[Spoilers] Vainger final boss is a bit annoying

[God's Chosen Procrastinator]

Spoilers for Vainger, obviously.

Am I the only one who thinks that the final boss of Vainger is kind of... annoying? Specifically the final phase.

I wouldn't call it necessarily hard, in fact it was kind of on the easier end of endbosses, but the boss seems to be allergic to having vulnerability windows since it seems to go invincible for >20 seconds at complete random while summoning vertical lightning that deletes my shots (I prefer to keep my electric mod on the flip) and there's no clear way to actually get it to be vulnerable again other than waiting it out. Initially I thought it was tied to enemy spawning (it wasn't since it went invincible while not spawning enemies), then I thought it was tied to its neck joints (didn't seem to be the case, as destroying them just lowered the boss's head).

Is there an actual pattern to this to deal with the vulnerability or is it just the boss being a little brother and deciding that it can't be damaged for half a minute?

First phase of the fight also kind of has a similar thing going on, where its use of the ram attack is seemingly random (I haven't been able to find a pattern, but at least you can shoot it and damage it and it doesn't take that long to decide to drop its reflective status.

[sgt johnson]

I finally found the last upgrade and got the cherry yesterday and even on my second time 'round, I was still completely confused, too! I've got a knack for incorrectly assuming things are just "that way", or random, or whatever, but even so, it's hard for me to imagine what the criteria is if it doesn't just happen after X amount of time. I tried destroying the orbs it fired immediately, destroying those that were still attached before it reached full length, etc. but never did end up seeing anything that looked like it had a real connection.

I tell you, sitting there behind a line of lightning, crammed into the side of the level, trying to dodge the boss's pink circles and orbs in a space the size of a cubicle definitely made me feel like when I was a little kid, just assuming certain parts of levels in Megaman were just not supposed to be possible because I couldn't figure it out! It felt too ridiculous to actually be the right way to play!

As for the first phase, I might be able to at least offer some helpful info, at least! First, as you may know, you can always shoot the legs for damage. When it comes to the ram, I always just went with that it charges after the third volley of shots from his hand. Admittedly, I'd usually play it safe and switch up/down after the second, but that pretty much worked 100% for me. Just a lot of staying crouching, shooting, then flipping!

I definitely enjoyed Vainger, but boy, after a few hours of having to blindly hunt for the remaining three power-ups to reach 100% and get the cherry, I'm really glad to be done!