Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback [BOSS] - Raphael Could Really Use Some Buffs (SPOILER)

The House Of Hope is honestly one of the best parts of the game;

• Incredibly well made and interesting
• Artistically rich with tons of fascinating lore
• Has one of the best characters ever (love Hope so much )
• Raphael's boss battle is freaking exhilarating with such phenomenal music! A definitive highlight of ACT 3.

But Raphael himself... unfortunately is just a 666hp meat-puppet that does nothing really and is far too easily crowd-controlled. Mostly just runs around the room, throws a fire pillar sometimes that doesn't do much damage anyway and heals every few turns if he's bored. And to add even more salt to the wound afterwards the dialogue itself is aware of him not putting up a proper fight;



The entire House of Hope is a portrayal of his vast power and unlimited cruelty when it comes to hellish damnation, but he himself poses no threat whatsoever. Gets dominated, gets proned, gets completely shut down.

What's better than a devil you know?

• A devil YOU control! (Planar Binding)
  
  

• So easily crowd-controlled that he took a nap mid-fight.
  
  

• And never got up since because he's perma CCed...
  
  

And this was a completely blind first-time attempt at him, on Honour Mode of all things. Didn't even bother smashing the pillars and the party isn't using any one-trick pony builds that one-shot bosses/mobs.

He could really use some serious buffs that make him more of a formidable threat with some proper CC resistances because as cool as it is to be able to dominate him with Shadowheart and such, at the same time this is Raphael. Such an intricate villain deserves far more respect than this, it just doesn't feel right that he's a boss whose only threat comes from his goons as he's flopping on the floor like a fish.

I feel this way about the whole game. I love so much about the game, but it feels like the highest difficulty mode was made for the most casual streamer.

LOL, Raphael – brilliant???

The naff musical number? The camp, floridly overwritten dialogue???

Every time I read one of these Raphael appreciation threads, I think – I’m a different species, on every level, to the people applauding this dross.

I can only say I need to stop being ‘triggered’ by this content. It’s driving up my blood pressure at this point.

As in life, the best fictional villains don’t think they’re villains – they think they’re heroes.

They’re also based on real humans – what’s Raphael based on, a moustache-twirly villain from a bad child’s cartoon?

The character is an idiot.

Oh wait, was this about his stats?

Well, I don’t care because the game is thrash beyond Act 1. I think when you hit level 5 that’s when the balance goes out the window.

Raphael was a very difficult battle for me but I would be okay with an additional level of difficulty. (Especially since Hope gives you a free total party resurrection and stuff.) After all, you do have to get through him to get some of the best items in the game.

Heh, yeah I remember going there the first time. Not knowing there was a ritual pouch I tried ALL manner of things to do the thing with the circle. Rotten fish, mushrooms,

Anyway, then it said; 'Are you TRULY ready?' I got to thinking that maybe I wasn't. I was. You are the second you set foot in the city.

After just looking at his wiki "Fight" page because I never understood this fight (do you kill the Pillars or not?), and after reading, still not sure.
Kinda seems a bit wierdly convoluted but I might've missed something...?

The 4 Pillars (+12 max bonus to Dex and Saving Trows) with his "Inevitable Resolve" ability should be making him very hard to lock down, no?
Then you have his "Beguiling Rebuke" Legendary action that should make him untargettable in his Normal form, so it seems that you should kill the Pillars, which makes him much more dangerous but changes his Legendary Action
But if he's still easily locked down with the Pillars alive then there's no point.

Maybe they should buff the fight by:
a. Buff the Pillars more and/or make "Inevitable Resolve" not skip his turn?
b. Have him start and stay in his Ascension form for Tactician+.
c. Give him a Legendary Action to delete any Globes of Invulnerability. (Because even if you buff his fight, Globes still exist to trivialize any fight)

I can see the intent, atleast by reading the wiki, is to force you to force him into his Ascension form (...however that just makes him more stunlock-able?)
Idk, I'm getting flashbacks to DOS where CC was king and trivialized most fights.

Although, I've still yet to fight him in honor mode tho, that playthrough is on ice until the quest bug and Cazador gets fixed.

OMG I did not even know he has an actual true form!

I'm seriously so saddened now... he transforms only AFTER a pillar is destroyed, which I completely ignored because he seemed to only ever use them for healing so figured who cares I'll just keep smacking him.

Which also didn't do much for him in terms of resistances because Shadowheart planar binds him quite easily with all the pillars up and after his lackeys died he ended up perma stun-locked from 450hp all the way down to 0 because my Minthara is built to completely debuff and shut down a single target with just her reverberating attacks via [Boots Of Stormy Clamour] that may cause targets to go Prone after massively losing their saving throws via [Gloves Of Baneful Striking], while Lae'zel is a Fighter/Tiger Barb who AOE Maims targets so they can't move, which is why she can attack Raphael even while charmed.

Well tsk'va! Next run I'm destroying his stupid pillars immediately so he can put up a proper fight. Really sucks how the player can entirely miss out on the core essence of the fight like this

I'm tempted to call BS on this. You waited all this time to get Honour Mode to try this fight?

It is quite difficult to balance these fights properly. The game must provide a number of ways to defeat any main boss. They could have made Rafael immune to any crowd control effects, and do a massive AOE attack of 200 damage at every turn. They could have made him so powerful, you needed some very specific cheesy exploits to defeat him. I actually would have loved this, IF he was some secret boss, unrelated to the main plot. The fact that this fight has a unique music suggests that it was designed to be experienced by most players, so Raphael had to be defeatable by the usual conventional means. Unfortunately this means a passive boss with a massive HP and a large amount of trash mobs to spice up the fight. It wasn't designed to be hard, but to last long.

They made hin Easy becouse of a Bunch of People were Crying about it..
The Battle in early Hotfixes/Patchs were a Lot Harder no joke.

I had to Use Evrything in my First Run on the Harder difficult back then..
Now. i beat hin laughting no challenge at all..
Another One that used to Be Stronger was Ansur Too..
They Both were the Only Good Thing in Act 3 in terms of Challenge Now.
They become a Joke if yu know the mechanics of the Game like me.

(BTW ansur still kill hinself for yu depending on the situation.. he will Fly into the Abyss pretty stupid..haha)

That is exactly how it is supposed to be.

To elaborate since my sentence seems poorly worded; I actually never took a step once into ACT 3 until Honour Mode so my entire run of ACT 3 was a completely blind first-attempt, not just Raphael. Honour Mode for me is just an excuse to experience the story's evil choices for which I'm not overly attached to because I can't properly experience the story's intricacies this way, so that's why my first ever ACT 3 experience was on Honour Mode and this was my first ever fight against him. My actual 1000 hours of playthroughs only ever go to ACT 2's finale and are waiting for Larian to polish all the ACT 3 story elements so I can properly experience the story (and naturally to optimize the act so it doesn't run like utter dog shit)

Anyway I am absolutely not suggesting he gets turned into some one-shotting AOE freak because after all this ain't Dark Souls and that is not what makes boss fights hard. And I am also not suggesting he requires some gimmicky exploits or mechanics to be defeated because this ain't World Of Warcraft where bosses then just end up being boss puzzles rather than boss fights.

The thrill of boss fights comes from looming threats during the boss fights that can create pressure by undermining the attempts to overcome the battle. What I am suggesting is to make his fight a bit more risky by having actual looming threats where things can go wrong;

• By him being more resistant to CC so he isn't just a 666hp ragdoll flopping around on the floor or disrespectfully getting mindcontrolled by a Cleric he can snap in two with just his fingers
• Him being more of an active threat so he doesn't just run around doing nothing
• And there being other aspects of the fight that can shift the course of battle in any direction

He's a devil who snaps his fingers and terrible stuff happens, but my entire fight was just this;

• First knocked out Korilla for story purposes and killed his other lackeys (years of MMO experience - always deal with the adds first)
• Yurgir was absolutely no threat because funnily enough I disarmed him of both weapons in ACT 2, so he did not have any weapons in this fight
• And Raphael, a devil who can simply snap his fingers to do terrible stuff just runs around, throws down some fire and heals from time to time. Spawns an occasional add, maybe punches someone. Not a threat whatsoever, just a meat-puppet that got perma stun-locked from 450hp all the way down to 0.

Raphael however is a non-escapable boss fight for a villain that displays such massive almost-limitless power, but in actual gameplay poses no threat whatsoever even on Honour Mode which is why on my first ever blind attempt at him I did not even get to see his Ascended form because the pillars don't even do anything meaningful to warrant their destruction. The entire fight is mostly focused around his lackeys which are nothing really and Raphael himself doesn't pose any threat on his own because I suppose Larian figured because Yurgir and Korilla are there that it would not be fair if Raphael was a bigger threat.

In my opinion a way to make the fight more interesting and threatening with a risk of things potentially going wrong would be;

• He is a devil who can snap his fingers. It would be amazing if he had something like a Wild Magic effect where he snaps his fingers and random stuff happens. This way his fight would always be random and unique each playthrough.
• Making the pillars more of a looming threat throughout the fight by Raphael trying to drain the pillars every so often and if the draining of the souls is not interrupted each time he attempts it then he ascends.
• Increasing Korilla's hp from 33hp (she gets one shot by literally anything, even Yurgir can one-shot her)
• If all of his lackeys are dead, he ascends into his form permanently out of rage for making a mess of his house and killing his assistant.
• And naturally making him more resistant to CCs. He's way too easily tripped, proned, immobilized, dominated, shut down.
• Hope also mentions that Raphael will be furious and make mistakes in battle if he sees her out of her cage. Having or not having her should also play into the encounter with unique conditions for Raphael.

Wow. That was quite a choice, and probably too much fate in Larian. Nevertheless, after 1000 hours there is little possibility of encountering anything challenging.

My first blind attempt was quite exciting. I've made the mistake of taking out the pillars to which he responded by going hyper-mode and nuking half of my party and Hope to death. The fact that it is better to ignore the obvious pillars suggests a wonky design choice.

The main issue is that Raphael is hyped up to be a near godlike creature, but in the fight he is nothing special. A regular enemy with an unusually large health pool. Grym is a far more imposing foe, especially for the level you usually encounter it. Raphael needs to be somewhat easily beatable if the player is locked into the House of Hope following a main/companion quest.

I would have made Raphael a highly optional challenge, where the player has to explicitly choose to attack him.

An example of a great boss fight is the demi-lich encounter in BG2. It is just a single floating skull that casts Imprisonment and is immune to control spells and weapons bellow +4. There are a few (once you know, easy) tricks to kill it, but the first try is bound to be a shocking experience. This is how it should be. If you get into a fight with a creature way above your power levels, you should need to find some kind of "trick" to kill it. The usual strategy of disable + hit hard shouldn't work.

Ha, I had the same experience; Saw the Pillars and went "These must strengthen Raphael in some way and must be destroyed. How they buff him exactly, ¯\_(?)_/¯."
IIRC, it wasn't until later during testing that I noticed he got more Soul Charges after I destroyed a Pillar (I guess thats what they were counting on people doing, otherwise it really is wonky/badly designed).

Although, technically, Raphael is the most optional boss of Act 3 (Barring the fact that 95% of Act 3 is optional), because, atleast on a first blind playthrough, you can just accept his deal and not know about HoH at all.
The organic way of discovering is either through Shadowhearts quest or ransacking the Devil's Fee.

And we are talking about Honor Mode, where concerns about accessibility shouldn't exist (because you know what your mostly getting into) and the devs should be throwing their hardest version at us, and even then, you technically don't need to fight him to finish the game on Honor.

And also, to his credit, he probably is the hardest (or, personally, the 2nd hardest behind Ansur) but even then, Larian did make it much easier by giving out a healbot (Hope) and infinite Long Rests.
Also, apparently, in Patch 3, they made Raphael CC-able (along with "Inevitable Resolve").

Atleast Hotfit 17's out so I can continue my Honor run and see how the fight is.

Huh, well I just did this fight and found two things.

1. The Pillars don't provide a bonus to Saving Throws but he did have +9 Dex Modifier and 27 AC, so it's only half functioning?
2. Tasha's Hideous Laughter doesn't activate "Inevitable Resolve", so he was just permanently out of the fight because of my 27 DC.