so how many of you actually beat the secret ending

[amjadken]

what were your tactics, i just can't seem to beat this mission. Went in at level 30, gonna try again after gaining a few more levels

[Sardukhar]

I was running the FGR mod that removes levels, on their "Nightmare" version. Enemies get armour, your health doesn't increase with Body, your armour is capped at around 200, etc.

It was not easy. The final fight took hours of trying. Didn't help that I have healing items on a 24 hour cooldown and I accidentally used it at the start of the fight.

Use grenades and lots of them. (I was limited to 6 of each type in my inventory but even so, really helped). Headshots. Speedware that fires when you're hurt enough. Secondary Heart for when you die. Gear that zaps them when you're hurt. Top line cyberware so you have maximum health and resistances.

Be aggressive and stun/slow them, hurt them, then run away.

[N7 Andy]

You do know... enemies are all scaled to level 50 for that mission LMAO!! You're "only" really supposed to attempt it when being level 50 yourself.. preferably with fully modded iconic legendary weapons, max crit chance and armadillos in all clothing mod slots (possibly having over 4000+ total armor)

[Izzy Wit Da Uzi]

I used Widow Maker and the Feedback Circuit cyberware. Every time you discharge a fully charged tech weapon at an enemy you regain some health.

[N7 Andy]

Originally posted by Sardukhar:

I was running the FGR mod that removes levels, on their "Nightmare" version. Enemies get armour, your health doesn't increase with Body, your armour is capped at around 200, etc.

It was not easy. The final fight took hours of trying. Didn't help that I have healing items on a 24 hour cooldown and I accidentally used it at the start of the fight.

Use grenades and lots of them. (I was limited to 6 of each type in my inventory but even so, really helped). Headshots. Speedware that fires when you're hurt enough. Secondary Heart for when you die. Gear that zaps them when you're hurt. Top line cyberware so you have maximum health and resistances.

Be aggressive and stun/slow them, hurt them, then run away.

Well tbh, those run and gun tactics you suggested are more suited to Full Gameplay Rebalance mod, not in vanilla. In vanilla, it's all about your level, crit chance, and armor rating.

[Sardukhar]

Originally posted by N7Andy:

Well tbh, those run and gun tactics you suggested are more suited to Full Gameplay Rebalance mod, not in vanilla. In vanilla, it's all about your level, crit chance, and armor rating.

Fair. I never tried that ending on Very Hard normal, but that's because the game as a whole on VH normal was silly easy. Just silly easy, with any reasonable gear and perks, by the time you're level 30 or better.

I never bothered to get more than 2000 armour in vanilla, because it wasn't needed. Stopped using Cold blood or any heal perks, same reason. Crit chance is pretty irrelevant given the amount of damage you can hand out with any good weapon and the perks to go with.

If he's having trouble in vanilla, run and gun and best cyberware is probably a solid solution.

[Zero McDol]

I have beaten no endings as of yet. Waiting for the next gen update.

How I will beat it though (secret ending) is as simple as this: Complete all activities in one playthrough, excluding activities that are path dependent. Upon getting one ending, I'll reload the save at the branch, and get the others.

[Spicy Chicken Sandwich]

You should only really attempt it at level 50. All enemies will scale to that level, whether you're 50 or not.

[Zebedee]

Level 50 with a katana and legendary cyberware to suit, very hard difficulty. Had gone heavy on crafting so it was all crit and armadillos across all the slots. Had a Nekomata for plinking away at distance which I used in a couple of sections waiting on cooldowns. Can't remember if second heart works or not, but know I had that too.

Not sure 'hit them with sharp thing' is really a strategy but it worked fine. All the work to do it had been done in the 49 levels prior to taking Johnny's hand.

[Rabidnid]

Originally posted by amjadken:

what were your tactics, i just can't seem to beat this mission. Went in at level 30, gonna try again after gaining a few more levels

Beaten it 3 times with optimised characters at level 42 to 45. Even then I died a couple times in each runthrough.

[N7 Andy]

Originally posted by Sardukhar:

Originally posted by N7Andy:

Well tbh, those run and gun tactics you suggested are more suited to Full Gameplay Rebalance mod, not in vanilla. In vanilla, it's all about your level, crit chance, and armor rating.

Fair. I never tried that ending on Very Hard normal, but that's because the game as a whole on VH normal was silly easy. Just silly easy, with any reasonable gear and perks, by the time you're level 30 or better.

I never bothered to get more than 2000 armour in vanilla, because it wasn't needed. Stopped using Cold blood or any heal perks, same reason. Crit chance is pretty irrelevant given the amount of damage you can hand out with any good weapon and the perks to go with.

If he's having trouble in vanilla, run and gun and best cyberware is probably a solid solution.

The reason why the un-modded game feels easy once you're level 30 and above, is because the majority of enemies don't scale that high from what I've read. So when you're level 50, even the toughest enemies will be approximately 10 levels below you. But not in this ending. Here, all enemies are scaled to level 50, so the jump in difficulty is quite massive.

I remember doing it some time ago, I had 4000+ armor, could tank any hit from any enemy, even Max-Tac... but when it came to this ending on Very Hard, I found myself actually having to take cover because they were dealing crazy damage and they had a crap ton of HP... I couldn't believe it... (though I didn't spec into Cold Blood that time)

Despite being able to almost 1-shot any enemy with headshots during regular gameplay outside of this ending, I actually ran out of rifle ammo at some point because emptying entire magazines from my legendary iconic "Yinglong" Smart SMG wasn't enough to take them down, despite having 100% crit chance!! I was shocked... so yeah, I think Very Hard difficulty in the vanilla game has indeed been made a lot harder recently (I also heard other people reporting this...)

I'm currently doing a Very Hard, No HUD, perma-death playthrough. Right now, I'm just farming XP, money and gigs.. and looting + selling everything I see.. (I have almost 100k eddies!) I'm almost 60 hours into this playthrough and I haven't even seen Viktor yet to get my Kiroshis, haha! My last playthrough in this style, I died to a mech that shot an explosive barrel next to me, after 200 hours... I was halfway through the game... lol

[Wayz]

I just kept killing until it was done, only thing I worried about was smasher but even that I just sword spammed him until he died too.

[Ramuthra]

I hit heads with swords.
. . . Helped that I was running legendary Berserk and Katana.

[DaneNor]

jump, shoot, cover at lvl 50 was semi hard but not to bad, didnt die. ran a netrunner/ as wep build.

[Sardukhar]

Originally posted by N7Andy:

Originally posted by Sardukhar:

Fair. I never tried that ending on Very Hard normal, but that's because the game as a whole on VH normal was silly easy. Just silly easy, with any reasonable gear and perks, by the time you're level 30 or better.

I never bothered to get more than 2000 armour in vanilla, because it wasn't needed. Stopped using Cold blood or any heal perks, same reason. Crit chance is pretty irrelevant given the amount of damage you can hand out with any good weapon and the perks to go with.

If he's having trouble in vanilla, run and gun and best cyberware is probably a solid solution.

The reason why the un-modded game feels easy once you're level 30 and above, is because the majority of enemies don't scale that high from what I've read. So when you're level 50, even the toughest enemies will be approximately 10 levels below you. But not in this ending. Here, all enemies are scaled to level 50, so the jump in difficulty is quite massive.

Oh, I ran a level-scaling mod before FGR. All enemies were my level or better. If you haven't tried it, I really recommend it.

Also don't use, or only use 1 per combat, healing items. Much more like the TTRPG that way. Permadeath in a Trauma Team world is unusual, but every time you do die, buy and disassemble 10 to 20 grand of gear to "pay" for the death.

No HUD would be interesting....anyway, we off topic for the OP.

OP, in short, get more levels, better gear and use all of it. Game gets easier after level 30.

[N7 Andy]

Originally posted by sauron2012:

For some weird reassons this secret ending doesn't start for me. I have played year ago on PS4 Pro where I does that ending, did exacly same choices on PC (all good for Johnny) and I can't get this after waiting even 20 minutes...

The most important dialogue choice you make is the one at Johnny's graveyard.
You have to tell him he saved your life.