Heldalf Sucks, Cheapest Boss Ever.

[Reyson Fox]

I played a lot of RPGs in the past, many tales games. But this one is ignorant. I put in 100 hours and beat everything and found everything on Hard up to this point only to have the boss at the end be so cheap. Now I can understand having a challenging boss and everything, and I know they're are strategies. (Grinding another 30-50+ hours for equipment and lvs.) But there is something about making one enemy in your game just insufferable to battle against, and this one takes the cake. I even put it on simple with my lv. 100 chars and still lose to this guy. During the 2nd half when he starts summoning that ridiculous cheap insta kill move, all the damage I concentrate into putting on him gets all negated. And also having the CPU being absolutely stupid does not help, and Local Co-Op is not Co-Op and officially with those i've played alongside with find your boss and this only spot in the game. "CHEAP"

Just sucks I really enjoyed this game, but once it came to this spot and the achievements that go with it and grinding on Hard the whole time to be setup to fail, even when I sacrifice putting it on Moderate to Simple and still die - killed my spirit to play it anymore.

[Kira]

Not sure what the problem you have is. Tales has always beena single player game. The AI has always been trash and you are expected to beat all bosses without help from the AI. Any tales fan already knows this and accepts it, if you still complain about it then idk what to tell you As far as combat goes you even have i-frames on dodges just like in graces f, all of your stats basically double in kamui and your party members constantly get auto revived during battle. Not much you can do to make this easier just stop getting hit.

[RegalStar]

You suck != game is bad

[[Lethalvriend]]

I'll agree on the part that it totally sucks that they put a 'gear check' on the final boss. I also had to go back and get some new stuff even though I could easily beat him if it wasn't all about DPS. The fact that I had to do that definetely broke the whole moment for me.

[Lucathegreat]

DPS thing is lame, yeah, especially on Chaos for the achievement.
The rest is ok, I liked the fight.

[chrcoluk]

to be honest I think the AI isnt too bad in this game, I actually think the AI beats vesperia.

e.g. Tell your team to prioritize defense and they become really efficient at survival.

Of course i have put effort into the strategy screen so maybe thats why I suffer less than others.

I agree the late game bosses are cheap however, they hit too hard and get frequent invulnerability.

[A Walrus in Heat]

(American) Dream Slasher

[Goilveig]

I did Heldalf on Intense (I was around level 88), and found the fight fairly straightforward. I hadn't done any special gear farming or leveling (not even a single +1 item on my final gear. I just kept the best stuff I'd found on, and I kept good Normin on the areas I was fighting at. I did get some stack and union skills out of the fact I kept the same few normin on.

On the first phase of the fight, go slow. I armatized with Mikleo and kept shooting from a distance. I took out the friends he summoned while trying to keep an eye on where he was. His attacks are very well telegraphed, the only annoying thing is his mystic arte - hope you have a good stock of Elixirs (if not, Dark Turtlez in Camlann sells them at higher shop rank, as does Katz Korner). If Rose is armatized, whatever you do DON'T stand close to her - Kittybeard's Mystic Arte can take you both out at full health if you're bunched up. I do have high BG on my characters and I've reduced the cost of mystic artes so I hit him with about three or four mystic artes over the fight. Don't be afraid to use up Arcane Bottles if you don't need item time for healing (although you might want to save two Arcane Bottles for one particular point in the fight).

The only really annoying part was the last "quarter" of the second boss phase, which is where I used most of my healing items & used my BG for almost nothing but healing. Rose developed an addiction to Elixir, as she sucks at dodging and I can't micromanage her. At the "maximum DPS" points, all I had to do was tell the party to charge forward and then keep comboing him; it was dicey (I barely finished the last DPS race) but I did, in fact, finish. If you have trouble, make sure you didn't neglect Sorey's focus - that is insanely important for DPS even if you don't think it will be.

Compared to some of the optional bosses like Dark Turtlez and Phoenix I found him fairly middle of the road. Those other fights I simply could not win on Intense.

[chrcoluk]

Rose has an attack where she jumps in the air, not only is it high DPS but also when she is in the air she often doesnt get hit.

[Sigred]

You suck. Sorry, not sorry. Titles = AI behavior.

[Baalk]

I don't get why are your crying about. Just beat him on caos on my second run. (30Hours). 1 attempt he beat the crap out me.
second just change a little the gear with some Dragon +15% on zhavida and keep rose alive (This is key, if she dies you probably gonna lose).

and bag 4 achivement's in a row.

[chrcoluk]

Well on my ng+ I thought sod it on the diffilculty and left myself in insane.

Beat him first time, with the right buffs and strategy he isnt that hard.

So basically the attack to use for rose is gimmer dragon, just spam it and nothing else, he is weak to the attack and whilst she is in the air he will never hit her until the 4th stage of the fight.
Use the defense strategy by pushing down on right stick whilst spamming the attack and everyone should stay alive. But when he starts charging his super attack cancel the command by pressing down on the right stick whilst still spamming glimmer dragon.
This worked for all 4 stages of the fight but I had to use 2 revive items on rose in the 4th stage.

Also the one on one between heldalf and sorey, even on insane the preventis made me immune to all his hits so he doesnt hard enough to overcome the resistance in that part of the fight.

[Xengre]

As others have indicated it is probably user issue and not the boss that is a problem. If you want dirty bosses try Ozma in FFIX without AI abuse tricks(watch him spam curse guarantee a wipe, or heal to full with Curaga spam when almost dead) or try Growlanser series. First or second fight of the game and your level 3? Here take on some level 30s and 50s. Not sure how the CPU is stupid, tho, never seen any real issues with it so far and it gives you ways to augment them with commands and strategies.

[RegaliaRemix]

Is this the Despot Heldalf (powered up Heldalf) after you beat the Dragon boss in Hexen Isle? All you need is an E-Union 7 so your attacks ignore his resistances and he becomes complete trash when you do full/weakness hits up his ass.

If he's not even the powered up version, you are just naturally bad at the game or have no freaking clue how the fusion system works to get the best E/G Union skills or Stack bonus skills...

There's like so many people even on gamefaqs who have no freaking clue how the skill system work in this game even after reaching the final boss, which is sad because it's a versatile tool in the game when you know a lot about it.

[unboundlopez]

I know what you mean I found myself at the final boss @ lvl 50 or so b/c i was challenging myself playing hard mode on my first playthrough and I was crying towards the end of the battle, but I have to say when I beat heldalf (really beat heldalf) I jumped and lauged and told heldalf to suck it. The boss is wonderfull I really enjoyed the fight.

[Kenjugs]

I think the biggest problem is the inconsistency with which the game seems to carry out it's battle mechanics. I've used martial artes on an enemy casting a seraphic arte just to have it act like I had hit them with a hidden arte instead, shortening their cast time because a different character hit them with a hidden arte first. Sometimes hitting an enemy with a martial arte that has an element they resist will stop them from casting while other times it won't. Sometimes the games just arbitrarily decides "okay you've combo'd enough, the boss needs a breather" and the boss has complete invincibility to everything for 3 or 4 seconds.

This is the part of the battle system that really killed it for me. Especially considering that some bosses can literally combo you from 100% to 0% health, and there's ♥♥♥♥ all you can do about it aside from armatize if you're not already (and I'm talking outside of Mystic Artes).