From my experience you only have to do two battles after going into the artifact, the one right in that room, and only outside the throne room on the bridge. After that you have a free run towards the transport portal. I purposefully didn't want to clean up the whole map because I don't want to max out my level halfway through the game, even though it appears that might very well happen, since I'm already level 7 at the start of act 2. I didn't engage most of the goblins outside the building either, just escaped after the main 3 kills.
Another thing I noticed visually was during the act 2 fight in the inn. The light from the glyphs are being dynamically calculated in the reflection of the blood, while the blood is also following the textural seams of the floor. I'm sure that's not ground-breaking in 2023, but how cool is that?!
Was also thematically fitting for Tavern brawler Karlach throwing those gargoyles around in the inn. I also have two items that increase throwing damage. It's kind of OP to be honest, you can pick up an enemy, throw it at another and kill both in 1 action, and if that doesn't happen you can still make the hit enemy go prone, then f*cking hammer them when they're lying on the ground like you're Thor. It's so fun and visceral to do. Even made the grymforge construct with the intimidating 450 hp much less of a threat, heat it with the lava, then let Karlach throw bludgeoning weapons/objects at it. Repeat until it's dead.
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