IRON MONKEY,

Been there and took about 5 min. .All 4 members of my group are at level 50-54, the consist of a ranger,fighter, nature mage and a combat mage.
I think i have the combat mage set with death blast3 and have drown,infect,and decay armor in the autocast spots. She draws the little crawlers too her so that the familiar can't respawn.
It worked good for me but someone else may have an easer way??????

GOOD LUCK...

I had a LOT of trouble with this one, more-so than the boss at the end of the game. To take him down, I refitted each of my party members' skills so that they would have optimal offensive capabilities, bought a LOT of health potions (over 100, in fact), and went at it with everything I had. Still, I barely got him down, using my Blood Assassin's rune of blood power to take out groups of the crawlers at a time. Just try your best to damage him as much as possible while exterminating the crawlers as fast as you can, and I daresay use the cheats if you absolutely have to. I'm sure GPG will make it slightly weaker in an upcoming patch.

I don't know what you guys are talking about with this guy being so hard... My FoS shield tank was spamming Provoke whenever the little guys came near, allowing my CM and BA to deal out the damage while my NM did the healing. Using my big damage Powers on the big guy whenever they were recharged made this fight just one more battle... nothing special except it took a little bit longer (no potions used either). I might have had to resurrect my NM during the fight, but other than that it wasn't too tough for my party of four.

Sacrosanct has a nice tactic here.

Well, see, I wasn't aware that the crawlers were healing him.

That little tidbit helped a lot. I loaded up with life and mana potions (more than usual), and went for it. The surgeon barely hurts my guys, so I have to ignore him and just make sure I kill the crawlers. They also helped me recharge the power shots, which I would then use on the surgeon.

The rest is rinse and repeat. :-P

It takes a while but doable. The crawlers come out 3 at a time and it only takes me 2 or 3 hits to get each one, so it is quick, then back to the surgeon. Add life/mana as required.

Thanks. I just didn't know how he was getting healthy again! I thought he might be stealing life or something.

hehehe iron monkey well just up ur death magic resistance and ur good as invunerable to him and also just use gathered bolt to kill those blasted crawlers hehehe also use elemental rage if u have that skill heheh it helps ALOT

[This message has been edited by balawis (edited 09-16-2006 @ 10:27 PM).]

Hi Guys,

I'm having about the same trouble with the second familiar. I feel like I've hit a road block here too. I have all level 49 charaters: 1 melee fighter that uses a one-handed weapon and shield; 1 melee fighter that uses dual weapons; a ranger and a combat mage. I've discovered that magic is absolutely useless against this surgeon just like the last one. I've used the spells blind, infect, cripple. I know that the little bound corpse buggers keep rejuvinating the surgeon.

I've looked at all your suggestions - tried the stairwell trick but that didn't work because the little bound buggers kept coming. I've gotten the second surgeon down to half his life but I still die. I've been at this like 5-6 times already. What am I missing here?

I've tried to maximize each characters death resistance but that doesn't work. Even when I position my characters in front of the staircase and the big head comes over he can still resurrect buggers from the back and draws life from them. It takes me a while to kill the bound freaks as well, not 2 or 3 hits either.

Help! I'm at my whit's end. I've tried everything possible and keep dying. Is there anything else that can be done to finally and permanently finish this second surgion off?

As sated, I ignored the surgeon and concentrated on stopping the crawlers.

My team :

- main char is melee with two hand weapon.
- second char is ranger with crossbow
- one melee pet
- one nature magic pet

I get down on the floor and chase the crawlers. ANy time they come out I go after them. When I can I run up to the surgeon and hit him with a power shot, from the ranger or the melee char or the pet. Keep the loop going.

I keep the whole team concentrated in one target, so each crawler takes one or two hits. 3 or 4 crawlers go fast and I go back to the surgeon.

I brought with me 3 rows of life potions, and an extra row of mana for the nature pet, who also heals.

And just keep at it.

This might not be the most efficient way, but worked for me.

Hi Iron Monkey,

I did as you suggested and I'm not getting anywhere. I'll wear down the surgeon for a little bit but eventually I either die or run out of health potion or patience. How did you succeed where I failed? I'm not getting anywhere right now. I don't buy the statements from people that they hardly got affected by the surgeon or used their healthy potions. That's very hard to believe.

I guess I just don't have what it takes. Is there anybody out there who's found a way past this second surgeon? Have you died numerous times but finally got past him? I was having a great time but now I just am not getting anywhere. It shouldn't be like this. I'm thinking of contacting the people who make Dungeon Siege and ask what the heck is going on. It shouldn't be this difficult, not at the mercenary level anyway.

Thanks for listening.

Here's some general ideas, but every party and playstyle is different, so don't hold any of these as gospel.

Anyway, might I suggest you train your characters on regular monsters instead of just continually going at the surgeon? Gain a level or two, then go back and use the tactics, and maybe you'll have the edge to beat the surgeon. Just a few levels can make quite a bit of difference. Even though it doesn't make logical sense, the game mechanics are strange.

I personally have my lightning Combat Mage use the Chain Lightning power every time the crawlers spawn. One melee guy mops up the rest. Make sure your party is in rampage mode, not mirror mode (this encourages them to all pick a different target to focus their attack on). Make sure killing the crawlers is first priorty, and then go back to the surgeon during any free time you have. Intense use of the pause button to carefully coordinate your attacks is a good idea.

One more thing: You don't appear to have a Nature Mage. That's not something I'd ever recommend. Nature Mages and Melee characters are almost a must for a party, and the NM skill Absorption can make someone nearly immune to magical attacks. Maybe you could swap out the Ranger or the Dual-Wielder or whatever character you feel benefits you the least.

Quote:

Give us the benefit of the doubt. We're not pathological liars here. I personally am a potionaholic, and used to drink the things almost constantly, but they're costly unless you've got a ranger with 20 in Survival (which I do).

emjem24: The stairwell trick works like a charm for me. Remember, I always go solo. I have never used a party even back in the days of DS1! Heh and to think that DS is a party-based action RPG heh. Anyway, for the trick to work you have to get the surgeon to come right in front of the staircase. The Surgeon is in the middle of the room when you first come upon it, but you can order your melee character to go down the stairs and lure the surgeon towards the stairs... it doesn't get any simpler than that. Once it's in front of the stairs, the only attack it can use against your party will be the "Doomsday" curse. But I reckon healing spells and health potions should take care of that. It will also cast those green fireballs or whatever they are, but those will bounce off the stairs.
It is *then* that you must order your melee character to attack the surgeon (leave the other party members near the energy pillars). Remember not to let the melee character stray towards the center of the room (and sometimes the Surgeon will try to push your character, a global annoying feature of monsters in DSII...), because the crawlers at the back will see and attack him/her and the Surgeon will use them for healing. Have your melee character attack the Surgeon and as for the two remaining patches of crawlers left and right you can take care of those with the other members of your party (a combat mage using Impale would be handy). I also noticed your melee character carries a shield. If s/he has points in Rebuke, either go to Vireni and lose the skillpoints assigned to Rebuke or simply lose the shield for that battle. If you do this properly, the Surgeon will go down *very* easily.
I know what you mean, the first time I faced the surgeon it felt like I was banging my head against a brick wall... and I had to take it on with just 1 character... but then I came up with that strategy. I didn't even need healing potions/spells. I hope you'll manage it.

I don't understand what the problem is.I read this topic before facing him and thought OMG how will I beat him.I was shocked how easy it was.I had 2 DW,1 BA,1 NM and 1 CM.They were about lvl 48-49 at that time,BA was lvl 43.I took him down in about 2-3 minutes.I used Elemental Rage,BA's Blood Shot(or something like that),CM's Harvest Soul and NM's Icicle Blast.When I used up Elemental Rage I switched to Brutal Attack and when it recharged I switched back to Elemental Rage.I used health potions only to heal my mages and the BA.The familliar's Doomsday curse did absolutely no damage to me.I also used the Steal Magic curse(reduced his magic damage by 61% the curse is maxed out).And that's it.I didn't even use the stairwell tactic.The crawlers were always attacking me they didn't even think about healing the familliar.
So what's the @"£%$! problem?????

PS:Maybe it's because I used my DS II character(Half-Giant DW) and because of the equipment and spells I found in DS II.My mages deal between 700 and 1300 damage per cast(Lesser Grasping Wine and Greater Leech Life).All I know is that I kicked his HUGE,UGLY,ALIEN BUT!

[This message has been edited by Losmi1991 (edited 10-03-2006 @ 04:52 PM).]

...T!

Well, good for you, Losmi!

Quoted from Losmi1991:

Hm. I suppose you imply that by switching to Brutal Attack you made the power recharge faster? Sorry, but that's just b*llocks You see, even if you switch to Brutal Attack the power recharge time will be that of Elemental Rage.

Quoted from Losmi1991:

Well that's what crawlers do. They attack, they don't have any healing powers per se. Instead, it's the Surgeon that uses their life force to heal itself. If the crawlers are not there, the Surgeon cannot heal itself. Simple as that.
So it seems you were killing the crawlers quickly enough, so congrats once again.

Quoted from Losmi1991:

Take it easy, Losmi
cheerio

It was just an expression.Just kidding.Sorry.

awww heheh

it's O.K.

thanks to the stair-trick i managed to take him down
my (DSII) party:
melee, dual wield lvl 48
ranger/cm, crossbow lvl 46/cm lvl 31
cm lvl 48
nm lvl 48

i lured the surgeon to the staircase while the rest of my party stayed on top
then i switched to his other side of the surgeon to catch the crawlers
occasionally one or two slipped through
but eventally i prevailed
thanks for the tips

ps, no cheats, no trainers hehe

I've got a team of 5 Archers at lvl 55 (Hero, Deru, Taar, Aramen, and that BA chick from BW). I found a good strategy without any tanks or healers and am kicking A$$ in veteran.

The key is to use the knockback weapon enhancement for my entire party. You may think that I take a drop in damage for not using a Mark or Manashot enhancement, but actually I do much more with because I get the additional 50% damage from shockwave at ALL TIMES. Shockwave adds a FAT amount of damage and damages all monsters in a area. Add a good level of penatrate to that and you can easily double or triple your damage in a good monster stack.

To top it off, none of the monster get to reach you so there is no need for a healer or tank. This works against ranged units and enemy mages too because with farshot you outrange them all and the knockback also stuns them for about 1/2 a sec. With the fast fire rates of a bows, you can keep 3-4 enemies locked down at the same time.

Use lvl 3 thunderous shot to thin out heavy masses and to stun/take out mage packs. The knockback lock works wonders against pretty much all mini bosses. Use thundershots to take out minions and them pin the boss against a wall without taking a single hit.

Additional advice: Since knockback keeps your entire party safe, focus on maxing damage with nature aura and equipement. You can pretty much ignore armor and resistance and just pump dex and +damage items. Once you get the markman receipe ring, get 4x for every character to boost your shockwave + farshot (reagents are cheap - shop around).

Deru has points in nature magic for the freezing buff and Taar has points in nature magic for the the critical strike buff (bear).

To answer your question, I simply stood on top and shoot the boss with from the ramp. All crawlers that come up has to climb up the stairs, where they get cut up by the 5 bows and an occasional thundershot. The surgeon can't come up and his attacks can't reach me while my farshot arrows hit him everytime. To speed things up, I use my lvl 3 charged shots for about 3 of my characters, saving 2 for thundershots against the occasional crawler that makes it up. I took him out without even taking damage (maybe 1 hit from a crawler)

[This message has been edited by Ranger Team (edited 10-24-2006 @ 09:29 AM).]

second familiar...2 minutes? no, 1 minutes.

Combat Mage(lvl55)x5

Activate my lvl3 ENERGY ORB x5

then "static shock" it. (Familiar slow down.)

Drop Uncons 2 mages, but recover full hp after 1 minutes. Auto heal.

The first familiar-- about an hour or more. The second was easier, despite its nasty curse-- I used powers on the crawlers (Brutal Attack, Circle of Frost, Take Aim, Lightening Strike, etc.), and hit the familiar with conventional attacks and spells in between crawler summons. Ugh-- I hated fighting those things, and I did down tons of potion (playing Veteran with lvl 70 Grand Protector)!