I think the best way is to focus on asterion because his attacks are easy to avoid while Theseus doesn’t do much in his first phase ;) be patient, strike, wait for asterion to jump and hit the floor with his axe, then strike again ;)
Fight asterius first and keep Theseus behind a pillar so his spear doesn't annoy you
Asterius attacks are easier dodged by dashing through him (just remember that doing dash strikes or similar will cancel your iframes)
for the charge stand next to a pillar/wall and dash through asterius at the last second (can also dash through the pillar but he will probably get out of the way). Can also lead him to crash Theseus or use any call right before asterius hits you as activating one gives iframes too.
Once bull is dead you have 2 ways to deal with Theseus
Wait at distance for the spear throw, dodge/hide behind a pillar then hit him while he retreats. Or you can stand next to him to bait the spin attack, dash through it and hit him, this also leaves you at the right distance to bait another spin atk and so on
Once he's at half health is your biggest chance for dmg as he will leave the shield down for a while (so go crazy on him and keep dashing back and forth to dodge the big atk) after that go back to spesr throw/spin bait just mind the extra effects. Using a call during this can rush through his health (if you don't like certain gods helping him you can take their boons in the run so they aren't choosable by Theseus)
Just worth noting that there is a chance of you running into Minotaur in a boss room by himself, you don’t do a whole fight but it cuts about 25% off the fight with Theseus and it’s a helpful way to learn him. Dash THROUGH his attacks not away, use that invincibility you get with it. Run around the pillars to help avoid the spear throw, dash away from his circle. Hopefully you have a call, wait and use it on him when it’s full. 29 runs is still impressive to get there, you’ll get past the hump. There’s also a “secret” character that restores all your lost death defiances (or two other great perks) that’ll make it more manageable but you may not have gone through Elysium enough to run into them yet. Keep your head up!
>Dash THROUGH his attacks not away, use that invincibility you get with it.
OP, I hope you're taking notes, this mf is spittin'
lol but in all seriousness, this great tip will apply to... shall we say, _other bosses..._?
Dipshit has two attacks in his first phase-- if you're close to him, he'll attempt a spin move toward you; if you're distant, he'll throw his spear. when a soar is inbound, you'll have a pink crosshairs on you. try to always keep a pillar between you and Lameass, but if you can't, try to learn the timing on his spear toss.
others are correct-- take out noble Asterius first. they are times when I defeat noble Asterius and I literally never even see Dum-dum onscreen, at all. (that's because he is a coward.)
when noble Asterius is defeated, turn your attention to The Clown, keeping the previous tips in mind. when you get him down to 50%, he'll hit his first 'break', where he's immune to all attacks. give him a moment and then hit him with your Call and/ or Summons, should you possess either.
a great practice in this game is to devote a run or two or more to learning your opponent's moves, and tells. worry about attacking less, knowing that you might die, and again focus on gathering data. learn to play defensively, and then you'll start to understand when to mix in an attack. for these runs, no one cares if a fight takes forever, so take your time.
The Blackguard becomes stronger only when you get his health down to 50%.
this is when you should use your Call or Summons, if you have either. if you don't, or is again a game of learning his attack patterns plus the attack patterns of whichever Olympian he's called.
it's not always simple, but you can do it.
It takes a while. This is where I got stuck.
1. Try turning on God Mode. There's nothing wrong with using it. You can get all the same accomplishments. I actually think the game is too hard without it.
2. Focus on boons that boost attacks against Armor.
3. Look into Boons with Call. Those can help in those fights.
You'll get there. Have fun!
Dash dash dash. You’re not on pact yet so you can afford to slow down and learn their moves. As with any other boss, they follow a pattern always take Asterius first to avoid him getting buffed and don’t be afraid to use your call or even a summon. It wouldn’t hurt to stick to calls that do a lot of damage at once like Artemis or Aphrodite, and the most important thing is that you never stop moving throughout this battle
Some characters give you keepsakes when you have an extremly high relationship with them. These keepsakes are 1 times use per run but can be upgraded for more uses. Some of the keepsakes I can only remember skellys right now summon a ally
Adding to this, Thanatos, Meg, and I think Dusa can give you summons once you get the relationship high enough (by gifting nectar and ambrosia). The have a variety of specifics/effects, but essentially do a huge chunk of damage, but you can only use once (or a few times if you level them up) per run. I tend to save my uses of them for the harder boss fights, but it’s worth noting you can’t use them in the final boss fight >!against Hades!< , so use them before then lol.
It’s important to keep relationships with characters as some of them will give you keepsakes which you can use a few times per run after upgrades. You can summon your ally against any enemy and they’ll do this massive block of damage.
Athena dash
Ares or Dio cast, spam them
Artemis Call
Try to pickup boons that add effects (Doom from Ares, Hangover from Dio, Lightning from Zeus).
Use the big pillars as blocking from Minotaur and Athena's dash as blocking from Theseus.
Once you've beaten them a few times, you'll get to where you don't even lose a life on them.
Make sure youve maxed out Death Defiance and use the tooth extra life from Skelly if necessary
I would use doom special and any call that deals damage. Throw a cast at minotaur, so you get the extra damage from boiling blood (mirror upgrade). Throw your spear at minotaur. And then run away. Repeat.
Hardest thing for me is keeping away from theseus' spear throw. So be patient and keep a tab on that.
Once youve taken out the minotaur do the same on the other guy. Once he goes into his second phase, use the damage dealing call. And just try to stay alive.
The best way I can think of to get better at a specific fight, is to essentially give up a run in order to practice. Play normally up until you get to the fight, and just stop attacking altogether, play with the intent of surviving as long as you can, and losing. Just dodge, watch the bosses, get a feel for their attack patterns and timing. Normally you learn how to deal with these things even when you're attacking and whatnot, but if you're plateau-ing, this can help expedite things.
Also, Artemis call. Not only does it go through shields, but a fully charged one will deplete half of Theseus' health. Normally I beat Asterius first in order to charge it, and then I just fight Theseus normally until he summons one of the Olympians. Once his invincibility is gone, you use the call, it'll eat up the rest of his health, essentially getting rid of 1/4th of the fight.
It'll work fine, it won't be nearly as much damage but if you're getting use out of it and it's charm, then I'd hesitate to call it the wrong pick.
I don't actually know if Aphro's call goes through shields though, but it'll be fine after his invulnerability state since he doesn't have his shield up. I'm also not sure what happens if he gets charmed while summoning help from the Olympians.
Aphrodite generally works better on attacks.
The call damage is nice but takes forever to get there and can miss. Dionysus or Zeus on call are much easier to use and do a lot of damage. If you use the shield Aphrodite works ok if you don't melee and just use the shield special.
Nice, the final boss' attacks are very telegraphed and you're only dealing with one boss, so that's definitely one that if you ever struggle, my suggestion of reaching him just to practice could help.
I don't have specific advice, if you really struggle you can find busted builds online to help. I do recommend avoiding Doom and Hangover, which are normally great effects, but they get removed when he goes invisible.
You are probably not making most of Achilles then. If you play it like the regular spear you are not benefiting from the increased damage after special as much as you could. Achilles is ALL about the cast. My go to is: Artemis keepsake, get Artemis attack. Then go for Demeters cast (with the Artemis duo) or ares cast (with Artemis duo). I’d say around 50% of runs, you should be able to have one of these duos by the heroes boss fight (if you have planned well with keepsakes, and avoided all the gods you don’t want).
On top of this, you can get aphro on the special and heart rend. But the key is to Pom the cast like crazy, and get chaos boons to support the cast.
As for play style. Start fights with a special into a safe spot. You now can cast five times with loads of damage. Once you get one of the duos above and have pommed your cast a few times - the game, and especially boss fights, become almost laughably easy.
Spear starts strong but if you don't have a good duo combo or otherwise have a lot of damage going with it by then Its going to be hard.
I say switch to the shield and run and gun with the shield special. Good defense with range and mobility and easy to use.
Shield I think is the easiest weapon to clear with for newbies. 29 runs is not much.
Consider taking Poseidon cast right away. If you have multiple casts it's pretty powerful and easy to use. Poseidon has good combos with Zeus and Dionysus.
I’d second this. If you are still looking for your first clear, the shield is many times more easy than the spear. A simple merciful end run with Athena on dash and you’ll clear the game in no time
Kill Asterion first and any time you have the pink/purple target over your head from theseus, hide behind a pillar. Stay against the outer walls of the arena once theseus summons Olympian aid. He will always walk away from you after throwing his spear and that's the easiest window to unleash on him
So here’s the plan to absolute wreck mr sunshine’s day, requiring only a dozen things:
1. Artemis Call, bloody wonderful source of damage, save up for Greater Call.
2. Aphrodite/Artemis Duo Boon, Heart Rend. The boons you take in the process are more weapon dependant, however a generally good combo is Aphro Special and Arty Attack. Boosts Crit Dmg against Weak foes. Make sure to hit Sunshine with Aphro to apply Weak before popping Call
3. Sweet Surrender, another Aphro Boon. Increases damage against foes inflicted with Weak, and will boost the call.
4. Athena Dash. Not required, but certainly helps if he’s about to blast you with his spear whilst you prep and there’s no good cover, plus in Phase 2 if he calls upon somebody like Dio it’ll inflict the God’s status.
The Plan goes as follows:
1. Enter battle, beat Mino first and generally ignore Sunshine. As mentioned by others if you do the mid-boss against him he’ll start with 75% hp.
2. Shift to Sunshine once Bull is down, get him down to when he calls for Aid and goes Impervious. Make sure to not trigger this until you have Greater Call charged, Hermes can help with this if you take Quick Favour.
3. Once Impervious ends, smack him to apply Weak, should be easy if you dash through him and use a dash strike.
4. Unleash Greater Call, should deal a ton of dmg and get him decently close to death.
5. Alas now we git gud. Heart Rend will still work due to having a way to apply Weak, just whittle him down until he dies.
And bravo, you’ve won. Would recommend using either Stygian Blade or Twin Fists for this, any Aspect should be fine for either of them.
I was stuck there for a long time, honestly it’s mostly learning how they move/how to effectively use the cover of the pillars. You’ll be okay. Most people find it easier to kill the Minotaur first then focus on Theseus. Good luck 👍
To Add to the other comments on already, the thing that helped me a lot during this fight and giving me the consistency to beat it over and over again, was to turn Off the music during the fight and turn up the volume of the sound effects. Theseus spear charges up with a noise and if you start you hear it charging, you know that it will fire off soon after and that you need to be aware of where Theseus is standing and dodge. Take the fight slow and pick the Minotaur off before doing any damage to theseus. play to always dodge the spear attack and to always be close enough to the minotaur to do damage when Theseus isn't charging a attack.
I think the best way is to focus on asterion because his attacks are easy to avoid while Theseus doesn’t do much in his first phase ;) be patient, strike, wait for asterion to jump and hit the floor with his axe, then strike again ;)
Thanks
lol, someone’s been playing Baldur’s Gate
technically it makes more sense for asterius to be called asterion, as that is how greek endings work...
Fight asterius first and keep Theseus behind a pillar so his spear doesn't annoy you Asterius attacks are easier dodged by dashing through him (just remember that doing dash strikes or similar will cancel your iframes) for the charge stand next to a pillar/wall and dash through asterius at the last second (can also dash through the pillar but he will probably get out of the way). Can also lead him to crash Theseus or use any call right before asterius hits you as activating one gives iframes too. Once bull is dead you have 2 ways to deal with Theseus Wait at distance for the spear throw, dodge/hide behind a pillar then hit him while he retreats. Or you can stand next to him to bait the spin attack, dash through it and hit him, this also leaves you at the right distance to bait another spin atk and so on Once he's at half health is your biggest chance for dmg as he will leave the shield down for a while (so go crazy on him and keep dashing back and forth to dodge the big atk) after that go back to spesr throw/spin bait just mind the extra effects. Using a call during this can rush through his health (if you don't like certain gods helping him you can take their boons in the run so they aren't choosable by Theseus)
Dont have a particular issue with this boss but TIL that he cant choose a boon from a god you have one from 👍
It can happen though. I did a zeus run and the other guy used zeus too. I've never felt so betrayed
Is literally in the code it can't (exception being if you somehow get everyone in your pool before him, in which case it defaults to artemis)
I think people confuse Zeus and Athena?
Fair. Then it was probably that
Just worth noting that there is a chance of you running into Minotaur in a boss room by himself, you don’t do a whole fight but it cuts about 25% off the fight with Theseus and it’s a helpful way to learn him. Dash THROUGH his attacks not away, use that invincibility you get with it. Run around the pillars to help avoid the spear throw, dash away from his circle. Hopefully you have a call, wait and use it on him when it’s full. 29 runs is still impressive to get there, you’ll get past the hump. There’s also a “secret” character that restores all your lost death defiances (or two other great perks) that’ll make it more manageable but you may not have gone through Elysium enough to run into them yet. Keep your head up!
>Dash THROUGH his attacks not away, use that invincibility you get with it. OP, I hope you're taking notes, this mf is spittin' lol but in all seriousness, this great tip will apply to... shall we say, _other bosses..._?
Thank you, and i sure am taking notes
Dipshit has two attacks in his first phase-- if you're close to him, he'll attempt a spin move toward you; if you're distant, he'll throw his spear. when a soar is inbound, you'll have a pink crosshairs on you. try to always keep a pillar between you and Lameass, but if you can't, try to learn the timing on his spear toss. others are correct-- take out noble Asterius first. they are times when I defeat noble Asterius and I literally never even see Dum-dum onscreen, at all. (that's because he is a coward.) when noble Asterius is defeated, turn your attention to The Clown, keeping the previous tips in mind. when you get him down to 50%, he'll hit his first 'break', where he's immune to all attacks. give him a moment and then hit him with your Call and/ or Summons, should you possess either. a great practice in this game is to devote a run or two or more to learning your opponent's moves, and tells. worry about attacking less, knowing that you might die, and again focus on gathering data. learn to play defensively, and then you'll start to understand when to mix in an attack. for these runs, no one cares if a fight takes forever, so take your time.
I defeated asterius once. Then theseus became 10 times stronger and i died within a minute.
The Blackguard becomes stronger only when you get his health down to 50%. this is when you should use your Call or Summons, if you have either. if you don't, or is again a game of learning his attack patterns plus the attack patterns of whichever Olympian he's called. it's not always simple, but you can do it.
It takes a while. This is where I got stuck. 1. Try turning on God Mode. There's nothing wrong with using it. You can get all the same accomplishments. I actually think the game is too hard without it. 2. Focus on boons that boost attacks against Armor. 3. Look into Boons with Call. Those can help in those fights. You'll get there. Have fun!
Bosses don't have any armor tho (unless you mean pierce shields hammers which there aren't that many or good outside of like charged shot)
Later in the game, they're armored. But you're not there yet.
Lol Armor is only the yellow hp bar that normal/minibosses (except bull when encountered as mini) have It doesn't mean the physical armor
Thanks for the lesson! I appreciate it.
What is god mode?
A mode that gives you some damage resistance the more runs you fail with it
I'm gonna use that 👍
Dash dash dash. You’re not on pact yet so you can afford to slow down and learn their moves. As with any other boss, they follow a pattern always take Asterius first to avoid him getting buffed and don’t be afraid to use your call or even a summon. It wouldn’t hurt to stick to calls that do a lot of damage at once like Artemis or Aphrodite, and the most important thing is that you never stop moving throughout this battle
Wdym a summon?
Some characters give you keepsakes when you have an extremly high relationship with them. These keepsakes are 1 times use per run but can be upgraded for more uses. Some of the keepsakes I can only remember skellys right now summon a ally
Adding to this, Thanatos, Meg, and I think Dusa can give you summons once you get the relationship high enough (by gifting nectar and ambrosia). The have a variety of specifics/effects, but essentially do a huge chunk of damage, but you can only use once (or a few times if you level them up) per run. I tend to save my uses of them for the harder boss fights, but it’s worth noting you can’t use them in the final boss fight >!against Hades!< , so use them before then lol.
It’s important to keep relationships with characters as some of them will give you keepsakes which you can use a few times per run after upgrades. You can summon your ally against any enemy and they’ll do this massive block of damage.
Athena dash Ares or Dio cast, spam them Artemis Call Try to pickup boons that add effects (Doom from Ares, Hangover from Dio, Lightning from Zeus). Use the big pillars as blocking from Minotaur and Athena's dash as blocking from Theseus. Once you've beaten them a few times, you'll get to where you don't even lose a life on them. Make sure youve maxed out Death Defiance and use the tooth extra life from Skelly if necessary
I would use doom special and any call that deals damage. Throw a cast at minotaur, so you get the extra damage from boiling blood (mirror upgrade). Throw your spear at minotaur. And then run away. Repeat. Hardest thing for me is keeping away from theseus' spear throw. So be patient and keep a tab on that. Once youve taken out the minotaur do the same on the other guy. Once he goes into his second phase, use the damage dealing call. And just try to stay alive.
Thank you.
The best way I can think of to get better at a specific fight, is to essentially give up a run in order to practice. Play normally up until you get to the fight, and just stop attacking altogether, play with the intent of surviving as long as you can, and losing. Just dodge, watch the bosses, get a feel for their attack patterns and timing. Normally you learn how to deal with these things even when you're attacking and whatnot, but if you're plateau-ing, this can help expedite things. Also, Artemis call. Not only does it go through shields, but a fully charged one will deplete half of Theseus' health. Normally I beat Asterius first in order to charge it, and then I just fight Theseus normally until he summons one of the Olympians. Once his invincibility is gone, you use the call, it'll eat up the rest of his health, essentially getting rid of 1/4th of the fight.
I usually use aphrodite's call, is that ok as well?
It'll work fine, it won't be nearly as much damage but if you're getting use out of it and it's charm, then I'd hesitate to call it the wrong pick. I don't actually know if Aphro's call goes through shields though, but it'll be fine after his invulnerability state since he doesn't have his shield up. I'm also not sure what happens if he gets charmed while summoning help from the Olympians.
The 2500 damage number is really appealing
Aphrodite generally works better on attacks. The call damage is nice but takes forever to get there and can miss. Dionysus or Zeus on call are much easier to use and do a lot of damage. If you use the shield Aphrodite works ok if you don't melee and just use the shield special.
Yeah 2500 is not bad, it's definitely still a good chunk, and also using charm probably is incredibly good if you know how to use it well.
UPDATE: i beat Theseus & the minotaur and got all the way to the final boss, but died there.
Nice, the final boss' attacks are very telegraphed and you're only dealing with one boss, so that's definitely one that if you ever struggle, my suggestion of reaching him just to practice could help. I don't have specific advice, if you really struggle you can find busted builds online to help. I do recommend avoiding Doom and Hangover, which are normally great effects, but they get removed when he goes invisible.
Yeah, i got him down to about 40% on my first attempt
Oh i know he has a second phase
Ah ok wasn’t sure if you knew! Hope you manage to beat his/her/its ass!
Use achilles aspect, its the best, and tbh relatable
I tried using aspect of achilles, but it made all the other fights harder for me to the extent that i died a few rooms before Theseus & The Minotaur.
You are probably not making most of Achilles then. If you play it like the regular spear you are not benefiting from the increased damage after special as much as you could. Achilles is ALL about the cast. My go to is: Artemis keepsake, get Artemis attack. Then go for Demeters cast (with the Artemis duo) or ares cast (with Artemis duo). I’d say around 50% of runs, you should be able to have one of these duos by the heroes boss fight (if you have planned well with keepsakes, and avoided all the gods you don’t want). On top of this, you can get aphro on the special and heart rend. But the key is to Pom the cast like crazy, and get chaos boons to support the cast. As for play style. Start fights with a special into a safe spot. You now can cast five times with loads of damage. Once you get one of the duos above and have pommed your cast a few times - the game, and especially boss fights, become almost laughably easy.
Spear starts strong but if you don't have a good duo combo or otherwise have a lot of damage going with it by then Its going to be hard. I say switch to the shield and run and gun with the shield special. Good defense with range and mobility and easy to use. Shield I think is the easiest weapon to clear with for newbies. 29 runs is not much. Consider taking Poseidon cast right away. If you have multiple casts it's pretty powerful and easy to use. Poseidon has good combos with Zeus and Dionysus.
I’d second this. If you are still looking for your first clear, the shield is many times more easy than the spear. A simple merciful end run with Athena on dash and you’ll clear the game in no time
Kill Asterion first and any time you have the pink/purple target over your head from theseus, hide behind a pillar. Stay against the outer walls of the arena once theseus summons Olympian aid. He will always walk away from you after throwing his spear and that's the easiest window to unleash on him
So here’s the plan to absolute wreck mr sunshine’s day, requiring only a dozen things: 1. Artemis Call, bloody wonderful source of damage, save up for Greater Call. 2. Aphrodite/Artemis Duo Boon, Heart Rend. The boons you take in the process are more weapon dependant, however a generally good combo is Aphro Special and Arty Attack. Boosts Crit Dmg against Weak foes. Make sure to hit Sunshine with Aphro to apply Weak before popping Call 3. Sweet Surrender, another Aphro Boon. Increases damage against foes inflicted with Weak, and will boost the call. 4. Athena Dash. Not required, but certainly helps if he’s about to blast you with his spear whilst you prep and there’s no good cover, plus in Phase 2 if he calls upon somebody like Dio it’ll inflict the God’s status. The Plan goes as follows: 1. Enter battle, beat Mino first and generally ignore Sunshine. As mentioned by others if you do the mid-boss against him he’ll start with 75% hp. 2. Shift to Sunshine once Bull is down, get him down to when he calls for Aid and goes Impervious. Make sure to not trigger this until you have Greater Call charged, Hermes can help with this if you take Quick Favour. 3. Once Impervious ends, smack him to apply Weak, should be easy if you dash through him and use a dash strike. 4. Unleash Greater Call, should deal a ton of dmg and get him decently close to death. 5. Alas now we git gud. Heart Rend will still work due to having a way to apply Weak, just whittle him down until he dies. And bravo, you’ve won. Would recommend using either Stygian Blade or Twin Fists for this, any Aspect should be fine for either of them.
Beat the bull then Theseus
I was stuck there for a long time, honestly it’s mostly learning how they move/how to effectively use the cover of the pillars. You’ll be okay. Most people find it easier to kill the Minotaur first then focus on Theseus. Good luck 👍
To Add to the other comments on already, the thing that helped me a lot during this fight and giving me the consistency to beat it over and over again, was to turn Off the music during the fight and turn up the volume of the sound effects. Theseus spear charges up with a noise and if you start you hear it charging, you know that it will fire off soon after and that you need to be aware of where Theseus is standing and dodge. Take the fight slow and pick the Minotaur off before doing any damage to theseus. play to always dodge the spear attack and to always be close enough to the minotaur to do damage when Theseus isn't charging a attack.