By Alexander Houston
Contributing Writer
We’ve all been there, you’re playing a video game, you’re doing well, then BAM! A boss battle shows up and starts using your face to polish its floors. You try and try but to no avail, the Big Bad keeps on turning you into a paste. Now I hear you saying “awfully bold of you to doubt my gaming skills while in face punching range” and to that I say: rude. Not to mention that if this wasn’t the case you probably wouldn’t be here. But all the same, I tell you not to worry because by showing you how to keep calm, analyze the boss, exploit the boss’s weakness, and adjust your playstyle in order to easily beat that boss.
Step one of beating a difficult boss is to accept the fact that you are probably going to lose at least a couple times no matter what you do, and the reason for this is simple: if you accept that you are probably going to lose, it will upset you less when you do. This in turn keeps your performance from dropping because let me tell you from personal experience that getting pissed rarely helps you win; it just clouds your judgment, makes you overly aggressive, and punishes you in the long run. In Armored Core VI Fires of Rubicon, one of my favorite games, I encountered the first real, non-tutorial boss in the game, Balteus (Armored Core). Now let me tell you, he was a bitch to fight, and do you want to know what I did after he handed my ass to me on a silver platter five times in a row? I put the controller down, stood up, stretched my legs a bit, got a drink of water, and waited to calm down because I knew that if I got pissed it would both fail to help me, and suck out my enjoyment of the game.
Now that you understand step one, let’s move on to step two: analyze the boss. Pay attention to them when you play. Ask yourself and remember the answers “How far does that attack reach?” “How do they move when they are about to do X attack?” “How much can I attack them in between their attacks?” Having that rough visualization/estimate for the answers to these questions in your head will help you avoid taking damage and last longer in the fight. When I was fighting that MOTHER FU- I mean… When I was fighting Balteus I learned that I had on average roughly a quarter of a second to concentrate on counter attacking between his attacks, that it was optimal to fight him either breathing down his back if I could stay there, or at medium range if I couldn’t (Armored Core). I also learned that if he suddenly stopped moving It was a sign to move to the other side of the arena as quickly as possible because if I didn’t he would stun me and I would take a high amount of damage. The reason I put emphasis on the word concentrate, Is because Armored Core is a primarily ranged game and doesn’t place too much emphasis on counter attacking. When he wasn’t attacking me I could stop devoting most of my energy to dodging and start to focus on getting in a little bit of extra damage (Armored Core).
Now that I have given you tips that you can use to gradually improve your chances of beating a boss, let’s address the things that will give you a foundational increase to your chances. A good starting point is to figure out what the boss in question is weak to, and try to exploit that. For example, General Radahn from Elden Ring is super weak to a condition called “scarlet rot,” so equipping weapons that do that damage type makes him easier to beat (Elden Ring). Balteus has a shield around him that you need to get through to do any meaningful damage, and when it is destroyed he quickly generates a new one, so in response I equipped a weapon that specializes in destroying shields (Armored Core).
Lastly, try adjusting your playstyle, experiment with different gear to see what works, and don’t get stuck in one gear set. However, in contrast to this I suggest you don’t do things like look up “best build for X game” because it diminishes the enjoyment of your achievements. Yeah the builds you see are usually pretty good, but when you do things like that you fall into “The Meta trap” where you end up with a build so overly optimized it just sucks the life out of the game. As a result nothing will be even remotely challenging, and you won’t want to switch anything out or experiment with anything else because the build you are currently running is “the best.” Not to mention that when you do actually encounter a challenge in future runs, it will be that much harder to bounce back from, because you are so used to your build carrying you through the game. You also won’t experiment with other things, potentially missing a build that while not “optimized” you may find very fun to use! If you come up with one of these builds on your own then it’s fine, because then it is your accomplishment, you made this happen, and it’s great! But when you just use a build found online, the resulting victories are ultimately empty. I made this mistake once with another game that I liked and now I don’t even remember its name, because sure I was winning but I wasn’t having fun. If you are going to look up builds to beat a boss I suggest you instead look for kinds of builds. If the boss is kinda slow, and weak to cold damage, go for a quick build that exploits that. Or what I did with Balteus, where I asked what kind of things my step father had tried when he played and experimented with that, but I didn’t copy him, and in the end I made something that worked better than what he used! Much to our mutual surprise (Armored Core)!
To summarize our boss slaying escapades, I suggest you approach the fight with a level head, analyze the boss you are fighting, learn what works and doesn’t work against the boss, and learn what works and doesn’t for you. But ultimately, the most important thing to remember
when you are playing any kind of video game is to have fun, and while that sounds like it goes without saying you’d be surprised how many people forget that, and how many people think it is about winning. They optimize and fight and optimize and fight, all the while sucking the life out of the game they are playing as they chase the new meta, failing to realize that they don’t even like the game they are playing anymore – which brings us to secret step five. Have fun fighting the boss. Embrace the challenge and grow. Learn, and don’t let it beat you down.
