More Puzzle Quest-ing.
My Druid, “Flaunty Elvesb-” … wait, sorry, that should be “Gobi”, is now at level 18.
I had one hell of a problem with my first boss, the two-headed Ogre, Dugog. I first encountered the level 18 foe when my Druid was at level 14 and was quickly humbled.
He’s got various abilities and items that enable him to take multiple turns in succession — I’ve seen him take six turns in a row on several occasions — and if that wasn’t bad enough, he also carries a club which randomly dishes out huge amounts of additional damage whenever he matches skulls.
I’m not entirely sure about this but I do suspect “Dugog” is an ancient Ogre word meaning “he who copulates with his own mother” because that’s what he is more or less.
It’s been suggested the AI cheats but I don’t think that’s the case. The AI is just better at noticing combos and potential follow-up combos, I think. For what it’s worth, Steve Fawkner insists the AI makes legitimate moves.
I finally beat the two-faced mother- … -lover in an epic battle on my 15th try. Yeah, I know, an epic Bejeweled-clone boss battle sounds rather silly but believe me, that’s exactly what it was. Even when I had the advantage, I kept expecting Dugog to go on one of his insane runs and whittle down my health until that dreaded “You have suffered defeat” message sounded again but I hung on for victory.
I think part of the reason I had so much trouble with the boss is I was a bit too casual when I distributed points for my character’s attributes after levelling up. I may have spread myself too thin.
Great blog! Good to see someone can actually get to the end of Puzzle Quest and beat it. I’m not there yet.
I’m willing to admit, grudgingly, that the AI might not cheat. But like you said, it gets crazy combos. When you sit back and watch Dugog beat on you over and over without a break, it feels a bit unfair. With a human opponent, you’d get mad, and with an AI, you suspect something odd is going on under the hood.
I feel the main problem with the Dugog battle is that it comes at an awkward stage in your character’s development. The low HP and lack of battle-winning spells at that point in the campaign makes that particular boss fight hard.
If it makes you feel better, Dugog is one of only two frustrating battles in the game. I’ll leave it to you to discover the second one on your own.
I’m playing a Wizard so they were all pretty frustrating until I learned the spell which turns green gems into skulls. Now I just bide my time until I see a chance to make four or five skulls in a row. I still can’t beat most of the Rune Keepers, though.
I had a lot of trouble getting Runes and passed on getting them until fairly late in the game. I didn’t find them especially useful and I managed to get through most of the game without creating my own items.
Incidentally, what mount are you using? Have you tried the Giant Spider? Its Web spell causes your opponent to miss several turns and I have to say it was deeply satisfying to do to the AI what it had been doing to me previously.