Four elemental Bosses help

[Watt]

Alright, how are you supposed to beat these things? I am going in with gold scythe+fighters armor+cloak of regin, summoned python(have tried with ent multiple times too) and with its cooldown finished so I can summon another the second it dies, ALL potion buffs (up to alchemy lv 19), physical augment buff auto cast, armor break debuff auto cast, max mana regin with campus generator and fountains, and spamming mana+health potions on their cooldowns. With ALL of that I barely get these four bosses below 20k hp. Did I just get here too fast and something behind some research will make things easier? Am I supposed to retire at this point? Havnt done that once yet so who knows?

[Serpentarius]

You need to retire some more. Research level 19 is not a high enough level to take these guys on unless you luck out. Each one of them also have a mechanic designed to screw over a specific playstyle.

Fire destroys summoners since it has AoE.

Earth halves your HP dealing serious damage to those who relies on massive defense or HP pools.

Water will nuke your mana regen and even shortcircuit your electricity income. So you need a build that can function without relying on that.

Wind will evade your attacks like no tomorrow while hitting you ridiculously fast. Each one requires a diffrent playstyle to take on effectively. Its not to say that yo can't use summons in the fire dragon fight, but you need to take into account you will take hits yourself.

Ironically, all 4 of them can be killed using a "Full evasion" build, since they don't have any "auto hit" abilities. However that would require you to get Illusion to level 30 first. Its what I did my first time around. Takes forever but makes the fight more doable.

To put into perspective where the game expects you to be at this point; the level needed for alchemy to make the drops from the elemental dungeons is 29.

[Watt]

Havnt retired yet and wasnt planning on it unless it was absolutely required. So far I have

conjuration: 29
enchantment: 24
illusion: 19
alchemy: 20
evocation: 19
protection: 19
breeding: 20
summoning: 21

Just unlocked bonebow this morning which would be a huge dps upgrade, but no idea where to get the bones needed to make it. So it sounds like I should switch my campus and apprentices into full research mode and try again once I can craft the gems needed for the elemental boss gear to beat the bosses...... bit of chicken before the egg but alright.

[pengi10]

Bones are dropped in a later dungeon, they can be crafted at a higher Alchemy skill but you may find the 30% accuracy penalty on the bow too steep to be worth the effort.

The elemental gem items are pretty good but I'd recommend you start the fight in a full mage set then switch to a stun weapon plus electrical armor once your summon dies, you want to get as much damage as possible while you have a meat shield around.

The Goblin summon is pretty good against those bosses, it frequently uses Dazzling Bolt to drop their hit rate and it has okay health. If you can afford to use the Heal Summon spell then the goblin has a decent chance of living longer than its summon cooldown, though I think that is the level 27 Protection spell so grabbing it may not be worth the wait in your current run.

If you do end up retiring I'd advise grabbing the Lightning element, if you hit an enemy with Armor Break you can do a steady amount of damage by just spamming the first spell. You can assign it to your Quick Slots in the Exploration tab then just hold that number on your keyboard while you manually charge mana with your mouse to help offset the mana cost.

[Arevi]

You really should be retiring like waaaaaay more. You have unlocked new elements and all sorts that you havent played with *cough nature cough*.
Each time you retire, you can pick a new element and a new school to focus. This schools max level reached in that run is then saved. The total amount of these is what is used to make up your research and mana bonuses, so by ignoring this you are slowing yourself down.
Retiring also allows you to pick the other options for the Storylines, like the big Tree in the Grove, the Big Generator in the Tower and quite a few others.

The idea behind retiring is that initially it is annoying having to restart but as you keep doing it and getting stronger, you get faster and faster so reaching areas that used to take ages before, now takes minutes. You will start to be able to take things back with you as well, such as buildings or items, so its really the best thing to focus on raising up, at least one retirement per school of magic minimum

[Gustoftime]

Any specific hint for the Clouds boss? Others seem to be somewhat easier, but I cant find a strategy for this one.

[Voluntas]

Publicado originalmente por Serpentarius:

You need to retire some more. Research level 19 is not a high enough level to take these guys on unless you luck out. Each one of them also have a mechanic designed to screw over a specific playstyle.

Fire destroys summoners since it has AoE.

Earth halves your HP dealing serious damage to those who relies on massive defense or HP pools.

Water will nuke your mana regen and even shortcircuit your electricity income. So you need a build that can function without relying on that.

Wind will evade your attacks like no tomorrow while hitting you ridiculously fast. Each one requires a diffrent playstyle to take on effectively. Its not to say that yo can't use summons in the fire dragon fight, but you need to take into account you will take hits yourself.

Ironically, all 4 of them can be killed using a "Full evasion" build, since they don't have any "auto hit" abilities. However that would require you to get Illusion to level 30 first. Its what I did my first time around. Takes forever but makes the fight more doable.

To put into perspective where the game expects you to be at this point; the level needed for alchemy to make the drops from the elemental dungeons is 29.

I just unlocked the 4 elemental dungeons and was working on the upgrades before going in but I am a few levels behind in progress compared to OP.

So is it not viable to try to run thru the game once without any retirement? Better to frequently retire and restart? Do all story choice bonuses eventually become active thru subsequent runs or does only one bonus stay active per run?

Any recommendations on a good 2nd run school/element choice? Thanks in advance

[Arevi]

Do not attempt a no retirement run unless you are trying to challenge yourself. The game is literally designed around retiring often. Story choices wont become active without it and you wont be able to unlock all of them on one run

[Destructoid666]

Events marked as "story" retain their bonuses in subsequent runs. The longer you are in a run, the less chance you get these "story" events. Plus sometimes you unlock only 1 bonus per "story" event per run. So if you want to farm these bonuses, then you actually must retire often.

[Serpentarius]

I didn't retire until unlocking the final boss on my first NG+ run, and I can tell you stright out, you won't have the stats needed to beat the final boss, period. And I will point out NG+ let me have higher stats than you would have on NG, so retireing is mandatory.

[Banaman]

Publicado originalmente por Arevi:

Do not attempt a no retirement run unless you are trying to challenge yourself. The game is literally designed around retiring often. Story choices wont become active without it and you wont be able to unlock all of them on one run

is a no-retirement run even physically possible? knowing what the final boss of the game is... I'm inclined to believe it's literally impossible. you simply wouldn't have the damage and mana regen to keep up.

Publicado originalmente por Serpentarius:

I didn't retire until unlocking the final boss on my first NG+ run, and I can tell you stright out, you won't have the stats needed to beat the final boss, period. And I will point out NG+ let me have higher stats than you would have on NG, so retireing is mandatory.

Ya that's what I thought. I remember the first time I ran into the boss with only half the storyline bonus's unlocked and around level 40 in all schools, and found it literally impossible to win. at a minimum, you HAVE to have the last evocation spell. simply not enough damage fast enough otherwise. You might be able to get that without retiring... but good luck having enough mana to use it along with everything else needed to keep you alive.

[Arevi]

I would be inclined to agree and say no, its not possible but honestly people have gotten further than i thought possible already so maybe if enough time in a run passes? It would be a complete waste of time and no fun whatsoever though

[Serpentarius]

Publicado originalmente por Arevi:

I would be inclined to agree and say no, its not possible but honestly people have gotten further than i thought possible already so maybe if enough time in a run passes? It would be a complete waste of time and no fun whatsoever though

I was 60 in all researches when i did that no retirement run up to Rendell, Big Bang let me get to phase 2, barely. However, the damage output was so bad I didn't stand a chance once phase 2 began.