Final Boss is Poor

[Mae]

Yeah. Not a fan, at all.

His first phase where he's riding a dragon is fine - very tanky but if you have good defenses it's manageable but that last phase is awful, really awful.

His last phase is incredibly tanky, he instakills nearly every building as well as the player and he constantly spawns those purple ghosts. Actually the worst.

[.//slayer]

Definitely one of the few levels in the game that requires you to prepare a specific strategy even without mutators. But it's fitting for the final boss.

[Mia Ishata]

Yeah it dont feel like that final phase was thought through very well. Its not even the boss itself, its the shadows he spawns, they just home in on you and oneshot you or any of your buildings for that matter. You need to predict that that all your buildings require buttloads of melee resistance just to last more then a few hits

[kuhpunkt]

Originally posted by Mia Ishata:

Yeah it dont feel like that final phase was thought through very well. Its not even the boss itself, its the shadows he spawns, they just home in on you and oneshot you or any of your buildings for that matter. You need to predict that that all your buildings require buttloads of melee resistance just to last more then a few hits

The idea was for it to be a duel. King vs. king. If he didn't create clones, you could tear him apart super fast with the blood wand.

Not saying it's perfect yet... but it works. There are different builds and weapons you can use. I saw one build that killed him in seconds.

[ThunfischGott]

The problem is he is unfun. People play Tower Defense games to win through clever use of towers and defenses. He entirely ignores all of your walls, as he flies over them, and he pretty much ignores your towers as the fight is too long to buff them with shrine, and without the shrine +200% damage boost they do not pack enough of a punch to threaten him.
Even in the second phase he ignores your buildings, as he just rofljumps on top of your castle center, and starts whacking it, and it is up to you to lure him away.
If your hero is not built in a way that allows duelling him, or that can not hit the air at all, he becomes incredibly frustrating. Also the extra castle health perk is a must have for the fight, and otherwise very lame.

He is made to be fought with your king, or with very heavily buffed archers, and that is just not what people play tower defense for.

[Trav]

Have to agree it seems there are not many viable ways to beat him.

[BadAssMilkDaddy]

I agree. He feels arbitrarily tanky and requires you do very specific things to defeat him. This stifles build variety and pretty much guarantees that you'll lose your first time trying to fight him no matter how good you are, which feels awful since the level is so long. One of the few instances of poor game design I've seen so far in an otherwise stellar game.

[Mae]

Originally posted by BadAssMilkDaddy:

I agree. He feels arbitrarily tanky and requires you do very specific things to defeat him. This stifles build variety and pretty much guarantees that you'll lose your first time trying to fight him no matter how good you are, which feels awful since the level is so long. One of the few instances of poor game design I've seen so far in an otherwise stellar game.

Agreed.

[Mae]

Made a few different attempts at the boss now but still to no avail - I can get him to around a 1/3 of his health but at that point all of my towers and structures are destroyed and he's spawned 5-10 copies of himself that are just running around the map.

It's absurd that he can just spam this attack with seemingly no cool-down and take out multiple of your towers and structures in seconds.

[Mortal]

Originally posted by BadAssMilkDaddy:

I agree. He feels arbitrarily tanky and requires you do very specific things to defeat him. This stifles build variety and pretty much guarantees that you'll lose your first time trying to fight him no matter how good you are, which feels awful since the level is so long. One of the few instances of poor game design I've seen so far in an otherwise stellar game.

I actually like it a lot - it is a fight where you have to think about how to approach it.
For a final boss I want a bit of a challenge.
Really the one thing that does not work is "economy up", which was the dominant strategy in every other map. I actually find that quite refreshing.

In case you are struggling here are a few general tips and two builds I used when completing the quests and getting all the crowns.
General tips:

• Make use of the summoning circles. Getting early gold snowballs.
  
• All damage upgrade are multiplicativly. Lean heavily into one thing and get all the upgrades. Don't mix melee and ranged. Make sure you get all the upgrades by the final night, it makes a massive difference.
  
• The final boss will target towers that attack him. Sniper towers won't do the trick in this mission
  
• Dont build towers to the very north where your unit-production is. It is a trap. The final boss will run there and kill of your unit production on the way.
  
• Get Fortification Towers upgraded to healing towers. They help a lot with tanking the boss.
  
• Make use of the temple, it has three levels. Use level 3 in the final night.

Build 1 to beat him:

• Blood Wand OR Lightning Staff (The latter is easier, the former is required for one challenge)
  
• Heavy armor (You will be tanking the boss yourself)
  
• Castle Fortifications (He might whack your castle a few times, this can help with not having to restart the night. It is also quite nice early on)
  
• Daredevil (Lots of damage)
  
• Warrior training (More damage - remember it is all multiplicative)
  
• Faster Research (Huge quality of life in ensuring ALL upgrades come through for the final night)

Get all ranged damage upgrades. Make all castle upgrades buff your hero damage. Remember, all is multiplicative. In the royal blacksmith get life twice and attack cooldown otherwise.
In the final night, have the upgrade that buffs your hero-damage.
Blood Wand will struggle early on, as it sucks vs crowds, but really chunk the final boss.
Lightning staff will breeze through the crowds but take a while to kill the boss. Make sure you have a lot of healing towers so you can tank him. (The Staff will take out the clones before they can get anywhere, dont worry)

Build 2 to beat him:

• Battle Axe - the immunity really helps tanking for your units
  
• Castle Fortifications
  
• Gladiator school (Boss will kill our units in seconds. We need to respawn them quickly.
  
• Commander Mode (Our units will do the work)
  
• Experience Gain (Our units will die lots against him, each time dealing more damage)
  
• Faster Research (You really want to do ALL blacksmith research before the final night. This allows you a lot more leniency if your blacksmith gets destroyed in a few waves)

Get Berserkers. They will jump him, die, come back stronger and jump him again.
Get all melee damage upgrade.
Make damn sure you dont build towers north. That will lure him to your berserker camps and if he kills those it is over. However build sniper towers in the south. Its your melee that is buffed, killing the ships will be a little bit difficult, as your berserkers can't attack it.
In the temple, get the respawn level 3 for the final night.
Watch as a neverending stream of berserkers jumps at him (and also is able to jump-kill any clones trying to run off)

[ThunfischGott]

You can also kill him with improved town centre, both archer upgrade perks (range and damage) and pretty much any weapon yourself, two packs of fully upgraded rangers and crossbowmen with all ranged upgrades can outdps him as he whacks at your castle centre.

Any strong hero main weapon kills him easily, because you can upgrade that through castle center twice to +150%, and then six! times through all of the research centres, for ludicrous amounts of damage.

He is not unbeatable, just very very narrow in design.

[Sedin]

I also beat him with a tower build, you just need a weapon that can aggro him from mid range. It's purple clone were getting basically one shot by the towers.

Last Stand perk is mandatory with for a tower build to be viable tho