Lies of P - Catch All

King Flame was a lot more manageable for me with the fire resistance frame that the mini boss right before him drops (I ran pst that guy a few times.)

I think the other optional boss is good to get too for the drop!

Mr Crinkle wrote:

NG+ was just an unmitigated delight, due to the availability of an amulet that prevents all "tier 1" status effects from occurring at all and your P-organ collection getting positively silly, plus a "perfect guard restores durability" ability so you don't ever have to worry about grinding your weapon again. It's just a nonstop dopamine feed to absolutely tear through every zone and boss without breaking a sweat, while ergo rains from the sky like water.

I had no idea NG+ had extra goodies like that. I will definitely have to give that a go before the DLC.

I also struggled most with the Swamp Boss. Screw that thing indeed.

Crawley wrote:

This is really a different animal with the blocking mechanic. To benefit from it, particularly in boss battles, you need to time the block perfectly - which I am just not able to do.

Blocking is definitely emphasized, but you really only need to block the fury attacks perfectly, or just dodge them. You can safely block most attacks with normal blocks as long as you're getting a few perfect blocks along the way, particularly once you get P-organ upgrades to get guard regain health back from parries.

If you haven't already figured this out, a good approach to parrying is to time your blocks as perfect parries, but hold the button until the next attack rather than simply tapping it. This will let you block attacks that you tried to parry too early.

Crawley wrote:

I may have made a mistake with Lies of P by choosing a dexterity class when I really should have chosen the heavy weapons or balanced one. I'm hoping I can trade up to a much more damage prone weapon than what I got sooner rather than later.

Try a blade with high block value if you haven't yet. I tried a low block value blade for my second run, and I was having a significantly more difficult time than I did in my initial motivity playthrough with the wrench. You should be able to use a high block value blade with a dexterity handle without issue. You will be able to respec before too long if you want to try motivity instead.

Thanks for the tips.

Yeah, I'm still moving through the game. I'm focusing more on dodging now, and just unlocked an extra dodge via the p-organ upgrade. I do block from time-to-time still and am gaining back more health if I do. But I'm finding mixing in a block (not perfect) with a bunch of dodges in-between the next block works well. By then I usually have my health back from attacking.

But I'm never going to time the perfect block right. It happens of course but rarely. And I get myself in trouble quick if I go into a fight thinking to attempt perfect blocks all the time.

Leveling seems a bit odd. It's like you peak in stats pretty quickly where the gains for leveling up are insignificant. I haven't upgraded Technique in a while since I think it gives me maybe 2 extra points of damage. I'm just upgrading whatever is giving me the biggest boost - even if I want to upgrade a different stat.

In the Cathedral area now. Had a dumb death to a giant electrified ball rolling over me after I got turned around for a second. That'll do it for the night.

Dyni wrote:

I had no idea NG+ had extra goodies like that.

Well, that particular one is one of the two things you can make from the last boss, so it's technically available in NG but there's nothing really to do with it until NG+. Fortunately if you didn't build it in NG you can assemble it early in NG+, as long as you didn't use the reward on building the weapon.

Crawley wrote:

Leveling seems a bit odd. It's like you peak in stats pretty quickly where the gains for leveling up are insignificant. I haven't upgraded Technique in a while since I think it gives me maybe 2 extra points of damage. I'm just upgrading whatever is giving me the biggest boost - even if I want to upgrade a different stat.

Maybe a bit sooner than similar titles, but probably not as much as you're thinking right now. You'll be badly wanting more capacity through your entire first playthrough, and weapon boost stat soft caps I think were 40 but not sure on my memory there. Vigor is the only stat that quickly falls to trivial returns. Also if you have something like a double C handle...obviously the impact of a single stat put into one of those Cs is going to be much lower than if you crank something to a single-stat A handle.

Capacity is the MVP stat here for sure. I coasted my health and stamina stats to 20 and now I'm just dumping points into my damage stat and capacity for the foreseeable future.

Hitting a bit of a brick wall with the Walker of Illusion. Really need to get down the perfect block with her and I just gave up on it as I could never get the timing right. So have been dodging attacks this entire time, which has worked out fine. But she doesn't allow you space for more than a second or two. So dodging isn't doing it.

Boss battles, after the first few, have been pretty easy up to this point. Particularly when you call a Specter to join. But for this fight you can't call one.

Weapon choice doesn't seem to be helping. Tried both my trusty quick Winter Rapier +9 (forgot what the handle was) and the Two Dragons Sword +4 which is also quick. But without the perfect block those are not helping and not dealing out enough damage. Also tried the Puppet Ripper +4 but its too slow - although good when an illusion does appear.

I'm sure I'll get it eventually but pretty frustrating to go from plugging along at a nice pace along to a dead stop. Particularly so far into the game.

If I remember correctly that was one you can actually run away from if you need to. That said it's dangerous. I used the dragon sword at that point like you, but I rarely dodge mostly blocked. Getting behind her from the right side worked as well I think.

Oh and at this point you can respec points and skill if needed I think. Being able to use fire element buff twice is great for this sort of thing.

Getting behind her was a good tip. I've gotten her down to a sliver of health just dodging in behind her and attacking. But so far no luck actually defeating her.

I get a few good runs at her and then she just destroys me till I quit for the night.

One of these nights I'll get her.

TheHarpoMarxist wrote:

I need to return to this for the final push. I got pretty far through and then distracted by Alan Wake 2, which I am nearly finished!

How are you liking Alan Wake?

Well, I got past her finally using the Puppet Ripper, which I didn't expect. But got it done. Then got stuck again on the Parade Master for a bit. Now I'm at, what I expect, is the final area.

They pretty much made the same mistake that the Lords of Fallen designers did in their game with their last real zone. The designers just decided to up the difficulty by throwing lots of monsters and mini-bosses at you constantly. It's just not fun gameplay. To make matters worse its sometimes-long periods of time in-between unlocking the next shortcut ladder to the save point. If that wasn't bad enough, they stick monsters in hiding that push you off ledges, or shoot from you from above, and other designer a-hole decisions.

I was pretty much ready for the game to wrap up by the time I got to this zone and now it's just a slog to the finish line. Exactly how Lords of the Fallen was. Not sure why game designers think this is a good idea.

In any case I'll finish it but after my umpteenth cheesy death from yet another mini-boss to appear right after defeating one I had to rant.

I had the same realization as you and I basically sprinted to the top. Ignoring all enemies and loot. It's not like I needed any xp at that point. And it's just so long. Most the enemies moved slowly so I could just outrun them. The boss at the top was so bad I chose to cheat to get through it too. That said I heard it got nerfed pretty hard after I did that. So yay for self justification. The bit after that though was excellent though.

93_confirmed wrote:
TheHarpoMarxist wrote:

I need to return to this for the final push. I got pretty far through and then distracted by Alan Wake 2, which I am nearly finished!

How are you liking Alan Wake?

Loved it. I think it knocks so many things out of the park. At the same time, I definitely don't think its for everyone, but I'm really glad it is for me.