[Spoiler Alert] Stuck on endgame final DLC boss

[Mako]

Well...

It was not difficult to reach her.

Then I started practicing. I tried to kill her for 3 days. I got to the last stage about 3-4 times but never killed her.

And on the third day I started to play worse. This has never happened to me in "hardcore games". And because of that, I got a huge frustration that I can't even bring myself to train myself to kill her.

Any advice?

[ekis bokis]

maybe a little break couldn't hurt?

[Mako]

Originally posted by mouth man:

maybe a little break couldn't hurt?

I forgot to write that half a year has passed. The urge to try again did not appear.

[Kagora]

abuse spells, Ddark (cast + down) gives you 0.4 seconds of invulnerability to move through any attack (including the wall and floor hazards she spawns) or take hits from upto 2 orbs and be completely fine
Shaman stone with abyssal shriek (cast + Up) can end any phase in 6 hits or less
Quick slash + strength can gain soul for spells and output a lot of damage with fast nail hits
In the 2nd arena be patient, letting her come to you is much safer than chasing after her
At the end, you can dash between platforms, or just jump and move around the orbs, they are much easier to dodge than the orbs from other phases of the fight
Watch Radiant clears of her for ways to doge beams/attacks and platform

Here is a video showing dashing between platforms, you can add hits in between dashes pretty easily
https://youtu.be/JXUjIfKSA3U?t=695

This video shows using 1 platform until the end of the final phase and how to play safe with an extremely aggressive play style
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUyJfMLkuxs

[Noborus]

Don't have any tips for her as i only attempted p5 once. And please consider removing the spoiler in the title of the thread, it's inconsiderate to other people who don't know about her yet, for example someone who just beat the radiance and thought that was the final boss.

[kanna]

Originally posted by Coco:

And please consider removing the spoiler in the title of the thread, it's inconsiderate to other people who don't know about her yet, for example someone who just beat the radiance and thought that was the final boss.

^^^ Seconding this.

Inhumane Minimalism's tips should help, and mouth man has a good point about taking a break.

Since you were bothered about getting results that weren't as good on day 3, I just thought I'd specify that if you play when you're tired or your session is too long, it's not uncommon to play worse than you otherwise would a lot of the time. From comments I've seen around here over time, quite a few of us find that we play better after taking a break and coming back later.

Since half a year has passed though, you're starting over maybe not from the beginning, but a little farther back. You might have lost some of the muscle memory but you can get it back if you want to.

[Boksha]

The biggest thing, that eventually allowed me to even beat her hitless (though not 12 times in a row) is religiously staying at or near the center of the arena at all times. Yes, you can technically facetank undodgeable attacks with Descending Dark, but the timing is tricky. Better to never face any undodgeable attack combos to begin with, and for that, you need to pass through arena-wide attacks like the wall of light or horizontally flying nails as early and consistently as possible. Staying in the center of the arena means you'll always see these attacks on time. Attacks like the homing orbs should be dodged by moving as little as possible; most of the time, just doing a tiny sidestep is enough to cause an orb to sail into the ground where you were just standing. Only when orbs fly fully horizontally do you need to jump, and even then, try to make the jump as low as safely (!) possible so you're back on the floor right after. (alternatively, in the first phase, it may be safer to just shadow-dash right into an orb to destroy it without even having to jump)

Stick to that and you won't need any of the insane acrobatics or multi-hit combo attacks shown in the videos Inhumane Minimalism posted to get through the fight without getting hit.

In practice, you'll get hit though (especially when the pressure is on because you just spent 45 minutes slogging through a long and boring pantheon), so learn when it's safe to heal. The best moments are right after the triple-radial-beam attack or right after the spiral nails attack (and in the first phase, the vertical nail attack). Most other attacks last too long for it to be safe to heal, but there are still a few openings here and there.

[chopinnumberonefan]

shaman stone, spell twister, soul catcher, and soul eater allow you to cast abyss shriek extremely often and it does 120 damage if all of the hits connect. play it safe and do abyss shriek whenever you get an opening. abs rad is extremely hard, but after a while you should have no problem

[aidenjeffy]

Practice all the other bosses on the ascended difficulty until you get good at them and then keep trying and trying

[Mako]

Originally posted by Coco:

Don't have any tips for her as i only attempted p5 once. And please consider removing the spoiler in the title of the thread, it's inconsiderate to other people who don't know about her yet, for example someone who just beat the radiance and thought that was the final boss.

There is no function on Steam to hide the header under the spoiler.
What could I do about it?

[Mako]

Originally posted by kanna:

Originally posted by Coco:

And please consider removing the spoiler in the title of the thread, it's inconsiderate to other people who don't know about her yet, for example someone who just beat the radiance and thought that was the final boss.

^^^ Seconding this.

Inhumane Minimalism's tips should help, and mouth man has a good point about taking a break.

Since you were bothered about getting results that weren't as good on day 3, I just thought I'd specify that if you play when you're tired or your session is too long, it's not uncommon to play worse than you otherwise would a lot of the time. From comments I've seen around here over time, quite a few of us find that we play better after taking a break and coming back later.

Since half a year has passed though, you're starting over maybe not from the beginning, but a little farther back. You might have lost some of the muscle memory but you can get it back if you want to.

I dont know.

Again, it never happened to me that I played worse after more attempts.
About muscle memory. I returned to the game for the second time a year later and played 300% better. It's like I've been training this whole year.

What's funny is that in the first playthrough it was unrealistically difficult for me to reach the end of the third pantheon.

[Mako]

Originally posted by Inhumane Minimalism:

abuse spells, Ddark (cast + down) gives you 0.4 seconds of invulnerability to move through any attack (including the wall and floor hazards she spawns) or take hits from upto 2 orbs and be completely fine
Shaman stone with abyssal shriek (cast + Up) can end any phase in 6 hits or less
Quick slash + strength can gain soul for spells and output a lot of damage with fast nail hits
In the 2nd arena be patient, letting her come to you is much safer than chasing after her
At the end, you can dash between platforms, or just jump and move around the orbs, they are much easier to dodge than the orbs from other phases of the fight
Watch Radiant clears of her for ways to doge beams/attacks and platform

Here is a video showing dashing between platforms, you can add hits in between dashes pretty easily
https://youtu.be/JXUjIfKSA3U?t=695

This video shows using 1 platform until the end of the final phase and how to play safe with an extremely aggressive play style
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUyJfMLkuxs

Thank you

[Mako]

Originally posted by Boksha:

The biggest thing, that eventually allowed me to even beat her hitless (though not 12 times in a row) is religiously staying at or near the center of the arena at all times. Yes, you can technically facetank undodgeable attacks with Descending Dark, but the timing is tricky. Better to never face any undodgeable attack combos to begin with, and for that, you need to pass through arena-wide attacks like the wall of light or horizontally flying nails as early and consistently as possible. Staying in the center of the arena means you'll always see these attacks on time. Attacks like the homing orbs should be dodged by moving as little as possible; most of the time, just doing a tiny sidestep is enough to cause an orb to sail into the ground where you were just standing. Only when orbs fly fully horizontally do you need to jump, and even then, try to make the jump as low as safely (!) possible so you're back on the floor right after. (alternatively, in the first phase, it may be safer to just shadow-dash right into an orb to destroy it without even having to jump)

Stick to that and you won't need any of the insane acrobatics or multi-hit combo attacks shown in the videos Inhumane Minimalism posted to get through the fight without getting hit.

In practice, you'll get hit though (especially when the pressure is on because you just spent 45 minutes slogging through a long and boring pantheon), so learn when it's safe to heal. The best moments are right after the triple-radial-beam attack or right after the spiral nails attack (and in the first phase, the vertical nail attack). Most other attacks last too long for it to be safe to heal, but there are still a few openings here and there.

I need to try. Thank you for your advice

[Mako]

Originally posted by chopinnumberonefan:

shaman stone, spell twister, soul catcher, and soul eater allow you to cast abyss shriek extremely often and it does 120 damage if all of the hits connect. play it safe and do abyss shriek whenever you get an opening. abs rad is extremely hard, but after a while you should have no problem

Originally posted by aidenjeffy:

Practice all the other bosses on the ascended difficulty until you get good at them and then keep trying and trying

It is difficult for me to continue training if I do not see the result

[Yuzhi与纸]

For the first phase, you want to shriek constantly.
- You can shriek twice for the Light Beam Attack. Start from the 3rd burst, and end with she teleports. This is literally the same with sword burst attack.
- You can shriek once whenever she is going to teleport. Since your shriek can cover barely 1/2 of the arena, you get a large chance to hit her by shrieking towards an empty place.
- For the horizontal sword wall, you can line yourself with the gap first, then immediately shriek.
It really speeds up the first phase.
Additionally, if spikes are going to spawn right under you, you want to use DDark, because if you dash out that area, you can be killed by sword rain.
I’m bad at dodging light beam burst cuz it’s fast. Stay at the point where last light beam hits will ensure your safety.

For the 4th phase(ascending phase), if I have good health, I prefer to still play offensively.
I will start chasing her if she is not too far away from me. If she teleports too far away, I will choose to wait.
If you play enough, you get a sense of when she will do attacks. Correspondingly, I do 2 pogos or less when I reach her head. Then, immediately do DDark. All these moves are for getting close to her and do large amount of damaging using nail. So it really varies what you are going to do next. Generally, you need to find a way to survive during you invincibility frame(it’s not hard).
Orb attack is brutal, I’m most afraid of it. Keep using DDark does not work. Pogoing radiance and a nice use of shade cloak is more effective.

For the 5th phase(climbing), time your dash with the beam.
For the last phase, it is actually the easiest. Watch how others do it and keep calm.

[kanna]

Originally posted by Mako:

There is no function on Steam to hide the header under the spoiler.
What could I do about it?

I see that you added to the title but that only helps people know not to go *into* a thread, it doesn't fix the title. Just remove AbsRad's name and replace it with a short description like "final boss of P5" or something like that.

Originally posted by Mako:

Again, it never happened to me that I played worse after more attempts.
About muscle memory. I returned to the game for the second time a year later and played 300% better. It's like I've been training this whole year.

What's funny is that in the first playthrough it was unrealistically difficult for me to reach the end of the third pantheon.

Fatigue and frustration levels can probably vary from game to game. I guess the time you spent away wasn't even long enough to make you forget much. I think the most I've spent away from the game is a week.

What you said about not being able to handle P3 at first time is also very common. When I was new to it and frustrated, someone told me that's where people often get stuck on pantheons their first time (or if not there with GPZ or Sly they said, then with PV on P4). The one who gave me trouble in P3 was GPZ. Now that fight is quite easy and automatic to me. (Almost as much as with Sly, lol.)

There is actual scientific research out there that shows that whatever type of activity you're practising and trying to get better at, there is work you need to let your brain do in the background (by taking a break and not focusing on it consciously) in order to be able to improve optimally. At least in my experience (and from comments I've seen others make here), taking regular breaks helps.

I've been taking a break since I got both ending variants on PoH and haven't made serious Radiant attempts yet, but I'm at the level where AbsRad on Ascended is doable.

In case seeing other people's learning process is helpful to you, I'll describe what's helped me improve at this fight (other than taking breaks from it, lol) and you can skip the whole spoiler if not interested:

I play somewhat aggressively so I'm in between the styles Insane Minimalism posted (which I'm also going to be using to improve enough for Radiant) and Boksha described. My weakest area is the top stage after the climb.

I don't spend ALL my time in the middle as I'm too impatient, but Boksha I have definitely developed the automatic habit of returning to the middle by default after attacking and staying there until I know it's safe to do otherwise. It really does help you see what attacks are coming in time to act quickly enough not to be caught by overlaps that often.

As Boksha said, I also walk or dash away when the light balls are favourably placed to come at you more vertically, but they also tend to come at me on low angles in the first 3 stages and I have felt safest either dashing into the horizontal ones with Shadow Dash, or hopping over and then walking under them after they loop around (which often requires walking near the edge of the platform unfortunately so you need to be watching carefully for signals another attack is starting, too).

For stage 4 (floating platforms), I originally dashed away from the platform and did a double jump back and it worked most of the time but didn't always save me because sometimes there would be 2 light balls close together and the second one would get me! I learned from watching other people's videos that for that stage, you can just go ahead and double jump way above them and they'll hit the platforms around you while trying to loop around most of the time. (If they don't, you can just repeat the same move and they'll time out and disappear.) Shadow dashing into them is obviously an option if they gang up on you or your jump is about to connect with one. I was already pretty decent at the first four stages but I now hardly ever get hit by those and they used to be the worst part of stage 4 for me.

The trickiest thing left for me in stage 4 is when she spawns at my platform and I *want* to attack but then I see she's doing the light balls again. XD

I have to resist the urge to attack her when that happens since it's too dangerous in that case, except maybe to do a quick d-dark before dashing away so that the initial light ball spawns won't get me.

The climb I was getting pretty consistent at doing without getting hit before I took my last break. Interestingly, getting better at AbsRad's climb seems to have made me worse at regular Radiance's climb though, lol. A key tip I'm going to remember that I learned from reading HuntHustle's guide: unlike regular Radiance, the Void won't drown you in this fight unless you fall into it. If you're patient enough, you can take all the time you want climbing up.

I still will do most of the climb as fast as I can, but I'm going to keep this in mind for Radiant especially, so I don't sink into autopilot too much.

Top of the climb is where I need practise most (and the reason I have to practise overcharmed on Attuned only). I have seen other people mostly pogoing AbsRad at the top of the screen and dashing (so far my most consistent method for Attuned/Ascended), I have also seen people stay at one platform like with Whiskra's Radiant AbsRad 5 times in a row video (linked below), which taught me how to angle my double jump to get the light balls to go up off screen and disappear, and I have seen other approaches too, though those didn't make an impression (except that I should remember Shade Soul exists).

Again, skip if not interested but sometimes I find other learners' insights helpful when I'm learning new things, so I thought I'd share.

Here's a link to the Whiskra video I mentioned:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3z9Q4pODFo