Went and visited Black Cove with my duo of Hunters without Lone Wolf or Raistlin talents.
My Knight-Air Scarlet found herself a nice golden shield that gives her +1 with shields, and i got that golden club that gives +1 with singlehand weapons, so i can easily switch between the original twohanded sword +1 level and shield and a single hand weapon.
While i can spend the rest of the points into defense and achieving second level of Air magic, which gives me enough slots to last throughout the beta. Since i am finding better and better weapons all the time - the increases of 10% i get from investing points into weapons are not that necessary at all.
This is all quite good for the Normal difficulty.
***
The fight with orcs has been improved. Now there are new mines, which require at least 8 Perception to see and a new group of orcs on the left side, after you pass the mined area.
None of my characters has high Perception, but i managed to find three different pieces of equipment with + 1 perception, which i switch to when i need.
I can either fight that new group in a narrow area full of oil barrels, or i can lure them into the mine field. Not any kind of actual challenge, but it is fun.
The main group is also surrounded with various barrels, there is a big pool of water and some chests with half a dozen arrows, if you need some extra arrows at that point.
Which you dont since, special arrows are overabundant through the start of the game.
The fight at the entrance to the Cove is a bit more difficult now, but because there is so many barrels (and i can bring my own to the fight too) - it pretty much ends as soon as i remove the Orc wizard.
Which, with all those barrels and my arrows is not a problem at all.
The huge Ors still stays behind and doesnt act for the most of the fight.
When he does he usually misses everyone with those salvos from his crossbow.
- Again, pretty much what you expect at Normal difficulty, except that big orc not acting or doing anything much, which should be and of course will be corrected.
***
But on the inside things are still the same as they were before.
As far as i can tell, the inside of the Black Cove is running in easy mode. Very, very easy.
None of the Pirates present any challenge, not the first ones fighting orcs nor the later ones. There is a barrel of oil right next to Pontius, while that pyromancer undead mage of his doesnt do anything and actually attacks me in melee style.
If it wasnt for the archers i could just walk through that without thinking.
But even that isnt difficult for my two Hunter team.
The only nuisance is the bugged black cloud of smoke that gets created from that burning oil, which prevents me from targeting anyone inside or behind it, while enemies shoot through without any problems.
****
The Source abominations:
Are all relatively easy. Especially if you use any fire spells, such as Firefly - which i intentionally avoid for this playthrough. I only use the steam cloud arrows, exploding arrows and a few small fireball scrolls that i found. (which just help but dont win the fights)
The first abomination can present some moderate challenge, but nothing really serious - if i intentionally gimp myself in these ways. I intentionally didnt use any fire at all on it.
The second and the third one, behind the black doors are just laughable.
The big crab dies from a few whacks with a sword, the second huge Spider - crab didnt even damage me.
It has that ridiculous "water attack" which just shoots over our heads and does very little damage even when it hits, and then it just stand there, taking damage - not being able to kill even my little summoned spider.
I even managed to knock it down easily.
Which just looks very bad.
Since that thing has supposedly killed two whole dragons - while the remains of the third one can also be seen down there - it obviously needs to be improved even for the Normal Mode.
(immune to knockdown - surely?)
