I know I’ll probably have many of you fine players disagreeing with me, but after a very disappointing cata run, I have to say that the single thing I hate more than anything in this game is the Rasknitt boss fight.
I dislike that the way it’s designed pushes you to a strategy - more or less splitting up to the four corners to keep Rasknitt from attacking and spawning enemies - that it’s the opposite of what this game usually rewards - sticking together and helping each other.
So it’s very easy to get overwhelmed if some mistake is made. I’ve just had a cata run (it was insta-death, which didn’t help, but considering how the fight makes incredibly hard to pull off resses, it probably didn’t change much) where it took us 22 minutes to get to the boss fight, and after almost as much time (39.5 min) we were still there and died. We lacked a bit of dps, but we managed to handle most of the fight well, got rasknitt down to 25% health and even managed to turn the fight upside down when it looked like we lost it.
But this level really punishes mistakes. We pulled off some incredible saves, where only 1 player was left alive against a room full of enemies, and waves of monks and SVs and rasknitt’s shooting notwithstanding we pulled ress after ress. But the fight keeps getting harder with time.
My suggestion would be to limit this feedback, putting a hard cap on the max amount of enemies that can be spawned at the same time - or even at all, after all a 20 min bossfight is bull****.
Having less DPS should make a fight longer and riskier, not borderline impossible. This is expecially an issue playing QP, as usual. I know I’m gonna skippergate for a while…
TLDR: I hate how this bossfight makes your party split up. But more than that: while being easier to play than convocation of decay, it’s got the same problem: enemies keep piling up, so saving the team to keep fighting is not really feasible. In both maps interrupting the ritual and staggering rasknitt is the only way to go, fail at that and you are quite likely screwed.
I suggest to modify the spawn of enemies so there’s more room to play.
Just stop rasknitts sparkly spell from interrupting res. I can fight off a bunch of enemies but if you’re on your own without stealth it’s a mission to res someone when you keep getting interrupted by the damn spell.
Well, actually it a kind of a quirk that makes this battle a bit more challenging in a good way because it forces you to:
Try to help your mates so they don’t die off and leave you alone, or
Use stealth or
Use bombs to procure a time window for a revive or
Use revive speed boost or
Play as Bloody Battering Ram and use the Res+Ult trick.
What I mean is - it’s not at all like the damn Enchanter’s final phase - it allows a bit more room to use your skill and/or your supplies. And it’s a final boss fight.
I know how it works, but it’s just that. And his spells are the least of your worries when he keeps spawning enemies. If it goes downhill there’s almost no getting back.
I watched a player kite his spell and 9 berserkers plus a wave of SVs and rats, and while he was ressing 3 more berserkers spawn, and there’s no time to thin the wave because rasknitt has to be interrupted or he’ll keep spawining.
It’s a map I have completed countless times - on cata too - but the way it’s designed means you either do it perfectly or you are screwed. There’s very little margin, because of the endless spawns.
You should be able to pull of a ress without getting punished for it.
Indeed now that you mention it, seer ratty fight spawns really do get out of hand easily and especially so given that enemies still spawn and attack without any sound at times.
I mean come on, how am i supposed to stick in my corner and shoot at him for DPS if i have to check behind me every few seconds to ensure nothing is spawning there? 2 clanrats stabs and a ranged specialist dies!
And lets also mention this thing about 2 shieldvermin, clanrats and 3+monks spawning a the same time too, silently at that.
I totally agree. However he’s the “final boss” so it’s ok to fail imho.
I don’t think there’d be any cap.
The discussion is the same as in CoD thread - be aware, be vigilant, kill rats - you will succeed!
One tip for controlling him: if you shoot him he’ll stagger and won’t pester you with his attacks.
The strategy is dull, because it forces you to chase a boss that continuously run away from you (or directly push you away with an insta-180°-attack) during the first phase; and it forces you to separate from your mates during the second phase;
It’s super frustrating because all fight long you are under a magical bullets rain, dodge is a mess and revive a mate is even worse;
You need the perfect team + RNG. Sometimes the bossfight is still boring but at least enough fair… other times, as you said, there is an infinite number of SVs and Monks. A relentless and implacable spawn. You almost need the perfect team both as careers pick and players’ ability… wich makes this map is QP even more RNG.
The boss is perfect in its actual state because it forces you to communicate with your team so everyone stands in a corner and pull their weight on the enemy clearing quota, one person not doing their job means the entire place gets filled with trash (and sometimes armored/plague)
Just camp in a corner at the second phase and sugest your team members to do the same.
I’m aware of how the strategy works, but the problem is that
1)
It’s quite hard to communicate with a public game, expecially once things turn sour.
except on the highest difficulties the trash would be stormvermins (even with shields) and berserkers, oh so many berserkers.
It gets more problematic than it sounds if you got the map via qp, because you might lack some firepower. In the cata map I last had we were all veterans of the game, but our team composition - which btw was enough to breeze through the map - couldn’t do enough damage, after almost 20 min of bossfight we died because the spawns got worse and worse, with no opportunity to stagger rasknitt after a certain threshold.
In short: it’s doable, but hell on QP. And at least the spawns should slow or stop or hit a cap or it’s impossible to save the game with skill alone.
First of all, the strat where 1 person stands in each corner is only doable if everyone has AP weapons.
If you all stand in each corner and someone doesn’t know how to handle stormvermins/plague monks/berserkers or they couldn’t kill them all while they were entering the arena, the best thing they can do is tag the elites and survive until someone is done cleaning their corner to come help. This also brings a new problem, everyone could leave their corner to come help and now you’re all surrounded. This map does need coordination and communication if you’re playing with random players which makes it frustrating.
All in all, no matter what you do, it is brutal in QuickPlay. The last time I got Skittergate in Legend QP, I was left all alone because my team wanted to stand by the gate and they all got squished by the stormvermin wave.
We would have won if the host actually waited 2 minutes for me to get them back up but he decided the game was over and quit.
You wouldn’t believe how many times that happens. Skittergate should be renamed to Quittergate.
The problem with the rasknit fight is that there are element that are directly counterintuitive to the rest of the game´s gameplay or actually straight up unfair. For instance how it forces you to split up which is only mildly off all the way to multiple monks spawning, running up and then attacking with 0 warning being horrifyingly unfair given they´ll not only down you but also kill you in 2 seconds flat if unlucky.
Similarly the issue with CoD is not awareness, enemies can pop out behind you are any time be they elites, packmasters, flamerats or even assassins and give 0 warning. And you are forced to sit in this area that enables and enhances this for if you leave progress in clearing steadily gets reversed.
This isnt particularly fair for ranged specialsts who die in 2 hits from a slaverat or even melee ones who are the ones hit the worst when 3 stormvermin pop out around them with a packmasters hiding behind those and is impossible to shoot. No other event forces that kind of crap on you.
You don’t need to split up technically. You can run in a group of four if you keep him staggered on distance with ranged weapons although that a bit annoying of strategy. Still works though. In this scenario ranged characters have the upper hand.
What works pretty well is splitting up in pairs of two running up and down on the left and right flank. Due to the “Z”-teleportation pattern this is doable quite easy. You run less risk of being overwhelmed, have always someone at the side to engage enemies while one person bullies the seer. This can also be done with two people alone. As long as you are not alone in the fight, recovering isnt that much of an issue. It only goes downhill if a player is the last standing. But then mistakes have been made prior.
The strategy sounds good but isnt it aimed at the the phase after rattler’s died? I´d say that the fight encourages splitting even during his fight since he has multiple knockbacks, charges and the need to deal with some spawns ASAP.
Like monks for instance.
And you also dont want to stand infront of him with his target since his gun and charges are deadly.
Additionally it carries the danger that if enemies spawn in 2 corners on the same side simultaneously then it will cause enemies to split up and spread out or hit one pair from behind.Getting hit from behind doesnt become less deadly just because you´ve a friend nearby unless it happens to be one or another Kruber edition!
Count me in among those who think that the Skittergate level is good as it is. While it can be polished I find that the two warrior bosses, Bödvarr and in particular Skarrick, needs far more work to stand against the players than Rasknitt needs to have his fight nerfed.
And there are other areas that could use more work than this level.
IMHO, the main problem with this finale comes from so many players failing to understand how it works* once Rasknitt’s pet dies. In addition, at that point the recovery becomes very hard when even just one player falls, with some careers having almost no chance to resurrect due to the amount of shielded SVs and berserkers.
In more than one cata/legend game I was literally the only one trying to stop Rasknitt from casting.
This definitely works especially if at least 1 person in each group has an AP weapon for the elites or a decent ranged weapon. You just have to move together and have each other’s backs.
If you’re in a group that can handle a group of enemies by themselves then the 1 person in each corner makes the last fight go by faster.
Just whatever you do, don’t fight in the center or run to Rasknitt after each time he teleports. You’ll just make the run longer and get backstabbed often.
Regardless of difficulty I will say that the second phase of the fight is not designed well.
If everyone can hold their corner vs the random sv and monks it can run very smoothly and is more boring than anything else. However if some players cannot hold their end and start downing, or letting ads into the centre of the arena it forces everyone else to try res/control the ads allowing Rasknitt to go on a massive summoning spree. At this stage most/all of the weaker players on the team will die and you will have a lot of trouble bringing things back because of lightning attack spam interrupting revive.
Everything in the design of phase two leans towards either easy or snowballing to very hard. Another issue is that it is really not obvious to newer players that you need to stagger Rasknitt as there is very little indication he is responsible for spawning ads. In general I don’t think it’s great design for something to be very hard, unless you know a singular strategy and it becomes fairly easy.
It would be a better, more consistent experience if Rasknitt casting and ad spawning weren’t so strongly linked. This way there would still be an element of challenge when people try to smother him with 4 corner method, but it wouldn’t go so disastrously when you are forced to let off the pressure and deal with ads/res someone. Also it wouldn’t be quite as unfair to newer players who don’t pass the knowledge check of the four corner strat.
