Asva Act IV: Am I cooked?

[Veragoot]

I'm running Golemancer, Sentry build Ranger, and Channeled spell Catherin.

Blood Reprisal literally ♥♥♥♥♥ me up so hard, even playing ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ consumables counts as a "card" for some reason. This boss fight is totally dogwater with fake difficulty. Ah yes for our next BS mechanic we shall punish the player for having high amounts of AP and making good use of turn economy by...dealing 30ish unblockable damage to your entire party every 10 cards with no way to reset the counter, GENIUS.

I've been having a fine time on Hard enjoying fair challenges, but this is just stupid and unfun. I feel like the game is pushing me to completely change up my party just to deal with this one stupid mechanic, and frankly I'm insulted at what has otherwise been a pretty solidly balanced game (even the spider queen boss, hard as she was, felt like I could play smarter and get around her damage). It's literally unavoidable damage unless you have access to spammable avert. My cleric cannot heal everyone fast enough before someone goes down and I basically have no choice but to Alt F4 at that point since I have barely even scratched her.

What really ticks me off is that this game is really good about telling you exactly how much damage is coming your way at every turn, EXCEPT HERE. It never tells you exactly how much damage blood reprisal is gonna do, and makes it really difficult to plan for in a completely artificial way.

It's a dumb, problematic mechanic that literally nobody likes. I think this is where I stop playing the game honestly, because I just have no desire to keep beating my head against the wall with this stupid mechanic that is actively punishing me for having a sentry+golem build, which has had no issue whatsoever up to this point. Going through Act IV, it felt almost a little rushed, and now seeing how shoddily designed this boss fight is, my opinion is all but confirmed that Act IV is completely rushed and poorly designed compared to the rest of the game.

Sad to have such a bitter taste in my mouth at the end, but alas, I've seen this happen all too many times in games. Colossal ball drop in the home stretch.

[Frostfeather]

You could add/respec a Catherin card to Armor of Faith, which Averts it on everyone twice. If needed, have more than one of them or reduce the chances it gets Expended or get it back with Discipline or something. You don't even need to Avert all of them, just do it when you're injured and need a turn or two to get back up - that way you're spreading them out to give you more time to kill the boss. So for 1-2 respec tomes, that could dramatically change the fight.

You could also just lower the difficulty for that fight. I don't see why you haven't done that already, honestly.

[Veragoot]

because artificial giant difficulty spikes are totally ass and the rest of the game was balanced perfectly fine on Hard. If I can beat the rest of the game except this one specific fight on Hard, it's not a me problem, it's a game design problem. I'd rather not finish it at all on principle, since the story isn't particularly interesting to begin with anyways (I kind of stopped reading anything after Act 1 and just skipped through dialogue).

[Frostfeather]

If you enjoyed the rest of the game and refuse to lower the difficulty for a one fight you're struggling with, then it *is* a "you problem". There's no boss design for that fight that will appeal to all players, so you have to take some responsibility for your gaming experience here instead of blaming the game.

[Veragoot]

it's not a matter of having a "design that doesn't appeal to me". It's a matter of the boss design being poorly made and balanced. It's not as if this specific boss is just a *little* bit harder for my build than others, it's a completely unassailable brick wall out of nowhere.

The only real way around the mechanic is hunting for methods to give your team avert stacks as it is literally the only way to stop yourself from taking this damage since it bypasses your guard and the attack cannot be cancelled or redirected and the counter can't be reset. Leading up to the fight, there was no foreshadowing of needing avert, in the fight itself there is no provided mechanic for gaining avert stacks. The game simply assumes you to have access to avert. You can't just tank the damage because as stated it bypasses guard and is moderately high teamwide damage and there simply isn't enough healing in the world to offset it since even consumables increment the counter towards the damage being dealt (I mean maybe if you spent a lot of time grinding out gold for large potions that could heal entire HP pools with 1 action, but that is still only going to offset the damage to your team twice per member, not including summons/constructs/golem).

It's a fight that pigeonholes the player into using only 1 viable strategy for success, being able to spam Avert on your team, and despite having all characters around level 50, I've yet to even be offered a single skill card with the ability to give avert.

Any boss fight that appears out of nowhere and forces a specific playstyle on me after going through a 20ish hour romp of not having any issues whatsoever with my chosen build is always going to scream to me, I AM A POORLY DESIGNED BOSSFIGHT.

Sorry, not sorry, but it's just not good design bucko.

[Frostfeather]

You're absolutely wrong. I've done the fight on every difficulty with different group setups and have never *needed* Avert. It's just a relatively simple way for your low damage group to muddle through the fight, especially since you have Catherin and can get it with 1 respec book, guaranteed.

One of the most important lessons in life is taking responsibility for yourself, in all aspects. Yes, that also includes your gaming experiences. You either need to accept that you can easily change the difficulty to suit your group's ability level, accept that you can't complete the fight (due to your own choices), or accept that you need to improve your group to complete the fight.

Whining about the game distracts yourself from the reality that it's *your* problem that *you* have to address.

[persocom01]

I play on nightmare, and have beaten the fight multiple times with different teams. It's not a hard fight if you know what you're doing. Just think of the 30 damage as restriction that forces you only to play cards that have high impact vs low cost high turnover type decks.

the 30 damage also encourages decks that have group guard cards, as having one character guard all with a single card is far more efficient than having each character guard themselves with 3 cards in total. There are multiple characters who can do this. Bard's Chorus of Swiftness, Monk's Temple's Shelter, Spellbinder's Greater Barrier, Golemancer's Earth Cover and more. If you lack these, there are also certain synergy cards that guard all allies. The great thing about synergy cards is that they are always in your hand.

but even without these, it's not the end of the world. As I said, it's about card impact, so having all your allies cast a 200% stat scaling guard card every round also works, but you'll only have 7 attack cards to play with every round. I say round because it's best to reset the countdown every round on purpose so you won't have to deal with 60 damage on the same round.

as for attack cards, again, it's about card impact. Swordhand can play a single finisher to use up all his AP for the round, so he only needs a single attack card to deal decent damage. For most other characters, play their most costly, best stat scaling damage cards every turn, and avoid cards that deal 100% stat scaling for 1 cost. End the round with AP to spare if you have to.

avoid using move cards because they mostly have little to no impact and only cause the counter to go down. Use AP to move to avoid the boss's attacks.

[Max Wax]

Don't give up, and try to be more strategic. That boss ended my game maybe 5-6 before I killed her (I play on Torment difficulty). Now you now what to expect more less. Generate a lot of Guard, have some mass heal (although her damage will be more than you can heal), and focus on high damage (boosted by critical, fury, might etc). And you need to be able to escape her massive attacks (Agility helps).

[Davichini]

The game is broken and the partner is right, this boss is absurd and makes the game alt f4 uninstall

[Nordil(Hun)]

Nightmare difficulty:
Cant even get my third hero:)
Simply because the TWO NPC-s are useless.
The town guard and random hero, whomever i get usually they deliberatly just go and mess up positioning and then dont even attack half the time as they dont have an attack card with which they could reach the enemy. Not that it matters as they cant damage the skeleton shield monster. Worst is when it is a character THAT I KNOW COULD DO THINGS:)

Then they slowly die and thereafter all my characters:
a) there are 3 skeletons that have shield rush. So it is 17 damage per turn per enemy.
(My characters have 28 and 23-30 hp depending whom i take). And it seems to be buggy. Germbrood bone warrior.
b) there is one single overtype bat, that can reach everyone and deals massive damage 20 or so.
c) there is one necromancer or what, that deals AOE damage on everyone with 6-8 damage. OF course NPC-s will refuse to target it.
d) there is two poison spitter, who poison my guys and mark one or more zombies to explode.
e) a combination of all of these

and as a final addition pretty much by the second turn i have on the 9 available tiles 8 enemies at least. I just cant kill more than 2 enemies in the first turn:P

Having this on level 2 is a bit OP. And no there is no way to level up afaik, since there is no other place to...fight.
I unlocked and equipped a few artifacts, but so far even with enhanced versions they do not seem to balance this out.

Tried so far with Cat and Bertram: had a terrible spawn so his ballistas exploded, though they were so far the most useful.
Cat and Ida: Ida's pets are completely useless here, as they go down very fast, are unable to do any damage, and the spirit link just lets her get hurt for 15 or more damage.
Cat and Pierre: They just die:) If they guard, they die cuz of that.
The enemy should be doing 9 + 8 if there is a guard up, but it almost seems like that the guard does not function against this attack, though i dont see that mentioned anywhere:)

(bought the game ages ago on GOG)

So Germbrood bone warrior seems to be bugged, they do a steady 17 damage. Even on enemies that do not have guard up. (Lucius just moved as an NPC to the front row, to get killed. No guard up nothing, but got hit by 17 plain damage.)

Also all undeads but 2 are level 4(from 9-11) vs my level 2 characters:) And usually at least 3 are heroes:(

on the 9th try i won.
Because there was only one named enemy, and i gained a very über item while doing the tutorial. Every turn start 4 HP healed.

[Frostfeather]

Originally posted by Nordil(Hun):

Nightmare difficulty:
Cant even get my third hero:)
Simply because the TWO NPC-s are useless.
The town guard and random hero, whomever i get usually they deliberatly just go and mess up positioning and then dont even attack half the time as they dont have an attack card with which they could reach the enemy. Not that it matters as they cant damage the skeleton shield monster. Worst is when it is a character THAT I KNOW COULD DO THINGS:)

Then they slowly die and thereafter all my characters:
a) there are 3 skeletons that have shield rush. So it is 17 damage per turn per enemy.
(My characters have 28 and 23-30 hp depending whom i take). And it seems to be buggy. Germbrood bone warrior.
b) there is one single overtype bat, that can reach everyone and deals massive damage 20 or so.
c) there is one necromancer or what, that deals AOE damage on everyone with 6-8 damage. OF course NPC-s will refuse to target it.
d) there is two poison spitter, who poison my guys and mark one or more zombies to explode.
e) a combination of all of these

and as a final addition pretty much by the second turn i have on the 9 available tiles 8 enemies at least. I just cant kill more than 2 enemies in the first turn:P

Having this on level 2 is a bit OP. And no there is no way to level up afaik, since there is no other place to...fight.
I unlocked and equipped a few artifacts, but so far even with enhanced versions they do not seem to balance this out.

Tried so far with Cat and Bertram: had a terrible spawn so his ballistas exploded, though they were so far the most useful.
Cat and Ida: Ida's pets are completely useless here, as they go down very fast, are unable to do any damage, and the spirit link just lets her get hurt for 15 or more damage.
Cat and Pierre: They just die:) If they guard, they die cuz of that.
The enemy should be doing 9 + 8 if there is a guard up, but it almost seems like that the guard does not function against this attack, though i dont see that mentioned anywhere:)

(bought the game ages ago on GOG)

So Germbrood bone warrior seems to be bugged, they do a steady 17 damage. Even on enemies that do not have guard up. (Lucius just moved as an NPC to the front row, to get killed. No guard up nothing, but got hit by 17 plain damage.)

Why not just turn down the difficulty for a level or two then? You can turn it back up later.

The very early game can be brutal on the highest difficulties depending on your starting decks and ability to avoid hits. But since ally AI is poor, as you noticed, it can be a bit frustrating.


That said, Bard Naran is probably the easiest starting deck, so I'd consider using Vigor + Scatter Shot.

[Nordil(Hun)]

Originally posted by night4:

Originally posted by Nordil(Hun):

Nightmare difficulty:
Cant even get my third hero:)
Simply because the TWO NPC-s are useless.
The town guard and random hero, whomever i get usually they deliberatly just go and mess up positioning and then dont even attack half the time as they dont have an attack card with which they could reach the enemy. Not that it matters as they cant damage the skeleton shield monster. Worst is when it is a character THAT I KNOW COULD DO THINGS:)

Then they slowly die and thereafter all my characters:
a) there are 3 skeletons that have shield rush. So it is 17 damage per turn per enemy.
(My characters have 28 and 23-30 hp depending whom i take). And it seems to be buggy. Germbrood bone warrior.
b) there is one single overtype bat, that can reach everyone and deals massive damage 20 or so.
c) there is one necromancer or what, that deals AOE damage on everyone with 6-8 damage. OF course NPC-s will refuse to target it.
d) there is two poison spitter, who poison my guys and mark one or more zombies to explode.
e) a combination of all of these

and as a final addition pretty much by the second turn i have on the 9 available tiles 8 enemies at least. I just cant kill more than 2 enemies in the first turn:P

Having this on level 2 is a bit OP. And no there is no way to level up afaik, since there is no other place to...fight.
I unlocked and equipped a few artifacts, but so far even with enhanced versions they do not seem to balance this out.

Tried so far with Cat and Bertram: had a terrible spawn so his ballistas exploded, though they were so far the most useful.
Cat and Ida: Ida's pets are completely useless here, as they go down very fast, are unable to do any damage, and the spirit link just lets her get hurt for 15 or more damage.
Cat and Pierre: They just die:) If they guard, they die cuz of that.
The enemy should be doing 9 + 8 if there is a guard up, but it almost seems like that the guard does not function against this attack, though i dont see that mentioned anywhere:)

(bought the game ages ago on GOG)

So Germbrood bone warrior seems to be bugged, they do a steady 17 damage. Even on enemies that do not have guard up. (Lucius just moved as an NPC to the front row, to get killed. No guard up nothing, but got hit by 17 plain damage.)

Why not just turn down the difficulty for a level or two then? You can turn it back up later.

The very early game can be brutal on the highest difficulties depending on your starting decks and ability to avoid hits. But since ally AI is poor, as you noticed, it can be a bit frustrating.


That said, Bard Naran is probably the easiest starting deck, so I'd consider using Vigor + Scatter Shot.

Was a while ago since i played, but yes i remember the Bard girl being OP.
But the difficulties under nightmare were just too easy.

[Frostfeather]

Originally posted by Nordil(Hun):

Originally posted by night4:

Why not just turn down the difficulty for a level or two then? You can turn it back up later.

The very early game can be brutal on the highest difficulties depending on your starting decks and ability to avoid hits. But since ally AI is poor, as you noticed, it can be a bit frustrating.


That said, Bard Naran is probably the easiest starting deck, so I'd consider using Vigor + Scatter Shot.

Was a while ago since i played, but yes i remember the Bard girl being OP.
But the difficulties under nightmare were just too easy.

That's why you turn it back up. Probably at level 3 even, since you can get a great card for Cat then.

[Nordil(Hun)]

Originally posted by night4:

Originally posted by Nordil(Hun):

Was a while ago since i played, but yes i remember the Bard girl being OP.
But the difficulties under nightmare were just too easy.

That's why you turn it back up. Probably at level 3 even, since you can get a great card for Cat then.

Well i've done it:) Went for Lus, with a bit of effort won the round, then went to get Betram. Lus immideatly died:D But won again, so now i can hire Lus from Guild Hall.
Also getting more and more quite OP items. This at least balances things out, but the true difference was that ring i got, since like that the druid girl can keep healing as she gets 4 HP back every turn:)

but actually using betram.
Cat, Ida, Betram.

[persocom01]

the beginning is difficult because you don't have your deck strategy set up yet and you may not have your full team. I got slaughtered by a pack of wolves with initiative +6 and 2 party members died before I could make a move. Just learn from it and move on. This game is also pretty forgiving if you're willing to just close the program if you are losing a fight. Restarting the game will turn back time to before the fight occurred.

[Frostfeather]

Originally posted by persocom01:

This game is also pretty forgiving if you're willing to just close the program if you are losing a fight. Restarting the game will turn back time to before the fight occurred.

Yeah you can do the same to get a better card choice, too, as long as you don't actually pick one (or the respec point).