Eyeball guy, Birkin, second fight

[Nate]

Playing "Claire A" hardcore for the first time and this is by far the most aggravating part of the game. The fighting area is so tiny that I can hardly put any distance between us, and his attacks are so broad, sweeping, fast, aggressive, and powerful that there's simply nothing I can do to avoid him. He's constantly cornering me and pounding on me relentlessly, quickly expending all my herbs, grenades, and knives with nothing to show for it. And "timing" how to stun him while that container swings back is an exercise in pure frustration.

I've probably died a dozen times at this one section and it's making me crazy. I don't remember struggling this hard in standard. I've heard critics say that the boss fights are the weakest parts of the game and I'm starting to see why. But like I said, it wasn't as big a problem on standard. To me, it feels like a flaw in game design, but maybe I just suck.... or a combination of both.

[Seamus]

Not sure which critics you mean, but, he's honestly not that hard to avoid. Is probably the hardest of the forms to learn tbh. But in no way a bad fight.

Though if you're having trouble, being sure to have the defense bonus from having blue+red in your mixed herb is probably a good idea.

Some people suggest shooting him in the hallway as you're running to the boss platform for extra damage.

I honestly don't. It often results in him doing a charge attack that can be a pain in the ass to avoid. Just get past him after he gets the door down and bee line for the button to move the container. Focus more on keeping your distance than getting shots off until you get the hang of his swing timing.

I tend not to even push the button to bring the container back until I've downed him at least twice. Then hit the button after a few shots and getting him vaguely in position for the third down.

[Nate]

Originally posted by Seamus:

But in no way a bad fight.

I think it's the worst part of the game.

Originally posted by Seamus:

Though if you're having trouble, being sure to have the defense bonus from having blue+red in your mixed herb is probably a good idea.

I wish I was smart enough to think of obvious ideas like this. In my defence, I seldom use herbs for anything, except occasional healing or removing toxins, neither of which are particularly problematic, except when fighting Birkin the eyeball monster.

Originally posted by Seamus:

I honestly don't. It often results in him doing a charge attack that can be a pain in the ass to avoid. Just get past him after he gets the door down and bee line for the button to move the container. Focus more on keeping your distance than getting shots off until you get the hang of his swing timing.

I agree, but the timing just doesn't click with me. I hate this fight. People complain about Mr. X, but he's way easier to deal with than Birkin.

Originally posted by Seamus:

I tend not to even push the button to bring the container back until I've downed him at least twice. Then hit the button after a few shots and getting him vaguely in position for the third down.

Not a terrible idea, but it seems like a waste of ammo. I was using my pistol to down him, but the submachinegun's high rate of fire seems to make it easier, I just prefer saving submachinegun ammo for trash zombies. I did beat him but only because he accidentally threw himself in front of the container while thrashing me in the corner. I hate this fight so much you have no idea.

[Nate]

Originally posted by Mu:

There are several ways to beat G2 but honestly you don't even need to go for a skillful approach, even in hardcore mode this game has health items everywhere, just bring 3 with you as well as the G+R+B right before the boss fight and you can comfortably beat him with a handgun while getting hit all the time.

Maybe I'll consider this approach next time. I was only bringing 2 R+G herbs because ammo is always the bigger concern. Most of the time I don't even carry health items.

Originally posted by Mu:

His attacks are more limited if you decide to damage him in the bridge-like area right before the little arena, you could hurt him there until his giant eye turns orange/red then use the crane once to get rid of him.

Is that so? Ok, so it is advantageous to wreck him a little bit, interesting.....

[Seamus]

In hardcore in particular, the defense bonus from adding in a blue herb does a LOT of work.

[Nate]

Originally posted by Seamus:

In hardcore in particular, the defense bonus from adding in a blue herb does a LOT of work.

Noted

[Grim Reaper]

This boss fight isn't that hard tbh. The boss fight that never fails to frustrate me is the Super Tyrant, especially on Leon 2nd Hardcore. Chances are you have no ammo by that point and will have to knife him around 20 times while he can two shot you.

[Seamus]

Originally posted by Grim Reaper:

This boss fight isn't that hard tbh. The boss fight that never fails to frustrate me is the Super Tyrant, especially on Leon 2nd Hardcore. Chances are you have no ammo by that point and will have to knife him around 20 times while he can two shot you.

...you don't save magnum ammo to stagger him with heart shots?

[Nate]

Originally posted by Seamus:

Originally posted by Grim Reaper:

This boss fight isn't that hard tbh. The boss fight that never fails to frustrate me is the Super Tyrant, especially on Leon 2nd Hardcore. Chances are you have no ammo by that point and will have to knife him around 20 times while he can two shot you.

...you don't save magnum ammo to stagger him with heart shots?

The third Birkin fight was much easier, perhaps because I had stockpiled some Spark Shot needles and it seemed to wear him down pretty quick. Same idea with the Magnum for Leon's campaign?

[Seamus]

Nah, third birkin fight with leon I usually try to avoid using the magnum because of the super tyrant fight coming up. I usually use the flamethrower and shotgun for birkin round 3. Mostly because I tend to have excessive flamethrower ammo because I don't bother killing most of the plant guys. Just knock them down and run past. Or grenade them and they stay down a while.

[Nate]

Originally posted by Seamus:

Nah, third birkin fight with leon I usually try to avoid using the magnum because of the super tyrant fight coming up. I usually use the flamethrower and shotgun for birkin round 3. Mostly because I tend to have excessive flamethrower ammo because I don't bother killing most of the plant guys. Just knock them down and run past. Or grenade them and they stay down a while.

What do you mean by "knock out" the plant guys? Flashbangs?

[Seamus]

Well, if you use normal grenades it breaks all their little weakspots at once and they stay down a while. If you don't have a normal grenade, bullets do the same thing, just slower. Burning them is safer, but, takes too long with leon for my tastes because the flamethrower takes longer than a fire grenade from claire.

Just shoot the weak spots so they fall, then run past.

[Nate]

Originally posted by Seamus:

Well, if you use normal grenades it breaks all their little weakspots at once and they stay down a while. If you don't have a normal grenade, bullets do the same thing, just slower. Burning them is safer, but, takes too long with leon for my tastes because the flamethrower takes longer than a fire grenade from claire.

Just shoot the weak spots so they fall, then run past.

Ok that makes sense, thanks. Lets get back to Leon cause I'm playing his 2nd run on hardcore and I'm finding it to be shockingly difficult. Maybe it's just because it's the opening phases of the game but it seems like there are 10* more zombies and 10* less ammo than previous runs. 9mm and .45 cal ammo are mostly dried up, but I've got a stockpile of shotgun and mag ammo, but you've suggested to stock up mag ammo for the super tyrant at the end? Can I still use the magnum for other things or is that ill advised because of mag ammo scarcity?

[Seamus]

You can still use the magnum, just don't waste all your ammo before getting to the end. It's REALLY useful for stopping super tyrant from charging and just hitting you with his 1-shot move.

If you're having ammo problems, turn your framerate up and use the knife. Higher framerate=more knife damage.

[Nate]

Originally posted by Seamus:

If you're having ammo problems, turn your framerate up and use the knife. Higher framerate=more knife damage.

Are you screwing with me? That's an oddity if ever I heard one.

Leon's 2nd run hardcore seems to be much harder than any of the other runs. I'm scraping by and I should be ok, but the difficulty curve seems more like a spike this time around. I don't know if anyone else struggles with Leon's 2nd run hardcore more so than the other runs, maybe I'm just special. Leon's 1st run standard and Claire's 2nd run standard and 1st run hardcore weren't that bad.

I don't think the shotgun decapitates zombies as reliably as advertised which often results in wasted ammo for 1 trash zombie.

[Seamus]

Nah, knife damage scaling with framerate has been a known thing for quite a while. It's why the speedrun rules state you can't run the game higher than 120fps.

Leon 2nd on hardcore has a couple mean places. One of the worst is right outside the room where you get the jack handle for the bookshelf in the library. Absolute ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ if you go in wrong.

Anyway, yeah. Abuse the knife. Particularly if you've unlocked the infinite one. It's the only infinite weapon that doesn't affect your score.