Very Hard Mode almost made me have cyberpsychosis

[voidlanches]

I was determined to beat the game and the Phantom Liberty dlc on the game's hardest mode, and I was doing pretty well.
The best way I found to complete the missions would be in stealth (pretty obviously) since I couldn't take 3 shots from the worst scav without dying. There comes a point in the game where you can do some missions by blowing everything up without difficulty.

Today, I decided that I would do all of Mr. Hands' missions because he gives you a lot of money and most of them you can do in stealth mode... except one.

In ''Spy in the Jungle'', at the end of this mission you have to kill a soulless ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ named Boris Ribakov, aka Satan himself. This communist ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ has EVERYTHING to kill you, piss on your body and bury you in a shallow grave.

He runs every time after taking minimal damage (since the weapons you use seem to be cardboard, while ALL enemies' weapons seem to be a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ cannon), has a bigger health than Johnny Sins' ♥♥♥♥, and also hacks you... which isn't cool either. Not to mention the clones that appear every time he throws a smoke grenade in the second stage of the fight (big damage from clones), and the smart gun that tears you apart like a chainsaw from Leatherface. That was enough for me to go back to normal difficulty and kill this Russian demon, which made me feel like garbage for having to go back two difficulties to kill him.

Look, I managed to kill Oda (even though it took 10 minutes the whole fight) the first time, the Chimera took me 1 whole day to destroy and I felt good as ♥♥♥♥ after I killed these two. But the white death vodka version made me feel so much hate that I felt like ♥♥♥♥ at the end.

There's a difference between a tough fight that's fun and exciting (Oda is one example) and a fight that's annoying and exhausting. And I know it's for the fights to seem impossible because that's what the mode is for, but this boss in particular is extremely tiring to keep trying 10 times and not be able to get past the second level.

[Xengre]

I haven't done this one as I'm on the DLC (finished base game last night and am part way through PL, played very hard) but have you considered...

Using a better weapon choice? For instance, Genjiroh smart pistol (with no smart perks) is what I use sometimes when loud on my normally Stealth build character which can easily take out entire groups (if you learn some smart perks it should be even better like extra target, etc.) or like a corrosive SMG, and so on?

Another option is to just system collapse everyone with Raven deck, overdrive, and hacking deck. Get the second heart, pump, and the auto heal cyberware to fascillitate abusing overdrive and also prevent you from basically popping like a balloon on very hard. This lets you often instantly KO everyone in the area due to mass RAM conversion as well as System Collapse regularly spreads to an extra target. You could also opt for Contagion (maybe even with the crit hacking iconic cyberware giving 100% crit chance, optimizer or whatever it was).

For boss type enemies and cyberpsychos (since System Collapse is bugged in 2.0 and doesn't work on them like before, or nerfed whatever the case)... You can memory wipe > Stealth (learn the relic perk that makes you drop combat mode due to camo) > then when they calm down sneak up and stealth attack (works on anyone including Adam Smasher, Oda, etc.). Blind them with the other hack if you are needing to make sure you don't fail.

[voidlanches]

Originally posted by Xengre:

I haven't done this one as I'm on the DLC (finished base game last night and am part way through PL, played very hard) but have you considered...

Using a better weapon choice? For instance, Genjiroh smart pistol (with no smart perks) is what I use sometimes when loud on my normally Stealth build character which can easily take out entire groups (if you learn some smart perks it should be even better like extra target, etc.) or like a corrosive SMG, and so on?

Another option is to just system collapse everyone with Raven deck, overdrive, and hacking deck. Get the second heart, pump, and the auto heal cyberware to fascillitate abusing overdrive and also prevent you from basically popping like a balloon on very hard. This lets you often instantly KO everyone in the area due to mass RAM conversion as well as System Collapse regularly spreads to an extra target. You could also opt for Contagion (maybe even with the crit hacking iconic cyberware giving 100% crit chance, optimizer or whatever it was).

For boss type enemies and cyberpsychos (since System Collapse is bugged in 2.0 and doesn't work on them like before, or nerfed whatever the case)... You can memory wipe > Stealth (learn the relic perk that makes you drop combat mode due to camo) > then when they calm down sneak up and stealth attack (works on anyone including Adam Smasher, Oda, etc.). Blind them with the other hack if you are needing to make sure you don't fail.

Damn man... Thanks for the tips! :D

[Chef.Crow]

If you have the Camo cyberware and have the relic perk that lets you go into stealth while in combat and has enemies lose track of you, you can have bosses just straight up lose track of you and stealth kill em, i do this when ♥♥♥♥ hits the fan and need to just take care of it asap.

[voidlanches]

Originally posted by Weed.Crow:

If you have the Camo cyberware and have the relic perk that lets you go into stealth while in combat and has enemies lose track of you, you can have bosses just straight up lose track of you and stealth kill em, i do this when ♥♥♥♥ hits the fan and need to just take care of it asap.

I didn't know that was possible, thank you by the way. :)

[w.f.schepel]

Originally posted by Weed.Crow:

If you have the Camo cyberware and have the relic perk that lets you go into stealth while in combat and has enemies lose track of you, you can have bosses just straight up lose track of you and stealth kill em, i do this when ♥♥♥♥ hits the fan and need to just take care of it asap.

oh, wow, that is very cool to know!

[Revan619]

Running a new save on the hardest difficulty leveling tech and body. Im face tanking easily. Armour is tied to cyberware, make sure you are increasing that and using cover whilst reloading.

[Silverbane7]

If you think Ribakov is an asshat, just wait till you meet the living legend that is Adam Smasher 😵
He isn't your grampa's Smasher anymore (from what I've heard, at least).

[voidlanches]

Originally posted by Silverbane7:

If you think Ribakov is an asshat, just wait till you meet the living legend that is Adam Smasher 😵
He isn't your grampa's Smasher anymore (from what I've heard, at least).

i fear for my sanity

[voidlanches]

Originally posted by Revan619:

Running a new save on the hardest difficulty leveling tech and body. Im face tanking easily. Armour is tied to cyberware, make sure you are increasing that and using cover whilst reloading.

Does armor in this mode make a difference? I kind of ignored that part of the cyberware

[Tokenn]

It took me a solid hour to beat Oda in a game a while back. I could probably have played it better but oh well...

[Revan619]

Originally posted by voidlanches:

Originally posted by Revan619:

Running a new save on the hardest difficulty leveling tech and body. Im face tanking easily. Armour is tied to cyberware, make sure you are increasing that and using cover whilst reloading.

Does armor in this mode make a difference? I kind of ignored that part of the cyberware

Makes a huge difference.

[Silverbane7]

Originally posted by voidlanches:

Originally posted by Revan619:

Running a new save on the hardest difficulty leveling tech and body. Im face tanking easily. Armour is tied to cyberware, make sure you are increasing that and using cover whilst reloading.

Does armor in this mode make a difference? I kind of ignored that part of the cyberware

There is little clothing based armour now.
Vests (like the one Johnny wears) offer a small amount.
White (+5), Green (+10), blue (+15), purple (+20) and gold (+25) are all you get with them.
Helmets (motorbike or combat type) offer ether + to melee or + to armour.

You will get your AC from the subdermal armour cyberware now.
This is why, instead of eye+ballistic coprocessor, now you also get simple white grade subdermal.
These go up in quality, same as everything else.
There's also a few others.
And many other cyberware items have or give extra armour.

(Tho, I miss the good old 'hide behind the Vend-It machine, its got 50sp' trick XD)

[Xengre]

Originally posted by voidlanches:

Originally posted by Revan619:

Running a new save on the hardest difficulty leveling tech and body. Im face tanking easily. Armour is tied to cyberware, make sure you are increasing that and using cover whilst reloading.

Does armor in this mode make a difference? I kind of ignored that part of the cyberware

Nope. It falls off pretty hard in very hard. Only good in easier difficulties unless you stack disgusting amounts of it.

More useful and less demanding to do is to simply do the three healing items trick I mentioned above that lets you both not die easily but also lets you abuse Overdrive hacking and the camo trick, (esp with the relic perk to drop combat). You can also try the blind quick hack which lets you spread blind to people and is pretty good at higher quickhack levels.

It isn't that it is bad, so to say, but that the investment required to make armor matter just a bit in very hard compared to simply getting those three cyberware and what you have to trade off for such high armor it seems way less ideal. You could even run Berserk or some cyberware instead, too. Also, armor is just weaker on very hard (but if you are playing a lower difficulty it may still be broken). Often you can just disable the enemy's weapon via weapon glitch or cripple movement/cyberware if they dash a lot and use melee (not always tho, quick hacks are definitely buggy even on enemies they sometimes work on sometimes for some bosses and very random peculiar enemy NPCs).

I've never tested the specifics but if you want armor + mitigation stacking (both of these) may very well produce outrageous results like pre-2.0 armor did, but only after you stack enough.

[Revan619]

Originally posted by Xengre:

Originally posted by voidlanches:

Does armor in this mode make a difference? I kind of ignored that part of the cyberware

Nope. It falls off pretty hard in very hard. Only good in easier difficulties unless you stack disgusting amounts of it.

More useful and less demanding to do is to simply do the three healing items trick I mentioned above that lets you both not die easily but also lets you abuse Overdrive hacking and the camo trick, (esp with the relic perk to drop combat). You can also try the blind quick hack which lets you spread blind to people and is pretty good at higher quickhack levels.

It isn't that it is bad, so to say, but that the investment required to make armor matter just a bit in very hard compared to simply getting those three cyberware and what you have to trade off for such high armor it seems way less ideal. You could even run Berserk or some cyberware instead, too. Also, armor is just weaker on very hard (but if you are playing a lower difficulty it may still be broken). Often you can just disable the enemy's weapon via weapon glitch or cripple movement/cyberware if they dash a lot and use melee (not always tho, quick hacks are definitely buggy even on enemies they sometimes work on sometimes for some bosses and very random peculiar enemy NPCs).

I've never tested the specifics but if you want armor + mitigation stacking (both of these) may very well produce outrageous results like pre-2.0 armor did, but only after you stack enough.

Which point? I just did the sun ending and I never once had to cheat health items. Or is it phantom liberty specific? Just about to fire up the point of no return save and go do that

[Silverbane7]

I think they mean using the healing cyberware items while using over clock for RAM.
If that's the case, then no, the items are not phantom liberty specific.

You can use second heart (automaticaly heals you at zero HP) biomonitor (automaticaly heals you when you drop below certain levels of hp) and heal on kill (gives small amounts of HP) to keep your health up when you use overclock to burn HP instead of RAM.

All three items of cyberware have always been in game, but going overclock was added in 2.0+

The only phantom liberty specific item in this is the optical camo Relic perks that let you drop from enemies perception if you hide and pop your optical camo, making them loose you.