Dealing with Cazador, My Way
Alright, so let’s talk about that fancy vampire dude, Cazador Szarr. Astarion had been going on about him, so eventually, it was time to head over to his palace and sort things out. Felt like a big moment, you know? Gotta help your buddies.
First thing, getting the party ready. Obviously, Astarion had to come. It’s his story, right? Then I figured, Shadowheart for support – healing and buffs are always good, especially Turn Undead, maybe? And for muscle, Karlach. She hits hard, plain and simple. My character was handling the talking and some magic damage.
Before going in, I made sure we had some stuff. Potions, scrolls, anything that might give us an edge. I remembered someone mentioning vampires don’t like sunlight, so I made sure Shadowheart had the Daylight spell prepared. Seemed like a good bet.
Into the Palace
Walking into Cazador’s place was… something. Big, creepy, lots of locked doors and weird vampire spawn wandering about. We cleared out the ballroom level first, took down those guards. Then we headed down into the dungeon area. Found that big sealed door, messed around with the cursed bodies and the Szarr signet ring to get it open. That puzzle took a minute, not gonna lie.
The Big Showdown
Okay, the fight itself. We walked into the main chamber, and boom, Cazador’s there, floating all smug, with Astarion pulled into this ritual circle thing immediately. That was priority number one – stopping that ritual before he sucked Astarion dry and became super-vampire.
He’s got backup too. Lots of bats, some werewolves, other vampire spawn helping him out. It got chaotic fast. Here’s what I did:
- Stop the Ritual: This was key. Cazador stands on his little platform, channeling. You gotta hit him hard and fast to break his concentration. Karlach went straight for him, raging, just whaling on him.
- Control the Adds: The extra enemies are annoying. They tie you up and deal damage while Cazador does his thing. I used area attacks – Cloud of Daggers, Fireball, whatever I had – to thin them out. Shadowheart’s Spirit Guardians were great for this too, just running around hurting everything nearby.
- Use the Light: Remember that Daylight spell? Oh yeah. Had Shadowheart cast it right smack in the middle of the main platform. Cazador hated it. Immediately made him weaker, stopped his health regeneration, and made him easier to hit. It also seemed to mess with the bats. Seriously, Daylight was a game-changer.
- Free Astarion (Maybe): You can use the ‘Help’ action to try and free the other spawn trapped in the ritual, including Astarion. I focused on burning Cazador down quickly instead. Seemed faster. Once Cazador goes down, the ritual stops anyway. My thinking was, kill the head vampire, the problem solves itself.
My Experience: It wasn’t super smooth the first time. I kinda spread my damage too thin, trying to kill all the adds first. Cazador almost finished the ritual. Second try, I focused fire on Cazador while using AoE and Spirit Guardians to manage the spawns. Much better. Karlach tanked him, Shadowheart kept everyone alive and lit the place up, my character and Astarion (once I ignored freeing him and just let him shoot arrows after the fight started proper) added damage.
Once Cazador’s health got low enough, we took him down. Big relief. Then came the whole conversation with Astarion about whether he should complete the ritual himself or free the other spawn. That’s a whole other story, depends on how you’re playing things.
But yeah, fighting Cazador? Get Daylight, focus him down hard to break the ritual, use AoE for the adds. That’s how I got through it. Wasn’t the hardest fight, but definitely tricky if you don’t know what’s coming.
