Root Mother Nightmare Difficulty

[John Bifana]

I knew this part was gonna be difficult on Nightmare, but even then this it worse than I expected and I think I've reached the end of my "getting good" journey with this game as far as campaign goes and it's confusing because I've been playing Adventure Mode on Nightmare and can deal with the bosses, but I have no idea how to get past Root Mother on this difficulty. Seriously... fighting Ixillis or Barbed Terror on Nightmare is easy-mode compared to this...

Tried pretty much every combination of weapons, mods and trinkets possible and the closest I was to get past this was using the sniper with the scope to one-shot almost everything, but at around the 30 second mark that "gorefist" elite guy spawns together with two "shroud" guys" and I can't get past this no matter how many times I try (several hours yesterday and today).

Any suggestions?

[^DreeMax^]

Easy way - don’t kill first 3 root devils. Let them chase you. Kill Archer, or even keep him alive and just run away. I guess you doing NG+, not fresh char run?

[^DreeMax^]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kQ9uNqr0sJw

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JrTOAq-UNoE

[John Bifana]

Yes I'm doing NG+. I tried ignoring the root guys as much as I can and focus on the archers and that sometimes does work better but when the archers appear near the end together with the "gorefist" guy things become messy because sometimes I can't get the "gorefist" to focus on me instead of the mother.

Just now I tried a different approach and used summons (flying skulls) and managed to hold on until the 15s mark so I did do better, but I'm not sure if it was luck or if the summons are actually useful on this part.

Would turrets help maybe? I don't have those yet...

EDIT: Thanks for the videos. I did saw a few youtube videos of the Root Mother in Nightmare and have been trying some ideas from them, but still no luck so far :(
I do feel like I'm getting closer to do it...

[^DreeMax^]

Summons are not that strong now. I would like to suggest hunter pistol + hunter mark and hunting rifle with explosive shot. Rings/amulet - damage set up. Its very easy combination to track enemies and make powerful AoE to kill trash and elites at same time. Activate hunter mark at around minute left till explosion. Try to kill root brute quickly.

[John Bifana]

Hunting pistol and hunting rifle are the weapons I've been using, but not hunter's mark. Will give it a try...

[Aria Athena]

Try the Rattle Weed mod, assuming it still works on elites.

[Mondays]

Sporebloom, nuff said.

[Woudo]

Originally posted by Aria Athena:

Try the Rattle Weed mod, assuming it still works on elites.

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[hislefttesticle]

Originally posted by Aria Athena:

Try the Rattle Weed mod, assuming it still works on elites.

it does!

For the root mother I used rattle weed and the force shield to block those archers. For a main gun the sniper rifle.
I also used daredevils charm and no armor (90% + damage) to deal with that brute way quicker while he was busy with the rattle weed.
For rings I was using jewel of the black sun to get a plus 21% damage increase and the devouring loop to get an extra 25% damage increase (since I was using the sniper the fire rate decrease did not affect me).
In total I was dealing an extra 136% damage.

[>< V ><]

Rattle Weed and Veil of the Black Tear can be very useful for many situations.

[John Bifana]

Well I give up... for today. Ixillis was the most difficult moment of the game for me on Normal and Hard, so when I managed to beat him on second try on Nightmare (adventure mode) I assumed I was ready to go and play the entire campaign on this difficulty, but this Root Mother part is more difficult than any boss on Nightmare.

The frustrating part for me is that there doesn't seem to be a reliable way to make elites aggro on you. Sometimes they do and sometimes they don't, no matter what I do... it seems very luck based which is not fun, unless I'm doing something wrong (entirely possible).

When I manage to get the elite enemies to aggro on me I usually can get to about 10 seconds to finish, which at least gives me some hope to be able to do this, but then the next try they don't aggro on me and the mother dies almost immediately as soon as the archers start to show up.

I tried Rattle Weed (and most other suggestions) but if I use it on the first wave of archers then I don't have it on the last one, and if I don't use it on the first wave then it's a matter of luck if they'll aggro on me or kill the mother. Need to "get gooder" I guess...

I'll just stick with playing Nightmare difficulty on Adventure Mode only for awhile before I try this again, otherwise I'll end up uninstalling out of frustration :\

[hislefttesticle]

Originally posted by David Peres:

Well I give up... for today. Ixillis was the most difficult moment of the game for me on Normal and Hard, so when I managed to beat him on second try on Nightmare (adventure mode) I assumed I was ready to go and play the entire campaign on this difficulty, but this Root Mother part is more difficult than any boss on Nightmare.

The frustrating part for me is that there doesn't seem to be a reliable way to make elites aggro on you. Sometimes they do and sometimes they don't, no matter what I do... it seems very luck based which is not fun, unless I'm doing something wrong (entirely possible).

When I manage to get the elite enemies to aggro on me I usually can get to about 10 seconds to finish, which at least gives me some hope to be able to do this, but then the next try they don't aggro on me and the mother dies almost immediately as soon as the archers start to show up.

I tried Rattle Weed (and most other suggestions) but if I use it on the first wave of archers then I don't have it on the last one, and if I don't use it on the first wave then it's a matter of luck if they'll aggro on me or kill the mother. Need to "get gooder" I guess...

I'll just stick with playing Nightmare difficulty on Adventure Mode only for awhile before I try this again, otherwise I'll end up uninstalling out of frustration :\

use veil of the black tear on the first archers and on the second wave use rattleweed so that the brute gets hooked up in it as well since the veil wont bother him
One useful weapon for this type of horde sections is the ricochet rifle, you can guess why

[Shizofrend]

hehehe, try re-animator on apocalypse solo :p

[John Bifana]

Thanks for all the help guys and I'll probably try again tomorrow using some of your tips.

Today I've been trying this for hours already and I'm now at that point where I'm starting to actually play worse and worse with each new try... my brain is fried :P

Originally posted by BattlestarBeetsBear:

hehehe, try re-animator on apocalypse solo :p

At least Re-Animator is optional... but yeah, that dungeon must be hard as hell in Apocalypse.

[[NeW]Spiked]

Veil of the Black Tear is very useful for giving you more time to kill archers, if you're holding at the Root Mother herself. If you do though, the thing to watch out for is the Root Brute - you can grab aggro by being close to him as he enters, and doing some damage to him.

As others have said, Rattleweed is also pretty useful for grabbing aggro, but apparently it sends out aggro in waves, so you can be unfortunate if it doesn't attract the archers / root brute at the right time.

BUT there is a reliable though fiddly way of both taking aggro off the Root Mother and protecting her from incoming hits, by using the Banish mod on the Repulsor. It will take her out of commission for a couple of seconds, meaning you can save her from taking a hit, and if you've timed it so she's still banished when the enemy's attack has finished, the enemy will search for a different target i.e. you and switch.

Here's an example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzGR1GeWQ3U