Ansur/Combat

Overview

Combat

This page focuses on Ansur's behaviour during combat encounters.

Attacks and abilities

This section briefly describes Ansur's abilities, and how he uses them. See their individual pages for more information.

 Bout of Storms

6d10 (6~60) Lightning

Ansur calls down tines of lightning that strike all around him in wild erratic patterns.

 Range: 99 m / 325 ft

• Ansur gains condition  Legendary Action: Draconic Wrath at the start of each round. While this status is active, he will use  Lightning Breath on the first creature who attacks him.

 Fly ()

Beat your draconic wings and take flight.

 Range: 30 m / 100 ft

 Frightful Presence ()

Exude terror, making your foes  Fearful.

WIS Save

 Range: Self

AoE: 16 m / 53 ft (Radius)

 Gather Power ()

Take flight, land, and begin to gather power.

 Range: 30 m / 100 ft

• Ansur gains  Hoarding Energy for 2 Turns, after which he will use Stormheart Nova.
• While this status is active, he takes no other actions and his animations show him flying in the air above his position.
• He gains resistance to all damage types, but can still be attacked while in this state.
• There is no means of interrupting or cancelling this state.
• Any enemies in range of Stormheart Nova will have the condition  Ansur's Ire; if this condition is removed (by taking cover etcetera), the character will not take damage.

 Lightning Breath ()

12d6 (12~72) Lightning

Breathe bolts of lightning that strike and possibly  Shock your foes.

DEX Save

 Range: 60 m / 200 ft

AoE: 6 m / 20 ft (Radius)

 Multiattack ()

4d8 (4~32) + Strength modifier Bludgeoning

+

3d8 (3~24) + Strength modifier Piercing

+

4d6 (4~24) Lightning

Ravage your foes with claws and rotted draconic fangs.

 Range: 4 m / 13 ft

 Slam ()

6d8 (6~48) + Strength modifier Bludgeoning

Slam the ground, possibly knocking nearby targets  Prone.

 Range: 4 m / 13 ft

AoE: 3 m / 10 ft (Radius)

 Stormheart Nova ()

18d10 (18~180) Lightning

Blast the entire arena with an explosion of lightning, possibly  Shocking your foes.

DEX Save

 Melee: 1.5 m / 5  ft

AoE: 40 m / 130 ft (Radius)

• Ansur uses this ability when Hoarding Energy wears off.
• All creatures and destructible objects are hit for 18d10Lightning. Ansur will then begin to use Bout of Storms at the start of each round thereafter.
• Local visual effects will change; it will start to rain and there will be frequent lightning flashes. The rain is superficial and does not cause entities to become  Wet. In Honour mode, the rain gives a permanent  Wet status and makes the characters vulnerable to lightning damage.

Conditions

This information is not specified on Ansur's Examine page, but has resulted from contributor testing.

Immunities

Immunities include Conditions that, according to in-game UI messages, cannot be afflicted onto this character. Conditions that are not explicit "Immune to" messages can still go in this section, but please provide more detail about what combat actions are prevented.

Ansur is immune to all of the following Conditions:

•  Command
•  Dazed
•  Frightened
•  Fearful
•  Hypnotised
•  Paralysed
•  Prone
•  Wet
•  Nauseous
•  Turned
•  Hideous Laughter
•  Phantasmal Killer
•  Steeped In Bliss
• Is marked as an "Invalid Target" when attempting to use the melee ability Backbreaker, because the target is of size greater than large.

Vulnerabilities

Vulnerabilities include specific named Conditions that can be afflicted onto this character, even if the chance of successfully afflicting this condition on the character is very low.

Ansur can be affected by all of the following Conditions:

•  Aura of Murder
•  Bane
•  Blinded
•  Compelled to Duel
•  Confused
•  Corrosive Spit
•  Entangled
•  Frozen
•  Guiding Bolt
•  Mental Fatigue
•  Moonlight Butterflies
•  Open Hand Technique: Staggered
•  Reverberation
•  Roiling Hellfire
•  Shredded Armour
•  Silenced
•  Sleeping
•  Stunned

Allies

• 2x Water Myrmidon

Encounter details

Phase one

When combat begins, all party members in the area automatically enter combat, even if they are hiding or located in the previous room when the conversation ends.

Ansur will generally use  Lightning Breath,  Multiattack (Ansur), or  Slam on nearby party members before flying to a nearby location. He will repeat this process until his hit points have been reduced to around 2/3 to 1/2 of his maximum hp.

Once Ansur's hit points has been sufficiently reduced, he will use  Gather Power to begin hoarding energy. While in this state, he will not take any other actions, and will be resistant to all damage types. After hoarding energy, he will release  Stormheart Nova, dealing enough Lightning damage to potentially kill the entire party in one hit. This attack will only hit creatures that have the condition  Ansur's Ire, which can be removed by taking cover.

On Honour difficulty,  Gather Power lasts only one turn (despite the icon suggesting it's two turns), and Ansur will use this ability a second time: when it is first brought down to 0HP, it will remain alive at 1HP and use Gather Power again.

Phase two

After using his Stormheart Nova, Ansur will summon five lightning strikes each turn with his attack  Bout of Storms. Any creatures standing inside the strikes will take damage at the end of the round. On Tactician or Honour difficulty, rain will begin to fall on the battlefield and make every party member permanently  Wet.

Tactics

Ansur is a challenging opponent with high AoE damage, a large amount of hit points, and dangerous reactions. All of his attacks can hit multiple targets, punishing party members that stay close to one another or large armies of summoned creatures. Furthermore, his massive hitbox can make it extremely difficult to avoid taking his AoE Opportunity Attacks. Denying him his reaction, as with  Arms of Hadar or  Flurry of Blows: Stagger, can allow your party to move around safely.

Ansur is also very difficult to incapacitate. As an Undead he cannot be targeted by many spells, and most of his saving throws are extremely high. However, his INT saving throws are by far the weakest which makes  Mind Blast and other Illithid powers an effective option to deal with him. Arrows of Dragon Slaying and Arrows of Undead Slaying also prove effective against him.

The two Water Myrmidons he summons can be quite problematic since their  Healing Vapours ability covers a large area in a  Water that Ansur can turn into an  Electrified Water surface. It is generally best to kill them first before they become too much of a nuisance. They can be pushed into the surrounding chasm to defeat them instantly.

Ansur's  Stormheart Nova can be survived by hiding near the various Attuned Crystal structures on the battlefield, though these structures will themselves be destroyed by the Nova.  Globe of Invulnerability will also protect party members from the Nova.  Wall of Stone can also provides cover, which might be necessary on Honour mode to survive the second Nova, since the first one will have destroyed all the attuned crystals.

Ansur seems to fly back and forth between two positions. As such, abilities like  Wall of Fire can provide reliable damage.

Because his  Legendary Action: Draconic Wrath allows him to deal AoE lightning damage to the first character that hits him with an attack, it is recommended to keep the first attacking party member each round a good distance away from the others, and using someone with  Evasion to trigger it can completely negate the damage from his  Lightning Breath.

Since the majority of Ansur's damage is Lightning, it can be reduced via sources of lightning resistance:

•  Draconic Ancestry (Lightning)
•  Elemental Affinity: Lightning Resistance
• Elixir of Dragonborn Prowess: Lightning
• Elixir of Lightning Resistance (can be thrown on the ground to hit multiple allies standing near each other)
•  Fiendish Resilience: Lightning
• Gloves of the Automaton for Duration: 10 turns after using Circuitry Interface
•  Protection from Energy: Lightning
• The Sparkswall (can also prevent electrocution on electrified surfaces)
•  Transmuter's Stone: Lightning Resistance

On Tactician and Honour difficulty, Ansur reduces all incoming damage by 4 with  Greater Wyrm's Scales. Damage resistance is applied first, and it applies to each type of damage individually, completely nullifying bonus damage from abilities like  Hex and  Singing Sword: Shriek (Condition) when attacking, and considerably reducing the effectiveness of multi-hit abilities like  Magic Missile. Effects like  Hunter's Mark and Elixir of the Colossus should still be beneficial since they add to an already existing damage type (though Elixir of Lightning Resistance should take precedence if the character doesn't already have lightning resistance). Ironically, the weapon that Ansur drops when killed, Balduran's Giantslayer, would be ideal for this fight.