instead of cleanse/mass dispel.
Then you'd have to scramble to keep your party alive while doing damage instead of having a fight that's just an endurance fight you're bound to lose.


*Update*: I just tried the fight on easy, and I finished him off before he could even cleanse himself once, so I don't think you need to nerf him on easy. You just need to bring people who can do high single target damage, like Vaelis, a hunter or a druid.
Even with only 2 of those + haste potions + debuffs from Riley and slow potions, you should be able to do around 600 damage before he gets another turn.

[Troyen]

I'm playing on normal and I can't seem to kill Deceit either. I can get him down to 200 hp or so (down from 900+) but then he gets one of his double turns and casts cleanse twice, undoing all my work.
I'm playing a hunter/druid duo, and my strategy is to keep my main damage dealers buffed with haste + rally and keep him debuffed as much as possible, then set up big hits like my hunter hide in shadows + take aim + critical hit.

I already made Jack change the delay on Cleanse to 8. You should not be seeing a double Cleanse. Make sure you're on 0.9.7. He can still Paralyze then Cleanse, but that's different.

- the boss has got pretty much infinite sp thanks to his sp drain and the fact you can't sp drain him (I hate arbitrary boss immunities btw, why exactly doesn't sp drain work on bosses?), and thanks to cleanse, infinite hp as a result, meaning it's impossible to win a fight of endurance. The problem is, unless you've set up your party to be offence-focused, you also don't have enough dps potential to take him down faster than he can heal himself.

I have the same complaint about arbitrary immunities.

- the boss isn't dangerous enough. That seems a weird thing to say considering I just said I couldn't beat him, but so far I've only had 2 deaths in my 5 fights against him, and I lost only because I ran out of sp/consumables while he was still going on with his infinite healing thing.

In my opinion, the fight is a bit boring because Deceit's his offensive spells seem much weaker than his defensive ones. IIRC he's got chain lightning which does 75 damage to everyone, Death something that does 150 + poison to 1 guy, and mass paralysis that does almost no damage. The problem is that all of those are more nuisances that can easily be managed just with a few consumables than genuine threats to my group's lives who all have 300+ hp.

Actually, this is true on nm even. Otoh, I find Jul far more dangerous but less status crippling. I suppose its just boss flavor.

That goes for the rest of the game too, at least on normal. My group was never in any danger of being wiped out (except by Deceit if I hadn't given up before he could get around to it I guess), but pretty much every 6 vs 6 fight was a long slog, especially once you've killed 1 or 2 enemies, since you've pretty much won at this point, but you still have the other 4 enemies to mop up.
I know you can't exactly change the game at this point, but for the next one you should really make enemies more dangerous but less resilient.

Strongly agree here. That was my biggest frustration in the other thread. Fights are generally long but not super threatening except for the occasional boss fight. I've really only struggled on Mormont, Yeldin, Riley's Golem, and Deceit/Jul. (I'm on nightmare). I think it's too late at this point to change it and retest everything given the sheer number of fights and tiny testing team, but I recommend improving on this in future games.

I kind of wish the SP drain/reduction skills were more useful. I don't take them because of the boss restriction, which is typically the only time I want to trade damage for SP drain.

It sounds like you aren't on 0.9.7. I'd suggest trying again on normal and see how the Cleanse delay changes things. If cleanse still has no delay then maybe there's a bug on lower difficulties.

[Troyen]

Troyen, the problem is that vexingaura can't beat those fights on EASY. Not Nightmare, not hard
I don't know, seems impossible to not make it in Easy, at least with the saves I got from fabula, and with yours too, I could just go there and bash the bosses. I didn't even had to heal maybe the problem is in the equipped gears, or skill picked?

I know, just letting him know he's not alone.

My Druid was specifically a single target nuker since AoE sucks for the first half of the game on nightmare. From what it sounds like, the OP's Druid specialized in AoE skills and does low single target damage. (I probably would have too on Easy when AoE actually can kill stuff.)

OP, if you want to upload your save, or send it to Jack, he can take a look at what skills and stats you are dealing with. Maybe you have a build he didn't expect.