First boss completely ruins the game

[Ungod]

Honestly, can we talk about that first boss? It completely ruins the game for me. It feels like I waste my time fighting it.

It constantly spawns spirits and Vendigos without opening it's bark, so I end up cycling around it without doing any damage. I wasted my whole money on shotgun fire ammo and molotovs already...

I know that there is a stealth section that brings health down to 50%, but I still get the issue of not being able to do damage and chased down by Vendigos when the fight starts at 50% health. Plus, the stealth sections takes so much time, I don't really want to do it ever again.

Is this fight currently simply bugged? How am I supposed to deal with the respawning Vendigos? I'm at the point where I just would like to skip this boss.

[TK]

Hey I don't know if my input will help but there are tentacles spread around the arena that have orbs or something attached to them that can be shot/smacked when they start to glow.
I belive that opens up the tree monster, I don't know for sure because it usually dies very fast and I never had to resort to that after full release.
I also think that if you clear the wendigos fast the tree also gives you an opening.
Maybe your fight actually is bugged somehow? I always did 50% version of the fight so I dunno if the front entrance encounter has problems.

It is problematic of course when you ran out of ammo and funds so maybe you should farm some gold nuggets or something with magpie blessing and ace of spades (found in fort) in the mines south and southwest of the map, you don't usually got to do that for long.
I recommend just using an axe and getting comfortable with smashing their heads in fast without stealth, you should get a ton of gold and teeth to sell quick and then reset vendor multiple times to stock up on premium ammo.

[Pinocchia]

tbh I passed the boss at the first time
but I did that after collecting basically everything at Ch.1

[Smug Hatterene]

No offence, but I'm kinda amazed anyone can get stuck on the chapter 1 boss. There are plant bulbs around the arena that, when shot, force the Mother of Roots to open up.

[Bankai9212]

OP the second boss ain't much better.

[Event Horizon]

Originally posted by Smug Hatterene:

No offence, but I'm kinda amazed anyone can get stuck on the chapter 1 boss.

Same, all 3 bosses are complete pushovers, really disappointing.

[suicidal bird]

I have to agree with you, I've died so often to it I have 2 curses, I hoarded a lot and got decent ammo but those ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ spirits are too much. this boss would be doable if it weren't for those spirits constantly charging you. and the fact that you have to ue silver ammo to actually kill them in time makes it so much worse. i'm out of fire ammo, out of molotovs and almost feel like i need to restart the game. I really love the game but for ♥♥♥♥ sake do the boss ruin it

[Bankai9212]

Originally posted by suicidal bird:

I have to agree with you, I've died so often to it I have 2 curses, I hoarded a lot and got decent ammo but those ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ spirits are too much. this boss would be doable if it weren't for those spirits constantly charging you. and the fact that you have to ue silver ammo to actually kill them in time makes it so much worse. i'm out of fire ammo, out of molotovs and almost feel like i need to restart the game. I really love the game but for ♥♥♥♥ sake do the boss ruin it

You don't have to use silver bullets on them, also the wendigos are way more annoying to deal with then spirits.

[Lucius Caesar]

do the stealth path to get it to half health, bring about 5 molotovs. You'll have to equip them into your quickslot while running from the spirits and might take a few hits, but you don't have to kill the spirits, if you have the clock, then even better, the game will pause when you open the inventory so you can equip the molotovs easy.
Simply throw the molotov, wait for it to stop doing damage, and throw the next one. should die in about 4 or so, use a shotgun whenenver it opens up to do some extra damage and speed things up. Just make sure you're constantly moving, do NOT stop to kill the spirits because if you take too long, the Wendigos show up, but if you focus on the tree, you'll kill it before they appear.

[Ungod]

Originally posted by Smug Hatterene:

No offence, but I'm kinda amazed anyone can get stuck on the chapter 1 boss. There are plant bulbs around the arena that, when shot, force the Mother of Roots to open up.

I have to add that I play with a controller and aiming is somewhat harder.

Neither the mechanic with the bulbs nor the intervals they open up (is it random?) is intuitive to me. In one run I cycled for minutes around without neither the tree nor the bulbs opening up.

In the end, it sounds like the boss is either too easy or too annoying for people, but I don't see anyone who actually thinks its fun, right?

[Ungod]

Originally posted by Lucius Caesar:

do the stealth path to get it to half health, bring about 5 molotovs. You'll have to equip them into your quickslot while running from the spirits and might take a few hits, but you don't have to kill the spirits, if you have the clock, then even better, the game will pause when you open the inventory so you can equip the molotovs easy.
Simply throw the molotov, wait for it to stop doing damage, and throw the next one. should die in about 4 or so, use a shotgun whenenver it opens up to do some extra damage and speed things up. Just make sure you're constantly moving, do NOT stop to kill the spirits because if you take too long, the Wendigos show up, but if you focus on the tree, you'll kill it before they appear.

I will try that. It's impossible for me to equip items in combat playing with a controller. The inventory is too clunky, unfortunately. I guess I will just try your tactic with mouse and keyboard.

[alexUnder]

Originally posted by Ungod:

Originally posted by Lucius Caesar:

do the stealth path to get it to half health, bring about 5 molotovs. You'll have to equip them into your quickslot while running from the spirits and might take a few hits, but you don't have to kill the spirits, if you have the clock, then even better, the game will pause when you open the inventory so you can equip the molotovs easy.
Simply throw the molotov, wait for it to stop doing damage, and throw the next one. should die in about 4 or so, use a shotgun whenenver it opens up to do some extra damage and speed things up. Just make sure you're constantly moving, do NOT stop to kill the spirits because if you take too long, the Wendigos show up, but if you focus on the tree, you'll kill it before they appear.

I will try that. It's impossible for me to equip items in combat playing with a controller. The inventory is too clunky, unfortunately. I guess I will just try your tactic with mouse and keyboard.

Watches artifact helps a lot. I am also clumsy. Watches stop time while in inventory and you can safely switch weapons and so on. If you don't have money then there're free watches to the right of bridge-fort-entrance. I mean if you're standing on the bridge and entrance to the fort is in front of you then take to the right by wall, and at the end of the ledge under the stone there will be free watches artifact. Crouch. They're hidden, tiny secret

[Ǵ̶͓̂͑lí̴̤̀̄́tcĥ̸]

Best way to deal with the spirit skulls honestly is to melee them. If they charge you, strafe to one side and then do a circle the opposite direction because they will try to circle around back to hit you for a second.

2 Melee hits usually always kill them. Just sprint and swing.

Wendigos are more of a pain sure, but if you do the half health thing you can often kill the boss before it even spawns its first wendigo, even with the Spirit Bow. Head shots will cause wendigos to stagger, and if you remember where their head goes before they charge you again, you can chain stagger them to the point of near stunlock. Same with their upgraded variant later in the game.

Make sure you hit the heart when it is bigger. It's not just when it's exposed, but it also expands a little bit and this is required to do damage to it (might just be the last hit but a few times I got it to one hit left and it seemed to just stop taking damage, until I saw the heart "expand" a bit and shot it and she died).

[Greedy Gnome]

I did the 1st boss, as a stealth build, without going the optional route. I would suggest a shotgun as your primary, and a pistol as your secondary. the gunslinger perk and the Glove artifact will greatly reduce your reload time. Don't bother equipping molotovs/ dynamite, stick with healing potions and bandages. If you have any buff potions or booze, drink them before hopping into the arena. a shotgun with golden buckshot will deal a YUGE amount of damage to the boss up close, and I believe incendiary ammo will ignite it too. Use the pistol to pick off spirits and bulbs. the biggest trouble is the wendigo, which will thankfully not spawn spirits. Use gold/ incendiary ammo on them as needed.

Artifacts:
1-Glove (found near a camp outside of town)
2-Dreamcatcher (+50 max stamina, no downsides. Buy it from Jim or find it in the burial grounds.)
- calumet (50% for spirits to miss) or birdman feather (stamina regen) or watch

[Jiala]

I'm a bit annoyed they took away the ability to do the first boss through the side stealth route, like completely kill it that way, and now its only bringing it down to half. But its not end of the world I guess, the boss is still doable. Just sucks they took options away from us.

[Ungod]

Thank you all for your advice. Gave me the motivation to give it another try in a day or two.

Originally posted by Jiala:

I'm a bit annoyed they took away the ability to do the first boss through the side stealth route, like completely kill it that way, and now its only bringing it down to half. But its not end of the world I guess, the boss is still doable. Just sucks they took options away from us.

I understand why they did it. 100% via stealth route would make the boss itself obsolete. In this case they could remove the boss entirely and just do an intense stealth section at the end or each chapter. But yeah, a Doom-style boss fight in a stealth focused game is weird even with 50% boss health.