Date with Melinda...

[Lord Blade]

So how are you supposed to succeed at this?

Because even though nothing seems to touch her, she just dies anyway.
I managed to kill everything, and then she suddenly died without cause.

[ghostbuster]

There is a turn timer for this level. It starts at 20 turns IIRC, and gains +10 turns for every cultist that you kill.
But if you do not succeed to kill the 4 priests before the end of the timer, Melinda is sacrified....

[The Revanchist]

So that's why I failed... it all makes sense now!

[Nevuk]

Yeah, this quest has me confused as hell too. Melinda lets off a 10000 damage aoe blight spell then just dies the turn after it says she was resurrected. (I was curious enough to try to savescum back into the quest but that just leaves melinda and you at the beach doing nothing and you can't leave unless you kill her or recall out). Then you can go to her house and talk to her and it just says "i'm looking for an explanation of what happened at the beach still" (even if she is dead). It's very confusing.

[Zonk]

Mobility talents help a LOT there, as does the ability to kill things at range to get extra turns on the timer. Also definetely remember to use all +speed buffs and allies you have.

[Nevuk]

I don't think we're referring to the same quest?

[Zonk]

Oh, duh. Didn't realize this was a new quest, sorry. Ignore what I said.

[Mewtarthio]

I think it might be the blight_start_in timer that does her in. She's programmed to release the blight upon "death," but the game also starts a 30-turn countdown to make her self-destruct when she starts glowing. If she falls to the yaechs first, though, I don't see anything that stops the timer, so she'll still die when the timer runs out.

She needs something like this in her resurrection function:

Code: Select all

if game.level.data.blight_start_in then
      game.level.data.blight_start_in = nil
end

[Mankeli]

Just rescued her for the first time from the crypt but then Melinda died at the beach. I can still talk to her in Last Hope after getting the "quest failed" message. A Bug?

[darkgod]

fixed

[SmallTownGuy]

So what are some good tactics to save Melinda at the beach? You're beset by 20-odd mobs, and she complicates matters by Rushing into the middle of them. If she gets touched, she "dies" and you fail.

The obvious tactic is for a mage to put her in a Time Prison, or for a solipsist to Sleep her and everything else. But what can a melee character do?

[Mewtarthio]

So what are some good tactics to save Melinda at the beach? You're beset by 20-odd mobs, and she complicates matters by Rushing into the middle of them. If she gets touched, she "dies" and you fail.

Melinda can't Rush; she's probably getting Mindhooked. Anyway, all you need to do is kill four Yaeches before they kill Melinda; at that point, her blight will trigger, and she'll detonate once the others overwhelm her. Obviously, the hunters are the most deadly, since they can use Mindhook to snatch Melinda from seven tiles away and dispatch her easily, but most of your ranged talents (including Rush) can get them before they get her. The Yaeches will first show up in a 15x3 area just south of the southernmost patch of sand, so start heading towards the south shore as soon as you're done making out. If you can position yourself one tile west of the southernmost tile of sand (so that you can just see the west edge of the map), you should be able to see all the Yaeches. If you've got any AoEs, such as Shattering Shout, use them. Movement infusions, Step Up, and any other mobility powers you can get are invaluable. Much like the Acolytes before them, the Yaeches have terrible mobility; use that to your advantage. Naturally, anything that can manipulate AI targeting can make the quest trivial; for instance, the Vimsense ability (if you're a defiler or manage to get your hands on the Corrupted Gaze t4 artifact) should make the Yaeches go after you instead of her.