An interesting challenge

Right now, just to see if it is indeed do able, I am working on a no armor, no tech, broken protectorate run, just to try and find out the bare minimum needed to beat the story missions. I am using admin to cut down on grinding for things like bandages so this doesn't take forever, but not during the actual dungeon clearing itself. Also I am not going to use any healing above bandages.

And thought would share how far I get, as think would be interesting for all the community to know. And share anything interesting I come across, help others that want to try this too, or get help if I run into something that seems unlikely.

First off, so far I have gotten past Asra Nox.

First tip: you don't have to kill everything in your way.

So for the floran dungeon boss, the big key is focus on managing the little guys and let Nuru do the all the heavy work.

Now on the Hylotol one, first off you need to bring rope if want to do this without tech. The door right before Asra is not accessible otherwise.

On Asra, use bandages like they are candy, I needed close to 200 for here. There are two parts that are most likely to kill you the ball morph especially if you lag a little, and the beam attack that comes after. The problem with the beam is you can't jump out of the way without double jump, and I have not found a pattern to which side Asra goes to, to get to the other safe spot of behind Asra for the main part of the beam. Asra will two shot you if you are not using bandages premptively in some cases or as soon as you are hit. You get hit for 63, and can only hit back for ~6dmg per normal swing.

And now I am off to do the Avian one, I have a feeling there may be a brick wall there at the 2nd phase of the boss.

Edit: Before I stopped for the day I managed to get to the Miniboss in the Avian temple and got stuck(stupid scorpions), and did some feasibility checks on some parts. I should be fine on no techs all the way through, however the real problem will be managing the swarms in the Glitch portion, and the end level. If I can get there. A majority of things start to one shot you after the Avian temple. So it will really come down how well can deal with the swarms and a couple tricky parts like Big Apes bullet hell phases.

 

Okay, back at this again, and one thing has become abundantly clear... the Avian temple needs a respawn point immediately after the tour but before any of the actual dungeon. Sitting through the tour every single time one dies before the other respawn point makes it very annoying if one is having any kind of trouble in this dungeon. The purpose of that new respawn point is just so one doesn't have to wait on the NPC to re-open the dungeon after every death.

A lantern on a stick is useful in the avian dungeon for one jump as other wise its hard to see the end of one platform early enough as well as the platform after it above the spike pit.

The mini boss in the dungeon however looks like could take a while. Stupid scorpions.... once can get them cleared out, pretty sure can beat it.

 

On a random note, when it come to Asra Nox I generally found that the rocket jump and sprint are bot -very- good techs to have(at least for my fighting style).

The rocket boost pretty much allows to dodge most of her ground attacks by keeping you in midair for most of the attacks which might be a good case in favor of keeping that charge-up animation that make you temporarily immobile(I was able to dodge most of her ground and air dash slashs, as well as he volley of exploding projectiles and the ground based megabeam).

When it comes to the morph ball charges is when you instead want to stick to the ground though. And that's where sprint will generally shine, since it will generally allow you to, well, sprint faster and out of the way from most of the morphball's attacks.

With about only half of about 20 bandages, dual daggers and a tesla's wrath(which was often left in disuse in favor of the dual daggers for actually dealing constant DPS when she's vulnerably), I was able to defeat her solo with a mix of tungsten helmets+legs and only my chest armor being titanium rank.

 

See, heres the kicker, I am intentionally doing it without techs, armor, or any weapon besides the broken sword for challenge Give me techs, armor, or any other weapon and Asra is easy as pie. Ball morph is totally dodge able with some care, and if you have healing you can just heal through a hit or two if that happens thanks to it not being a one shot even without any armor. The cool thing about this is finding things like the other lesser known safe spot from the beam by standing behind Asra instead of always having to stand on the bookcases, a much easier way to avoid a majority of Asra's attacks.

 

Ahhh, I missed the part about not using techs or armor. Gosh.

This said, just be careful your ease fighting her might not be that of others! One of my friends, who sadly never grew up playing platformers like Megaman, almost ragequit the game fighting her. He was aware she had a pattern to her attack, but her moving so fast(and him never had the experience of such games in his youth) meant he never had the time to "register" the actual pattern.

 

Oh I totally understand. I just know that with Asra, once one can get past her ball attack, you have it pretty much made in normal circumstances. That is the one attack that will get people if they don't go in with ample healing items and potentially a shield. When in doubt on a challenging boss and trying to learn them, go in full defense and healing and don't attack until you start to get the pattern. Have to change the mindset from trying to kill them as fast as possible, to finding out how to survive long enough to kill them.

 

I'm aware and I think friend will be. Just came as a nasty shock to him enough I don't want to make it sound like pressuring him which would just end up making him angry enough to really quit the game. In the meanwhile I think he's just sandboxing and gathering high level gear to just overpower her with gear if need be.

 

I think, the the problem may occur on the final mission - Ruin fight requires a plenty of heal and ranged weapon. And plenty of dirt, if you dont use tech

Edit - Apex dungeon boss will be WE-ERY TEDIOUS without ranged weapon

 

Well I have managed to get past the mini-boss finally. Once can get the scorpions cleared out it gets very easy to do.

Now to beat the actual boss. For the first phase, trick seems to be finding a way to control the shooting portion so can dodge them all or get hit far enough apart to be able to heal up enough consistently. And of note, the platforms can't be double jumped up to so you absolutely have to make it onto one or you will die. Though from some of my tests last night I get the feeling the hard part will change on the 2nd phase due to a few things.

The Apex one will be tough until find a way to make it through the bullet hell portions. Ruin seemed pretty doable, problem there will actually be dodging the spawned monsters that can one shot you for long enough to kill the ruin.

Oh, and anyone that manages to do this with a Hardcore character, I would give mad props too.

 

Woo, a little more progress.

Beat the first phase of the Avian boss. Trick I found to avoiding the shooting portion with the most consistency is to be about half way to the wall when they start shooting, then walk towards the wall and when have to jump over them jump back towards the boss then resume going towards the wall.

The second phase, is beatable, just have not succeeded yet due to it being a long fight and still a little easy to die, so it is just a matter of time till I down it. Things of note, the Ice portion is always 3-1 on each half of the arena, first phase its one ice, 3 empty, 2nd phase 3 ice and one empty. The wind portion is always 5 shots. It takes about 3 seconds for it to destroy a platform during the lava portion.

In order to beat the 2nd phase, the few windows of opportunity to hit the boss are during the ice phase if he gives you a spot under him, the transition from ice to wind, and the transition from wind to lava. Now the worst part here is the lava part, as depending on the order of platform destruction you can end up stuck on the last one he has to destroy so you always have to start on one of the middle two. If you get stuck on the platform he has to destroy, you have to jump off of it at the last second, bandage before hit the lava, use the invincibility frames in the lava, and finally jump out just before the invincibility frames end. If you jump too soon off the platform or out of the lava, will get hit twice by the lava and will die. The other time I tend to die is in the shooting part when he spawns one low, as they tend to set up spots that get hit twice too close together due to having to jump over them.

I'll be trying to beat this boss again later, just wanted to share that he is indeed beatable in this challenge. Will be looking forward to Big Ape, once can get past this one.

 

I wish you luck with this run. I beat the ruin with a broken protector blade for a bit of fun. Took forever, although in my opinion it's one of the easiest bosses given the enemies are fairly weak in general. It's going to be hard for you to get more than one or two swipes in without tech on the final boss per jump. Aka- doable but it's going to be a grind fest.

 

As an update, still working on beating the Avian bosses 2nd phase. Just keep messing up mid fight, and it is a long process. Though do have some progress, the apex mission is clear-able up to the boss. And I may have found a mostly safe spot or two for both the fist projectiles attacks and the bullet hell portion. The spot(s) would be right in line with the inside edge of the banners that telegraph his attacks, for the fists you just have to jump over the horizontal ones as you will fit between the vertical ones, and for the bullet hell you can duck there and make minor movements to avoid most of them. I need to double check the bullet hell portion as was on a friend's universe with potential lag and a different character, but it was working well enough to warrant looking into further when could repeat it often.

Hope that those discoveries for the Apex Boss help others out.

Back to the challenge!

 

You mentioned no armour, upgraded weapons and tech, but what about pets?

Capture some and I wonder it they could take some of the aggression from aimed attacks to allow you time to heal up.

 

That might help on the glitch and final ones, but not the avian boss. The pet would more likely make things worse. The additional target would remove the predictability of the portion that keeps killing me. Anymore the only time I get hit is when the boss drops low enough to place one that will come in mostly horizontal and have to jump over it. That alone is often just enough to align two shots to hit close enough together that won't be healed up enough for the 2nd shot. Best run so far had the 2nd phase to 50%.

For the apex boss, its just a matter of finding a way through the bullet hell, and the problem is the transition between the clumped shots and the spray line, and that the line hits different spots depending on which way it is going.

Most of my deaths now are due to greed and impatience.