Fragmented Essence of Hakor'zun

[Valoron]

Greetings everyone - I've been playing TOME4 for a while now, but never posted until now... I love this game, it's hands down the best roguelike I've ever played (thought TOME2 still has a special place for me). I rarely look at spoilers, let alone ask for them, but I'm at my wits end here. I've managed to kill Urkis once with an arcane blade when I got lucky and rounded a corner right into him and was able to stun him - every other time, however, I've run into the Fragmented Essence. I've read how this guy works by searching this forum, but he just seems absolutely impossible to me... He's in multiple parts, with huge HP for each part, hits hard, can walk through walls, and always seems to know exactly where I am! How on earth do you guys deal with him, especially when he spawns right alongside Urkis? I just lost ANOTHER character I spent hours on (this time an alchemist) because the Fragmented Essence just swarms all over me and then keeps swarming over me each time I resurrect until all my lives are gone! My keyboard can't continue to take the abuse I inflict on it whenever those pink X's surround me!

[Frumple]

Hit and run via teleportation, usually. Or stair abuse. Or just killing them faster than they can kill/get to me. The big thing is to not let yourself get surrounded unless you can murder all of them in short order.

Alternately, get the storming the city quest, kill the elementals, then go do daikara before trying to take urkis -- Harky's got a semi-decent chance of spawning there, without a lightning spewing boss helping him out (Though there might be a cold spewing boss...). Still, fair chance of doing it that way.

Honestly, though, you're just having bad luck. I've murdered urkis plenty of times without Harky showing up, so it's certainly not a certain appearance. Eventually, you'll run into Urkis without backup and make it through fine.

Alternately redux, after getting rid of the elementals, go do a few (two to three) more dungeons, then storm tempest peak, with a few extra levels and loot under your belt.

[Valoron]

I guess I have to try to catch him in Daikara so I can abuse stairs (though I've run into him there before, too, and the stairs only allowed me to run away and give up on him, since he surrounded the stairs and beat me half to death each time I reentered the level). I guess with certain classes (like my alchemist) he's just nigh impossible unless I get a controlled phase door rune or something...

Now that I think about it, he might be one case where time prison might actually be useful if I take an archmage to face him...

[edge2054]

He's a tough fight that's for sure. I used stair abuse the first time I fought him.

If you want less cheesy tactics avoid Daikara till later and make sure you have a wand of teleport handy in case things get rough.

[Postman]

Stair abuse is problematic after v20, with infusions/runes saturation. You have to use special talent to remove saturation to abuse stairs.

[Valoron]

I almost had him this time... Got him in Daikara where I could abuse stairs, and using that and time prison to tie down the fragments and take them one at a time, I managed to kill like 3 of them - then one of them constricted me and I was screwed. Is there any way to break constriction other than to kill the fragment?

[edge2054]

Teleportation or Phase Door should do it.

[Valoron]

I tried to use phase door and it wouldn't let me while constricted.

[martinuzz]

Stair abuse is problematic after v20, with infusions/runes saturation. You have to use special talent to remove saturation to abuse stairs.

Erm.. No.
Rune/infusion saturation only prevents you from exiting to the worldmap. It does not matter when switching between levels of the same dungeon.

The Hakor'zun creep was the first creature I met that forced me to abuse the stairs.
I'd put on my regeneration infusion before going down the stairs, where the fragments were waiting, then use my shielding rune and wild infusion, hack away at one of the fragments, retreat back up the stairs, repeat until all fragments are dead.

Note, that using a stairs does not take a turn.