A6: Honeycomb Horrors (Questions)

[BloomingLilac]

What is the suggested level for the Honeycomb Horrors quest?

 

I'm playing with a party of two on hard. My priest is level 40 and my level 36 slith warrior has all the battle disciplines, with 17 in pole weapons. We've been up near Formello and finished most side quests before moving on to kill the slith for Levitt. All the main quests have been challenging, but not too difficult to complete. I tried to do the Honeycomb quest 2-4 levels ago and managed to get Hirickis to the third circle before he moves to his final chamber with the three circles. When I read that I wouldn't have to start the entire quest over, I decided to move on to other quests.

 

Now we're in Hirickis's final chamber with much better gear, quite a few potions, and training in several skills, including Gymnastics, Anatomy, and Cloak of the Arcane at level 3. Hirickis is able to kill all of my Arcane Summons in one blow and daze my party, plus summon, so we stopped summoning and focused on slowing him and killing his summons as soon as possible. He was down to less than a quarter of his health and offered to let us have his treasure if we let him go. He never got to the third circle. I chose not to let him go, and now, near death, he suddenly has the strength (after begging for his life) to move back to the first circle and kill us in one round. We were not at full health, but I'm trying to make sense of this. Why is this quest so much more difficult than anything I've come across, including all the quests I've received in the Eastern Gallery (except Hunt the Lich), and the fight with The Shadow up near Fort Draco?

 

I literally have 17 quests in my journal, with 4 being radiant quests and the one to drive off the farmers in Bargha because I hate killing them. If I play on normal, the game is too easy. I've invested more than 1,000 hours into this game with different party configurations. I'm not a power gamer by any means, but this fight seems unbalanced. My priest has 82% armor with 70% resistance to cold and my slith has 79% armor with 76% resistance to cold, yet Hirickis does 65 cold damage to my priest and 30 to my slith. I normally don't pay that much attention to the damage we take unless I'm having trouble with a quest, but I do read as much as possible for enemy weaknesses/resistances. He also charms my priest more often than I would expect with his high intelligence and gear. (Party Arcane Lore is 17.) I understand that this can be random, as the next time I reload, my slith might take more damage than my priest, but why is he taking double damage or more at times?

 

I've read the help section in the game and quite a few posts here about how damage/resistance works. Each time I reach this point in the game, I become frustrated and often create a new party in the hope that I might be able to figure out where I went wrong in leveling. This time, I only gave my slith 1 point in priest spells and trained him as high as I was allowed in Gymnastics and Anatomy.

 

Am I supposed to be able to finish this quest without Invulnerable potions? I had one Invulnerable potion each, plus 3 Battle Crystals, and 2 Purging Crystals. I even tried staying in battle mode to move from place to place so my Ward of Elements wouldn't fade so often. My Strong Daze, Control Foe, and Terror spells are maxed, but they fail about 80% of the time. Can someone explain why this is happening? I appreciate all the help I can get. This is my favorite Spiderweb game. I'd really like to finish it! Thank you in advance.

 

Edit: I forgot to mention my priest is wearing Clover Boots. His luck is 3, while my slith's is 5. Could my priest be taking more damage because his luck is lower? 

Edited July 26, 2023 by BloomingLilac
Added more stats...

[Men are from Slars]

I can't help with quest specifics but I can answer some general mechanics questions:

 

17 hours ago, BloomingLilac said:

priest... 70% resistance to cold and my slith... 76% resistance to cold, yet Hirickis does 65 cold damage to my priest and 30 to my slith... I understand that this can be random, as the next time I reload, my slith might take more damage than my priest, but why is he taking double damage or more at times?

You answered your own question here, but let's expand on it.

 

There are actually multiple points in damage calculation where randomness is involved.  First, damage is usually generated as XdY + Z, i.e., roll X dice with results of 1-Y on them, and add to a base damage of Z.  Z is usually pretty tiny.  So if you have an ice spell with dice that do 1-5 damage each, and you have 20 dice, you could do anywhere from 20-100 damage.  The vast majority of the results are going to cluster around the middle, maybe 45-55, because you're adding so many independent random rolls.  But once in a blue moon you can get something close to 20 or close to 100.  So you could easily have a 2x damage difference, or even more, before applying armor.

 

Armor/resistance is also applied randomly.  We don't know the exact mechanics, but we suspect it's something like, with 79% resist, each point of damage has a 79% chance to be blocked.  Again, this will usually be very close to the expected block % but once in a blue moon, it can vary a lot.

 

Now, if your priest is consistently taking twice as much damage, then we should look for another effect.  But if only see this happen once, might be just random, as you said.

 

17 hours ago, BloomingLilac said:

Edit: I forgot to mention my priest is wearing Clover Boots. His luck is 3, while my slith's is 5. Could my priest be taking more damage because his luck is lower? 

Luck does increase resists by +2% per point, but this is already factored into your displayed total resist %.

 

17 hours ago, BloomingLilac said:

Each time I reach this point in the game, I become frustrated and often create a new party in the hope that I might be able to figure out where I went wrong in leveling. This time, I only gave my slith 1 point in priest spells and trained him as high as I was allowed in Gymnastics and Anatomy.

Gymnastics and Anatomy aren't really hyper-powered skills in A6, though without knowing the rest of your build it's hard to comment on how much sense they make.  

 

17 hours ago, BloomingLilac said:

this fight seems unbalanced

Although the game was balanced to play well on multiple difficulties, it wasn't really balanced around smaller parties specifically.  So that could be part of it.  I'm wondering if there's a gimmick required to kill him?  (It's been such a long time...)

[BloomingLilac]

4 hours ago, Enobarbus World said:

I can't help with quest specifics but I can answer some general mechanics questions:

 

You answered your own question here, but let's expand on it.

 

There are actually multiple points in damage calculation where randomness is involved.  First, damage is usually generated as XdY + Z, i.e., roll X dice with results of 1-Y on them, and add to a base damage of Z.  Z is usually pretty tiny.  So if you have an ice spell with dice that do 1-5 damage each, and you have 20 dice, you could do anywhere from 20-100 damage.  The vast majority of the results are going to cluster around the middle, maybe 45-55, because you're adding so many independent random rolls.  But once in a blue moon you can get something close to 20 or close to 100.  So you could easily have a 2x damage difference, or even more, before applying armor.

 

Armor/resistance is also applied randomly.  We don't know the exact mechanics, but we suspect it's something like, with 79% resist, each point of damage has a 79% chance to be blocked.  Again, this will usually be very close to the expected block % but once in a blue moon, it can vary a lot.

 

Now, if your priest is consistently taking twice as much damage, then we should look for another effect.  But if only see this happen once, might be just random, as you said.

 

Luck does increase resists by +2% per point, but this is already factored into your displayed total resist %.

 

Gymnastics and Anatomy aren't really hyper-powered skills in A6, though without knowing the rest of your build it's hard to comment on how much sense they make.  

 

Although the game was balanced to play well on multiple difficulties, it wasn't really balanced around smaller parties specifically.  So that could be part of it.  I'm wondering if there's a gimmick required to kill him?  (It's been such a long time...)

 

Thank you so much for your reply! I truly appreciate it, especially because I was starting to worry about my post being way too long!

 

I started playing games when Atari was all the rage. While I was never very good at arcade games, I consider myself an advanced strategy, time management, and RPG player. I play strategy and TM games until I reach expert or gold status before moving to the next level. It's a bit of an obsession for me, but I've realized that I'm probably not supposed to be playing this game that way! There's a warning that this quest is difficult, after all. 😉 But I thought I might not be able to complete the game if I couldn't complete this quest.

 

I figured if I didn't get any replies, I'd go get the Orb of Thralni and then try killing Hirickis again! I didn't know how much loot I'd miss if I let him go. I've never been able to get to the fight with him with my other parties, so I'm getting a little better! 😀 

 

I'll take screenshots of my party if I keep having trouble. At this point, I don't want to keep reloading, but I'd hate to skip the quest.