Beating All Bosses Nightmare NG, without damage or shards
Jul 2, 2019 0:11:43 GMT -6
purifyweirdshard, Zeal, and 3 more like this
Post by lai on Jul 2, 2019 0:11:43 GMT -6
Introduction
Bloodstained's bosses is are a rather difficult bunch for one of IGA's games. So this thread has videos and tips on all of the bosses in ROTN beaten on Nightmare NG without taking damage, using any shards except passive and skill shards, and no guns. Use this thread as a resource to help you learn how to dodge certain boss attacks, get help with beating bosses without resorting to cheese, or just watch videos of the bosses being beaten. Enjoy!
Fight Playlist
So in short I can use the following against bosses:
- Any weapons/armor/accessories/techniques that are obtainable in a new playthrough before the boss without glitches
- No guns though
- No Shield Weapon
- Passive shards that can be obtained before the boss
- Skill shards that can be obtained before the boss
- No Invert cheese strats, I have to dodge
- Any combination of books
- Grinding for materials, food, and more passive shards is fine
Feel free to:
- Add any advice of your own
- Let me know if you have had trouble with an attack I didn't mention
- Post any videos of boss kills that meet my conditions
- Just talk about the boss fights
The Bosses
Some quick things before I begin:
- DONE = I have a successful attempt
- Actual difficulty = How much of an objective challenge the fight will be in a vacuum.
- Relative Difficulty = How hard the fight is compared to doing it with shards and taking hits aka casually
- Easy means that is/should be only slightly harder than doing it casually
- Normal means it is/should be noticeably harder than doing it casually
- Hard means it is/should be theoretically possible but there is something that makes it impractical
- I won't be covering the backer room enemies since those are more uber-tough mooks than bosses
Vepar (Relative Difficulty=Easy, Actual Difficulty=Normal, DONE)
Video:
Problem attacks:
Other notes:
Problem attacks:
- The water gun that has to be blocked with Seama
- Stunlocking Seama seems to be the best way to avoid being hit
- If she launches Seama and doesn't immediately do the water gun then kill the Seama ASAP
- If she is going to do the water attack wait for the seama to turn around (towards Vepar) then jump over them and stun lock them with the whip
- This strat guarantees the seama will live long enough to block and be stunlocked
- I've noticed that when she rocks the boat her water beads can be a bit unpredictable
Other notes:
- She kills you in 2 hits anyway so a no-damage run is not all that different from a casual run
- Shards are primarily just DPS boosters so a lot of early fights will have an "easy" relative difficulty
Zangetsu 1 (Relative Difficulty=Hard, Actual Difficulty=Hard, DONE)
Video:
Problem Attacks:
Other notes:
Problem Attacks:
- Horizontal Slash
- I swear this attack has a higher hitbox than it has any right to
- Crouching or jumping should work
- Ceiling Chain
- Not that hard to avoid just really ambiguous at times
- Theoretically you should always be able to tell which direction he's going to face
- But the line that determines whether or not he'll turn around is not on the end of the chain but rather just to the side of it (by about 1 Zangetsu)
- Parry
- He will only use it after a tele
- Hit him from behind to disrupt or just wait
- If you wait he is guaranteed to do a tele slash which makes an easy parry for extra damage
- Running forward
- All of his running animations look about identical.
- At the end of his run he will do one of his 3 slashes
- The fastest variation of this is unreactable from half a screen away
- Usually this unreactable version will end in a horizontal slash
- Most consistent method I found is just to jump away from him
Other notes:
- When you break it down Zangetsu 1's attacks and patterns are rather simple. This fight is more difficult due to the lack of a double jump and divekick than anything else
- Also this fight requires insane reactions or just lucky guessing
- In fire mode, Zangetsu's smash can 1 shot you
- Zangetsu does not deal contact damage
- If you get cornered your best bet is 11th hour (katana parry)
- Use poison to rack on some extra damage since you are going to spend a good chunk of the fight running if you don't use shards
Craftwork (Relative Difficulty=Easy, Actual Difficulty=Easy, DONE)
Video:
Problem Attacks:
Other notes:
Problem Attacks:
- The flick
- It goes far, as soon as it starts, run
- Or just jump towards him, the timing is surprisingly lenient
- Charge
- During Phase 2 Craftwork will end this with a jump, making going over it difficult
- Both Phase 1 and Phase 2 versions of this can be avoided by simply crouching on the ground
- Yes really......
- You don't even have to space it, just crouch
- No other vid of the Craftwork fight has shown this so I'm assuming I'm the first to document it if not discover it
Other notes:
- Craftwork is already pretty easy, just keep your distance and watch his fairly slow tells
- Don't let yourself get cornered, that's also important
Andrealphus (Relative Difficulty=Normal, Actual Difficulty=Normal, DONE)
Video:
Problem Attacks:
Other notes:
Problem Attacks:
- Rush
- Really the only thing that keeps this boss from being easy on both counts
- No real tell, he just starts violating your personal space and doesn't stop until he feels like it
- Can be avoided by jumping over him but if you attack him you won't have time to do so
- Play it safe and watch your movement
Other notes:
- He has other attacks but they can be avoided with simple movement and jumps
- Sometimes he goes high to fire his shots (He'll go on platforms and wait for you to chase)
- Watch his shadow on the ground to see where he'll land for some easy hits
Valac (Relative Difficulty=Normal, Actual Difficulty=Normal, DONE)
Video:
Problem Attacks:
Other notes:
Problem Attacks:
- Twin Fire
- Best way to avoid this attack is to just spam divekicks on top of the right head, lots of damage and you don't need to think.
- Use boots to deal more damage
- Even if you don't have boots, this is still my recommended way of avoiding this attack
- Be careful when the fire attack stops you can sometimes get hit as it ends if you don't manage your divekicks properly
- Otherwise just move with the fire
- Double Chin Crush
- Only way to avoid this is to crouch in a specific spot
- Use the decorations on the ground and the pillars in the background as your positioning tools
- Only way to avoid this is to crouch in a specific spot
- Tongue Slam
- Has two ways to dodge the double slam
- Jump very precisely with good timing
- Find the blindspot next to the left head
- They will double slam twice so get moving after the second one
Other notes:
- Can't clip underneath them since you have to get hit for that
- Any items in the upper section Cathedral are allowed since that area can be reached with divekicks
Glutton Train (Relative Difficulty=Easy, Actual Difficulty=Easy, DONE)
Video:
Problem Attacks:
Other notes:
Problem Attacks:
- The timer
- Shards are Miriam's main source of high dps without them this fight is going to be a long one
- The Train
- If you get hit once then you have to do the train segment all over again
- Not hard but it is frustrating to repeat the entire segment
Other notes:
- Until he moves to pull down the armor, Zangetsu is just gonna watch
- Once he does pull it down he'll end the fight in no time
- This is a very easy boss just don't get hit
Bathin (Relative Difficulty=Hard, Actual Difficulty=RNG, Done)
Video:
Problem Attacks:
Other notes:
Problem Attacks:
- Tail Laser
- Start moving away from him or
- Get behind him
- He won't turn around during it so get some free hits in
- Repeated divekicks on top of him also work
- "I move so fast..."/Reflector Ray
- This move is intimidating but it actually has a weirdly lenient hitbox
- Just stay out of the laser's area
- However the laser still covers a lot of ground
- Keep moving if no safe zone exists
- Abuse technique invuln frames if you have to
- His reflector ray has a lot of variance on its coverage making this fight a bit of an RNG fest to no hit
Other notes:
- His pillar attacks will always be in the same place
Abyssal Guardian (Relative Difficulty=Easy, Actual Difficulty=Easy, DONE)
Video:
Problem Attacks:
Other notes:
Problem Attacks:
- Jump
- Go under him
- He slides alot so going to a corner won't work
- Tail Swipe
- Has a higher vertical hitbox than it looks, jump early.
Other notes:
- Recommended Weapon: Misercode from food quests
- Can be fought before Bloodless with divekick sequence breaking
Bloodless (Relative Difficulty=Hard, Actual Difficulty=Hard ,DONE)
Video:
Problem Attacks:
Other notes:
Problem Attacks:
- Blood Rain
- This is easily one of the most inconsistent attacks in the game
- Avoid it by staying under the umbrellas or by finding a spot that isn't covered in blood and standing there
- The umbrella's move and the blood rain comes in the form of projectiles and the area the umbrella's cover isn't very big
- Bloodless will also use this time to throw a cheap shot at you
- She won't use Scarlet Cyclone during this attack so all of her moves can be avoided by double jumping
- To make a clean spot on the ceiling stick to one side of the arena
- You can also interrupt her Scarlet Cyclone to make sure she doesn't cover too much
- Backdash
- Sometimes when you double jump over her she will backdash right into you
- This has 0 startup or warning so part of this is luck
- Your best bet is by not jumping behind her and instead relying on double jumps to avoid most of her attacks
- Floating umbrellas
- These aren't hard to dodge just another thing on the long list of things to look for
- When one sweeps you the other will follow shortly
- Simple jumps should suffice to avoid it
- Blood Steal
- Visually busy so watch for umbrellas
- She will heal for more than her own max hp
- Hitting her before the healing stops is useless
- She will just heal back up
- Wait until you stop hearing the blood flow then resume hitting her
- Even if you somehow drag her hp to 0 she will not die until after she uses this move giving her double her actual hp
- If her dress looks small enough for her to use it, stop attacking her and just focus on dodging
Other notes:
- Items from the Hall of Termination are allowed since it can be reached before Bloodless via divekick sequence breaking
- Most of her attacks can be avoided by double jumping straight up
- The hardest thing about Bloodless is the amount of things you need to track, blood on the ceiling, floating umbrellas, Bloodless herself, and Miriam
- Changing the blood color in settings will change the color of Bloodless's dress and her attacks so if you are having trouble with seeing red change it to something like green
- There's a hard limit to how much blood can be out at once, this can be abused to create safe zones from blood rain.
Alfred (Relative Difficulty=Very Hard, Actual Difficulty=Very Hard, DONE)
Video:
Problem Attacks:
Other notes:
Problem Attacks:
- Time Slow
- If this move comes out either kill him quick or restart
- Even with Jinrai it is nearly impossible to keep pace with him
- A DPS race is your only hope
- Good Luck
- Accursed Order
- Noteworthy for having some insane tracking at times
- I think you can usually avoid it by just running left or right but I'm not sure
- Insane Cardio
- I'm including it here because this grandpa can run
- 95% sure your base walk speed cannot catch up to him
- Use both the tailwind tome and the speed belt to outrun oldsain bolt
- The speed belt is a quest reward for killing Deeseamas
- I'm including it here because this grandpa can run
Other notes:
- Speed is king in this fight
- and DPS is queen
- Jinrai is a good way to catch up to him
- Poison is recommended because he's going to spend a good chunk of the fight away from you
- Stinger is what I would use to poison though it may take a few hits
- Switch to another weapon once he's poisoned
- Is somewhat resistant to everything but poison and pure physical damage so don't use elements in this fight
- The Mace drop, Ayamur, from the water horses is an excellent weapon to use against him if you don't have anything else
- If you are petrified but break out before you are hit, it won't count against you
- Alfred deals no contact damage until he lights himself on fire
Doppleganger (Relative Difficulty=Hard, Actual Difficulty=Very Hard, DONE)
Video:
Problem Attacks:
Problem Attacks:
- Uhh everything?
- Doppleganger is fast but their moves are all avoidable from any position except one down below
- Fire
- If you are cornered by the boss and it uses this move you will get hit without a shield
- Jinrai can provide an easy out
- That means restart if you are doing shardless no hit
- Watch your positioning always have the boss closer to you than the walls
- This move has 0 startup but usually it starts in the direction the boss is facing so attack the back
- Usually, if the boss does this after being stuck in a wall or a divekick it will turn around instantly and blast you with that frame 1 fire.
- If you are cornered by the boss and it uses this move you will get hit without a shield
- Doppleganger does not deal contact damage
- Doppleganger has no particular weaknesses or resistances outside of curse and stone resistances
- Poison and run for some damage while you focus on dodging
Orobas (Relative Difficulty=Easy, Actual Difficulty=Normal, DONE)
Video:
Problem Attacks:
Problem Attacks:
- Fire Walk
- Both the inverted and normal versions of the move are both hard to dodge
- There is no easy strat here, you have to learn the timing and move
- Invert Jump
- Not hard to dodge just somewhat unpredictable and with a really weird arc that messes with your brain
- Double jump over(under?) it at the arc of its leap
- If you have tailwind+speed belt you can divekick away
- Laser
- Crouch for the grounded version
- Time your double jump for the inverted version
- While it is on the ground it basically can't touch you while in sword range
- The Ayamur from the Alfred fight or the beast killer from Lamashtu are both good weapons to use
- You can get the risk ring before this fight
Zangetsu 2 (Relative Difficulty=Hard, Actual Difficulty=Very Hard, DONE)
Video:
Problem Attacks:
Other notes:
Problem Attacks:
- Flame Trail
- During certain teleports he leaves giant fire columns
- Either space it correctly or
- Divekick in the direction he's traveling
- Fire Ofuda
- The Ofuda can be destroyed by melee attacks or any attack Zangetsu can't block
- Run to the opposite side of the arena and hope it's enough
- If he get's close, wait for the Ofuda to bunch up then Jinrai at him and immediately Jinrai again in the same direction
- Thunder Ofuda
- There are two ways to avoid this
- Run all the way to the right of the arena
- Actually space it correctly
- In my experience he usually does a flame trail after this so good luck if you ran all the way to the right
- There are two ways to avoid this
- Ice Ofuda
- Zangetsu covers the entire border of the arena (ground, walls, and ceiling) with Ofuda
- After a brief delay they will explode covering the ground in harmful ice
- Run all the way to the left and invert
- When the ice is about to reach you double jump and delay invert
- Zangetsu will still go after you during this attack so start from the opposite end of the room and run to the left corner.
- DOOM Ofuda
- Zangetsu will plant his sword in the ground, become invincible, and begin speaking the language of his people
- After a short delay a circle of Ofuda will surround you
- There are several ways out.
- Immediately invert and spam the hell out of high-jump. (likely to work depending on your mashing skills, the faster the better)
- Run as far away from him and invert as the circle drags you to him (100% guaranteed)
- Use technique invuln frames to avoid the blast
- Sometimes you can slide kick out.
- If you do not escape after a certain period of time this attack will kill you
- If you are using shards, Directed Shield can block this.
- Fun Fact: This attack does over 5000 damage
Other notes:
- He will never parry you, swing away
- Free hits while he changes elements
- Use poison to help whittle his massive healthbar
Gebel (Relative Difficulty=Easy, Actual Difficulty=Easy, DONE)
Video:
Problem Attacks:
Other notes:
Problem Attacks:
- Teps oceus?
- Gebel will mark several points around the room, don't be between them that's where the lightning will be
- Riga doi?
- Not really hard to dodge just jump behind him
- Although sometimes for the last fireball he turns around and it immediately fires in your direction (pretty sure this is a glitch)
Other notes:
- Gebel's attacks are slow and telegraphed
- Remember not to kill Gebel and to slice the moon when it turns red
- Accidentally killing Gebel is much harder with no shards since you are less likely to dps him down before the moon fully turns
Valefar (Relative Difficulty=Easy, Actual Difficulty=Easy[If poor]->Hard[if rich], DONE)
Video:
Problem Attacks:
Other notes:
Problem Attacks:
- Coin Flip
- The coins bounce which make them somewhat unpredictable
- Watch the directions his hands are pointing then try to calculate the angles
- The angles that he launches the coins is based on your current position
- Melee attacks can destroy the coins
- Spamming either Rhava in the corner is guaranteed to protect you
- Grab
- It comes out fast and has a very subtle cue
- Not too hard to avoid if you see it coming but it can easily catch you by surprise
Other notes:
- Go in broke for a funny voiceline and easy fight!
- Seriously, I won't judge you. That line is worth it, trust me
Still, don't go in with too much cash. Valefar caps out at 99,999 hp 10 times more than the super bossesIf you do, good luck. May your endurance be legendaryI regret doing it so you should not unless you are NG+ or somethingIf you do give him 99,999 hp, poison does more dps than any weapon you can wieldI am not kidding- Nevermind they capped his hp at 9999 now fight is just hard instead of impractical if you go in rich
- There's a super poison glitch that can happen in this fight, still investigating the causes.
Gremory (Relative Difficulty=IDK, Actual difficulty=RNG, DONE)
Video:
Problem Attacks:
Other notes:
Problem Attacks:
- Giant Laser
This is the only attack I have had trouble withlol I'm a liar- This is the first attack she will use during her second phase
- You're supposed to dodge the lasers by making loops around her while dodging the crescents
- My current theory is to use Jinrai to cross the laser, go under her, Jinrai, repeat till laser is done
- Crescents
- Without shards these are much harder to avoid because you can't remove them from a distance
- Gremory likes to spawn them wherever she likes including right in your only path of escape
- or ontop of you
- The hitbox to destroy them is smaller than their contact damage hitbox
- Use a Greatsword or Jinrai to get out of being surrounded
- Hands
- Unlike in normal this one will loop around several times
- Use invert and be vigilant, the hands are really fast
- The hands 'shadow' your movement so smaller steps in a single direction can work to avoid it.
Other notes:
- The Zangetsuto gives guaranteed crits so a dps run might be feasible
- Even when discounting Crescents 6 out of 8 of her attacks involve rng. WHY?
I think I can do this once I figure out the laseroh what a naive child I was- I hope your jinrai is on point
Final Boss 1 (Relative Difficulty=Hard, Actual Difficulty=Normal, DONE)
Dominique
Problem Attacks:
Problem Attacks:
- Tis Rozain
- Either:
- Immediately get behind her and crouch (make sure to put some space between you two)
- High-jump and invert then take micro steps to avoid.
- "Gee Dominique how come 'the shards' let you have two 'TIS ROZAIN's !"
- Riga Storima?
- Run all the way to the right
- Or space inbetween the pillars
- Bouncy Bouncy
- She goes up then down
- Hits on the way down
- Hard to react to, just keep your distance when she goes up
- Riga Dohin
- Crouch right in front of her to avoid
- Weak to dark
Final Boss 2 (Relative Difficulty=Hard, Actual Difficulty=Normal, DONE)
Problem Attacks:
- Human Head
- Not hard to avoid but fireballs hitbox lingers for a full second after they land
- Dominique on Toad
- There is a safe spot right above the Toad head
- You can invert in this spot or you can spam divekicks here for a lot of damage
- This is the easiest to avoid
- Dominique on Human
- The Cat will shoot you while the Toad will blow bubbles beneath you
- The bubbles can be destroyed by divekicks or any weapon
- Dominique on Cat
- The Toad will fire a single tracking bolt while the Human will fill the bottom half of the screen with lava
- This is by far the hardest one to avoid, requiring tight movement to dodge
Other notes:
- Baels Toad and Cat heads have spots where you can take contact damage but not hit him
- Boots are recommended since divekicks are the safest way of dealing damage.
- Each head has its own life bar
- Hitting the other heads enough makes them go dormant for awhile
- The goal is to kill Dominique who has her own lifebar
- Hitting the head Dominique is attached to will damage her lifebar instead of the head's
- Use Invert to keep hitting the head Dominque is on
- Do not have to do Dominique and Bael back to back they can be done individually
- This isn't a particularly hard fight but Bael's got wonky hitboxes, just be careful and eventually you'll win
8-Bit Overlord (Relative Difficulty=Hard, Actual Difficulty=Hard, DONE)
Video:
Problem Attacks:
Other Notes:
Problem Attacks:
- Phase 2 Fire Pillars
- This isn't too bad but the timing is strict
- Just jump and move in rhythm
- Phase 2 Fast Leap
- This isn't too bad either just really fast
- Main problem is you don't have accelerator to give yourself extra space and that you have to react to this in melee range
- Crouch if close
- Jump if far
Other Notes:
- Hardest part will be your patience as 8-Bit has very few openings where you can get in to hit him in melee combat during phase 2
- Use greatswords as the extra reach (and the ability to hit him while on the ground) make landing hits much easier
- Can be attempted multiple times
Bonus Boss (Relative Difficulty=Hard, Actual Difficulty=Hard, DONE)
OD:
Problem Attacks:
Other notes:
Problem Attacks:
- Timestop
aka ZA WARUDO TOKI WO TOMARE - Unlike in normal OD throws his sword at the end of this move, making the strategy of sitting in a corner invalid
- Has a long startup
- I know of the following methods to avoid it
- Spamming the shield weapon as the time stop ends from the corner
- Hug the wall and spam a divekick input until the timestop ends (as shown in the video)
- The invuln frames of some techniques could theoretically avoid this attack but the timing is very precise
- Fire Pillars
- I don't think there's any safe spots in between them
- If he swishes his cape and nothing immediately happens GET BEHIND HIM ASAP
Other notes:
- OD is just a boss that is very hard to read and predict which is why the difficulty is high despite only really having 2 problem attacks
- You have the Tome of Conquest so I guess that's something
- You can get the Tome of Conquest when you have 99% map completion
- OD is weak to light and only light everything else he has a resistance to
IGA (Relative Difficulty=Very Hard, Actual Difficulty=Very Hard, DONE)
Video:
Problem Attacks:
Other notes:
Problem Attacks:
- Swordwhip
- Will only come out after other attacks
- Timing is consistent but he will not always use the swordwhip after an attack
- Sometimes he just switches to another attack
- If you are grounded it has a giant blindspot right infront of IGA
- If you are in the air it will hit you
- I would recommend crouching just to be safe
- Can be crouched under from farther away
- But too far will get you hit anyway
- Parry for style points
- Will only come out after other attacks
- The Ice
- This attack spawns a many more and a wider angle of ice shards than normal
- Going under is no longer a viable method of avoiding this attack
- Double jump over the chunk as IGA reappears
- You have to be in the air before IGA reappears
- You have some time before he swordwhips or moves to another attack so either crouch or if you are confident go for a few hits
- Teleport Fire
- Has two versions one where he appears high (if you are low) and appears low (if you are high)
- Both can be avoided with well timed double jumps
- He can act faster out of the appear low version so be careful when you land and watch his movements
- Rapid Fire
- This attack comes out much faster than it does on normal
- Does not care for your mercy invincibility, if you are running Risk Ring this attack will kill you in a blink of an eye
- Avoid with either a double jump or a high jump
- He can follow up with either a swordwhip or Teleport fire
- If swordwhip
- he should do it before you land in his range
- if he doesn't, high jump and land asap
- If teleport fire
- Land and double jump again almost immediately
- If you can, jump towards him
- he should do the sword whip before you are low enough to hit
- Phase 2 wineglass
- At 5000 hp and below IGA will use this in place of his other wineglass attack
- There is no tell for when you reach this point gauge glasses are highly recommended unless you want to count your slashes in this chaotic fight
- This requires a very tight double jump to avoid
- Timing is less strict if you jump away then double jump towards him
- At 5000 hp and below IGA will use this in place of his other wineglass attack
Other notes:
- If he doesn't throw out his swordwhip he can get fast, keep close to him so he uses it
- It might just be me but he uses the swordwhip less as his health decreases and instead chains spells more often
- He is resistant to everything so use whatever you like
- I don't recommend the Rhava Velar because you won't be able to hit him for long enough for it to stack enough damage and it doesn't do much to him to begin with.
- IGA's patterns are etched onto my soul at this point so I might be underestimating a few things
Rankings (Time):
- Gremory (5 hours)
- Zangetsu 1 (4 1/2 hours)
- Bathin (4 hours)
- IGA (3 hours)
- Dominique and Bael (3 hours)
- Valefar, 1 million gold (2 1/2 hours)
- Zangetsu 2 (2 1/2 hours)
- Craftwork (40 minutes)
- Andrealphus (40 minutes)
- Doppelganger (30 minutes)
- Orobas (30 minutes)
- Vepar (30 minutes)
- OD (30 minutes)
- Glutton Train (30 minutes)
- Alfred (20 minutes)
- Valac (20 Minutes)
- 8-Bit Overlord (20 minutes)
- Abyssal Guardian (7 minutes)
- Bloodless (6 minutes)
- Gebel (4 minutes)
Fights I might redo (and why):
- OD (no fire pillar attack in my video)
- Valac (boot cheese used)
- Bael (boot cheese used)
- Valefar (Rhava cheese used)
- Alfred (no time-slow shown in video)
- Vepar (discord notification sound in the video)
- This post (needs cleaning: spelling, grammar, wording, etc)
I'll also take requests to redo fights, but no guarentees
Nightmare NG, No Damage, No Shards boss fights by other people:
Player: Red
Bosses: All non-DLC bosses
Player: Red
Bosses: All non-DLC bosses
I hope this was helpful or entertaining for some of you!
yey