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There are so many different bosses and powerful enemies in Baldur's Gate 3, but Goblins are some of the most brutal targets in the first major world of the game, which is basically Act 1. One of the earliest missions in this act requires you to rescue a Druid called Halsin, and that could eventually take you to a fight against Priestess Gut.
Now, there are multiple ways you can start the fight against Priestess Gut, and we have some suggestions for all the possibilities, but regarding the fact many players decide to help Halsin get rid of three Goblin leaders inside the camp, we will thoroughly explain the fight that encompasses the entire area that Priestess Gut is residing in.
Updated by Abigail Angell on August 25th, 2023: Minor corrections have been made about Halsin's behavior if you choose to have him come with you through the Goblin Camp. Information was also added regarding statues that can be used to assassinate some of the goblins in the room.
Where To Kill Priestess Gut
If you have entered the Goblin Camp's building as friendly by talking your way through it, then the Goblins inside won't oppose a threat to you as long as you don't do anything wrong. Priestess Gut is one of the NPCs that you can talk to in the building.
Through the dialogues, if you accept to allow Priestess Gut to remove the tadpole from your brain, she will take you to her private room. Now, here you will have a chance to attack her, but keep in mind that killing her will alert all the other Goblins in the surrounding rooms and halls. While this won't be easy, if you only want to kill Priestess Gut and no one else, this is the most proficient way.
On the other hand, there is Halsin's quest, where you get to help this Druid get out of prison, and he asks you to help him kill all three Goblin leaders inside the camp, including Priestess Gut. If you do this, we strongly suggest you kill the leaders in the following order:
- Minthara
- Ragzlin
- Priestess Gut
The reason why you need to follow this order is that the path from prison, where you rescued Halsin, passes along the locations of these leaders in the same order. So, if you go for killing Priestess Gut at first, there is a high chance you will alert the guards next to Ragzlin's location as well. You can also change the order of Ragzlin and Priestess Gut, but since Ragzlin is the hardest leader to defeat, it wouldn't be wise to spend all your magic slots and items on Priestess before Ragzlin.
Pre-Combat Requirements
Before you engage in battle, make sure that all your characters are equipped with good bows or crossbows. You are going to use ranged damage for the most part of this battle if you want to kill the Prietess Gut more easily.
One more thing that you also need to take into account is the fact that Priestess Gut's position on the battlefield will be different if you attack her after killing Ragzlin. If you kill her before Ragzlin, you can topple the statues on the left and right onto her, but this requires stealth and Nova damage to pull off without her moving out of the way.
If you kill her after taking out Ragzlin, however, she moves behind the statue. This position will be much more vulnerable, which makes it quite easy to take her down in a full-frontal assault. As many parties won't be equipped to successfully topple the statues, we'll describe this method of killing her.
Positioning Your Characters
No matter if you are still friendly to Goblins or you have followed the killing order we mentioned earlier, you can easily sneak past Priestess Gut and her soldiers to position your characters above her head.
Behind the giant statue in the middle of the hall, there are two sets of stairs that lead you up. If you are going to kill Gut after killing Minthara and Ragzlin, then you will already reach the back of the statue on top of the stairs. These stairs lead you to a dark area with a wooden platform circling around and a deep hole in the middle. In one corner of this room, next to the stairs, there is a ladder. Ungroup all your characters, switch to Stealth mode, and get all your characters to climb up the ladder, except for Halsin.
Now, you will find yourself on top of Priestess Gut and her guards. As long as you are in Stealth mode, they won't see, which makes it easy to position your characters on top of the arena. Make sure to keep your characters away from the three ladders. Also, position them in an order that each character is distant enough from the other one.
How To Kill Priestess Gut
If Halsin is with you, he must stay on the ground. While Halsin is in his bear form, have him jump into melee with Priestess Gut, who is standing on top of the platform between the stairs. Keep in mind that Halsin rolls initiative automatically when he sees Goblins because his bear is so enraged. Select Halsin's multi-attack command and perform it on Priestess Gut. Not only will this attack surprise all her guards, which removes their Actions for the current round of battle, but you also deal a big chunk of damage to Gut.
Now, it's time for the characters on top of the arena. As you can see, there is a fire chandelier above Gut's head. Use an arrow to hit its Wooden Hinge, and it will drop onto Gut as well as Halsin, but the damage to the bear will be minimal. If you manage to hit Gut with a few more arrow shots or spells using the remaining characters, she won't survive the first round of battle. In case you don't have Halsin with you, start the battle by shooting at the Wooden Hinge.
Now, there is one more Wooden Hinge on the opposite side of the Gut in front of the giant statue. Make sure to hit it in the first round as well. Hitting this Wooden Hinge guarantees that one more guard will die in the first round. As you can see, we are doing this mission with three characters plus Halsin. We strongly suggest you take Halsin to this battle, as his bear form is incredibly strong. If you have a full squad of four characters, the battle would be much easier.
Once you have used all your Actions in the first round, make sure to move your characters that are standing on the wooden plank to the side areas of the top balcony, similar to the place where Shadowheart is standing in this example. The reason is if enemy guards use any kind of attack that pushes the target, your characters will likely fall off the plank, which deals heavy damage to them, and you also lose your top-down superiority. But if they stand on the edge of the balcony, there won't be any issues.
Now, you need to focus your arrows on the guards that deal ranged damage. Also, be aware of the guards that will use ladders to come up. These guards can be easily killed by pushing them off the balcony, which deals damage at a scale of 10 hitpoints.
If Halsin is with you, he will be able to deal with the two more guards standing on the same platform as Gut, which makes your job to get rid of this combat far easier. Keep in mind that if you have not killed Ragzlin and his guards, you need to take down both War Drums located in Gut's area as soon as possible in the second round of combat. If not, all Ragzlin's guards will also join the battle as soon as a guard enables War Drum.