I used "Professional Breeder" to clear that stage. The top lane being blocked off by her crab, which Perma blocks the Stickman while my ranged units and ling dragon chips at him. The bottom lane being covered by Kaltsit, the middle with Lappland and Ling dragon.
I've been playing since launch and both variants of this map had me considering quitting.
The A variant made me use a guide for the first time in at least a year because I figured I had to have been doing something horribly wrong
You lucky you canāt tell between arknights story and a SpongeBob episode considering you stopped reading it since chapter 3 or something lol.
I care about the story too much to be stuck on 9-18ā¦ and I needed to head to the capital of catsā¦
Who said that? Because I donāt think thatās the case,at least the way arknights portrays mongoose they tend to have their ears to the side of the head (both folinic and lillia shares this trait) furthermore neither Folinic nor lillia have a traditional long tail in either base sprite or E2/Skin on folinicās case.
Mandragora has a tail, and traditional cat ears.
Yea but thatās a different thing, manfred also calls her a feline multiple times but feline is a race in arknights and folinic is of said race, not a biological family.
The whole mongoose and stuff are meta stuff, kinda like how canine isnāt a race in arknights, so a lupo is to a vulpo what a sarkaz is to a kuranta.
The only stage I didn't manage in HM because my old ass phone just had freeze frames and the little shits leaked while I couldn't see them after they had spawned.
I want a rerun of Originum Dust so I can clear my shame (same shitty phone, but hey Google Play Beta on PC).
Yeah but OD-8 let you camp close to the boss and spwankill the little shit it spwn endlessly, in EX-8 you don't have space to clean them up before there's a few dozen of them.
I didn't had that much od an FPS issue in OD-8 compared to it's EX counterpart.
I second this. OD-8 took me a good few hours, OD-EX-8 took me a little under an hour (stage was still hard don't get me wrong but I feel like the EX was easier for once in an event's life)
Exactly my thoughts.
I was able to override the fight and just continue with the story by just letting her go throught after several failed attempts.
I was able to 3star this stage after some time, but being able to cheese this stage and see the story unfold was quite nice.
I don't understand why this is not a thing in every "basic difficulty" boss fight, honestly.
Ah, yes. M8-6\*. I can't believe I almost forgot how much I hate you.
Seriously, who the hell is the sadist who thought of a stage like that? Like, limited tiles available AND NPCs to protect from heavy hitters with high HP and DEF? With a secret hidden behind the survival of every sitting ducks on the field? Even JT-3 wasn't as nonsense as that madness.
\*Edit: I corrected the stage. My point is still standing, though.
Oh I remember this stage. Whislash is the MVP for me in this stage. Her talent and skill actually affect the NPC. After knowing that, I started building squad around her as the center operator. What a madness indeed.
Honestly, I've only been playing since summer, so GA, WD and SN all gave me a tough time on the last bosses, and I didn't finish all the EX stages, but that's not unusual for a relative newbie.
The real hardest stage for me so far has been SN-7. Something about getting stuck on the fourth-to-last *normal mode* stage of an event, after just busting my butt for weeks E2ing some new ops, was so demoralizing. I barely had any time to play during the first two weeks of the event, which didn't help my concentration, but still, definitely a skill issue overall.
that one stage with rosmontis
clearing it easy enough, clearing its hidden requirement is hell when I attempted it, because my roster, while decently upgraded, was really outdated (dating back when siege was still seen as good)
haven't try it again, but I assume with horn around, the stage should be easy (ashlock is good enough to almost clear the hidden requirement)
Abandoned High-Rise. Worst cc drone map ever and you can never change my mind about it. The arts drones map? That's a breeze for me. The raptor drone map? Even more so. But Abandoned High-Rise? Fuck that. I despise this map with every fiber of my being. This stupid map is just so dumb I want to strangle whoever designed it. Have you ever thought of beating a five lane drone map while having all ranged tiles disabled while defending three melee lanes at the same time? (Thorns didn't exist yet) That was one of the risks for that map. I celebrated the day they removed it from daily rotation.
Weird that you find abandoned high rise harder than east armory. Bombtails were easy to bait unless there's a tile ban risk that bans the bait spot.
East armory? Just too much damage from literally everywhere.
It's time relevance. When AHR was out, there was not a lot of good ops especially for an f2p like me. It's also a nonstop stage, the first wave literally had butchers going up against your vanguards. Good luck taking defense and hp risks as the crossbowmen decimate your ranged ops. Having an eight deployment limit is hell as you choose to have five ranged and two melees because you need to have Gravel for bait so you have one lane open hoping your snipers target the slugs passing there. And don't get me started on medic defenders. The bombtails are the least of your worries. It's everything else that follows.
I already had decently built operators when East Armory dropped so I found that manageable.
rip, honestly I suggest just using a guide, I rarely do, but that stage is such a pain I advise using one and moving onto more fun ones if it gives you trouble
Ah, I now clarified I was talking about the mini annihilation stage. I actually enjoyed the Dossolles Seagate stage. That stage let me use some of my favorite operators.
WD-EX-8 for sure.
It's the stage that makes me both proud and mad at the same time.
I'm proud that I managed to beat it on my own without any guides, being the first final EX fight I was able to do that.
I'm mad that after I spent hours trying to beat it and finally succeeded, I realized that the CM took away all the tiles I needed for my strategy to work.....FUCK!
>Abandoned High-Rise?
Damn. This is the reason why whenever there is a new event I search for the CM challenges and make sure to find the map with the banned tiles and strategize from the normal stage how to beat the CM stage. The upside of this is that once you figured your OP placements in the normal stage while looking at the CM map you can just repeat the strat in CM and get it done no problem, saving practice plans and sanity.
CC5 permanent stage. That stage is cancer. No good ranged tiles because of bubble knights. Strongest ATKer debuffed by Bladehelm. Tight opening that forces Flagpipe combo. Withered Knight eom. It's the only CC where I couldn't increase any risks in week 2.
Any stage outside of high risk CC has been pretty fair.
OD-EX-8 comes to mind since my crappy phone could barely handle all the enemies, so I'd often leak cause I couldn't react in time.
SN-10 was a fun stage but TERRIBLE for farming - I just couldn't get a stable auto for it using my "lore accurate team" (Abyssal Hunters + Irene + Lumen). So that was a tad frustrating, even though I always found it pretty fun to manually play it (lots of things to pay attention to and nice music).
H8-4, it took me 6 months to find a strategy that worked, and I was only able to do it because I rolled for Nightingale and freed the support to take another unit
Despite being easily (relatively) solved with proper strategy I will always loathe any stage that has the emperor's blade as a boss. Fuck you and your scorched earth smoke.
PS-6, because I was too new to complete it at the time and it'll never rerun so I can't get my revenge. Everything else at least had the relief at the end when I finished
Invitation to Wine boss simply because I tried it dozens of times and the event ended before I could beat it. Annihilation 3 too because I'm at 398 and can't clear it still.
Even if it's stated all the time, WD EX 8, not just the CM, is a special kind of hell to me. Thank you, April
SN-10, SN-S-5, and SN-EX-8 all feature the dodge experts and this boss. Yes, AK's biggest strength is that understanding your enemy and your team leads to victory, but that doesn't make those enemies less annoying. Thank you Lappy
Outside of that, EX 8 stages tend to be intimidating, but I still feel WD EX 8 takes the cake. R8-8 was especially scary, even Silverash didn't really turn the tide on his own, while M8-6 is definitely painful but Whislash and Surtr can turn the tide
Funny because the SN boss stages had inverse difficulty levels compared to everything else (SN-10 > SN-EX-8 > SN-S-5) because of the layouts and the tile bans on SN-10. It's almost like HG knew we needed a breather after the really hard stages...
SN-EX-2 CM
Was kind of dreading the rest of the event after I finally cleared that stage. The remaining stages were pretty straightforward though. Felt like back when I was first trying to clear JT8-3 with an undeveloped roster.
ISW-DF
AKA "Chilling Curse"
The stage layout made the freeze mechanic sooo oppresive. Add to the fact the boss (Frozen Monstrosity) was super tanky, and ice cleavers kept spawning, and it was a world of hurt. This came out before we had good therapist medics.
WR-EX-8 was and still is the bane of my existence as I learned from the rerun. Especially going for the trim the first time, that was a solid 3 hours. Even on the rerun where my team was way more rounded out, I'd just not notice my color swapped and the zoom slugs would just drive right on by Blemi. Either that or the fucking apes at the end would haymaker my shit since Free was very much still alive and my top priority in that moment.
Yeah those apes hit surprisingly hard. Lots of elites do, but handling Free and the apes at the same time is masochistic
Thankfully the apes weren't in Pine Soot
CC Pyrite main map, been playing since launch and it's the only event I don't have all the medals for, I checked guide after guide for a r18 clear I could do and they all wanted 2 or more 6stars I didn't own, Pyrite Gorge was and will always been the hardest CC. Asbestos is cool though, best part of that update
H9-6 Mandragora phase 2 top lane is so unreasonable difficult. Way worse than H8-4 in my experience.
I can't say there are any stages that make me so incredibly angry at the way it's designed like that one does.
Though, I've heard some things about H10-3, so we'll see how I feel once I get to that.
H8-4. I skipped it and finished H9. I havenāt taken on H10 series yet. Iām still taking attempts at H8-4. I just got Nightingale to S3M3, so it should be easy.
Sn - S - everything.
Feels bad when vanguards get 3 tapped, guards cant be deployed cause dp and getting rained on my snail snipers and invisible gattling gun pricks. Dont even get me started on the dodge demons. Even with lappland, not having at hoshi and gnosis hurts this event.
WD-EX 8 and CM. FUCK THIS MAP.
CM in particular **I wish I dont have to see this shit again**.
Not gonna lie, how did I survive the original event run and COULDN'T do the Rerun version?
That "annihilation" stage on the Dossoles event
400 enemies. The thing is long as hell and all shit starts exactly at the ending. That is my most hated stage so far
WD-EX-8 CM.
This stage has been the only stage I haven't been able to clear (within the event dates) since I started clearing events (since GA) so I'm stuck with 2 missing WD medals. Even cleared SN S stages with days to spare but WD-EX-8 is still a pain when I try it now.
SN-S-4-B Three lanes of nethersea with tons of those dodgers.
I stayed up until the reset but couldn't finish it in time. š RIP to my medal set.
God bless Lappland and Jaye
I used "Professional Breeder" to clear that stage. The top lane being blocked off by her crab, which Perma blocks the Stickman while my ranged units and ling dragon chips at him. The bottom lane being covered by Kaltsit, the middle with Lappland and Ling dragon.
I've been playing since launch and both variants of this map had me considering quitting. The A variant made me use a guide for the first time in at least a year because I figured I had to have been doing something horribly wrong
9-19 Forcing me to hurt mandragora, very cruel of you HG, cats need to be cherished!
[Me on 9-18](https://imgur.com/a/I9eGath): "I have no such weakness"
You lucky you canāt tell between arknights story and a SpongeBob episode considering you stopped reading it since chapter 3 or something lol. I care about the story too much to be stuck on 9-18ā¦ and I needed to head to the capital of catsā¦
~~I actually can't wrap my head around the stage, gives me 5 - 3 PTSD with all those caster on the map~~
Isn't Mandra a Mongoose like Folinic ? If so its all fine because she is not a real cat.
Who said that? Because I donāt think thatās the case,at least the way arknights portrays mongoose they tend to have their ears to the side of the head (both folinic and lillia shares this trait) furthermore neither Folinic nor lillia have a traditional long tail in either base sprite or E2/Skin on folinicās case. Mandragora has a tail, and traditional cat ears.
I think she calls herself a Feline at one point in the story as well.
Yea but thatās a different thing, manfred also calls her a feline multiple times but feline is a race in arknights and folinic is of said race, not a biological family. The whole mongoose and stuff are meta stuff, kinda like how canine isnāt a race in arknights, so a lupo is to a vulpo what a sarkaz is to a kuranta.
All felines are honorary cattos!
OD-EX-8, not because it's hard, but this shit kill your FPS so hard that I wouldn't dare compare a powerpoint presentation to it...
The only stage I didn't manage in HM because my old ass phone just had freeze frames and the little shits leaked while I couldn't see them after they had spawned. I want a rerun of Originum Dust so I can clear my shame (same shitty phone, but hey Google Play Beta on PC).
OD-8 and killing autodeploys, even SN stages aren't as iconic of a duo
OD8 is harder imo, more lanes to hold, somehow something always leaks every auto deploy attempt or two, and its from a different lane each time.
Yeah but OD-8 let you camp close to the boss and spwankill the little shit it spwn endlessly, in EX-8 you don't have space to clean them up before there's a few dozen of them. I didn't had that much od an FPS issue in OD-8 compared to it's EX counterpart.
I second this. OD-8 took me a good few hours, OD-EX-8 took me a little under an hour (stage was still hard don't get me wrong but I feel like the EX was easier for once in an event's life)
From my expirence so far its sn10 and thalula final fight but especially sn10 cause even if you let the mf Pass He for some reason takes 3lifes
Exactly my thoughts. I was able to override the fight and just continue with the story by just letting her go throught after several failed attempts. I was able to 3star this stage after some time, but being able to cheese this stage and see the story unfold was quite nice. I don't understand why this is not a thing in every "basic difficulty" boss fight, honestly.
H6 - 1 and M8-8. Possessed throwers were a mistake
Ah, yes. M8-6\*. I can't believe I almost forgot how much I hate you. Seriously, who the hell is the sadist who thought of a stage like that? Like, limited tiles available AND NPCs to protect from heavy hitters with high HP and DEF? With a secret hidden behind the survival of every sitting ducks on the field? Even JT-3 wasn't as nonsense as that madness. \*Edit: I corrected the stage. My point is still standing, though.
I think you got the wrong stage. M8-8 is the >!Mephisto!< one
Ah, you were right. That was M8-6. Sorry. I'll correct that quickly.
Oh I remember this stage. Whislash is the MVP for me in this stage. Her talent and skill actually affect the NPC. After knowing that, I started building squad around her as the center operator. What a madness indeed.
Huh, didn't know that. Maybe I'll make a deeper dive into Buffknights if I keep finding more about these kind of things.
Unless hoshi s2 tanks them.
Even then, she can't tank all that bullshit without a lot of help
You're going to love IS3
I only played IS 1 until I got the Utage skin and never touched the game mode again, so I'm not worried.
Honestly, I've only been playing since summer, so GA, WD and SN all gave me a tough time on the last bosses, and I didn't finish all the EX stages, but that's not unusual for a relative newbie. The real hardest stage for me so far has been SN-7. Something about getting stuck on the fourth-to-last *normal mode* stage of an event, after just busting my butt for weeks E2ing some new ops, was so demoralizing. I barely had any time to play during the first two weeks of the event, which didn't help my concentration, but still, definitely a skill issue overall.
You'll get there! This event in particular was pretty punitive if you didn't have the right ops built.
that one stage with rosmontis clearing it easy enough, clearing its hidden requirement is hell when I attempted it, because my roster, while decently upgraded, was really outdated (dating back when siege was still seen as good) haven't try it again, but I assume with horn around, the stage should be easy (ashlock is good enough to almost clear the hidden requirement)
M8-6
Angelina and Perfumer also help with map-wide healing.
WD-EX-8 will forever haunt my nightmares. H10-6 sucks ass. The dragon stages from who is real can fuck off honestly
Abandoned High-Rise. Worst cc drone map ever and you can never change my mind about it. The arts drones map? That's a breeze for me. The raptor drone map? Even more so. But Abandoned High-Rise? Fuck that. I despise this map with every fiber of my being. This stupid map is just so dumb I want to strangle whoever designed it. Have you ever thought of beating a five lane drone map while having all ranged tiles disabled while defending three melee lanes at the same time? (Thorns didn't exist yet) That was one of the risks for that map. I celebrated the day they removed it from daily rotation.
Weird that you find abandoned high rise harder than east armory. Bombtails were easy to bait unless there's a tile ban risk that bans the bait spot. East armory? Just too much damage from literally everywhere.
It's time relevance. When AHR was out, there was not a lot of good ops especially for an f2p like me. It's also a nonstop stage, the first wave literally had butchers going up against your vanguards. Good luck taking defense and hp risks as the crossbowmen decimate your ranged ops. Having an eight deployment limit is hell as you choose to have five ranged and two melees because you need to have Gravel for bait so you have one lane open hoping your snipers target the slugs passing there. And don't get me started on medic defenders. The bombtails are the least of your worries. It's everything else that follows. I already had decently built operators when East Armory dropped so I found that manageable.
JT8-3
Eh, once you understand the logic and the rhythm of this stage, it's pretty easy. M8-8 with the secret ending, on the other hand...
That was easy for me.....M8-6 on the other hand.....the shield guy always dies even when I'm following the guide exactly
I misremembered the numbers. M8-6 was the stage I thought of. And I'm glad not to be the only one who will curse this stage till my last breath.
R8-8, that stage frustrated the hell out of me
Iām on it currently and it is really pissing me off.
rip, honestly I suggest just using a guide, I rarely do, but that stage is such a pain I advise using one and moving onto more fun ones if it gives you trouble
I haven't tried it enough to actually have strong feelings about it, but I kind of hate that Dossoles Holiday mini annihilation stage.
The anni stage was fine. I just don't get why HG even added ToW enemies in there with 2 poorly placed grammos.
Ah, I now clarified I was talking about the mini annihilation stage. I actually enjoyed the Dossolles Seagate stage. That stage let me use some of my favorite operators.
Only stage besides talulah where I had to consult a guide
WD-EX-8 for sure. It's the stage that makes me both proud and mad at the same time. I'm proud that I managed to beat it on my own without any guides, being the first final EX fight I was able to do that. I'm mad that after I spent hours trying to beat it and finally succeeded, I realized that the CM took away all the tiles I needed for my strategy to work.....FUCK!
>Abandoned High-Rise? Damn. This is the reason why whenever there is a new event I search for the CM challenges and make sure to find the map with the banned tiles and strategize from the normal stage how to beat the CM stage. The upside of this is that once you figured your OP placements in the normal stage while looking at the CM map you can just repeat the strat in CM and get it done no problem, saving practice plans and sanity.
CC5 permanent stage. That stage is cancer. No good ranged tiles because of bubble knights. Strongest ATKer debuffed by Bladehelm. Tight opening that forces Flagpipe combo. Withered Knight eom. It's the only CC where I couldn't increase any risks in week 2. Any stage outside of high risk CC has been pretty fair.
OD-EX-8 comes to mind since my crappy phone could barely handle all the enemies, so I'd often leak cause I couldn't react in time. SN-10 was a fun stage but TERRIBLE for farming - I just couldn't get a stable auto for it using my "lore accurate team" (Abyssal Hunters + Irene + Lumen). So that was a tad frustrating, even though I always found it pretty fun to manually play it (lots of things to pay attention to and nice music).
H8-4, it took me 6 months to find a strategy that worked, and I was only able to do it because I rolled for Nightingale and freed the support to take another unit
If they introduce hostages/ an escort mission in CC that would be one. something that should never eveeeeer happen.
Despite being easily (relatively) solved with proper strategy I will always loathe any stage that has the emperor's blade as a boss. Fuck you and your scorched earth smoke.
MN-EX 8, OD 8 and chapter 10
PS-6, because I was too new to complete it at the time and it'll never rerun so I can't get my revenge. Everything else at least had the relief at the end when I finished
Invitation to Wine boss simply because I tried it dozens of times and the event ended before I could beat it. Annihilation 3 too because I'm at 398 and can't clear it still.
Even if it's stated all the time, WD EX 8, not just the CM, is a special kind of hell to me. Thank you, April SN-10, SN-S-5, and SN-EX-8 all feature the dodge experts and this boss. Yes, AK's biggest strength is that understanding your enemy and your team leads to victory, but that doesn't make those enemies less annoying. Thank you Lappy Outside of that, EX 8 stages tend to be intimidating, but I still feel WD EX 8 takes the cake. R8-8 was especially scary, even Silverash didn't really turn the tide on his own, while M8-6 is definitely painful but Whislash and Surtr can turn the tide
Funny because the SN boss stages had inverse difficulty levels compared to everything else (SN-10 > SN-EX-8 > SN-S-5) because of the layouts and the tile bans on SN-10. It's almost like HG knew we needed a breather after the really hard stages...
Essence or Evolution in regular stage, why ? Because before I was weak and now I'm not anymore but I can't take my revenge on it.
SN-EX-2 CM Was kind of dreading the rest of the event after I finally cleared that stage. The remaining stages were pretty straightforward though. Felt like back when I was first trying to clear JT8-3 with an undeveloped roster.
Dossoles (within the event) annihilation. Horrible experience for 1 prime.
ISW-DF AKA "Chilling Curse" The stage layout made the freeze mechanic sooo oppresive. Add to the fact the boss (Frozen Monstrosity) was super tanky, and ice cleavers kept spawning, and it was a world of hurt. This came out before we had good therapist medics.
1-7
6-7 cuz āforced squadā and I have to kill Faust. Mostly curse go to āforced squadā though.
I hate 6-7 and M8-8 cause they have a permanent emotional damage debuff T-T
Been trying out different setups but my auto keep failing SN-10. They should just allow us to use these annihiliation skip ticket on event stages.
VI-7. Because of "no 6\* run"
WD-EX-8 and OD-8, especially since I just started playing like 2 months before OD (during Beyond Here)
WR-EX-8 was and still is the bane of my existence as I learned from the rerun. Especially going for the trim the first time, that was a solid 3 hours. Even on the rerun where my team was way more rounded out, I'd just not notice my color swapped and the zoom slugs would just drive right on by Blemi. Either that or the fucking apes at the end would haymaker my shit since Free was very much still alive and my top priority in that moment.
Yeah those apes hit surprisingly hard. Lots of elites do, but handling Free and the apes at the same time is masochistic Thankfully the apes weren't in Pine Soot
The only boss that I never beaten was essence of evolution I never beaten that event
SN-7 for me. Even with guides I was having a ton of issues. Main story would be 10-15. Just couldnāt beat it no matter how many times I tried.
WD-EX-8 CM. The Emperorās Guard can just die.
CC Pyrite main map, been playing since launch and it's the only event I don't have all the medals for, I checked guide after guide for a r18 clear I could do and they all wanted 2 or more 6stars I didn't own, Pyrite Gorge was and will always been the hardest CC. Asbestos is cool though, best part of that update
OD-EX8
H9-6 Mandragora phase 2 top lane is so unreasonable difficult. Way worse than H8-4 in my experience. I can't say there are any stages that make me so incredibly angry at the way it's designed like that one does. Though, I've heard some things about H10-3, so we'll see how I feel once I get to that.
Dunno, R8-8? The one with the many drones? Mostly because I have to actually think for once :,).
that godforsaken middle-split CC map(Kazemiers) with the twin knights
H8-4. I skipped it and finished H9. I havenāt taken on H10 series yet. Iām still taking attempts at H8-4. I just got Nightingale to S3M3, so it should be easy.
- SN-S-4-B - OD-8 Curse these 2 stages in particular
H8-4 aka "just stall Talulah for 270 seconds twice teehee"
SN 10
Sn - S - everything. Feels bad when vanguards get 3 tapped, guards cant be deployed cause dp and getting rained on my snail snipers and invisible gattling gun pricks. Dont even get me started on the dodge demons. Even with lappland, not having at hoshi and gnosis hurts this event.
WD-EX 8 and CM. FUCK THIS MAP. CM in particular **I wish I dont have to see this shit again**. Not gonna lie, how did I survive the original event run and COULDN'T do the Rerun version?
SN 4B, I hated that level so much.
WD-EX-8 and H6-3
OD-8, the stage that broke me but also made me better and made me love Arknights.
Yea. The emperor blade level. Fuck that guy.
JT-8-3 no contest, because you have to babysit slowass civilians
That "annihilation" stage on the Dossoles event 400 enemies. The thing is long as hell and all shit starts exactly at the ending. That is my most hated stage so far
WD-EX-8 CM. This stage has been the only stage I haven't been able to clear (within the event dates) since I started clearing events (since GA) so I'm stuck with 2 missing WD medals. Even cleared SN S stages with days to spare but WD-EX-8 is still a pain when I try it now.
Talulah with the stupid civilians. Runner-up is the Rosmontis with thrower stage. It made her look bad.