I am in desperate need of Summum tips

[hi]

I feel like I'm just banging my head against a wall with Summum. Demon felt impossible until I started using Assimilation, Lightning Nightmare was just plain unfair so I had to use a "kill him before he kills you" type of playstyle, but Summum feels straight up not possible. I guess I'll just go through my current strategy so I can get some pointers:

For his fast magic attacks, I deflect with Aven as much as I can so I can charge up Assimilation. For his fast physical attacks, I guard with Edda. For his slow attacks, magical or physical, I evade with Aven. When he's staggered, I basically spam Fatal Ordeal and Assist, sometimes using Empyrean Demise if I can. For the puppet phase, I let him take Aven, I pray to god Aven doesn't use Assimilation if I had it charged up, and I spam Level 3 Lightning.

Now, what are the parts I actually have issues with? Well, for starters, I hate his block system. It's one thing to have "ooh, mYStEry bLoCKs" when the fight starts, but it's a much more unfair thing to have them shuffle every turn. I mainly try to use Seal to reveal most of them, but that takes a lot of time to use, so I often wind up never being able to break a magic block all in one turn unless I just guess without using Seal.

I can deal decent damage during the first stagger, but during the second where there's two green orbs raining down on top of you, I spend so much time dodging them I can barely get any hits in, let alone break any of Summum's blocks.

Lastly, during the Halo phase, Summum uses this attack where three green orbs spiral in on you before making a massive explosion, and I am yet to survive it. I don't think it's the infamous Mega Flare, (which I haven't seen as I haven't gotten past the Halo phase) because I remember reading that he uses it in his fourth phase. I've tried guarding it, that obviously didn't work. I've tried evading, but I can never seem to find the right timing, if there is one.

One last note: What is Summum doing when his magic hand has a green orb pulse, and then makes you pulse green for a second? That doesn't seem to do any actual damage, and it scares me.

UPDATE: I managed to survive the spiral attack using Assimilation, but I've now met a new problem. The Halo apparently undoes your progress on Summum's blocks, which I did not realize until now. On top of that, the two green orbs from the second stagger are still present, making breaking his blocks practically impossible. I managed to survive quite a while thanks to Assimilation, until I think Summum got bored and proceeded to use Mega Flare early.
At least on the bright side, I got to see what Mega Flare looks like! It looks like a Final Smash lol

[MezzoMe]

First thing, I'd tell you to check my Combat Guide so you can smash your head for processing information for a while.

That should give you already some pointers for how to proceed with your defenses and offenses

For the puppet phase there is a gimmick I like to use
Puppets always attempt to use Techniques if they are available, and the same ones, so you can do:

1. Charge Guard Impact and an Aven Technique
   
2. Get Aven taken, he will attempt to use Energy Blast
   
3. Guard Impact
   
4. Lightning Lv3 three times with the exploit, finish with a teleport and regular hit

Also for some reason if he is one hit away from charging his Technique, when Summum captures him it becomes charged
If you want to do it the proper way, you basically need to Option select for the various levels of Spell and moves. Or just get Edda taken and Block everything

Now, for your problems:

his block system

Assists are uneffected by the hidden blocks
As I alluded in the guide, any Neutral Magic will reveal all magic blocks and both Guard Impact and Counterspell will prevent him from changing his blocks.
Alternatively you can just string all four level 1s
Obviously the best way to go about it is Empyrean Demise. If you are lucky one of the blocks will be Orange or Neutral Physical, allowing you to recharge the Technique as you spam Charged Attacks, even if you haven't unlocked Glance of Tomorrow yet.

two green orbs raining down on top of you,

Level 3 Spell->Teleport->Two normal hits->Whip/Charged Bow
is the BnB for avoiding both orbs.
That's because staggered Summum always has one physical and one Magical block
After that, you can start doing snazzier things like tanking them with a Technique, just don't cast immediately Empyrean Demise or you'll get hit by the first orb
If you can't be bothered to react to the blocks that fast, you can always just use Counterspell to prevent the blocks from forming.

Three orb explosion

Either use Assimilation or time a Vanish. Use one of the orbs to time yourself: it will have spun 180° from its initial position when it reach the center

What is Summum doing when his magic hand has a green orb pulse

It heals you. What I said about Deflecting absorbed damage also applies to this move

The Halo apparently undoes your progress

Destroy one block at a time. Or Absorb him before he reaches that phase

[hi]

Originally posted by MezzoMe:

First thing, I'd tell you to check my Combat Guide so you can smash your head for processing information for a while.

That should give you already some pointers for how to proceed with your defenses and offenses

For the puppet phase there is a gimmick I like to use
Puppets always attempt to use Techniques if they are available, and the same ones, so you can do:

1. Charge Guard Impact and an Aven Technique
   
2. Get Aven taken, he will attempt to use Energy Blast
   
3. Guard Impact
   
4. Lightning Lv3 three times with the exploit, finish with a teleport and regular hit

Also for some reason if he is one hit away from charging his Technique, when Summum captures him it becomes charged
If you want to do it the proper way, you basically need to Option select for the various levels of Spell and moves. Or just get Edda taken and Block everything

Now, for your problems:

his block system

Assists are uneffected by the hidden blocks
As I alluded in the guide, any Neutral Magic will reveal all magic blocks and both Guard Impact and Counterspell will prevent him from changing his blocks.
Alternatively you can just string all four level 1s
Obviously the best way to go about it is Empyrean Demise. If you are lucky one of the blocks will be Orange or Neutral Physical, allowing you to recharge the Technique as you spam Charged Attacks, even if you haven't unlocked Glance of Tomorrow yet.

two green orbs raining down on top of you,

Level 3 Spell->Teleport->Two normal hits->Whip/Charged Bow
is the BnB for avoiding both orbs.
That's because staggered Summum always has one physical and one Magical block
After that, you can start doing snazzier things like tanking them with a Technique, just don't cast immediately Empyrean Demise or you'll get hit by the first orb
If you can't be bothered to react to the blocks that fast, you can always just use Counterspell to prevent the blocks from forming.

Three orb explosion

Either use Assimilation or time a Vanish. Use one of the orbs to time yourself: it will have spun 180° from its initial position when it reach the center

What is Summum doing when his magic hand has a green orb pulse

It heals you. What I said about Deflecting absorbed damage also applies to this move

The Halo apparently undoes your progress

Destroy one block at a time. Or Absorb him before he reaches that phase

I BEAT HIM
that was stressful
the teleport trick for avoiding the orbs was great
and i managed to learn the vanish timing for the three orb spiral
the main snag was that stupid halo. even if i did focus on one block and used Assist to find the blocks (which also helped a ton, i managed to consistently get past his first phase before he could even attack using that) the halo would still undo all my progress if i didn't successfully break any blocks in one turn. So i hated the halo phase, but at least I finally beat him! Thanks!

[hi]

now for The Ultimate Trial

[Sabaithal]

Seal can help. He isn't weak to it per se, but it does increase the absorption damage he takes for the rest of the turn.

Also note that many attacks do more absorption damage than others, and many of them are not the full charge attacks.

As for avoiding mega flare... well the first time you fight him you really can't. This thing is going to hit you. Instead, get black/red's block charged up so that you can regain health the next time summum uses magic attacks AFTER you get hit with mega flare. You can only really avoid mega-flare in the post-game fight room (with the attack you unlock by beating summum the first time).

[MezzoMe]

You can get No Threat without Glance of Tomorrow

In fact, you can absorb him by his second stagger without Glance of Tomorrow

[hi]

Originally posted by Sabaithal:

Seal can help. He isn't weak to it per se, but it does increase the absorption damage he takes for the rest of the turn.

Also note that many attacks do more absorption damage than others, and many of them are not the full charge attacks.

As for avoiding mega flare... well the first time you fight him you really can't. This thing is going to hit you. Instead, get black/red's block charged up so that you can regain health the next time summum uses magic attacks AFTER you get hit with mega flare. You can only really avoid mega-flare in the post-game fight room (with the attack you unlock by beating summum the first time).

Originally posted by MezzoMe:

You can get No Threat without Glance of Tomorrow

In fact, you can absorb him by his second stagger without Glance of Tomorrow

.....
thank you, for proving a hypothesis i've had for a long time, which is that the majority of steam players do not read all the comments on a discussion before making their own!

i ended up beating him by luckily having an assimilation ready after Mega Flare, so I was able to heal up beyond 1 HP.

[hi]

alright, so in The Ultimate Trial, I have now learned that Summum is a cheater. THREE TIMES have I gotten to the third stagger, he telegraphs a Level 2 magic attack, and proceeds to use Level 3 Wind magic which kills me because of the magic shield bug preventing Edda from guarding it properly

oh why does the ultimate trial have to be so broken
i want to 100% this game and its fun but the bugginess of the ultimate trial is going to leave a sour taste in my mouth

[Sabaithal]

Edda CAN guard it properly, the timing is just very narrow. Perfect guarding it is exceedingly difficult, so I'd try to get your shield layered up beforehand and just block normally.

Easier method is to get Aven to use his own super guard to outright absorb it if possible.

My issue with summum is why the hell do the guard breaks reduce themselves in the middle of your bloody turns? Its utter BS.

[hi]

Originally posted by Sabaithal:

Edda CAN guard it properly, the timing is just very narrow. Perfect guarding it is exceedingly difficult, so I'd try to get your shield layered up beforehand and just block normally.

I can't layer it, thanks to the aforementioned bug in the Ultimate Trial, which basically makes it so your magic shield never regenerates.

Originally posted by Sabaithal:

Easier method is to get Aven to use his own super guard to outright absorb it if possible.

That's would be a good idea, if it wasn't for the fact that as I said, he telegraphs a different attack, so I don't even know when it's coming.

[hi]

and now i've beaten The Ultimate Trial! I am so happy to have fully completed this game, as it is one of, if not my favorite metroidvania of all time (the only other rival for my favorite metroidvania is Hollow Knight)
summum's RNG sucked though
ooh, on that note, why don't i do funny death stats!

Total Ultimate Trial Attempts: 7 (the last one was a success, obviously)
Total Deaths to literally anything other than Summum: 1 (Lightning Nightmare)
Total Deaths to Summum: 5
Total Deaths to Mega Flare: 1 (My HP was too low thanks to a certain Level 3 Magic)
Total Deaths to Level 3 Wind Magic: 3
Total Deaths to other Summum attacks: 1 (Level 3 Ice Magic; I whiffed Aven's evade timing)

[MezzoMe]

I guess it's too late to tell you now, but Lv 2 Fire and Lv 3 Wind have different animations:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duiNNJVlbpE
At 3:50 you see Lv 3 Fire: four orange lines, the square covers his hand
At 6:10 you see Lv 3 Wind, five lines, the square reaches up to Summum's face, plants his right hand on the ground and raises himself up a bit higher before he actually starts casting

He also only casts Lv 3s on the second staggered turn, except for the first stagger where he uses none.

But really, I just deflect everything because his blocks when staggered are really frail and so you always get Diminishing Returns if you try to get perfect guards.
Obvious exception being if I Counterspell the last turn because then he's got no blocks

[vblu6]

Originally posted by Sabaithal:

Seal can help. He isn't weak to it per se, but it does increase the absorption damage he takes for the rest of the turn.

Also note that many attacks do more absorption damage than others, and many of them are not the full charge attacks.

As for avoiding mega flare... well the first time you fight him you really can't. This thing is going to hit you. Instead, get black/red's block charged up so that you can regain health the next time summum uses magic attacks AFTER you get hit with mega flare. You can only really avoid mega-flare in the post-game fight room (with the attack you unlock by beating summum the first time).

For anyone else who might read this post, Seal also helps reveal some of Summum's blocks. Aven's melee techniques (basically any that has him punch stuff) also deals both physical and fire magic at the same time, so use that information as you will.