prime sentinel?

[xerex]

Ok, so yeah, I am playing on torment, but it seems to me that the prime sentinel is MUCH harder than is entirely reasonable. I eventually had to kill the sentinels blocking the way to anama lands because there was nothing else I could do except kill the prime sentinel or move on. So now I am in anama lands gleefully killing chitrachs with ease. Is it intended that the prime sentinel be so hard that if you can beat him, you can just waltz through the chitrachs in the next area with ease? Is there an obvious trick I am missing that makes him manageable? The reason I can't beat the prime sentinel by the way is because he one shots 3 members of my party in the first round. Lightning spary, his fireblast, and then another lightning spray, all before I can do anything at all. At this point, all my characters have 8 endurance, 8 hardiness, and as much resistance as money can buy, but it doesn't seem to help at all.

 

Anyway, I'm just wondering if this strange level disparity is intended, if I am missing something, or what.

[Jeran Korak]

I'd suggest attacking with your strongest, most buffed character first, then when the helper A.I spawn strike them with as many AoE spells as possible, taking them over so the Lightning Spray won't hit you so often.

[xerex]

Um, the helper A.I....you mean the unstable servants? They appear as the very start of the fight, and they spawn in different corners of the room, so aoe spells wont help much. Also in the very first round, the dialogue comes up saying that the sentinel realizes it might actually be in danger and the room grows very warm, hitting all my characters with a fireblast. I haven't even hit it yet, and it thinks it is danger? It has that impenetrable shield up still. I am guessing I have to take down the unstable servants before I can hurt the thing, but that requires letting the damn thing shoot lightning bolts at me for 8 rounds while I take down the unstable servants.

 

take who over? I haven't survived the first round yet. I manage to hit one of the unstable servants a few times. How does taking over this thing reduces the number of lightning sprays? The prime sentinel is casting the lightning sprays at me (2 per round + the fireblast when he "realizes he might be in danger").

 

I am starting to think there might be some sort of bug here in the windows version. Should the very first round of the fight, have 4 unstable servants and the prime sentinel all attacking me AND have an extra free fireblast come out of the prime sentinel? I don't see how any character could possibly survive that initial onslaught except maybe the lucky one who didnt get hit by the lightning sprays.

[Jeran Korak]

If you hit the Unstable Servents enough, they will rebel against the Prime and attack it, if they're destroyed he'll take control over them again and ressurect them at full HP. Getting control of them means he'll be hitting them with Lightning before you.

[Ephesos]

EDIT: I see Jeran beat me to most of this, but this post remains.

 

Those attacks aren't a bug, they're just challenging. You aren't supposed to attack the Prime Sentinel directly, because you can't penetrate the shield. However, the unstable servants and summoned creatures can do appreciable amounts of damage.

 

What Jeran meant by taking over the unstable servants was that if you hit the servants enough, they will switch loyalty and fight for you. High Nature Lore skill means that you'll convert them more easily.

 

To that end, whenever I've fought the Sentinel, the servants all rush my fighter after I run him into the room. That's when AoE spells help a lot.

[Randomizer]

I did it as a tormented singleton recently so I can tell you that all you need is nature lore of 6 (total for the party) to convert the unstable servants. Are you fully buffed with spells before entering that room?

 

I think your problem is that you might have an older version of the game. Jeff recently updated ( a few weeks ago) that encounter because there was a bug that made it harder to get and keep the unstable servants on your side.

 

It's possible to just fight your way through to the Anama Lands, but if you kill more than about 12 sentinels, Tranquility will always be hostile to you.

[sthehill]

Personally, it took me about 10 tries to kill it. Of course, when i finally did, I slapped myself in the head.

 

The most important thing to do is have a high enough nature lore that they only need to have 75% health to convert. Then, convert them all, and have your remaining characters hide in the far corner.

 

The sevents will take damage turn by turn form the sentinal, and when they hit low health, they will be revived by it, but becuase they don't get fully healed, they reconvert to your side. It might take quite a while, but it works. You just gotta have high enough nature lore. Mine was 10, but I am relatively sure that you could probably go as low as 6.

[xerex]

I used stealth to avoid the patrols and used the secret door in the south to kill the ones blocking the passage south, I only had to kill 8, so I think I am ok for now.

 

As for buffs, I have steel skin, enduring shield, and augmentation on everybody. I arranged it so my caster's leveled while in the work shop giving me all my buffs and caster's with full mana with no need for potions.

 

@ ephesos..what do you mean run your fighter into the room? The prime sentinel locks the gate behind me, so ALL my characters are in the room. The unstable servants always rush whoever has the lowest armor rating (who is within reach anyway. . .currently my guy with a sniper vest on).

 

I will check for an update, but I thought the update was for the mac version. I will check for the windows one.

 

UPDATE: just checked...no updates for windows version

[Californian]

The real trick is using summoned creatures. Yes, you have to convert the servants, but a good summoned creature can take the guy out. Hide in the corners and stay alive till that happens.

 

It's a tough, tough fight and you'll lose more than a few times, but you'll feel great when you beat it!

 

Once you've got the guy, go exploring in the dungeon. Lotsa interesting things there, with good puzzles to get to them.

[Ilintar]

I think an important aspect of the fight is that the Prime Sentinel's AOE spells do not actually affect characters that are standing in the far corners of the room (on diagonal with the areas the Unstable Sentinels spawn on) and with a hasted priest, you can usually heal the characters that take the most damage for a few rounds (and after that, your characters are usually relieved of the fight because it's just the sentinels fighting - I played that on normal, but I actually managed to get the fight to a stage where I didn't have to fight anything, since there were at most 2 sentinels hostile at any given time, they were focused on fighting the other sentinels and I was able to "convert" any one sentinel by concentrating firepower on it in one round).

[JP]

The problem is to get each of your character, buffed and hasted, in a corner. And to have at least two servants on your side to keep the sentinel busy.

Then it's just a matter of damaging the opposing servants fast enough to have them back on your side and let them to the job.

 

Ah, the fight will be rather long, be carefull not to hit the wrong key and leave the safety of a corner.

[Callie]

I used an assault crystal and stuck my two fighters right next to the prime sentinel. Meanwhile, the fighters would hit the servants into line, the priest in one corner healing, and the mage casting summon spells and haste.

[xerex]

well, I finally managed to do it. Once I managed to survive the first two rounds, the rest of the fight was easy. His burst damage in that first round took my tankiest hero down to 20 hp, but I managed to heal him up enough that he survived the second round with 2hp. By then all my healers (3) were properly positioned and hasted, so I was able to keep him alive (he has level 1 priest spells too!) while my mage converted one of the statues. Once I got one converted, the rest of the fight was all downhill.

 

However, I couldn't do this on torment until I went and leveled a bit in the anama lands murdering poor defenseless chitrachs. Oh well, I'm sure solberg won't miss those golems that were watching the exit

[Student of Trinity]

Depending on your character, it may actually be better to get right in the Sentinel's face instead of standing off, and take its melee attack instead of its wicked multi-targeted ranged attack. For my singleton on normal, this was the key to making an impossible fight rather easy. Me being next to the Prime Sentinel also meant that all the servants clustered next to it, since they clustered around me. So when I converted a servant, it was right there hitting its master, instead of uselessly attacking its unconverted fellow servants for a round or two before being re-converted by the Prime Sentinel. And with all the converted servants whaling on it in melee, the Prime Sentinel also attacked them in melee, and thus re-converted them more slowly. This really turned the tide.

[monolith94]

Assault crystal is definitely the easiest way to get through this, especially if you never invest ANY nature lore, like me.