Hardcore Rajani

[metamag]

So after about a dozen times trying to beat Rajani with Lucas on hardcore I finally gave up and beat her on normal with no problem the first time.

 

The farthest I got on Hardcore was 2/3 of her health on her second form.

 

The biggest problem I see is that armor has no damage mitigation against magic, she is completely immune to stun and stagger and the damage she deals is huge(3 times of normal) and some attacks are pretty random.

 

Thoughts? Is there some trick to beating her on hardcore, some special weapon property or something?

[metamag]

Btw I killed both the big spider and Gunderic on hardcore without dieing once so maybe Rajani on hardcore is a bit unbalanced.

Edited June 19, 2011 by metamag

[toastification]

Hit twice, Dodge, dodge, dodge. Repeat. It's tedious for the first half of her HP bar, but then she melts in about 15 seconds. All of her attacks are very dodgable and she uses them predictably fast after you get in range. Problem with Hardcore is that armor is completely worthless - bosses still kill you in 1-2 hits; assassin style characters still bring you down in 2-3 hits even if you pump it like mad. Every character needs to be built and played like a hit'n'run glass cannon (unless you are a real fan of block).

 

If you didn't max out Heroic Charge's "Executioner's Charge" ASAP you are doing it wrong - it's Lucas's main claim to beating bosses fast.

 

Her second form's main attacks are the little blue explosions and that array of homing missiles - you can still dodge them, but you can't stand still, ever.

Edited June 19, 2011 by toastification

[metamag]

If you didn't max out Heroic Charge's "Executioner's Charge" ASAP you are doing it wrong - it's Lucas's main claim to beating bosses fast.

 

Of course I did, 40% health threshold for crit +20% DPS, I knew it was Lucas' biggest strength from the beginning.

 

Still, her second form attacks are extremely random with high damage.

 

And yes, the thing about highest difficulties with games is general is that many features are rendered useless, in this case it is armor. I wish developers would stop doing that.

[toastification]

Well, it's a 50% threshhold for 100% crit; with the +50% crit damage trait and some "Doom" on your items it comes out to quite a bit more than +20% DPS. Towards late game, with 3-4 Power Orbs, Wrath (focus regeneration running), you can put down 6 Exectuioner Charges for 800+ damage each in about 3 seconds. It's shocking how fast it melts bosses.

 

From what I remember about her second form, as long as you move her little explosions she sets up under you don't actually hit you. Her biggest threat is that salvo of homing missiles and she always telegraphs it with a quick animation and/or blabbing. Just dodge towards them, it takes a little bit of practice.

 

That really summarizes most of bosses on hard-core - they do 1/3 to 1/2 of a second to telegraph an attack that is probably going to kill you in 1 hit or leave you near dead. Some don't even have the courtesy to telegraph and simply are guaranteed to use *something* painful against you as soon as you are in range. In such cases, dance around them to bait them into shooting the attack, immediately dodge in avoiding it and get a few hits in. If you can't get the timing right, you are probably frustrated from all the death and should take a break.

Edited June 19, 2011 by toastification

[metamag]

Well, it's a 50% threshhold for 100% crit; with the +50% crit damage trait a

 

You misunderstood the ability, critical hit is 100% always regardless the health threshold, health threshold just means that you get to auto-crit sooner rather than later so it is wasteful to put all of it into health threshold, since you get more crit damage from 20% DPS damage.

[toastification]

Pretty sure I understood :/. When you max it, at half HP you get a guaranteed crits until the thing drops dead.

 

I simply prefer maxing it it on the threshold evolution because it makes a noticeable difference to be able to start unleashing bosses at 50% instead of 40%. Executioner charge 1-2 shots most things anyways; and for enemies heavy enough to be able to take multiple critical hits from it you want to start landing those critical hits faster.

 

You also need to remember that for most abilities, damage comes from adding up both attack DPS and ability DPS (and some measure of base damage), so +20% ability DPS is closer to +10% total if your Attack/Willpower are equal, or is even lower than that if you favor attack DPS more than will DPS (which you should because Lucas does a lot of regular hitting).

Edited June 19, 2011 by toastification

[metamag]

What about withering and weakening weapon attributes, does that make any difference with bosses? Maybe those would be crucial on hardcore, I only used doom and ice so far..

Edited June 19, 2011 by metamag

[toastification]

Haven't tried any of those. There are too many "Chaos" type items and the drop system is heavily biased towards giving you mostly Attack/Will/Agility. It's easy to stack up those offensive stats, but to stack up a specific "Chaos" stat to any real amount you need to be A. lucky, B. sacrifice the main offensive/defensive stats because an item is unlikely to have both a high chaos property and good offensive attributes unless it is a unique.

 

And bosses seem to be highly resistant if not outright immune to many of the weakening effects you can put on them. Stuns barely last any duration on them, so I doubt Weakning/Withering fares as well. Plus, you would ultimately be relying on a chance to hit short duration debuff against enemies that are designed to kill you if you try to whack them for any real amount of time.

 

If you have the items with high enough stat you could try, but I doubt its a viable strategy in the long run. So far, my best friends on Hardcore for Lucas have been Blade Dash with +50% crit, Executioner's Charge, and the three buffing skills. Item wise, I mostly relied on Attack/Will/Doom (and every once in a while I got a decent +agility item that didn't sacrifice the other stats). As well as lots and lots of dodging.

 

If it helps, Stamina is a lot more valuable than armor - the damage reduction seems really bad, but having 1.5k HP or more does let you survive "glancing" 500-1000 damage hits long enough to dodge away and heal. Speaking of healing, Blade Dash is *fantastic* for it when you have +25% Life Steal from your healing skill. It will instantly top you off if you use an Empowered version, too, while finishing off all the rabble.

Edited June 19, 2011 by toastification

[metamag]

Haven't tried any of those. There are too many "Chaos" type items and the drop system is heavily biased towards giving you mostly Attack/Will/Agility. It's easy to stack up those offensive stats, but to stack up a specific "Chaos" stat to any real amount you need to be A. lucky, B. sacrifice the main offensive/defensive stats because an item is unlikely to have both a high chaos property and good offensive attributes unless it is a unique.

 

LOL, the only thing you need to do is get to a savepoint close to the store, and keep reloading and visiting the store. With each load store inventory is randomized.

 

Like in pretty much every other game.

Edited June 19, 2011 by metamag

[toastification]

And you need to be lucky to get a decent item out of that technique - store items are mostly terrible. Statistically you will probably get the exact item you want after a large number of reloads, but consider this:

1. To stack up a significant amount of a chaos stat you need to have multiple items for it

2. You need to still ensure that you don't miss out on other attributes because having low attack, low agility, low willpower, and low stamina for sake of having Chaos: thingmagic +80 isn't going to do you any favors

3. You will need to repeat that dance every time you find a new grade/tier of item quality (basically every time you find a new set of shops).

 

Is it really worth it? This game has no persistent multiplayer and no shared stash, as well as being short. And the difficulty is mostly tied to your skill as a player and smart choices in character building rather than having an ideal set of items.

[Dan_CW]

I beat the second phase on the first encounter (not sure if there's more than one) with Rajani as Lucas, on the hardcore difficulty, by keeping close to her and dodging as she fires the magical bolts/arrow thingies at you.

 

It may be seen as a cheap tactic, but it works. I also had trouble with the fight prior to that.

Edited June 19, 2011 by Dan_CW

[metamag]

Is it really worth it? This game has no persistent multiplayer and no shared stash, as well as being short. And the difficulty is mostly tied to your skill as a player and smart choices in character building rather than having an ideal set of items.

 

I agree, this game would really benefit from a nice Torchlight-like crafting system of customizing your weapons and having weapon/armor sets.

 

Hopefully they will patch this in one day, remember that Blizzard patched Diablo 2 with synergies and other stuff practically making a new game with a patch.

[metamag]

Oh, we forgot to mention that ice is the most useful and consistently applied chaos property.

[metamag]

I just beat Rajani on hardcore without dieing once and 3 times more quickly. I had that sword from Katarina's sister which she gives you for Gunderic completion and which you prompted her to give you as an edge over Rajani.

 

So, I guess, withering is pretty important against bosses, especially when withered+heroic charge.

[metamag]

I just beat Rajani on hardcore without dieing once and 3 times more quickly. I had that sword from Katarina's sister which she gives you for Gunderic completion and which you prompted her to give you as an edge over Rajani.

 

So, I guess, withering is pretty important against bosses, especially when withered+heroic charge.

[toastification]

Withering is the damage amplifying one, right? Do you remember what chaos value it had?

 

Personally, I am in love with Doom now on crit heavy characters. I had a combined DPS of about 400 from Attack and Ability towards the end of the game, about 120ish doom on Sword/Shield, and 240ish doom on my 2 hander. An Empowered Vanguard's strike opened with 1.8k to 2.4kish damage on crits. Heroic Charge basically killed the archon enemies in 1-2 hits; the Daevas were a bit tougher and relied on 1-3 Vanguard Strikes to bring them under the 50% HP threshold.

 

A singled Blade Dash on 4 Power Orbs with that set up melted armies and kept me at full HP. Was quite the lulz.

Edited June 20, 2011 by toastification

[Cyn!c]

Just beat her on hardcore, I'm Lucas my gf is playing Anjali. The trick for the second part is to stay close to her as much as you can and never stand still for too long. When she shoots the fireballs, you can block them without taking much damage at all. I'm used the one handed stance mainly because you get your focus back quicker for the defensive abilities. This was a really fun fight, the game has really proven that Obsidian can do action very well. It's fun, challenging and requires skill. We've just gotten to the swamp, really don't want the game to end too fast! I'm hoping for an expansion or meaty DLCs for this game. New characters and story lines would be great.

[Guest]

*reads OP*

*reads 1.5 pages of derailed thread*

*reads something useful*

 

Thanks Cyn!c, you're a life saver.

 

Summary: Spend the first half of the fight trying to stay away from her. Spend the second half of the fight trying to stay right next to her.

[Cyn!c]

*reads OP*

*reads 1.5 pages of derailed thread*

*reads something useful*

 

Thanks Cyn!c, you're a life saver.

 

Summary: Spend the first half of the fight trying to stay away from her. Spend the second half of the fight trying to stay right next to her.

 

haha no worries. The next main boss you fight is pretty tough too! Boss fights in the game are done very well indeed, remind me of old Castlevania or Metroid boss fights in some ways.

[toastification]

*reads 1.5 pages of derailed thread*

*reads something useful*

Pfft. For Lucas, "hit her and dodge her attacks" is about the most relevant and fastest thing you can do. Unless you can block her attacks, which is probably a bit faster.

 

I guess I could have been more specific. "Walk into range, bait her attack animation, hit her, dodge away after a few hits."

Edited June 28, 2011 by toastification

[Guest]

*reads 1.5 pages of derailed thread*

*reads something useful*

Pfft. For Lucas, "hit her and dodge her attacks" is about the most relevant and fastest thing you can do. Unless you can block her attacks, which is probably a bit faster.

 

I guess I could have been more specific. "Walk into range, bait her attack animation, hit her, dodge away after a few hits."

The next time I play as Lucas, I'll keep that in mind.

[metamag]

New characters and story lines would be great.

 

No new characters please, instead more detailed abilities and synergies, a lot of abilities are completely useless now by themselves and in terms of upgrading them(shield pummel, vanguard strike, earthquake, etc.)

[metamag]

And don't forget this-

 

I just started a new playthrough and put 3 points into willful and it's a whole lot better, no more waiting for lower enemy health, big damage from the start and much bigger criticals, instantly killing most enemies and you are overall much more effective because you use it far more frequently which means you dash from place to place avoiding damage.

 

 

Later you instant-kill all non-bosses with full willful charge and high will, and if you use endless wrath you never get hit because you dash from one enemy to the next, you are like superman.

 

Never chose executioner's charge over willful charge.

[toastification]

What average damage hits did you get towards the end with maxed out willful?