The Necromancer Boss

[JoeyD]

I am loving every second of this game, and it's challenge, but I did not love the Necromancer boss fight. That's not to say it's bad - it's not, I just think it's too high a difficulty spike for that early in the game.

It's pure insanity how difficult it is, and is probably better suited to be somewhere near the end of the game, or just toned down a bit, period. I spent the better part of two days trying to get past the encounter, and despite everything I tried, I never got close, not once. There is value to be had in designing challenging encounters, but there's a very fine line between challenging and frustrating, and I think this guy well and truly dips his bony feet into frustrating and stays there. I ended up just cheating my way past it, otherwise I'd still be at it. Probably for eternity, because I just can't react fast enough.

I think this guy is significantly overtuned, and I survived Ornstein and Smough.

[Lord of Lime]

Hmm I thought he was a hard boss, but with double jump, lvl 2 Sword and Armor, and 2 Health pots its was doable. Took me maybe 10 tries. I basically stayed at one edge of the screen and only down-attacked him when he jumped down from the wall, and maybe an arrow or two.

I do have to say that it is virtually impossible to tell wether he will jump or dash before he has already hit you with his dash, so i just always made a little hop that avoided both attacks/left me time do double jump

[Uncle Badass]

Well unfortunately we're not all you, I for one do not have lighting reflexes like you.

[JoeyD]

Yeah that's the problem, thee's no telegraphing.

[Uncle Badass]

So far I've gotten through most things by predicting what they'll do, but the necromancer is so fast that that way of doing things isn't working, I can guess what he'll do but then he'll do it before I can react.

[lieutenantkirtar]

Sword upgrade helped immensely. Doing about twice as much damage made the fight survivable even with the difficulty in determining which attack he was about to do.

[JoeyD]

Originally posted by lieutenantkirtar:

Sword upgrade helped immensely. Doing about twice as much damage made the fight survivable even with the difficulty in determining which attack he was about to do.

I had the upgrades - sword and armour, but it didn't help me at all. I'm sure there are some people that can do it, that think it's fine, but I'm not one of them. I think it's one bad point in an otherwise great game. And it's just such a huge jump in difficulty, nothing before him even comes close.

[Uncle Badass]

Replaying it, he does telegraph his attacks, but he executes them so fast that you don't really have any time to react.

Edit: I beat him right after posting this. Half a heart left, used both medium potions.

[JohnSolaris]

I've personally found it immensely helpful to know that when you're down-attacking something, spamming the attack button will cause you to hit rapidly with only a tiny hop between each attack, as opposed to a full-height bounce. This is great against bosses where down-attacking is the best strategy, such as the forest gargoyle or the Necromancer, and can drastically shorten the fight by at least doubling the number of hits you can get in per opening. Apparently if you time your button presses just right then you can squeeze in even more hits, but so far I've found button mashing to be sufficient.

[|αη| Il Pizzaro di Pizzaroni]

I thought he was pretty easy. Because of how fast he is you really have to keep an eye on him.

Here are his telegraphs:

Stands still, points diagonal = he's going to jump to the wall he's pointing at and shoot some skulls diagonally downwards in the direction he was standing (the corner he was standing, however, is safe)

Does that little fencing pose = he's going to dash IMMEDIATELY, will immediately do it again if he doesn't change his pose after hitting the wall.

Takes his hat off = he's going to throw it across the bottom of the screen then waste a few frames laughing.

Stands still, staff pointing up = he's going to slam it and conjure energy waves (jump over them, be prepared for what he's going to do next)

Punishing him with downward bops after his dashes or before his diagonal jumps is crucial. For brave folks you can jump up and slash him while he's hanging, dodge the skulls and then go back to down bopping him when he drops down.

[5 Bears On Patrol]

What annoys me is how much time is wasted on the cutscene before hand. It's a massive ♥♥♥♥ you.

This boss does not appear to be optional - he's gating something as I've cleared all the available areas left.

Bit sad it didn't occur earlier, I could've still refunded.

[alexandermagnoh]

I've beaten this boss yesterday after two tries. Level 2 with both armour and sword, 6 hearts and 3 potions. Used all my arrows (25) and after I finished him I only had one heart left. A good boss, I can say it's very difficult but not frustating.

Maybe my perception is because I spent the last two days to beat the Valkyrie Queen in God of War PS4 in last difficult and I still can't beat her xD.

[5 Bears On Patrol]

I judge these things by how I feel afterwards.

"Thank ♥♥♥♥ I never have to do that again" is not great for a game.

[Uncle Badass]

Originally posted by 5 Bears On Patrol:

I judge these things by how I feel afterwards.

"Thank ♥♥♥♥ I never have to do that again" is not great for a game.

I think that comes down to personal opinion, as feel the same way, but every time I write a long post about how bad this game is, I calm down and don't post it.

Because even though every time I begin having fun again the with the game and it punches me in the gut to show me that it can get even worse than it was before, I'm still secretly having fun.
I'm literally enjoying my anger.

With the feeling of "Thank ♥♥♥♥ I never have to do that again" also comes the satisfaction of having overcome it.

[5 Bears On Patrol]

You get the same satisfaction from choosing not to play.

If I had put the game down before beating the necromancer, I'd never have come back to it. And now it's come to a similar spot where I don't want to traverse the entire map to find the one spot where I can progress further.

I can't see me coming back.

[JoeyD]

Yeah, I mean, I can respect other people's opinions here, but he still feels cheap to me - needs another half a second pause or so before executing attacks. And like the other guy said, I'm thankful I won't ever have to face him again, and I'm not sure that's something a game should be aiming for. As I said, difficulty is fine, the rest of the game has been difficult - very difficult at times - but nothing like that, and nothing like it since. It feels like a kick in the giggleberries for where it's placed in the game.

Never felt the same way about any other boss in any other game, even any of the Souls games. I think the difference is, none of the Souls bosses feels cheap to me, the closes it gets is Capra Demon. Eh, spose it's all subjective.