Zanatus Mechanics on Ludicrous Difficulty

[WomboCombo]

OK, figured it out. Just follow the mechanics at the bottom of this post and Zanatus can be defeated on Turn 13.
----------------------------------------------------------
Has anyone figured out his mechanics when playing on Ludicrous? This is what I am seeing so far:

1. Starting on Turn 2, every 3 turns will spawn 16 enemy squads. Appears to be endless.
2. Zanatus heals itself.
3. Every 2 turns, starting with turn 4 or 5, Zanatus will inflict damage on many squads on the map. Sometimes I see about 10 squads get hit, sometimes I see 4 squads hit. These do not appear to be dodge-able. Low HP units can get killed from this.
4. In addition to above, he will mark spots on the ground and attack squads that stand there. These ones can be dodged by not leaving your units on it.
5. Invincibility that last 2 rounds. It then goes down for 1 round and returns immediately the next round.
6. He has insanely high HP. combined with his heal and invincibility, even if you damage him to half hp, he will put on invincibility shield then return to full hp.

I am actually not sure how to beat him on Ludicrous. Or do we just defend the base for 31 rounds? Anyone knows how the mechanics work?

----------------------------------------------------------

Update as of Sep 10, 2023 after the latest patch.
1. Enemy Spawn - This appear to happen every 3rd turn and I believe is endless.
2. Zanatus heals the claw only and healing CAN NOT be stopped
3. Zanatus will absorb minion squads on turn 4 / 7 / 10 etc. range is global. So body blocking does NOT work. Almost any absorption heals for at least 40% hp for Zanatus' claws. This practically means the claws are always healed back to full hp.
4. Big AOE attack - On turn 4 / 7 / 10, there appears to be big AOE attacks. They are not dodgeable and hit squads on the entire map.
5. Additional AOE attacks - These attacks are marked on the ground and can be dodged.
6. Purple tiles - These are hazard tiles and units on it will take damage each turn.
7. Every 3 turns, starting on turn 4, Zanatus shield goes down for 1 turn. That is your only chance to deal damage to him.
8. Dev said that Blessing power will both revive and heal units in a squad. This is intended to play a big role in Ludicrous difficulty
----------------------------------------------------------
Update again on Sep 10, 2023 after info supplied by others here
Zanatus can be defeated on turn 13, Ludicrous difficulty. Not Permadeath, Not NG+.
To do this, the mechanics for this level need to be properly understood.

1. He summon minions every 3 turns, starting from Turn 2. These minions need to be killed off, no matter the cost. If not, Zanatus will absorb them. I do not know the full consequence, but it is either massive AOE damage or Zanatus will heal himself, or both.

2. He lose invincibility for 1 turn and every 3 turns thereafter, starting with turn 4. When this happens, hit him with Field Cannons until his arms are destroyed.

3. He uses an AOE spell that hits every Nephilim squad on the map starting at turn 5 (i think) and then every 3 turns thereafter. The power of this attack may be dependent on the units he absorbed. See Pt 1 above.

4. On turn 7, his arms gets healed back to nearly full hp. The body does not heal. I do not know if this heal is preventable, but I could not prevent it.

5. On turn 10, he is vulnerable again. It seem like this time his arms do not heal or did very little healing. It may be due to I killed off all minion squads in the previous turn. On this turn, you can kill his arms off with Field Canons and Dragons. Then use all other units to attack his body.

6. On turn 13, if you killed off all minions from turn 12, then he will not be able to absorb anything. On this turn, I finished him off.

7. The purple tiles are hazards. It seems like there is a random chance that squads on the hazard tile will take damage. So avoid if possible. However, stepping on these tiles is better than a) getting hit by Zanatus' black magic or b) letting Zanatus absorb the minion or c) allow them to attack your canons.

8. The Avatar of Donar provide AOE healing each turn. Take full advantage of this trait or else you will run out of heals.

9. Have a healing squad with DIY bandage and Donari charm is great to help with sustain.

10. Donar's Blessing power will revive all dead units in a squad as well as healing for 50% hp. This can come in handy.

Screenshot at Turn 13, immediately before the final blow.
https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198147335156/screenshot/2008097643685507502/

[Dancing Dragon Games]

The upcoming patch (tonight) lowers the HP of the mooks by about 20%, should help. I do think we probably overtuned him on the hardest difficulty.

[viktorhallo]

after stomping my way through NG ludicrous permadeath without to much difficulty. i was barely able to bring him down after 3 attempts and lost 80% of my army.

1 when he spawns adds you got two turns before he consumes them. you either have to block them from getting to close to him or kill them. use exemplar with your strongest squad to cripple 1/3 of the adds he spawns.

2 he heals himself because he consumes the mobs he spawns. if you block them from getting to close to him he will not be able to consume them. ideally you should be able to kill most of the squads in two turns if not you must block them.

3 hm. i think he inflicts damage on every squad that stands close to him aka the melee squads that you attacked him with.

4 i had to stand in those to when blocking hes units

6 my squad brought him down in 3 cycles which was 8 turns in total maybe? just make sure he dont outheal your damage.

absolutely worst case scenario i do believe you can use every unit with high leadership you got and make tons of squads, and everytime you lose a squad you summon a new one at your base, i did not test if this worked tho. your powers also replentish wildly fast on this mission due to all the fighting so use them whenever you can.
i was at 20 squads at this mission. but you can probably make more and summon them at base if you lose squads, i did not test this tho.

[WomboCombo]

3 hm. i think he inflicts damage on every squad that stands close to him aka the melee squads that you attacked him with.

he hit my field canons which were at max range away from him. the dmg seem like lava floor. it appear to be fixed dmg, so more lethal to low hp units. and i dont think this "lava" is visible.

but you can probably make more and summon them at base if you lose squads, i did not test this tho.

if you lose a squad, it still counts toward you 20 limit. to replace it, you have to send it back to base while the squad has at least 1 unit alive. although why would you do that, if the temple is just right next to you?

[Pudding]

That 3. one keeps happening to me and is very weird, dealing around 100 damage to every soldiers in random squads, no way to counter it and it's extremely annoying on Ludicrous seeing how long you have to fight this boss

[Dancing Dragon Games]

Part of what's happening is that Z doesn't die on turn 1/2 anymore, so the actual mechanics are coming into play

[Pudding]

Hi Dev, could you add something that show what's happening to your squads when they take these damage during the boss fight ? Seeing 2 to 8 squads randomly taking 100 damage on everyone with no animation or aoe symbols or anything actually feel really weird

[Pudding]

Originally posted by viktorhallo:

the mobs he spawns. if you block them from getting to close to him he will not be able to consume them. ideally you should be able to kill most of the squads in two turns if not you must block them.

Actually blocking doesn't work at all, any units that stay alive is absorbed not matter how close or how far it is and 2 units that I couldn't kill because they were canons in spots I couldn't reach healed him for 40% hp

[Mithran]

For the big charge up attack, the boss is supposed to play an animation that shows a big outward energy wave and then every squad affected (everyone on the center platform except walls) will show the quick-combat version of how they are affected. For the 3x3 attack a vortex is supposed to form over the area then show quick combat damage. For the claw swipes, a claw swipe animation is supposed to play before the affected squads damage is shown in quick combat. Which if any of these is not working?

You should have glowing red tile danger indicator of where his 3x3 blast and 1x3/3x1 claw swipes are going to be targeted. But it sounds like this may be referring to the Dark Wave attack.

The purple tiles leading to the platforms where enemies spawn ARE hazard tiles and should indicate as such in-game. But it sounds like this and others are referring to the Dark Wave attack.

Dark Wave scales with number of targets absorbed (counts units still standing, not squads), so a key component of this fight on two fronts is being able to deal with them and not let them get absorbed. HP values on the minions were a bit high though, and thats why we kicked these back down a bit in the last patch.

Only the claws should be healing. They'll heal a bit each Player Phase and can be regrown on an absorb from Zanatus. The body never heals, so you never "lose progress" in the fight.

A point I don't see brought up is that the Blessing power will revive any fallen members in the target squad and heal them for 50% HP during this battle. As was brought up, Powers charge pretty quick on this map. Making smart use of your Powers is a huge part of managing this fight at any difficulty.

I've read through the posts and it sounds like the biggest a point of confusion is where the Dark Wave is getting targeted at (after pulsing purple, does a wave animation then a bunch of squads take damage), so it maybe that needs more visual clarity. We will also continue to keep an eye on the HP of the minions to make sure they aren't too frustrating to just clear out on higher difficulties.

[LanceHeart]

Dark Wave is definitely the one that caused me to scratch my head while a quarter of my army was decimated. I easily dodged the swipes & vortex attacks.

One thing, though, is that the swipes and vortex attacks are dangerously close to the enemy damage range's color if you have that tile view activated. If Dark Wave is supposed to affect everything in the middle except the walls, that may be why I kept assuming I was being attacked by some unseen force.

[Mithran]

Originally posted by LanceHeart:

Dark Wave is definitely the one that caused me to scratch my head while a quarter of my army was decimated. I easily dodged the swipes & vortex attacks.

One thing, though, is that the swipes and vortex attacks are dangerously close to the enemy damage range's color if you have that tile view activated. If Dark Wave is supposed to affect everything in the middle except the walls, that may be why I kept assuming I was being attacked by some unseen force.

Also true, thanks for your feedback.

[Pudding]

Originally posted by Mithran:

For the big charge up attack, the boss is supposed to play an animation that shows a big outward energy wave and then every squad affected (everyone on the center platform except walls) will show the quick-combat version of how they are affected. For the 3x3 attack a vortex is supposed to form over the area then show quick combat damage.

Well the thing is what damage all my army randomly is not doing that animation, actually doing none at all and targeting units that are far (into the bridges 1 or 2 square away from the spawn of the enemies), it's also touching my armies in the central platform but not all of them.

Sometimes the boss does that animation tho and then every army I have on the map take damage.

Edit: Screenshot https://steamcommunity.com/id/PuddingFromSpace/screenshot/2049755940233592058/
Most of the units on the left that are on the bridge took damage at the start of the turn with no animation from the boss, looking just the same as when Soha's blood deals damage but doing much more damage

[LanceHeart]

Those bridges are hazard tiles, as per Mithran's message before mine. All units on them will be damaged every turn regardless of what's happening with the boss or the adds.

Edit: would the fire boots artifact help with the bridges? I only ever put them on for the one map that has a challenge to avoid being damaged by hazards.

[Pudding]

Oh you're right, for some reason I missed the whole sentence he said about it, sorry for that, packed all my troops on them and couldn't understand why I was being destroyed like this
Flying units not being affected made me thing it was a random aoe damage touching some units only

[WomboCombo]

We will also continue to keep an eye on the HP of the minions to make sure they aren't too frustrating to just clear out on higher difficulties.

i dont think minion HP is the problem. i think the problems are:
1. Zanatus healing is insanely fast
2. Hes invincible most of the time
3. The respawn time between waves is too short

since Zanatus can not be killed off quickly, this becomes war of attrition. and Zanatus can replenish, both his own HP as well as replace lost minions, far faster than the Nephilim can.

i think Zanatus healing is really unnecessary, because hes already invincible 2/3rd of the time.

[Dancing Dragon Games]

Originally posted by WomboCombo:

We will also continue to keep an eye on the HP of the minions to make sure they aren't too frustrating to just clear out on higher difficulties.

i dont think minion HP is the problem. i think the problems are:
1. Zanatus healing is insanely fast
2. Hes invincible most of the time
3. The respawn time between waves is too short

since Zanatus can not be killed off quickly, this becomes war of attrition. and Zanatus can replenish, both his own HP as well as replace lost minions, far faster than the Nephilim can.

i think Zanatus healing is really unnecessary, because hes already invincible 2/3rd of the time.

Is the main body healing? It shouldn't be healing even 1hp