I am only level 7 or 8 can't remember which, and done everything but the Historian stuff and defeating of the Magister in charge. Basically, I have no idea how I am meant to level enough to stand a chance against this fight. I killed everything except one shrieker and the fight for the boat.

So I assume I must be missing something obvious... is Historian quest essential?

I am in the same boat. I went back to Fort Joy and slaughtered all the silent monks for the XP but I'm still only level 8 and whenever it looks like I am going to win the battle vs the bishop the voidworm shows up and wrecks everyone.

Assuming you all are talking about the final boss, level 7 should be more than enough. To put things in perspective, I won the fight at level 6 (classic difficulty) although half way through the fight I leveled up to level 7. Prioritize survival rather than going head to head against Alexander or the worm. Let the two elephants pat each other down. Utilize smoke to block sight cones and break aggro and blessed smoke to go mass invisible. And don't be finicky with your items obviously. It's the last fight so go all out. Kill off stray magisters whenever you can and keep the worm in check with CC when it starts to get out of control. The key to the fight is to play the balancing act. You don't want either side to get a significant upper hand. You want them to punch each other silly so you can come in to mop up.

I was also Lv 7 after completing everything aside from the Historian quest. The final fight is still very possible at this level having done it myself. I didn't even bother using the two Lv 1 companions that Gareth sends with you. What I did was prior to the fight I sent my party to the left side of the main door towards the harbor. I then teleported my rogue to the ledge. The rogue then teleports the Magister Mage to my team below. The fight starts. The AI spends time going to the closest target (my rogue) who will just Cloak and Dagger back down while my team spends their first turn cc/killing the mage. After that I used the front gates as a funnel point and created water/electricity puddles. As for the worm... He spawned where the idle Magister Ranger stands and usually one shots him. Once I was ready I teleported a Gheist ontop of the worm to tank while I killed the worm.

You can do alot of interesting things with Teleport/Netherswap/Cloak and Dagger/Tactical Retreat. Also blessing smoke for invisibility to ensure the worm attacks the Gheist can be handy. Lastly, having high initiative through leadership can make a world of a difference. Anyways, that was just my plan and yours will probably be different I just emphasis having a plan going in -- instead of storming the front gates and saying, "HEY GUYS!"

I was level 6 when I did it and it was pretty tough. Gareth bugged out and I couldn't get him to help so it was just my 4 dudes. I had to exploit by pulling aggro on the Alexander, Gheist and the melee warrior dude out the front gate and killing them with AOE, teleport, and CC. Then heal up. Went back in initiate on the mage with the rogue and then bounce as the worm comes in and kills the archer and mage. Make sure you are spread the f out because both the archer and mage can one shot your whole party.

Then I went back in and fight the worm solo. If I remember right, fight ended after each engagement and I healed up.

Took several tries for me.

defeated the boss on a lvl 7 party, but im really not proud since i cheesed it, by having my PC talk to alexandar and locking both him and my PC out of the fight untill the end when my 3 party members had fought basically the whole battle. still needed to ress one party member during the fight, but if you just survive untill the worm comes out and you get lucky it will wipe most of the magisters out.

This is how I did it, like others I had to find a exploit to manage it. I also used the whole having your character speak to the main guy initially, fought and killed the mage, got everyone backed off and then retreated.

you can beat the final fight even at level 5

hint: barrels are you friends

http://img15.hostingpics.net/pics/480480barrelrofl2.png

I don't know that seems too huge an exploit. I prefer using exploits like having my character talk to Alexander and kill the mage, then flee come back when healed the worm is dead and the mage can't focus you.

Oh... poor Alexandar.

Well the easiest way to to do it is the flowers. It takes quite a bit of leg work but you can haul a fire and poison flower all the way up to the battle spot. Since your not damaging the characters, they do not become hostile. Once you have inflicted enough hell on them you can commence whatever asswhooping you wish. Or once you begin the conversation with the bishop swap characters and begin setting your "stage" with as many oil/poison barrels as you can hold. Hope it helps.

Actually I finished this.

Even if you finish the dragon quest, you still have the purging wand (although now useless.) If you've sold it, thankfully there are only a few vendors that are worth trading with so tracking it down shouldn't be a problem (Only time consuming).
From there you make a dialogue with the seeker dude (Can't remember his name) and that will trigger them being at the fort site, waiting for you.
Once you get rid of the shriekers (via dragon spell) you can then insist that the seekers give you two men to fight with you. (I personally went for melee fighters as this next tip will explain)
Then I went to the right hand side of the building. There's a series of arches here and you are somewhat sheltered from most of the attacks. Before you even think of starting the battle, make sure you have plenty of resurrection scrolls! And hopefully you have the feat "Morning person" to rez to full health!
Instead of triggering the dialogue with the bad guy, I threw a couple of bombs up and over the wall to trigger the battle. Alexander will try to blind you, but if you are far enough behind the wall, it doesn't hit you. The bad guy fighter will phoenix jump over to you and the rogue will climb the ladder to you. The main problem is that unless you all happen to be in this little nook, arrows/spells won't work if your character is on the right side of the archway. (Hence why I suggest going for the melee support rather than archer or mage) These guys will try to buff you first rather than fight, but when they do, they'll run out into the main area, and not get taken down by the bad guys (Who, for some reason ignore them and attack only your group) Hopefully one will make it to the enemy archer.
Now, here's the tricky part. Knockdown arrows/ground slam/ battering ram DO NOT WORK so save your turns by using ice spells/arrows/bombs as the bad guys will usually trip trying to get to you.
When you can, move all your troops out of the alcove and onto the area just to the right so that the mage and archer can't get to you. Hopefully you can now off the bad guys one by one until the drill worm comes.
When the drill worm comes, it'll take down the enemy archer first, giving you time to chip away at Alexander's health. When he pops up in the middle of your group, he'll knock down Alexander so take him down first. The drill worm will then keep trying to take down your guys but if you keep rezing them, you should be able to chip him down gradually.

Long winded, I know, but it works!

Happy hunting!

How many of you guys have done it without exploiting it, rather, instead have sought out to make the worm and Magisters attack you without splitting up?

I lack any finesse at all when it comes to battle and about the most I remember to do is admittedly to split my party and sneak them in. But I'm not actually terribly good at it as I have no concept of strategy, so I may as well just describe it as blundering in and hoping for the best. But I've somehow got through that battle thrice now.

Admittedly I play on "explorer mode": I'm not shy about admitting I suck at combat. I figure if I managed to somehow stagger through it with only a deficit of three resurrection scrolls it musn't require too much shenanigans.

Let's just say I found it a lot easier than the notorious Zeppelin escort mission. D:

I was just curious about it; very few people seem to be asking 'How do I face this... like a champion of yore?'.

Um... me, I guess. A few failed attempts at splitting didn't work so I sent my entire party through the front gate, and when the battle triggered, I Teleported Alexander as far away as possible, then ran everyone away. This pulled all but 2-3 of the enemies to follow. The Mage and Ranger always stay behind and don't follow, which seems like an AI glitch to me. Without their support, I could wallop the others down, and the worm shows up and finishes off the Magisters who stay behind.

No, you exploited a shit tier AI and ran away; I am asking if you tried to fight everyone at once. Like did you FORCE YOUR WILL UPON THE ENEMY.

Did you make it known to your enemies that you aren't a fuckboy and that you mean business. That having a three level difference and his homies on high ground is meaningless before your might? Did you punch the encounter in the face?

I don't know about you, but exploiting the encounter is an easy win; I am wondering how many of you want to shove your fist down the encounter's throat and rip out its innards. There's been virtually no discussion about abilities or builds or gear.

Oh okay, fair enough, I just went back and tried a straight-up fight with all party members going into the middle and holding their ground. The Mage AI definitely seems bugged as they still didn't join in this time. I technically won, although I ran out of resurrection scrolls and had to hide my last surviving Rogue out of sight until Alexander and the worm finished fighting. THe worm won, but it had only 11 HP left.

I did also kill two of my own party members out of annoyance after the Red Prince, teleporting worm and Alexander blocked Lhose so she couldn't move. So I used my explosive arrows to kill herself and hurt the others. The Red Prince was finished by Alexander or the worm.

I then discovered that pretty much no one sells ressurrection scrolls. The seekers had all left, the only three friendlies left had none. (I forgot about the witch on the north coast and the seeker ranger near the armory) I had to return to prison to find NPC's who would sell some.

**

Discussion about gear won't be a lot of help since it's all RNG based and can't be reliably duplicated.

I duked it out with the whole crew and beat them on the second try. (In my first try I just walked right into the courtyard without knowing what was going on due to a bug in my game where Gareth doesn't appear at the rally point, and I got no info about the attack. Alexander completely pantsed my characters with the blinding attack and it was a debacle from there).

Even my successful second try was somewhat suboptimal and I needed several resurrection scrolls I had stockpiled during the rest of the game without previously using them. But I won without any hacks or cheese. I had a level 7 party but I'm not sure how important that is since it seems like the game scales opponents to your level. The worm's initial entrance completely surprised me and killed one of my characters but I was able to regroup and still win eventually.

There are smart comments on here about trying to let the worm and Magisters beat each other up and as much as possible, you just come in at the end to mop up whoever is left. I was able to do a little of that but didn't think of the smoke/blessed smoke/invisibility tactics that some people talk about. When the worm initially surfaced, he was near the Gheist and those two duked it out for a few rounds and left me alone with the other Magisters before the worm randomly moved. That was helpful.

I initially attacked from the right side of the castle (as viewed from Gareth's rallying point), and walked up a staircase to try to get height advantages for my shooter and spellcaster characters. I was also hoping I'd be far enough away to avoid Alexander's radiance/blinding attack but he still got some of my characters with it.

It was an anxious initial few rounds because Alexander, the fighter and rogue were immediately up in my business on the catwalk I'd climbed onto. They quickly depleted my magic armor and some physical armor, but fortunately most characters were still able to fight back. My Red Prince was a tank with an excellent 2-handed weapon doing about 90-120 base damage, and it also granted the overpower skill in just 1 memory slot instead of the conventional 3 that are required if you memorize the spellbook. He was also wearing the Helm of Braccus and I had used it before the battle to get 2 source points enabling me to use Overpower. That, Crippling Blow, and Battle Stomp were very helpful doing a lot of damage and knocking them down.

I developed Lohse as a Hydrosophist/Aerotheurge combo, and she kicked ass in this battle rotating through combos of Hail Strike, Winter Blast, Electric Discharge, Shocking Touch, plus periodically healing people. I accidentally froze the Red Prince for a round or two (we were fighting in very close quarters), when a Hail Strike wasn't far enough away from him, but still worthwhile overall preventing the Magisters from hitting back.

Sebille was a Huntsman and did lots of arrow damage plus did some healing with First Aid. She had a number of knockdown arrows and I think I used some in the initial rounds to control the Magisters.

Ifan was a Rogue/Huntsman/Pyrokinetic, and also stocked with lots of grenades. In this battle I don't recall him using spells, he did melee damage with arrows. I would have liked to use his grenades but the Magisters were too close to Ifan and other characters, if I used them at all it was only later chucking an Armor Piercing one into the courtyard to maul the worm.

At the beginning, Lohse and Red Prince achieved CC of Alexander, the Magister Rogue, and Magister fighter, while the Gheist approached from the courtyard. It was going well until the Worm surfaced. He immediately killed Lohse and diseased + damaged Sebille, but fortunately ended up in the courtyard where he and Gheist fought each other for a while and stayed away from me. I thought about trying to position myself to get the Magisters and worm to fight each other, but decided to just press the advantage I had over the Magisters and finish them off, then gang up on the worm. It pretty much worked out as planned, I indeed killed off the Magisters but after a few rounds the worm disengaged from the Gheist and attacked me. Then the Gheist ran at me, and I ganged up on it + got a quick kill while the worm fortuitously ran off to the courtyard by itself for a while. I then got a round or two of missile attacks in on the worm before it charged up to the catwalk to hit back. It killed Ifan and I had to resurrect him, but meanwhile the Red Prince had several rounds doing huge damage to it (300-400 per round, got some critical strikes and used Crippling Blow on it). From there we just went toe to toe and I had more firepower.

Well, I am glad to see most people see this battle as the battle of the most cheese... makes me feel a little better about totally cheesting the cheese out of it.
Many thanks to Hail Storm for being totally OP, and then just keeping the CC up so Alexander couldn't do me any harm anymore.
I have a feeling that fight will be nerfed quite a bit, I'm not sure every gamer will appreciate the need to massively cheese-out. Especially once they fix that ranger and mage.

Okay just finish the fight not long ago ... Ahem (take like 1 H to write all this , Jezz) ALSO BAD ENGLISH , SORRY IN ADVANCE ! PROCEED WITH CAUTION !

My team : Main (OP as foot after the god awake + warlord) , Serbil (Rogue and ranger) , Lohse (All of it , yeah all of it...not the strong 3 memory one tho) ,Red price (Tank with iron and ice...and spit out fire +warlord)

First, i using my main to do the talk while i place Serbil and Lohse on the top of the left tower (The gate is south and ahead two boat is the north) in sneaking ,'cause first time i come in like a peacock and Alex just blinding my team to oblivion ,after that everything when south pretty fast ...


Back to my red prince i command him do all the leg works like a servant (Hah!) ,I let ''Red'' to place two oil barrel on top of the ladder to the left tower for locking the way (no up and down here!) the same thing to the right rooftop the oil barel being place under the ladder this time (lucky that i place it down there) > Everything is complete i check my stuff , let some potions for Lohse and Serbil then let Red phoenix to the left upper floor and ready for him to take down the mage right ahead (Oh, he also place the barrel under the ladder of the left tower and also two wood crate near them to block away any potential spell all stuff may hit two girl up there...or so i thing...) > Anything good then let the main finish his talk and bla,bla,bla > Alex snap and shiny like a ion light pub then blinding my main > Lohse turn , i let her teleport Alex to the right rooftop near the archer and rain down ice lance on them and bonus a oil fossil to them too > Serbil turn , i let her cast 'burn my eyes' (or so i can't remember) on my main to clear his blindness away then rain down one knockdown arrow on that Gheist(>he down) then flesh sacrifice and adrenaline kick in (>two more shot to the knee , bitch !) take away all his armor and 1/4 HP and he also spit down poison while taking hit > Main turn , hit the footer who now is down like a tree log, HARD (like a pro woodcutter) and with two chop Gheist stay down for good ,then cast the bless spell on the poison to turn it into bless poison(healing intensify)> Knight magister turn , phoenix down on my main(poison+fire = explode(now turn to bless fire)) and strike my main two times (then my main say he sense something then the magister rogue appear and just like 5 step away of my main) > Alex turn and archer now is frozen so no kicking , next ! > Lohse turn , cast her mosquito on Alex(block it with his armor), next is fire staff of magus on them BOOM and last stamina point is for that 'up fist spell' lmao > Oh ! Red, i forget him ... he just 'iron/ice armor' up and S/M with that F.mage ... easy peazy ... > Serbil turn , she shoot Alex two times...let skip to the part that the archer retreat from the rooftop down the right dock whose now just have only 0.5/4 HP left, while my main just teleport the knight away from holy fire and drop him near the rogue then kill two of them just by himself with cripple strike and normal attack (so OP...he clearly one hand handle those 5 guys in the room of fort joy without much effort...talk about lv 7 rape lv 4...) > Alex just slow down and catwalk on fire (so hot) on the rooftop but can't do anything but drink down 3 big healing potions and brink him back from 1/4 HP to 3/4 HP , meanwhile Red already finish toying with the poor F.mage whose now just lie there motionless (Red ,you damn S !) and triumphant stand proud like a footer peacock ... Anything left now is to kick that archer away and let Lohse use fossil again and boom then magus staff and poison spell ... after a while Alex got 1/3 HP left i let Serbil go sneaking right on the spot and use sniper skill to one shot Alex ... Oh, good lord i haven't see joy yet then mother footer worm strike up and gave me a nearly heart attack then proceed to teleport up the left tower floor and spit on the two girl up there (take half of they HP away) ... I rain on him anything i got but no melee atk > I let Red run far away > Serbil turn ,i let her using smoke bomb on where they stand to lock away worm vision then proceed to using spell on the footer after a bit the worm already got burning ,chill, disease on him with no armor left then he teleport down the main hall facing my main > My main turn , he just receive one strike from the worm but nothing bad happened so he just using Overpower on the worm and then phoenix away to the rooftop on the right and thrown any things he got at the worm...after like two turn the worm go down left my party with one level up and no major damages with just a click of bed roll and anything just like brand new again, LOL !

Finish the game in classic but after meating god it nealy like explore ... it good tho, i feel a power like a god not like any game i play before and they say i got the power ... well, yeah power from farming like a farmer and dead and do that again , again like a sucker ... 10/10 game ! FEEL GOOD MAN !

Level 7 is more than enough like everyone said.

Alexander got to play once before it was my turn. He did little something. Then it was my pyromancers turn, who basicaly obliterated Alexander, his gheist and one more magister in single turn. My warrior finished another magister and it was only the rogue left i think. Then worm spawned and killed the rogue. I broke the worms armour using one normal hit and overpower. Then my ranger got to play. Flesh sacrifice, rage, sneak, and hit with snipe for over 1000k. Then the worm did some damage, almost killed one of my guys, but i finished it off next turn.

My very first playthrough ended with alexander while all the party was at lvl 7 without any really useful gear equipped save for braccus' set. I still managed to get out of the fight with relative ease thanks to judicial use of every single usable I had in my inventory (which were a ton, since I always make a point of ending fights without using consumables unless 110% necessary). What really saved me was teleport to get blinding radiance alexander away from my squaddies and then netherswap to have my main (wizard lohse) change position with the enemy mage high on the right. Then the big worm came in and basically obliterated every single enemy bar alexander (who got petrified by cursed earth spray). Surprisingly, I found the worm to be much more challenging that alexander, since it has high resistances and hits like a mac truck. Alexander does as well, but he is at least very easy to crowd control thanks to almost non-existant resistances and no particular immunities. What really saved my skin was a strategic use of bless on a pool of blood which healed all of the other characters. Keep in mind that this was with a minimal gear + minimal skills because I was always broke.

Second playthrough: managed to get to lvl 8 before the fight, also had tons more of cash thanks to all the paintings of alexander scattered all over the keep, which obviously meant more neat gear and more skill books.

This time, the fight was a cakewalk. I had kept sebille and ifan ben mezd in reserve, away from the fight, up until alexander cast that blasted brilliance and blinded lohse and the red prince. The red prince took care of alexander's armor thanks to overwhelm, then I had lohse swap position with the magister wizard on the right. Sebille joined the fray with a snipe that 1-shotted the wizard, after which it was ifan's turn who entered the fight in sneak and used that ability which grants 500% damage against a backstabbed foe if you are undetected, which instagibbed alexander. Then the worm came in, killed the geist and a couple of magisters, and then proceeded to attack my group, but thanks to gear + potions + spells it was very easily dispatched.

I was playing on classic on both playthroughs.

All in all, it's far from an impossible fight, even with mediocre gear and skills, as long as you have teleport (netherswap isn't mandatory but it helps) and a sound plan (like, say, having your backstabber and sniper stay out of the fight until alexander and the wizard mage are exposed).

Also: there's a conveniently placed barrel of oil not so distant from alexander's roaming zone...