Ascended Markoth is hell. Struggling to beat in 5th pantheon/HOG

[YourAverageJoe]

I think that Markoth is the worst designed boss in the game, unlike bosses like the pure vessel or NKG which are difficult yet fair; Ascended Markoth is reliant on rng and almost required damage.
I have seen strategies such as using nail arts to get through the shield, this helps but i often find my self unable to heal or do damage anyway. Any tips or tricks would be appreciated, as it is quite annoying to die to him that far into the 5th pantheon. Thanks.

[FlappyPants]

I try to make sure I have soul before his fight, by using little on the Soul Tyrant before Markoth. Trying to save as much soul as I can, I will use my nail to push him into his second phase, and then just dodge until he starts his shield spin. It took me a long time to get good at dodging his swords, and not getting hit by his shield as he flies around.

During his second phase shield spin, I will try to spam abyss shriek under him as many times as I can, until his swords start spawning again. It's kinda RNG to get him in a good spot to do this. so sometimes I have to wait through a couple cycles of his swords before I get a chance to attack him.

Some times if I run out of soul and still have decent health, I will dmg tank his shield to get his last bit of health down with my nail. This used to cause problems for me with fighting Zote right after Markoth, and not having enough health to survive Zote's BS.

My charms for the pantheon are geared towards all the fights after Markoth, so I ended up making him harder for my self by not having spell charms.

[Soup]

Im usually able to get to phase 2 pretty reliably by pogo bouncing on him w/careful maneuvering to avoid the spears, but once that second shield comes out, it kills the strategy

[Boksha]

Yeah, I agree floorless Markoth is a massive failure in boss design. Annoyingly you'll have to learn how to beat him to get the final achievement... luckily, without binds, he can be beaten pretty reliably. Markoth is easily the hardest fight of the segment (yes, worse than Failed Champion, GPZ and NKG) so it's a good idea to gear your charms purely towards this fight. Shaman Stone is a must; it boosts the damage from Shade Soul from a lousy 30 to a whopping 80. For the first phase, concentrate on dodging his nails and only hit him when he comes to you. If you have to jump to hit him, it's too dangerous. If you do get hit, wait for his shield-spin attack to heal. After that:

Originally posted by Soup:

Im usually able to get to phase 2 pretty reliably by pogo bouncing on him w/careful maneuvering to avoid the spears, but once that second shield comes out, it kills the strategy

If you can get to phase 2 you've basically won, provided you have the Shaman Stone equipped and aren't using the soul binding. Pelting him with Shade Souls will usually kill him in that state, or leave him with so few HP left you can do a kamikaze attack and still win.

[korreman]

One great thing about the fighting in this game is that it's more about prediction and planning than having fast reaction times. Attack patterns, safe zones, charm builds, risk/reward factors. Even without millisecond reaction times, you can find an engaging way to take out a boss.

Ascended Markoth throws all of this out the window, especially prediction. The spears can spawn outside the screen. They can spawn in your path. Their sound can get completely outmixed. Markoth himself moves at random, giving no indication as to where he's gonna be in half a second. I don't even know if the shield follows a cycle, but it takes so long to change direction that it's impossible to keep track of. His spiral attack can at least be predicted, but he gets freaking moved around when you hit him, adding an impossible layer of calculation.

He'll move towards you, the shield will stop, you will try to get away by double jumping up to another platform, a spear spawns in that trajectory, you take 2 damage and get knocked back into Markoth for another 2 damage, which in turn knocks you away from any platform, and since you already used that double jump, it's another 2 damage from the fall. Fun.

And there's the problem. This fight is not fun. Even in his regular form, you probably just figured out to stay on the ground and wait for him to come to you, which is not engaging.

I don't have a strategy for you, I just needed to get this out of my system. I've beaten every boss on ascended difficulty, I've done the eternal ordeal. I've gotten all bindings for the four pantheons. I can clean the floor with Pure Vessel's face at this point. Beaten the tenth iteration of Zote's dream boss, hitless. All of that was fun. Markoth is not fun, and he is the one thing keeping me from facing Absolute Radiance.

[YourAverageJoe]

Helpful advice, got past him now thanks all