Is it to hard?

[Mecharion]

Like to "unbalanced/unfair/unfun - for a Soulslike" hard? Some reviewers are crying that normal felt unbalanced for them.

I like hard - i dont like bad balance.

Dont troll with ez mode - i did all FS games solo. Just give me honest opinions without BS. Does it need tuning?

[Guldo]

Originally posted by Retsubty:

Originally posted by Enderborn312:

I personally believe that the game is pretty fair in its expectations of the player. I've been having a good damn time with it.

Your Normal Mode, no summons experience with Viper boss was like what? How was it for you?

summons dont really work against him anyway because they run right into his tornado move and dies.

[Retsubty]

Originally posted by Trilkin:

Originally posted by Guldo:

just wait until you reach viper. hes very over tuned and the stupid summoned help always runs into his tornado attack making things worse.

He's not overtuned. He's hard because he's a patience check/rules enforcer. He teaches you to manage stamina and defend correctly while not overextending. You're intended to learn the skills you'll need for the rest of the game through him which is why he's so hard so early. There are later bosses harder than he is.

Ehh i think it has a lot of health for your player chara that only has 4 pots that don't even heal you all the way. ( I made the mistake of upgrading lacrima earnings instead of health recovery too lol)

Also the burst counter in phase 2 doesn't always give you a window. He can start attacking immediately again. There are some unrewarding elements to his fight.

Also this boss will make you want to spec into light attacks.

[Guldo]

Originally posted by Retsubty:

Originally posted by Trilkin:

He's not overtuned. He's hard because he's a patience check/rules enforcer. He teaches you to manage stamina and defend correctly while not overextending. You're intended to learn the skills you'll need for the rest of the game through him which is why he's so hard so early. There are later bosses harder than he is.

Ehh i think it has a lot of health for your player chara that only has 4 pots that don't even heal you all the way.

Also the burst counter in phase 2 doesn't always give you a window. He can start attacking immediately again. There are some unrewarding elements to his fight.

he didnt even address how a core mechanic to help you in the fight is completely broken. to be honest summons arent so great against the boss after either.

summons in this game are just awful. they are meant to make the fight easier but they dont.

always got to defend when stuff isnt working as intended.

[Retsubty]

I don't intend to use the summons anyways but yeah they sound unhelpful.

[Guldo]

Originally posted by Retsubty:

I don't intend to use the summons anyways but yeah they sound unhelpful.

they get killed 100% of the time before a boss even reaches half health.

mimic tear in elden ring was good. but summons in this game are just awful.

they cant block for ♥♥♥♥ either. they just take all the damage.

[Trilkin]

Originally posted by Retsubty:

Originally posted by Trilkin:

He's not overtuned. He's hard because he's a patience check/rules enforcer. He teaches you to manage stamina and defend correctly while not overextending. You're intended to learn the skills you'll need for the rest of the game through him which is why he's so hard so early. There are later bosses harder than he is.

Ehh i think it has a lot of health for your player chara that only has 4 pots that don't even heal you all the way. ( I made the mistake of upgrading lacrima earnings instead of health recovery too lol)

Also the burst counter in phase 2 doesn't always give you a window. He can start attacking immediately again. There are some unrewarding elements to his fight.

Also this boss will make you want to spec into light attacks.

The health pool is exactly part of patience check and rules enforcement. Something that helps massively is that every tree has some form of spirit-costing defensive button. Spear has an autoguard that does significant damage, Greatsword has a guard that does very high reprisal damage, Dual Wielding has a dodge that transitions into a strong attack.

Conversely, every weapon obviously has a selection of spirit-costing attacks that help supplement your stamina and often help refund it. You have the spirit there for a reason and it isn't just for javelins. Part of the boss is learning to utilize it basically at all. It isn't a crutch or a cheat, it's an integral part of the game flow.

I beat this boss using the spear autoguard as effectively a second block button to maintain stamina so I could use the stamina breaking kick as my offense. On my kill run, he folded and I took maybe half a bar in damage. It didn't take me very long, but part of it is also making the most of your openings. A charged potent attack or a strong spirit-spending attack are better than investing in lights for smaller windows.

I didn't summon, I didn't spend my welfare lacrima, and I play on normal. It took me 45 minutes to effectively figure out my issue was overextending and that the boss is actually way more fair than some Soulsborne bosses are because, at the very least, Viper never just stops his combos and transitions into another one. He finishes the whole thing, he's always predictable, and as long as you remember his phase 1 grapple-stab-thing needs to be dodged and phase 2 sword plunge ends with a ground explosion, he has nothing to sucker punch you with.

The hardest part of him is his Monsoon phase because he can lunge at you at a variable number of times before doing his knuckle drag punch and the punch impacts much earlier than the lunges do.

[Trilkin]

Originally posted by Guldo:

Originally posted by Retsubty:

Ehh i think it has a lot of health for your player chara that only has 4 pots that don't even heal you all the way.

Also the burst counter in phase 2 doesn't always give you a window. He can start attacking immediately again. There are some unrewarding elements to his fight.

he didnt even address how a core mechanic to help you in the fight is completely broken. to be honest summons arent so great against the boss after either.

summons in this game are just awful. they are meant to make the fight easier but they dont.

always got to defend when stuff isnt working as intended.

The summons being useless is a problem, I agree. You can beat the boss without it, though. The boss works as intended. The summon doesn't (I guess? I never tried using it.)

[Retsubty]

Well I mean Spear sounds OP then if it has auto guard.

You are you stuck rhythmically brink guarding attacks with dual wield. Sometimes I do mega dps and get into final phase quickly.

[Trilkin]

Originally posted by Retsubty:

Well I mean Spear sounds OP then if it has auto guard.

It's a spirit ability. You go into an autoguard stance for about two seconds or until you cancel it. Every guard from it counts as a brink guard. It lasts long enough for one - maybe two - of Viper's attacks depending on which combo he's on. The Greatsword spirit guard ability is very similar. You don't get the automatic brink guard from it, but you get significantly higher damage reward off of it and it still guards all the same at the cost of spirit instead of stamina.

Edit: Yeah, Dual Wield's entire thing is getting damage in windows that the other two weapons can't. Their 'weapon specialty' for defense is dodge-attacking, though. They can do damage while in dodge iframes very effectively, and you have a few spirit attacks to help regain stamina or put you in a dodge (Breeze Dash, for one.)

Every weapon has its own variation of the spear autoguard from a toolset standpoint: staying safe while doing damage and regenerating or at least not spending stamina.

[Kashra Fall]

Originally posted by Trilkin:

Originally posted by Retsubty:

Well I mean Spear sounds OP then if it has auto guard.

It's a spirit ability. You go into an autoguard stance for about two seconds or until you cancel it. Every guard from it counts as a brink guard. It lasts long enough for one - maybe two - of Viper's attacks depending on which combo he's on. The Greatsword spirit guard ability is very similar. You don't get the automatic brink guard from it, but you get significantly higher damage reward off of it and it still guards all the same at the cost of spirit instead of stamina.

Great sword does do brink guard actually and a ton of stamina damage, it just has no follow up. So you have to take control after blocking once. However, it's not a stance, you use it as a brink guard instead of brink guarding to do a ton of stamina damage.

[Trilkin]

Originally posted by Kashra Fall:

Originally posted by Trilkin:

It's a spirit ability. You go into an autoguard stance for about two seconds or until you cancel it. Every guard from it counts as a brink guard. It lasts long enough for one - maybe two - of Viper's attacks depending on which combo he's on. The Greatsword spirit guard ability is very similar. You don't get the automatic brink guard from it, but you get significantly higher damage reward off of it and it still guards all the same at the cost of spirit instead of stamina.

Great sword does do brink guard actually and a ton of stamina damage, it just has no follow up. So you have to take control after blocking once. However, it's not a stance, you use it as a brink guard instead of brink guarding to do a ton of stamina damage.

I misread it then. I thought you still had to time the brink guard using Counterstrike. You get follow ups to it later in the tree as you level up, but I've never used it. The spear guard has no follow ups initially either, it's just a stance. You can do the generic brink guard counter strike from the tree off of it, but that's all.

[Kashra Fall]

Originally posted by Trilkin:

Originally posted by Kashra Fall:

Great sword does do brink guard actually and a ton of stamina damage, it just has no follow up. So you have to take control after blocking once. However, it's not a stance, you use it as a brink guard instead of brink guarding to do a ton of stamina damage.

I misread it then. I thought you still had to time the brink guard using Counterstrike. You get follow ups to it later in the tree as you level up, but I've never used it.

You can brink guard after it, because it doesn't stagger, it just does a lot of stamina damage. So on viper for instance, you can do that move and then brink guard into counter swing. You however from what I've seen, can't chain it. So it's situational, but for the stamina damage, it's pretty great.

[Trilkin]

Originally posted by Kashra Fall:

Originally posted by Trilkin:

I misread it then. I thought you still had to time the brink guard using Counterstrike. You get follow ups to it later in the tree as you level up, but I've never used it.

You can brink guard after it, because it doesn't stagger, it just does a lot of stamina damage. So on viper for instance, you can do that move and then brink guard into counter swing. You however from what I've seen, can't chain it. So it's situational, but for the stamina damage, it's pretty great.

Yeah, it sounds like it basically works like the spear version then. Spear just does more normal damage than stamina damage from the stance hits. I really don't like spear much though honestly. It feels like the way I want to play it, I'm better off going greatsword.

[Retsubty]

Well I do have a cooldown that provides invincibility but what is the practicality of it when the boss attacks 8 times in a row. Mine can only be used to block one of the 8 swings for free and do a bit of damage. It's a gap closer too.

[Trilkin]

Originally posted by Retsubty:

Well I do have a cooldown that provides invincibility but what is the practicality of it when the boss attacks 8 times in a row. Mine can only be used to block one of the 8 swings for free and do a bit of damage. It's a gap closer too.

None of his combos attack 8 times in a row. The utility is to use stamina to avoid/block some then use your spirit to avoid/block the others so you still have stamina left over to get your hits in before retreating a little and repeating.