The Heliophage, or Rendain's freefalling lessons for the Battleborn (rant)

Is there a scaling issue depending on how many players you have? I’ve completed it twice, first with just me and another and we got a bronze, second time was with a group of 3 total and we nabbed a gold. Both were tricky but didn’t seem unmanageable.
Tried with a full group and were decimated by the adds before we really made a dent. I certainly wasn’t prepared for the difference in numbers making such a difference.

My favourite subject :wink:

In my experience 2-3 people is the best balance, 5 person is hardest. Solo kinda depends on the character/mission. I’d say this is valid for any mission, but this one even more so.

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It does work for melee characters. Rendain will follow you. Although, if you are soloing him, I wouldn’t recommend melee for him. Or any mission, for that matter.

Except you really have to play through it with melee characters :confused: (Though this can be ignored if you just want to get the mission done)

Yup, and there really is a difference whether playing it solo, with a 2/3 people team or a full party.

The first two cases, I managed, though we didn’t go over Bronze rank. The number of Thralls really get ludicrous only with a full party.

I have soloed all the missions with Boldur at least once, apart from a few annoying moments it was fun.

Heliophage I just sat in the middle island and tanked it out, got knocked off the edge quite a few times, it wasn’t hard, just a pain with knock back and a bit of a slog, fight took 20 mins I think.

Sentinel was annoying, all 3 bosses are so tall you can barely reach the vulnerable spot, you have to be in front of them and they have some slow but powerful frontal attacks, also knock back was annoying, I just couldn’t get to the point where I could predict it.

ISIC’s floating head moment on algorithm, was pretty lame too.

Thanks.

I did it with Galilea solo on advanced pre-nerf(to unlock Deande early) so it’s definitely doable with melee. Then again Galilea isn’t your average melee character.

Yeah, all that DoT is definitely helpful.

Yeah, El Dragon is way squishier than Gal, even post-nerf ^^'
Though I managed it with melee characters before. In fact, I think I only ever completed it with Rath and Dragon, soooo…

Tried it on advanced, with Caldarius due to all the comments here, emphasizing the need for a movement skill. Failed horribly, though.

Then I realized that trying the final mission, you need to rely more an knowing your character. So I switched back to my main (Galilea) and beat it on first try. Even got Silver.

And before anyone feels the need to further point out her supposed OPness, that doesn’t do anything to help you getting knocked off the Platforms.

So my advice for all still struggling with this mission (especially on Advanced): Don’t settle for an ‘utility’ char to do it. Do what you do best and ALWAYS keep your back to a wall.
That’s basically all you can do to suceed.

I was a 11000 health kelvin and I still died over and over again, without even loosing a fourth of my health. He needs a damage buff and less knockback.

I managed it my first time with Rath solo (don’t ask me how. I don’t know… and I got the lore too!). I didn’t even know about staying off the middle platform.

That said, I agree that the knockbacks need to be nerfed, or at least give more save spots because the number one cause of death is falling into the abyss for me.

I did it solo with galilea on advanced and won Np but I did die 3 times. In hardcore mode I could see this being very very difficult. And with a team everything is stronger.

Was able to solo advanced with Thorn. I’ve run it with buddies multiple times and failed on Rendain during the add spawns on advanced.

Advanced, solo with ISIC. Got a gold (Rather easy to get gold on advanced due to having 6 boss fights honestly). Did normal with Rath, mainly for his lore mission but still beat Rendain anyway, so strat works for melee.

Basically he spawns thralls, I would run around the entire map, non stop, until I had killed them all. This is so they’re never in your way if you have to run to regen or something, rendain can deal a ton of damage but he is still melee so kiting around the 3 platforms is quite viable.

Then focus him, on a side platform, until he spawned the dreadwind blades. Then I’d change to another platform.

At this point the pattern usually repeated.

Always attempt to keep him between you and the middle platform as all the side ones have back walls to foil knockback.

All the lives dropped by the boss rush help, especially getting twice as many on advanced.

In general, it seems 3 is the perfect number for usefulness of teammates/extra guns versus scaling of the enemies. I am a bit disappointed the game discourages 5 player play through this mechanic.

Luckily you can unlock Deande and Gahlt from just leveling up as well, but I would have to agree I did complete the Heliophage twice, once by myself and got a bronze, second time with a group of five and got a gold. BUT, tried it again and i swear it is harder than Advance (which still didn’t complete) but was able to get much farther now in advance than normal and i wouldn’t say it was because of Rendain, but more so the TRASH MOBS. there are so many that if just ONE person dies. dont even think about trying to rez them because then it’s a domino effect and you are all dead. I swear they buffed the difficulty on it or something.

I haven’t tried it on solo advanced as Attikus but he roflstomps normal solo. I think I had an easier time with him than Galilea.

There’s multiple threads of this same rant. I come in to every one just to say… Put your back to a wall. I’ve run this mission so many times, and literally never lost…