What am I meant to do in the Stone Sentinel fight in the prologue ?

[Gaudron]

Hello there !

So returning player after having tried out the demo back in 2023 and wanted to see how the game had progressed. Unfortunately, I'm not able to get out of the prologue due to constantly dying on the Stone Sentinel that I feel I'm missing something or some info isn't communicated well.

- I tried fighting it at range, but it seems immune to arrows and it's rock attack is both fast and has AoE, so kills me in three or four rocks. The magic blood drain doesn't seem to work on him, which makes sense all things considered but did at least try.
- I tried going melee, but can't parry/block it, can't seem to have the range to dodge out of his fast attacks and even when I manage to get behind him, his spin attack is very fast and seems to track you ? He seems to be able to reliably kill me in 2-3 hits.
- Even using the power the tutorial tells you too doesn't seem to make a difference, I can shave maybe 15% of the boss HP before it runs out and doesn't seem to recharge fast enough to matter. I thought maybe I was supposed to use the power to get past him, since he seems so far out of our starting character's strength, but there doesn't seem to be anything behind him.
- I ran around the arena, looking for some mechanism or tools or anything really that could help, but didn't find anything of note beyond mushrooms which would surely make some Dwarfs happy.

So I'm kinda confused there. I don't seem to be given the tools to fight him, but there doesn't seem to be any other passage way but to him and it does feel like the "tutorial boss". Am I missing something ?

[Baron Sameday]

i tried killing it at range and took too much damage from those rocks, so basically both times i ended up going in and circle strafing it and using melee attacks and a fair few potions to tank the damage, i'm terrible at parrying and blocking generally so i prefer to dodge attacks then parry them
but both times i was on an archer based character with a fall back to melee when necessary both times on hard difficulty

[Balgin Stondraeg]

Originally posted by Gaudron:

- I tried going melee, but can't parry/block it, can't seem to have the range to dodge out of his fast attacks and even when I manage to get behind him, his spin attack is very fast and seems to track you ? He seems to be able to reliably kill me in 2-3 hits.

You're probably not supposed to do this but this is what worked for me.

Run in, get 2 or 3 hits in. Get hit once or twice and run away taking as little damage as possible. Hide behind the fallen rocks and masonry on either side. The timing is somewhat weird as his first ranged attack will hit you after you get behind cover as if you hadn't got behind it yet but all subsequent attacks will hit the scenery and deal no damage to you.

Drink potions to heal. You'll run out of potions. Gobble raw alchemical ingredients for very small amounts of healing until you're at full health.

Run out and hit him a few times again then run away to take cover and heal again. Repeat the pattern. After your third or fourth sally forth to make attacks you ought to get him (especially if you used the special power on one of your assaults). It is, however, so ricky that you could easily perish each time and you'll want to save every time you get into cover if you've got enough healing items and the assault didn't feel like a total failure.

You're probably supposed to take him down with ranged weapons or spells but it just feels too difficult (especially with him getting one free hit every time you try to duck back into cover after shooting an arrow at him or casting a spell). You're probably supposed to dodge his projectiles and only take cover as a last resort.

and doesn't seem to recharge fast enough to matter.

It doesn't recharge at all. You need to manually recharge it when you rest (and it uses a resort to do so). So you really only get to use it once during this fight and it makes virtually no difference at all at this stage.

This encounter probably needs some serious rebalancing before release.

[Blackcat]

If your at this boss. means you should have a bow, and a ranged spell or 2. hide behind the rocks eat some food ( you know cooking is good) drink a hp pot if needed and just keep plugging the guy.
Most people run into bosses on this game that have aoe damage never thinking they can eat a high heal food before the fight and beat em./

[Catawhompus]

Yeah I found out that burning ember works great and if you're at a mid distance with light armor you can just dash back and forth as soon as he throws his arm forward to throw the rocks at you. Never got touched.

[Lawrence]

Even on the hardest difficulty, you can hit him with a few of the bleed spell and he will go down pretty easily. You can get at least one bleed spells during the prologue.

The first several character levels are almost impossible to play as melee. You will run out of stamina and do very little damage.

Edit: His hit box is terrible though, so it may seem like spells and arrows don't work, but you're actually not hitting him. His lower torso is where you'll want to aim, I think your cross hair will turn red.

[Gaudron]

Originally posted by Lawrence:

Edit: His hit box is terrible though, so it may seem like spells and arrows don't work, but you're actually not hitting him. His lower torso is where you'll want to aim, I think your cross hair will turn red.

That's it indeed ! I was aiming at centre mass, but his hitbox seems to indeed only be on the glowy lower part of his torso. Thanks a lot !

Originally posted by Balgin Stondraeg:

This encounter probably needs some serious rebalancing before release.

Agreed, I don't mind the theme or having a boss that needs to be killed a certain way but it needs to be redone. It is way too fast and hits like a truck at a stage where you don't have the skills (both IG and IRL) and might not have the resources to brute force it (I was down to 2 healing potions because of not being great at the combat initially).

Originally posted by Blackcat:

If your at this boss. means you should have a bow, and a ranged spell or 2. hide behind the rocks eat some food ( you know cooking is good) drink a hp pot if needed and just keep plugging the guy.
Most people run into bosses on this game that have aoe damage never thinking they can eat a high heal food before the fight and beat em./

I did try shooting him, but apparently was getting trapped by his weird hitbox as Lawrence mentioned. I didn't find any high heal food before the fight (nor did I find ingredients for the healing potions ?) so they probably need to revise how the tutorial is done if you can miss important items. I did explore as much as I could, but didn't find a lockpick or the guard key, maybe that's why ?