librarian is a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ boss change my mind

[Shodingus]

if you're using the usual suspects you can't do ♥♥♥♥ against him until he's already next to you, meanwhile he keeps getting free turns out of thin ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ air that just let him do damage to your entire party + burn them, he keeps throwing out blinds that give him MULTIPLE DODGES and once the books are gone he just destroys you with constant full party damage.
You'd think a race against the books being destroyed would warrant him not constantly getting dodges to avoid all damage you can feasibly do.

[HighLanderPony]

Originally posted by RopeDrink:

Lowest health zone-boss with the most turns-per-round, thus highly susceptible to DoTs and combat items. Dodge tokens can be popped by items or abilities (even if the boss has blinded you), and categorize is a matter of mobility/flexibility.

Unless your team is spectacularly lacking in projection, neglecting combat items, has no move skills, playing too front-loaded, etc, then Librarian is a no-brainer due to being so easy compared to the other three lairs.

The general was way easier with the right team than the librarian was with the right team.

[RopeDrink]

All bosses are easy 'with the right team'.

Without wasting time on minutia, such as X with Y being easier than A with B, the Librarian is a squishy DPS race that can be dunked in a few rounds, and the Guardian is a beefier slog, meant to test projection and stress.

Personally speaking - over the past 510 hours, Librarian has been the first choice most of the time, because he's the easiest to dismantle with a fresh team without any preamble if you have decent projection, whereas a Guardian takes longer and invites a broader chance of negative relations, even when cheesing him with equal projection.

[Divvu]

I frankly don't care which boss is easier. I've finished Obsession yesterday and I beat the general on the first region, 3rd location, which means I didn't rly have the time to collect enough throwable and such, I had to only rely on heroes skills. Doable but def hard and RNG based, a single crit from The ground stirs can send your backline into death door and you must manage usually 4+ points of stress per round, on top of having to defend, move around and hit the taproot.

People talking about out DPSing the general must be still playing on denial and are taking up VERY bad habits. It's literally impossible to deal with him without specific heroes. Eg, I'd like to see anyone trying him early without a PD in the party (diff 2+).

On the other hand, the librarian never killed me once. Not even the first time I got there and he managed to burn all books on me (fortunately right at the end). And by killed I don't mean end a run, he failed to kill a single hero of mine in 40+ hours of gameplay.

Imho, the only way to properly gauge the difficulty of a boss encounter, is if you're able to take him down at the beginning of a run, before you had the chance to collect items, train skills and get relationships sorted. Librarian first is p. easy, I kill him each time I have a runaway in my party. No special preparations needed and he's squishy.

You should always aks yourself WHY you're fighting that specific boss. Bar bragging rights, there's no need to fight more than one boss per run. The deciding factors should be the boss drop AND your team comp. You almost never need to fight the librarian, unless you want his drops for your runaway. If you have a runaway, you probably also have ppl able to hit rank 4, dance and move things around. Else your party is made up of the wrong heroes, simple as. The librarian won't be your biggest hassle in a run.

The general otoh drops trophies that are universally useful. Trinket prices down opens up a lot of strategies and the one that roots your party in place is a godsend for groups that don't want to be shuffled around. There are strong incentives to fight him as soon as you can, if the tangle is the first region you get. Any other boss and you can simply delay until you have the proper tools at your disposals.

So, considering opportunity costs and RNG, I'd say the general is a lot harder but that's just me. What I wanted to point out is ppl affirming you can brute force your way through its fight are going to be surprised by a VERY cold shower, as they rise in difficulty.

[Mosthra]

Originally posted by Sliscus:

Originally posted by Mosthra:

I always kill him before he burns all the books. If you let him burn all the books, your party will drown in a sea of fire to death.

Yeah but sometimes you just miss him over and over and over and over then ( pre nerf) he would cling to life on death's door while he killed one or two of your heroes.

Originally posted by HighLanderPony:

Originally posted by Mosthra:

I always kill him before he burns all the books. If you let him burn all the books, your party will drown in a sea of fire to death.

I know how he works. But this time, it just didn't work out.

Before he approached you he always had Dodge. I would be confident that you should have 2-3 Heroes with Rank 3-4 attack skills to harass his HP early. His HP is quite low. And attacks from behind his books will easily match the "Taunt" of Man-at-Arms, Helion or Leper. You need to lure him to your Tanker while your SP and DPS harass him. when he moves to Rank 3, he falls completely within the range of most DPS Heros Skills.
Librarian is a Boss who specializes in destroying Melee and Riposte parties. You won't be able to do anything to him in the back of the books, with some skill range with modest damage.

My party:
Vestal - Man-at-Arms (Sergeant) - Grave Robber (Nighsworm) - Hellion (Ravager)

Thrown Dagger+Judgement+Iron Swan. Is enough to make him lose 1/5 of his HP before he burns the first pile of books. And when he moves to Rank 3-2, he comes into Lunge's attack range, Grave Robber can ignore his Dodge with Lunge when she Stealth. Librarian will always death's door before he can get his hands on the last stack of books. He only has 25% Death Blow, he can't survive your 2-3 death's door.

For me Librarian is the easiest boss to kill DD2, and Dreaming General is the boss I hate the most...

[Ice-Nine]

Originally posted by HighLanderPony:

You can lose the fight literally turn 0 if your comp can't reach rank 4, so you'll need prior knowledge or just lose.

I think the boss is overtuned too, but you can still kill him if you can't reach Rank 4. The first time I beat him I destroyed all his books ASAP before even attacking him.

[Ice-Nine]

Also, wtf is "projection" that everyone keeps talking about? Do you mean range? Why not just call it range?