Hell first boss difficulty

[Frost]

After about 30 runs on hell without any contracts I noticed it's almost impossible to defeat first boss without priest and at least two heals or very specific build due to amount of dmg dealt by boss.
While i get that having an support is kind of must have, currently there are only two support/healers and Idol can't manage to outheal the boss damage.
Anyone had similar experience?

[Deworx]

I usually have a paladin for first boss (since we get free warrior at start and i usually get a priest until boss.. tho it happened that i didn't) I Always did my hell runs with priest+idol equipped. And for that boss - you should at most take 1 melee (unless you already obtained 3 of a kind for an elite unit) - other 2 (since 1 is converted to rockie = range) i convert with whatever range units i have at that point. I mostly still manage to get 3 of a kind later. (And it's not bad to have idol for global buff anyway, even works at end of run)

I still manage with just 1 heal unit on that boss - tho i have heal skills on other units equipped. Like the healing scattershot on either my rockie or an archer or whatever range unit i have equipped at that time. It's less outhealing with some compositions tho - but out-bursting if you pick up an elite hero early. I try to boost the defense of my tank as high as possible - usually 2 defensive skills II equipped, freezing aura and that break armor or whats it called again and the regeneration passive skill at I.

[hihatss]

For hell, I always use:
- Priest/Oracle
- Idol/Star
- Warrior/Veteran
- Any DPS

The priest and idol are focused on healing skills and their EX upgrades.
The warrior, I give taunt and armor / survivability. Ideal is his EX skill.

The best DPS I have found is mage/sorcerer with the fireball and magic missile skills. All of those can be EX upgraded. That's all you need for DPS, it just instant melts everything.

I have also managed to defeat Hell with many other "DPS" builds, though some are much slower / don't scale well. I could tank for days with the priest/idol/warrior setup.

I have found more DPS is not better. You get melted if you don't have 3 healers/support. Kinda gets repetitive to always have the same core.

[RicWalker]

all you need is 1x priest, 1x tank with taunt and 2x pure dps (personally assassin and mage)

peronally the archer, his tripple version and Rockie are all vastly outclassed by a ninja with overload 3, shadow dagger 3 and innertial strike and or ice strike 3 if you later get the EX version of the dagger and a meelee EX, he easily makes 1 million dmg each run.

But this is about the first boss on hell run, and i totally agree that he is a pain. Rule of thumb: the less meelee guys you have when facing him, the better.

by the way: after a bit of testing yesterday my personal view of templar (= warrior+priest) vs veteran (3x Warrior) is, that the veteran wins. There are no talent buffs for the templar but many tank buffs for the veteran.

for the same reason ninja, sorceress and apostle beat all the other later unlocks to the point where i have cleared several hell runs, but totally struggle if i take any of the later advanced classes into the run like ice knight, pirate or idol.

[Deworx]

Well, i do not really like wasting my last spot for warrior, so i settle on paladin. And i don't want to run same set-up every run. I still have some of the X gets mvp on hell, so - i prefer having some open options and select multiple i don't have - whichever i get 3 of first, will be my focus. So paladin is fairly welcome as a tank.

Also... prefer idol > priest, due to global buff.

[jahill007]

Yeah you will notice quickly that heals are the most important aspect. This is because freeze is the ONLY debuff that reduces enemy damage. Without changes, the game is mostly about getting enough heals you can survive anything.

If you hit a point where the timer is getting close to zero, you've gone too far. Otherwise, add more heals and maybe defense. It's unfortunate that there aren't more interesting debuffs.

[Moonerola]

You can get over the first boss without a tank and healer

4 Lightninger (the last hero) with proper build
the first boss will die before them reaches you (or kill one)

It's quite fun that you can continue rush though the whole area two
until the sandworm take out each lightninger with 2 hits

[Frost]

My general build is similar to few mentioned earlier - Warrior, Priest(Paladin if DPS is range), Idol and one DPS.
Except for Berserker and Boxer I had little to no issue finishing Hell MVP challenge.

While reading what strats everyone came up with, the original post was related to two issues:
1. There's a chance you don't get a support hero and enough healing skills before first boss (had few runs with only getting warrior from purples and shop), which has plenty implications I could write quite a long post.
2. Currently there's issue that you can end up with not enough hero items to upgrade everyone to EX, which is probably necessary to beat Hell with contracts.
Had a few runs where I ended up failing the achiv due to missing one hero item or getting 6 warriors. Due to this I ended up trying to beat first boss while saving them to skip normal jobs and go straight to EX jobs, which often lead to wipe on first boss - this one is partially on me, I admit.
From what I understand this might be a bug or poorly designed where last stage purple portals have significantly lower chance of giving hero items than normal, I got one out of maybe 20 portals? Recasting hero items partially solves this problem but not entirely, again post would be ten times as long if I were to describe this issue in more detail.

Ultimately what I'm getting to is that I would like to see more variety in job choices.
Game is fun but having to go with almost similar comp every time gets boring pretty quick, kinda why I'm not even trying playing with contracts, where tbh I don't think it's possible to beat full contract Hell.

Originally posted by 冰皮月餅ovo:

You can get over the first boss without a tank and healer

4 Lightninger (the last hero) with proper build
the first boss will die before them reaches you (or kill one)

It's quite fun that you can continue rush though the whole area two
until the sandworm take out each lightninger with 2 hits

Nuke builds seem to fall short the further you go, probably 4th stage would be the limit
due to spawning units next to enemies.

[Klaus]

Originally posted by hihatss:

For hell, I always use:
- Priest/Oracle
- Idol/Star
- Warrior/Veteran
- Any DPS

The priest and idol are focused on healing skills and their EX upgrades.
The warrior, I give taunt and armor / survivability. Ideal is his EX skill.

The best DPS I have found is mage/sorcerer with the fireball and magic missile skills. All of those can be EX upgraded. That's all you need for DPS, it just instant melts everything.

I have also managed to defeat Hell with many other "DPS" builds, though some are much slower / don't scale well. I could tank for days with the priest/idol/warrior setup.

I have found more DPS is not better. You get melted if you don't have 3 healers/support. Kinda gets repetitive to always have the same core.

This seems pretty optimal to me. recently beat hell all modifiers with this setup, DPS was sorcerer, didn't even have a chance to upgrade her fully.

https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198041699470/screenshot/2279447674652033917/

[doemondo]

The only time I lose runs is on the first boss or last boss...
Just for this fact alone, the first boss is way too hard (compared to the rest of the content)