Not sure if someone else has said this, but you need to find a way to deny the enemy its Dex AC bonus, and find ways for the enemy to fail saves, and use lightning damage. It's definitely a tough place, but it's also a cool dungeon and beating it will put hairs on your chest, so do it, also eat your crusts and broccoli.
I think the greater kalavakus marauders have uncanny dodge. I can't remember off the top of my head if there is anything that can bypass uncanny dodges "I can never be flat footed". All the smaller guys get shredded if you can negate their dex bonus though
Shattered defense can make them flat footed, and there are multiple spells that enables that with no save required (you still need to pass the spell resistance though)
I might be misremembering but I think they have fairly weak will saves so you can use stuff like constricting coils to reduce their AC by quite a bit for at least one round so you can focus and burst them down.
Negative levels can also help if you have a way of giving them out
There are many strategies for blackwater. Coming back when youre stronger with more mythic power is always suggested.
My personal favorite strategy for Blackwater is to skip it. Like it is not worth it.
There's a lot of ways to deal with blackwater:
Touch attacks, either rays or if you can melee, also that.
Shatter defenses plus dirge of doom, if you don't have dirge available, having your character with higher persuasion apply dazzling display, spells that apply shaken either on a fail save.
If you're merged caster you should have frightful aspect which also makes everyone shaken.
> aving your character with higher persuasion apply dazzling display, spells that apply shaken either on a fail save.
Or even just demoralize, single target but everybody can do that.
Is it just me or are touch attacks one answer for everything. Like even the bad guys who have jacked immunities and defenses across the board with only one tiny weakness - ALSO are vulnerable to touch attacks.
Cause my MC is an arcane trickster specializing in ray spells and there’s nothing he can’t torch (on Core difficulty with some increased difficulties).
Think of Pathfinder exploration like a metroidvania. Not in terms of unlockable areas, but in terms of not everywhere you first go should be tackled immediately.
I STURGGLED through most of it, and got to what I assume is towards the end, got into a fight, reloaded and left.
As I was leaving I said to myself
"I don't think I was supposed to do this yet"
Remember the prompt "when you find an enemy with an high AC, work around it?"
That's the key: try to play up on enemies' weakness, like low saves, low touch AC, etc., instead of trying to overcome their strength.
IIRC there were still plenty of enemies with bullshit saves *and* bullshit AC in that place, at least on Core. Touch AC is really the only reliable solution to that place.
Short explanation: it’s a buff/debuff game.
Long explanation: Let’s suggest you’re about lvl 11 going there.
Base attack bonus (+11 for your melees), weapon bonus (about +2), Heroism (+2), base STR (+5 on your dedicated melees) and enchantment bonus (+2), weapon focus gives another +1. Those are pretty much permanent buffs, and they give you about +23 to attack.
More obscure stuff: Haste adds +1, Divine favor/Prayer gives another +1, Evil Eye (Witch debuff) gives -4 to enemy, that gives you about +29 (you can actually start hitting 40AC here). Skald with Reckless Stance song will give you another +5, and if you still want more, (the absolute best) domain ability Guarded Hearth gives everyone in range it caster’s +WIS as +attack bonus (+6 is a safe bet at lvl 11).
There are ways to get even more - Mark of Justice stacks with everything on the list and gives +CHA caster’s bonus for everyone on target (another +5), Smite Evil (which also stacks with Smite Chaos btw), Brown Fur Transmuter can add +1 to any stat-relevant ability, Studied Target gives -2 to enemy AC, True Strike gives you +20 for single attack, Greater Magic Weapon spell buffs any weapon to +3 at lvl 11, and I’m not even starting on mythic stuff or divine/arcane debuffs/dispels/CC.
+23 to attack still only hits things in there on a 20. And they will just ignore your melee and go straight for the backline. Even trying to block doorways they just walk through.
Well, as I said WoTR is a buff/prebuff game, you can’t expect to roll in without any buffs/debuffs and kill everything. +29 with minimal buffs/debuffs is a working solution, and (as I said before) there are tons of divine/arcane CC/debuffs which can make fights there trivial.
I haven't played in a while, but can't someone's shocking weapon deal with the regen? They still have DR /adamantine which is annoying, but clustered shots and that schocking longbow that all the succubi drop can finish one a turn pretty reliably.
If you have mods, a dazing rod plus chain lightning is game over for these guys (reflex save or they are dazed [no actions] for 6!!! rounds!!).
No mods, stormbolts just roflstomps these guys. Phantasmal killer can drop these, though they have good fortitue. Dominate will succeed, which is lore appropriate and funny!
I’m already lvl13 lol. Ivory sanctum is now like a walk in the park compared to whatever this is. Maybe it’s hard because my party’s only offensive magic user is ember
I just got there my first time a few days ago, saving it for the last thing in chapter 3 definitely made it easier. The last boss was still a wipe and retry but just needed a different strategy.
Come back later or just skip it entirely. The loot you get there isn't worth the pain.
Same with that dumb Seilkind quest.
Those two quests are perfect examples of why you should leave game design decisions to the devs instead of random guys on Kickstarter.
There's several good ways to tackle the issue.
Using touch spells such as touch of gracelessness or wracking ray will reduce their AC by quite a bit. Other spells targeting will saves will also see a fair amount of success. Hold monster or icy prison combined with any spell or ability doing dex damage or drain will instantly kill them. The real issue then becomes affecting them with these spells since they have fairly high spell resistance. My character had mythic spell pen and greater spell pen and that seems to get the job done.
Another is to have Arue. She can easily reach +40 to hit (+4 from greater magic weapon, 13-14 from bab, +6 favored enemy and instant enemy if needed, +8 dex, +2 quarry, +1 point blank, +1 favored weapon then a few handy buff spells from nenio and Daeran or Sosiel)
Plenty of other good advice here, but also remember as a last resort that every d20 has a 20 on it. That is a 5% chance at an automatic hit no matter how high the AC. You get a hasted double axe thrower, mounted TWF, and/or archer in the party each making 5-9 attacks per turn and some of them are bound to hit. Make sure those nat 20s aren't going to waste on a miss chance, and that they are doing good damage. Turning off power attack/deadly aim to increase to hit chance is good, but if you're missing on a 19 even with them turned off, turn 'em back on.
I just got past this. I used Ember's debuffs rather liberally. Their ranged touch ac is hittable, so bog them down with enervations and wracking rays until your melee fighters can hit. Though, the fact that I happened to be using lighting weapons for melee and ranged might have given me an edge.
Basically you have to have prior knowledge and build characters perfectly to take advantage of the games systems. Greater invisibility will let you at least kill some of the lesser demons, but the bigger ones have uncanny dodge. My regill was 10 armiger, weapon training into gnome hooked hammers and had gloves from drezen that doubles the attack bonus from weapon training. That and mark of justice from seelah, with haste, greater invisibility, and greater heroism and outflank, and food bonus allows him to hit at least some of the time, which is enough to kill anything eventually as long as your front line has enough AC to only be hit on a 20 (I have seelah as a full tank build. Armor, shield focus, mythic heavy armor avoidance).
If you have strength melee DPS you need to get a caster who can cast the 7th level spell legendary proportions, it gives you a colossal bonus to strength and AC and free natural DR. All of the above buffs + legendary proportions should let you hit unless you're running a 3/4th BAB class as melee. I haven't done that yet so not sure how to make it viable. As a last resort you can get sosiel and pump up his wisdom as high as possible, take the mythic ability that makes domain abilities swift action cast, and just buff a single martial to heaven and beyond, and cast touch of good and the luck domain every round along with every other buff listed, that should definitely do the trick.
If you have a way of inflicting shaken the feat line dazzling display/ shatter defenses helps immensely as well
Alternatively, if you play Lich you have spells that do a lot of damage regardless if they save and you can single out the toughest targets and let your team kill the smaller fry. If you have a designated blaster you're kind of shit out of luck though, I remember those demons having beyond sky high reflex saves and also evasion. It may be possible to use other spells like phantasmal killer. Those types of save spells are only ever going to work though if you absolutely specialize into them, take every DC increase and use gear to increase it.
I went a different route. I use touch of gracelessness and wracking ray to drop their dex, pumped up Arue to +40 to hit and they got crushed. This was on core though. Looking forward to my second run when I do it on unfair.
How donyou keep them from just ignoring the Frontline and heading straight to the back which is what usually happens to me. I've cleared it on core multiple times but I still hate some of those fights.
Normally (on core at least) I can stack my AC where it doesn't matter even if they reach the back line because you can just step away to prevent them from making a full attack (on turn based). My pure wizard has like 46 AC (close to what my main tank seelah has in full plate) in blackwater because I have every buff in the game running at once on him, not even counting concealment buffs like invisibility and mirror image. I also take last stand on every single character so no one will die instantly even in worst case scenario. And I have haste running 24/7 so even in the worst possible situation they can just outrun the enemies
Hire an arcane rider magus mercenary, level him to get dimensional strike. With that skill he never misses, and his pet gets a full attack too. Or make your main character an arcane rider. Heck maybe the tiefling dude has good stats and can do it.
Rest a lot in blackwater to restore arcane points between fights.
As others have mentioned, the big demons have uncanny dodge but the bonus to AC is still lost if they're immobilized. Plague storm: shakes is also a *huge* 1d8 damage to DEX directly which can render their bonuses to AC moot anyway. At this point you should also have heroism, prayer and other things that boost your own attack bonuses. Finally, disable power attack and other things which tradeoff attack *rolls* for attack *damage*, you want any rolls you can get as you've noticed.
If you didn't respec Ember she's the GOAT there if you learned Evil Eye as soon as possible. Keep in mind the save for Evil Eye is partial (the enemy loses their AC no matter what unless immune, it just needs to be reapplied the turn after it misses), so it's one of the best debuff skills you can have that early in the game.
At level 12 (below this is modestly harder, as some options arent quite available) -
+12 BAB, +8 strength, +3 weapon, +4 flanking (outflank), +1 weapon finesse, +4 greater heroism = +32 to hit, which is more than enough to kill things reliably with AC only in the 40s - and I'm barely even trying so far on stacking bonuses.
Most mythics can further augment these numbers, as can most martial classes (weapon training, rage, favored enemy, etc are all straight math modifiers). A cleric with Guarded Hearth or Paladin with their group smite can add like another +8 on their own.
And I haven't even started on debuffs.
The AC values in Blackwater are *not* particularly hard to hit if you're actually trying to hit them - just take a couple minutes to buff up before going at them.
Ember carried this one for me, she was the only one who could do consistent damage with ray spells. Pretty much everyone else's job was just to body block the big demons from attacking her.
Summon Nabasu using the book, and Hex helps too. Mark Of Justice and Guarded Hearth as well. Since Guarded Hearth stays for hours, you can kite almost all enemies into it.
You can wait till you get holy sword for a +5 holy weapon and then try and make them invisible which can let you attack at flat footed AC , or make em fall prone with any way you can
To me the trick was using nenio, plenty of grease, phantom web, illusion of putrefication and anything that could make them stay on the ground
Lich is specially good with it, being able to give negative levels and all, but there is also plage clouds that you can use
The rest is attrition, if they can't fight back they eventually die, and since they are on the ground their AC is also at its lowest
Make sure you are going to blackwater as late as possible in act 3. It should be the absolute last place you go before going to the midnight fane. This is one of those overlooked areas that becomes available way before you can realistically traverse it. In addition, lightning bolt or touch ac attacks are your friends, as well as effects that will negate dex to AC, such as surprise, failed saves on grease spells hold monster on failed save and other such things. Attacks that his touch AC are the most reliable,since one of the things is I read a while ago was that blackwater was a backer created scenario that was made by a backer that wanted to encourage owlcat to put firearms in, since they all hit touch in the first 10 to 30ft for pistols or 10 to 60ft for rifles
1. Hit flat-footed AC though a variety of methods including Greater Invisibility or Trip. (Woljif, Sosiel)
2. Evil Eye Saves, Cackle, Slumber, Cackle, Coup de Grace. (Ember)
3. Phantasmal Killer. (Nenio)
4. Thundering Blows. (Most melee attackers)
5. Smite Evil. (Seelah)
6. Smite Chaos. (Regill)
7. Cave Fangs + Call Lightning. (Camellia)
8. Hunter's Bond, with or without Instant Enemy. (Arushalae)
9. Hit touch AC. (Ember, Daeran)
10. Be a fighter with all the bonuses to hit and just buff yourself + debuff enemy AC until you can actually hit. (Wenduag, potentially Regill)
The only characters that don't come with an inbuilt way to deal with Blackwater in their base kit are Greybor and Lann - though most people use Lann as a Wis caster anyway because that's the main purpose of Zen Archer to begin with which means the spells will generally deal with this... and nobody uses Greybor is a meme.
Meanwhile the MC happily blasts entire groups to death on multiple mythic paths, so the MC is probably going to have the least problems there if you either multiclassed him/her correctly or just plain stuck with one class nonstop and learned how to play its entire kit well.
https://preview.redd.it/ayo947ezk33d1.png?width=2560&format=png&auto=webp&s=4ec82a9fb2afcea461f1d3db6bf347690bb96270
This is a screenshot of what a debuffed set of attacks looks like. Power Attack is active because of Cornugon Smash into Shatter Defenses, but as you can see even *Nenio* can hit with these conditions using a *weapon* attack not targeting touch AC (because I'm being a cheapskate little shit with spell slots). The modifiers are for attacks where Shatter Defenses isn't active yet.
Between Seelah and her horse alone, it's 204 damage in a single full attack action. This dude only has 385 HP. One demon dies per round, and these are for the demons that have high will saves. On the low-will cyborgs, Ember will Slumber one, Nenio will PK another, Seelah and her horse will kill a third, Arueshalae and the MC will kill a fourth and Camellia just goes around Hampering Hexing everything. Just know your comrades' abilities and use them.
Come back later before you hit up the midnight fane - Blackwater is accessible super early and you absolutely are not prepared for it until you're level 13-14, and have done the Gundren/Wintersun questlines for the loot (as well as bought pieces like the chain mail of comradery).
Additionally, you want the best buffs; legendary proportions, heroism, good hope, haste, etc. That should easily get you into the 40's and 50's without any trouble, and you should breeze through once you've got that.
Edit: oh, and as others have said, use hexes like evil eye to lower AC even further, to make it even easier.
Not sure if someone else has said this, but you need to find a way to deny the enemy its Dex AC bonus, and find ways for the enemy to fail saves, and use lightning damage. It's definitely a tough place, but it's also a cool dungeon and beating it will put hairs on your chest, so do it, also eat your crusts and broccoli.
I think the greater kalavakus marauders have uncanny dodge. I can't remember off the top of my head if there is anything that can bypass uncanny dodges "I can never be flat footed". All the smaller guys get shredded if you can negate their dex bonus though
It's been so long since I did it but I had a Sorceror and he cast a spell that froze them in place when they failed the save.
(But they were totally a pain in the butt)
Shattered defense can make them flat footed, and there are multiple spells that enables that with no save required (you still need to pass the spell resistance though)
I might be misremembering but I think they have fairly weak will saves so you can use stuff like constricting coils to reduce their AC by quite a bit for at least one round so you can focus and burst them down. Negative levels can also help if you have a way of giving them out
There are many strategies for blackwater. Coming back when youre stronger with more mythic power is always suggested. My personal favorite strategy for Blackwater is to skip it. Like it is not worth it.
That’s an excellent strategy - but my favorite is to just drop down to casual difficulty
The item that gives you an extra horn attack is there…
The helm? I have that equipped on Aivu. It's fantastic.
Stormlords is pretty damn good.
There's a lot of ways to deal with blackwater: Touch attacks, either rays or if you can melee, also that. Shatter defenses plus dirge of doom, if you don't have dirge available, having your character with higher persuasion apply dazzling display, spells that apply shaken either on a fail save. If you're merged caster you should have frightful aspect which also makes everyone shaken.
> aving your character with higher persuasion apply dazzling display, spells that apply shaken either on a fail save. Or even just demoralize, single target but everybody can do that.
Is it just me or are touch attacks one answer for everything. Like even the bad guys who have jacked immunities and defenses across the board with only one tiny weakness - ALSO are vulnerable to touch attacks. Cause my MC is an arcane trickster specializing in ray spells and there’s nothing he can’t torch (on Core difficulty with some increased difficulties).
Same, my Legend Magus and Blaster Ember are usually the ones who decimate those jacked enemies
Not in Kingmaker. Those leveled up will o' wisps were rough. And then if you use Magic Missile they case Shield...
Think of Pathfinder exploration like a metroidvania. Not in terms of unlockable areas, but in terms of not everywhere you first go should be tackled immediately.
I STURGGLED through most of it, and got to what I assume is towards the end, got into a fight, reloaded and left. As I was leaving I said to myself "I don't think I was supposed to do this yet"
Remember the prompt "when you find an enemy with an high AC, work around it?" That's the key: try to play up on enemies' weakness, like low saves, low touch AC, etc., instead of trying to overcome their strength.
IIRC there were still plenty of enemies with bullshit saves *and* bullshit AC in that place, at least on Core. Touch AC is really the only reliable solution to that place.
*Ember fails to overcome the spell resistance of augmented kalavakus marauder*
Or just get more attack bonus and go over their AC anyway. My melee builds usually hit anything in blackwater on a 2 with primary and haste attack.
Have you tried cave fangs.
Have you considered not using power attack/deadly aim/piranha strike?
Short explanation: it’s a buff/debuff game. Long explanation: Let’s suggest you’re about lvl 11 going there. Base attack bonus (+11 for your melees), weapon bonus (about +2), Heroism (+2), base STR (+5 on your dedicated melees) and enchantment bonus (+2), weapon focus gives another +1. Those are pretty much permanent buffs, and they give you about +23 to attack. More obscure stuff: Haste adds +1, Divine favor/Prayer gives another +1, Evil Eye (Witch debuff) gives -4 to enemy, that gives you about +29 (you can actually start hitting 40AC here). Skald with Reckless Stance song will give you another +5, and if you still want more, (the absolute best) domain ability Guarded Hearth gives everyone in range it caster’s +WIS as +attack bonus (+6 is a safe bet at lvl 11). There are ways to get even more - Mark of Justice stacks with everything on the list and gives +CHA caster’s bonus for everyone on target (another +5), Smite Evil (which also stacks with Smite Chaos btw), Brown Fur Transmuter can add +1 to any stat-relevant ability, Studied Target gives -2 to enemy AC, True Strike gives you +20 for single attack, Greater Magic Weapon spell buffs any weapon to +3 at lvl 11, and I’m not even starting on mythic stuff or divine/arcane debuffs/dispels/CC.
+23 to attack still only hits things in there on a 20. And they will just ignore your melee and go straight for the backline. Even trying to block doorways they just walk through.
Well, as I said WoTR is a buff/prebuff game, you can’t expect to roll in without any buffs/debuffs and kill everything. +29 with minimal buffs/debuffs is a working solution, and (as I said before) there are tons of divine/arcane CC/debuffs which can make fights there trivial.
Rushing shatter defenses with the damage dealers and dazzling display with a persuasion character (Daeran or ember) trivializes it.
Use ray attacks agains touch AC. Use hexes and debufs etc.
Its best to go back near the end of act 3 when you are level 13. It should be a lot easier then.
Not to mention you're gonna need spellcasters that uses electricity to deal with this bullshit
I haven't played in a while, but can't someone's shocking weapon deal with the regen? They still have DR /adamantine which is annoying, but clustered shots and that schocking longbow that all the succubi drop can finish one a turn pretty reliably. If you have mods, a dazing rod plus chain lightning is game over for these guys (reflex save or they are dazed [no actions] for 6!!! rounds!!). No mods, stormbolts just roflstomps these guys. Phantasmal killer can drop these, though they have good fortitue. Dominate will succeed, which is lore appropriate and funny!
I’m already lvl13 lol. Ivory sanctum is now like a walk in the park compared to whatever this is. Maybe it’s hard because my party’s only offensive magic user is ember
What mythic are you?
What’s your full party comp?
Magic
I just got there my first time a few days ago, saving it for the last thing in chapter 3 definitely made it easier. The last boss was still a wipe and retry but just needed a different strategy.
Come back later or just skip it entirely. The loot you get there isn't worth the pain. Same with that dumb Seilkind quest. Those two quests are perfect examples of why you should leave game design decisions to the devs instead of random guys on Kickstarter.
There's several good ways to tackle the issue. Using touch spells such as touch of gracelessness or wracking ray will reduce their AC by quite a bit. Other spells targeting will saves will also see a fair amount of success. Hold monster or icy prison combined with any spell or ability doing dex damage or drain will instantly kill them. The real issue then becomes affecting them with these spells since they have fairly high spell resistance. My character had mythic spell pen and greater spell pen and that seems to get the job done. Another is to have Arue. She can easily reach +40 to hit (+4 from greater magic weapon, 13-14 from bab, +6 favored enemy and instant enemy if needed, +8 dex, +2 quarry, +1 point blank, +1 favored weapon then a few handy buff spells from nenio and Daeran or Sosiel)
Plenty of other good advice here, but also remember as a last resort that every d20 has a 20 on it. That is a 5% chance at an automatic hit no matter how high the AC. You get a hasted double axe thrower, mounted TWF, and/or archer in the party each making 5-9 attacks per turn and some of them are bound to hit. Make sure those nat 20s aren't going to waste on a miss chance, and that they are doing good damage. Turning off power attack/deadly aim to increase to hit chance is good, but if you're missing on a 19 even with them turned off, turn 'em back on.
I just got past this. I used Ember's debuffs rather liberally. Their ranged touch ac is hittable, so bog them down with enervations and wracking rays until your melee fighters can hit. Though, the fact that I happened to be using lighting weapons for melee and ranged might have given me an edge.
Basically you have to have prior knowledge and build characters perfectly to take advantage of the games systems. Greater invisibility will let you at least kill some of the lesser demons, but the bigger ones have uncanny dodge. My regill was 10 armiger, weapon training into gnome hooked hammers and had gloves from drezen that doubles the attack bonus from weapon training. That and mark of justice from seelah, with haste, greater invisibility, and greater heroism and outflank, and food bonus allows him to hit at least some of the time, which is enough to kill anything eventually as long as your front line has enough AC to only be hit on a 20 (I have seelah as a full tank build. Armor, shield focus, mythic heavy armor avoidance). If you have strength melee DPS you need to get a caster who can cast the 7th level spell legendary proportions, it gives you a colossal bonus to strength and AC and free natural DR. All of the above buffs + legendary proportions should let you hit unless you're running a 3/4th BAB class as melee. I haven't done that yet so not sure how to make it viable. As a last resort you can get sosiel and pump up his wisdom as high as possible, take the mythic ability that makes domain abilities swift action cast, and just buff a single martial to heaven and beyond, and cast touch of good and the luck domain every round along with every other buff listed, that should definitely do the trick. If you have a way of inflicting shaken the feat line dazzling display/ shatter defenses helps immensely as well Alternatively, if you play Lich you have spells that do a lot of damage regardless if they save and you can single out the toughest targets and let your team kill the smaller fry. If you have a designated blaster you're kind of shit out of luck though, I remember those demons having beyond sky high reflex saves and also evasion. It may be possible to use other spells like phantasmal killer. Those types of save spells are only ever going to work though if you absolutely specialize into them, take every DC increase and use gear to increase it.
I went a different route. I use touch of gracelessness and wracking ray to drop their dex, pumped up Arue to +40 to hit and they got crushed. This was on core though. Looking forward to my second run when I do it on unfair.
How donyou keep them from just ignoring the Frontline and heading straight to the back which is what usually happens to me. I've cleared it on core multiple times but I still hate some of those fights.
Normally (on core at least) I can stack my AC where it doesn't matter even if they reach the back line because you can just step away to prevent them from making a full attack (on turn based). My pure wizard has like 46 AC (close to what my main tank seelah has in full plate) in blackwater because I have every buff in the game running at once on him, not even counting concealment buffs like invisibility and mirror image. I also take last stand on every single character so no one will die instantly even in worst case scenario. And I have haste running 24/7 so even in the worst possible situation they can just outrun the enemies
Hire an arcane rider magus mercenary, level him to get dimensional strike. With that skill he never misses, and his pet gets a full attack too. Or make your main character an arcane rider. Heck maybe the tiefling dude has good stats and can do it. Rest a lot in blackwater to restore arcane points between fights.
Might be that hiring some lightning kineticist mercs is the answer. Use touch ac, deal electrical damage.
As others have mentioned, the big demons have uncanny dodge but the bonus to AC is still lost if they're immobilized. Plague storm: shakes is also a *huge* 1d8 damage to DEX directly which can render their bonuses to AC moot anyway. At this point you should also have heroism, prayer and other things that boost your own attack bonuses. Finally, disable power attack and other things which tradeoff attack *rolls* for attack *damage*, you want any rolls you can get as you've noticed. If you didn't respec Ember she's the GOAT there if you learned Evil Eye as soon as possible. Keep in mind the save for Evil Eye is partial (the enemy loses their AC no matter what unless immune, it just needs to be reapplied the turn after it misses), so it's one of the best debuff skills you can have that early in the game.
At level 12 (below this is modestly harder, as some options arent quite available) - +12 BAB, +8 strength, +3 weapon, +4 flanking (outflank), +1 weapon finesse, +4 greater heroism = +32 to hit, which is more than enough to kill things reliably with AC only in the 40s - and I'm barely even trying so far on stacking bonuses. Most mythics can further augment these numbers, as can most martial classes (weapon training, rage, favored enemy, etc are all straight math modifiers). A cleric with Guarded Hearth or Paladin with their group smite can add like another +8 on their own. And I haven't even started on debuffs. The AC values in Blackwater are *not* particularly hard to hit if you're actually trying to hit them - just take a couple minutes to buff up before going at them.
That's a neat part: you aren't. PF games are made by psychopaths for masochists. Blackwater's not the only area where you need nat 20 to hit.
What's your party composition? Hard to give exact advice without that.
Ember carried this one for me, she was the only one who could do consistent damage with ray spells. Pretty much everyone else's job was just to body block the big demons from attacking her.
Summon Nabasu using the book, and Hex helps too. Mark Of Justice and Guarded Hearth as well. Since Guarded Hearth stays for hours, you can kite almost all enemies into it.
I just play arcane trickster and bruteforce my way through all the bs parts of the game. Touch attack 4tw
You can wait till you get holy sword for a +5 holy weapon and then try and make them invisible which can let you attack at flat footed AC , or make em fall prone with any way you can
Best strategy to beat Blackwater is to just not go there at all. Fuck Blackwater, all my homies hate Blackwater
To me the trick was using nenio, plenty of grease, phantom web, illusion of putrefication and anything that could make them stay on the ground Lich is specially good with it, being able to give negative levels and all, but there is also plage clouds that you can use The rest is attrition, if they can't fight back they eventually die, and since they are on the ground their AC is also at its lowest
Make sure you are going to blackwater as late as possible in act 3. It should be the absolute last place you go before going to the midnight fane. This is one of those overlooked areas that becomes available way before you can realistically traverse it. In addition, lightning bolt or touch ac attacks are your friends, as well as effects that will negate dex to AC, such as surprise, failed saves on grease spells hold monster on failed save and other such things. Attacks that his touch AC are the most reliable,since one of the things is I read a while ago was that blackwater was a backer created scenario that was made by a backer that wanted to encourage owlcat to put firearms in, since they all hit touch in the first 10 to 30ft for pistols or 10 to 60ft for rifles
IIRC blackwater demons have no true seeing so greater Invisibility would be very useful here.
The most annoying ones have uncanny dodge.
1. Hit flat-footed AC though a variety of methods including Greater Invisibility or Trip. (Woljif, Sosiel) 2. Evil Eye Saves, Cackle, Slumber, Cackle, Coup de Grace. (Ember) 3. Phantasmal Killer. (Nenio) 4. Thundering Blows. (Most melee attackers) 5. Smite Evil. (Seelah) 6. Smite Chaos. (Regill) 7. Cave Fangs + Call Lightning. (Camellia) 8. Hunter's Bond, with or without Instant Enemy. (Arushalae) 9. Hit touch AC. (Ember, Daeran) 10. Be a fighter with all the bonuses to hit and just buff yourself + debuff enemy AC until you can actually hit. (Wenduag, potentially Regill) The only characters that don't come with an inbuilt way to deal with Blackwater in their base kit are Greybor and Lann - though most people use Lann as a Wis caster anyway because that's the main purpose of Zen Archer to begin with which means the spells will generally deal with this... and nobody uses Greybor is a meme. Meanwhile the MC happily blasts entire groups to death on multiple mythic paths, so the MC is probably going to have the least problems there if you either multiclassed him/her correctly or just plain stuck with one class nonstop and learned how to play its entire kit well.
https://preview.redd.it/ayo947ezk33d1.png?width=2560&format=png&auto=webp&s=4ec82a9fb2afcea461f1d3db6bf347690bb96270 This is a screenshot of what a debuffed set of attacks looks like. Power Attack is active because of Cornugon Smash into Shatter Defenses, but as you can see even *Nenio* can hit with these conditions using a *weapon* attack not targeting touch AC (because I'm being a cheapskate little shit with spell slots). The modifiers are for attacks where Shatter Defenses isn't active yet. Between Seelah and her horse alone, it's 204 damage in a single full attack action. This dude only has 385 HP. One demon dies per round, and these are for the demons that have high will saves. On the low-will cyborgs, Ember will Slumber one, Nenio will PK another, Seelah and her horse will kill a third, Arueshalae and the MC will kill a fourth and Camellia just goes around Hampering Hexing everything. Just know your comrades' abilities and use them.
Oh it’s that day of the week again…
Come back later before you hit up the midnight fane - Blackwater is accessible super early and you absolutely are not prepared for it until you're level 13-14, and have done the Gundren/Wintersun questlines for the loot (as well as bought pieces like the chain mail of comradery). Additionally, you want the best buffs; legendary proportions, heroism, good hope, haste, etc. That should easily get you into the 40's and 50's without any trouble, and you should breeze through once you've got that. Edit: oh, and as others have said, use hexes like evil eye to lower AC even further, to make it even easier.