True last boss is annoying to the point its just dumb.

[Copyist Monk]

I know many people have expressed this sentiment already, but I would also like to share my frustration. Starting with the Luke fight, the bosses become increasingly annoying, and many times I simply wanted to stop playing. What truly angers me (besides the sudden shift from a cozy game to a bullet hell experience) is the overwhelming amount of elements on the screen, making it difficult to even locate my character amidst the chaos. I often find myself needing to take a moment to navigate through the barrage of fire, bullets, summons, rain sprites, thunder, and so on, resulting in me taking three or four hits before I can even react, forcing me to use the potions and then wait for its cooldown.

Furthermore, the bosses' attack patterns are inconsistent, changing randomly, making it impossible to minimally anticipate their moves or know when to strike. The potion system is also flawed, frequently failing to register inputs, causing me to miss the narrow window of opportunity to use them, which leads to the control issues. While I use a joystick, I cannot speak for keyboard users, but I often find myself facing the wrong direction or unable to execute basic attacks after using buff skills and potions. Additionally, there seems to be a delay in activating abilities like blink and using the shield, or perhaps I am simply not as skilled at the game as I thought. Moreover, whenever I am hit while using the shield, the character automatically turns towards the direction of the hit instead of maintaining their position, resulting in more damage until I can discern what's happening on the screen and adjust accordingly, which means release the shield button, turns towards the original direction and press the shield button again (lots of damage!).

I feel that the game demands a level of control precision that it fails to provide. Despite its many good ideas, it ultimately devolves into a bullet hell experience, which was not what I expected or desired to begin with...

[BIӨMΣCHΛПӨID69]

Legitimate criticism.

[Faust]

Having FINALLY beaten the thrice cursed bastard on Hard, I wouldn't say anticipating his attacks or windows of vulnerability is straight up impossible, it's just that the deliberate and cruel inconsistency of his attack patterns makes it so you don't really get to learn and train for these patterns and just need to have korean cyborg reflexes capable of countering every sudden shift in his movements. Although that might just be his speed on the Hard difficulty. I wouldn't know how fast he is on Normal since I started my first playthrough on Hard.

Personally, the thing I hate is the overlap of different attack patterns creating an inconsistent difficulty. He can overlap two earth or lightning attacks which are borderline a free vulnerability window, or he can overlap one of the nastier AoE attacks (like the full arena exploding balls) with a melee chain which he will SPITEFULLY prolong to 7 or so slashes, 4 of which will be blinks. I had this happen to me several ties, and a few times I just got so mad I got up from the computer in the middle of an attack and went for a wee stroll as he stabbed my character to death. This has the potential of not only making the fight harder than usual, but also easier than usual, which injects the element of luck into the fight and allows on occasion to substitute skill with said luck.

I do very much agree with the control feedback. I did encounter the "facing wrong direction while shielding because my game registered the shield input during the wrong movement because I have 152759 projectiles flying my way and need to turn on a dime, and now I'm facing backwards" issue, but I am uncertain whether it's an actual control problem of registering the shield raise at the wrong time or if you and I just have abysmal coordination between our left and right hands. That said, having your facing direction changed after getting staggered with a raised shield is a crime against fun.

What I also take an issue with is the action queuing system. Reaper's Mark, for example, gets cancelled by a basic attack, forcing me to pause my attacks and mash the skill to refresh it. But it doesn't get cancelled by a shield raise, which is exactly the kind of action that SHOULD take higher priority and cancel out other offensive skills. Many whirlslashes have been eaten due to this before I gave up trying to be slick and just started being extra careful.

The problem of "where even am I, this attack fills literally 90% of the arena and goes over my sprite" is something I have encountered as well. Perhaps a colored outline of the character could help mitigate this.

[Honey Badger]

100%, a game that only offers 4way player direction demans bullet hell precision. i can dps him down in like 15 seconds to phase 2, fight should end then

[John Snail]

Now that I think about it the precision-based fights are probably more frustrating on controller, devs should look into that.
The only attacks that turn the fight into a mess are the ones involving the amulet; the random laser attack is especially bad. I think he should only use them if you're not in melee range and can therefore react in time. Would also help if the projectiles drew over the lasers and not under.

[SimranZenov]

Originally posted by Honey Badger:

... a game that only offers 4way player direction demans bullet hell precision.

That's not true. You can move diagonally. It's just the animations that are 4 directional.

[foxz]

I just did a fight with him that in his second phase he used in the span of 10s the little rocks pillars that fill the arena, lightning shower, that dash attack across the screen with ghosts, meteors with fire on the ground (don't forget the fire ring around the arena), like how the ♥♥♥♥ are you supposed to defend, attack or even see what is happening on the screen, i'm starting to believe that whoever has this achiev (for hard mode) is a challenger level gamer in every other game or just cheated with whatever people do for achievs.
it's dumb and frustating, i've come to terms that it aint even worth to equip normal itens, since you do ♥♥♥♥ all damage, it's better to go full glass cannon and try to not get hit a single time in the first phase.

[FibS]

To my own surprise I was able to beat Super ShamWow on my first try.

On normal mode, it's feasible to stack DEF (crab equipment +Barrier +Fortify) and focus on playing defensively. Even against Super ShamWow, if you get to the mid to high 30s you'll be able to take little enough damage to heal back up in the pause between attacks.

Also, you can and should finish Shiidu's quest and use her against Super ShamWow, the only time she is willing to serve. She's so good you can just eat all his attacks even without perfect block.

[Bobucles]

Standard combat in Grindea works out well enough, but the final fights feel far too advanced for the controls. You have a character that needs to dodge a vicious barrage of attacks, aim their moves, and aim their blocks. Plus there are so many attacks that can't be evaded and demand blocks. That's too much to demand out of a single d-pad. Dual stick fights should have dual stick controls to go with it.

There are also lots of visual issues in the more intense fights. Player flickering is perhaps too strong, causing a character to vanish around many other flashing effects. Damage numbers block vision, and text boxes also obstruct vision.

[Faust]

Originally posted by foxz:

I just did a fight with him that in his second phase he used in the span of 10s the little rocks pillars that fill the arena, lightning shower, that dash attack across the screen with ghosts, meteors with fire on the ground (don't forget the fire ring around the arena), like how the ♥♥♥♥ are you supposed to defend, attack or even see what is happening on the screen, i'm starting to believe that whoever has this achiev (for hard mode) is a challenger level gamer in every other game or just cheated with whatever people do for achievs.
it's dumb and frustating, i've come to terms that it aint even worth to equip normal itens, since you do ♥♥♥♥ all damage, it's better to go full glass cannon and try to not get hit a single time in the first phase.

Ironically enough, I beat him on Hard using a DEF setup with full crab armor, Brawler's Tenacity, and Fortify. Even despite the 65% armor penetration.

[CiaphasCain]

Originally posted by Faust:

Originally posted by foxz:

I just did a fight with him that in his second phase he used in the span of 10s the little rocks pillars that fill the arena, lightning shower, that dash attack across the screen with ghosts, meteors with fire on the ground (don't forget the fire ring around the arena), like how the ♥♥♥♥ are you supposed to defend, attack or even see what is happening on the screen, i'm starting to believe that whoever has this achiev (for hard mode) is a challenger level gamer in every other game or just cheated with whatever people do for achievs.
it's dumb and frustating, i've come to terms that it aint even worth to equip normal itens, since you do ♥♥♥♥ all damage, it's better to go full glass cannon and try to not get hit a single time in the first phase.

Ironically enough, I beat him on Hard using a DEF setup with full crab armor, Brawler's Tenacity, and Fortify. Even despite the 65% armor penetration.

Which build? 2H?

[Faust]

Originally posted by CiaphasCain:

Originally posted by Faust:

Ironically enough, I beat him on Hard using a DEF setup with full crab armor, Brawler's Tenacity, and Fortify. Even despite the 65% armor penetration.

Which build? 2H?

Shadowclones 1H. Had Triskele and THE CUBE for accessories. Crab armor, crab claw, even crab helmet (though I'm not sure about the helmet, swapping to Ornate Helmet + Evil Eye Mask might be a better deal), mushroom slippers for shoes. Shadowclones, Reaper's Mark, Blink (mostly went unused because of the surgical precision necessary to navigate this star-forsaken boss arena), Barrier (used only during phase 3), and every enhancement. Every meaningful Basic Attack talent was taken, as well as "Knowledge is Power" from magic, the utility talents from General, the crit talents, Lady Luck, and... uh... I think that's all the important stuff. Potion bonuses might come in handy too, but I didn't get those because I ran out of talent points.

[MonkeyBone]

Yeah I was quite enjoying the game until I got to the Luke fight, managed that but now I'm in a tower, barely surviving a slime boss forced straight into another one that I died to sending me back to the slime. I simply quit the game.
It's like the developer forgot what game they were making at the end because this difficulty spike is just stupid.

[BROLY 32]

I'm slowly but surely learning the patterns. His dash strike is quite annoying, he does his fireball clutter that you're forced to move out of, sometimes he instantly dashes again so you NEED to hold shield for an extra second and otherwise, when he teleports behind me, it's kind of a struggle to turn and shield (I'm on keyboard) because there's a slight delay.

I can reach the summon phase pretty often now but I'm not used to it yet, can't find any good time to strike the ice golem.

Tried used magic, no way. Now I'm just doing kinda tanky/crit double handed and spamming the first double handed skill since it does a lot of damage and doesn't take too long to charge.

Any tips for the golem ? I don't really have time to shield his melee and counterattack, maybe with a perfect timing but ♥♥♥♥ that, don't wanna risk my life. When he's raging, I just avoid him.
But eventually, the swarm + storm + cloud, it's just tiring to look at and I end up getting hit left and right. There's plants too but a quick arrow is enough.

[Faust]

Originally posted by BROLY 32:

I'm slowly but surely learning the patterns. His dash strike is quite annoying, he does his fireball clutter that you're forced to move out of, sometimes he instantly dashes again so you NEED to hold shield for an extra second and otherwise, when he teleports behind me, it's kind of a struggle to turn and shield (I'm on keyboard) because there's a slight delay.

I can reach the summon phase pretty often now but I'm not used to it yet, can't find any good time to strike the ice golem.

Tried used magic, no way. Now I'm just doing kinda tanky/crit double handed and spamming the first double handed skill since it does a lot of damage and doesn't take too long to charge.

Any tips for the golem ? I don't really have time to shield his melee and counterattack, maybe with a perfect timing but ♥♥♥♥ that, don't wanna risk my life. When he's raging, I just avoid him.
But eventually, the swarm + storm + cloud, it's just tiring to look at and I end up getting hit left and right. There's plants too but a quick arrow is enough.

If you're on hard - remember that you're allowed to use barrier during the summon phase since he isn't there to steal it from you. This will allow you some leeway in extending your staying power while learning the patterns and sneaking in damage. Lightning potion can help you get rid of the plant while keeping your attention on the other critters. I mostly fought Frosty whenever he wasn't enraged and too far away. He strikes, I shield and counter-attack, rince repeat. I don't use two-handed weapons so I can't recommend much in terms of timing here. Perfect-guarding with Sheedoo isn't necessary.

[BROLY 32]

Yeah I'm on hard of course, heard it's not that bad on normal.
Lightning potion is a great tip, forgot about it, thanks.
Edit : tried this tactic and instantly PB'd, snow golem down to 5%hp.
I lost half my life to him... Everytime I get hit it's just 100% me being dumb but there's so much on screen, my old brain struggles.
I'll keep at it.
Edit2:Passed golem, almost there. Got surprised by golem and plant still showing up in last phase.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3183780872
I'm still struggling to dodge a lot of his dashes but oh well.