Why is the difficulty all over the place?

[amills1]

I've reached a mission where I have to take on a lot of white tiger gang members. Most aren't that tough - but some of the bosses are crazy strong. One called Darius managed to one shot Albus even though he was at full HP. He also seems to have some ability to approach after taking damage and make attacks on multiple targets.

[jofu]

I don't remember Darius being that strong. I remember his boss headbutting full Albus to death through the block, but not Darius.
He'll take some time to get used to, though. Keep your backrow chars safe. His approach can still be messed up by ZOC. Having Veteran on every melee char should be mandatory by now. IIRC, his extra attacks are considered responsive attacks, so they can be nulled with Lightning Reflexes(or it's set). And he has a set which makes him extra tough at 1/3hp, so try finishing him before he reaches that.

[amills1]

He ended up taking down both Albus and Irene. Then he blocked several dozen attacks despite only having about a 30 or so percent chance of blocking I eventually took him down.

[The nameless Gamer]

Originally posted by amills1:

He ended up taking down both Albus and Irene. Then he blocked several dozen attacks despite only having about a 30 or so percent chance of blocking I eventually took him down.

Darius has the Final Resistance mastery set, which gives the character a 100% block chance even when frozen/stunned. Said set however only activates if the target's HP drops below 33%. A good way to avoid that is Black Mage Sion and his massive damage. After activating Darius' Impulse Fields, just give him a good shock with Sion.

[jerel]

Darius can be really difficult to beat if you don't have the def/hp/dodge/block to take his potential damage if you don't take him down fast enough. He was the hardest boss fight that I had had for a long time during my first play-through. I have found that it's best to take out the other bosses in the Starlight Junction map first before starting to move in on the garden area where Darius (afaik) usually spawns. Later maps where he spawns also follow the same guideline - try to isolate him and focus fire, crits, and dots. Final Res can be very difficult to get through. As someone else said, the best option is to not let him activate that. The second best option is to just pour the damage on at him if it has been activated - the more chance your skills have to bypass def/armor/res and cause dot effects the better chance you'll have of actually downing him before he ravages your whole crew.

Berserk is the approach-on-damage-taken skill you mention. If you pay attention to the Berserk max-move-range limit and keep your chars outside of that range, it will greatly help you to avoid any counter attacks from that skillset. It can really hurt you when mobs have it along side a counter skill, but I have yet to find a good way of utilizing it on my playable chars. They always seem to stupidly charge at the ranged mobs that they can never catch up to and hit, so it's like a slow gauntlet death-run if used (in?-)correctly.

BTW if you think Darius is tough, just wait until you get to the DLC map clown mobs. On my first play-through on Normal difficulty, I have beaten every map except for what is (I think) the last map. I completed the DLC maps, I reached the end of the Season 1 scenario maps, but there's still a map I haven't managed to beat. I'm now playing another crew on Cruel, and man, that's a huge step up in difficulty. Hard wasn't hard enough for what I wanted to take as a challenge, but Cruel, is like, well, Cruel is an understatement.

[amills1]

I think the thing that bugs me the most is that you go from opponents that you either dodge or block most of the time and occasionally take a hit from to an opponent who one shots your party members. If she'd been in position I suppose I could have used Anne to pin him into place while I whacked on him.

[Trolleur_Durden]

If you have characters getting one-shot, use the Impulse fields mastery on them, it really helps a lot.

[x_equals_speed]

Yeah I found that the difficulty curve in this game isn't smooth either. I quite liked it though, things felt like big challenges and overcoming them was great. Later on you'll look back and laugh at enemies you thought were nails but that you've long since surpassed.

Darius has no non-melee attacks, I tended to kill him by getting Anne to wrap him in vines and shooting him till he stopped moving (which sometimes took aaaages in the early days)

[jerel]

The difficulty curve of this game is, if not exponential, at least it seems to approach that sometimes. It honestly has pissed me off many times before. It honestly still does sometimes.

But it also makes me feel that much more that I-accomplished-something-feeling (or alternatively a screw-you-I-finally-beat-you-and-never-want-to-try-it-again-feeling) when I do eventually win the scenario.

I do like this game. A lot sometimes. I do hate this game. A lot sometimes. The more you learn the maps and where the mobs are, and how to approach the pinch-points, and how to get around those, the better your results and the more fun the game appears to be. Just keep in mind, the mobs don't always show up at the same points - especially the boss mobs.

Good? Bad? Indifferent? A bit of them all, but it does make for an interesting game, which I'm now playing over again on a harder difficulty level, doing challenge mode when I can, just to see - Can I beat it?

[Bloodwest]

Have you built your Albus as glass cannon? Or pehaps you're undergeared for that level? What's your game difficulty? Game's very generous to player when it comes to evasion/block rolls, when compared to games of this genre. That's why giving your characters best armor possible and at least some defensive masteries will most likely make sure they won't get 100-0'd

[abcdizy]

My English is not good, but I will try to tell you some of my suggestions.What is your level now? Have you been able to use Albus's most powerful class talent: Blade Master?Have you tried any talents related to bleed effects?Believe me, when your Albus is equipped, there are very few enemies that can threaten the Albus.