11-28-2004, 10:54 PM
Quote:I need some tactical suggestions for defeating Hell Baal.
A pure summoner really gets the short end of the stick when fighting Baal. I ran a summoning shockbear before (I shockwave everyone, and my minions/merc kill everyone while they are stunned). I used a might merc at the time, and he helped my offense more than the max grizzly did. I mostly skipped phys immunes though, or used open wounds to slowly kill them. Vs Baal, I hooked my merc up with some crushing blow, and with a little help, he made relatively short work of Baal. As a might merc is not an option, it gets much harder for you.
I think it can only be a battle of attrition with your merc and bear doing most of the damage. Riphook might be better of for this tactic do mainly to its open wounds, and not its slowing. Open wounds will have you constantly doing damage over time even while the merc is being knocked back. But Goldstrike's higher damage might be faster anyway...
Obviously you really need to get rid of the clone by going back to town and wandering a little whenever he appears. The clone would make things almost impossible. Crushing blow might help, but it's penalised on ranged attacks, and not the easiest to get for rogue mercs.
I've found that any % slow below 50% on Baal is pretty useless, and there is a bug which causes Baal to basically cease fighting when hit with
50%+ slowing. A rogue could also equip Blackhorns to reach a high enough % slow, but that is cheesing it to the extreme.
Good luck, sorry I can't be of much help.