Is Drakula doable in 2 player coop?

[Nihil]

So my buddy and i literally mowed our way through the game and done literally every boss on first try except Adam the Firstborne where we were undergeared and failed the first time because we didn't know that was such a high level boss fight (never done it in early access)

But Dracula is kinda impossible in duo i think. Or did anyone manage to kill him in a duo game?
The issue is i we have memorized all the movement patterns and attacks what is following what. The issue is that we waste all our defensive skills because Dracula is starting to perform an attack to one player (for example me) and mid casting animation it instantly switches to the other player (my friend. And vica versa) So he literally teleports mid attack back and forth between us making it impossible to know when he is performing the attack in the row on who.
Anyone have the same issue? Or any tips?

(I have tried to fight him myself. I got till 90% off of his HP with 100% HP on me while getting to his Phase 2. But if we play duo, we barely get to phase 2)

[Eonka]

Dracula is new boss on release of full version.
Hm, did you try changing settings? Every boss should be doable in any number of players. But if I remember correctly - in duo bosses are harderst. At least some time ago this was a case.

[Nihil]

Originally posted by Eonka:

Dracula is new boss on release of full version.
Hm, did you try changing settings? Every boss should be doable in any number of players. But if I remember correctly - in duo bosses are harderst. At least some time ago this was a case.

I tried everything. Tried using 2 defensive skills. Shields are not much held since many of his attacks are AOS based or he spawns on BOTH of you ans drains you BOTH of blood. Melee weapons are useless since all his attacjs are ranged except of the blood orb volley which is basically undodgeable (the one in phase 2 where he is standing in the middle, chaos flames errupt in 4 directions and he is launching orbs towards you) since they are homing on to you in phase 2. Tried the tactic from early access where you could hug the wall and evade them, but evading doesn't help since all the orbs home on to you,.

Also his draining ability is spawning in 2 draculas which are draining you both. And in duo if he he shifts into a werewolf and charges at you, normally it would spawn some bats afterwards. But he is spawning wolves which makes dodging the bats and dracula's drain pretty much impossible.

I think you are right and duo is still pretty much broken at this point because i got much further with only playing solo as we did with my buddy. And he is much more skilled in these type of games as i'm.

[DixiE]

It seems doable but way harder than solo or with 3; you are only allowed occasional mistakes and under very specific circumstances. Currently getting to the final phase consistently with 100% Scholar blood and the following strats (some of which you probably know by now!):

Phase 1

For spells use two shields, one of which is the Ice Shield, and Chaos Barrage. The other shield should have a jewel providing healing. For weapons use at least a Reaper, but ideally also bring Pistols. Reaper lets one of you deal with the wolves despite without other offensive skills, while Pistols are just the better option for hitting Dracula himself.

Most of his attacks are manageable, and some can be dodged without using a cooldown:

• Stab: Walk perpendicular to the stab and it'll whiff.
  
• Double Swipe with Projectile: Walk right, then walk left.
  
• Wolf Form: As the wolf jumps over you, walk in the direction it came from and the followup attack will miss.
  
• Spinning Bullets: Get right next to Dracula between the bullets and walk around him. Leave the circle once the rings disappear on the outside.

With 100% Scholar blood you can just shield pretty much everything without worrying about cooldowns. You should go out of your way to shield both of his throwing axes, as they can end up moving really unpredictably if just initially dodged.

He only has two attacks in this phase that can't just be shielded:

• The slam. If you're right next to him when this starts you can sometimes walk behind him, but it's more reliable to just save your evade for this.
  
• The grab. This happens after he phases out and spawns loads of bats. Simply walk around avoiding the bats, and only use your evade once you see him reappear on screen.

For the closing circle attack, you can use your two shields to get damage and healing in by just standing right next to him and circle strafing. Once both shields have been used, evade out of the AoE, and then case Chaos Barrage if it's off cooldown.

Wolves are honestly the hardest part of this phase in 2-player because they are unreasonably tanky and have a fast attack that deals 120~ damage.

Phase 2

If your buddy dies in phase 1 you can get them up during the phase transition. Use the same shields as before for this phase but you might want to switch to an ult with more invincibility (e.g. Raging Tempest) so you can take a breather while dealing with crystals.

Ideally, one of you should be hitting crystals while the other is dealing with Dracula. If you have aggro, always callout when he flies off for a leaping slash as this can be hard for the other player to see.

The bullet hell attack is quite dangerous; try to be in separate corners of the arena if possible. Do your best to dodge without using any abilities, and then use your shields or evade when you get into a rough spot.

If you are targeted by swords then don't try dealing any damage; they are very hard to deal with while also dealing damage and also looking out for any other attacks, so try to keep it simple.

Phase 3 (brutal only)

Idk what to do here, we always end up with an almost full health Dracula :( Obviously switch off shields to real damage abiltiies, but otherwise idk.

EDIT: I've beat this boss now and have better ideas. Instead of going for bursty abilities, go for the maximum damage per cast. I think this is stuff like Death Knight, where you cast once and forget. Having Pistols (for their Q ability) helped drastically.

Phase 4 (brutal only)

Not beat this one yet, but the best run we've had involved switching to two counters, one of which should always be the Blood one. Raging Tempest is probably the only usable ult? You want counters instead of shields so you don't have to know which direction the bullets are coming from. Blood counter is optimal because the i-frames that come afterwards give you time to attack Dracula without worrying about the swords.

Try to evade over the shockwaves when you get the chance, as it let's you stay close enough to deal damage.

EDIT: Yeah pretty much as above; two counters, one of which is blood, don't attack unless you are safe (e.g. during blood counter i-frames, or when swords aren't dropping), otherwise focus on rotating counters + dodge to not get hit.

And that's all I've got. Hopefully the formatting works here or I'll be very embarrassed

[Nihil]

THX for the tip. Yeah i found too that the wolves are one major pain in the ass. They disturb the entire flow of the battle.
Just as Dracula switching targets mid casting.

But the more important issue here is, that everywhere i look, there are guide about beating dracula with suggesting having 100% blood consumed with specific weapons and gem types. That would be fair enough if the entire game would work like that...to prepare heavily to bosses and have a Monster Hunter type of gameplay where preparation is key. But we mowed our way through every boss without having any strategy or plan nor preparation. And then the final boss came along. There is an unreasonable difficulty spike there we don't quiet get. But maybe it is really all about having only 2 player on board.

[theworld]

The game has had what? Hundreds of duo servers?

And I haven't seen any other threads on this.

Which one is more likely: game issue or skill issue?

[Chaos]

Yes, tho solo is much easier, I did a 3 man fight on him once.
It's was okay, especially after all the nerf he got for some reason.

It's all about learning his move, like any other bosses.

[Jack Sparrow]

Originally posted by Nihil:

Originally posted by Eonka:

Dracula is new boss on release of full version.
Hm, did you try changing settings? Every boss should be doable in any number of players. But if I remember correctly - in duo bosses are harderst. At least some time ago this was a case.

I tried everything. Tried using 2 defensive skills. Shields are not much held since many of his attacks are AOS based or he spawns on BOTH of you ans drains you BOTH of blood. Melee weapons are useless since all his attacjs are ranged except of the blood orb volley which is basically undodgeable (the one in phase 2 where he is standing in the middle, chaos flames errupt in 4 directions and he is launching orbs towards you) since they are homing on to you in phase 2. Tried the tactic from early access where you could hug the wall and evade them, but evading doesn't help since all the orbs home on to you,.

Also his draining ability is spawning in 2 draculas which are draining you both. And in duo if he he shifts into a werewolf and charges at you, normally it would spawn some bats afterwards. But he is spawning wolves which makes dodging the bats and dracula's drain pretty much impossible.

I think you are right and duo is still pretty much broken at this point because i got much further with only playing solo as we did with my buddy. And he is much more skilled in these type of games as i'm.

Me and my buddy did dracula duo on an official Brutal pvp server, he is 100% doable, but based on what you've typed here you dont really seem to understand the fight...

Dracula is an extremely well designed boss TBH, every single thing he does has an appropriate response, First of all, Me and my partner both used Axes, so your comments about melee is being useless is completely wrong, When he spawns the wolves he himself will target one of you, the other person should tag the wolves and take them out while the targeted player deals with dracula's predictable moveset.

Spells I used: Bloodrage (tier 4 jewel must have Remove Negative effects) and Chaos Barrier, with veil of chaos (Double dash)

Now.. you are complaining about Dracula's moves like "he grabs us and drains our blood".. you are supposed to dash when he appears and you avoid that grab.. like i said everything he does has an appropriate response, learn the fight, everything has a "tell", some of his moves are designed to bait out your dodge.. learn which ones can just be side stepped and which ones require your dodge. (his sword thrust can literally just be walked around for example)

[Keni]

You can dodge everything verse dracula. Ill give a quick note about the things I noticed that kill the most. Bats go in a line, they attempt to trace your movement so you can trick them by waiting for the line to appear and moving one direction for a moment and stop and it will fly by you, or you can stand still and slightly move out of the way of the lines. When he goes into P2 and starts throwing tons of blood bolts at you, push yourself as far back as you can to the wall, make sure all the objects are destroyed, then you will move from one end to the other, sometimes cutting it short on one end to turn move to the left. I pretty much just used A and D on that part the most. Outside of that, you dont need to waste any defenses. The wave that comes inward and puts you in a bubble is also easy to avoid, you just follow one of the blood bolt curves about close-ish to his body. Youll avoid the bubble paralyze without having to dash at all. You also do NOT need to dash for the blood drain grab. If you stand still count about 5-6 seconds and run in a line, you will just barely get out of it everytime. You can force this to be even more in your favor by running back to the entrance door as he sort of acts a little iffy in your favor there.

Honestly, the only bad part about Dracula's fight is in the final phase of Brutal. Its probably the worst designed part of the fight because it punishes you for thinking anything he did before was called bullet hell. I think they could have done something different that would have been much better than occasional immobility mixed in with double bullet hell waves, one of which comes out every 3 seconds while the pretty much instant kill blood aoe on the outside hes trying to knock you into closes in AND you get a debuff that stacks over time that increases the damage he does to you. Basically a bullet hell dps race.

[Frozenfrost]

Feels like u button mashed your way through the game with your mate and when you got to bosses like adam and Dracula where you need to analyse and think you've had problems - bosses are balanced and punishing on brutal which I wish I could experience all over again. Try a dry run just practice dodging and learning movesets rather than thinking your going to 1 shot him

[Nihil]

LoL the immatureness of people never stops to amaze me. The amount of insults in these replies is some flawless example of the true nature of people.

[Nihil]

Originally posted by DixiE:

It seems doable but way harder than solo or with 3; you are only allowed occasional mistakes and under very specific circumstances. Currently getting to the final phase consistently with 100% Scholar blood and the following strats (some of which you probably know by now!):

Phase 1

For spells use two shields, one of which is the Ice Shield, and Chaos Barrage. The other shield should have a jewel providing healing. For weapons use at least a Reaper, but ideally also bring Pistols. Reaper lets one of you deal with the wolves despite without other offensive skills, while Pistols are just the better option for hitting Dracula himself.

Most of his attacks are manageable, and some can be dodged without using a cooldown:

• Stab: Walk perpendicular to the stab and it'll whiff.
  
• Double Swipe with Projectile: Walk right, then walk left.
  
• Wolf Form: As the wolf jumps over you, walk in the direction it came from and the followup attack will miss.
  
• Spinning Bullets: Get right next to Dracula between the bullets and walk around him. Leave the circle once the rings disappear on the outside.

With 100% Scholar blood you can just shield pretty much everything without worrying about cooldowns. You should go out of your way to shield both of his throwing axes, as they can end up moving really unpredictably if just initially dodged.

He only has two attacks in this phase that can't just be shielded:

• The slam. If you're right next to him when this starts you can sometimes walk behind him, but it's more reliable to just save your evade for this.
  
• The grab. This happens after he phases out and spawns loads of bats. Simply walk around avoiding the bats, and only use your evade once you see him reappear on screen.

For the closing circle attack, you can use your two shields to get damage and healing in by just standing right next to him and circle strafing. Once both shields have been used, evade out of the AoE, and then case Chaos Barrage if it's off cooldown.

Wolves are honestly the hardest part of this phase in 2-player because they are unreasonably tanky and have a fast attack that deals 120~ damage.

Phase 2

If your buddy dies in phase 1 you can get them up during the phase transition. Use the same shields as before for this phase but you might want to switch to an ult with more invincibility (e.g. Raging Tempest) so you can take a breather while dealing with crystals.

Ideally, one of you should be hitting crystals while the other is dealing with Dracula. If you have aggro, always callout when he flies off for a leaping slash as this can be hard for the other player to see.

The bullet hell attack is quite dangerous; try to be in separate corners of the arena if possible. Do your best to dodge without using any abilities, and then use your shields or evade when you get into a rough spot.

If you are targeted by swords then don't try dealing any damage; they are very hard to deal with while also dealing damage and also looking out for any other attacks, so try to keep it simple.

Phase 3 (brutal only)

Idk what to do here, we always end up with an almost full health Dracula :( Obviously switch off shields to real damage abiltiies, but otherwise idk.

Phase 4 (brutal only)

Not beat this one yet, but the best run we've had involved switching to two counters, one of which should always be the Blood one. Raging Tempest is probably the only usable ult? You want counters instead of shields so you don't have to know which direction the bullets are coming from. Blood counter is optimal because the i-frames that come afterwards give you time to attack Dracula without worrying about the swords.

Try to evade over the shockwaves when you get the chance, as it let's you stay close enough to deal damage.

And that's all I've got. Hopefully the formatting works here or I'll be very embarrassed :StressedHappy:

Thank you for the reply and ideas/tips.

[borkathon]

Originally posted by theworld:

The game has had what? Hundreds of duo servers?

And I haven't seen any other threads on this.

Which one is more likely: game issue or skill issue?

you can make up ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ like this to sound tough, or you can look at the achievement percentages to get the real picture

[theworld]

The only picture I see is your clinical picture, patzer.

[Nihil]

Originally posted by borkathon:

Originally posted by theworld:

The game has had what? Hundreds of duo servers?

And I haven't seen any other threads on this.

Which one is more likely: game issue or skill issue?

you can make up ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ like this to sound tough, or you can look at the achievement percentages to get the real picture

don't bother with the pleb. Their only consolidation in life is that on the internet at least they can try to not look like a looser. :D Game forums are infested with that kind.

Originally posted by theworld:

The only picture I see is your clinical picture, patzer.

Well you got faced with the facts so your only resort is even more insults. Grat. :D Being you is probably not fun at all.

[Darth_Angeal]

Originally posted by Nihil:

So my buddy and i literally mowed our way through the game and done literally every boss on first try except Adam the Firstborne where we were undergeared and failed the first time because we didn't know that was such a high level boss fight (never done it in early access)

But Dracula is kinda impossible in duo i think. Or did anyone manage to kill him in a duo game?
The issue is i we have memorized all the movement patterns and attacks what is following what. The issue is that we waste all our defensive skills because Dracula is starting to perform an attack to one player (for example me) and mid casting animation it instantly switches to the other player (my friend. And vica versa) So he literally teleports mid attack back and forth between us making it impossible to know when he is performing the attack in the row on who.
Anyone have the same issue? Or any tips?

(I have tried to fight him myself. I got till 90% off of his HP with 100% HP on me while getting to his Phase 2. But if we play duo, we barely get to phase 2)

We do talk about brutal right?

It´s totally doable, no matter the amount of partymembers, even with full melee builds. (Like i played by myself.)


All what you´ve to remember are his skills and you´ve to react on them. I personally played the whole fight with greatsword, the ice-counter and the moskito-skill with healing-orbs.
The best blood-types should be warrior / barbarian since they increase the damage-output and self-sustain.
Also just pick the double-dash for better movement.


P1:

He does 3 different attacks.

- Groundsmasher --- just walk / dash behind him.
- Stabattack / roundhousekick after being in wolfform --- just use the counter
- Left/Right slices (if you stand in front of him) --- just dodge by movind one step right, one step left. If you use dodge, he might attack your buddy with the second swing.

You could also use your weapon-dodges, but it depends on the weapon on which attack they work better / worse. E.g. if i used the greatsword-jump to dodge the first slice, the second will hit me.

Other stuff:

- He will always focus the furthest player in wolf-form, so one can bait him with counter and the other can do the little wolfs.
- If he throws the 2 swining weapons, just move backwards, they won´t reach you then.
- Don´t forget to dodge once the "night-phase" ends.


P2:

- One goes for the crystal, the other for the boss. (Yes you can pretty much tank him if one of you focus the boss only.)

5 attacks now:

- the flying one when he swaps players --- use counter
- the fireorbs --- use counter or weapondodge
- the dash into position-stabattack --- just walk out (enough time to do so) or dash if unsure.
- groundsmasher --- move behind him, use a dodge that is up
- 4 sliceattacks --- again step right, step left, step right, step left, dodge if unsure but your mate might be focused then.

That´s all.

In both phases, just rotate with dodge / counter / weapon-dodge and you can play this one down pretty much without taking any damage.

Even if you take a hit, you can heal up with any healing-ability or skills that spawn heals. Barbarian-blood will also gibe more than enough primary-healing.

If you got a hit and have the curse on you, you could also play with bloodrage??? (not sure about the name), when you´ve the cleanse-gem on it.



P3:

Pick damage skills, use AOE ultimates, pistols have a huge knockback.

All in all CLEAR ALL ADDS BEFORE GOING FOR THE HEART. The heart can move like 70% of its way and you´ll still get it down to extract.


P4: You can mostly spam your abilities. Just do it to avoid the fireorbs. Play counter + healing again or even double-counter and rotate with them. Use the dash if you´ve trouble with the fallen swords or the knockback.
It´s probably better to go for primary-attacks only here and ignore weapon-skills at all. Just spam you heal ability and counter if needed.



Sounds easy right?

No, it´s not THAT easy, but easy enough if you got used too. It´s just rotating your abilities and reacting to this attacks. The fight looks harder than it is.

And just saying, maybe try him a bit in melee-mode solo, then you´ll get used to him way better than running around with a full-range kit like a feared chicken.