Needle Knight Leda fight is unreasonably tough.

[Royale]

Before any of you say get good, I've probably played more than you. With this post I aim to be as objective as possible.

To preface, rarely has difficulty been an issue for me in this game. The only boss I struggled was the elden beast and that's the final boss, it should be that hard. This said, after fighting many of the shadowland bosses, I have an issue with the Leda fight.

For being npcs, they each take about as many hits as a dragon to kill. They aren't even that dangerous, they're just so fracking durable because each of the 4 enemies has 3 dragons worth of HP. That's 12 dragons worth of damage I have to do unless I have a dedicated squad all using meta builds who can burst them down in time.

I've only done this 3 times now but I get the feeling this fight may be harder than the elden beast because 12 dragons worth of sponge. This feels unreasonable to me.

I haven't done the math but if anyone would like to, I'd be interested to see if my guesstimation is right. When something is this difficult is because the math is off. Was the same with timing in DS2.

[Todd Howard]

Go fight lamenter first, if you want tough bosses. That boss has an actual full hp one shot no matter which scadu lvl you are on.

[CourtesyFlush09]

Doing the side quests of the associated characters drastically lowers the difficulty of the fight. Honestly, it's probably the most memorable part of the DLC for me. Incredibly well executed if you take the time to explore beforehand.

[Persona Au Gratin]

Giant Hunt has typically trivialized NPC style fights/invaders for me and I suspect that Leda isn't going to be much different.

[rabureta]

Great Stars, Wild Strikes, killed everyone before the next NPC could spawn in on NG+.
It's just a standard NPC battle.

[Pillagius]

When NPCs involved - From usually is very ♥♥♥♥♥♥, especially HP scaling...

But here you have a few things:
You can have Moore, shield guy removed by telling him to be sad forever, once Miquella's rune is shattered.
You can get rid of Hornsworn by invading him earlier into the story, or summoning him to Mesmer fight.

Also you can have a few summons of your own:
Ansbach you can summon to help you, after giving him a scroll from the storage area before Mesmer.
Theolier you can summon to help you, after going through his questline pursuing St. Trina (at very South-West point of the map, go down and through the coffin area, kill easy boss, lots of dying and talking).
I've seen people have "Sanguine Noble" summon, but dunno how to get it. Maybe it's an Ansbach substitute.

Redmane Freyja... I've screwed her questline and she never appeared at that fight...

[Lahoo Eckbert]

Originally posted by Royale:

Before any of you say get good, I've probably played more than you. With this post I aim to be as objective as possible.

To preface, rarely has difficulty been an issue for me in this game. The only boss I struggled was the elden beast and that's the final boss, it should be that hard. This said, after fighting many of the shadowland bosses, I have an issue with the Leda fight.

For being npcs, they each take about as many hits as a dragon to kill. They aren't even that dangerous, they're just so fracking durable because each of the 4 enemies has 3 dragons worth of HP. That's 12 dragons worth of damage I have to do unless I have a dedicated squad all using meta builds who can burst them down in time.

I've only done this 3 times now but I get the feeling this fight may be harder than the elden beast because 12 dragons worth of sponge. This feels unreasonable to me.

I haven't done the math but if anyone would like to, I'd be interested to see if my guesstimation is right. When something is this difficult is because the math is off. Was the same with timing in DS2.

Yeah man that fight was ass. I had to fight 5 NPC's now I killed the first 2(Redmayne and Hornsent) but the other 3(Leda, Dryleaf and Moore) who appear right after were pretty hard. I summoned a mimic and they usually just ignore him and go after you. They input read and roll most of your attacks. Moore spams rot pots, it's a total cluster ♥♥♥♥. I did like 10-15 attempts or more.

Originally posted by Senki:

if you do some quests you can summon 2 npcs to help you in that fight, if you didn't you can still use the spirit summons tho

I think the fight is fine and probably one of the best moments of the dlc

I didn't have anyone to summon. Maybe I missed it but, at that point I helped Leda kill Ansbach, and the only person available was Thoilier but not even sure.

[靐]

I know I know this post is kinda old but this is the best fight from all DLC for me. Bleed build absolutely demolish these guys in no time (at least it was at ng+2). Summon helper dude and mimic if you want (or even skip them if you are git gud) and kill first guy. Even without summons scarlet rot spear / sword with bleed infusion just annihilates first guy even before others can spawn. Then target Leda cuz that Kung Fu Panda guy is super annoying to 1v1 and Leda is ez. Moore can be annoying too but scarlet rot + bleed, again, kills him in no time. Yep, strength builds may be a pain here.

[Shady_Milkman]

I didn't even get to fight her because I beat Messmer too early. Sometimes I hate that about From games.

[Royale]

Originally posted by Shen:

playtime doesn’t equate to skill. git gud 4head. hope this helps!

You play Destiny 2, respect yourself more.

[An Irate Walrus]

I dunno, man. If you've finished certain quest lines, the game hands you every tool you need to make that fight manageable.

[Royale]

Originally posted by An Irate Walrus:

I dunno, man. If you've finished certain quest lines, the game hands you every tool you need to make that fight manageable.

My post was about why I think this fight is objectively unbalanced and I still stand by that because the health pools are insane for player type npcs. Overall the fight took me 4 tries to beat and it was with the exact strategy i described, blitz them all down one at a time with meta builds before they can heal.

[Chaos Epoch]

The DLC isn't that hard if you combo a no skill ash of war greatshield with any old neato L2 weapon.

[Royale]

Originally posted by Chaos Epoch:

The DLC isn't that hard if you combo a no skill ash of war greatshield with any old neato L2 weapon.

Indeed, and it's also not so bad if you just hit them and don't get hit, but that analysis is so shallow it's a joke.

[EagleWiz]

As much as I think summoning makes the experience in most boss fights worse (usually you just need to really learn the boss's attacks and openings, and once you do that it's a reasonable matter of execution - summons make it a lot more of a DPS race and make learning the boss slower IME), having fought them the "correct" way it's really not worth it.

They're not THAT difficult, you need to burst down the first two or use a really powerful PVP build and then just kite around the last few survivors taking openings when they give you them - but I can't pretend that's very fun or is much of a skill check. They're basically just NPC invaders trying to 3v1 you, and evening the odds probably makes that a lot less painful.

[Figs]

What worked for me:

https://youtu.be/4hq_fmT0pwE

Summon any friends you can.

Rush the gladiator lady, she'll probably still be alive when hornsest adds.

Kill hornsent, he can decimate your NPC helpers as much as you if he does his full WA combo.

Gladiator lady should be about dead or dead.

Move away from an engaged helper if they're winning.

Green shield man - dodge the rot pots, otherwise leave him alone. He's relatively low threat.

Dry leaf dane can very kill you. His ring of light is very strong. Kill him.

Stay away from leda while doing this.

Kill leda.

Kill green man.

It won't go like that, because it's very dynamic.

One of the best dlc fights I thought, something different and like multiplayer.