Shield special attack

[The Wrinkled Dinkler]

i like the game, but i'm not very good at it. i have beat up to the second boss using the shield. i like to upgrade the special attack. i beat the first boss and second boss exclusively using the special. on one run i had an upgrade where the shield could hit up to 4 enemies and the zeus boon where the shield causes lightning to strike for 42 damage. on another run my special inflicted doom for 168 damage. is this strategy viable for progressing further or should i mix it up a little? i find ranged attacks to be a safer way to go about things as i usually get hit when i try to get close to enemies

[sobral97]

special attacks are useless in this game, with the exception of a couple of weapons
try to upgrade your main attack more

[Those Bloody Badgers]

I'd say just use what feels "right" to you at the time. One can change their opinions on the various weapons and their functions with ease. At some point I hated the bow and the rail, now I find them fantastic after some aspect upgrades and time practicing.
Although, if we're to try and strategize, such an approach may be hard to pull off on later bosses. The guardins of Elysium are a dynamic duo against whom it is hard to turtle or hide behind openings, not to speak of the futility a frontal assault is against one of them. The last barrier, well, he's even bigger trouble. Sure, he leaves more room between attacks, but combined with the skulls he summons, unless you've got the necessary DPS to deal with them quickly, Styx will find you sooner than you may think.
The bullrush on the shield provides a lot of safety and can do surprising damage with correct boons and Daedalus upgrades. I'd say that's a good bet to get acclimated to the patterns of upcoming bosses.

[The Wrinkled Dinkler]

Originally posted by sobral97:

special attacks are useless in this game, with the exception of a couple of weapons
try to upgrade your main attack more

if i can beat the first two bosses only using my special, they can't be completely useless.

[Lynfinity]

Originally posted by sobral97:

special attacks are useless in this game, with the exception of a couple of weapons

Incorrect. If we exclude the default ones (which are underwhelming), we have 18 unique Specials, and 12 of them are actually good:

- Aspect of Nemesis
- Aspect of Poseidon
- Aspect of Arthur
- Aspect of Achilies
- Aspect of Chaos
- Aspect of Zeus
- Aspect of Chiron
- Aspect of Rama
- Aspect of Talos
- Aspect of Demeter
- Aspect of Gilgamesh
- Aspect of Eris

So, like, 2/3 of the Specials are worth using. A bit too much for "Specials are useless in this game", don't you think?

[Beautiful Ham Sandwich]

The person saying this special attack is useless is wrong, especially considering they said all but a couple are useless. Honestly, that's just a straight up dumb statement.

With that said, don't rely on the shield's special. It's cool that you've did well enough to get passed the first two bosses, but it scales terribly, and if you really need the range it'd be better to practice the bow. If it works for you then that's cool, however if you do need help doing better, I'd advice not putting all your eggs in that basket. The shield special is not the best to have as your main source of damage unless you're using the aspects which I'm not sure you have available to you yet.

Also another thing, the shield throw attacking 4 more enemies sounds cool on paper, but understand that also means it comes back to you slower, which means if an enemy comes at you then there's a longer delay till your shield comes back so you can block or knock them back. I'd try avoiding it, not getting hit is more important than dealing damage, at least until you have enough of a safety net in having a lot of health and Death Defiances.

[sobral97]

Originally posted by Beautiful Ham Sandwich:

The person saying this special attack is useless is wrong, especially considering they said all but a couple are useless. Honestly, that's just a straight up dumb statement.

With that said, don't rely on the shield's special. It's cool that you've did well enough to get passed the first two bosses, but it scales terribly, and if you really need the range it'd be better to practice the bow. If it works for you then that's cool, however if you do need help doing better, I'd advice not putting all your eggs in that basket. The shield special is not the best to have as your main source of damage unless you're using the aspects which I'm not sure you have available to you yet.

Also another thing, the shield throw attacking 4 more enemies sounds cool on paper, but understand that also means it comes back to you slower, which means if an enemy comes at you then there's a longer delay till your shield comes back so you can block or knock them back. I'd try avoiding it, not getting hit is more important than dealing damage, at least until you have enough of a safety net in having a lot of health and Death Defiances.

for a starter player yeah specials are mostly useless, except Stygius and Exagryph. The guy hasnt gone past Hydra yet. Why use specials when something like dash striking with shield/stygius/eternal spear is way, way more efficient and has a lot more damage output

Specials can be good with blood aspects sure, but for stock weapons they are not worth it when you have far better alternatives

If he prefers ranged attacks he should either take the bow or try to get Daedalus for the shield, with the Charged Shot, which makes him almost invulnerable to direct shots while puting out a lot of damage, if he blocks at the right time and spams the charged shot after blocking attacks

here watch a video of a guy using charged shot

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nH3OJlA1m8

[ShadowDark3]

Specials are far from useless. They play an important part in plenty of builds. However, your special isn't usually your primary damage source. It depends heavily on which weapon you're using and which boons you manage to find to enhance your special. Also, your mileage will vary based on your play style. What other players recommend or find strong may not be the case for you.

[nullpo]

Originally posted by sobral97:

special attacks are useless in this game, with the exception of a couple of weapons
try to upgrade your main attack more

Half true. For vanilla shield yeah, the special are useless. But a lot of aspects have very useful special, even shield have aspect where the special is used (aspect of chaos).

To OP I'd say with vanilla (zagreus) shield use special just to finish dying enemies from range. The main attraction for vanilla shield is the attack for regular attack and block+bullrush. If you want ranged to complete first run personally I find the railgun to be the best. Slap zeus boon or dionysus boon for attack and you're set.

When you get aspect of chaos you can do bull rush and special.

[The Wrinkled Dinkler]

Originally posted by sobral97:

Originally posted by Beautiful Ham Sandwich:

The guy hasnt gone past Hydra yet

i beat hydra on my first try. it seemed easier than the fury to me. i have been to elysium but haven't been to the third boss yet.


the shield worked for me because of my boons. the doom damage made up for the poor base damage of the special. i could just hit them with the special a few times and dodge and it did ok damage. i'm sure there are better methods but i'm not the best at getting close, especially with the fury. i was able to keep my distance and chunk away her health with the doom damage. it was a safer option than getting close to her and using my regular attack.

[Virgil]

Specials are definitely not useless. As mentioned, it's best to typically rely on your basic attack (but use your judgment given your situation, there's no hard and fast rule other than use your head) until you get some boons to augment your build. You could make the same argument about casting, which is typically very weak anywhere but Tartarus without getting a cast boon. Even with the Mirror talent that makes enemies hit with your cast receive extra damage on subsequent hits, most enemies here die too quickly for that to be useful.

Say you're rolling with Stygius, pick up Ares and end up getting a relatively poor choice of boons, so you grab the one that augments your special. Great, now in addition to your other attacks your special inflicts Doom. So when multiple enemies close the distance, hit a quick special and dash out of there. Whatever the Doom doesn't kill will be weakened, allowing you to dash back in and slaughter them with your other attacks. Shield? Now you have an effective ranged weapon for those times when you need to put some distance up. Toss your shield out and dash away while it chain Dooms a few enemies and inflicts some respectable damage while you remain safe.

Going bow? Got Athena? Great, now your special - a wide flurry of arrows - deflects projectiles. This is arguably almost as good as the vaunted Divine Dash, as anytime an enemy fires anything at you, you have a lightning quick arrow volley to deal (very minor) damage while far more importantly, throwing their projectiles back at them. Unlike Divine Dash, the arrow volley will cover a nice wide arc and give you great coverage.

Those are just two examples off the top of my head. The game is remarkably well balanced for the most part. Not everything is as god tier as Divine Dash perhaps, but a smart player can utilize whatever they're given and come out ahead.