Penultimate boss fight -- how to beat the bosses?

[Solo4114]

So, I'm at the point where you fight the Constructicons, followed by Devastator solo, followed by Devastator AND Menasor, followed by I have no idea what because Devastator and Menasor kick my ass every time.

Any tips on this? I think I'm playing at normal/commander difficulty. The problem I have is that the arena you fight them in is so small that there's really nowhere to run, and my autobot buddies don't pull aggro from me at all, really, so I have BOTH of these giant robots trying to trash me. I can usually dodge one of their attacks, but I can't even see the other one coming because the first guy takes up the whole f***ing screen.

[Baines]

Focus dodge. That's really the big secret.

Don't just watch the screen, but also listen for the audio cues that alert of an incoming attack.

End your combos with vehicle attacks, as they not only extend your combo but also double as dodges (with periods of invincibility as well as the ability to trigger focus mode). You should probably focus on killing one enemy rather than bouncing back and forth between the two.

Use healing items if necessary. If you need healing items, buy them from the Ark, or just play some Challenge Mode missions until you restock. (If you don't know how to use them, then hit the "Back" button on an Xbox controller, then go to Items. You can manually trigger them from there.)

Know that if you have enough life, the game will not kill you with a single attack, even if that attack normally does enough damage to kill you. Instead, you will be reduced to 1hp. That means you don't need to try to keep your life near max. You can get more use out of your healing items if you just trigger them when you are in the real danger zone. (Just be particularly wary of multi-hit and rapid fire attacks.)

If necessary, you could try playing a Challenge Mode where you fight Devastator, and simply practice fighting him. Specifically, practice Focus dodging him. You really should be able to beat him without getting hit. Menasor is the one that is more likely to hit you in a brawl, but I want to recall that you already have Devastator half-dead before Menasor shows up.

Check the damage of your weapons. Realize that higher Rank weapons do a *lot* more damage than their lower Rank counterparts, even at the same level. If the battle is taking an insanely long time (and particularly if you are running out of energy on an Energon melee weapon), then odds are you are using a weapon that has too low a Rank. (As silly as it is, I was still primarily using a B Rank melee weapon with Bumblebee when the game was throwing As and the occasional S Rank at me. It took an absurdly long time to kill stuff, and I had to use multiple Energy Recoveries within a single boss fight.)

If necessary, take another look at your equipped Tech, as well as your weapon choice and weapon skills. Remember you can use Tech and Skills to do stuff like increase the duration of Focus mode slowdown, increase the duration of invincibility, and various other combat-related things.

If you get into a really bad camera angle, then go to a different part of the arena. You can simply dodge, transform, and drive to the other side. This can also help if you have both Devastator and Menasor together on you and simply want some breathing room. You might not even have to drive across the arena. You might just be able to dodge your way into a better viewing angle, without even stopping fighting. Just think about where you are dodging and where your attacks will take you.

If all else fails and you just want to get to the end of the game, you can lower the difficulty to Easy, but you won't be able to raise it without replaying the whole chapter.


I'm sure others can give you better advice, but the board for this game is fairly dead at this point.

[Solo4114]

Thanks! That's helpful. I must admit that I tend to do a lot of vehicle rush attacks plus the "hold Y" follow-up, plus the subsequent vehicle attack for long combos. I tend to spam that, so my abilities with other attacks aren't as developed. For example, I can't get the hang of consistently doing the "hold Y and spin" attack, and I have no idea how to parry or push. The game doesn't seem to do squat to actually teach you to do this stuff, either.

Right now, I have an S-ranked melee weapon that I use, with some level 4 skills on it. I have an A-ranked photon disruptor, too, as well as an S-ranked heat sniper rifle (which isn't that useful given the zoom it forces). My other ranged weapon -- a six-shot missile, isn't as high (I think it's maybe a C or B?) mostly because I just haven't gotten that lucky in getting those as drops.

I'll try just doing basic dodges and melee attacks, and keep doing that with the odd photon blast thrown in.

Devastator I can manage. Menasor -- individually -- I can manage. But the two of them together make it pretty hard to tell what the hell is going on on-screen.

[WingedKagouti]

Originally posted by Baines:

Focus dodge. That's really the big secret.

Don't just watch the screen, but also listen for the audio cues that alert of an incoming attack.

End your combos with vehicle attacks, as they not only extend your combo but also double as dodges (with periods of invincibility as well as the ability to trigger focus mode). You should probably focus on killing one enemy rather than bouncing back and forth between the two.

And given that Menasor doesn't show up until Devastator is at 50% you should probably focus on Devastator. But the above is the main trick to that fight (and every other fight): Watch and listen for cues that an attack is about to hit, then dodge as late as possible and follow up with a combo.

As far as the game teaching you how to do stuff, it's a Platinum game. They expect you to figure out everything beyond the basics on your own, including how to actually perform techniques you purchase (though the descriptions tend to be 100% accurate).

[Baines]

I barely bothered with guns. On Commander, I punched them both to death with S-Rank Fire Knuckles as Bumblebee.

The really big secret honestly is just learning to focus dodge everything. The game is built around that mechanic even at the lower difficulties. If you have any troubles with it, then add Focus and Dodge-related Tech and skills to give you an edge.

(That isn't to say that the game is only about focus dodging. It is more that focus dodging a basic mechanic that you are expected to know, just as you are expected to know how to punch and jump.)

If you've bought the extra skills, they certainly can take a while to get used to.

It took me a long time to get the hang of the dodge reversal/counterattack. The window is fairly short. You can't press the attack or aim button until after you've pressed dodge, but waiting too long just does a regular attack or regular aim. The trick for me was to just assume the dodge was going to work the way that I wanted, and to press the desired counterattack button before I even saw any form of visual confirmation. Grimlock uses similar timing for his Focus grapples.

Parry isn't that bad, as you simply tap the analog stick in the direction of an incoming attack as it is about to hit you. A decent place to practice Parry is against someone like Motor Master. He uses a lot of projectiles, and even has his flurry of shots where you can test doing back to back parries. If you do a Challenge with the difficulty set to Easy, then it won't matter much even if you often fail. You can get away with tapping the stick quickly, and even slowly advance towards him during his flurry of shots. The big issue with Parry is that in almost any situation, you are better off doing a Focus Dodge. Parrying is relatively high risk for low reward (risk taking the full hit in order to negate a single attack), while Focus Dodge is low risk for high reward (even a failure might still work as a dodge, while success gives you invulnerability, a slowdown effect, potentially boosted damage, and more.) The big advantage of Parry is that I believe you can still do it even if you can't dodge, and it can knock an enemy completely out of an attack. (It is kind of silly seeing Shockwave knocked back because you parried his laser beam.)

The knockback attack (away, toward+Y) I never found much use for, but apparently it can play a part in extending combos. If you use it against an enemy that is in vehicle mode, you can trigger the chance to do an immediate vehicle attack. Apparently if you are in Overdrive mode, you can get the same effect against robot-mode opponents. It may be more useful in time sensitive situations, and maybe some protection stuff as well?


As WingKagouti said, there are plenty of things the game doesn't tell you, but it isn't really the fault of the game for not telling you. I don't remember if the game tells you that headshots (from the proper guns) can trigger a Vehicle Attack chance at close enough range. I know the game doesn't tell you that you can easily combo into a headshot *from* a Vehicle attack. (Immediately after the Vehicle Attack, press Aim and then press Fire for a headshot-capable gun. Even if it doesn't look like it should be a headshot, you will often get the Vehicle Attack cue anyway. Though enemies can end up in the wrong pose for it to work. If your timing is off, you either won't aim at all or will just fire a non-headshot shot.) I only learned that from message boards.