I am working on Turn up the Sun, the quest that leads to repairing the Sun trainer in Zocolo so I can train Sharpen Blade from the Sun school. I am finding the fight very difficult as Moraga comes with two minions, and as a spell quest this encounter is a gauntlet, which means no one can help me and if I manage to pick off a minion but die the minion comes back to life. I am playing a level 86 balance wizard, and Balance's low damage potential just doesn't seem up to the task.
I am hoping somebody can come up with some "trick" because I am at my wit's end here. I've tried a dozen times already and not been able to get anywhere near winning.
My first goal is always to dispatch the minions. If I can get rid of the two minions I can use shields and the balance heals to heal up to max before taking on Moraga alone, reshuffling if needed. I have been trying to use Ra in combination with enough stacked blades to one-shot the minions. I can't seem to get enough blades out to one-shot the minions before I run out of health.
I have three blades and an aura available. Balanceblade, Bladestorm, a Balanceblade item card from an amulet, and punishment (+25% Star aura). I also have two sharpen blade item cards from a pet, which lets me cast alternate stacking versions of the bladestorm and the learned Balanceblade. My calculator shows any 4 of these stacked together would have a chance to kill the minions in combination with Ra, depending on how much damage Ra produces.
The fight is much complicated by Moraga's habit of casting Efreet, leaving me stuck with a 90% weakness to clear out before I can cast a damage spell. This is a huge issue for balance because I can't just wand it off without burning any blades I have up, as balance blades trigger on any school damage and have to be recast; the off school wand trick doesn't work. Any tips for dealing with Efreet would be appreciated.
My thanks to anyone who replied but hasn't had their comment moderated yet. I see no replies but probably got a couple. In any case, I finally defeated Moraga, in an annoyance fueled endurance marathon. I'm not quite sure exactly how many times I repeatedly fought the arrogant brigand, but think it was about 25-30 times. There were several keys to success:
1) The Efreet problem. I dealt with this by keeping a Cleanse Charm treasure card in my sideboard. Turns out Cleanse Charm is common on the bazaar. Actually, it's Moraga's minions who cast Efreet, not Moraga himself. In the event, on my winning run I did not get Efreeted and thus didn't have to waste a turn casting Cleanse Charm.
2) Precision sideboard. I stocked my sideboard with exactly two cards, Cleanse Charm and a Ra pre-enchanted with a Treasure Gargantuan. I would have used Colossal but there is no easy way to get Colossal treasure cards. Treasure Gargantuan adds 250 health, learned Colossal 275. I figured out taking the small 25 point reduction was acceptable in return for not having to draw and apply a sun enchantment before I could cast Ra. With Ra in the sideboard I could reduce the number of cards in my main deck a bit making those crucial blades easier to draw.
3) Nerys. Of all the tactics I wound up using in this fight, this surprised me most. I brought my Minion spell Nerys and he was actually useful. The key was understanding that in the most difficult early part of the fight I would not be using traps. Randomly burning traps is a major reason to avoid minions, but that problem didn't apply. Also, my damage was a bit marginal to one-shot Marag's minions with Ra. Nerys loves to cast sandstorm, and one sandstorm would be enough to bring my damage from marginal to guaranteed kill. Best of all, Nerys would distract the enemies; once he attacks they will take notice and cast all their single target attacks on him instead of me, preserving some of my health.
