Third Boss Problems

[Thaecrasis]

With the first and second boss, I was eventually able to figure out a strategy through tactics, and weapon/shield/armour combinations. But with the third boss, it seems impossible to beat no matter what you do, unless you just grind for hours and hours on previous levels to get to insane levels.

What the boss can do:
- Use a teleport + single burst attack that instantly destroys any shield, or 1 hit kills you.
- Use a skill that requires about 6 seconds to charge, and if it completes before you hit him, he instant teleports/attacks you multiple times for 100-150 damage each hit (and also instantly destroys shields). Needless to say, if he charges that attack, you are dead, no matter what build you are using.
- Is immune to knockback and staggering.
- Can use a fast mobility extreme multi-hit ability which even destroys a full shield build (~4000) shield.
- Can use a series of rush+attacks which albeit are his weakest attacks, dealing only 30-50 damage per hit (which is still a lot)
- Can teleport and uppercut for usually fatal damage
- Can very quickly charge at you, and pin you to a wall, dealing massive damage, and follows up with another attack almost immediately, usually resulting in instant death.
- Once damaged a bit, splits into 2 of himself for twice the amount of attacks/abilities at once. (I've yet to survive even 10 seconds past that stage)

What I've tried:
-Full shield build (all tokens in shield) + tower shield, with Freedom armour, and Earthquake "axe". Using the axe to place DoT areas and use the shield to hold him in place temporarily to take damage. Death caused by him teleporting, instantly shattering my shield, and following up with an uppercut.

-Mass AoE/DoT: Using Bleed and Fervant to create a large area of blood to damage him, with all skill tokens put into "Special" for max blood damage. Death caused by him charging his insta-kill ability in the far corner of the room where I couldn't see, while trying to set up my AoE/DoT trap.

-Speed/Dodge: Tokens put equally into dodge, and attack, using Piercer, Freedom, and Bravado. Was able to survive for a fairly long time, but with most of the time spent dodging attacks, and not having much damage output, I couldn't keep up for long before he eventually wore me down over time.

-Healthsteal/Armour Tank build: Tokens equally put in armour and "special", using Vitalborne, Bulky Armour, and Tower Shield. Goal was to try and steal more health than I take, using the shield occasionally to block the stronger attacks. Death caused by him charging his insta-kill ability at the very beginning where I couldn't see him; would have required a speed build to get to him in time to cancel the ability.

-Parry Tank: Equal tokens put in stamina and attack. Used Oswald, Freedom, and Neglect.
Goal: block all incoming damage with parry, and attack during the breaks in his combos. Cause of death: parry doesn't negate his charge attacks.

-Full knockback: all tokens put into "special", using Boulder, and Scaper shield. Cause of death: found out he is immune to knockback, both from weapons, and the shield break. Then proceeded to teleport to the opposite corner of the room again and charge his instant-kill ability.

-Tried a few other builds revolving around daggers and the Rush skill, none of which worked.

What on earth is required to kill this boss? Is it even possible, unless you grind to level 200 or something?

In order to survive and dodge his attacks, you need a lot of Dodge, since no matter how much Shield you have, he *will* break it, but when focusing on defence and dodging, you end up having to sacrifice damage output, leading to your demise. Same with the reverse; focus on just damage dealing, and he'll attack you too fast for you to handle and kill you before you can even land a few hits.

The only thing I can think of, is just insane over-leveling to have massive Dodge, Shield, Armour, and damage output at the same time. But surely that can't be the only way. If it is, then the boss should be re-designed.

Also, I can't even fathom how much health this boss might have, since the second boss had approximately 50000 health from my estimates. Using a low damage/high survivability build would theoretically take *hours* of fighting this boss, provided you could somehow live that long.

So, any tips/suggestions?

[Thaecrasis]

Edit: While I still don't know how to fight the battle normally, I figured out a way to cheese it to oblivion.

Started from floor 1, and putting all tokens into Attack, I chose Mighty Beard (And Regain and Durance Cell). When I got to the floors from 40-58 where there are trap doors leading to lower levels, I went through each of them to have more levels to upgrade the Mighty Beard's damage.

By the time I actually got to the boss, I had 7675 damage.... yeah xD
Cheeeeeeeseeeee to the maaaaaxxxxx

[Just me]

I love this post for so many reasons :) me and Paul actually had a good chat about this. We love seeing the tactics and the ways people defeat the bosses.

[Sapphire Dragon]

This boss was worked on a little differently from the others. What I had in mind was that he was a 1v1 fight with the feeling of a humanoid fighter that could pull off any of his arsenal at any time so rather than a pattern any move could happen.

Each move by itself has a startup that can be blocked or dodged (although I admit you need to make sure you arent in certain situations before the startup to be able to avoid some of the quicker attacks.)
When I was intensively testing him I could usually take him down without ever being hit using the basic gear set and he kept seeming a little easy so I kept narrowing down the windows to react until I thought it was a boss worthy of being the 1v1 fight I usually really enjoy such as vergil from dmc3 etc.

Playing him recently he does take me some time to get back up to speed with fighting him so I apologise for the probable difficulty spike he imposes but I don't want to lower his difficulty still because he is my personal fav boss and I am stubborn.

Thanks for taking the time to overcome the challenge no matter the tactic used it's all legit in this game.

[Omicron-0B]

While there is a degree of "git gud", I found it went by a lot easier if I sunk all emblems after "max potions" into Sword skill then went in with a sword flurry. Though admittedly I was using Freedom, so it might've taken longer.

Oh, and block the homing attack, don't try to dodge it, you won't reliably get the timing for the I-frames.

[Thaecrasis]

Originally posted by Omegonthesane:

While there is a degree of "git gud", I found it went by a lot easier if I sunk all emblems after "max potions" into Sword skill then went in with a sword flurry. Though admittedly I was using Freedom, so it might've taken longer.

Oh, and block the homing attack, don't try to dodge it, you won't reliably get the timing for the I-frames.

If you're talking about the attack where he teleports/punches you 5-6 times in a row, I don't see how blocking it is possible. For one attempt, I put all my emblems in shield and used a tower shield, and it still shattered in 1 hit with that attack, with the next 1-2 attacks killing me.