Why isn´t the Vavakia Vanguard ruling everything? *spoiler*

[Don Cool]

He is by far the toughest mob in the game, no comparison, insane resistances, bypasses all fear immunities and hits like a truck on steroids plus a full HP rez once you get through his HP. Talking about the one in the Laughing Cave.

Thankfully due to spamming Mass Heal from Daeran, quick rezzes from Aivu and that Azata DD ability I got him down but I only had my main character alive at one point, ended that fight with everyone alive thanks to Aivu. I just had to rely on crits in the end, ran out of offensive spells but he pretty much saved all attempts at direct damage spells.

Don´t have anyone with much in terms of necromancy, could perhaps have helped, don´t remember all the Vakavia´s resistances though. He is by far the most dangerous mob in the game and could probably have soloed the entire game on his own.

[belangf]

Originally posted by Lefurtif126:

But if you have Ember in your party you can easily bypass his Spell resistance with fire damages. Or with any other offensive spellcaster in your party. :cleancake:

Whenever I fought a dragon in my current playthrough, Ember one-shotted them with a hellfire crit. I'm looking forward to that Vavakia because everything so far in act 5 has been way too easy compared to the previous acts.

[LArc7thHeaven]

Monk really shines with most enemy with their crushing blow feat. Legend monk with +10 wisdom modifier equals -10 AC really underrated feat

[Gorwe]

There are so many ways Casters can trivialize VaVanguard(and his ilk - Blightmaw can simply be Dismissed, for example). I'm just interested whether Dismissal works on the one near Threshold. Leave everything rest to the superbuffed Martials.

With that said, his Fear Aura should really get fixed. Flatout bypassing Immunities is a big no-no.

[Mesond]

Originally posted by Don:

Most optional side bosses in other games follow the rules

Bahamut in FF is a tough side boss that can kill you in ONE hit.

This game has a random encounter I got stuck on on story mode (the only time I struggled). Some demon with 3 snake things or something. Act 5.

Halo has invisible flood in CE.

Fire Emblem had side bosses that are going to be uphill more then ever (older versions).

The whole point of an optional out of the way side boss is to BREAK the rules and see if the player can win. I can list countless other games that do this. They will not do what you expect. Most of the time it seems to be beatable if the player can focus.

That's if it's those "Super had to find/unlock" bosses though. Not "A side quest plainly in your face". In this game the role of that super hard to find boss is a sprinx in Nenio's side quest. Which is a pain to do. Not because the boss itself is hard (it is) but because there's so much puzzle solving and having to gather 4 masks in different places across the crusades map. Which themselves are locked behind puzzles that can easily be missed. It can be even harder to find then the 6 moonbolt ascension ending if you're not aware of it (hold onto those btw. Only use on demon lords. You get a blood drop out of it).

At least now you have a challlenge for after you do that one.

[BlueBangkok]

On some level I sort of understand Owlcat's dilemma. By the late game, the player's party is ludicrously powerful to the point where they're immune to virtually every single status ailment (with buffs) and can dish out apocalyptic levels of damage in a very short amount of time. How do you design encounters around that level of power and make them even remotely challenging?

You do what you can to not put players in that situation as game designer. And, if you do, you do your best to not keep players on that level of power for too long (hours tops instead of dozens of hours here in wotr).

And the most ridiculous thing out of all of this: neither the insane stat bloat nor its blatant breaking of game rules will help the Vavakia Vanguard. It will still get easily slaughtered by a well built party. So, the only thing you are really left with as a player is useless loot and a "wtf was that" feeling of utter ridiculousness, once you realize that this thing could have solo'd Deskari, Baphomet, and Areelu at the same time.

These optional bosses in WotR do not merely break the game rules. That's not really a problem - enemy spellcasters insta-buffing at the start of the fight are also breaking the rules. But encounters like the vavakia vanguard are breaking the authenticity of the game world.

[Gorwe]

While we are at it, why is Vavakia VANGUARD with Darazzand? Sometimes I think it's supposed to be something else because it steals the spotlight from Dar, from Areelu. Vanguard should be a 100% optional boss, everything else should be just your standard scaled Vavakia.

[seeker1]

Player enters final room of Threshold dungeon.

"Hello, [Player]! I bet you thought Areelu Vorlesh was the boss of this expansion since her face is all over all the artwork!

No! It is I, nameless Vavakia Vanguard! I rule EVERYTHING! I created you, I opened the Worldwound, I am the ruler of all! MUAHAHAHA!"

The real secret ending? If you found the right secret item, VV teleports you to WotR's secret cow level.

[darkholyPL]

Originally posted by Don:

Most optional side bosses in other games follow the rules, this one doesn´t.

I would argue that most optional bosses do NOT follow the rules.
The whole Final Fantasy series is full of them. They not only not follow the rules, but are almost always way more powerfull than the final boss. Pretty sure Ruby Weapon didn't follow any rules and was way more powerfull than Sephy, in FF7.

[rumpelstiltskin]

maybe vava does rule everything. he just placed some figureheads as nominal leaders to take the fall in case things go south.

[Aliceskysareblue]

Originally posted by Casual Encounters:

The Vavakia Vanguard is right up there with the Mythic Carnivorous Crystal (which I just gave up on) as pretty much the most absurdly difficult encounter in the game. On some level I sort of understand Owlcat's dilemma. By the late game, the player's party is ludicrously powerful to the point where they're immune to virtually every single status ailment (with buffs) and can dish out apocalyptic levels of damage in a very short amount of time. How do you design encounters around that level of power and make them even remotely challenging?

I don't actually know the answer to that, but it probably shouldn't be to have the monsters just outright break the rules as they are stated in the game. If a buff says "immune to fear" it should actually mean immune to fear. Having your roided out late game characters become useless against this one giga-mob without any real chance of making their saves isn't fun or a challenge, it's just annoying. I need to kill this ♥♥♥♥♥♥ in the Laughing Caves to get the puzzle pieces because I would like to finish the associated quests. I don't really want to come up with some stupid contrivance of a strategy to cheesedick my way through an encounter that I should be steamrolling, both rule and lore-wise.

yeah I ended up going on story mofe with mythic carnivarous crystal, they were really annoying in act 4 and I didnt have anyone sonic spells to use against it.

Im currently in act 5, and yeah.... I wish they had done a closted beta on it, while I still enjoy the game, the quality drop is noticable, they really needed feed back on balancing the game at this point.

ive hear a lot about the vanguard, not looking forward to that fight lol

[Myrmicus]

Story and gameplay segregation, my friend.
The simple fact that you can take monk levels after character creation is another symptom. Storywise, Monk has traditions and years of training, which is why it requires you to be loyal to take monk levels. But it makes no sense for you to suddenly know those traditions and and techniques as you level up.

If we would to strictly adhere to the story, some class make very little sense : how can you be a Hellknight (prestige class) without being a Hellknight (Regill tells you it's not possible right away if you ask him) ?

Other things... Nocticula can one-shot a Demon Lord, but from a gameplay perspective, that's not how Nocticula fight : she rains down bolts on your party... bolts that can one-shot you, but not a 1000HP Demon Lord.

Furthermore, the Vavakian Vanguard is just a Vavakian and not a Demon Lord.

[Combat Wombat]

Balancing difficulty is not as easy as many people seem to think it is. With a game as large as P:WotR it may be nigh impossible. One reason I rarely do open world games, they just have a lot of problems slip through because there is so much to do.

Games with a small scale are my normal purchases, easier to play everything before my attention span times out. I am a sucker for a good story-line, however.

[Don Cool]

Originally posted by Combat Wombat:

Balancing difficulty is not as easy as many people seem to think it is. With a game as large as P:WotR it may be nigh impossible. One reason I rarely do open world games, they just have a lot of problems slip through because there is so much to do.

Games with a small scale are my normal purchases, easier to play everything before my attention span times out. I am a sucker for a good story-line, however.

You are absolutely right, the RP´er who places emphasis on bringing the characters he likes into his party and never min/maxes is usually at huge disadvantage unless he strikes lucky with the composition.

I never min/max, I actually hate it, I just pick stuff along the way which seems sensible and try to balance out the composition of the party, other than that I just bring characters which I like.

Then there are those who spend their time to build the strongest possible party and they will often complain about the game being too easy.

[belangf]

Originally posted by Taramafor:

This game has a random encounter I got stuck on on story mode (the only time I struggled). Some demon with 3 snake things or something. Act 5.

I guess that was the minotaur with the 3 Crag Linnorms. I found it easy on normal (but I was lv 20). However you need cold iron weapons or some instant kill spells like Phantasmal Killer to kill them for good.

The VV in the Laughing Caves was the only real challenge so far in act 5 for me. Took me about 3 tries. My strategy is:
-cook Demon Slayer Soup for +3 hit and damage
-attack first to get a surprise round.
-have fairy dragon with aura of fear so all the other demons run away.
-blast with hellfire and Instrument of Freedom

Also I met Jubilost and he gave me a gold toad, which is nice.

[PuppYofDOOM]

Just one shot him twice ina row.