Zhossa Mindtaker images shimmer?

[duff]

The final fight against Zhossa is driving me crazy.

 

After receiving a message that you've struck the real

Zhossa, a pop-up window informs you that all the

images of Zhossa will now shimmer. This is sensible

in the fight so that you have a chance to sort

through the many attacking Zhossa's. But all of

the images (and presumably the real Zhossa) look

identical?

[Superba]

I think you are right. However mind the magical runes can help...

[madrigan]

I couldn't see the shimmering either. The first time I tried this fight, I gave up after 10-15 min of accomplishing nothing. The second time, I discovered that you can use the mini-map to figure out which Zhossa is the real one. When you get the message that you have damaged the real Zhossa and he has disappeared, watch the map for the next one to appear. That should be the real one. Or, this doesn't work and I was lucky.

 

One tactic that seemed to work in conjunction with the map was using the Rod of Attraction to draw all the Zhossas in close, and then blasting them all with multiple area attacks. With luck you will pop all of them and that makes it easier to see what is appearing where. It helps if you have a hellhound to pitch in.

[Superba]

Good trick this of the mini-map, didn't think about that. I only knew magical runes regenerated the drake so I had split the party to hit both the two on magical runes... took me a bit more time I guess :-)

[Alorael at Large]

Originally Posted By: duff

The final fight against Zhossa is driving me crazy.

After receiving a message that you've struck the real
Zhossa, a pop-up window informs you that all the
images of Zhossa will now shimmer. This is sensible
in the fight so that you have a chance to sort
through the many attacking Zhossa's. But all of
the images (and presumably the real Zhossa) look
identical?

That message is actually letting you know that the real and fake Zhossas have shuffled, I believe.

—Alorael, who played through that fight by pounding on a lot of drakes.

[Øther]

Same here. AoE's are VERY helpful in this, since it doesn't take too much to pop a fake one.

[Ceiling Durkheim]

Likewise to your point and Alorael's. It's the kind of fight in which a Nathalie excels, at least if you can distract the drakes with other characters.

[A less presumptuous name.]

Originally Posted By: Alorael

—who played through that fight by pounding on a lot of drakes.

This. A thousand times this. It helped that I was on easy difficulty. I just kept smashing as many drakes as I could with the combination of battle frenzy and AoE spells. Thinking of how I'll approach it now as I play on a higher difficulty, I appreciate the strategies mentioned. I figured that the real Zhossa reappeared right after the message, but I was too lazy to find him.

[Kelandon]

Okay, I just got through this fight on Hard, and I have to say, the mechanics of the combat were extremely strange. The amount of damage that the drakes needed to take in order to pop didn't seem even remotely consistent (some would disappear with almost nothing, some I could get down to less than half their health before they'd pop), and the fact that all the images were fully healed on the turn after whenever the real Zhossa popped was also very odd. It basically meant that I had a turn to heal my own party and put the people in better positions, but it also meant that all the drakes had a free shot at me once. It took me a while to realize that this "recharging" turn consistently occurred.

 

I tried the combat about six or seven times with Shima and Nathalie and died from what felt like bad luck each time, but after a good two hours of doing this on separate days, I came to the conclusion that it wasn't just luck and I needed to get new personnel. I went back to Avadon and grabbed Jenell, and the combination of Nathalie and Jenell (with a salamander) gave me enough area and cone spells that I could really slam the drakes down as soon as they popped up, and I had one particularly great "recharging" turn in which all of the drakes had just popped and there was nothing to run from.

 

Was an interesting but odd experience.

[Randomizer]

Even on torment this isn't that hard. Sorceresses work best since they take the least damage from the image attacks and can do area effect attacks on clumps of images. Blademaster also works well if you have built up dexterity and archery attacks.

[Ociporus]

Quote:

Even on torment this isn't that hard. Sorceresses work best since they take the least damage from the image attacks and can do area effect attacks on clumps of images. Blademaster also works well if you have built up dexterity and archery attacks.

I concur. I had Sevilin with me (a Shadow Walker) and of course Nathalie. The experience actually made me feel a bit distressed (as it should if you were really looking at a ton of identical 'enemies') so it was a pretty neat battle. Had to use a resurrection scroll once, and Nathalie went unconscious on the last volley with Zhossa, but then she apparently "hit him with fireballs and ice lances" after he was dead. Ha ha. It reminded me of the room with the shifting floor in one of the old exile games.

[iollmann]

I lost this combat the first time. Too much fire for turn after turn got too roasty and I eventually ran out of my substantial supply of potions.

 

The second time, I remembered that Natalie had a party wide resistance spell, I spent a lot more time distributing damage around on the drakes rather than hammering each one hard, hoping it was Zhossa and it went much smoother. I also had Shima on one side Natalie in the middle and my Blademaster on the other side, with a wide gulf in between each, so that generally speaking no drake could roast more than one person at a time. I kept the two fighters just in range of Natalie so that the party-wide spells still worked and had them just shoot arrows / stars at drakes until the pop. This way was much easier. I barely had to use any abilities. It was certainly easier than the shadowwalker ghost in the basement.

[Kelandon]

It sounds as though the reason I had such issues was that I had basically no ranged physical attacks from my fighters. Blademaster + Shima without any way to deal substantial damage at a distance meant basically two useless characters, and Nathalie wasn't enough to carry the rest of the fight.

[Humanophage]

One design flaw here, it seems, is the lack of information available to the player. I, for once, couldn't understand whether the real drake was or was not fully regenerating. The second windowed message seemed to suggest the latter, while the small messages suggested the former - how many times can one pop this drake-mole with the same lack of effect?

 

An incredibly frustrating fight, to the point I'll probably move on to a different game for now.

[A less presumptuous name.]

It's an illusion, and the drake is really good at messing with your mind. He can hide just how much damage he's taken, or at least make it look like all of his images have the same damage. As far as game mechanics goes, you just have to deal a certain amount of damage to the real drake a certain number of times (I don't like numbers) before the final fight, and he has (I would guess) a predetermined health for that fight.