Overcoming Theseus?

[Chyllstorm]

I've reached the point where I can always get to Theseus and the Minotaur, but I have beat them ONCE in dozens of runs, and I that one run was pure luck with boons. I have never felt remotely powerful enough to handle both together, regardless of the combinations of weapons and boons I use. I've had some amazing combinations that were dusting everything else, but then the two together are so tough nothing seems to work.

I don't really feel like there's much I can do to get stronger in between rounds, as the titan blood is so rare that I have only been able to upgrade a couple weapons once or twice, and the benefits of upgrades don't seem to compensate for the massive amounts of hit points the champions have.

What can I do to more regularly compete against these two? Right now I can either kill one and lose to the second, or whittle both to half or quarter health before losing. Their attacks are so overwhelming and some nigh unavoidable that it is a bit of a sticking point.


PS- I absolutely ADORE this game, and massive kudos to the development team for such an amazing world and character interactions.

[C4RNIVOR3]

There's been a few topics about this recently; rather than reiterate points, there's some handy stuff posted here
https://steamcommunity.com/app/1145360/discussions/0/2568689796950455700/

[Beautiful Ham Sandwich]

I have two methods of dealing with them, both rely on taking out the Minotaur first.

The first method requires using the Shield. It specifically has a hammer boon called Piercing Shot, and not only does it pierce enemies and their shields like the name implies, but it turns Bull Rush into a ranged shot so you don't displace yourself. This makes fighting Theseus that much better when he's alone. Even without considering Theseus, it's probably my favorite hammer boon for the Shield anyway.

The second method, which doesn't require a specific weapon but can still be used with Shields, is the Artemis call. First step is to build up a full God Gauge, which I do by defeating the Minotaur and never using. When you get to Theseus, be passive and only get attacks while using obstacles to dodge his attacks, should be fairly simple. When you get him to half health and he gets the help from a random God, THAT is when you unload a full Artemis call, because that'll take him all the way down to 0. If you use the Call before he's halfway through, it'll just take him to half of his health and he gets his temporary invincibility. This on the other hand helps you deal with the most difficult part of the match. I do not know if Artemis' Call goes through enemy shields, but what I do know is during Theseus' first God call, his shield isn't up at all.

[Cabeça]

dash everytime one of these two atack you, be happy; this works for 100% of the game.

[dHeX ⛤]

I focus on bull and just dash behind him each time he attacks, and always dodge the spear throw, I never take on Theseus first because at half health he spams god powers and it makes fighting bull a pain

[Darth Bokeh]

I beat them for the first time tonight and went on to defeat Hades on the same run.

In a nutshell, I used the Shield, invested heavily in Athena boons and boosted the damage of my Special attack as much as I could so that I was able to do decent damage while on the run. Basically I just ran around tossing the shield to safely nuke them at a distance.

Boons and modifications that helped the most:

Athena Dash for deflection while dashing.
Athena Legendary (absorbs 1 hit every 20s) - to get this, I used her keepsake at the very start of the run and chose her boons whenever they were available. Eventually it showed up. The wiki has a diagram that shows requirements but I didn't refer to it.

Athena's Blinding Flash for the Exposed debuff

Heremes - Greatest Reflex (+1 dash for a total of 3) - this complement's Athena's Dash.

Zeus' Special - Thunder Flourish for lightning damage when tossing the shield
Zeus' Static Discharge for the Jolted debuff

Dashing Flight from the hammer - using Dash-Special increases the resulting shield toss' speed and damage.

If you use the shield and get a call that does continuous damage to nearby mobs, you can wait until the god gauge is full, do the call, and stand there blocking all hits while the call damages the minotaur (this also works for Hades).

So a no-skill way to kill them is to use Dash-Special around the arena until they're dead. If you see Theseus' crosshair on you, put a pillar between you and him. If you have Athena's Legendary, it will help reduce health loss by a lot (I didn't lose any Death Defiance charges).

I didn't get a call boon until the zone after Theseus (I got Dionysus' call), but if I did, I would have used it in that fight the way I previously described).

You don't have to use the shield for Theseus - any build in which you can nuke them with good damage while on the run with Athena's dash should kill them.

BUT if you want a good shot at winning against Hades afterwards on the first try using the same strategy, I highly recommend using the shield, as it makes some of his attacks a non-issue.

[TyresTyco]

I learned.. if you struggle.. take athena boons. Deflect on attack and dash coupled with 200+ hp is literally enough for the whole run. Everything extra just makes things faster/ even more easy.

Backstab dmg is king against them. You can kill theseus within 30 seconds if you pump up your backstab dmg high enough. Coupled with some high dmg aid like zeus.. it gets ridiculousy easy.

Most people say focus on asterius first. I say.. NO. It depends on your build. It's mostly far better to kill theseus first if you have high backstab dmg or something that just melts him fast because he is squishy and predictable. He does the most dmg with his spear attacks .. I always tend to focus on the dude who is slower and does more dmg.. and thats theseus.

In the end it doesnt really matter which one first it just gets harder once theseus uses his god aid.. thats why you need something to delete him fast after that like your own god aid.

But really.. if you struggle... take athena.. hope for more dmg stuff and hp and thats literally it.
Yes you need a lil bit timing for deflects but given by the fact how spammy everything can get.. shouldnt be that hard for most people.

[C4RNIVOR3]

Originally posted by TyresTyco:

Most people say focus on asterius first. I say.. NO. It depends on your build.

How you tackle this fight is also fairly dependent on your skill level. If you're having trouble with the fight, Theseus is just inherently easier to ignore. Theseus doesn't go after you, you just have to stay out of his melee range and pay attention to his targeting reticle. Conversely, if you choose to take out Theseus first, you will have Asterius hounding you directly the whole time because he will chase you across the arena, which only gets more difficult once you knock down Theseus's health low enough for him to use an Olympian Call.

If the fight is a struggle for you, it is objectively easier to focus your attention on Asterius on an opposing side of the ring from Theseus, that's why everyone recommends this.