Spiral Knights - Vanaduke is, in general, too difficult

Vanaduke is, in general, too difficult

16 replies [Last post]

Sat, 01/01/2011 - 12:13

kojiden

Legacy Username

I know I may get some flack for this and people will just tell me to play better and get better gear, but I honestly think there are some flaws regarding Vanaduke that put him into the realm of artificially difficult. There are two instances where the boss is just too crazy. I'll note each one and how I think it should be changed.

1) The ceiling falls too quickly. Now I know that before the ceiling falls there's some light on the ground, but the time it gives you is not enough if you're in reloading your gun or finishing up a charge attack or whatever. I think either the time it takes for the ceiling to fall should be increased slightly or Vanaduke himself should make the ceiling fall less often. Maybe give him a standard attack to use so he doesn't smash the ground all the time to cause the ceiling to seemly fall constantly.

2) When it goes into the 2D shooter mode. There's 2 problems that I think could be fixed to make this more manageable. The first would be to make it so that the orbs don't light you on fire. There's already enough fire at this boss fight as is. So it would be nice if the one thing that isn't fire didn't deal fire to you. The second is that when there are orbs flying all over the place it can be hard to hit the mask. One suggestion for this could be to make water go through the orbs so that you're not constantly struggling to just try to hit the mask with water to make it vulnerable.

I've played Vanaduke a few times since after the rebalance, and each time it seems that multiple people spend hundreds of energy. I just finished a failed attempt where everyone spent around 300-500 energy each. You shouldn't need to do that to beat a boss.

Sat, 01/01/2011 - 13:04

Njthug

Disagree

Vannadukes is a hard guy I agree with that, but I only beat him two times out of about 20 or so attempts, but each time I got close or even beaten him it was due to the team I was with. You need a great team and a lot of teamwork to beat him. The two times I beat him I used less than 300 energy on revivals. My team was smart we all had jobs, and we would do them, and you need the right gear (Fire resistant armor etc.).

Sat, 01/01/2011 - 16:13

Pupu

Legacy Username

Nah

If you have a good party, the only hard part of Vanaduke is the last bullet hell.
I have killed him in a duo party with Sarcusa, where we wasted no energy.
Obviously you only fight duke with 4/5* gear with a lot of fire resist, so fire is to be ignored.
I have even soloed Vanaduke (dying about 4 times in the process)

Please don't make him easier. Except for the last shmup part which could be a little easier.

Sat, 01/01/2011 - 21:02

Pauling

Part of the difficulty

Part of the difficulty depends on computer performance. With a slower computer or laptop, the falling roof/ spinning wheels/ bullet spam still produces unholy lag; I sometimes die several seconds after bullets that I was certain I'd "dodged".

Sat, 01/01/2011 - 23:37

Cromendi

Vanaduke currently have a bit

Vanaduke currently have a bit too much hp..... reduce it by about 30% and there should be a bit more balance to things.

This version of Vanaduke have about 8~10 time more hp than the old one from what I've seen.

Sun, 01/02/2011 - 01:49

Sarcusa

It's just a matter of

It's just a matter of practice. With the "fast ceiling drop", don't use attacks that create a huge delay or only use those when there are no ceilings falling where you are. (So machine guns, only click once so you aren't delayed by a lot, charge attacks do when the ceiling light where they'll fall). Now for the water, it can be difficult at first so you have to kind of find out when there are good moments. But anyways I think he's fine, people just need to practice a lot more. (I mean if you made him any easier, he wouldn't be much of a boss). Now if you say 5th phase is impossible, you have to attack the mask only when it's so close that the furthest red fireball can't shoot you. (This is best done on the left as I think on the right, the yellow fireballs shoot downwards, making it very hard to hit with the water) I think he's a terrific boss as he isn't unfair most of the time. (I still have trouble on 6th phase where he dashes at you, but that's a matter of practice and always keeping an eye on the circling fireballs)

Well one thing to make him easier but still hard is have the red fireballs have some kind of warning to when they'll shoot. I'd think this would improve damage output, yet decrease the amount of times you're hurt but not changing any of his attacks much.

About the hp, it's a good amount with 4*/5* gear but he does tend to drag alot when much of the party have trouble hurting him. Now when there are more people in a party, the hp of enemies are increased but it isn't like double hp for a duo or triple for a trio so in theory, the enemy should die faster. So I'm a bit iffy on the hp. Actually question, how much dmg do 4*/5* blasters/alchemers do anyways? I always use antiguas and machineguns so I can't really say.

Ah but one thing's for sure. He isn't very rewarding ._. Those red boxes in the end isn't a reward either >_> Red boxes are just barely any better than normal boxes. (Especially with those christmas hats...)

Sun, 11/03/2013 - 08:40