Sam DLC Armstrong is difficult to the point of frustration.

[Criceto]

Unless you want to sit and play it safe, which would make the fight last like 20 minutes, this fight is ridiculous. CONSTANT yellow attacks in a row, little time to react to attacks, and very messy coordinating of attacks. In every fight in the game, if you're just patient, there'll always be a clear opportunity to attack, with Blade Wolf if you do enough damage he'll get flung back and won't get back up for a few seconds, with Monsoon if you can stun him you can chop off his head and attack it for a few seconds, in base game Armstrong although he doesn't have something like that as far as I can recall after many attacks there'll be a second or two before he attacks again, not to mention whenever he throws the pieces of MG Excelsus at you, you get showered with Nanopastes. This fight seemed like the devs didn't know how to actually make the fight challenging in any interesting way so they just turned the slider for his delay between attacks way down and turned his frequency of yellow attacks way up. Having a boss fight that sometimes just says "f#ck you" and stops one animation to perform another with no time to react is not good game design. In a game about looking at what your enemy is doing and reacting accordingly (dodging, parrying, attacking, going into blade mode, etc), having some attacks be entirely inconsistent is terrible. When he turns yellow and dashes forward (not the grab, the other one), he'll either do it 2 or 3 times and it's completely random. Not to mention if you're at the edge of the platform you are entirely screwed if he does that attack. The worst part is, all this BS only starts at the half-way point of the fight, when he turns red and idk gets mad or something. I'm probably just going to watch the ending cutscene on Youtube and move onto Blade Wolf's DLC because the next time I see the animation of him dropkicking and headbutting Sam I am going to dropkick and headbutt myself. (yes i'm taunting and charging attacks but it doesnt help that since you have no time between attacks you cant charge attacks). I hope that DLC doesn't leave as much as a sour taste in my mouth because trust me, I really like the base game, one of the best games I've played in the last 5 years imo.

[KleinGulo]

For me it was the best fight in the whole game. Took me exactly 1 hour to beat him on hard difficulty. No boring qte's or debris throwing. Just the short animation when he throws you up in the air is a bit too long but beside of that non stop action.

[Criceto]

Originally posted by KleinGulo:

For me it was the best fight in the whole game. Took me exactly 1 hour to beat him on hard difficulty. No boring qte's or debris throwing. Just the short animation when he throws you up in the air is a bit too long but beside of that non stop action.

I'll try again tomorrow when it's not almost midnight and my brain works. I still think the messiness of it all is bad design no matter what mindset I'm in.

[Necrilem]

Yea but now do it on revengeance for the achievement :D

Drove me nuts for a while until I managed to clear it. On revengeance, his entire fight is in his last phase.

Gotta heavily disagree thought with thinking the devs didnt know what they were doing. For one, you arent really an expert on the subject and this fight is also well designed after the base game. It trips you up thinking you can approach it like in the base game and playing on revengeance you gotta be really aggressive, while also reacting very quickly and overall have a very "tight" control over what you are doing as the openings are so small. Yes, while doing it, the fight drove me nuts but since clearing it, I look back at it rather fondly.
There also ARE specific openings where you can use a charged attack (which on revengeance with taunt does insane dmg). You just really gotta learn the patterns, react quickly and stay calm. Requires a lot of finetuning

[Criceto]

Originally posted by Necrilem:

Yea but now do it on revengeance for the achievement :D

Drove me nuts for a while until I managed to clear it. On revengeance, his entire fight is in his last phase.

Gotta heavily disagree thought with thinking the devs didnt know what they were doing. For one, you arent really an expert on the subject and this fight is also well designed after the base game. It trips you up thinking you can approach it like in the base game and playing on revengeance you gotta be really aggressive, while also reacting very quickly and overall have a very "tight" control over what you are doing as the openings are so small. Yes, while doing it, the fight drove me nuts but since clearing it, I look back at it rather fondly.
There also ARE specific openings where you can use a charged attack (which on revengeance with taunt does insane dmg). You just really gotta learn the patterns, react quickly and stay calm. Requires a lot of finetuning

OKAY I FIGURED OUT WHAT THE ♥♥♥♥ TO DO

Whenever he dashes at you, parry it, and keep parrying the kicks and punches he does, afterwards, 99% of the time, he'll windup for one of the 3 moves where he punches the ground, or his AOE shockwave yellow attack, in all 4 of those you can get a fully charged attack in, so just bait all of his yellow attacks until he dashes, then you can get basically a guaranteed charged attack from there, and of course the taunt helps a lot, as soon as i started doing that bye-bye armstrong health bye-bye armstrong yay

On a more serious note, after figuring out what to do, yeah, this is a pretty good fight, is it one of my favorites? No, but it's CERTAINLY not bad. I think the main issue stems from the game not making it very clear that you can safely attack him when he's doing those attacks, the way the attacks are choreographed makes them seem like a "this is an attack to push the player away" kind of attack rather than a "this is an attack the player can run up to the boss during it and get damage in" attack. Especially since during his first and half-second phase....? Basically until he gets angy, most of the damage you'll do is dodging or parrying his combos, and then punish him with a few attacks, which is how most bosses are, just wait until you get your obvious opening and slash 'em. But I will say, having a boss that flips that on it's head and makes you actually react to what's happening to get your attacks in is a nice change of pace, I 100% retract my statement about the devs not knowing what to do with this fight, once you know what to do, it's really fun, just wish I knew it sooner.

edit: also collective consciousness always slaps

[LiL blade]

Originally posted by Criceto:

Unless you want to sit and play it safe, which would make the fight last like 20 minutes, this fight is ridiculous. CONSTANT yellow attacks in a row, little time to react to attacks, and very messy coordinating of attacks. In every fight in the game, if you're just patient, there'll always be a clear opportunity to attack, with Blade Wolf if you do enough damage he'll get flung back and won't get back up for a few seconds, with Monsoon if you can stun him you can chop off his head and attack it for a few seconds, in base game Armstrong although he doesn't have something like that as far as I can recall after many attacks there'll be a second or two before he attacks again, not to mention whenever he throws the pieces of MG Excelsus at you, you get showered with Nanopastes. This fight seemed like the devs didn't know how to actually make the fight challenging in any interesting way so they just turned the slider for his delay between attacks way down and turned his frequency of yellow attacks way up. Having a boss fight that sometimes just says "f#ck you" and stops one animation to perform another with no time to react is not good game design. In a game about looking at what your enemy is doing and reacting accordingly (dodging, parrying, attacking, going into blade mode, etc), having some attacks be entirely inconsistent is terrible. When he turns yellow and dashes forward (not the grab, the other one), he'll either do it 2 or 3 times and it's completely random. Not to mention if you're at the edge of the platform you are entirely screwed if he does that attack. The worst part is, all this BS only starts at the half-way point of the fight, when he turns red and idk gets mad or something. I'm probably just going to watch the ending cutscene on Youtube and move onto Blade Wolf's DLC because the next time I see the animation of him dropkicking and headbutting Sam I am going to dropkick and headbutt myself. (yes i'm taunting and charging attacks but it doesnt help that since you have no time between attacks you cant charge attacks). I hope that DLC doesn't leave as much as a sour taste in my mouth because trust me, I really like the base game, one of the best games I've played in the last 5 years imo.

the only real bad thing i can say about the fight is the fact on higher difficulties (very hard and revengeance) is that his red dash attack (the one that charges up) can get really buggy but other then that its a decent fight, imo if it wasnt for collective conscessness then the fight would be really underwhelming

[Necrilem]

Originally posted by Criceto:

Originally posted by Necrilem:

Yea but now do it on revengeance for the achievement :D

Drove me nuts for a while until I managed to clear it. On revengeance, his entire fight is in his last phase.

Gotta heavily disagree thought with thinking the devs didnt know what they were doing. For one, you arent really an expert on the subject and this fight is also well designed after the base game. It trips you up thinking you can approach it like in the base game and playing on revengeance you gotta be really aggressive, while also reacting very quickly and overall have a very "tight" control over what you are doing as the openings are so small. Yes, while doing it, the fight drove me nuts but since clearing it, I look back at it rather fondly.
There also ARE specific openings where you can use a charged attack (which on revengeance with taunt does insane dmg). You just really gotta learn the patterns, react quickly and stay calm. Requires a lot of finetuning

OKAY I FIGURED OUT WHAT THE ♥♥♥♥ TO DO

Whenever he dashes at you, parry it, and keep parrying the kicks and punches he does, afterwards, 99% of the time, he'll windup for one of the 3 moves where he punches the ground, or his AOE shockwave yellow attack, in all 4 of those you can get a fully charged attack in, so just bait all of his yellow attacks until he dashes, then you can get basically a guaranteed charged attack from there, and of course the taunt helps a lot, as soon as i started doing that bye-bye armstrong health bye-bye armstrong yay

On a more serious note, after figuring out what to do, yeah, this is a pretty good fight, is it one of my favorites? No, but it's CERTAINLY not bad. I think the main issue stems from the game not making it very clear that you can safely attack him when he's doing those attacks, the way the attacks are choreographed makes them seem like a "this is an attack to push the player away" kind of attack rather than a "this is an attack the player can run up to the boss during it and get damage in" attack. Especially since during his first and half-second phase....? Basically until he gets angy, most of the damage you'll do is dodging or parrying his combos, and then punish him with a few attacks, which is how most bosses are, just wait until you get your obvious opening and slash 'em. But I will say, having a boss that flips that on it's head and makes you actually react to what's happening to get your attacks in is a nice change of pace, I 100% retract my statement about the devs not knowing what to do with this fight, once you know what to do, it's really fun, just wish I knew it sooner.

edit: also collective consciousness always slaps

Now you gotta go for the sub 1 hour on revengeance achievo. The fight is especially fun then bc it gets cranked up a LOT xD

[Criceto]

Originally posted by BLADE 69:

Originally posted by Criceto:

Unless you want to sit and play it safe, which would make the fight last like 20 minutes, this fight is ridiculous. CONSTANT yellow attacks in a row, little time to react to attacks, and very messy coordinating of attacks. In every fight in the game, if you're just patient, there'll always be a clear opportunity to attack, with Blade Wolf if you do enough damage he'll get flung back and won't get back up for a few seconds, with Monsoon if you can stun him you can chop off his head and attack it for a few seconds, in base game Armstrong although he doesn't have something like that as far as I can recall after many attacks there'll be a second or two before he attacks again, not to mention whenever he throws the pieces of MG Excelsus at you, you get showered with Nanopastes. This fight seemed like the devs didn't know how to actually make the fight challenging in any interesting way so they just turned the slider for his delay between attacks way down and turned his frequency of yellow attacks way up. Having a boss fight that sometimes just says "f#ck you" and stops one animation to perform another with no time to react is not good game design. In a game about looking at what your enemy is doing and reacting accordingly (dodging, parrying, attacking, going into blade mode, etc), having some attacks be entirely inconsistent is terrible. When he turns yellow and dashes forward (not the grab, the other one), he'll either do it 2 or 3 times and it's completely random. Not to mention if you're at the edge of the platform you are entirely screwed if he does that attack. The worst part is, all this BS only starts at the half-way point of the fight, when he turns red and idk gets mad or something. I'm probably just going to watch the ending cutscene on Youtube and move onto Blade Wolf's DLC because the next time I see the animation of him dropkicking and headbutting Sam I am going to dropkick and headbutt myself. (yes i'm taunting and charging attacks but it doesnt help that since you have no time between attacks you cant charge attacks). I hope that DLC doesn't leave as much as a sour taste in my mouth because trust me, I really like the base game, one of the best games I've played in the last 5 years imo.

the only real bad thing i can say about the fight is the fact on higher difficulties (very hard and revengeance) is that his red dash attack (the one that charges up) can get really buggy but other then that its a decent fight, imo if it wasnt for collective conscessness then the fight would be really underwhelming

Weirdest thing is that Collective Consciousness doesn't even make sense for an Armstrong fight. Because it's not his theme, it's the theme of the facade he puts on to get elected, and after he does he'll reform America to the core, and make a world where everyone fights for what they want, and not for a nation or company, which directly goes against what Collective Consciousness is saying.

[Criceto]

Originally posted by Necrilem:

Originally posted by Criceto:

OKAY I FIGURED OUT WHAT THE ♥♥♥♥ TO DO

Whenever he dashes at you, parry it, and keep parrying the kicks and punches he does, afterwards, 99% of the time, he'll windup for one of the 3 moves where he punches the ground, or his AOE shockwave yellow attack, in all 4 of those you can get a fully charged attack in, so just bait all of his yellow attacks until he dashes, then you can get basically a guaranteed charged attack from there, and of course the taunt helps a lot, as soon as i started doing that bye-bye armstrong health bye-bye armstrong yay

On a more serious note, after figuring out what to do, yeah, this is a pretty good fight, is it one of my favorites? No, but it's CERTAINLY not bad. I think the main issue stems from the game not making it very clear that you can safely attack him when he's doing those attacks, the way the attacks are choreographed makes them seem like a "this is an attack to push the player away" kind of attack rather than a "this is an attack the player can run up to the boss during it and get damage in" attack. Especially since during his first and half-second phase....? Basically until he gets angy, most of the damage you'll do is dodging or parrying his combos, and then punish him with a few attacks, which is how most bosses are, just wait until you get your obvious opening and slash 'em. But I will say, having a boss that flips that on it's head and makes you actually react to what's happening to get your attacks in is a nice change of pace, I 100% retract my statement about the devs not knowing what to do with this fight, once you know what to do, it's really fun, just wish I knew it sooner.

edit: also collective consciousness always slaps

Now you gotta go for the sub 1 hour on revengeance achievo. The fight is especially fun then bc it gets cranked up a LOT xD

lol steam crashed because i typed "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO" and kept copy pasting the o's

[LiL blade]

Originally posted by Criceto:

Originally posted by BLADE 69:

the only real bad thing i can say about the fight is the fact on higher difficulties (very hard and revengeance) is that his red dash attack (the one that charges up) can get really buggy but other then that its a decent fight, imo if it wasnt for collective conscessness then the fight would be really underwhelming

Weirdest thing is that Collective Consciousness doesn't even make sense for an Armstrong fight. Because it's not his theme, it's the theme of the facade he puts on to get elected, and after he does he'll reform America to the core, and make a world where everyone fights for what they want, and not for a nation or company, which directly goes against what Collective Consciousness is saying.

the reason why collective plays in his fight is because thats how sam sees armstrong, just another typical politician

[Criceto]

Originally posted by BLADE 69:

Originally posted by Criceto:

Weirdest thing is that Collective Consciousness doesn't even make sense for an Armstrong fight. Because it's not his theme, it's the theme of the facade he puts on to get elected, and after he does he'll reform America to the core, and make a world where everyone fights for what they want, and not for a nation or company, which directly goes against what Collective Consciousness is saying.

The reason why collective plays in his fight is because thats how Sam sees Armstrong, just another typical politician.

That makes sense, since Armstrong only reveals his true motives to Raiden much later.