Want to be Thronebreaker without Aegon? I just completed Abyss without him. Here's what I learned.
Crazy_Jamie
Member Posts: 345 ★★
First of all, I have to credit (or blame, depending on your view) @Erocks for this. I've been trying to pull Aegon forever to do Abyss, but Erocks did it without Aegon a few days ago and posted a thread about it. Someone from my alliance linked me to that thread and said that now I have no excuse not to do it. So I took the challenge up and did it. I watched some videos and read some guides first, so having now done it I thought I would put down some of my own tips and thoughts to help those in future, particularly those who want to do this without Aegon. I'll post about each individual fight on the easy path, but first some general points.
RESOURCES: I didn't keep track of the precise number of revives and potions that I used. I hoard resources and hadn't used 4hr crystals in ages, so I had about 1,000 of them and used them all. Got terrible RNG on those openings and not as many revives as I would have liked (not the last time I had terrible RNG on this run), but it did mean I had loads of potions to use on some of the fights where chip damage is an issue. Erock used 97 revives and I had around that. It's about the right sort of figure without Aegon. I only had to dip into my units near the end of the Collector so spent very few, but that's because of the resources I hoarded. Whether you have them already or get them using units, there's no way around needing a lot of revives and potions for this. It's just that having the right champs and approaching fights in the right way, and to some degree having skill, can reduce the resources you need, and that's the name of the game really.
BOOSTS: You've obviously got to use them. These fights are long and having an extra 50% attack due to boosts makes a huge difference. I basically always had a 30% attack/health boost on with some sort of attack boost and health boost. Again, helps to have them stocked up.
TIME: You need to have time to do this. Some people have lots of time anyway. Those of us with families tend to play in many short bursts, and you need to sit down for hour stints with the Abyss really to get into a rhythm and take advantage of boosts. If you don't naturally have those blocks of time to play the game, you need to find a period of several days when you will. The 5-6 hour mark feels about right, but if you play slower it can take longer. I did play slower and used shorter combos a lot of the time to cause maximum damage out of a single life in certain fights (just using MM with Nick Fury is a great approach for path clearing in particular), but you obviously don't have to.
TEAM: This is written everywhere, but you absolutely need a path clearer (quite a few options for this without Aegon), nullify champ (Doom or SS preferably, maybe BWCV), Mephisto counter (Torch preferably, Void if not), Invisible Woman counter (Nick by far the best) and a Collector counter (someone who can cause a lot of damage in a short space of time, Corvus for me). If you don't have those counters you'll need a huge number of resources to get through this.
MY TEAM: Was Corvus, Nick, Torch, Doom and Stealth Spidey. To be honest, apart from for Thing, I found Stealth Spidey to not be as nearly useful as I expected. The others all put in significant work.
SKILL: I'm assuming you have at least a decent level of skill if you're at the stage where you can realistically attempt this. But assuming you do have that decent skill level, this isn't really a skill based achievement. It's more about consistency. If you find yourself missing blocks every 50 hits, this is not for you. Providing you can pretty much do basic fights without regularly missing blocks, and can play your characters properly (e.g. knowing Doom's rotation) Abyss should be possible with around the resources I've noted above. The two fights where skill really can drive down the resources you need are Cyclops and the Collector. There are others to a lesser extent, such as Venom the Duck and Invisible Woman, but I'd expect that very few players looking to attempt this wouldn't have the skill to handle those with the right counters. Abyss is more about getting into a rhythm and fighting consistently. Once you're used to these fights being incredibly long, most of them are not difficult. But you will need revives for nearly all of them, because you simply won't be able to cause the damage you need in 200 or so hits to get these bosses down. Even when I say fights are not difficult below, I'm still using revives on all of them except Mephisto, CMM and Cull. Mostly lack of damage, but you will mess up and give away cheap deaths too. It's just the way this content works. As long as you know that in advance the whole experience becomes less frustrating and more weirdly zen as you progress.
So, with that in mind, here's my non Aegon run down of the fights:
Thing
The only fight where Stealth Spidey was of any use for me. Some have managed the solo by keeping the slow debuff on even after Thing goes unblock able and unstoppable after the charges have expired, but I did not have the time to do that so it took a few revives. It's just a standard Thing fight though, albeit a long one. You really wouldn't need Spidey to do it. Nick would be fine, so would some others.
Omega Red
Used Doom for this. Not the best path clearer but better than Nick (for obvious bleed related reasons). Used more revives than I expected to because I was still getting into the rhythm for Abyss, but fundamentally this is not a difficult fight.
Quake
An obvious Nick fight. Destroy the LMD from the off, then get over 15 charges to become unblock able, and spam MM and SP2. Doing that let me put 4 internal bleeds at times on every enemy I used it on, so the damage was massive. Took a bit longer with short combos but well worth it for the damage output in my view. Whenever I say I use Nick for any fight below, I'm getting off two quick SP1s and then just going MM and SP2. Probably my main path clearer.
Medusa
It's just all about Doom, and not difficult. I didn't solo her just because of not being able to cause enough damage but I think it was a two shot.
Mephisto
Not just an easy one shot with Torch, but my Torch was only r4 and I did it in about 100 hits (I took him to r5 after this fight because I figured I'd use him for the rest of the paths here and there). Fire up that pre fight and have at it. Just don't let him get to his SP3, but with the pre fight you can play less aggressively than normal and still melt him.
CMM
Yes, her Abyss ability (you degen if you go over a bar and a half of power and gain power regularly) is a pain, but I just spammed specials with Doom and she went down in about one minute. I was amazed how quick this fight was. With two one shots in a row I was feeling pretty good about myself. Shame things didn't quite continue like that.
Ghost
I actually used Corvus here. He had one charge from Omega and I died with Nick so figured I'd try him, and he was surprisingly effective. It's obviously a slow fight to maximise his damage output, but using MM combos and carefully timing single hits to stop Fight Me Coward from kicking in when the glaive charges were on cool down still yielded a surprisingly large amount of damage. Again I ended up using him for certain fights after this with the same strategy.
IMIW
This is an obvious Corvus fight, and one where it pays to have a lot of health going in. Again, Corvus causes a surprisingly large amount of damage here, and even though it's harder to manage Fight Me Coward with IMIW's long special animation, this wasn't nearly as difficult as I was expecting, even the last 15%.
Joe Fixit
This was the fight where RNG reared its ugly head and battered me to the ground. You'll know from other guides that Joe will roll a certain suit at the start of the fight, and thereafter will put a buff on him or a debuff on you every ten seconds. If he rolls hearts he will gain massive regen and you have to quit out. I lost count of the number of times he rolled hearts. When I used Nick he would fate seal the fury, massively reducing my damage output. When I used Corvus he would put poison and heal block debuffs, or pile on weakness to reduce my damage output. It was horrible. Got through him eventually but this was the first fight that made me wonder whether this was a good idea. I very much hope that others are not as unlucky as I was here.
Mordo
Others have used Doom for this. I used Torch. He was incredible effective. I was dreading this fight because Mordo can be a pain if you don't get into the rhythm of baiting his specials, but had a couple of great fights with Torch and took him down pretty efficiently. I found that the key was getting to my SP3 and using it when Mordo was at two bars with a power gain buff against the wall. After throwing that he nearly always threw his SP2, and we were back to square one and fighting normally. Potentially very tricky but I was delighted with how this turned out.
Venom The Duck
I was never in any danger with this fight using Doom, but my word he has a LOT of health. You need to be ready to nullify that regen or quit out, but actually I don't think he's very hard if you're using the right champ. It's just a very long fight because of the health.
Howard The Duck
I somehow missed that he has indestructible charges at the start of the fight, so that surprised me. For the record, you need to hit him with criticals or heavy attacks to remove those charges. So it was Nick in the end for me. Spam heavies until the charges go away, then do the usual unblock able MM and SP2, though you can't push him to his SP2 unless you want a lot of block damage. Also look out for the thunder quack/regen at 60% and 30%. Need to be ready to parry him there or you'll be quitting out one way or the other.
Hyperion
It's a standard Doom fight.
The Champion
It's another standard Doom fight.
Cyclops
I was dreading this, but actually I either have more skill than I thought or this fight just agreed with me, because it went very well. So to state how this works, Cyclops doesn't gain power normally, and gets a bar of power every 10 seconds. He is very likely to throw specials. The first special he throws you have to parry, and providing you do you'll take no damage. You cannot dex or evade it. The next special he throws you have to dex. Then you have to parry. And so on. It is a skill fight, but more about concentration than anything. I ended up using Torch, because his smoulders build with the parrying and you can just play the fight normally whilst focusing on the parrying and dexing. I'd get to my SP3 and use it just as I'd parried a special, then go at him in nova form, dex another special and go straight back in. He went down surprisingly easily. You just need to get used to the fight.
Loki
Others have used Aegon or Nick. I used Torch. Just parry heavy, and block his SP1. Got to 99 smoulders, by which time the dot from the incinerates was absolutely mad. Only needed one revive due to running out of charges. Not everyone will want to play the fight this slow, but I was happy to.
Aegon
Used Corvus because his block damage with furies can be an issue with Nick. Otherwise this was fine.
Invisible Woman
I genuinely don't know how you'd do this without Nick, but with Nick it's just a matter of playing as I have described above. Providing you can dex her specials (and if you can't I wouldn't recommend doing Abyss at all) this is straightforward with Nick and a nightmare with basically anyone else.
Cull Obsidian
You'll know from guides that you want to nullify his buffs to knock 1% health off with each nullify. So with Doom I just spammed the SP1 and didn't use heavies. Took him down in no time. Easy solo.
The Collector
This fight is horrible. I was really happy with how I played and got into a good rhythm of dexing specials (obviously not entirely; you need to push him to his SP2), intercepting etc to take regular chunks off, but this is a grind and not fun. It will cost you a lot of resources. It's the one fight where, even having gone through everything else, I questioned whether this was a good idea without Aegon. Corvus was my choice and did fine in the end, but everyone else is inferior to Aegon here from the videos I have seen. The sense of achievement after taking him down is immense and the rewards are fantastic, but I did not enjoy this fight and it was a horrible grind during it.
REWARDS: I got 5* Beast, 6* Bishop and 6* Cyclops. But then a 6* science awakening gem and a Mystic 5TCC. Which I used on my 6* BWCV and took her to r3. That alone made this worth it.
IS IT WORTH IT WITHOUT AEGON? I'm genuinely on the fence with this. It was worth it for me. The Mystic T5CC gave me a strong r3 and Thronebreaker, so I would do it again personally. And actually, once you get into the rhythm of the Abyss and how these fights work, the first 19 fights are not too bad. They just require concentration, consistency and a bit of tenacity. You'll miss blocks and have cheap deaths, and RNG will get you more than once. But whilst I'm sure Aegon would help greatly with those initial 19 fights, I never missed him except perhaps for Joe Fixit, but that was just a luck issue. For the Collector, however, I missed Aegon badly. It's not a fun fight and a real grind, and without the skill to intercept him and do some dexing, it will be an even bigger resource sink than it was for me.
In the end I used few units because of the resources I had to begin with, so honestly I see doing Abyss without Aegon as a good use of those amassed resources. I can also stop obsessively going after Aegon now. I had opened 30 or so dual 5* crystals without pulling him and it was beginning to affect my enjoyment of the game. That weight is off my shoulders, the sense of achievement from doing Abyss is great, and I feel like the game has become more enjoyable again. So from that perspective, it was worth it for me. If you don't have significant resources amassed and are indifferent to getting Thronebreaker, I wouldn't recommend this without Aegon. If, like me, you have a lot of resources, are frustrated at not pulling Aegon, and have 6* champs in most classes that you would take to r3 (that last bit is important; I had four classes I could take a champ to r3 in so the odds were in my favour), I would recommend it. So it's down to personal circumstances. I would certainly think hard before doing this without Aegon, even with how well it went for me.
So that's my experience. Hopefully it helps someone else who randomly Googles/searches for threads like this and comes across this thread in future.
RESOURCES: I didn't keep track of the precise number of revives and potions that I used. I hoard resources and hadn't used 4hr crystals in ages, so I had about 1,000 of them and used them all. Got terrible RNG on those openings and not as many revives as I would have liked (not the last time I had terrible RNG on this run), but it did mean I had loads of potions to use on some of the fights where chip damage is an issue. Erock used 97 revives and I had around that. It's about the right sort of figure without Aegon. I only had to dip into my units near the end of the Collector so spent very few, but that's because of the resources I hoarded. Whether you have them already or get them using units, there's no way around needing a lot of revives and potions for this. It's just that having the right champs and approaching fights in the right way, and to some degree having skill, can reduce the resources you need, and that's the name of the game really.
BOOSTS: You've obviously got to use them. These fights are long and having an extra 50% attack due to boosts makes a huge difference. I basically always had a 30% attack/health boost on with some sort of attack boost and health boost. Again, helps to have them stocked up.
TIME: You need to have time to do this. Some people have lots of time anyway. Those of us with families tend to play in many short bursts, and you need to sit down for hour stints with the Abyss really to get into a rhythm and take advantage of boosts. If you don't naturally have those blocks of time to play the game, you need to find a period of several days when you will. The 5-6 hour mark feels about right, but if you play slower it can take longer. I did play slower and used shorter combos a lot of the time to cause maximum damage out of a single life in certain fights (just using MM with Nick Fury is a great approach for path clearing in particular), but you obviously don't have to.
TEAM: This is written everywhere, but you absolutely need a path clearer (quite a few options for this without Aegon), nullify champ (Doom or SS preferably, maybe BWCV), Mephisto counter (Torch preferably, Void if not), Invisible Woman counter (Nick by far the best) and a Collector counter (someone who can cause a lot of damage in a short space of time, Corvus for me). If you don't have those counters you'll need a huge number of resources to get through this.
MY TEAM: Was Corvus, Nick, Torch, Doom and Stealth Spidey. To be honest, apart from for Thing, I found Stealth Spidey to not be as nearly useful as I expected. The others all put in significant work.
SKILL: I'm assuming you have at least a decent level of skill if you're at the stage where you can realistically attempt this. But assuming you do have that decent skill level, this isn't really a skill based achievement. It's more about consistency. If you find yourself missing blocks every 50 hits, this is not for you. Providing you can pretty much do basic fights without regularly missing blocks, and can play your characters properly (e.g. knowing Doom's rotation) Abyss should be possible with around the resources I've noted above. The two fights where skill really can drive down the resources you need are Cyclops and the Collector. There are others to a lesser extent, such as Venom the Duck and Invisible Woman, but I'd expect that very few players looking to attempt this wouldn't have the skill to handle those with the right counters. Abyss is more about getting into a rhythm and fighting consistently. Once you're used to these fights being incredibly long, most of them are not difficult. But you will need revives for nearly all of them, because you simply won't be able to cause the damage you need in 200 or so hits to get these bosses down. Even when I say fights are not difficult below, I'm still using revives on all of them except Mephisto, CMM and Cull. Mostly lack of damage, but you will mess up and give away cheap deaths too. It's just the way this content works. As long as you know that in advance the whole experience becomes less frustrating and more weirdly zen as you progress.
So, with that in mind, here's my non Aegon run down of the fights:
Thing
The only fight where Stealth Spidey was of any use for me. Some have managed the solo by keeping the slow debuff on even after Thing goes unblock able and unstoppable after the charges have expired, but I did not have the time to do that so it took a few revives. It's just a standard Thing fight though, albeit a long one. You really wouldn't need Spidey to do it. Nick would be fine, so would some others.
Omega Red
Used Doom for this. Not the best path clearer but better than Nick (for obvious bleed related reasons). Used more revives than I expected to because I was still getting into the rhythm for Abyss, but fundamentally this is not a difficult fight.
Quake
An obvious Nick fight. Destroy the LMD from the off, then get over 15 charges to become unblock able, and spam MM and SP2. Doing that let me put 4 internal bleeds at times on every enemy I used it on, so the damage was massive. Took a bit longer with short combos but well worth it for the damage output in my view. Whenever I say I use Nick for any fight below, I'm getting off two quick SP1s and then just going MM and SP2. Probably my main path clearer.
Medusa
It's just all about Doom, and not difficult. I didn't solo her just because of not being able to cause enough damage but I think it was a two shot.
Mephisto
Not just an easy one shot with Torch, but my Torch was only r4 and I did it in about 100 hits (I took him to r5 after this fight because I figured I'd use him for the rest of the paths here and there). Fire up that pre fight and have at it. Just don't let him get to his SP3, but with the pre fight you can play less aggressively than normal and still melt him.
CMM
Yes, her Abyss ability (you degen if you go over a bar and a half of power and gain power regularly) is a pain, but I just spammed specials with Doom and she went down in about one minute. I was amazed how quick this fight was. With two one shots in a row I was feeling pretty good about myself. Shame things didn't quite continue like that.
Ghost
I actually used Corvus here. He had one charge from Omega and I died with Nick so figured I'd try him, and he was surprisingly effective. It's obviously a slow fight to maximise his damage output, but using MM combos and carefully timing single hits to stop Fight Me Coward from kicking in when the glaive charges were on cool down still yielded a surprisingly large amount of damage. Again I ended up using him for certain fights after this with the same strategy.
IMIW
This is an obvious Corvus fight, and one where it pays to have a lot of health going in. Again, Corvus causes a surprisingly large amount of damage here, and even though it's harder to manage Fight Me Coward with IMIW's long special animation, this wasn't nearly as difficult as I was expecting, even the last 15%.
Joe Fixit
This was the fight where RNG reared its ugly head and battered me to the ground. You'll know from other guides that Joe will roll a certain suit at the start of the fight, and thereafter will put a buff on him or a debuff on you every ten seconds. If he rolls hearts he will gain massive regen and you have to quit out. I lost count of the number of times he rolled hearts. When I used Nick he would fate seal the fury, massively reducing my damage output. When I used Corvus he would put poison and heal block debuffs, or pile on weakness to reduce my damage output. It was horrible. Got through him eventually but this was the first fight that made me wonder whether this was a good idea. I very much hope that others are not as unlucky as I was here.
Mordo
Others have used Doom for this. I used Torch. He was incredible effective. I was dreading this fight because Mordo can be a pain if you don't get into the rhythm of baiting his specials, but had a couple of great fights with Torch and took him down pretty efficiently. I found that the key was getting to my SP3 and using it when Mordo was at two bars with a power gain buff against the wall. After throwing that he nearly always threw his SP2, and we were back to square one and fighting normally. Potentially very tricky but I was delighted with how this turned out.
Venom The Duck
I was never in any danger with this fight using Doom, but my word he has a LOT of health. You need to be ready to nullify that regen or quit out, but actually I don't think he's very hard if you're using the right champ. It's just a very long fight because of the health.
Howard The Duck
I somehow missed that he has indestructible charges at the start of the fight, so that surprised me. For the record, you need to hit him with criticals or heavy attacks to remove those charges. So it was Nick in the end for me. Spam heavies until the charges go away, then do the usual unblock able MM and SP2, though you can't push him to his SP2 unless you want a lot of block damage. Also look out for the thunder quack/regen at 60% and 30%. Need to be ready to parry him there or you'll be quitting out one way or the other.
Hyperion
It's a standard Doom fight.
The Champion
It's another standard Doom fight.
Cyclops
I was dreading this, but actually I either have more skill than I thought or this fight just agreed with me, because it went very well. So to state how this works, Cyclops doesn't gain power normally, and gets a bar of power every 10 seconds. He is very likely to throw specials. The first special he throws you have to parry, and providing you do you'll take no damage. You cannot dex or evade it. The next special he throws you have to dex. Then you have to parry. And so on. It is a skill fight, but more about concentration than anything. I ended up using Torch, because his smoulders build with the parrying and you can just play the fight normally whilst focusing on the parrying and dexing. I'd get to my SP3 and use it just as I'd parried a special, then go at him in nova form, dex another special and go straight back in. He went down surprisingly easily. You just need to get used to the fight.
Loki
Others have used Aegon or Nick. I used Torch. Just parry heavy, and block his SP1. Got to 99 smoulders, by which time the dot from the incinerates was absolutely mad. Only needed one revive due to running out of charges. Not everyone will want to play the fight this slow, but I was happy to.
Aegon
Used Corvus because his block damage with furies can be an issue with Nick. Otherwise this was fine.
Invisible Woman
I genuinely don't know how you'd do this without Nick, but with Nick it's just a matter of playing as I have described above. Providing you can dex her specials (and if you can't I wouldn't recommend doing Abyss at all) this is straightforward with Nick and a nightmare with basically anyone else.
Cull Obsidian
You'll know from guides that you want to nullify his buffs to knock 1% health off with each nullify. So with Doom I just spammed the SP1 and didn't use heavies. Took him down in no time. Easy solo.
The Collector
This fight is horrible. I was really happy with how I played and got into a good rhythm of dexing specials (obviously not entirely; you need to push him to his SP2), intercepting etc to take regular chunks off, but this is a grind and not fun. It will cost you a lot of resources. It's the one fight where, even having gone through everything else, I questioned whether this was a good idea without Aegon. Corvus was my choice and did fine in the end, but everyone else is inferior to Aegon here from the videos I have seen. The sense of achievement after taking him down is immense and the rewards are fantastic, but I did not enjoy this fight and it was a horrible grind during it.
REWARDS: I got 5* Beast, 6* Bishop and 6* Cyclops. But then a 6* science awakening gem and a Mystic 5TCC. Which I used on my 6* BWCV and took her to r3. That alone made this worth it.
IS IT WORTH IT WITHOUT AEGON? I'm genuinely on the fence with this. It was worth it for me. The Mystic T5CC gave me a strong r3 and Thronebreaker, so I would do it again personally. And actually, once you get into the rhythm of the Abyss and how these fights work, the first 19 fights are not too bad. They just require concentration, consistency and a bit of tenacity. You'll miss blocks and have cheap deaths, and RNG will get you more than once. But whilst I'm sure Aegon would help greatly with those initial 19 fights, I never missed him except perhaps for Joe Fixit, but that was just a luck issue. For the Collector, however, I missed Aegon badly. It's not a fun fight and a real grind, and without the skill to intercept him and do some dexing, it will be an even bigger resource sink than it was for me.
In the end I used few units because of the resources I had to begin with, so honestly I see doing Abyss without Aegon as a good use of those amassed resources. I can also stop obsessively going after Aegon now. I had opened 30 or so dual 5* crystals without pulling him and it was beginning to affect my enjoyment of the game. That weight is off my shoulders, the sense of achievement from doing Abyss is great, and I feel like the game has become more enjoyable again. So from that perspective, it was worth it for me. If you don't have significant resources amassed and are indifferent to getting Thronebreaker, I wouldn't recommend this without Aegon. If, like me, you have a lot of resources, are frustrated at not pulling Aegon, and have 6* champs in most classes that you would take to r3 (that last bit is important; I had four classes I could take a champ to r3 in so the odds were in my favour), I would recommend it. So it's down to personal circumstances. I would certainly think hard before doing this without Aegon, even with how well it went for me.
So that's my experience. Hopefully it helps someone else who randomly Googles/searches for threads like this and comes across this thread in future.
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