Ansur/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.
* Ansur gains condition at the start of each round. While this status is active, he will use on the first creature who attacks him.
* Ansur gains 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.
* Stunned seems to be the only condition to interrupt or cancel this state. 
* Any enemies in range of Stormheart Nova will have the condition ; if this condition is removed (by taking cover etcetera), the character will not take damage.
* Ansur uses this ability when Hoarding Energy wears off.
* All creatures and destructible objects are hit for . 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 . In Honour mode, the rain gives a permanent 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:
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* Is marked as an "Invalid Target" when attempting to use the melee ability , 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:
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==Allies==
* 2x 
==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 generally uses , , or on nearby party members before flying to a nearby location. He repeats 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 uses to begin hoarding energy. While in this state, he does not take any other actions, and is resistant to all damage types. After hoarding energy, he releases , dealing enough Lightning damage to potentially kill the entire party in one hit. This attack only hits creatures that have the condition , which can be removed by taking cover.
On Honour difficulty, lasts only one turn (despite the icon suggesting it has two turns), and Ansur uses this ability a second time: when he is first brought down to 0 HP, he remains alive at 1 HP and uses it again.
=== Phase two ===
After using his Stormheart Nova, Ansur summons five lightning strikes each turn with his attack . Any creatures standing inside the strikes take damage at the end of the round. On Tactician or Honour difficulty, rain begins to fall on the battlefield and makes every party member .
==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 or , 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 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 ability covers a large area in a that Ansur can turn into an 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 can be survived by hiding near the various Attuned Crystal structures on the battlefield, though these structures will themselves be destroyed by the Nova. will also protect party members from the Nova. 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 can provide reliable damage.
Because his 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 to trigger it can completely negate the damage from his .
Since the majority of Ansur's damage is , it can be reduced via sources of lightning resistance:
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* (can be thrown on the ground to hit multiple allies standing near each other)
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* for after using Circuitry Interface
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* (can also prevent electrocution on electrified surfaces)
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On Tactician and Honour difficulty, Ansur reduces all incoming damage by 4 with . Damage resistance is applied first, and it applies to each type of damage individually, completely nullifying bonus damage from abilities like and when attacking, and considerably reducing the effectiveness of multi-hit abilities like . Effects like and should still be beneficial since they add to an already existing damage type (though should take precedence if the character doesn't already have lightning resistance). Ironically, the weapon that Ansur drops when killed, , would be ideal for this fight.