Unexplained Boss weaknesses
- Thread starter Bombiz
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So long as you know what the Zombie status is (and have the ability to use Scan to find out Evrae has it) then it doesn't take much to figure out the Phoenix Down thing. Zombie means any healing effects do damage instead. Phoenix Downs bring back 1/2 your HP - so use 2 to kill him. Using Life would have the same effect - Full-Life would be an insta-kill. A Hi-Potion would reduce his HP by 1,000. Phoenix Downs are just the most practical way of finishing the fight quickly and with little cost.WhiteTigerShiro said:
I wouldn't really call it unexplained. It's just the first instance in which you would deal with Zombie status and it takes a bit of creativity to figure out how to exploit it.
Let's put it this way: What is a player's general response to this fight going to be? Is the player going to charge into battle with the same vim and vigor that they usually do for any-other battle, or is there something about any of these fights that prompts the player to stop and suddenly start using outside-the-box thinking? Perhaps they're a bit harder, but that doesn't always prompt the "Maybe I need to try something that wouldn't work on any-other fight" level of thinking.Auron225 said:
The whole thing that got this topic started was that someone was told about an obscure way to fight a boss that made it insanely easier to defeat him. Let's be honest, most people's first encounter with the tactic of using a Phoenix Down on a boss with Zombie status is to either read about it online, or have another friend (who likely read about it) show it to them. If you figured it out on your own, then grats, but that doesn't change the fact of the matter. The game never prompts the player to suddenly start experimenting with unusual tactics, so unless the player specifically know about the zombie status, odds are that they'll treat the battle like any other.
Yes, I'd say that the undead condition and using Phoenix Downs to either instantly kill them or inflict 9999 damage has become enough of a tradition in that series that it can generally be relied on:weirdo8977 said:
FFV: Archeoavis once he transforms into his undead state. Also lots of undead enemies later on in the undersea volcano and elsewhere.
FFVI: Phantom Train. Great Behemoth once he goes undead, again. Skull Dragon. Lots of minor undeads.
FFVII: Gi Nattak, and the enemies in the crashed Gelinka.
FFVIII: Geogagaeno. The boss in the Salt Flats before Eshtar.
FF Tactics: Ghosts and Skeletons as well as anyone with the Zombie condition.
I love blieblob's explanation of Evrae Atlanta and how it connects to the current subject matter of the game. If you wanted a weakness in Final Fantasy that doesn't make much sense, I'd say how Seymour Guado in FFX is weak against Poison in all four of his forms, despite not technically having organic flesh to suffer from poison after the first time. The only possible connection I can see there is that much of his backstory is similar to Hamlet, but that's really reaching.
Oh, and there's an optional boss in Wild Arms 3 who is a giant squid called the Kraken who lives at the bottom of a well. Who is weak against water. Go figure.
Captcha: You good? Yeah, I got off work early today
.The Fury is another MGS3 boss that's weak to knives. Don't bother running around trying to avoid his flamethrower and shooting him, just run right up at the start of the fight and knife him to death. Takes like 10 seconds.
mm, fair point. I was more saying that they /look/ undead given the one in FFX doesn't exactly look undead. Rather than saying it's obvious that you can use pheonix down on them. Though it's....sort of a logical conclusion given healing items damage zombified units, it's not unreasonable to not think of using a phoenix down. I assumed "unexplained" was more akin to "why on earth are they weak to this?", rather than the game not explicitly telling you that they're weak to something.WhiteTigerShiro said:
I didn't know that, but I can sort of see how his suit could be more vulnerable to knives? Aren't there some tubes or something you could cut? In any case, a material that protects you from bullets doesn't necessarily protect you from slashing damage.Hawk of Battle said:
With Krauser he's just shirtless.
I think there was one in FFIV that copied your every attack only with much more power so he basically killed you every time you hit him or wiped you out if you used an aoe attack on him. The trick to beating him easily was simply do absolutely nothing and you win after a few rounds. It wasnt immediately obvious that this is what his weakness was but fairly logical took me a little while to figure it out more of a puzzle boss I suppose but I enjoyed it, guess while its unexplained it is foreshadowing the solution.
The last boss in serious sam BFE, how the hell was I supposed to know to stick my pole in his backside.... Wait that didnt come out right.
If I remember correctly, most of the bosses in Deus Ex: HR (including the final one) can be killed with two or three shots of the stun gun.
If I had to guess an explanation, I would say that it was an intentional exploit the developers added for the sake of those who played the game with non combat character builds.
If I had to guess an explanation, I would say that it was an intentional exploit the developers added for the sake of those who played the game with non combat character builds.
The ice and ghost/poison types in Pokemon gen I made very little to no sense. Also, this is just my opinion, but Dragon being weak to Dragon was always kind of weird.
Input on the Krauser thing, I always thought it was that both of them were trained from the same place seeing how the knives are the same. So it was just Leon finally overcoming a long rivalry...psychologically it makes sense but irl I suppose it falls a bit flat.
Input on the Krauser thing, I always thought it was that both of them were trained from the same place seeing how the knives are the same. So it was just Leon finally overcoming a long rivalry...psychologically it makes sense but irl I suppose it falls a bit flat.
I don't know about you, but when half my main party is gone (along with the main healer) and I have to fight a newer version of a difficult boss I only recently faced (with no time to level up in between), I'm gonna want to use Scan if possible to figure out if it has a weakness of some kind. I read Zombie and recall that it reverses the effects of healing - and wala; strategy is made.WhiteTigerShiro said:
The only reasons someone couldn't piece this together was if they couldn't use Scan, or if they had no idea what Zombie was. Otherwise I don't think this kind of thinking is extraordinary for a boss fight - particularly when you're limited (1/2 the party gone) and with a turn-based system where you have all the time in the world to make your move.
I could argue that the game throws you a Dark souls style hint at you, when you first meet him you have that QTE knife fight with Krauser, remember?weirdo8977 said:
As for on topic. None jump out at me, they all telegraph the weakness .... only stopping short of a flashing arrow (though in a lot of games the weakness does flash).
I've always looked at it as the game was telling you this all along if you were paying attention. When Ada shows up, Leon beats her in the cutscene by using his knife. He then says, "Next time, use a knife. Works better in close combat." Then there's that whole knife fight cutscene too. So I just take it as the game telling you to use the knife.weirdo8977 said:
Of course, I didn't figure this out until my friend told me to use the knife, because I could not beat Krauser for the life of me any other way. He was just too quick and did too much damage.
As for bosses that seemed to have completely random weaknesses, I remember when I found out that Alma (graveyard version) in Ninja Gaiden was weak against the Harpoon gun. It doesn't last through the whole fight, but if you shoot her with it as soon as the fight starts and keep shooting her, it stun locks her and you can take out a nice chunk of health that way. Eventually the distance becomes too great and she's able to slip out, but it was hilarious when I first tried it.
well i always though that in dark souls 1 smough (the fat executioner) would have been resistant to melee damage, simply put he has huge armour which is curved (which deflects blows easier than straight edges), the armour provides some of the highest physical defence and plus he's pretty much a rolling tank on wheels, from a gameplay point yeah i understand but what amounts to tank should not really be effected by a physical sword really
other weakness is dark souls 2 the game, playing it seems to show a huge weakness in the game, their fix would have been the original director but alas it was not to be
other weakness is dark souls 2 the game, playing it seems to show a huge weakness in the game, their fix would have been the original director but alas it was not to be
Well I should probably give a spoiler warning for this one, so here goes. Beware: this is a MASSIVE SPOILER for the game "Super Mario Brothers", so if you haven't played that one yet, you should probably skip this post.
The giant turtle dinosaur king thing's weakness is an Italian plumber jumping on his head repeatedly. Yeah.
I bet he never saw THAT one coming.
I bet he never saw THAT one coming.
FF8's final boss, Sorceress Ultimecia, is vulnerable to water. I had it set as the elemental attack on a few of my characters, and they were out DPSing my designated DPSer's.
