40 hours in and cannot beat the last boss. Any tips?

[Heavenly Peaks Purveyor]

I have a good grasp on the game, but for the life of me I cannot seem to get powerful enough to challenge and defeat the end boss. I'm loving the fact that the new items are so plentiful and have such great effects but even on the easy mode I still nearly die to early bosses (stupid twin sisters) and also chimera / joan is hit or miss.

Nothing I try seems to work as I tend to favor attack builds. The only thing I can think of is to build a pure defense / heal build. But honestly that takes the fun out of the game for me. If i wanted to be forced to play conservatively I would. I should be able to plow through enemies as a paper tiger, relying only on my skill and absolute powah if I've properly invested in the build.

Instead, every single time - get my a$$ whupped.

[Heavenly Peaks Purveyor]

Just tried, Rakasha legendary, 365% physical damage.
World Tree (insane dmg boosts) . Died to the lame archer in stage 4.
A mid-boss with HP much higher than the hero near the end. Make it make sense?

I understand wanting the player to "get good" but padding bosses with extra HP and defense so that you can't plow through them (rightfully so if you've made a really powerful build) is NOT the way.

I'm actually contemplating not playing this anymore.

[Chaoz]

If you had that high of a damage boost, along with decent items that compliment Rakasha, and lost to the ranger? I can only assume it's because you keep getting hit and losing HP. Name of the game is dodging, always. Dodge first, attack when its safe. Maybe, with your love of attack builds, you're too busy attacking that you sometimes get hit by mistake.

[Heavenly Peaks Purveyor]

Originally posted by Chaoz:

If you had that high of a damage boost, along with decent items that compliment Rakasha, and lost to the ranger? I can only assume it's because you keep getting hit and losing HP. Name of the game is dodging, always. Dodge first, attack when its safe. Maybe, with your love of attack builds, you're too busy attacking that you sometimes get hit by mistake.

That is an accurate assessment. It's more, I abandon dodging and evading altogether.

Which brings me back to my original gripe, I should be able to glass cannon if I want to, instead I'm being "forced" into a play style I didn't build for.

I'll probably tone it down and play conservatively just to beat the game but, it's honestly kind of annoying to "have" to do that.

[ZexxCrine]

Originally posted by AvidAnimeFan:

Originally posted by Chaoz:

If you had that high of a damage boost, along with decent items that compliment Rakasha, and lost to the ranger? I can only assume it's because you keep getting hit and losing HP. Name of the game is dodging, always. Dodge first, attack when its safe. Maybe, with your love of attack builds, you're too busy attacking that you sometimes get hit by mistake.

That is an accurate assessment. It's more, I abandon dodging and evading altogether.

Which brings me back to my original gripe, I should be able to glass cannon if I want to, instead I'm being "forced" into a play style I didn't build for.

I'll probably tone it down and play conservatively just to beat the game but, it's honestly kind of annoying to "have" to do that.

It’s annoying to have to dodge attacks so that your health doesn’t reach zero in a video game? Idk play ghoul or sheild if you want to just tank damage but even still you will need to build items to allow that. I’m not sure yaksha is the skull for that the damage is too low to not dodge. You would basically have to delete the boss which is fairly difficult to do in this patch.

Maybe even warrior would be more your speed? His concentrate attacks at legendary soak up damage and turn it into more damage like a parry kinda? Idk this isn’t really a mash buttons and don’t think or try to dodge game. Dynasty warriors 8XL is p good for that. Or maybe something like God Of War on the normal difficulty great games.

[Heavenly Peaks Purveyor]

Originally posted by ZexxCrine:

Originally posted by AvidAnimeFan:

That is an accurate assessment. It's more, I abandon dodging and evading altogether.

Which brings me back to my original gripe, I should be able to glass cannon if I want to, instead I'm being "forced" into a play style I didn't build for.

I'll probably tone it down and play conservatively just to beat the game but, it's honestly kind of annoying to "have" to do that.

It’s annoying to have to dodge attacks so that your health doesn’t reach zero in a video game? Idk play ghoul or sheild if you want to just tank damage but even still you will need to build items to allow that. I’m not sure yaksha is the skull for that the damage is too low to not dodge. You would basically have to delete the boss which is fairly difficult to do in this patch.

Maybe even warrior would be more your speed? His concentrate attacks at legendary soak up damage and turn it into more damage like a parry kinda? Idk this isn’t really a mash buttons and don’t think or try to dodge game. Dynasty warriors 8XL is p good for that. Or maybe something like God Of War on the normal difficulty great games.

That's not what I'm saying at all.

In many games you can build your character a certain way. If you build a character with straight damage, without regard for defenses - generally you build what's called a paper tiger. You get them before they get you.

The way this game handles bosses essentially makes that impossible, in fact, at this point I'm fairly sure that bosses are staggered in a way to try to force you to use up the one extra "life" you do get. (2nd and 4th are way too strong while 1st and 3rd aren't worth mentioning usually).

In other words, yea I could totally do the hit and run thing all day if I wanted to. But that's not what I'm building to do. I'm building to create a character that will eat through their HP bars at the expense of my own protection.

I'm fine with taking damage, its not like I want to be invincible or anything.

I just think it's weird that the game would go through so many lengths to give you various ways to build your character then completely make it impossible to play the way you want.

It's pretty counterproductive.

I don't want to be a thief class, I want to be a berserker.

[ZexxCrine]

Originally posted by AvidAnimeFan:

Originally posted by ZexxCrine:

It’s annoying to have to dodge attacks so that your health doesn’t reach zero in a video game? Idk play ghoul or sheild if you want to just tank damage but even still you will need to build items to allow that. I’m not sure yaksha is the skull for that the damage is too low to not dodge. You would basically have to delete the boss which is fairly difficult to do in this patch.

Maybe even warrior would be more your speed? His concentrate attacks at legendary soak up damage and turn it into more damage like a parry kinda? Idk this isn’t really a mash buttons and don’t think or try to dodge game. Dynasty warriors 8XL is p good for that. Or maybe something like God Of War on the normal difficulty great games.

That's not what I'm saying at all.

In many games you can build your character a certain way. If you build a character with straight damage, without regard for defenses - generally you build what's called a paper tiger. You get them before they get you.

The way this game handles bosses essentially makes that impossible, in fact, at this point I'm fairly sure that bosses are staggered in a way to try to force you to use up the one extra "life" you do get. (2nd and 4th are way too strong while 1st and 3rd aren't worth mentioning usually).

In other words, yea I could totally do the hit and run thing all day if I wanted to. But that's not what I'm building to do. I'm building to create a character that will eat through their HP bars at the expense of my own protection.

I'm fine with taking damage, its not like I want to be invincible or anything.

I just think it's weird that the game would go through so many lengths to give you various ways to build your character then completely make it impossible to play the way you want.

It's pretty counterproductive.

I don't want to be a thief class, I want to be a berserker. :happy_yeti:

That is not true. You just failed to build it. That’s the issue. As a rougelike rng does play a factor. You can make a build that does a lot of damage so much so that you can afford to take a bunch of damage. But you have to get those items to do it. The rougelike genre defines itself on creating a challenge for the player by what they happened to find. Maybe you got a crazy overpowered build that just wrecks shop and you can just apply face to keyboard and win, but if not it is up to you the player to adjust what you are doing if that isn’t the case. it sounds like you want a build based rpg and not a rougelike.

[Heavenly Peaks Purveyor]

Originally posted by ZexxCrine:

Originally posted by AvidAnimeFan:

That's not what I'm saying at all.

In many games you can build your character a certain way. If you build a character with straight damage, without regard for defenses - generally you build what's called a paper tiger. You get them before they get you.

The way this game handles bosses essentially makes that impossible, in fact, at this point I'm fairly sure that bosses are staggered in a way to try to force you to use up the one extra "life" you do get. (2nd and 4th are way too strong while 1st and 3rd aren't worth mentioning usually).

In other words, yea I could totally do the hit and run thing all day if I wanted to. But that's not what I'm building to do. I'm building to create a character that will eat through their HP bars at the expense of my own protection.

I'm fine with taking damage, its not like I want to be invincible or anything.

I just think it's weird that the game would go through so many lengths to give you various ways to build your character then completely make it impossible to play the way you want.

It's pretty counterproductive.

I don't want to be a thief class, I want to be a berserker.

That is not true. You just failed to build it. That’s the issue. As a rougelike rng does play a factor. You can make a build that does a lot of damage so much so that you can afford to take a bunch of damage. But you have to get those items to do it. The rougelike genre defines itself on creating a challenge for the player by what they happened to find. Maybe you got a crazy overpowered build that just wrecks shop and you can just apply face to keyboard and win, but if not it is up to you the player to adjust what you are doing if that isn’t the case. it sounds like you want a build based rpg and not a rougelike.

It is *not* that I failed to create a build that does a ton of damage. I just made a build that dealt 400% damage outright, + there were damage buffs, bonuses, etc.

Realistically speaking, I could have gotten it higher (closer to 500%, or 600%) but I even had an item that boosted the damage to 1000% periodically.

The game itself is built to negate playing the way you want to, by forcing you to adopt a play style that you simply may not be good at (or even want to do).

I *know* you can win every fight through patience and diligence. That's simply not my preference. I always favor attack builds, even at the cost of mutually assured destruction.

If there were attack items that halved my HP and boosted my damage by 200% or 300%, I'd absolutely take them EVERY single time and I would have no gripes.

Likewise, if there was an item that boosted damage by 200-300% and caused me to take INCREASED damage, once again I'd take them every single time and have 0 regrets.

I know this, because I do it on virtually every other roguelite game I've played.
Between them all, at least 1,200 to 1,300 hours logged and never have I had an issue about dying hundreds of times.

Do you know why? Because I'm able to play the way I want and actually succeed.

This game purposely balances itself to 1) Steal your only 1-time revive periodically. This is most noticable at the Armored Sisters (before you've even had a proper change to build the attack OR defense needed to win a battle of attrition and whittle down not 1,000, not 2,000 but almost 5,000 hp's worth of damage between the both of them. You can mange that down to 3,000 hp if you weaken both prior to killing them, but good luck HP bar. I know this is a problem and a persistent one, because the devs are aware of it and simply refuse to fix it. They keep calling it "re-balancing" but the reality is, it's put there to purposely push you to lose the revive that you do have at that point.

Same with the Chimera boss. Tanky, regardless of your attack power most times, attacks that suck you into damage - sometimes with no perceivable or possible way to even avoid them due to the randomness of the attacks - all designed to force you to lose your 1-up at that point.

The rest of the bosses ALL have clear attack patterns that you can easily learn and counter if you put the effort in.

That assumes you don't end up dying before you get to them, because enemies HP also rises signifiicantly as you progress as well. With said 400% damage, 1 legendary skull and 1 maxed out skull you'd *think* that I'd be able to clear 20-30+ mobs they throw at you in seconds - but wrong again.

By the time you actually reach the boss, between sparse shops (and therefore no opportunity to heal) , or when you do heal (a measly 20-30%, 50% if you're lucky) via the shop - you're already battered with no extra life against a mini-boss, once again, designed to overwhelm you specifically at a time when you're already weakened (all in order to-once again, destroy the precious 1-up you may or may not be possessing).

The problem isn't that I need to get better, the problem isn't that I don't recognize how to defeat the bosses.

The problem is that, like I said, I built a character who should be able to deal with the bosses in short order and the game itself says "nope" then tries to force me into playing that doesn't support my character build.

There's no perceivable reason that this should occur other than the devs are simply ignoring their players and forcing them to play the way they "intended", which imo defeats the purpose. Don't call it a roguelite or RNG style game if there really is no randomness or freedom to build and play you want - as that is a staple of the genre..

I honestly just uninstalled it, and probably won't play anymore until they fix this glaring problem (that has, been mentioned before several times apparently, now that I look around the discussion board).

More power to you though and I hope you enjoy your play time.

[ZexxCrine]

400% is not enough. You don’t want to get better at the game. That’s fine. You don’t blame the game because you are bad at it especially when you acknowledge that you can and should get better. What weird mental gymnastics you must do to claim that even though you know how to get better and how to succeed that you shouldn’t do it and it’s the game’s fault that you haven’t beaten it without getting better. That’s wild.

[Heavenly Peaks Purveyor]

Originally posted by ZexxCrine:

400% is not enough.

Yes. I'm 100% aware 400% is not enough.

As I also stated, depending on the situation, my attack went as high as 1000% in some cases.

Didn't do much good.

[Heavenly Peaks Purveyor]

Originally posted by ZexxCrine:

400% is not enough.

Also, your statement kind of supports my point.

If you need to have a mandatory amount of attack power to put a serious dent in a boss' HP bar, then it means they are purposely forcing you to invest in honing your ability to play dodgeball.

Secondly, even if I acquire all physical damage boosters I find in a single run, I have yet to boost it further than 500 at most by default. If you can personally show me where you've gotten it higher I may be more receptive to what you're saying.

But in one run I know for a fact I was averaging 700-900% under some circumstances and it did absolutely no good.

[ZexxCrine]

Originally posted by AvidAnimeFan:

Originally posted by ZexxCrine:

400% is not enough.

Also, your statement kind of supports my point.

If you need to have a mandatory amount of attack power to put a serious dent in a boss' HP bar, then it means they are purposely forcing you to invest in honing your ability to play dodgeball.

Secondly, even if I acquire all physical damage boosters I find in a single run, I have yet to boost it further than 500 at most by default. If you can personally show me where you've gotten it higher I may be more receptive to what you're saying.

But in one run I know for a fact I was averaging 700-900% under some circumstances and it did absolutely no good.

That’s not true but you don’t want to hear it. Your unwillingness to change or learn has blinded you from reality and warped your stance so that it can’t possibly be your fault. Your just bad at the game, if you are losing your revive around act 2 you are just bad at the game. I’ve made it through runs with both lives intact on this new patch where I’m learning just like everyone else due to this flood of completely new and retooled items. I must be a god gamer. No no I must be a no life professional skul player. No wait I must take hours to finish runs. Can’t wait to hear the crazy excuse as to why I can beat the game sub 50 minutes with less than 400% power. Should be good.

[Chaoz]

Originally posted by AvidAnimeFan:

Originally posted by Chaoz:

If you had that high of a damage boost, along with decent items that compliment Rakasha, and lost to the ranger? I can only assume it's because you keep getting hit and losing HP. Name of the game is dodging, always. Dodge first, attack when its safe. Maybe, with your love of attack builds, you're too busy attacking that you sometimes get hit by mistake.

Which brings me back to my original gripe, I should be able to glass cannon if I want to, instead I'm being "forced" into a play style I didn't build for.

The very definition of "glass cannon" means you CANNOT get hit, so you just refusing to dodge will inevitably lead to a quick death. If you want to avoid dodging so badly, go for a Ghoul build, that dude is supreme at face tanking even without inscriptions.

[Scorch109]

Paper tiger means something that looks intimidating and strong, but is actually very weak.

You can glass cannon the game on some skulls with enough damage to burst through stuff before it can respond. Yaksha is not one of them Yaksha even with extreme damage items isn't a super high damage skull, and is far more about planning and methodical playing with dropping a field. not sure since the patch since I haven't gotten it but a flame alchemist with gunpowder used to let you roll face on keyboard and instakill bosses. or one shotting bosses as samurai/warrior.

[DP9A]

Originally posted by AvidAnimeFan:

Originally posted by Chaoz:

If you had that high of a damage boost, along with decent items that compliment Rakasha, and lost to the ranger? I can only assume it's because you keep getting hit and losing HP. Name of the game is dodging, always. Dodge first, attack when its safe. Maybe, with your love of attack builds, you're too busy attacking that you sometimes get hit by mistake.

That is an accurate assessment. It's more, I abandon dodging and evading altogether.

Which brings me back to my original gripe, I should be able to glass cannon if I want to, instead I'm being "forced" into a play style I didn't build for.

I'll probably tone it down and play conservatively just to beat the game but, it's honestly kind of annoying to "have" to do that.

A glass cannon means you can't take much damage, you're building for the wrong playstyle with the wrong Skul. What do you think glass cannon means?

[Kenshiro]

As someone who earned all of the achievements for the game (took me about 100 hours, but I still got it done), you should start thinking about invulnerability frames, skills, skulls, items, and how to chain them together. You'll have runs you'll need to give up on because you just didn't get the right combinations. That's just a sad fact. Also, learning the attack patterns and hit boxes are an absolute must.
There isn't a time limit here so you can play it nice and slow and abuse cooldowns off-screen if you need to for maps leading up to bosses for the most HP you can have at them.
If you get to a boss, literately just focus on not attacking, but dodging. Dodge the entire time and see how long you can survive doing that alone. That's what I had to do for Joan and the final boss to finally get the hitless runs I needed for those sweet sweet achievements.

As far as the bosses go (especially the final boss) you really need to exploit some type of invulnerability and learn exactly where his hitboxes are and what attack is coming. Luckily all of his powerful moves are telegraphed well enough for you to prepare your strategy.
If you come in to it trying to faceroll everything you won't beat the game or get the hardest achievements.