Need help understanding combat mechanics and fighting the manticore.

[streetsweeper]

Currently fighting vs manticore at level 14 with an Arna 2h sword build.
When I block his deadly tail attack, I still take damage although the attack does only drain a small portion of my available block power.

The log shows only single digit physical damage blocked and single digit physical damage that hits a body part.

I would expect the incoming damage to be fully blocked, if the block power is sufficient.
Here's a screenshot cof the log containing the block I mentioned.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2986112623


I am struggling quite a bit with the manticore so far (1 death, currently 2nd attempt). Maybe I am doing something wrong?
I am almost 700 turns into the fight and only have the manticore down to 61% hp.
My gloves with 225/225 durability were under 50% maybe already after 250 to 300 turns. They were much heavier damaged than any other armor piece although everything was fully repaired when I started the fight.
Now the boots and gloves are almost destroyed. As others mentioned something about the distribution of hits on body parts seems to have changed. And durability seems to degrade a bit quicker in general it seems to me.

I have a bit of trouble keeping the manticore from regenerating naturally. The axonians / skeletons I can finish off quickly enough quite consistently. I started the fight conserving my hit points and only slowly using medicines.

I attack it with heroic charge when vengeance of the dead is not on cooldown and otherwiese try to not give it opportunity to strike at me. That way I could reduce its armor to 0, but its hp were still in the 80 to 90% region. I can not reliably keep it from regenerationg with heroic charge alone. The cooldown is too long.

Then I throw an empty flask at it or switch to crossbow (without Take aim skill though).
I never planned to use crossbow. I only bought one for the manticore fight.
The crossbow misses sometimes. So the manticore heals despite my best effort.
It feels like making 2 steps forward and 1 and a half back.

Maybe I did not chose the right skills, I am not sure.

From 2h sword tree I have all skills except Courage and Taste for Victory. So currently 8 AP invested.

2 AP in Athletics for Dash
1 AP in Armored Combat for Brace for Impact
4 AP in Warfare for Offensive and Defensive Tactics.

Maybe I should have dropped Dash and went for Thirst for Battle. Would give me more staying power in front of the manticore.

At around 650 turns in the fight (Manti hp somewhere in the 70%) I decided to use the abasa drug and changed combat to a more aggressive style. Standing more often adjacent to manticore with defensive tactics not using any other skills to keep the stacks up.

It is losing hp more quickly now, but I also lose body part health at an extremely quick rate and my chestpice will soon be damaged aswell. I doubt I can keep up this style of fighting for long and might end up dead again. I still have one of two Gwynnel's potions and some healing salve and what not, but I am skeptical it will last to beat the manticore.

Armor wise I use medium armor in every slot except chest. For chest I switched from brigandine to duelist doublet.
The reasoning was to have decent dodge and great block chance while being overall somewhat well protected. Also with dodge I hope to alleviate the wear and tear especially on the arms and legs.

Helmet: Cervelliere with Earguards
Gloves: Riveted Thick Gloves
Belt: Knightly Girdle
Boots: Reinforced boots

I gave that much information so that I can get better help.
Also I am frustrated that block does not seem to work properly or does it?

[Plaje]

How do you know your block power was sufficient?

In the log it looks like you got hit for 6 but only had 3 block power left, so you blocked 3 and took 3.

The number you see in your sheet the next turn could be the amount you recovered

[Sir Gura]

I'm gonna leave this video here of me killing the manticore with 1h mace, as it shows more or less how you should be moving around to take advantage of Vengeage of the Dead (VotD). It's a bit old but should still do the trick.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ont1yKSevBI&t=1

You have Heroic Charge so you should keep it and only use it when he uses Primal Aether at an angle that you can dodge the attack with the charge, using the VotD opening to attack normally or with another skill.

To keep the Health Resto from ticking, you can also throw coins at the Manti after its armor durability is 0, it'll cause 1 or 2 points of dmg, which is enough to reset the restoration timer.

You can also set up Bone Pyres in a way to damage the manticore when used, allowing you also to get a free attack when the Manti uses it.

And finally don't allow Deadly Tail to connect, it's almost never worth it.

[Rhapsody]

Originally posted by streetsweeper:

I am almost 700 turns into the fight and only have the manticore down to 61% hp.

That was pretty much my own experience at level 14 against the boss, and I didn't have Dash, so I came back a couple levels later and I still had to go through both Sadism and Masochism towards the final turns of the fight. Needed Disengage to avoid getting pinned down and to maintain proper pressure on the boss.

Attempting to Parry the tail should be a last resort, when you have no other option but to advance on the boss to stop it from regenerating or if you simply cannot move away after attacking. Parrying is much more useful when skeletons are around since you can get some lucky crit-cleaves on the boss too.

If you successfully block and counter a tail strike (it can happen), you may want to follow up with something like Hewing Strike or Arc Cleave for extra damage, if the boss has Lion Leap off cooldown, as it seems to prefer retreating instead of swipe with tail again if it's taking damage. It can sometimes retreat after taking only the initial strike from Heroic Charge or whatever else you attacked it with, before swiping.

If you have enough medicine and essences, it shouldn't be too much of a problem to take a tail swipe in the face every now and then, so long as your defenses hold against skeletons, but that wasn't the case for me until I unlocked the Disengage passive to prevent being immobilized too damn often. The debuff you receive from the tail also matters of course. If you get Sacrificial Blood, you shouldn't let anything hit you until it's gone.

[streetsweeper]

Originally posted by Plaje:

How do you know your block power was sufficient?

In the log it looks like you got hit for 6 but only had 3 block power left, so you blocked 3 and took 3.

The number you see in your sheet the next turn could be the amount you recovered

After blocking I had 21 of 24 block power left. My block power recovery is at 20%.
So I assume I had enough block power to block 6 damage.

Although I don't know how the 6 damage were calculated.
This damage number and that it is only of one damage type looks strange.

According to the (outdated?) wiki the total damage of an attack of the manticore should be
5 Piercing 35 Rending and 5 each of Unholy, Arcane and Psionic. So 55 damage in total.
Requiring 70 block power to block as the last 3 damage types need 2 block power per damage point, if the wiki is up to date.

My damage taken is reduced by equipment, trait and defensive tactics to at least 72% with 5 stack tactics and one enemy. I once saw it at 58% in the character sheet. As long as sanity was over 50% heroism added another 10% damage reduction.

I think the order in which various defences mitigate the received damage is the following:

Damage received gets multiplied with damage taken. Let's say 55 * 0.6 =
3 piercing, 21 rending, 3 of unholy, psi, arcane remain.
If I dodge, these numbers get halved.
Now, if I manage to block damage is blocked up to block power. Which damage type is prioritized to be blocked I don't know.
After that the protection of the armor of the hit bodypart is subtracted. If then there is still damage left it is reduced by resistances.

The exact calculations I don't know. I hope this will become more transparent in the future.
So accroding to log only 6 damage had to be blocked.
And from the block power left next turn after blocking I am quite sure I had enough block power to block all 6 damage.

[streetsweeper]

Thanks for your advice guys, especially Sir Gura for the tip with the coins!
I aborted my second attempt and was successful in the third try.

In total the fight took me 1000 turns at level 14 with 2h Arna build with skills and equipment as described above. I did fight the Manticore to 0 hp for the achievement.

I had the manticore at ~60% hp after ~450 instead of ~ 700 turns.

@Sir Gura
The heroic charge move during PrimaI Aether I could pull off sporadically, but most of the time I had other needs, so the positioning was not always possible.
And I have never memorized the movement pattern of charge attacks. What I mean by this is that if more than one path from character to enemy is possible which path would be chosen.
Also this build is only at around 31 damage.

Sanity dropped to 0% close to the end of the fight. With megalomania active it was kinda difficult to know the real state of things. I guess I fought around 150 to 200 turns with it.

The only other time I beat the Manticore was in my last playthrough in September 2022.
But that was with level 19 RoT 1h axe build. ~ 575 turns to bring manticore to the 15% hp threshold.

@Rhapsody
I played the whole fight safe this time. Still all armor pieces are very badly damaged.
Occasionally taking a tail swipe was inevitable. But 2h Arna is quite durable.
The skeletons were only seldomly able to pin me. Move resistance from equipment + attributes was around 40% while it was not damaged.

I also went through Sadism, but not Masochism. It went to Frenzy, than back to Sadism and ended with Megalomania.

In hindsight the crossbow was of very little use. Only few times I had enough time to switch to it and load it.

[Freeman]

You can just get tactical against him. Eat bear fat. Drink abasa. Drink coffee. Maybe stoneskin pot. Use fire- and acid bottles. When burning he'll be +33% fumble for 10 rounds - not so tough then. When he retreats throw acid. With solid melee build just tank him face to face. Much faster.

[Sir Gura]

Originally posted by streetsweeper:

@Sir Gura
The heroic charge move during PrimaI Aether I could pull off sporadically, but most of the time I had other needs, so the positioning was not always possible.
And I have never memorized the movement pattern of charge attacks. What I mean by this is that if more than one path from character to enemy is possible which path would be chosen.
Also this build is only at around 31 damage.

Don't worry about it, it took me a dozen couple attempts to understand the positions you can charge safely, and even then I still don't know them all at the top of my head.

The manticore fight has a lot of moving parts so I'm glad I could help in any way.

[Plaje]

Originally posted by streetsweeper:

After blocking I had 21 of 24 block power left. My block power recovery is at 20%.
So I assume I had enough block power to block 6 damage.

Although I don't know how the 6 damage were calculated.
This damage number and that it is only of one damage type looks strange.

According to the (outdated?) wiki the total damage of an attack of the manticore should be
5 Piercing 35 Rending and 5 each of Unholy, Arcane and Psionic. So 55 damage in total.
Requiring 70 block power to block as the last 3 damage types need 2 block power per damage point, if the wiki is up to date.

My damage taken is reduced by equipment, trait and defensive tactics to at least 72% with 5 stack tactics and one enemy. I once saw it at 58% in the character sheet. As long as sanity was over 50% heroism added another 10% damage reduction.

I think the order in which various defences mitigate the received damage is the following:

Damage received gets multiplied with damage taken. Let's say 55 * 0.6 =
3 piercing, 21 rending, 3 of unholy, psi, arcane remain.
If I dodge, these numbers get halved.
Now, if I manage to block damage is blocked up to block power. Which damage type is prioritized to be blocked I don't know.
After that the protection of the armor of the hit bodypart is subtracted. If then there is still damage left it is reduced by resistances.

The exact calculations I don't know. I hope this will become more transparent in the future.
So accroding to log only 6 damage had to be blocked.
And from the block power left next turn after blocking I am quite sure I had enough block power to block all 6 damage.

I can't think of any way for that to be possible with those numbers. Looks like either some number is incorrect, or a bug occurred. Parry would give some good block power recovery if it was active, but you would have had more than 3 since you blocked the axonian, and you definitely wouldn't have 21 on the last turn.

If you used parry before you checked your character sheet, it restored all your block power before you looked. That's the only thing I can think of.

[streetsweeper]

I almost never used Parry in that fight. I used Defensive Tactics with 5 stacks most of the time, because it gives overall more defenses and for a much longer time.
At weapon damage in the low 30s my character can't take out the skeletons quickly and therefore needs to be able to stand next to them while taking no to very little damage.

Also the 21 of 24 block power was right after taking the hit from manticore.
Maybe I need to close and open the character sheet for it to update?

As you can see in the log after completely blocking the attack from the axonian, I spent two turns with standard attacks.
If the blocking of the axonian's attack used up all or most of the block power, it is not possible that I have 21 of 24 block power left after getting hit by manticore.

As you said either one or more numbers are incorrect (I can not with 100% certainty rule that out. Sometimes one thinks he remembers something correctly, but is actually wrong) or there is a bug here.
I think this is a bug.

Had I used Parry before checking the sheet, it would be full at 30/30 instead of 21/24, because it not only replenishes block power but also increases it by 25%.

Originally posted by Freeman:

You can just get tactical against him. Eat bear fat. Drink abasa. Drink coffee. Maybe stoneskin pot. Use fire- and acid bottles. When burning he'll be +33% fumble for 10 rounds - not so tough then. When he retreats throw acid. With solid melee build just tank him face to face. Much faster.

I used Abasa, when the manti was at 40% hp.
I think, I can do the same battle in maybe 750 to 800 turns instead of 1000, because I certainly did not maximize the damage ouptut and a few times the manti still got to heal naturally.

Bear fat and coffee (elven mud), no need. I started the fight with ~1000 turns of vigor.
My character healing naturally occured, but not that often.
Energy was pretty high most of the time.

I had one acid bottle.
By fire you mean nistrian flame?
After preparations I had exactly 28 gold pieces. The crossbow was a waste of money.
Stoneskin potion might be worth it. Not sure. 60 turns still seems too short.
Also I can only take a limited amount of offensive consumables. I still need some medicine. If I was able to drastically shorten the duration of the fight, it might work to not have much medicine.

Can any build at level 14 face tank the manticore in a meaningful way?
My build lacked damage output and I could face tank it to some extent, but in the long run that was a bad deal (it wears you out much more than the manticore). It was not like face tanking seemed worth it.

Maybe when it is at low hp you can try to finish it off with a reckless combat style.

[Plaje]

As far as the difficulty of manticore somebody on these threads said it should be done around level 18. I haven't don't it yet on this patch myself

[Rhapsody]

Originally posted by streetsweeper:

Can any build at level 14 face tank the manticore in a meaningful way?

It used to be possible with two-handed swords, and I believe it should still be, if you have higher level character with specific build. I'm not 100% sure how the boss AI works, but I'm pretty sure you'd want a counter-attack build with high block to be able to dish out damage while protecting yourself, and to force the boss to use Lion Leap to retreat, though that can still occasionally result in extra pressure to stop its recuperation. It's a fight of endurance and pacing either way and I don't see much worth in building and gearing a character just for one specific, and optional, boss fight.

[Tato]

you can face tank the manticore on a lot of builds. Thing is though a decent amount of them rely on a good bit of rng to achieve that. 2h swords doesn't though. but it needs to be more of a specfic build with specific gear. imo facetanking the manticore is dumb. There's no reason to do it unless you just don't know how to fight him and want to get it over with by rnging a victory.

[Freeman]

I always tank him at level 14 and he goes down in less than hundred turns. Nothing to fear if you got the gear.

[streetsweeper]

Really? Care to explain all the details (attributes, skills, gear, consumables, ....)?

[Freeman]

Originally posted by streetsweeper:

Really? Care to explain all the details (attributes, skills, gear, consumables, ....)?

Suppose that was for me. 1h sword ROT dodgy build, level 14, AGI STR PER 15 I think VIT was 12. Brynn tier 2 full dodgy gear (duelist doublet & boots, jibean cape, super chain coif). Masterwork scimitar. Skills: Rot + defensive tactics, dash + NTT, adaptability + vigilance, sword skills up to onrush but no cleaving. I think i also had hard target from armor.

(Onrush was a mistake, uses too much energy. Should have taken more armor skills. Stacking defense is the way.)

Vigor + blessing. Consumables: coffee, abasa, bear far, honey pancakes. Carried 2 flame flasks and 2 acid flasks (longer range). The usual healing stuff. Set him on fire, activated fencing + defensive and then just tanked . Masterwork falchion + ROT + abasa is no joke; nothing can take it for long. I think I started with a pot (stoneskin maybe? Lifeleech? something like that) and took abasa when drunkenness wore off few turns later. By the time I used elixir abasa had still some 260+ turns left.