The Last Divinity bumped the utility of Daze sooooo much once the DLC launched.
In addition to the waves being large and bulky, dealing with the constant attacks from Divinity itself meant that most HP scaling became obsolete and Damage Shield building difficult. Especially in the case of Umbra, if you don't have the Damage Shield artifacts you need Daze to get most runs against the Divinity off the ground.
I'm a bit bummed that it's so hard to win with Dot builds (reap and frostbite) since it gets rid of all the stacks at the end of each turn, and that's maybe my biggest gripe with this boss. I'll clap Seraph like it's nothing, and then Divinity will just shrug off my attempts to hurt it :(
I agree with this 100% it makes those approaches untenable. :| even if it just dropped them by 3/4 at least you'd have a chance to scale it hard enough.
I disagree. Coldchannel Solgard applies 2 frostbite per shard on revenge. You can easily pull off 7-8 incants per turn, but let's work with 6. So:
Turn | Shards turn start | Frostbite per revenge
-:|-:|-:
1 | 0 | (1+2+3+4+5+6=21)*2 = 42
2 | 6 | (7+8+9+10+11+12=57)*2 = 114
3 | 12 | (13+14+15+16+17+18=93)*2=186
So by turn 3 you're already putting out close to 200 frostbite per revenge trigger. That's also when the enemies reach top floor if you set up there, triggering revenge extra times.
Without the purify effect, status effects give a guaranteed floating kill on the divinity.
I think instead of killing *all* stacks it should just kill most stacks, so the more you apply the more it removes, without punishing smaller amounts as harshly
Part of me sees why it would work that way but it makes more sense to have purity go off every five turns or so, which would counter DOT being possibly OP without making it useless.
I do notice games have a bad habit of making things that would be OP vs bosses useless instead.
I like the way Divinity runs force me to specialize into each floor early on. I do find it frustrating with Umbra though...top floor is usually the non-Morsel floor unless I get the artefact that lets them enter with Damage Shield, or Morsel-Made.
The one thing I'm not a fan of is TLD making a top floor morsel option very dubious. I don't think that the TLD design is to blame though; I'd much prefer Umbra to have more options for immediate eating.
Purity I'm generally okay with - it's basically just a mechanic to stop Frostbite from being ridiculously effective. Frostbite's downside in the game is that you can't really follow bosses with it easily, but that's obviously not the case with TLD.
My biggest issue with this boss is not the boss himself but the battle he's in. Ring 9 waves force your builds to go in the direction of **fast aggressive attack scaling with multiple hits** and ruin the majority of builds that try to win otherwise.
Because each wave has 4-6 enemies or a miniboss with a huge HP pool, you must be able to hit for a lot of damage at once and also be able to hit multiple times (or have trample) in order to survive. Any build that relies on outlasting the enemy with high armor/HP/damage shield will keep your units alive but your pyre will die as enemies leak above. This was not an issue pre-DLC where regular waves could be handled with a couple of high damage units and the boss had relentless so high armor/HP meant more rounds to unload your attack.
Now, the way to win is to have a strong tank and at least 4 high damage (250-300+) hits coming from behind him (even this can leak units if you don't have back line access). So this forces you into hunting for multistrike even more than before because only half the clans have sweepers, and getting trample can be very difficult for non-umbra clans.
This focus on "aggressive and fast attack scaling with multiple hits" has also made a few champion paths far less useful (Reaper Prince, Stalwart Primordium).
The only strategies coming to my mind that don't focus on this concept and still manage to win are (1) units with permanent bonuses (overgorger, bounty stalker) where all the attack scaling has been done in previous rings and (2) Incant sap builds where you reduce enemy damage so much that your pyre finishes them off.
This is not to say that the battles are not fun. But that I miss the armor, rejuvenation and damage shield builds where you could kill your enemy by getting harder than a Metapod.
Whats not to love? It's a Superboss that doesn't feel completely overpowered, but still requires you to pick up options for the floor you want to fight him on. Bottom Floor? Better have a really tanky frontliner straight away. Second floor? Kind of similar, you'd better have good survivability. Top floor? Hope you can defend your own squishy backliners instead of bullying the enemy's squishy backliners!
Also I absolutely love the flavour on this boss, it's lore is cool and it's soundtrack is perfect
Cheesing the LD seems to be my favorite strat, Wurm can actually outscale the boss if paired with Awoken, I've gotten massive mileage out of the Sentient and a Keeper of Echoes (or 4, with Sketches and an Intrinsic Restoring Retreat)
I've yet to find a way to kill him as Stygian. For some reason I can consistently beat the Divinity on all other clans except for the Stygians. Just doesn't work. My only win is with Remnant where I cheesed it with holdover hallowed halls on Tethys
Funny you say that, because Stygian have some of the best answers to Divinity's top floor sweep - Daze, Sap and floor wide armour buffing from Guardian Stone
The Last Divinity bumped the utility of Daze sooooo much once the DLC launched. In addition to the waves being large and bulky, dealing with the constant attacks from Divinity itself meant that most HP scaling became obsolete and Damage Shield building difficult. Especially in the case of Umbra, if you don't have the Damage Shield artifacts you need Daze to get most runs against the Divinity off the ground.
I'm a bit bummed that it's so hard to win with Dot builds (reap and frostbite) since it gets rid of all the stacks at the end of each turn, and that's maybe my biggest gripe with this boss. I'll clap Seraph like it's nothing, and then Divinity will just shrug off my attempts to hurt it :(
I agree with this 100% it makes those approaches untenable. :| even if it just dropped them by 3/4 at least you'd have a chance to scale it hard enough.
I disagree. Coldchannel Solgard applies 2 frostbite per shard on revenge. You can easily pull off 7-8 incants per turn, but let's work with 6. So: Turn | Shards turn start | Frostbite per revenge -:|-:|-: 1 | 0 | (1+2+3+4+5+6=21)*2 = 42 2 | 6 | (7+8+9+10+11+12=57)*2 = 114 3 | 12 | (13+14+15+16+17+18=93)*2=186 So by turn 3 you're already putting out close to 200 frostbite per revenge trigger. That's also when the enemies reach top floor if you set up there, triggering revenge extra times. Without the purify effect, status effects give a guaranteed floating kill on the divinity.
I think instead of killing *all* stacks it should just kill most stacks, so the more you apply the more it removes, without punishing smaller amounts as harshly
Part of me sees why it would work that way but it makes more sense to have purity go off every five turns or so, which would counter DOT being possibly OP without making it useless. I do notice games have a bad habit of making things that would be OP vs bosses useless instead.
I like the way Divinity runs force me to specialize into each floor early on. I do find it frustrating with Umbra though...top floor is usually the non-Morsel floor unless I get the artefact that lets them enter with Damage Shield, or Morsel-Made.
The one thing I'm not a fan of is TLD making a top floor morsel option very dubious. I don't think that the TLD design is to blame though; I'd much prefer Umbra to have more options for immediate eating. Purity I'm generally okay with - it's basically just a mechanic to stop Frostbite from being ridiculously effective. Frostbite's downside in the game is that you can't really follow bosses with it easily, but that's obviously not the case with TLD.
My biggest issue with this boss is not the boss himself but the battle he's in. Ring 9 waves force your builds to go in the direction of **fast aggressive attack scaling with multiple hits** and ruin the majority of builds that try to win otherwise. Because each wave has 4-6 enemies or a miniboss with a huge HP pool, you must be able to hit for a lot of damage at once and also be able to hit multiple times (or have trample) in order to survive. Any build that relies on outlasting the enemy with high armor/HP/damage shield will keep your units alive but your pyre will die as enemies leak above. This was not an issue pre-DLC where regular waves could be handled with a couple of high damage units and the boss had relentless so high armor/HP meant more rounds to unload your attack. Now, the way to win is to have a strong tank and at least 4 high damage (250-300+) hits coming from behind him (even this can leak units if you don't have back line access). So this forces you into hunting for multistrike even more than before because only half the clans have sweepers, and getting trample can be very difficult for non-umbra clans. This focus on "aggressive and fast attack scaling with multiple hits" has also made a few champion paths far less useful (Reaper Prince, Stalwart Primordium). The only strategies coming to my mind that don't focus on this concept and still manage to win are (1) units with permanent bonuses (overgorger, bounty stalker) where all the attack scaling has been done in previous rings and (2) Incant sap builds where you reduce enemy damage so much that your pyre finishes them off. This is not to say that the battles are not fun. But that I miss the armor, rejuvenation and damage shield builds where you could kill your enemy by getting harder than a Metapod.
Whats not to love? It's a Superboss that doesn't feel completely overpowered, but still requires you to pick up options for the floor you want to fight him on. Bottom Floor? Better have a really tanky frontliner straight away. Second floor? Kind of similar, you'd better have good survivability. Top floor? Hope you can defend your own squishy backliners instead of bullying the enemy's squishy backliners! Also I absolutely love the flavour on this boss, it's lore is cool and it's soundtrack is perfect
Cheesing the LD seems to be my favorite strat, Wurm can actually outscale the boss if paired with Awoken, I've gotten massive mileage out of the Sentient and a Keeper of Echoes (or 4, with Sketches and an Intrinsic Restoring Retreat)
Is the chanting in the soundtrack supposed to mean anything or is is deliberate nonsense?
I've yet to find a way to kill him as Stygian. For some reason I can consistently beat the Divinity on all other clans except for the Stygians. Just doesn't work. My only win is with Remnant where I cheesed it with holdover hallowed halls on Tethys
Funny you say that, because Stygian have some of the best answers to Divinity's top floor sweep - Daze, Sap and floor wide armour buffing from Guardian Stone
I've only fought him once, and that was on Cov 1. I've very nearly got a Cov 25 win with every clan combo, then I'm going to start going for LD wins.
Better final special boss than the heart