actually there IS a worse one, remeber the water storing place in low land meadow?
yeah thats the stuff, with the clunky movement with your character, shitty ass ground effect plus the dumb lazy AOE pairing with bad camera angle. wuff , thats the stuff
tweaking the build is one thing, thinking this is a good game design is another thing
dont let them sway you man, this helicopter bullshit need to be FIXED
the starting area theres a cellar. if you dont have an elemental weapon, have fun fighting in darkness unless you have some mobs nearby to get you some runes to give you enough runes to light up the place.
but its still ābetterā than lowland meadows area. its cramped like mad and its too easy to end up in the water. its also too easy to ārun too farā and lose all your progress as the boss resets back to full HP.
I think he can be bugged. Iāve killed him quite a few times but the last time he was spawning the purple bubbles everywhere. I was on my melee character and couldnāt even get in range. I literally ran out of places to run, the entire floor was purple and I ended up dying.
When Iām playing my other builds they tend to one or two shot himā¦
Parry is bad in this game particular, due to the way enemy attacks are designed. Unfortunately in order to use parry the player has to learn and memorize every attack from every enemy, which is asking alot.
The problem is, many attacks are designed like a spring: there will be a really long wind up animation followed by a lightning fast release. You just cannot react to the attack when the actuall attack animation has started and thus you will not be able to parry it.
I kinda agree in context of this bubble attack.
But you really donāt need an optimized build (whatever it means) for this boss. At least till you start doing p2-p4 with punishing cursed mods. Could you share your items and stats with us?
Depends what you mean by build diversity, you could very easily create a game with no defense mechanics whatsoever and have very rich offense diversity at the same time. Would you consider such game lacking? I certainly would not. Anyway players will always lean more heavily into offence, because thatās what they prefer. āThe best defense is a good offenseā is a saying for a reason.
In NRFTW case defense mechanics like life, armor, resistances or some enchantments are there only to allow you to make more mistakes. Itās as simple as that, but you probably are trying to compare it to other genres like arpg or classic turn based rpg, where defense mechanics work more to what you described in this post. Im not sure NRFTW wants to be like those genres and i certainly would not want it to happen. If i ever want to play such games i have much better options like Baldurs Gate 3 or Path of Exile.
I would love if there was some kind of event where players are only allowed to wear and upgrade weapons, and no assigning points to health. How many players including casuals would finish campaign? I bet it would be much less than 1% of total player base. No hit runs would be close to 0. So do not say that defenses are useless.
And it never was meant to be. Im sure the intention was to dodge most attacks and parry only some of them to stagger and generate focus. Defenses are only to allow you to make more mistakes. Thatās whatās called a skill based combat. You are thinking about defenses in an old classic turn based rpg way, this system has a place but not in this game.
Come on, this attack is not that hard to avoid, simple rhythmic game like in every other case 
This boss has much scarier moves in his arsenal.
I agree that game has some problems when you have to fight multiple āuncoordinatedā enemies at once. Like the boss you mentioned or harpy boss at the end of current campaign. Clunky movement have nothing to do with this tho.
And yes, those invisible plagued puddles are irritating, they should make them much much more visible.
I promise you itās not that bad once you learn a bit of physics and have an average rhythmic sense. Iāve posted a nice diagram in some of my previous posts so you can check it out.
Im pretty sure you are not meant to parry every single attack. It is just additional mechanic to complement dodging, you should use it only in certain scenarios. Unless you are the gamer god then go ahead and parry every single attack.
Youāre doing it wrong then Youāre supposed to learn the timing of the attack and click parry right before swing happens (at least in case of fast attacks), not when it almost touches your neck. Relay less on your eyes and reflexes, and more on your sense of rhythm (one, two, threeā¦ parry).
This boss is a gear check, not a DPS check. If you can ramp high dps and sustain it - you can kill him before he starts doing purple ground bubbles. I know because Iāve optimized my build into enough damage, fast enough, that this is a predictable outcome.
The problem is not the time it takes to kill the boss - which is what DPS checks are. If you slam damage hard for the opening 10 seconds and disconnect due to dodging an attack - say you shaved off a third or even half of his life - purple bubbles are going to start almost immediately unless you stagger this boss out of the attack. This is not an āenrage timerā mechanic - he will start it immediately once about 30% of his health bar is gone.
All of the talk about positioning becomes pointless if you donāt interrupt the first cast of that attack. With the right gear it is do-able - even straightforward and dare I say easy if you are bringing attack speed and damage to the table in sufficient quantities. I see that as the problem.
This fight is a gear check - not a DPS check. āJust farm more embers broā is a crappy message to send to players in an ecosystem that is largely skill driven.
Frost infusions also help to stunlock bosses out of these cheesy patterns if theyāre lacking the damage, but I see most people absolutely refuse to use consumable infusions or most consumables for that matter that significantly increase stamina, focus, and food that gives a whopping 10% extra damage and the fish food that gives you half a rune attack cast per use.
Rune attacks are also a lot of what I see people neglecting. A lot of them, not just a few, actually truck mobs and bosses.
But constantly I see people just use regular attacks and hoarding focus for no reason or using it on garbage ass bow shots.
A lot of people trying to play this game like elden ring with just light and heavy attack spam, and it shows.
A large part of the power budget is on the rune attacks and people are sleeping on them.
I definitely agree because I am one of those people! I am getting better. That said I think there are some things in the game ecosystem that work against rune attack usageā¦not the least of which is rune balance/optimization.
It would be one thing if achieving stagger in a controlled, deliberate, strategic way was a more pronounced game mechanic. We block/parry as an interrupt and that is entirely within player agency to pull off and control. When a boss gets staggered, and how much stamina you have left after that, and the attack the boss chooses to lead off with once he comes out of staggerā¦are not things that are controlled. They are influenced at best (or not at all).
Which is why I say this is just a gear check. If you have the stamina and damage to zap this guy - heās easy. Even building up from zero focus. Much easier when you go into the fight at full focus and can blow through stamina - fire rune - and recharge enough stamina to keep right on plowing until heās down in about 8-10 seconds.
If you do not have the stamina pool/focus pool, stamina recovery, and damage, to go from stagger to stagger to deadā¦this boss is ridiculously punishing. Even worse when in screwy small areas. And thatās the problem. Every āsolutionā is to find a way not to engage with the fight mechanics. And that is bad design.
one reason iāve learned to hate poe is the āpermanentā degen pools. the bubble attacks the way it works currently is way worse than whatever poe had. even tho itās ātemporaryā, its long enough that it might as well be permanent.
i am actually doing p4 mods.
youāre semi right on this. in his regular form and regular arena, players can actually overlevel/out gear him. which is the game giving players different ways to overcome problems.
but even then i do take offense that the bubbles get to that point.
tbh, i dont think its a stat/item bonus. its a boss mechanic issue. punishing players for not clearing a boss fast or forcing players to abuse mechanics seems to be a bad design choice.
and in any case, iāve defeated him already. still think hes bullshit tho.
thats really true, but sometimes mistakes happen. also i feel that repeating that many times is justā¦ weird? even in monster hunter, the game is actually turn based but disguised as an action game. the enemies sometimes attack a huge lot, but you do know when to counter attack.
spinning 12 times in a row its not about the fact that i have to dodge 12 times in a row. its more of players not given any reliable way of punishing his moves. punishing enemy moves is usually how difficult/strong moves are balanced. the enemy does very damaging attacks/large aoe etc. and all the while youāll be forced to keep avoiding. doing 0-minimal dps all the while. in most other deliberate games, you will know āok when heās done with this final move, i can attackā. but if i know he can spin 12 times in a row, i no longer have that certainty.
to be real, if i had enough stamina, i could sneak an attack in after every spin. just that for 12 spins, thats simply not feasible.
lol bro, if i need to ramp high dps and sustain it, thats literally a DPS check.
if interrupts are the way to go, sometimes if weāre too far or have been knocked in to a bad position, then too bad for us then? interrupts also require dealing enough freeze/stagger buildup. buildup is a form of dps. do too little, and you fail.
agreed.
i seriously think this is the case. i dont believe itās an intended behaviour. similarly the 12 spins in a row too shouldnt be intended behaviour.
if weāre going 12, why stop there? lets have him spin 30 times.
Typically itās 3-6 bubbles or ground attacks max from any of the bosses. Not 12-20 which is what I was getting on my most recent fight with him.
Isnāt that the same thing I wrote here?
This is the reason that makes parry unattractive as you have to learn different timings for different attacks for every single enemy. And then, as you mentioned, some attacks cannot be parried, while other attacks can be parried but do not stagger the enemy.
You were never meant to parry every enemyās every attack. Most attacks are still dodgeable on reaction and if you happen to know the timing of some that you can parry, then thatās a bonus.
I am behind this design decision. However, such attacks require a visual aid so that the player knows that this attack cannot be parried and does not waste time to find the parry window.
this is exactly what i m asking for in the other ādo you parry?ā thread. godfall does exactly that. parriable attacks have a very noticeable effect to indicate its parriable, and the timing to parry usually is the same so you dont need to memorize 10001 different parry timings. also unparriable and unblockable attacks also have very clear indicators so players know they should gtfo.
I know there are games that visually mark attacks which canāt be parried. GoT did that, and there are games that donāt.
I canāt say either way is a requirement, both are design choices in my opinion. Perhaps something that should be considered with the custom realms.
I think make it intuitive. Weapon attacks are parryable (including claws). Body slams and spells are not.
Perhaps make enraged attacks not parryable.
Whatever it is, it should be obvious, make sense and be explained somewhere.
Parry? I might try next time.
I find the massive bear bosses way worse than this guy.
My worst boss is the echo knight when he teleports and does the big aoeā¦ I refuse to look up how to beat that, but I think Iāve worked it out.