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

Battleborn Battleborn Campaign Discussion
#1

So. The Heliophage. The final mission of the game. Climatic confrontation with Rendain on Tempest. Timed first part with lots and lots of powerful enemies. A difficult final boss who summons other bosses from the past missions to fight you. All in all, that’s why the Heliophage is : a badass final mission for a badass game whit badass players who play badass characters.

…Or not.

Because of two little, teensy mechanics, the mission becomes almost undoable when trying anything else than solo mode : I’m talking about the combination of the knocknack mechanics coupled with the whole “arena without ledges suspended over the Void” thing.

Every ■■■■■■■ attack of Rendain in the second phase either has for goal to knock you into an insta-kill fall, or to stun you for proceeding with said attack who knocks you into the fall, OR to summon more thralls than in the whole first part of the mission who will either knock you into the Void or distract you long enough for Rendain to knock you into the Void AGAIN.

Now, I get it : it’s the final boss. It’s supposed to be hard. I know this. But there is a difference between hard and “so unfair you throw your controller at your screen”. No matter how you’re built, no matter how skilled your team is, no matter how much time you spend in the mission, no matter how hard you want that last Silver rank to unlock Kleese (my case, BTW), Rendain will throw all of this alongside your miserable corpse into the Void.

This isn’t hard. It’s unfair : No other boss in the campaign are that unfair. You could buff Rendain’s damage and change the arena, and the boss fight would still be difficult, without being unfair.

Don’t get me wrong : you can win it. I did once. People did it too, or else I would see absolutely no Deande or Ghalt in multiplayer. But godamnit, I don’t want to spend 45 minutes of my life only for my team to lose 8 lives in three minutes after clearing everything else in the mission.

Devs, if you see this, I only ask of you this : Please, please, please, PLEASE, either change the arena, Reece the number of thralls summoned, reduce the knockback on the bosses attacks in this mission, or a mix of the three. I love this game, and it really sucks to lose the final boss fight in such a sad, laughable manner.

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#2

You suffer the same problem I used to have: You stay in the middle platform. It is suicide to be in the middle because as you said, Rendain will knock you off. However, if you go to the right platform (The one where the Conservator normally spawns. The icy platform) you will be pretty good. Yeah, the thralls kinda suck, BUT THAT IS THE POINT! If you can draw Rendain away from his million thralls, or kill the thralls while also distracting Rendain, it is easy. The Heliophage is a pretty easy map to complete, and I have done it many, many times. You just need to stay off the middle platform and kill the Thralls. If a teammate dies to the Thralls, don’t help them until the Thralls die. You will die yourself. Leave them be and let them use a life (which at this point, you should have 10-13).

Let me say it again: STAY OFF THE MIDDLE PLATFORM!

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#3

I’ve only done it once with a random team of 3. It was all our first time.

We beat Rendain. It wasn’t easy. I was playing as Shayne and a couple of the knock backs I was able to catch some of the floating jump pads.

#4

Staying in the middle, as said before by others already, equals suicide.

However, I wouldn’t mind seeing his knockback nerfed honestly.

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#5

Does this work for melee characters?

#6

[quote="PoeticNova, post:4, topic:1451935, full:true]However, I wouldn’t mind seeing his knockback nerfed honestly.
[/quote]

I think knock back could use some moderation throughout the game. All 3 bosses on Sentinel can be kinda sucky as Boldur.

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#7

But that’s the thing : I never stay on the middle platform unless I have to pass by it to kill the Conservator or Hylis’ guards.

The problem is that, even on the ice platform, which is indeed the safest to stay on, you’re not guaranteed to not be rags older to death by his twisting blades attacks. When he does that one, you basically need to change platforms, and it’s even worse when you have to go out of your way to go rescue fallen comrades.

And I never said the thralls were the problem, mind you, it’s their sheer numbers. When you already have trouble with three brutes on a normal map, fighting ten alongside Rendain in this arena is just insane. ESPECIALLY if you play melee, and this mission will not be enough to force me to ditch El Dragon. Nothing will.

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#8

Go up the stairs or down the stairs when he does that - the blades will not follow. And if you can’t do that, there were some boxes on the upper platform at least - jump on them. Every character should be able to do it. And the Lava on the back part cannot hurt you!

Though all of this is moot if the… Slow(?) he throws out at the start of that skill hits you and the very first blade hit throws you out into the void.
Overall the whole Rendain fight feels like a cheap way to make something challenging.
Not to mention how boring it actually is to not get any new bosses, but instead being forced to fight all the past ones. Sure it’s a cool Idea, but since the whole game has such a serious lack of enemy variety, it just does more harm than good.

#9

If what you just said work, then I will worship you as my savior until the last star darkens. Next time I try the mission, I will try this strategy.

#10

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.

#11

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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#12

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.

#13

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)

#14

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.

#15

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.

#16

Thanks.

#17

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.

#18

Yeah, all that DoT is definitely helpful.

#19

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…

#20

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.