Nicholaus the Fallen might kill this game for me...

[Arthur]

This guy is beyond absurd, Full Merciless in every slot and it takes him like 4 hits to kill and he summons 20 adds every few seconds. He clearly isn't balanced for Act 1

[Peter Panzy]

So many try-hards trying to make themselves look better than they are by ego-chest pounding at the expense of a new player

Need a update OP, did you get him finally ???

[Fauxsteel]

Originally posted by Peter Panzy:

So many try-hards trying to make themselves look better than they are by ego-chest pounding at the expense of a new player

Need a update OP, did you get him finally ???

there's no ego. He's incredibly easy compared to any of the difficult bosses. This game is incredibly easy until the farmlands - even then some of them are easy fights.

[Shazbot]

Originally posted by Peter Panzy:

So many try-hards trying to make themselves look better than they are by ego-chest pounding at the expense of a new player

Need a update OP, did you get him finally ???

The guy comes in here...... says a boss "Absurd" and makes hilarious claims like "The Boss spawns 20 adds every few seconds...."

First off..... no he doesn't he spawns 3 adds 2 close range 1 ranged every so often.... they are easy to kill with low life and honestly not that big a deal.

The boss shoots a projectile that aoe bursts on impact..... and then his BIG telegraphed attack that shots out multiple slow moving zig-zag skulls.....

THEN when he is low life he will spawn a burst of adds.... like 10 or so that will chase you around......

Here is the crux of the matter...... ALMOST ALL OF THIS can be overcome by simply running in a big square around the top platform......

The spells you pick don't matter so much honestly..... like you can do it with just about any ranged attacking spell.

Top that off with the fact that every boss now drops 3 health orbs at half life..... you pretty much have to TRY to fail this boss after knowing those basics.

It is one thing to argue about a boss having some type of unfair mechanic..... but we live in a day where games like Elden Ring exist....a game that for all intensive purposes prides itself on killing with OP unfair mechanics....... tell you LEARN <--- how the fight works.....

That is what I feel the OPs biggest hindrance is, not the game, not the boss, not even the mechanics..... but his lack of understanding of said mechanics that he deems so unfair.

I am willing to listen to a well thought out complaint..... that isn't what this is. This is just your run of the mill. "I'm not that good at the game, so clearly the game is broken" complaint.

[NineChameleon]

Originally posted by Shazbot:

You can use ANY SPELL setup you want, because in the end what will win this fight is knowledge.... not gear or skills.

Learn the fight, then come back and apologize for being dramatic.

This for pretty much everything in the game. It's not what spells or weapons you use. It's knowledge. Knowledge of their moves and knowledge of what you ARE using to make the most of it.

I'm currently running a full illusion spell loadout and when I first played I never would've thought it viable. But once you get out of the "x, y, z is strong" mindset and accept that you need to play differently with different weapons or spells. Then the game really opens up.

Knowledge will get you the win every time. (And being level appropriate, but I'm guessing you are if you're in merciless.)

Hit adds with any splash damage, otherwise ignore. When he teleports his voice line will tell you what he's doing. Most of his attacks have readable windups.

A tip for every boss is to listen to those voicelines. It will 1000000% tell you what they are doing. Especially for the non-gloomrot bosses.

[Shazbot]

Originally posted by NineChameleon:

Originally posted by Shazbot:

You can use ANY SPELL setup you want, because in the end what will win this fight is knowledge.... not gear or skills.

Learn the fight, then come back and apologize for being dramatic.

A tip for every boss is to listen to those voicelines. It will 1000000% tell you what they are doing. Especially for the non-gloomrot bosses.

This is some very VERY sound advice, Animation Telegraphs and Audio Telegraphs are going to be you 2 largest advantages to know what to expect.

[NineChameleon]

Originally posted by Shazbot:

This is some very VERY sound advice, Animation Telegraphs and Audio Telegraphs are going to be you 2 largest advantages to know what to expect.

Actually even the gloomrot bosses have audio telegraphs. I was just thinking about the engineer boss and I remember they have lines for when their "I'm flying and dropping aoes everywhere" Phase is about to end. And the dancer has a line when she's about to pull you in.

[Fauxsteel]

Originally posted by Shazbot:

Originally posted by NineChameleon:

A tip for every boss is to listen to those voicelines. It will 1000000% tell you what they are doing. Especially for the non-gloomrot bosses.

This is some very VERY sound advice, Animation Telegraphs and Audio Telegraphs are going to be you 2 largest advantages to know what to expect.

hah.. 'sound' advice.

[Peter Panzy]

Originally posted by Fauxsteel:

Originally posted by Peter Panzy:

So many try-hards trying to make themselves look better than they are by ego-chest pounding at the expense of a new player

Need a update OP, did you get him finally ???

there's no ego. He's incredibly easy compared to any of the difficult bosses. This game is incredibly easy until the farmlands - even then some of them are easy fights.

I didn't think i would have to say this... but, in life.. what is easy for one person is hard for another. So when someone is clearly aggravated and having a hard go at something and asking for help, it might be cause they are not a big time gamer or this isn't the genre they are used to....

I play alot of darksouls and FPS shooters on hardest mode first time shot... so i'm pretty good at mechanical boss fights.. I don't expect everyone to be at that level and i'm more than willing to help someone out to get there

[Arthur]

This post is still blowing up, but TL:DR he's dead by this point. I'm into Act 2. My entire point is he isn't balanced compared to the others. The rest of act 1 was simple, he had a spike that didn't fit with act 1. He feels more like an act 2 boss and even then some act 2 bosses were easier than him. Tristan was a walk in the park and in terms of add spam bosses the girl you get the Study from is easier than Nicholus.

[parent child bowl]

I consider Tristan to be harder than Nicholaus since he actually does stuff.

I think that you will find Nicholaus to be a walk in the park when you go for him in your next playthrough.

[WeaverMoth]

Originally posted by Arthur Beltway:

This post is still blowing up, but TL:DR he's dead by this point. I'm into Act 2. My entire point is he isn't balanced compared to the others. The rest of act 1 was simple, he had a spike that didn't fit with act 1. He feels more like an act 2 boss and even then some act 2 bosses were easier than him. Tristan was a walk in the park and in terms of add spam bosses the girl you get the Study from is easier than Nicholus.

Ole Nick is your first roadblock in this but game but as the previous poster said you'll likely have a better time against him when you run through him again. I struggled my first time fighting him too back when this game first came out and every subsequent run I usually will oneshot him unless I am getting ganked by pvpers.

One thing I'll also point out about summoner bosses (albet it doesn't quite apply to Nicholas) is that you actually generally don't want to fight them in groups. Pelora in the same tier for example is a absolute nightmare if you fight her in a group as she summons more adds that can heal her and they will just litter the screen with odd projectiles and her main wolf attack can chain off them back into you.

Be very careful with Maja when she comes up. She is a summoner boss on steroids. I did beat her on my first fight but she still gave me a bit of a rough time. General advice I can give you with her is really pay attention to her attacks and make sure to kill her minions especially if she starts pulling one into her. Ward of the Damned and AoE attacks are your friends.

It's interesting though that you find Tristian easier than Nicholas. Maybe your skillset is just better with different bosses. Tristian still annoys the ♥♥♥♥ out of me. I can fight his higher level counterpart (Jade) no problem though albeit I have previous experience with fighting her as she was in Battlerite.

[Peter Panzy]

Originally posted by Arthur Beltway:

This post is still blowing up, but TL:DR he's dead by this point. I'm into Act 2. My entire point is he isn't balanced compared to the others. The rest of act 1 was simple, he had a spike that didn't fit with act 1. He feels more like an act 2 boss and even then some act 2 bosses were easier than him. Tristan was a walk in the park and in terms of add spam bosses the girl you get the Study from is easier than Nicholus.

thanks for the update and glad to see you kept with it

Yes, i do agree that he is abit.... off, in terms of difficulty, but I think the devs wanted to throw something different in there to train newer players in some advanced mechanics to come. As for the library hawty..... Yeah, she kicked my ass thee times till I waited for my bud to log on and we got the good ol Double suck on her

Just goes to show you though, whats easy for one person just doesn't click the same for others. Have fun out there OP

[JimboTCB]

I think he's fine, he's not required for progression, and it's an important lesson to educate players that they can't just use the same spells and faceroll every boss, you need to adapt your tactics and use different builds occasionally. Having a boss that spawns lots and lots of adds right after you've probably just killed another boss who gives you your first Unholy spell seems like a pretty deliberate design choice, and once you pay attention to his mechanics he's probably one of the easiest bosses as all his attacks are massively telegraphed and quite easy to dodge.

[Bnn1]

I don't know what kind of settings these guys saying "use your AoE abilities" use, but it's definitely not default damage multipliers, must be something like "5x gear power multiplier + 5x vampire power multiplier", but on 1x damage multiplier on everything, the adds take well more than 2 AoE attacks to die, and Nicholaus takes about 1% of damage from any ability thrown at him, single target or AoE.

I just sometimes don't know how people say "the bosses are easy", are you playing on Servers where you start with sanguine gear? Or does the Server admin gift you sanguine weapons, or do you have someone playing on the server who gives you lvl 80 equipment for free?

I just don't see it, skills have insane cooldowns and do no damage at all, and that is at matching equipment level or only 2-3 levels below-ish. I don't get what y'all are doing, but it's definitely not playing on "default settings", that's for sure.

[Granola incident]

Imagine this guy trying to fight Gloomroot bosses or soul shard keepers