I finally reached the end of my destiny and entered Ascension fight. I had persuaded dear brother Balthazar too! Well, I was scared. Very very scared. From all I hear from guys here I thought this battle will be extrememely hard; and so for the first time in ToB; I dropped difficulty to core from insane. I just wanted to be it fair and finish the game at once; and yes I was scared so sue me.

And now; I am dissapointed. Here is how the battle went:
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First battle with JonBon and Bodhi, Hi guys it is nice to see you again! Now die again please! I crushed them easy enough:
My PI casted TS; Imp.Alacrity and unleashed a horde of spells, including Glitterdust for JonBon; they were killed easily. Balthazar was immune to my TS so he bashed Bodhi freely in my two TSs. Oh well, thanks brother! Luckily, slayer Immy was not killed (I casted protection from Magic Energy on her in TS) so she re-joined me after the battle.

Now; activating pools: Those demons were TOUGH and SMART; still doable with wands of spell striking.

I had turnabout mod so I had the chance to summon Gorion from the dead! YAY! The talk with me and Immy was great! Took a look at his spells, oh boy he is weak; at least compared to my lvl14 cleric-lvl 31 mage dude. OK papa; I will try to protect you!

AND the final battle! Me and Immy prepared our favourite contingency:3 project images to self when helpless. And then battle begins. The five came! GASP!

Quickly Immy and I casted Project Image; and our contingencies kicked in; we now have 8 totally expandable arch-mages! The five (or rather four as Balthazar is with me) and Sarevok were coming; my images each casted TS with one second delay. Then each unleashed every spell he has, namely:
*5 holy smites 14d4x5=70d4
*5 Horrid wiltings 20d8x5=100d8
*2 Comets 10d10x2=20d10
*5 flame arrows 20d6x5=100d6
Multiply these by four. Ouch! Sorry; that HAD to hurt!

Uh and each image had one more TS; after lots of Lower Resistances, Breaches; Pierce Shield etc. they unleashed all of these. Result: They died. Fast. Abby stayed at near death but then he died instantly, his HP trigger was a bit late; YagaSHura was badly injured but my images could not cast harm for some reason; is it a bug? Anyway Melissan joined the fray but got weakened as her allies died most horrible but quick deaths. My GWWing fighters made short work of Big Yaga as Immy's images summoned a total of 8 planetars. BTW My images casted wishes and came up with:
*Hardiness on party (twice! :D They stack!)
*Rest (Sure came in handy! :D )
*Set all stats to 25 for the party (I love this)

Anyway, only Big, Bad Melly was left. And for some unholy reason he went for my paralyzed PC! Gasp! Her weapon did cold damage and PIs were dispelled; my PC tried to run for his life but Melly did something nasty nasty and made him uncouncious; and in a flurry of blows she dispelled my stoneskin! And hit again! Fortunately I had 2 hardiness active due to wishes so my PC was slightly tickled! And he quickly casted a PFromMagicalWeapons. (whew that was close!) Melly did not bother with my PC now, turned to do something; BUT Immy just shot her with Eagle Bow's special arrows. (they stun without save and kill %5 of time) I was sure Big Melly would be immune to it but she got stunned! YAY! Now; 8 planetars; GWWing Keldorn(with ravager), Jaheira(waters talon), My kensai(CF+5 and Sanchuudoku), Minsc and Boo(FoA+5 and CromFaeyr) and Balthazar, and 8 hasted Planetars, and a lot Mordy Swords that Immy's images have conjured up, attacked poor, stunned Melly! Damn how much HP she has? She is resistant too! But; after lowering her resistance, my PC casted a harm and hit Melly! She was near death now, and we just kept on bashing her. Eventually she was councious, her HP trigger came in; she chit-chatted (NO I am gonna die!)and healed herself completely, she was upto something but Immy (bless her!) just shot her and she was stunned again! 'You stand NO chance!' Immy shouted. And we kept on bashing her as usual. It was rather funny actually. GWWing fighters, fast and furious planetars, and a few lying swords, all bashing her freely. Gorion casted a flame arrow too! Wow, thanks papa! :D After lowering her resistance my PC used his harm again, BANG! (Duri,ng this time Immy shot her special arrow in between 4-5 rounds as she had only 5 of those special arrows, so Melly was always stunned.) Then a most hilarious thing happened:

Melyssan:Morale Failure-Panic!!!!

BWAHAHAHA not so tough now eh? Anyway we kept on bashing her, she was near death and she talked her final words, and Solar came in. (Balthazar fell in love with her IMHO!) Chit-chat again, Gorion, Balthazar, Immy, Minsc, Keldorn, and especially my romance Jaheira talked and I was about to cry. I refused godhood and everybody became happy. Happy End!????

Now I am dissapointed a little. During all the final fight only a few HP damage was done to my party. The only exciting part was when Melly was chasing my poor PC.

Did I do something wrong? If I played on insane would it be too different? Enemies stood no chance at all to hurt us so I believe there would be no difference if I used this startegy again on insane diff. What do you think?

PS:I feel kinda empty now. Maybe I should try the battle on insane? (If I ever get the courage that is.)

@ Silverstar

First of all congratulations for beating the Ascension final battle.
I would recommend you to try it on insane too.You don't have anything to lose (well except from some hours facing an insane fight :D ).
If you want the surprise effect don't read under the line Spoilers.

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SPOILERS
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The Ascension's final changes a lot from core to insane.

The first difference is that from the time you enter the Throne of Bhaal you can't rest (virtually) anymore because clicking on the pools doesn't restore yours spells,HLAs.So you have to use them very carefully.

But the really big difference is the following:

After clicking the last pool Melissan summons the Five and you have to kill them like on core difficulty.BUT after you kill the last of the Five and Melissan becomes mortal again there is a big surprise.She says something like : ''Come to your mistress minions of the Abyss'' and gates in an insane number of demons of all kind.
Amongst them: Fallen Solars,Cambions who can GWW attack, other demons mirror imaged with bows who dispell everything that hit (like Ilasera), demons with that awful telekinesis ability and others ...And Melissan keeps teleporting away and summoning more demons !!!

You have to play it if you want to understand what I mean.The Five are nothing compared to these demons just because of their high number.

In my game, for more challenge, I had added some ''rules'' like :

- no rest through Wish
- no use of weapons which are not in the original game (except from Solaufein's personal Moonblade)
- no multiple planetars and max. 5 summons

This made the final battle more insane that it already was.

BUT (since I knew what to expect) :

a) I had collected through SoA and ToB all the scrolls that I considered that could help in the Final battle (and fortunately they made the difference) like:

imp.haste,timestop,mirror image,stoneskin and many high level spell-scrolls

and most importantly: Protection from magical weapons scrolls (I had +20 of them when I entered the Throne of Bhaal).

b) I had Solaufein in my party.This guy is a drow fighter/mage who doesn't look particularly tough when he joins you in the beginning.But after a while and especially after he gains his powerful moonblade he becomes the ultimate killing machine.And he was the only reason I was able to beat Ascension on insane.

Geez I really had to try it on insane now. But, is there a difference except Melissan summoning throngs of demons? Say, if I stun her with Eagle Bow again; will she be able to summon? I don't think so. Definitely worth a try though. I have one final save before the final pool; say; I can kill the five again quickly with the same strategy; and then stun Mellysan to prevent her summoning, and then bash her quickly! Sounds cheesy I know but I don't want to fight tons of nasty summons.

BTW I realized I have special bhaal powers; Control Demons; will it work? It may be fun! or rather frustrating.

Will there be a difference in five and their tactics?

All in all, I may do like you did in my very next run, which will literaly take months to do so as I can play the game rarely. So...

I am not sure if Melissan can summon the demons if she is stunned.Maybe it's scripted so that she can.Anyway you can try it.
As for the Five, no they don't use any different tactic on insane so it will be the same for you.
(Since Ascension doesn't use Oversight's Sendai in the final battle no timestop+harm to be afraid of).

Anyway using Wish to rest and then the PIs will probably make the battle a lot easier even on insane.

As for the special abilities you gain in the final battle, control demons is IMO useless since it takes some time to control the demon and also Melissan takes them back after a while.
The most interesting is the Focus ability (gives immunity to timestop for some seconds) and with a good timing you can have 3 people running around in a timestop ;) (if you have Balthazar).

Yes I think it will be easy on insane too BUT you made me realy scared as I know those demons (they appeared when I clicked pools) they are sure both tough and smart. If Mellysan summons throngs of them it will be ugly.

Or should my PIs release 3 improved comets each, to a total of 12 comets=120d10 damage, I bet this can clear things up if they are just too much to bear. And I hope Mellysan will be hurt too but if she keeps DDing I may scream!