Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Apostle of Myrkul fight made me quit the game

SPOILERS


Apostle of Myrkul is the fight that feels so restrictive it made me quit the game. in the first phase the Mindflayer one shotted 3/4 of my characters, in another attempt the little brains one shotted Gale. If you don't destroy the range undead on the top left you are fucked. If you dont destroy the bone eggs you are fucked. You save Nightsong but she is fucking useless, dies too fast. Karlach cannot literaly do any damage to the boss in 2nd phase. By the time i reach 2nd phase i have no spells left so i just melee attack the boss that FUCKING ONE SHOTS EVERY1. For a game that offers so many ways of play i find this fight forces you to play in a certain way to have a chance.
BONUS: You cannot go back to do other quests and get higher in level because the game made sure to block everything behind after you save Nightsong
THANK YOU LARIAN for making this game more frustrating that fun

You can tell Ketheric to kill himself to skip straight to the 2nd stage.

Uh, ok.
It was almost anti-climatically easy for me.

Same... On tactician.

We can't choose a higher difficulty, but I bet you can choose a lower one.

Perhaps if more folks want to comment here to say that they found this fight easy, they could also give a hint or two about how they approached it that might help the OP or others?

I did spread my party out. I had my halfling bard, Wyll, Karlach and Shadowheart.
My bard sneaked to Nightsong, freed her and started the fight. Karlach kept Ketehric busy and Wyll nuked everything from a higher position, where I parked him before the fight started. Shadow, who by that time had pretty good armor, just healed and buffed mostly and got rid of the riffraff. My bard used stuff like Vicsious mockery and Tashas Hideous Laughter on Ketheric and bard song on Karlach. The nIghtsong and Karlach did most of the hitting on Ketheric.
I wouldn't say the fight was a breeze, far from it, but everyone survived in the end.

The important thing is: You have to free Nightsong first or Ketheric will be unkillable after a while.

What level were you? That's probably a key bit of info.

I managed it today but it was only on explorer.

Annihilate that mind flayer fast. He will destroy you.

Perhaps the people complaining could start pointing where their approach failed to begin with.

Because the problem with these RECURRING threads is always the same: that they don't come with a request of help but as a COMPLAINT that the game is supposed to be unfair.

Guess what? If people are playing this at Tactician and getting on just fine, there's simply NO ROOM to give credibility to any complaint that the game is too punishing at easier difficulty levels.

Anyway I wouldn't even know what to tell the guy since I didn't have exactly to come up with the most sophisticated tactic. Even just having someone in your party holding the Blood of Lathander is enough to put your entire team at a clear advantage.

I played on normal, and while it was the first fight to last longer than couple of turns, it wasn’t too difficult. Wyll focused on killing the archers - before that he summoned a devil (granted by Mizora) to occupy mindflayers. My Tav bard cast haste on Karlach drank potion of invisibility and went hiding in the corner => Karlach andnShadowheart went on to murder non-archer minions, and than went to focus on Kethrck. Once he fell Karlach kept smashing the new boss with 5 attacks per turn, while the rest took care of the summons and focused on the boss if there was no other target.

I think the Apostole fell in 2 or 3 turns - I remember thinking that Karlach is about to go down, and was about to retreat her, but she burned through the remaining boss health.

I suck at this game, played on Tactician, and didn't have too think too hard on this fight either.

How I approached it, IIRC:

- invisibility on team
- sent Gale to AoE the little brains
- sent my sorcerer to AoE the undead
- sent Astarion to free Nightsong
- sent Karlach (respecced to warrior) to instagib the mindflayer

Proceed to jump over to Ketheric, maul him, then play the 2nd phase with almost full resources.

I think something that may help is you can respect Shadowheart to lifedomain, all the healing abilities really helps keep your team alive plus radiant damage does very well here. Second, if you are using Gale using fireball to clear the little brain guys also helps. Third, before you go down to confront the boss battle there is this blue thingy that heals you, cannot remember if it restores spell slots tho. Hope this helps and if not could you please post screenshots of your character builds? This would help me give further advice, good luckl!

I thought the Myrkul creature felt a bit dated in this fight. Did anyone else get that impression? This giant whack-a-mole type thing pops up and fights from it's one spot. It almost felt like an arcade game boss scene, if that makes sense.

Would have preferred if Ketheric was just tougher.

If I'm being really nitpicky, the boss fights in this game don't feel like boss fights so much as they feel like gimmick fights. There's no fight with a character that gives me the impression it's supposed to be important due to its difficulty; rather, it feels important because there's some gimmick to it. Then again, that's basically how Nintendo handles boss fights.

On both tactician and normal this was my main goal.

First i use the fastest character, with haste and speedbuffs to rush to Dame Aylin and they usually arrive within 2 turns.

Then I use wall of fire or Cloud of Daggers ( two of the best spells imo ) on the platform and bomb Ketheric with spells and/or martials.

when he goes Apostle, I used wall of fire, over the apostle, and then use high damage spells or attacks.

The gist of the advice in this thread is that one needs a character with high mobility for Aylin, a character with AOE for the big boss and the lesser grunts, and a heavy hitter/tank who can do a lot of damage and take a lot of damage to focus on the front lines. Then a fourth that is either AOE or high damager for extra security.

I talked Ketheric into killing himself so it went right into the second phase. Then wizard misty stepped up to the mindflayer and used thunderwave to push him down to the ground below. Melee (Jaheira respecced as a paladin and Astarion as a fighter/rogue) took care of him quick, I don't think he even got to do anything. A combo of sunbeam (from shadowheart using blood of lathander) and fireball took out the little brains.

After that, I think I had Jaheira make a beeline for nightsong while astarion and shadowheart kept Myrkul distracted. With my wizard I also plopped down a fire wall on top of Myrkul and summoned a fire elemental. From there it was pretty simple: Nightsong and Jaheira spammed smites on Myrkul, Shadowheart healed when necessary, and astarion and the fire elemental cleaned up the necromites and their spawners. My wizard either launched fireballs to help astarion and his elemental, or just cantripped for some more damage on the boss. I got the achievement for killing him before he absorbed any of the little undead guys, so I don't know what that would do. The platform that the mindflayer starts on is good for casters or ranged damage dealers, my caster was up there and had free reign pretty much the entire fight. I think Myrkul might have once used a weird pull move that teleported my wizard right next to him, but I just misty stepped back up there. It lets you hit most of the battlefield with whatever spells you want. Scrolls of misty step would probably be useful for everyone in the fight since I think myrkul has a "no heal" aura that affects anyone that stands near him. Misty step would let people get to safety, and would also let other characters teleport around the battlefield when they need to take care of adds on the platforms and everything.

Here's the best advice I can give.

1) Have a character sneak up to rescue the Nightsong before the fight begins.

2) Take down all the additional enemies before tackling Ketheric. The Mind flayer should be priority number one.

3) Ideally you'll have a Paladin, Fighter, Monk or Barbarian. Cast Haste on them one way or another. They will probably be able to down Myrkul in a round or two. Have everyone else deal with any additional enemies being summoned. If one of your characters is concentrating on Haste then you need to keep them protected, keep them away from Myrkul and ideally cast Sanctuary to keep them healthy.

If you don't have any of these consider dropping the difficulty down to explorer and use whatever sources of damage you do have to take him down as fast as possible.

fully agree with OP, there seems to be no counter other than having the PERFECT set up and basically cheesing.

I believe they upped the difficulty on this fight also since I started honour mode, imo they went FAR to far, this isn't a souls game.

to everyone saying it was easy, your genuine psychopaths and I don't believe you, you've cheesed or prepared so much it may as well be considered cheesing yes i could haste everyone with a thousand hastes and filled the room with barrels but that's obviously not how the game "should" be played, i don't want to feel like im cheating, i want it to feel earned, and as your so blasé about it i doubt you feel like you "really" beat it either

re playing the game 9 times all the way to this point just to feel like a toddler fighting paddy the baddy is Bull.

my preparation was do ALL quests and get all decent items, i was lvl 9 ish. and had a decent amount of scrolls and potions.

please larian take the edge off this,

also i think it may be too easy on normal mode but honour its ridiculous

I beat it without haste on patch 6 and it was alright. The blood of Lathander really helped my squishest character stay alive, though. However, I had someone sneak in to free the Nightsong first thing. I found the Githyanki ambush more difficult if you don't avoid it -- I had one character go down, one almost down, and one to half HP. The thing about my builds is that I make sure the party can still function with only 3 people if need be and that I use spell slots efficiently. Myrkul really tests your capacity to function in that regard.

There are many fights more difficult than this one. The preceding assault on Moonrise Towers being one. Those Absolute Paladins and Clerics are an absolute pain.

Ol Murky can be dealt with at range quite comfortably.

yes but its by design so play a lover setting until you have a better plain

This is the best* of the three Big Boss fights <3
What can I add?
- Free Dame Aylin on turn 2. However, I've found that while usefull in round 1, in round 2 she has spent her Smites and is useless.
- long term AoE - Hunger of Hadar, Spike Growth, Cloud Kill etc. in Necromite spawning areas
- long term AoE - Insect Plague, Hunger of Hadar, etc. over Kethric
- some sort of fast moving Summon - best if with Blundgedoing damage - to destroy Necromite "eggs"
- Smokepowder Arrows

BTW - I've only ever done this fight on Honour Mode

* I suspect that the Big Boss fights were designed with the original lvl 10 cap in mind. Hence Kethric is still fun, the Crazy is so-so, while Gortash is a lame push over.

For me, it was a ranged battle. My githyanki necromancer had a skeleton shooting squad of nine (four from Tav, three from Shadowheart). They took out the mind flayer quickly and then the intellect devourers as they approached. Gale, who had a flying ghoul, took out the Necromite involucres with Wyll who also brought his Cambion from the Infernal Rapier. I'd have to go back to the savegames for details, but my Tav blinked and misty stepped to Dame Aylin and ended Ketheric's immortality. I also had the Shadow from the Shadow Lantern, but I don't think it did much except for a few honorary hit points of damage. With all the ranged firepower, we took the apostle out before it could consume any necromites. At least, that's what the game achievement plaque says. My group was always surrounded by a host of thralls, so IP those battles were short bursts of violence, but IRL, it was a lot of clicking about and moving pieces about on the Lanceboard.

The fight can quickly mean the end of your Honor Mode. As far as I know, barrelmancy no longer works there or backpacks with explosives, as the Apostle only takes limited damage from it and can no longer be killed like that. A few pieces of advice that you should perhaps take into account, depending on how you want to fight the battles yourself, some of them could possibly be a savior in an emergency.

I don't think my party was particularly strong and we did OK, although I do have prior D&D experience. I can't remember the details, or how many attempts it took the first time through (I replayed part of act 2 and it was really easy because I knew what to expect), but as others said make sure Aylin is up and active, and don't get too close to the avatar. Even so, I usually had one or two at risk from his fear beam and proximity effects. Ah yes - Lae'zel would probably have been on the platform with him because she was built as a greatsword warrior, and Tav was probably up there using bard spells to ward off fear effects (with halfling bravery to help). Then Wyll & Shadowheart doing ranged attacks.

That fiend in the Sharran temple was much harder, and that's not even a boss fight.

I found this fight to be relatively easy for a boss fight to be honest with you. What level were you when you took this battle on? When I did it I had done every thing that could be done in level one and believe I was at level 5 or 6 when I fought him and his cronies.

@Sini Shadowheart being a Tempus Cleric is now one of the most powerful spell casters in my party loves water.<G> I've tried a lot of builds for SH and found that I love my current build for her the best.

The first time I got into this fight, I also thought this was the end-of-game. Never would I be able to finish act 2. But, as usual, after a few retries you find a strategy that can work.
Althought there's still an important dependance on the die rolls, IMO. Especially those from Dame Aylin. Sometimes she's as harmful (not) as a fly and gets swatted just as easily. Other times she wacks Ketheric like a training dummy.

Chain lightning is extremely strong in this fight. I always have a sufficient number of chain lightning scrolls and water with me anyway. My Shadowheart is mostly radiant orb cleric, I like it when the enemies simply explode due to the orbs.

It's difficult to whittle down his health with conventional attacks when you are constantly frightened and he has resistance. The trick is using persistent aoe and attacks that automatically hits.

I think you can use Calm Emotions against being frightened. I was lucky so far , but in my current HM run, I gave to face him again soon and I will pack CE and all the adds , that I can. If necessary from scrolls.

It's a possible approach, but it's a tradeoff because it's a concentration spell so that means one less persistent aoe spell.

Frightened prevents moved - if necessary I use Misty Step or Arrow of Transposition to get around
When Dame Aylin decides to take a nap while at 1HP inside Kethric's Bone Chill aura I use Shove or Throw

That is true, but my guy is a sword bard and seldom use spells, so he can do it and Gale and Shadowheart can AoE, while Karlach or Lae'zel tank.
Worth a try. If it doesn't work, I will let you know here

As I just finished this boss fight for the first time the other day, I will recount what I did (I believe there will be useful info for those struggling with the fight). For those wondering, I found it not that difficult (Balanced Difficulty) and pretty sure I could handle it on harder diffculty knowing what to expect as I had no prior knowledge of the boss, and also see a method to handle the Legendary Action in Honour Mode that I will mention later. I can see why people found it anti-climactic or underwhelming, but have suspicions on why many found it hell while I didn't, which I will again also mention later.

So first, my party set up. The party was level 9 going in. My Tav is a Githyanki Life Domain Cleric, with all her gear centered on buffing her healing and granting free bless, and 21 AC. I brought Shadowheart, who I had reclassed as a Death Domain cleric, with I believe 22 AC, the ring that gives mental fatigue, and the Infernal Rapier which I had just got. Speaking of, I also brought Wyll (I am not sure if he needed to be there to get the Infernal Rapier, but did not wish to risk it) and despite what you may be thinking, he is not a warlock. For the purposes of this fight, he is a Way of the Shadow Monk, because I really wanted infinite teleports, with the Rapier of Screams. He is the weakest of the party with 18 AC. And lastly, Minthara, who I made a Oath of the Crown Paladin and Hexblade Warlock, with the Radiant Orb set and Blood of Lathander and a headset that gave her arcane synergy and 23 AC, by far the most powerful of those I brought.

So, my party goes in and starts fighting Thorm. I start sending Wyll to go handle the four Intellect Devourers and free the Nightsong. Minthara has the darkbow and so applied haste to herself. Shadowheart summons the Cambion. I forget what my Tav was doing, ngl, bear with me if I can't recount everything, I remember the notable things.

What happened is that Thorm stunned multiple of my characters, including Minthara and making her lose her haste immediately. Wyll, who has that ice armor temporary hit points spell applied, is dealing with the Mind flayers pretty well. Those few Necromite's in the corner were certainly a pain as they kept targeting my Tav, but thankfully a lot of them were saved (As in my character kept dodging).

I initially tried to use the Cambion to attack thorm but quickly realized that, one, he was invulnerable and I was wasting my time, and two, the Cambion had piss poor accuracy against him and it simply wasn't worth it. I instead used the Cambion to help with the Mindflayer, who honestly I ended up killing so quickly that he was barely noticeable. I had my Tav use spirit guardians when Thorm tried summoning more necromites, which wasn't the best move since I couldn't damage the egg things but did counter them effectively enough. (There was also a time where I used beacon of hope and then a widespread heal, but I forget where in the order this happened)

I then tried to have Shadowheart use Cloudkill on the necromites on the platform. This was a terrible idea as I forgot that they are immune to poison. I ended up moving the cloud to try and damage Thorm, and no idea if that really did anything of use. Wyll has killed the intellect devourers and freed the Nightsong by this point, so I have Minthara start damaging him heavily. The Nightsong was... pretty useless. She got killed by Thorm in one set of attacks. Which some of you may be thinking is fine, she'll be back. Just you wait.

So, Minthara then smites Thorm and he is near dead. And so comes the Avatar of Death popping up, to my surprise as I've only seen a clip of this thing existing and was not expecting him. I look at his stats and see his abilities, and quickly made one of the two decisions I think made this fight much easier for me. I had Shadowheart put silence on him.

I have not seen anywhere saying that Silence affects this boss in any notable way. I could possibly be wrong. But I see no other reason for why throughout the entire fight, he does not use an ability that normally causes havoc. I saw the effect on him mentioning that he can sacrifice necromites to use a move that basically means insta death for most characters, and he summons the damn things, and he did not do so once throughout the whole fight. I even got an achievement for that. I suspect this is because I put the Silence over him, but if someone knows that this is not the case, feel free to correct me, but I do believe it is likely.

I at this point send my Tav with spirit guardians and try to have her use her Triple githyanki given jump to get to the platform the Necromites were on to try and kill them all. A more effective thing to do would have been to Mistystep there, but I did not think of that and am generally conservative on resources. And at this point, the boss nearly one hit kills Minthara, a character I so far have never had go below half health (She was at ~60 health when this happened of her ~80)

I wisely have Minthara move out of the bosses' Bonechill zone so she can start using some heals on herself. The Boss at this point is still targeting her and making her frightened. Also at this time, I am using the Cambion to target the not yet spawned Necromites, because it's accuracy is again pointless against the boss. I'm also trying to maneuver Wyll into the other corner to handle the Necromites on the other side.

The Avatar of Death proceeds to inhale and drag my tav character to him, and I have my Tav first try to use a heal spell, to which I then remember his bone chill aura, and then realize that, the Nightsong has been and will be effectively removed for the whole fight because she died right where that aura prevents her from getting back up or helped. Again, the Nightsong is useless and literally just is not a part of the second phase. However, this did make me realize just how bad this was, and I have my Tav do a column of fire on the boss to do a good chunk before using Sanctuary to have her leave and help Minthara heal.

And at this point comes the second move that I suspect helped make this fight easy. Summons. The Boss was still targeting Minthara, and she is by far my most powerful character, so I need to get her healed and protected from the frightened effect. To this end, I have Shadowheart summon spiritual weapon. This helped take the aggro of the boss away from Minthara. I summon spiritual weapon twice, and I don't think even one got a chance to attack, but that's fine, they served their purpose. I also have my Tav summon a Guardian of Faith, which ended up being a free 60 damage (None of the boss's attacks hit it). I also summoned one skeleton with Shadoweart which did a bit of damage.

This is something I think would have helped even in the honor mode run, as I think the summons might be able to take his Legendary Action, which is a counterattack once per round. Something to consider.

And after this, the fight was basically smooth sailing. Wyll was handling the necromites on the left at this point, Cambion those on the right, Shadowheart was keeping up the silence and using the Toll the Bell cantrip to apply more mental fatigue, and Minthara, I kept away because I did not want her getting caught in the no healing aura, and she was able to do plenty of damage at a distance with the Warlock cantrip while applying lots of Radiant Orb to make the boss less accurate. I was able to have my Tav skip turns at the end because there was nobody to heal or do an action. (Minthara at this point put a protection from good/evil spell on herself to prevent being frightened if hit)

So main recommendations for this fight is use a silence bubble as fast as you can and then start bringing out summons to keep your party safe and use a damage dealer from afar. Again, this was my first time battling the boss, with zero prior preparation or knowledge. The spells they had were the spells I normally always keep on hand because I know their utility may come in use unexpectedly. Nor was this a fully optimized team, as Wyll is the weakest character I have as I am experimenting with him on an effective Shadow Monk build and have not figured it out yet, I brought him solely for his quest and the Infernal Rapier, which I was glad to have for that fight.

I do not believe this fight was all that difficult, though I do acknowledge that had the boss actually managed to get Minthara that first time, I may have been screwed. But I also suspect I would have managed, based on many of the decisions I made that I believe made the fight successful were very much reactive to the information I had, and I already had a thought on how to bring a character away from the no healing aura to bring them back, so not an impossible hurdle to come back from. I also had plenty of resources left over I could have used, like Blood of Lathander's sunbeam, or any divinity charges. I also didn't use any elixers, because I'm a stingy hoarder.

The fight was fun. Hope this was helpful.

Sure there's plenty of strategies to do this fight. But the first time through, you know none of this!

Spoilers in this post!

You don't know:

TO use the Doomhammer
TO run to the little bulges to heal
TO focus down the mindflayer first

You don't even know you can't heal at first. You don't know he has a super heal black hole power. You don't have infinite heal potions from farming. You don't have a hill giant for your fighter.

You probably didn't even know this fight was two phases! Oh my, Kethric, unload every thing you've got! And maybe you did it after a few reloads.

Yay! Whaaaaaaa???

And now you're on empty.