you either get all his special dex or you get hit. i think it should have done better than that. so much better fight if i can chose to block some of his hits and parry or light or swipe up one of his hit.
It's so sad because the Ares fight was one tiny change away from being a really challenging yet fair boss fight, all they needed to do is have an indicator at the start of the special attack for which special attack he is throwing, but unfortunately they decided to take that away, making the fight feel simply unfair. The only way to get some sort of enjoyment out of the fight is with spending a lot of time in the fight and exactly learning it, unfortunately unlike certain content creators who had access to this fight prior to release and had the opportunity to learn without massive investment of items/units, the rest of us has spend precious items to learn the fight so realistically it is never going to happen, thus a very bad fight imho.
Honestly, felt like the fight was fun and balanced, degen keeps it challenging during the entire round, the special minigame is fun, the power gain he has from what was either phase 3 or 4 really helps with the final phase when he goes unstoppable. Overall great design and a huge upgrade from the last boss he made, glykhan.
You remember the way fight designer was talking. He is getting exactly what he wanted. He didn't like we cheezed his horrible GM phase 4. He designed somthing that can't be cheezed.
Im only talking about about the degen down to his health with that point… not sure how using consumables is cheezing a fight…
We cheesed gm phase 4 with reverse immune. The same designer wanted us to fight gm with alternating reverse controls, is what I'm saying. He is doing everything in his power to cost players items. Endgame content used to cost 4k units per path on average. It's not like that anymore atleast. We will get our shiny new r4 in the end regardless.
For our first introduction to Ares, it was honestly a bit too overwhelming. Think I barely managed to learn how to deal with his SP1 and SP2 by the end of my first run.
I think they should have dropped either the Acts of aggression or the Haste mechanic as everything accumulates from previous phases. The last phase is also just miserable, it takes so long to wean off his 99 charges and you are discouraged from even bothering to fully heal your champion as he'll just degen you down to 1%
I would thank God if the next boss fight wouldn't require us to tap different corners or to draw some circles with our fingers during different specials.
Expressing my honest opinion, I think there should be a signage of which special he will use, it's unfair if it doesn't show up and you get lost, plus the animations are extremely fast.
observation: this isn't crying or anything like that, I finished and thought the fight was cool, but there's a lack of signaling from the 2nd phase onwards!
In hindsight, I think it’s poorly designed. This currently version of Ares should be the Ares 2.0 we will fight in the future, similar to how Collector and Grandmaster have a second version of themselves.
Ares has a specific instructions on how to avoid damage from his special attacks, but what does Kabam do? They don’t ease you in to a new champion’s animations. What do I mean by that? From 100-90%, sure you can get used to his SP1. But what happens after that? He randomly chooses between SP1 and SP2.
What should happen? Phase 1: allow the players to get familiar with SP1 Phase 2: allow the players to get familiar with SP2 Phase 3: allow the players to get familiar with alternating between SP1 and SP2 Phase 4 & 5: randomize the special attacks
I think that would’ve been a much pleasant experience for the players. Granted, he’s still difficult, but it becomes increasingly more difficult as the fight goes on through the above suggestion.
I said something similar but I had this as a difference for the 5 Phases:
Phase 1 - Special 1 Only to learn
Phase 2 - Special 2 Only to learn
Phase 3 - Special 1 starting first, rotates to Special 2 then repeat.
Phase 4 - Special 2 starting first, rotates to Special 1 then repeats.
Phase 5 - randomly chosen Special 1 or 2.
That would have been a much better designed fight with the same mechanics but would have actually helped LEARN the fight but not reducing the difficulty by much if at all.
Especially since this is the FIRST iteration and time we are fighting Ares. He's going to be the Big Bad Boss for a lot of future end game content, so why not give us a slightly easier and better to learn for something this new? Otherwise you turn off a lot of players especially when you consider the A.I. being so finicky as well as inputs being... Well, inconsistent is the nicest I can say.
Just my two cents as a spectator and summoner doing the fights as well.
I just finished my first path, and i never manage to fully handle his sp1 or sp2. Even when i guessed right on which special, my timing wasn't perfect enough on the parry blocks, and i don't have any chance to practice the rest once I'm hit.
I ended up just burning through it with 20% revives, doing as much damage as i could before his special 1 (or 2) killed me.
I didn't find it much fun.
And the bug where he doesn't lose an invulerability passive at the start of each fight in the final phase was certainly frustrating. Again, i just ended up backdraft intercepting him until he would basically special intercept me and kill me.
I found him considerably less fun than the sct 8 and 9 bosses.
Maybe with more runs, I'll finally get the timing down. But lacking an easy way to practice, it'll be tough.
Just finished exploring epoch. After fighting Ares six times I don't find him boring at all. Every time I was excited and he always kept me on my guard and I liked even if I go in again I will enjoy the fight.
I think the first run was the most difficult. Learning and first seeing his whole special animations and memorizing it and then countering with the required actions was hell.
But during the second and third run I got the hangof it. From 4th to 6th run I just used 10 revs on Ares every single time and most of them went to the last phase.
And let me tell you a trick if it is sp2 the sword transforms much faster and if you watch the back of Ares head you can notice it sooner. All in all he is the most fun fight I had in a while.
But AI walking towards me and light intercepting was so infuriating on my first run but then I learned I can just punish his heavy. So went for that afterwards.
The Vigor is a nice perk to keep going, and the Special commands just need some better visual indicators, but the AI is horrible.
I've never seen a Defender just keep dashing back, and hold block on and off for a microsecond (his shield keeps flickering). It's not like I have any positive effects on myself that the defender is waiting out, Ares is just purposefully playing keepaway, pretending like he'll parry all of my attacks, and then light intercept when I try to intercept.
Comments
2 hands it's axe. 1 hand is sword.
You can tell even before he pulls a weapon.
so much better fight if i can chose to block some of his hits and parry or light or swipe up one of his hit.
A definitely step back as far as I'm concerned compared to the last so many new bosses Kabam has created.
The only way to get some sort of enjoyment out of the fight is with spending a lot of time in the fight and exactly learning it, unfortunately unlike certain content creators who had access to this fight prior to release and had the opportunity to learn without massive investment of items/units, the rest of us has spend precious items to learn the fight so realistically it is never going to happen, thus a very bad fight imho.
Think I barely managed to learn how to deal with his SP1 and SP2 by the end of my first run.
I think they should have dropped either the Acts of aggression or the Haste mechanic as everything accumulates from previous phases.
The last phase is also just miserable, it takes so long to wean off his 99 charges and you are discouraged from even bothering to fully heal your champion as he'll just degen you down to 1%
observation: this isn't crying or anything like that, I finished and thought the fight was cool, but there's a lack of signaling from the 2nd phase onwards!
Phase 1 - Special 1 Only to learn
Phase 2 - Special 2 Only to learn
Phase 3 - Special 1 starting first, rotates to Special 2 then repeat.
Phase 4 - Special 2 starting first, rotates to Special 1 then repeats.
Phase 5 - randomly chosen Special 1 or 2.
That would have been a much better designed fight with the same mechanics but would have actually helped LEARN the fight but not reducing the difficulty by much if at all.
Especially since this is the FIRST iteration and time we are fighting Ares. He's going to be the Big Bad Boss for a lot of future end game content, so why not give us a slightly easier and better to learn for something this new? Otherwise you turn off a lot of players especially when you consider the A.I. being so finicky as well as inputs being... Well, inconsistent is the nicest I can say.
Just my two cents as a spectator and summoner doing the fights as well.
- Mando
- Mando
I ended up just burning through it with 20% revives, doing as much damage as i could before his special 1 (or 2) killed me.
I didn't find it much fun.
And the bug where he doesn't lose an invulerability passive at the start of each fight in the final phase was certainly frustrating. Again, i just ended up backdraft intercepting him until he would basically special intercept me and kill me.
I found him considerably less fun than the sct 8 and 9 bosses.
Maybe with more runs, I'll finally get the timing down. But lacking an easy way to practice, it'll be tough.
I think the first run was the most difficult. Learning and first seeing his whole special animations and memorizing it and then countering with the required actions was hell.
But during the second and third run I got the hangof it. From 4th to 6th run I just used 10 revs on Ares every single time and most of them went to the last phase.
And let me tell you a trick if it is sp2 the sword transforms much faster and if you watch the back of Ares head you can notice it sooner. All in all he is the most fun fight I had in a while.
But AI walking towards me and light intercepting was so infuriating on my first run but then I learned I can just punish his heavy. So went for that afterwards.
A well designed and fun fight I would say.
4.8/5(Because the AI is still a jerk)
I've never seen a Defender just keep dashing back, and hold block on and off for a microsecond (his shield keeps flickering). It's not like I have any positive effects on myself that the defender is waiting out, Ares is just purposefully playing keepaway, pretending like he'll parry all of my attacks, and then light intercept when I try to intercept.