The Boss Fight Thread (Continued)

The Star Destroyer in The Force Unleashed.

That was easy.

-Carbon/Diamond Dog from Earthbound. This thing's a quadruple threat: it has a reflecting shield, huge attack, tank-ish HP, AND ridiculous speed. Diamond Dog is a fucking GAMBLE with Jeff's Multi-Bottle Rockets. Even if you get the damned thing's shield down, it'll most likely put it back up again mid-turn.

-Oh, and does Whitney count? If it do-FUCK YOU, MILTANK. And it has Scrappy ability in HG/SS now too? What the hell, man. What the hell.

The Maximum Carnage game/bosses in general, if only because the game itself is confusing as shit. Half the boss fights seem to be unwinnable Hopeless Boss Fights (which you only know after you spent a whole lot of time doing your best to no avail). The story drags on and on, following the comics more or less but being pure boredom in game form.

The true final boss has such ludicrous endurance that I took an eternity to beat him while cheating my ass off. It can also break your combos any time he wishes, and cross the screen at just-a-bit-too-fast speeds with his spinning axe-hand run. FUN. [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

@Lembech: Is Lance still Gamesharking his Pokémon? In RBY his Aerodactyl had an illegal move (Rock Slide), and in GSC he had two Dragonites under the minimum evolution level, one of which knew Barrier (wish my Dragonites could learn Barrier [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.] )

NECROPOST THE UNIVERSE

I love the Sly Cooper series...not so much the first game. I did remember liking the Mrz. Ruby boss fight, so I dusted off the ol' PS2 and went about beating the whole game in a day. It was fun, sort of, (for those not in the know, it's a Parappa-esque rhythm section) but there was occasional lag.

So, when I received the shiny, CANDY-LIKE Sly Cooper HD Trilogy, I thought all that lag would get fixed. Let me tell you...that was not the case. I found the Trilogy to be kind of a hack job (a misspelled achievement, the dev commentary missing in 2), but the Mrz. Ruby bossfight was absolutely ASSRAPED in comparison to everything else.

THE MUSIC WAS OUT OF SYNC
IN A RHYTHM MINIGAME
HOW THE FLAMING SOUL-DESTROYING SHIT DO YOU DO THAT
(cries for the series)

But truly, the hardest boss in the series was the egg-balancing minigame. Screw you, egg-balancing minigame.

Borderlands 2 is a great game, but it has some of the most infuriating bosses I have ever seen. Special mention goes to Bloodwing, and really, the ENTIRE Wildlife Preserve area. Even on the first play through, Bloodwing was the only boss to really give me problems until MUCH later in the game. On the second play through, he was almost impossible. Four of us fought him for thirty minutes with VERY little progress until one of us quit and logged back in with his level 50 Mechromancer, and it was STILL a difficult fight.

It probably doesn't help that I was playing as Zer0, and Bloodwing (and most of the enemies in the Wildlife Preserve in general) move around to goddamn much to Critical reliably. Because really, he flies around the the battlefield for 90% of the fight, half of that time he's literally impossible to hit, as the area is flooded with skags and stalkers. The other 10% of the time, he's on the ground, but that only occurs after he uses a practically unavoidable attack that WILL KILL YOU on True Vault Hunter Mode, and he spends most of his time on the ground breathing liquid elemental damage on you.

That's the first play through. In TVHM, the skags and stalkers released into the area are often badass elemental types, which qualify as minibosses in their own right.

Mikey Go WOOGA wrote:

It probably doesn't help that I was playing as Zer0, and Bloodwing (and most of the enemies in the Wildlife Preserve in general) move around to goddamn much to Critical reliably.

Zer0, a sniper?
You have chosen quite poorly.
Zer0 is a joke.

Zer0, like Mordecai, is probably the worst character. His sniping tree is absolute garbage, and some of its abilities are actually counter-productive. It doesn't help much if you try to diversify with the other trees, because seriously Gearbox:

HOW THE FUCK DO YOU KEEP COMBINING "SNIPER" WITH "MELEE NINJA"? THESE ARE TWO DIAMETRICALLY OPPOSED SCHOOLS OF COMBAT.

Unlike Mordecai, he doesn't have Bloodwing to make up for it, he has a shitty decoy that disappears in 0.25 seconds and sometimes even fails to fool the enemy. I really love running into some place, activating the dec0y, and then getting ripped to shreds because the dec0y is jizzed like 3 feet in front of you and everybody shoots through it and hits you anyway.

I really think that this is the development process that went into Zer0:

"How can we make an even worse version of Mordecai?"
"Take away Bloodwing!"
"Genius! But he doesn't suck enough yet, what should his action skill be?"
"A useless mockery of Lilith's Phasewalk?"
"BRILLIANT!"

I wasn't all that impressed with the new Siren, but I didn't get the chance to play much as her. Mostly played as Zer0. Lilith being an NPC was kind of an extra slap in the face. "Remember that character you actually liked to play as? HAHAHAHAHA FUCK YOU."

Zer0 is highly effective against a lot of enemies if you spec him out to do MAXIMUM DAMAGE with Snipers and Critical Hits. I've had people dumbfoundedly ask, "Where did the Super Badass Constructor go?" I can easily pick apart most loaders and head shot most humanoid baddies. Problems only arise when your fighting Badass Psychos, Rat-Type baddies, and animals that don't fucking sit still. Naturally, the Wildlife Preserve is FILLED with the latter.

Also, a laggy connection to the host will fuck you.

But yes, anyone who puts a point into Zer0's melee tree should blow their brains out.

I would play as Salvador, because filling an entire block in hot brass seems fun, but as the game goes on, he becomes weaker and weaker. Eventually, just spraying lead all over the place doesn't do enough damage, and Gunzerking doesn't help you not die if you're close enough for it to do any good offensively.

I could play as Maya, but she's a glorified healer, and can't really do shit on her own. She's there to insta-revive friends and freeze nuisance enemies for five seconds.

Once I finally finish TVHM with Zer0, I'll probably give Axton a try, as his turret seems to wreck shit, he seems to do good damage with assault rifles, and he seems to have the most survivability.

Zer0's action skill really is pretty much useless. It only gives an attack bonus if you land a critical, which is a VERY narrow application, and it doesn't keep you from just getting shot anyway. The only use I've found for it is running to downed friends for a revive. It lasts just long enough that by the time it wears off they can't kill me before I finish reviving whoever.

Axton and Gaige are completely game-breaking. Ironically, you have to put some thought into making Gaige a game-breaker, Axton can do it practically by accident.

It's relatively easy to spec Axton out for his turret to pick up more slack than Deathtrap can. The turret-specific skill tree doesn't fuck around; one tier 1 skill increases duration AND increases the amount of bullets it shoots. A tier 2 skill increases accuracy. A tier 3 skill gives you health regen every time you deal any kind of damage, and the turret's shots count. Another tier 3 skill adds rockets to the turret (this is a flat addition and you only need to put one point into it.) The tier 4 and tier 5 skills can be ignored and you can put skill points into the other lower tier skills, which do very basic and useful things like increase shield recharge/decrease recharge delay, etc. The final skill adds a second gun to the turret AND it now fires slag bullets. The rocket pods count as a "different source of damage" and will get the bonus when the turret slags enemies. Taking only the turret and direct damage skills in this tree will leave you with PLENTY of points left for the skill tree that's DEDICATED to enhancing damage or survivability.

Penguin wrote:

Axton and Gaige are completely game-breaking. Ironically, you have to put some thought into making Gaige a game-breaker, Axton can do it practically by accident.

It's relatively easy to spec Axton out for his turret to pick up more slack than Deathtrap can. The turret-specific skill tree doesn't fuck around; one tier 1 skill increases duration AND increases the amount of bullets it shoots. A tier 2 skill increases accuracy. A tier 3 skill gives you health regen every time you deal any kind of damage, and the turret's shots count. Another tier 3 skill adds rockets to the turret (this is a flat addition and you only need to put one point into it.) The tier 4 and tier 5 skills can be ignored and you can put skill points into the other lower tier skills, which do very basic and useful things like increase shield recharge/decrease recharge delay, etc. The final skill adds a second gun to the turret AND it now fires slag bullets. The rocket pods count as a "different source of damage" and will get the bonus when the turret slags enemies. Taking only the turret and direct damage skills in this tree will leave you with PLENTY of points left for the skill tree that's DEDICATED to enhancing damage or survivability.

Mikey doesn't have Gaige.

Partly because Mikey's X-Box hard drive is goddamn full, but mostly because Mikey is REALLY cheap.

What have I told you about playing FPS games on consoles?

Christ, I don't even want to think about making Zer0 remotely functional with an X-Box controller.

ETA: Also Al sez this.

Quote :

"Four of us fought him for thirty minutes with VERY little progress until one of us quit and logged back in with his level 50 Mechromancer, and it was STILL a difficult fight."

First of all, A FULL TEAM couldn't handle Bloodwing on the first playthrough, are you fucking kidding me?

Second of all, you STILL had trouble after bringing in a level 50 character?

Okay.

You know how when you go into an area that you're overlevelled for, the enemies die in one hit with hilarious overkill, and barely scratch you? That's not because you have better gear.

That's because YOU GET A FLAT BONUS TO HEALTH AND DAMAGE AT EVERY LEVEL-UP.

Bloodwing is about 3/5s of the way through game. The first playthrough tops out at level 30, MAYBE level 33, if you do the campaign without doing any of the expansions before finishing said campaign. A level 50 character is, let's be generous, no less than 25 levels over what's intended for this boss fight, probably a few more. And they had TROUBLE?! This is not an input device problem, Gaige doesn't need precision, hell if she's spec'ed out halfway smartly the player should be aiming at the goddamn floor.

This is like... not only can you not hit the broadside of a barn, but in the process of missing, you also set your balls on fire.

(To be fair, Krieg can actually do this. ...actually no he can't, he still needs to hit something to set himself on fire.)

This is a result of miscommunication. I understand how it happened, what with me saying "That's the first play through" at the start of the third paragraph and not clarifying that was simply referring to Bloodwing's movement and the area flooding with random baddies at intervals. On the first playthrough, I struggled to kill it solo, only succeeding in killing it from Last Stand mode, blasting it point blank in the mouth with a shotgun while it breathed on me.

The total clusterfuck that required a level 50 to assist was on TVHM. The Mechromancer managed all right, but the three of us continued to die all over the place being level 39ish.

It is amazing how easily these boards get off-topic. First it's about bosses, next it's about how broken Gearbox's class systems are. I'm really starting to become suspicious of Gearbox anyways. It's like everything they touch that isn't Borderlands turns to crap. Remember Duke Nukem Forever?

ViewSonic wrote:

It is amazing how easily these boards get off-topic. First it's about bosses, next it's about how broken Gearbox's class systems are. I'm really starting to become suspicious of Gearbox anyways. It's like everything they touch that isn't Borderlands turns to crap. Remember Duke Nukem Forever?

To be fair, DNF was apparently mostly finished when they bought it, they just hurried up with some last-minute polish to kick it out the door. Still, they published it instead of doing what they should've done: Start over and make a decent game.

But in general, yeah, Gearbox's games aside from Borderlands and Half-Life: Opposing Force are really lackluster at best. And Borderlands 1 was pretty meh.

On-topic? Most of FF13's bosses.

I see your FF13 bosses and raise you Ornstein and Smough.

Capra Demon? Beat him on my first try, no sweat.

Fatty and Beanpole, Hall and Oates, Biggie and Smalls? There is no hope.

I resurrect Kefka from Final Fantasy 6 to bring ahard challenge, he WILL kill you in one shot.

Also @ mikey/penguin: Get Krieg, max hellborn, proceed to LAUGH as everything around you burns and then you heal from the damage because elemental disharmony heals you %tile wise.

Reidmar wrote:

Also @ mikey/penguin: Get Krieg, max hellborn, proceed to LAUGH as everything around you burns and then you heal from the damage because elemental disharmony heals you %tile wise.

I don't want to.

Quote :

*stuff about Borderlands 2*

Wasn't Mordecai, like, completely broken in Borderlands 1?

I seem to recall picking Mordecai on my first and only playthrough of the game and the game becoming laughably easy to plow through once you reached a certain point in his feat tree.

Mr.Doobie wrote:

Quote :

*stuff about Borderlands 2*

Wasn't Mordecai, like, completely broken in Borderlands 1?

I seem to recall picking Mordecai on my first and only playthrough of the game and the game becoming laughably easy to plow through once you reached a certain point in his feat tree.

Mordecai isn't playable in B2, best part his bird dies

But yeah, you get support from him in one of the earlier missions, and holy hell his shots pretty much one shot the buffed up mobs if you have 4 people even.

Mr.Doobie wrote:

Quote :

*stuff about Borderlands 2*

Wasn't Mordecai, like, completely broken in Borderlands 1?

I seem to recall picking Mordecai on my first and only playthrough of the game and the game becoming laughably easy to plow through once you reached a certain point in his feat tree.

As long as you don't use him as advertised (sniper-ninja) and throw Bloodwing at everything... maybe? I've heard Bloodwing could be really OP, everything else was pretty lackluster. I just know I didn't care for playing as him at all. I still sniped and used revolvers quite a bit as Lilith (it's just what I do) but it also meant that switching to SMGs was actually often useful, instead of suicide.

Aaaand maybe I just really like running into a room, inflicting elemental damage, and then exploding back into reality with fiery wings. To paraphrase Brick: "I'm the siren! Her name is Penguin, and she is the prettiest."

The War on Terror, thousands killed, billions spent, and in the end twenty Navy Seals take on an old man in his pajamas guarded by three guys. Watch out! One of them has a gun! 

Happyhooligan2001 wrote:

The War on Terror, thousands killed, billions spent, and in the end twenty Navy Seals take on an old man in his pajamas guarded by three guys. Watch out! One of them has a gun! 

yep, still not funny

Alma from Ninja Gaiden...took me MONTHS of grinding to kill her (only to look it up later and find the "you do this, and this and this" thus cutting the battle down to minutes)  

Karn from Gears of War: Judgement (Insane Mode)...couldn't do it alone; I had to pull other folks to help me out and even THEN we had a time...stupid rocket launching bastard!

Those are just a few but I will think of more (I'm sure).

Reidmar wrote:

I resurrect Kefka from Final Fantasy 6 to bring ahard challenge, he WILL kill you in one shot.

Only if your characters are severely underpowered. There's dozens of tricks that can make him trivial. Economizer/Gem Box/Quick combo lets you cast 4 Ultimas in one turn (or three Ultimas and one Cure3) for 5 MP. Throw Osmose in the mix and you don't even need the Economizer. Gogo abuse lets you do it another time for no additional cost. Gau's Rafflesia Rage makes enemies hit themselves and works on bosses. Offering+Genji Glove gives you eight physical attacks per turn.

And that's just the major tricks. I found out that just leveling a lot of magic and spamming it on Kefka also works pretty well.