Epoch of Pain is not as bad as it seems, even if you're a scrub

DNA3000 · February 28

... don't get me wrong, it sucks, it is just not as scary as some suggest. In fact, you could be the worst end gamer on the planet and as long as you at least have the roster, and you like to grind the Apothecary or are willing to spend some (not a huge amount) of units, completion at least is a reasonably attainable goal.

There are lots of guides out there for Epoch, and if that's what you're looking for I'd recommend reading those. Taking Epoch advice from me is like taking driving lessons from that guy who plays Mayhem in the AllState commercials. However, what I can do is lessen the fear some might have in at least trying it.

So on a scale from one to MSD, when it comes to end game content I'm about a three. The first (and only) time I attempted end game content right at release basically cold was Necropolis, and I ended up burning about 140 revives in that. I'm a 56 year old with 20/800 vision and the reflexes of a baked potato. I wasn't sure how I would do in Epoch, but I finally decided to bite the bullet and give it a try. So how did I do?

Short answer: I started with full inventory of L1/L2 (50 total with Sigil inventory) plus an overflowing stash (29 total). I also had a random assortment of potions and other revives (L3/L4 single, L2 team). I ended up burning all my L1/L2 revives, plus a couple L3s, plus a few team revives on Ares. No units (technically, I spent 40 units on an L2 revive by accident after I burned all my L1s and L2s and muscle memory did a dumb dumb). So technically, it was a free run. Barely. That's something.

And actually, a lot of those revives were burned on the path, because I am in fact still a scrub. I did the Cosmic/Skill path leaning on my L3 Serpent, and I even got a solo on the last fight. But my Heimdall practice had worn off, and I ended up burning a bunch of revives on a few of those fights. If you're having issues with actually getting to Ares, go find a Youtube video. All I will say is that the extra power loss node really amplified the difficulty of these fights, not in terms of the fight mechanics but in terms of adding additional mental load. One more thing to keep track of among lots of things to keep track of. Kabam has acknowledged that mental load is an issue they are concerned about, but it seems they completely forgot about that when they designed Epoch. I think my revive count would have been cut in half if that node wasn't there. So if you're someone that struggled with the Season of Suffering fights in general, you should try really hard to find the absolute best path for you, and my recommendation is to look for the path whose hardest fight (to you) is as easy as possible. In my experience, it is a bad trade (for lower skill players) to trade getting a cheese fight that comes with a particularly nasty fight. You want the worst case fight to be as easy as possible.

Assuming you can actually get to Ares, here's something I can offer a scrub's perspective on. He's not that bad. There's three things scrubs should know about that fight, because now that I know the fight will probably be much easier for me the next time (which, given I basically have no revives, will not be for a while).

1. Every time you die, you get a persistent fury charge increasing your damage. This has been discussed by everyone else talking about the fight, but it bears repeating. When you first start this fight, you're going to be hitting Ares for about as much damage as someone trying to chop down a tree with their tongue. It will look totally hopeless if you keep dying and deal like half a percent damage to him. But with every revive, that damage is going to go up. If you're willing to pour a dozen revives into Ares, you're going to be hitting him for decent damage. After two dozen revives, you're going to be hitting him like a truck. So no matter how much you suck, your suckitude will translate to enormous damage boosts eventually. Just remember that damage buff is persistent, but only affects the champ you're reviving. Only use one champ to take down Ares (until you get to 1%, more on that in a minute).

2. Learning to evade one of his specials is not hard, learning to evade two is really hard. I've seen the guides, I've stared at his eyes, and I know about the pause strategy. But at the end of the day, what I discovered is I could learn to counter his SP1, but if I tried to learn both (even with Post-Its) and train my brain to use the right one, I would mess it up. So I just always assumed he would throw SP1 when he could throw both. If I was wrong, I was wrong. A 50% chance to have a solid chance to counter one special was better than flailing around like a dead fish getting smacked by Kratos. Look: you're a scrub. You're going to die. Just make every revive count. If you die enough times, eventually you're going to be dealing so much damage even if you never evade a special, you're still going to bring him down.

3. And then you get to 1%. Now, damage doesn't matter. You just need to remove charges. And if you're a scrub, this is where you might lose hope, because now you really have to counter those specials. Every time you don't, you're probably going to die. You could revive and burn a ton of potions to recover health to full and you might survive one special attack, but Ares has a mechanic where if you have higher health than he does (by percentage) you degen down to his level. So if he's now at 1%, so will you be eventually. Here's where it took me some time to realize I was doing it wrong. I was trying to concentrate on his specials, when I should have been using the scrub strategy of just intercepting him, because I forgot that intercepts also remove charges. Yes, you can intercept Ares, especially at the start of the fight. You want to hit into him twice and then back off, then go for the intercept, Try to get into a rhythm of intercepting him a couple times. Yes, sometimes the AI will not take the bait and you'll die. But every intercept takes off a couple charges, so every time you can land five or six of those, that's 10% of his charges gone in one revive. For a scrub, ten per revive is great. Heck, even if half the time you miss the intercept and die, five per revive on average still means there's light at the end of the tunnel: twenty more revives at most. And hey, if you actually counter an SP1 in there, even better.

Also, as I said, damage no longer matters. So persistent charges no longer matter. Those other two guys on your team? They are just as good as your main attacker for that last 1%. So if you're out of revives, use your whole team and use team revives. Its slightly more unit efficient to get three attackers for 100 units than one for 40. I had team revives in inventory, so I just used those.

In the end, Ares took me about 40 single revives and three team revives to get down, and honestly that's not bad, especially considering I didn't even attempt to intercept him until I was like twenty five revives into the fight. Next time, I probably will get there in 35 or less, and I might eventually get that down to less than 20. When you can hold 78 L1/L2 revives in inventory and farm them for free, 20 is good. Heck 40 is good if you're not a highly skilled end gamer.

So yeah, scrub takes down Epoch of Pain. It is hard, it will suck a ton of revives if you aren't super sharp at a lot of different fights just to get to Ares, and then Ares is going to take a chunk out of your inventory all by himself. But what he won't do, as long as you understand how he works, is roadblock you. And I think that's what we scrubs are most afraid of: we'll get there, and then discover after spending all those resources that we just can't do it and will have to give him. Epoch is not that kind of content. Epoch can be done with a strong roster, B+ skills, and a full inventory and stash of revives and potions. And if you hate grinding revives, a few thousand units will probably get you there as well.

You do have to be able to take down the Epoch path fights *reasonably* well. If just one of those fights is going to take you several dozen revives, then yes, Epoch is out of your league (unless you're willing to spend tens of thousands of units on it). But if you're a player that managed the past few Season of Suffering fight sequences and could do them without really spending, and you have a strong roster, and you're willing to put in the prep time for it, Epoch is an attainable goal.

Of course, at this rate by the time I fully explore it they'll be selling the rewards in Black Friday sales, assuming I'm able to focus on it continuously. I hear there's an updated Gauntlet coming out. Oh boy.

FiiNCH · February 28

Others have said before me, but Ares becomes significantly easier on runs 3-4 onwards. You become used to his animations and timings and the fight becomes fun. If you can push through the first few runs you’re well on the path to exploration.

ZsirhcZ · February 28

I am going in for my 2nd run tonight.

The first time took me about 40 revives in Ares while getting it down. But only 8 revives in the path. I’m hoping it goes better as I go through multiple times.

Giantwalrus56 · February 28

Hadn't planned on doing run 2 until this weekend, but this amazing print arrived today, so I'm doing my part in honoring Cat... Path cleared, just taking a break prior to using many resources on Ares

Matty_Ice · February 28

Honestly, EPOCH was really fun to explore.
- I love when the fights are 4-6 minutes long (which most of them were with the right counter).
- The creativity of coming up with a team to counter each path with the restrictions were actually fun. (I normally don’t like gates, but I only used 1 6* champ in all my runs).
- Ares was a boss who you could beat with anybody if you did the fight right. But also one that you could chip down by throwing revives at it.

DNA3000 · February 28

FiiNCH said:
Others have said before me, but Ares becomes significantly easier on runs 3-4 onwards. You become used to his animations and timings and the fight becomes fun. If you can push through the first few runs you’re well on the path to exploration.

As with all things skill related, practice does make perfect, or at least practice makes less awful. But it is that very first run most people have to get over the hump for. If you're the kind of person that is going to commit to doing it over and over and see that practice immediately pay off, you're probably not the kind of person I was thinking of when writing this post.

But yeah, you can see that practice pay off even in a single run. I was much better at the end than the beginning. Even half an hour of play generated a dramatic improvement for me, at least up to a point. For me, there was the initial phase of not knowing what I was doing or having any idea about the timing, even what I'm supposed to do for that very first swing. Then I started to understand what was what, and my ability to start executing started to ramp up. But then it reached a plateau for me where I got good enough to counter SP1 maybe half the time, and mess up about half the time. It never got a ton better than that during the run.

I think that has something to do with how learning works, at least in my brain. You can't force these coordination skills into your brain all at once, at least not mine. There is some time necessary for things to mature. Even in Summer of Suffering fights, it was often the case that I would try the fight and get better and better, but then plateau. But if I put it down and came back the next day, things seemed easier, as if the practice had time to "burn in" better. It sometimes took a few days of off and on practice to eventually get sharp at a fight.

My problem is going to be successive iterations of Ares might be too far apart for that to help as much as it could otherwise, because I would rather farm the resources than burn tons of units on it, and that will take time.

DNA3000 · February 28

Matty_Ice said:
Honestly, EPOCH was really fun to explore.
- I love when the fights are 4-6 minutes long (which most of them were with the right counter).
- The creativity of coming up with a team to counter each path with the restrictions were actually fun. (I normally don’t like gates, but I only used 1 6* champ in all my runs).
- Ares was a boss who you could beat with anybody if you did the fight right. But also one that you could chip down by throwing revives at it.

With some distance, I do appreciate Epoch. Its frustrating when you're in it, especially if you aren't cruising through it. And I do think the issue with mental load is a real problem. But I did enjoy it, for some definition of "enjoy." It was challenging but not impossible, and that's what I'm looking for in end game content. It should be hard, or it isn't worth doing.

Although I will say Epoch was much closer to the edge of what's doable for me comfortably (as in, without throwing unlimited resources at it) than anything else has been. Necro took more resources for my initial run, but that was at a time when those resources were also easier to get.

Polygon · February 28

Swipe up inputs are never a good idea, if your timing is just slightly off you end up heavying after you dash in for the medium acts of aggression punish. Also, they were not registering on the left side of screen for whatever reason. Besides that, the rest of it was fun for me when I learned the specials dex.

FiiNCH · February 28

DNA3000 said:

FiiNCH said:
Others have said before me, but Ares becomes significantly easier on runs 3-4 onwards. You become used to his animations and timings and the fight becomes fun. If you can push through the first few runs you’re well on the path to exploration.
As with all things skill related, practice does make perfect, or at least practice makes less awful. But it is that very first run most people have to get over the hump for. If you're the kind of person that is going to commit to doing it over and over and see that practice immediately pay off, you're probably not the kind of person I was thinking of when writing this post.

But yeah, you can see that practice pay off even in a single run. I was much better at the end than the beginning. Even half an hour of play generated a dramatic improvement for me, at least up to a point. For me, there was the initial phase of not knowing what I was doing or having any idea about the timing, even what I'm supposed to do for that very first swing. Then I started to understand what was what, and my ability to start executing started to ramp up. But then it reached a plateau for me where I got good enough to counter SP1 maybe half the time, and mess up about half the time. It never got a ton better than that during the run.

I think that has something to do with how learning works, at least in my brain. You can't force these coordination skills into your brain all at once, at least not mine. There is some time necessary for things to mature. Even in Summer of Suffering fights, it was often the case that I would try the fight and get better and better, but then plateau. But if I put it down and came back the next day, things seemed easier, as if the practice had time to "burn in" better. It sometimes took a few days of off and on practice to eventually get sharp at a fight.

My problem is going to be successive iterations of Ares might be too far apart for that to help as much as it could otherwise, because I would rather farm the resources than burn tons of units on it, and that will take time.

You’re right, I can understand how the first run on Ares can put a lot of players off going for a second one. I just wanted to pass on some encouragement that it does indeed get easier.

Your last point is a fair one too. My own thought process was to try and get my runs done as close to each other as possible, so I didn’t lose the timings in the Ares fights. I understand that’s dependent on people’s units/resource stash though.

I think if you have the time & the resources, it’s more beneficial to get the runs done as close to each other as you can.

JackTheSnack · February 28

Soon as I get serpent I’ll be going for my first run

GroundedWisdom · February 28

DNA3000 said:

FiiNCH said:
Others have said before me, but Ares becomes significantly easier on runs 3-4 onwards. You become used to his animations and timings and the fight becomes fun. If you can push through the first few runs you’re well on the path to exploration.
As with all things skill related, practice does make perfect, or at least practice makes less awful. But it is that very first run most people have to get over the hump for. If you're the kind of person that is going to commit to doing it over and over and see that practice immediately pay off, you're probably not the kind of person I was thinking of when writing this post.

But yeah, you can see that practice pay off even in a single run. I was much better at the end than the beginning. Even half an hour of play generated a dramatic improvement for me, at least up to a point. For me, there was the initial phase of not knowing what I was doing or having any idea about the timing, even what I'm supposed to do for that very first swing. Then I started to understand what was what, and my ability to start executing started to ramp up. But then it reached a plateau for me where I got good enough to counter SP1 maybe half the time, and mess up about half the time. It never got a ton better than that during the run.

I think that has something to do with how learning works, at least in my brain. You can't force these coordination skills into your brain all at once, at least not mine. There is some time necessary for things to mature. Even in Summer of Suffering fights, it was often the case that I would try the fight and get better and better, but then plateau. But if I put it down and came back the next day, things seemed easier, as if the practice had time to "burn in" better. It sometimes took a few days of off and on practice to eventually get sharp at a fight.

My problem is going to be successive iterations of Ares might be too far apart for that to help as much as it could otherwise, because I would rather farm the resources than burn tons of units on it, and that will take time.

I want to put "Practice makes less awful." on a shirt.

Matty_Ice · February 28

DNA3000 said:

Matty_Ice said:
Honestly, EPOCH was really fun to explore.
- I love when the fights are 4-6 minutes long (which most of them were with the right counter).
- The creativity of coming up with a team to counter each path with the restrictions were actually fun. (I normally don’t like gates, but I only used 1 6* champ in all my runs).
- Ares was a boss who you could beat with anybody if you did the fight right. But also one that you could chip down by throwing revives at it.
With some distance, I do appreciate Epoch. Its frustrating when you're in it, especially if you aren't cruising through it. And I do think the issue with mental load is a real problem. But I did enjoy it, for some definition of "enjoy." It was challenging but not impossible, and that's what I'm looking for in end game content. It should be hard, or it isn't worth doing.

Although I will say Epoch was much closer to the edge of what's doable for me comfortably (as in, without throwing unlimited resources at it) than anything else has been. Necro took more resources for my initial run, but that was at a time when those resources were also easier to get.

I found epoch more enjoyable than necropolis personally. Being able to knock out a full run of epoch in under 1 hour made it so much more feasible for me to get the content done. The time commitment alone from necropolis makes it tough for me to balance doing it without being stuck in there for a week trying to find the time to finish it.

Mental load, definitely. Each fight is unique, requires very different approach, and then ares.

Crys23 · February 28

About learning both specials, here's a trick, or some helpful tip. They have a lot in common.
The sequence you need to remember is:
Parry-Parry-Light-Dex.
L1: Dex + "the sequence"
L2: "the sequence" + Dex-Swipe

Parry parry light dex. If you ingrain this in your mind, it should make the Ares fight much easier. Then you just gotta do a Dex. For one special at the start, for the other at the end. And during the l2 you'll have enough time to remember that there's a big gun at the end and swipe up or down. I recommend going with Down.

TotemCorruption · February 28

Matty_Ice said:

DNA3000 said:

Matty_Ice said:
Honestly, EPOCH was really fun to explore.
- I love when the fights are 4-6 minutes long (which most of them were with the right counter).
- The creativity of coming up with a team to counter each path with the restrictions were actually fun. (I normally don’t like gates, but I only used 1 6* champ in all my runs).
- Ares was a boss who you could beat with anybody if you did the fight right. But also one that you could chip down by throwing revives at it.
With some distance, I do appreciate Epoch. Its frustrating when you're in it, especially if you aren't cruising through it. And I do think the issue with mental load is a real problem. But I did enjoy it, for some definition of "enjoy." It was challenging but not impossible, and that's what I'm looking for in end game content. It should be hard, or it isn't worth doing.

Although I will say Epoch was much closer to the edge of what's doable for me comfortably (as in, without throwing unlimited resources at it) than anything else has been. Necro took more resources for my initial run, but that was at a time when those resources were also easier to get.
I found epoch more enjoyable than necropolis personally. Being able to knock out a full run of epoch in under 1 hour made it so much more feasible for me to get the content done. The time commitment alone from necropolis makes it tough for me to balance doing it without being stuck in there for a week trying to find the time to finish it.

Mental load, definitely. Each fight is unique, requires very different approach, and then ares.

Yup, same here. I want to do Necro, but I can't just dedicate several hours in a row on the game.
I can play for an hour or so a day, and even that has to be spread out throughout the day. So it sucks to use boosts and just have them expire, and then not be able to do apothecary runs or any other quest content because I'm stuck in Necro for days....

Matty_Ice · February 28

TotemCorruption said:

Matty_Ice said:

DNA3000 said:

Matty_Ice said:
Honestly, EPOCH was really fun to explore.
- I love when the fights are 4-6 minutes long (which most of them were with the right counter).
- The creativity of coming up with a team to counter each path with the restrictions were actually fun. (I normally don’t like gates, but I only used 1 6* champ in all my runs).
- Ares was a boss who you could beat with anybody if you did the fight right. But also one that you could chip down by throwing revives at it.
With some distance, I do appreciate Epoch. Its frustrating when you're in it, especially if you aren't cruising through it. And I do think the issue with mental load is a real problem. But I did enjoy it, for some definition of "enjoy." It was challenging but not impossible, and that's what I'm looking for in end game content. It should be hard, or it isn't worth doing.

Although I will say Epoch was much closer to the edge of what's doable for me comfortably (as in, without throwing unlimited resources at it) than anything else has been. Necro took more resources for my initial run, but that was at a time when those resources were also easier to get.
I found epoch more enjoyable than necropolis personally. Being able to knock out a full run of epoch in under 1 hour made it so much more feasible for me to get the content done. The time commitment alone from necropolis makes it tough for me to balance doing it without being stuck in there for a week trying to find the time to finish it.

Mental load, definitely. Each fight is unique, requires very different approach, and then ares.
Yup, same here. I want to do Necro, but I can't just dedicate several hours in a row on the game.
I can play for an hour or so a day, and even that has to be spread out throughout the day. So it sucks to use boosts and just have them expire, and then not be able to do apothecary runs or any other quest content because I'm stuck in Necro for days....

I need to do the 10 year anniversary challenges, but it’s hard to dedicate that time.

Herbal_Taxman · February 28

Great thread all around. Finished exploring it today and overall have pretty fond impressions. I think the time / rewards ratio is the best thing we’ve ever seen.

For first time runs, I would encourage everyone to check out Simula’s path videos on YT. I think the Cassie lane with Serpent is a popular first choice, but depending on your roster, one of the outside lanes might be easier. I think I had the easiest time on the far left lane, especially after practicing against Onslaught a few dozen times to get the timing down to punish his sp1.

TotemCorruption · February 28

Herbal_Taxman said:
Great thread all around. Finished exploring it today and overall have pretty fond impressions. I think the time / rewards ratio is the best thing we’ve ever seen.

For first time runs, I would encourage everyone to check out Simula’s path videos on YT. I think the Cassie lane with Serpent is a popular first choice, but depending on your roster, one of the outside lanes might be easier. I think I had the easiest time on the far left lane, especially after practicing against Onslaught a few dozen times to get the timing down to punish his sp1.

Yup, same here, have been using Simula's videos. I'm not sure if they're perfect or the best out there, but I find his tone very relaxing and peaceful so he's my favorite guide out there.

And congrats on finishing the exploration! Any good pulls from the loot?

Giantwalrus56 · February 28

Back after the 2nd run. Wasn't nearly as bad as the 1st. It's actually a very fun, yet stressful until the final phase. Thar s**t sucks(IMO). You're at the mercy of an extremely uncooperative AI(IMO). Trying to intercept a turtle 🐢 just takes the fun out. Maybe runs 3-6, Ares will come out of his shell

DocWest · February 28

I found that switching to 30fps for Ares final phase was extremely helpful with landing the intercepts. I also would just yolo and swipe back and forth as quick as possible as soon as the fight started to get into a continuous chain of intercepts until he had enough damage to reach 2 bars of power. Think of it like how you build feats of strength with Hercules really quickly in the same match. Just keep swiping back and forth really fast. You either get the intercept, or you hit his block. But because I was already going to swipe back as soon as I made contact, I would dex almost any hit that he would try to catch me with because I was already ready to swipe back.

It’s not a perfect plan because sometimes his AI was crazy passive and I would die, but I didn’t find Phase 5 stressful at all and I’m not a great player. I also did full exploration with that method in the final phase so it worked pretty consistently for me.

Herbal_Taxman · February 28

TotemCorruption said:

Herbal_Taxman said:
Great thread all around. Finished exploring it today and overall have pretty fond impressions. I think the time / rewards ratio is the best thing we’ve ever seen.

For first time runs, I would encourage everyone to check out Simula’s path videos on YT. I think the Cassie lane with Serpent is a popular first choice, but depending on your roster, one of the outside lanes might be easier. I think I had the easiest time on the far left lane, especially after practicing against Onslaught a few dozen times to get the timing down to punish his sp1.
Yup, same here, have been using Simula's videos. I'm not sure if they're perfect or the best out there, but I find his tone very relaxing and peaceful so he's my favorite guide out there.

And congrats on finishing the exploration! Any good pulls from the loot?

Class crystals were up and down. First time Silk dupe and White Tiger dupe, but tempered by Gambit, War Machine and two forgettable skill and cosmic champs. The five-champ nexus was rough too — Wags, Hulk, Fixit, Wiccan and a first time dupe on Blade. Took Blade as the others were already sig 60 or higher.

On the bright side, pulled a 3-4 cosmic, so plenty of good candidates there.

DNA3000 · March 1

Crys23 said:
About learning both specials, here's a trick, or some helpful tip. They have a lot in common.
The sequence you need to remember is:
Parry-Parry-Light-Dex.
L1: Dex + "the sequence"
L2: "the sequence" + Dex-Swipe

Parry parry light dex. If you ingrain this in your mind, it should make the Ares fight much easier. Then you just gotta do a Dex. For one special at the start, for the other at the end. And during the l2 you'll have enough time to remember that there's a big gun at the end and swipe up or down. I recommend going with Down.

That’s certainly helpful, and I saw comments to that effect in other guides. However, what I found personally is the problem wasn’t learning them in and of themselves, it was making that split second mental switch between them. If you get that first action wrong, it’s pretty much over so it isn’t the length of the sequence, it’s getting move number one correct to start. And it isn’t even getting it right, it is getting it right with the correct timing. If there’s a moments hesitation while you’re making up your mind, that’s usually enough to miss.

It is like juggling. Catching balls isn’t hard, throwing balls straight up isn’t hard. It is thinking about one while doing the other that’s hard. I remember learning to deal with reverse controls. What messed me up was that split second when I thought “dash right or dash left.” What broke the problem from me was thinking about the actions without left and right: I now think “in” or “out” as in “move hands inward (relative to screen)” or “move hands outward.” This does not conflict with my other thought “dash back” or “dash forward” as much as “right/left” and I can much more easily do the one while thinking about the other during that split second when I have to make a decision.

My guess is before my next run I should do a lot of playback of other runs and try to train my brain to immediately make that choice instantly and automatically. Consciously thinking about it is simply too slow, at least for me. Although I used to think that about Korg SP1, and now after years of fighting him it looks like he’s moving in slow motion. If Ares is going to be a recurring end game boss, it’s probably worth learning him eventually.

SirGamesBond · March 1

Try to go for parry always.
You can change the parry to Dex mid animation.

Chuck_Finley · March 1

Thanks for the write up @DNA3000 … seriously thinking about just exploring it with your method on ares. Did my one path a few weeks ago…. Didn’t enjoy it. But with nothing else really interesting happening - kind of wondering if I just use some of my unit stash at this point. The paths I don’t think will bother me, but ares was a huge revive suck for me. Might be time to just bite the bullet

phillgreen · March 1

My first path cost about 70 revives and I went in completely blind. Didn't really read threads here and don't watch YouTube.

Not sure I'll ever get the hang of Ares specials.

TotemCorruption · March 1

phillgreen said:
My first path cost about 70 revives and I went in completely blind. Didn't really read threads here and don't watch YouTube.

Not sure I'll ever get the hang of Ares specials.

Remember when you could just play video games without doing a semester of research before each new level?
When did games become PhD programs? When people started pouring their entire identities into their video game achievements?

smdam38 · March 1

DNA3000 said:
... don't get me wrong, it sucks, it is just not as scary as some suggest. In fact, you could be the worst end gamer on the planet and as long as you at least have the roster, and you like to grind the Apothecary or are willing to spend some (not a huge amount) of units, completion at least is a reasonably attainable goal.

There are lots of guides out there for Epoch, and if that's what you're looking for I'd recommend reading those. Taking Epoch advice from me is like taking driving lessons from that guy who plays Mayhem in the AllState commercials. However, what I can do is lessen the fear some might have in at least trying it.

So on a scale from one to MSD, when it comes to end game content I'm about a three. The first (and only) time I attempted end game content right at release basically cold was Necropolis, and I ended up burning about 140 revives in that. I'm a 56 year old with 20/800 vision and the reflexes of a baked potato. I wasn't sure how I would do in Epoch, but I finally decided to bite the bullet and give it a try. So how did I do?

Short answer: I started with full inventory of L1/L2 (50 total with Sigil inventory) plus an overflowing stash (29 total). I also had a random assortment of potions and other revives (L3/L4 single, L2 team). I ended up burning all my L1/L2 revives, plus a couple L3s, plus a few team revives on Ares. No units (technically, I spent 40 units on an L2 revive by accident after I burned all my L1s and L2s and muscle memory did a dumb dumb). So technically, it was a free run. Barely. That's something.

And actually, a lot of those revives were burned on the path, because I am in fact still a scrub. I did the Cosmic/Skill path leaning on my L3 Serpent, and I even got a solo on the last fight. But my Heimdall practice had worn off, and I ended up burning a bunch of revives on a few of those fights. If you're having issues with actually getting to Ares, go find a Youtube video. All I will say is that the extra power loss node really amplified the difficulty of these fights, not in terms of the fight mechanics but in terms of adding additional mental load. One more thing to keep track of among lots of things to keep track of. Kabam has acknowledged that mental load is an issue they are concerned about, but it seems they completely forgot about that when they designed Epoch. I think my revive count would have been cut in half if that node wasn't there. So if you're someone that struggled with the Season of Suffering fights in general, you should try really hard to find the absolute best path for you, and my recommendation is to look for the path whose hardest fight (to you) is as easy as possible. In my experience, it is a bad trade (for lower skill players) to trade getting a cheese fight that comes with a particularly nasty fight. You want the worst case fight to be as easy as possible.

Assuming you can actually get to Ares, here's something I can offer a scrub's perspective on. He's not that bad. There's three things scrubs should know about that fight, because now that I know the fight will probably be much easier for me the next time (which, given I basically have no revives, will not be for a while).

1. Every time you die, you get a persistent fury charge increasing your damage. This has been discussed by everyone else talking about the fight, but it bears repeating. When you first start this fight, you're going to be hitting Ares for about as much damage as someone trying to chop down a tree with their tongue. It will look totally hopeless if you keep dying and deal like half a percent damage to him. But with every revive, that damage is going to go up. If you're willing to pour a dozen revives into Ares, you're going to be hitting him for decent damage. After two dozen revives, you're going to be hitting him like a truck. So no matter how much you suck, your suckitude will translate to enormous damage boosts eventually. Just remember that damage buff is persistent, but only affects the champ you're reviving. Only use one champ to take down Ares (until you get to 1%, more on that in a minute).

2. Learning to evade one of his specials is not hard, learning to evade two is really hard. I've seen the guides, I've stared at his eyes, and I know about the pause strategy. But at the end of the day, what I discovered is I could learn to counter his SP1, but if I tried to learn both (even with Post-Its) and train my brain to use the right one, I would mess it up. So I just always assumed he would throw SP1 when he could throw both. If I was wrong, I was wrong. A 50% chance to have a solid chance to counter one special was better than flailing around like a dead fish getting smacked by Kratos. Look: you're a scrub. You're going to die. Just make every revive count. If you die enough times, eventually you're going to be dealing so much damage even if you never evade a special, you're still going to bring him down.

3. And then you get to 1%. Now, damage doesn't matter. You just need to remove charges. And if you're a scrub, this is where you might lose hope, because now you really have to counter those specials. Every time you don't, you're probably going to die. You could revive and burn a ton of potions to recover health to full and you might survive one special attack, but Ares has a mechanic where if you have higher health than he does (by percentage) you degen down to his level. So if he's now at 1%, so will you be eventually. Here's where it took me some time to realize I was doing it wrong. I was trying to concentrate on his specials, when I should have been using the scrub strategy of just intercepting him, because I forgot that intercepts also remove charges. Yes, you can intercept Ares, especially at the start of the fight. You want to hit into him twice and then back off, then go for the intercept, Try to get into a rhythm of intercepting him a couple times. Yes, sometimes the AI will not take the bait and you'll die. But every intercept takes off a couple charges, so every time you can land five or six of those, that's 10% of his charges gone in one revive. For a scrub, ten per revive is great. Heck, even if half the time you miss the intercept and die, five per revive on average still means there's light at the end of the tunnel: twenty more revives at most. And hey, if you actually counter an SP1 in there, even better.

Also, as I said, damage no longer matters. So persistent charges no longer matter. Those other two guys on your team? They are just as good as your main attacker for that last 1%. So if you're out of revives, use your whole team and use team revives. Its slightly more unit efficient to get three attackers for 100 units than one for 40. I had team revives in inventory, so I just used those.

In the end, Ares took me about 40 single revives and three team revives to get down, and honestly that's not bad, especially considering I didn't even attempt to intercept him until I was like twenty five revives into the fight. Next time, I probably will get there in 35 or less, and I might eventually get that down to less than 20. When you can hold 78 L1/L2 revives in inventory and farm them for free, 20 is good. Heck 40 is good if you're not a highly skilled end gamer.

So yeah, scrub takes down Epoch of Pain. It is hard, it will suck a ton of revives if you aren't super sharp at a lot of different fights just to get to Ares, and then Ares is going to take a chunk out of your inventory all by himself. But what he won't do, as long as you understand how he works, is roadblock you. And I think that's what we scrubs are most afraid of: we'll get there, and then discover after spending all those resources that we just can't do it and will have to give him. Epoch is not that kind of content. Epoch can be done with a strong roster, B+ skills, and a full inventory and stash of revives and potions. And if you hate grinding revives, a few thousand units will probably get you there as well.

You do have to be able to take down the Epoch path fights *reasonably* well. If just one of those fights is going to take you several dozen revives, then yes, Epoch is out of your league (unless you're willing to spend tens of thousands of units on it). But if you're a player that managed the past few Season of Suffering fight sequences and could do them without really spending, and you have a strong roster, and you're willing to put in the prep time for it, Epoch is an attainable goal.

Of course, at this rate by the time I fully explore it they'll be selling the rewards in Black Friday sales, assuming I'm able to focus on it continuously. I hear there's an updated Gauntlet coming out. Oh boy.

As usual and to be expected, a very long winded post from you.

As also to be expected from you, extremely informative and helpful.

I honestly don’t know how you do it. Your mind is just different.

Thanks so much for the info.

PT_99 · March 1

Giantwalrus56 said:

Hadn't planned on doing run 2 until this weekend, but this amazing print arrived today, so I'm doing my part in honoring Cat... Path cleared, just taking a break prior to using many resources on Ares

What's the lore of Overseer standing on side looking all speechless? 😳
Is he waiting for his turn to get spanked?

willrun4adonut · March 1

FiiNCH said:

DNA3000 said:

FiiNCH said:
Others have said before me, but Ares becomes significantly easier on runs 3-4 onwards. You become used to his animations and timings and the fight becomes fun. If you can push through the first few runs you’re well on the path to exploration.
As with all things skill related, practice does make perfect, or at least practice makes less awful. But it is that very first run most people have to get over the hump for. If you're the kind of person that is going to commit to doing it over and over and see that practice immediately pay off, you're probably not the kind of person I was thinking of when writing this post.

But yeah, you can see that practice pay off even in a single run. I was much better at the end than the beginning. Even half an hour of play generated a dramatic improvement for me, at least up to a point. For me, there was the initial phase of not knowing what I was doing or having any idea about the timing, even what I'm supposed to do for that very first swing. Then I started to understand what was what, and my ability to start executing started to ramp up. But then it reached a plateau for me where I got good enough to counter SP1 maybe half the time, and mess up about half the time. It never got a ton better than that during the run.

I think that has something to do with how learning works, at least in my brain. You can't force these coordination skills into your brain all at once, at least not mine. There is some time necessary for things to mature. Even in Summer of Suffering fights, it was often the case that I would try the fight and get better and better, but then plateau. But if I put it down and came back the next day, things seemed easier, as if the practice had time to "burn in" better. It sometimes took a few days of off and on practice to eventually get sharp at a fight.

My problem is going to be successive iterations of Ares might be too far apart for that to help as much as it could otherwise, because I would rather farm the resources than burn tons of units on it, and that will take time.
You’re right, I can understand how the first run on Ares can put a lot of players off going for a second one. I just wanted to pass on some encouragement that it does indeed get easier.

The difference between my first run and my fifth run was only saving 11 revives. So it didn't really get easier for me (because some of the saved devices were from them correctly the persistent charges bug). So I still had to stock up on those revives.

Snizzbar · March 1

smdam38 said:

DNA3000 said:
... don't get me wrong, it sucks, it is just not as scary as some suggest. In fact, you could be the worst end gamer on the planet and as long as you at least have the roster, and you like to grind the Apothecary or are willing to spend some (not a huge amount) of units, completion at least is a reasonably attainable goal.

There are lots of guides out there for Epoch, and if that's what you're looking for I'd recommend reading those. Taking Epoch advice from me is like taking driving lessons from that guy who plays Mayhem in the AllState commercials. However, what I can do is lessen the fear some might have in at least trying it.

So on a scale from one to MSD, when it comes to end game content I'm about a three. The first (and only) time I attempted end game content right at release basically cold was Necropolis, and I ended up burning about 140 revives in that. I'm a 56 year old with 20/800 vision and the reflexes of a baked potato. I wasn't sure how I would do in Epoch, but I finally decided to bite the bullet and give it a try. So how did I do?

Short answer: I started with full inventory of L1/L2 (50 total with Sigil inventory) plus an overflowing stash (29 total). I also had a random assortment of potions and other revives (L3/L4 single, L2 team). I ended up burning all my L1/L2 revives, plus a couple L3s, plus a few team revives on Ares. No units (technically, I spent 40 units on an L2 revive by accident after I burned all my L1s and L2s and muscle memory did a dumb dumb). So technically, it was a free run. Barely. That's something.

And actually, a lot of those revives were burned on the path, because I am in fact still a scrub. I did the Cosmic/Skill path leaning on my L3 Serpent, and I even got a solo on the last fight. But my Heimdall practice had worn off, and I ended up burning a bunch of revives on a few of those fights. If you're having issues with actually getting to Ares, go find a Youtube video. All I will say is that the extra power loss node really amplified the difficulty of these fights, not in terms of the fight mechanics but in terms of adding additional mental load. One more thing to keep track of among lots of things to keep track of. Kabam has acknowledged that mental load is an issue they are concerned about, but it seems they completely forgot about that when they designed Epoch. I think my revive count would have been cut in half if that node wasn't there. So if you're someone that struggled with the Season of Suffering fights in general, you should try really hard to find the absolute best path for you, and my recommendation is to look for the path whose hardest fight (to you) is as easy as possible. In my experience, it is a bad trade (for lower skill players) to trade getting a cheese fight that comes with a particularly nasty fight. You want the worst case fight to be as easy as possible.

Assuming you can actually get to Ares, here's something I can offer a scrub's perspective on. He's not that bad. There's three things scrubs should know about that fight, because now that I know the fight will probably be much easier for me the next time (which, given I basically have no revives, will not be for a while).

1. Every time you die, you get a persistent fury charge increasing your damage. This has been discussed by everyone else talking about the fight, but it bears repeating. When you first start this fight, you're going to be hitting Ares for about as much damage as someone trying to chop down a tree with their tongue. It will look totally hopeless if you keep dying and deal like half a percent damage to him. But with every revive, that damage is going to go up. If you're willing to pour a dozen revives into Ares, you're going to be hitting him for decent damage. After two dozen revives, you're going to be hitting him like a truck. So no matter how much you suck, your suckitude will translate to enormous damage boosts eventually. Just remember that damage buff is persistent, but only affects the champ you're reviving. Only use one champ to take down Ares (until you get to 1%, more on that in a minute).

2. Learning to evade one of his specials is not hard, learning to evade two is really hard. I've seen the guides, I've stared at his eyes, and I know about the pause strategy. But at the end of the day, what I discovered is I could learn to counter his SP1, but if I tried to learn both (even with Post-Its) and train my brain to use the right one, I would mess it up. So I just always assumed he would throw SP1 when he could throw both. If I was wrong, I was wrong. A 50% chance to have a solid chance to counter one special was better than flailing around like a dead fish getting smacked by Kratos. Look: you're a scrub. You're going to die. Just make every revive count. If you die enough times, eventually you're going to be dealing so much damage even if you never evade a special, you're still going to bring him down.

3. And then you get to 1%. Now, damage doesn't matter. You just need to remove charges. And if you're a scrub, this is where you might lose hope, because now you really have to counter those specials. Every time you don't, you're probably going to die. You could revive and burn a ton of potions to recover health to full and you might survive one special attack, but Ares has a mechanic where if you have higher health than he does (by percentage) you degen down to his level. So if he's now at 1%, so will you be eventually. Here's where it took me some time to realize I was doing it wrong. I was trying to concentrate on his specials, when I should have been using the scrub strategy of just intercepting him, because I forgot that intercepts also remove charges. Yes, you can intercept Ares, especially at the start of the fight. You want to hit into him twice and then back off, then go for the intercept, Try to get into a rhythm of intercepting him a couple times. Yes, sometimes the AI will not take the bait and you'll die. But every intercept takes off a couple charges, so every time you can land five or six of those, that's 10% of his charges gone in one revive. For a scrub, ten per revive is great. Heck, even if half the time you miss the intercept and die, five per revive on average still means there's light at the end of the tunnel: twenty more revives at most. And hey, if you actually counter an SP1 in there, even better.

Also, as I said, damage no longer matters. So persistent charges no longer matter. Those other two guys on your team? They are just as good as your main attacker for that last 1%. So if you're out of revives, use your whole team and use team revives. Its slightly more unit efficient to get three attackers for 100 units than one for 40. I had team revives in inventory, so I just used those.

In the end, Ares took me about 40 single revives and three team revives to get down, and honestly that's not bad, especially considering I didn't even attempt to intercept him until I was like twenty five revives into the fight. Next time, I probably will get there in 35 or less, and I might eventually get that down to less than 20. When you can hold 78 L1/L2 revives in inventory and farm them for free, 20 is good. Heck 40 is good if you're not a highly skilled end gamer.

So yeah, scrub takes down Epoch of Pain. It is hard, it will suck a ton of revives if you aren't super sharp at a lot of different fights just to get to Ares, and then Ares is going to take a chunk out of your inventory all by himself. But what he won't do, as long as you understand how he works, is roadblock you. And I think that's what we scrubs are most afraid of: we'll get there, and then discover after spending all those resources that we just can't do it and will have to give him. Epoch is not that kind of content. Epoch can be done with a strong roster, B+ skills, and a full inventory and stash of revives and potions. And if you hate grinding revives, a few thousand units will probably get you there as well.

You do have to be able to take down the Epoch path fights *reasonably* well. If just one of those fights is going to take you several dozen revives, then yes, Epoch is out of your league (unless you're willing to spend tens of thousands of units on it). But if you're a player that managed the past few Season of Suffering fight sequences and could do them without really spending, and you have a strong roster, and you're willing to put in the prep time for it, Epoch is an attainable goal.

Of course, at this rate by the time I fully explore it they'll be selling the rewards in Black Friday sales, assuming I'm able to focus on it continuously. I hear there's an updated Gauntlet coming out. Oh boy.
As usual and to be expected, a very long winded post from you.

Why the hell would you quote the whole post then? It just makes everyone scroll through it all over again 😔

smdam38 · March 1

Glutton for punishment.

People should read it and may not on page one.

captain_rogers · March 1

One tip that always worked is, I followed nagase guide.

Get calm before fighting ares, take a break, make sure you're void of any negative emotions (hunger sleep anger sadness) cuz the fight will give you all.
Write down the prompts for sp1 and sp2 in a paper and keept it near you. Immediately after the special kick, pause the game, take a breath, tell the prompt 2-3 times for the specific special, then unpause it. Works 90% of the time.

Epoch of Pain is not as bad as it seems, even if you're a scrub

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