Blood Knight in EX-8-CM truly is a nightmare to stall through with a 4* squad The stat boosts for the knife are insane. Those things are 60% of the difficulty of the stage.
Even though what I usually hear is that, currently, H12-4 is the hardest and H9-6 is the second hardest, the stage that I actually had to wait some months to clear was H10-3, I needed Lumen for his consistent healing and Silence's module, and one thing that I found out with hell stages is that 4-star clearers present so many good strategies or use cases for 4-stars, without them I would've never thought that Mousse S1M3 with the healing of 3 medics can tank 2nd phase Manfred in H10-3, Matterhorn just has really high RES stored in his abs, Cutter S2M3 can break 6 Damazti's drones with them hitting your ops only once, and that you can rotate two 4-stars defenders to tank two Damaztis simultaneously with the heal of a single medic. Mousse's semi-consistent -40% ATK is so good that sometimes I think of leveling Ch'en just for her to be a clutch so that the debuff actually gets consistent, just putting Ch'en somewhere random like she''s Myrtle, maybe make Ch'en and Myrtle stare at each other in a corner of the stage.
I hate the fact that we had to fight Manfred 4 times total in chapter 10, I have some trauma with that entire chapter haha. and yeah some things that I don't really think about is how low rartity operators can tank so much punishment that even 6 stars struggle to stay alive on haha. Seeing silvergun rotate those 2 defenders is how I first cleared my run of H12-4 too I just had to adjust my previous strat a bit to accommodate an extra defender, I adopted 5 stars only as a niche it's still extremely flexible with clears and quite easy to do if you have more than a handful built, but I can't imagine progressing to the 4 star niche it's quite a massive jump from 5 stars.
The bullshit thing about Will of We Many isn't reading all the mechanics, it's that one of the most important mechanics is something the game DOESN'T TELL YOU. Even with the expanded enemy archive we have these days, his description still reads like he'll eat all the remains on the map when he actually only eats the two CLOSEST to him. And of course you can't even see which enemies are closest even if you were to count the number of tiles because his model disappears from the map inbetween phases. Manipulating which remains he eats to be the ones your squad can deal with is essential and the game never acknowledges that this aspect of the fight even exists. To make matters worse, if two remains are stacked on the same tile, he can eat multiple at once, getting all the buffs and completely screwing you over, which misleads the player into thinking the number of buffs he gets is random. He's not that hard at the end of the day, but he is absolutely one of the most bullshit bosses.
There is a clear indication of the ones it will eat, though. A large blinking + shows the one that is closest at the moment and the area operators get eaten.
rly cool retrospective analysis on the bosses the game has had over the years. laughing at how u basically said "jellyfish boss is ez, just read. 5head"
And I pretty much completely agree with him. As long as they never get the Resist buff, I just popped them with Ash+Warf each time they woke up. Did the same for for his Trials fight with Yato instead of Warf
It takes me 2-3 months to beat Patriot until Surtr release because how small my brain was, even though I have Thorns, SilverAss, Amiya E2 but when the second form of Patriot revive, it always traumatized me, especially the sound when he thrown the spear, man when I heard that I know I'm fcked up. But everything is changes when Surtr release, Patriot is just a playing since then
Hardest Bosses on Arknights: Story Bosses only, Talulah/DBS from H8-4 If Including Side Story, Dolly from So Long, Adele If Including other Game Mode: SSS#1 Bosses If Including Collab stories: *Essence of Evolution*
I feel like Dolly was only really a tough boss if you didn't understand the soda bottle thingies. It was def the hardest to afk but in terms of making you feel just completely helpless I feel like there are tougher ones. You could sorta cheese dolly with amiya+mlynar even without crazy soda bottle micro as well. Personally id say zaaro because god the mafia crossbowmen are hell
Damatzi is definitely the hardest. It's not because he hits like a trucks. It's the overall stages aspect that make it so difficult. There are a lot planning needed while you need to pay attention to several things at once. Definitely a good stage. 10/10 will reach 0 sanity moment and I'm gonna do it again.😊
ngl i think talulah jt8-3 had me restart the most time. also i only started seriously playing chapter 10-12 after texalter and kirito. so it's easier to clear stages than when i was at chap 8
People used to contribute "brain rot" to constant Surtr usage, but now it's for Yato/Texas I even went out of my way to make my only FRD ops Gravel and Red
The endspeaker was the hardest for me, personally. First time I had to use such fine timing, dropping in operators when the enemy is exact;y 60% into the goal box. Since then most of the bosses just feel comparatively easy.
I'm surprised Essence of Evolution didn't get at least an honorable mention. I didn't suffer too much from it personally but I remember a lot of people malding.
Good video, i really liked the approach you took for comparisons. The one nitpick is that "casually" endspeaker should get a bump higher since trying to decipher what it was doing was PART of the difficulty
Honestly Ending 1 is already hard enough on SW15 let along Ending 3 or especially 4, I legit wouldn't have been able to beat those without the new mind over matter buff. Sure I can just keep resetting for a lucky run, but that's quite boring imo haha
Looking back at Essence of Evolution, I don' think it really that hard since saga exist back when it release. She can handle the slug with s2 as long she have enough damage to one shot slug and ifrit can handle the boss. But this is based OD EX-8, the normal stage have different difficulty due to to stage design
IMO yan dragon's map wide tile ban was pretty challenging. damazti cluster was also a pain but only at higher difficulties. Patriot's a good classic with his ranged nuke and raw stats but his phase 2 is kind of a pushover. Endspeaker took probably the most thinking and braincells as it was the only boss to date that actively punishes spawn killing. eblana and zaaro fall under the same category of raw damage that can stall a few units, but zaaro is harder just because of his event mechanic and because he's not nightingale-able. I'd say the hardest I've faced is izumik, with the annoying jellyfish and the plethora of rng leading up to the clear but that's IS.
The stage that has given me the most grief, Haven't seen anyone talking about it, but it was Kristen, it took me probably over 30 tries to kill her ex challenge mode, and I quit trying to do the S stage, it's not even that hard of a boss it's just the adds hit like bosses themselves, people talk about their trauma of the seaborne and trust me I hate them too, but that event gave me PTSD of Rhine lab enemies.
The melee mechs feel like Golems but (de)buffed in such a way they feel justified in making you deal with a handful at a time. And it's a pain in the ass
For me the boss I considered to be hardest for a while was Emperor's Blade... and then I found out you can cheese him with Warfarin and base Ch'en. The one I struggled the most with was probably Mandragora, or Endspeaker (both require so much positioning and timing it's insane, same for Kirsten but to a smaller degree)
I loved this video. It made me realize once again why I love this game. And also to remember those challenges back in the day with what we have at the time. Is not only that ' Boss.exe do big dmg and really tanky. ' Is how they work with the Chapter/Event mechanics, the rest of the enemies, and understanding what you're doing, the layout of the stage and pathing of the enemies. I enjoyed and suffer recording my run against the Damazti Cluster the first time I did it.
I never found H8-4 that difficult actually haha partially because I got nightingale really early on so I just used her. The hardest part about that stage is definitely keeping the civies alive which is why I made the joke about them at the end haha
@@FABKlNG I started about a year ago and only cleared H8-4 in the last month, long after the rest of episode 8. I just couldn't do it without both NG and Saria. H12-4 is now the only main stage that I haven't cleared.
I remember that time fighting Blood Knight on EX stage CM mode (not rerun), Kyo use Kal'tsit and Ch'en alter while i don't have both of them, i have to waste around 200 sanity by borrow Kal'tsit and use Silverash and Rosmontis just to replace Ch'en alter. Man that stage tells how strong a knight can be especially when 'blood' are his name. Meanwhile H11-4 is another whole stage where i feel shiver on my arms again after a long time i have been playing Arknights, it was so intense that even some old player like me got the old feelings playing back around 2021 fighting Patriot on H7-4.
Stopped for a few seconds to think which boss I would consider the hardest and thought "Surely Essence of Evolution must be the one" and not 2 seconds later I read the description. Got a good laugh out of me.
H12-4 was probably actually hardest story stage for me so far, which is pefectly understandable ig lmao, but the thing is - it was until Kal Y mod from Lone Trail. I don't have stuff like Mlynar so SA was substitude, nearl alt was as important to kill the boss as Kal herself with s3, although I had to borrow nearl since I don't have her as well, overall many things were working not in my favour since I'm actively playing for like 1,5 years only (came back on Ling release with having like 2 months of playtime on release), so I do be missing some of the cooler ops like even og Eyja lmao, but stage was kinda interesting to figure out, and the whole chapter was a good defender/medic showcase since stall is not an option, but necessity, and me having millions of medics raised for no reason really appretiated that to an extend
For me it's the r6 first collab event boss... that guy can infinite spawn critters if not killed fast enough, that boss make me struggle in mind for strats and my phone cause it make my phone overheat that time XD
My personal hardest is probably Steam Knight. The incentive to cluster all your units together to spread damage across other ops, having tank buster attacks that do obscenely high damage to single targets, and making more and more of the field unusable is a recipe for disaster to me. Manfred is also up there because I personally really disliked his stacking attack buff, and the Londinium Secondary Defense Artillery made it incredibly difficult to set up operators to use against him. Even when you successfully hit him with it, the blast probably removed your high-damage units from the area around him, so you have to put your damage dealers down after the explosion and can't easily set them down in anticipation. Maybe I'm just a freak, but honestly, Blood Knight didn't feel that hard to me. Blood Knight very frequently wedged himself in-between my ground operators because of his stun. He'd stun my first frontliner and walk past them, then by the time his blood blades started to spawn, the stunned operator would have recovered and already be in the perfect position to block the blades from reaching him. While Damazti Cluster is certainly difficult, I'm not sure I'd put them in my top 3, or maybe even 5. They can't be burst down, but they also don't do burst damage that often, so the stage rewards using setups with high sustained damage and healing, especially when you consider that any operators that can hit two clones at once are basically dealing double damage. It was pretty hard, but I really liked Damazti's stages. Again, I might just be weird though, because apparently a lot of people didn't like that chapter while I really enjoyed it, haha. I'll certainly agree with Mudrock though. High power shield prevents you from damaging her easily, taking over the nearest gramophone negates the damage you could've done to her with it and heals her substantially for whatever damage you'd already done instead, and her stacking damage buff makes it incredibly difficult to hold her in one place to keep her away from some gramophones and close to others. All that combined with the fact that these were the days before Surtr and the awkward stage layout making it difficult to properly position damage dealers against her and her stage becomes a real challenge. Always interesting to see how other people view the game and its bosses, good video.
Uh oooh, I finished H11-4 a month ago thanks to Silence alt shelter talent, and I'm currently stuck at H11-1, and now I'm scared of what will happen at H11-4 lmaoo
I still haven't fought Mudrock (not sure what event or level that is), Bloodknight was really tough for me, not even the EX version (at least when Near Light rerun happened). But Endspeaker was impossible when SN came out, I had to borrow a friends support and still only beat sn-10 with 2 stars (phase 2 just walked through my defenders). I haven't gotten farther than ch 8 in story so I can't say anything about those bosses, but SN was the most nightmarish experience in the game for me. Of course, now SN isn't hard because I have Eyja alter and Honeyberry to help with the worst of it.
Bloodknight wasnt that bad given Chalter and Mudrock were lock out by the time he came out and chalter could very quickly clear the bloodblades tbh. Cluster probably is definitely the hardest on release so far for EN.
1:40 Now nowadays everyone knows how to defeat patriot easily Me, who have most meta units but still scared of him, didn't even try to clear the other stage with patriot in it (Don't know the name since I haven't opened it because I'm still scared of him until now). Oh yeah, H7-4
Okay so I got OPINIONS about bosses in Arknights, I love how the boss design in this game works and generally they're my favorite aspect of Arknights and I've thought about it a lot. Few things before I get into my actual specific opinions: Thinking about the context within the boss's release is a good idea but I think it's important to point out the problems with looking primarily from a casual's perspective. Mainly, that casual players don't think about the game as much as non-casual players. More complex bosses are generally going to be seen as harder since yknow there's a lot more to parse. Combine that with the fact that Arknights hates telling people shit and you have problems. But the big thing is uhhhh, it's really hard to gauge how strong a boss is when the amount of strats are so varied. Every player has different tools that they can access, and it's really hard to parse strength this way. Why? Because most bosses have optimal strats, disregard the Surtrs and the Chalters you still have stuff like Dikaiopolis. He seems tough and he generally is but you can also slap two defenders, a medic team, and a few other laneholding/waveclearing options around him and he becomes a non-issue. That's not necessarily easy but it's also far from difficult, and Dikaiopolis as a boss heavily encourages stally play. Also whilst I am on board with wrapping the stages with the bosses, I also think there's a point to where bosses and stages need to be separated. Case in point: Steam Knight. He's what I'd actually call a weak boss through multiple metrics, mainly he can't deal with being blocked and stalled out, and he can't really threaten ranged operators (this also applies to Dikaiopolis btw just to a lesser extent). H11-4 is a tough stage don't get me wrong but I don't think it's because the Steam Knight is hard, I think it's because it's a difficult stage and the Steam Knight is far from the most dangerous threat on the map. Additionally, I find it odd that you add H stages into consideration, H stages are what I'd generally call "endgame content" roughly on the level of CC because even though they're not necessarily as difficult they are made with different expectations as a given EX-8 or chapter stage, granted it also means that story bosses have a smaller selection but yknow that isn't a big deal imo. Case in point (again): Damazti. The difference between 12-20 Adverse Cluster and H12-4 Cluster is night and day, Damazti without H stage buffs is honestly not that hard, especially within the context of 12-20, but with H stage buffs they're an absolute nightmare. More health and more clones makes them a lot more tankier, and on the map side of things the pathing means you can't reap the benefits of the ~1.1x mult aoe would give you. I don't think any EX-8 CM is as dangerous as a given H stage, which is why I think it's a bit unfair. Now onto bosses, I'll cover the ones you covered first then I'll talk about my personal favorite picks. Patriot is a case where I think his reputation is warranted but also he's clearly made restrictively so with hindsight he isn't actually that big of a deal. I won't go into detail since it's clear he mainly got a mention for the old days and not as a huge contender. Mudrock I'll argue against HARD. She's wayyyy too vulnerable to arts to be a real contender imo, even though EX-8 is a rightful fustercluck of a stage she isn't really that strong. This was long before the devs realized how strong arts is and it shows, I don't think she's really close to the spot here. Dikaiopolis? Nah. Maybe S-4 Dikaiopolis but I think he's just far too stall susceptible to be in the running for strongest boss. He's still a formidable opponent, and I think he works with the game's mechanics as a whole really well, but I don't think he really deserves to be on the level of other folks. I'd chalk this up to casual perception though. Endspeaker... I can agree with that. Little Handy massively lowers the strengths of the maps because nethersea brand just. Doesn't exist anymore but on its own the Endspeaker is pretty good. I'm sorry but the Emperor's Blade isn't really a hard boss. They was one of the first bosses you couldn't Surtr but that doesn't make them _hard_, just massively polarizing. Now we simply know how to spread dps out across a boss's path, which this boss taught us to do (if you were around back then, nowadays it's Andoain who does that). I mentioned Steam Knight and Damazti already but to reiterate for the former I wouldn't call him anything close to the strongest boss in the game, he's honestly pretty weak and I'd call him a more modern version of a Patriot boss (read: statstick). Dolly is honestly in the running for me, Fred I wouldn't really say he's the strongest mostly since he interacts with the cannon in simultaneously harmful and beneficial ways (for himself). So here are my personal picks. Dolly is definitely up there (where he deserves to be I love him), he's a very odd type of check where you want hits/second on specific points in the map with limited windows to deal good damage high hp and he is a drone so no matter what he's living for at least half of the map. Degenbrecher whilst not the hardest I think should deserve a mention just because she's such a brutal design for the environment at the time, the whole event theme dissuaded Surtr usage and Degen practically shat on the majority of most dps units at the time since she asked for 4 tile range which could really only be given by Rosa and Schwa, with the latter needing Elysium support and the former being less than ideal since she didn't have her mod yet. I think because she was so overly specific in what she required at the time that she is in the running for one of the hardest... potentially. I have a bias against her. Now for the big one: Essence of Evolution. It's not the hardest boss, but if we're taking maps into account it knocks the competition out of the part. OD-8 is a five lane stage where pressure is placed on all five lanes and the actual enemy count is decently paced so it doesn't end quickly. Absolute terror, and then OD-EX-8 is a joke so whoops. I also wanna mention Mandragora, if we're taking H stages into account H9-6 is in the running for one of the hardest (even though that isn't a high bar) and she is a huge part of the stage, but tbf it's also a grueling gauntlet of ~110 (I think?) enemies which doesn't really let up the intensity and is probably one of the longer boss stages in the game this side of Annihilation. Mephisto, the Singer is probably up there. The hardest of the three ch8 bosses and a masssive healing check which while nowadays isn't that big of a deal back then was absolutely brutal. Ngl the hardest is really hard to determine because Arknights is a pretty easy game all things considered and most bosses are in some way exploitable, so ig I should look at it through that lens huh. Then Dolly, even with Exu being the main exploiting op Dolly still serves as an incredibly tanky, dangerous option that asks so much of the player. If we're counting H stages then probably Damazti, runner up/third place would be OD-8 EoE, for IS it'd probably go to SW15 Izu'mik, for CC it'd probably be max risk CC1 Crownslayer, for SSS probably the Fruit of Life or one of the og bosses, for Trials of Navigator probably some iteration of Andoain or DBS, for main story only then Damazti or Mandragora. Also vignettes deserve a mention, VI-7 puts you through the absolute wringer but I can't in good faith mention it because it comes with five bosses and not one. TLDR Dolly is the best
I'm honestly surprised you rank Blood Knight that high. I've been playing since launch, and am not a particularly good player, but NL was one event I insisted on doing everything in the initial release. Blood Knight gave me less trouble than the Last Steam Knight or Dolly. I've not bothered with the Last Steam Knight's hardest stages after getting so irritated with him as a story boss, but I did do all CMs in So Long, Adele and genuinely hurt my hand pounding it on my armrest in frustration. Even with guides, the goddamn steam mechanic was a bigger problem for me than the blood blades.
Ehh i was expecting talulah would be the top, but the damazti, now that i think about it again, was pretty damn hard. but I'll still put Talulah above her due to those civvies. Additional award for the most annoying goes to that r6 collab boss.
The boss I had the most trouble even today is 'Ya' from Chongyue's event because there's isn't exactly a good Ifrit Tile on it. But of course it's the damn civilian Amogus that gets the hardest stage, why are you civilians guys like this?
i start playing not that long ago but this video gave me some nostalgic trip for all the struggle i went through lol from what i can remember here's some stages that gave me a lot of trouble JT8-3 : classic but this stage, boi it's brutal for new player. this is prob the first stage i have to play in x1 speed because ignition and FDR cooldown are up almost at the same times so precise deplo are needed or my ops gonna exploded H9-6 : Tons of Enemy rush, super annoying gargoyle, and mandragora commiting Warcrimes. H10-1 : fuck manfred H10-3 : Fuck Mandred H11-1 : the caster are sooo annoying H11-4 : doggos, corrosion, devour and Steam knight hit like a truck. also 5 minutes stall to chop the tree kinda annoying tbh. H12-4 : fuck damazti IS-10 : Texalter event are running when i start playing, it's miracle i able to clear normal stages tbh. but zaaro kick my ass hard BI-8 : Rerun right after il siracusano concluded, Degen Mechanic Surprisingly tough for new player TW-8 : too stupid to figure out the Tower Mech at the time. the ex went smoothly tho NL-ex-8 : This stage are brutal, like holy moly. this is probably the longest one for me to figure out how to clear them. Blood knight stun Mech, mobs hit hard, Blade hits hard, BK hit harder on 2nd phase, aand your only shifter are shaw DH-s-2 : this stage harder than S-4 for some reason. Also Steam knight, Kristen and Mandragora are my Fav boss.
My fave bosses are probably Kristen, Dolly, and (controversial alter) Clement the Gardener. The first two are pretty simple bosses mechanically but still leave a lot of room for skill expression with their mechanics, which I love... And I just like the puzzle boss nature of Clement lmao And yeah I can imagine a lot of different events that would be much harder if you're new, a lot of stages that would just be stat check to see if your operators are levelled up enough, or if you have an entire squad built.
I think the Bloodknight was kind of overrated, because once people figured out that the blades had low weight he became easily tankable. I think Emperors Blade was way harder especially considering the stage with the 4 bosses at the end and some juicy tiles banned. Yes, it was mainly cloud management, but managing the damage was never easy and always involved an infuriating amount of attempts to figure out the timings.
To me Talulah was the hardest because she was hard even with a guide. And the biggest problem was that group of dumb spectators staring at the fireballs.
I totally agree with how Damazti cluster is so far the hardest boss, since 1. You had to watch your dp amount and limit 2. His stage has awkward placements and you can easily get tunnel vision due to having way too much pressure everywhere 3. You cant have operators adjacent to one another, giving guardian defenders HALF of their range cut for their skill 1, making the likes of gummy and nearl hard to use
Right now.. The one I can think of being the hardest is Eblana (What the firelight casts story boss) I hated the mud debuffs, burning rice fields, mobs that revive if their soul is not killed immediately. If not for the kaltsit/Ling strat I saw I would probably still be malding at the last stage.
tbh, Essence of Evolution's mechanics got countered pretty easily if you had either Siege or Saga or Blaze to take care of all the mobs, a decent AoE medic, and two of these: (Amiya, Schwarz, SilverAsh, Eyjafjalla)
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![[Arknights] Typhon VS Every BOSS](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/gM34i6te04I/mqdefault.jpg)
Yes I played and beat all these stages again with only the operators available at the time... no I'm' not ok
jk lmao it wasn't that bad.
Dazmati is not strong in a traditional sense she just has so many invul phase that it makes it a slog
You forgot to mention that the bloodknight always has a short path and he beelines straight to the blue box
"Why do you have such a short route? That is cheating!"
Blood Knight: "Cheating? No. It's called being smart, young'un."
winner mentality
And comedically on 1 stage the path took him next to a deathpit, making him 1 of the few bosses that could be 1-shot that way.
Blood Knight in EX-8-CM truly is a nightmare to stall through with a 4* squad
The stat boosts for the knife are insane. Those things are 60% of the difficulty of the stage.
Even though what I usually hear is that, currently, H12-4 is the hardest and H9-6 is the second hardest, the stage that I actually had to wait some months to clear was H10-3, I needed Lumen for his consistent healing and Silence's module, and one thing that I found out with hell stages is that 4-star clearers present so many good strategies or use cases for 4-stars, without them I would've never thought that Mousse S1M3 with the healing of 3 medics can tank 2nd phase Manfred in H10-3, Matterhorn just has really high RES stored in his abs, Cutter S2M3 can break 6 Damazti's drones with them hitting your ops only once, and that you can rotate two 4-stars defenders to tank two Damaztis simultaneously with the heal of a single medic.
Mousse's semi-consistent -40% ATK is so good that sometimes I think of leveling Ch'en just for her to be a clutch so that the debuff actually gets consistent, just putting Ch'en somewhere random like she''s Myrtle, maybe make Ch'en and Myrtle stare at each other in a corner of the stage.
I hate the fact that we had to fight Manfred 4 times total in chapter 10, I have some trauma with that entire chapter haha. and yeah some things that I don't really think about is how low rartity operators can tank so much punishment that even 6 stars struggle to stay alive on haha. Seeing silvergun rotate those 2 defenders is how I first cleared my run of H12-4 too I just had to adjust my previous strat a bit to accommodate an extra defender, I adopted 5 stars only as a niche it's still extremely flexible with clears and quite easy to do if you have more than a handful built, but I can't imagine progressing to the 4 star niche it's quite a massive jump from 5 stars.
@@FABKlNGAnd 6 if including CC 10. God, i despise both Damazti and him now.
The bullshit thing about Will of We Many isn't reading all the mechanics, it's that one of the most important mechanics is something the game DOESN'T TELL YOU. Even with the expanded enemy archive we have these days, his description still reads like he'll eat all the remains on the map when he actually only eats the two CLOSEST to him. And of course you can't even see which enemies are closest even if you were to count the number of tiles because his model disappears from the map inbetween phases. Manipulating which remains he eats to be the ones your squad can deal with is essential and the game never acknowledges that this aspect of the fight even exists. To make matters worse, if two remains are stacked on the same tile, he can eat multiple at once, getting all the buffs and completely screwing you over, which misleads the player into thinking the number of buffs he gets is random.
He's not that hard at the end of the day, but he is absolutely one of the most bullshit bosses.
There is a clear indication of the ones it will eat, though. A large blinking + shows the one that is closest at the moment and the area operators get eaten.
rly cool retrospective analysis on the bosses the game has had over the years. laughing at how u basically said "jellyfish boss is ez, just read. 5head"
And I pretty much completely agree with him. As long as they never get the Resist buff, I just popped them with Ash+Warf each time they woke up.
Did the same for for his Trials fight with Yato instead of Warf
It takes me 2-3 months to beat Patriot until Surtr release because how small my brain was, even though I have Thorns, SilverAss, Amiya E2 but when the second form of Patriot revive, it always traumatized me, especially the sound when he thrown the spear, man when I heard that I know I'm fcked up. But everything is changes when Surtr release, Patriot is just a playing since then
Steam Knight in particular was pretty easy to me since skadi guard stalled her whilst i picked everything else off
Hardest Bosses on Arknights:
Story Bosses only, Talulah/DBS from H8-4
If Including Side Story, Dolly from So Long, Adele
If Including other Game Mode: SSS#1 Bosses
If Including Collab stories: *Essence of Evolution*
I feel like Dolly was only really a tough boss if you didn't understand the soda bottle thingies. It was def the hardest to afk but in terms of making you feel just completely helpless I feel like there are tougher ones. You could sorta cheese dolly with amiya+mlynar even without crazy soda bottle micro as well. Personally id say zaaro because god the mafia crossbowmen are hell
I honestly had less problem with EoE than fcking Dolly and Cliff.
Damatzi is definitely the hardest. It's not because he hits like a trucks. It's the overall stages aspect that make it so difficult. There are a lot planning needed while you need to pay attention to several things at once.
Definitely a good stage. 10/10 will reach 0 sanity moment and I'm gonna do it again.😊
Essence of Evolution. Prove me wrong.
Got beaten by a hungry dog and a dublin grass
EoE was manageable imo
The monastery civilians
The most invicible boss 😤
ngl i think talulah jt8-3 had me restart the most time.
also i only started seriously playing chapter 10-12 after texalter and kirito. so it's easier to clear stages than when i was at chap 8
People used to contribute "brain rot" to constant Surtr usage, but now it's for Yato/Texas
I even went out of my way to make my only FRD ops Gravel and Red
@@123goofykingphantom:
The endspeaker was the hardest for me, personally. First time I had to use such fine timing, dropping in operators when the enemy is exact;y 60% into the goal box. Since then most of the bosses just feel comparatively easy.
I'm surprised Essence of Evolution didn't get at least an honorable mention. I didn't suffer too much from it personally but I remember a lot of people malding.
I think that was more people trying to make stable auto farms haha
Good video, i really liked the approach you took for comparisons.
The one nitpick is that "casually" endspeaker should get a bump higher since trying to decipher what it was doing was PART of the difficulty
For the stages : Damazti, Dolly
For the bosses : Emperror Blade, R6 collab boss
Strongest potential boss : Tadpole in Stultivera Navis
I know IS doesn't count, but for me Izumik in a15 and Skadi Alter in a15 were a separate universe. It took me a couple of months to complete them
Honestly Ending 1 is already hard enough on SW15 let along Ending 3 or especially 4, I legit wouldn't have been able to beat those without the new mind over matter buff. Sure I can just keep resetting for a lucky run, but that's quite boring imo haha
Looking back at Essence of Evolution, I don' think it really that hard since saga exist back when it release. She can handle the slug with s2 as long she have enough damage to one shot slug and ifrit can handle the boss. But this is based OD EX-8, the normal stage have different difficulty due to to stage design
Saga became a legend because of EoE. And I was so damn glad to have gotten her
6:40 hardest challenge ever cuz i can't read
IMO yan dragon's map wide tile ban was pretty challenging. damazti cluster was also a pain but only at higher difficulties. Patriot's a good classic with his ranged nuke and raw stats but his phase 2 is kind of a pushover. Endspeaker took probably the most thinking and braincells as it was the only boss to date that actively punishes spawn killing. eblana and zaaro fall under the same category of raw damage that can stall a few units, but zaaro is harder just because of his event mechanic and because he's not nightingale-able. I'd say the hardest I've faced is izumik, with the annoying jellyfish and the plethora of rng leading up to the clear but that's IS.
The stage that has given me the most grief, Haven't seen anyone talking about it, but it was Kristen, it took me probably over 30 tries to kill her ex challenge mode, and I quit trying to do the S stage, it's not even that hard of a boss it's just the adds hit like bosses themselves, people talk about their trauma of the seaborne and trust me I hate them too, but that event gave me PTSD of Rhine lab enemies.
True but I feel like it's not really kirsten herself.. it's those goddamn planet balls and giant mechs w rocket launchers, giant melee mechs.
The melee mechs feel like Golems but (de)buffed in such a way they feel justified in making you deal with a handful at a time. And it's a pain in the ass
Beating Talulah on JT8-3 with mizuki was an achievement for me because i forgot to read what she even does so it took me like 10 tries to beat her 🥲
For me the boss I considered to be hardest for a while was Emperor's Blade... and then I found out you can cheese him with Warfarin and base Ch'en. The one I struggled the most with was probably Mandragora, or Endspeaker (both require so much positioning and timing it's insane, same for Kirsten but to a smaller degree)
well...the most terrifying boss is sea coral in CC 9...I prefer fighting talula
Imagine the boss of finale of act 3 in main story is harder than damazti cluster 💀
Imagine Theresis having spamming the guarantee 1-shot along with horde of dogs or whatever, will truly be the stage of all time.
Sarkaz vampire lord with the summoning crap and enemies of chapter 10 but enhanced, imagine they give them the manfred ring in H10-3, I'll DIE
Theresis spamming getsuga tenshou
I say IS#3 Ending 4 boss hands down hardest. I had harder time clearing H12-3 than H12-4
I loved this video.
It made me realize once again why I love this game. And also to remember those challenges back in the day with what we have at the time.
Is not only that ' Boss.exe do big dmg and really tanky. '
Is how they work with the Chapter/Event mechanics, the rest of the enemies, and understanding what you're doing, the layout of the stage and pathing of the enemies.
I enjoyed and suffer recording my run against the Damazti Cluster the first time I did it.
If the answer isn't Talulah, you're wrong.
Talulah is fucking crazy. I don’t want to see her again…
No Talulah/DBS... huh. Tbf it gets flayed by AH now and Nightingale existed and will continue to.
I never found H8-4 that difficult actually haha partially because I got nightingale really early on so I just used her. The hardest part about that stage is definitely keeping the civies alive which is why I made the joke about them at the end haha
@@FABKlNG I started about a year ago and only cleared H8-4 in the last month, long after the rest of episode 8. I just couldn't do it without both NG and Saria. H12-4 is now the only main stage that I haven't cleared.
it really interesting how in this scenario ebenholz is actually very useful
Cluster gave me the most PTSD. That's with a full lv 90 star some max pot roster, must have taken me an hour or two of constant failures to beat.
IS#1 bosses touched me
In this day and age, you have no idea how much I went off when I fucking destroyed Frozen Monstrosity with a cracked team + relics
Yeah Damazti was brutal, i also had to wait for Eyja. But ironically, the way i did i would have been able to it without eyja
I remember that time fighting Blood Knight on EX stage CM mode (not rerun), Kyo use Kal'tsit and Ch'en alter while i don't have both of them, i have to waste around 200 sanity by borrow Kal'tsit and use Silverash and Rosmontis just to replace Ch'en alter.
Man that stage tells how strong a knight can be especially when 'blood' are his name.
Meanwhile H11-4 is another whole stage where i feel shiver on my arms again after a long time i have been playing Arknights, it was so intense that even some old player like me got the old feelings playing back around 2021 fighting Patriot on H7-4.
Who is Kyo ??? 🤨
@@HuruHara575 Kyostinv, a youtuber that makes guide to clear the game's stages
Stopped for a few seconds to think which boss I would consider the hardest and thought "Surely Essence of Evolution must be the one" and not 2 seconds later I read the description.
Got a good laugh out of me.
H12-4 was probably actually hardest story stage for me so far, which is pefectly understandable ig lmao, but the thing is - it was until Kal Y mod from Lone Trail. I don't have stuff like Mlynar so SA was substitude, nearl alt was as important to kill the boss as Kal herself with s3, although I had to borrow nearl since I don't have her as well, overall many things were working not in my favour since I'm actively playing for like 1,5 years only (came back on Ling release with having like 2 months of playtime on release), so I do be missing some of the cooler ops like even og Eyja lmao, but stage was kinda interesting to figure out, and the whole chapter was a good defender/medic showcase since stall is not an option, but necessity, and me having millions of medics raised for no reason really appretiated that to an extend
For me it's the r6 first collab event boss... that guy can infinite spawn critters if not killed fast enough, that boss make me struggle in mind for strats and my phone cause it make my phone overheat that time XD
It’s Damazti Cluster
It’s the Cluster
It’s always the Cluster
this video gives me nonstop flashbacks
My personal hardest is probably Steam Knight. The incentive to cluster all your units together to spread damage across other ops, having tank buster attacks that do obscenely high damage to single targets, and making more and more of the field unusable is a recipe for disaster to me. Manfred is also up there because I personally really disliked his stacking attack buff, and the Londinium Secondary Defense Artillery made it incredibly difficult to set up operators to use against him. Even when you successfully hit him with it, the blast probably removed your high-damage units from the area around him, so you have to put your damage dealers down after the explosion and can't easily set them down in anticipation.
Maybe I'm just a freak, but honestly, Blood Knight didn't feel that hard to me. Blood Knight very frequently wedged himself in-between my ground operators because of his stun. He'd stun my first frontliner and walk past them, then by the time his blood blades started to spawn, the stunned operator would have recovered and already be in the perfect position to block the blades from reaching him.
While Damazti Cluster is certainly difficult, I'm not sure I'd put them in my top 3, or maybe even 5. They can't be burst down, but they also don't do burst damage that often, so the stage rewards using setups with high sustained damage and healing, especially when you consider that any operators that can hit two clones at once are basically dealing double damage. It was pretty hard, but I really liked Damazti's stages. Again, I might just be weird though, because apparently a lot of people didn't like that chapter while I really enjoyed it, haha.
I'll certainly agree with Mudrock though. High power shield prevents you from damaging her easily, taking over the nearest gramophone negates the damage you could've done to her with it and heals her substantially for whatever damage you'd already done instead, and her stacking damage buff makes it incredibly difficult to hold her in one place to keep her away from some gramophones and close to others. All that combined with the fact that these were the days before Surtr and the awkward stage layout making it difficult to properly position damage dealers against her and her stage becomes a real challenge.
Always interesting to see how other people view the game and its bosses, good video.
Uh oooh, I finished H11-4 a month ago thanks to Silence alt shelter talent, and I'm currently stuck at H11-1, and now I'm scared of what will happen at H11-4 lmaoo
Great video, love it!
I still haven't fought Mudrock (not sure what event or level that is), Bloodknight was really tough for me, not even the EX version (at least when Near Light rerun happened). But Endspeaker was impossible when SN came out, I had to borrow a friends support and still only beat sn-10 with 2 stars (phase 2 just walked through my defenders). I haven't gotten farther than ch 8 in story so I can't say anything about those bosses, but SN was the most nightmarish experience in the game for me.
Of course, now SN isn't hard because I have Eyja alter and Honeyberry to help with the worst of it.
I'm with the Mudrock PTSD gang...
Bloodknight wasnt that bad given Chalter and Mudrock were lock out by the time he came out and chalter could very quickly clear the bloodblades tbh.
Cluster probably is definitely the hardest on release so far for EN.
1:40 Now nowadays everyone knows how to defeat patriot easily
Me, who have most meta units but still scared of him, didn't even try to clear the other stage with patriot in it (Don't know the name since I haven't opened it because I'm still scared of him until now). Oh yeah, H7-4
Okay so I got OPINIONS about bosses in Arknights, I love how the boss design in this game works and generally they're my favorite aspect of Arknights and I've thought about it a lot.
Few things before I get into my actual specific opinions:
Thinking about the context within the boss's release is a good idea but I think it's important to point out the problems with looking primarily from a casual's perspective. Mainly, that casual players don't think about the game as much as non-casual players.
More complex bosses are generally going to be seen as harder since yknow there's a lot more to parse. Combine that with the fact that Arknights hates telling people shit and you have problems.
But the big thing is uhhhh, it's really hard to gauge how strong a boss is when the amount of strats are so varied. Every player has different tools that they can access, and it's really hard to parse strength this way.
Why? Because most bosses have optimal strats, disregard the Surtrs and the Chalters you still have stuff like Dikaiopolis. He seems tough and he generally is but you can also slap two defenders, a medic team, and a few other laneholding/waveclearing options around him and he becomes a non-issue. That's not necessarily easy but it's also far from difficult, and Dikaiopolis as a boss heavily encourages stally play.
Also whilst I am on board with wrapping the stages with the bosses, I also think there's a point to where bosses and stages need to be separated. Case in point: Steam Knight. He's what I'd actually call a weak boss through multiple metrics, mainly he can't deal with being blocked and stalled out, and he can't really threaten ranged operators (this also applies to Dikaiopolis btw just to a lesser extent). H11-4 is a tough stage don't get me wrong but I don't think it's because the Steam Knight is hard, I think it's because it's a difficult stage and the Steam Knight is far from the most dangerous threat on the map.
Additionally, I find it odd that you add H stages into consideration, H stages are what I'd generally call "endgame content" roughly on the level of CC because even though they're not necessarily as difficult they are made with different expectations as a given EX-8 or chapter stage, granted it also means that story bosses have a smaller selection but yknow that isn't a big deal imo.
Case in point (again): Damazti. The difference between 12-20 Adverse Cluster and H12-4 Cluster is night and day, Damazti without H stage buffs is honestly not that hard, especially within the context of 12-20, but with H stage buffs they're an absolute nightmare. More health and more clones makes them a lot more tankier, and on the map side of things the pathing means you can't reap the benefits of the ~1.1x mult aoe would give you. I don't think any EX-8 CM is as dangerous as a given H stage, which is why I think it's a bit unfair.
Now onto bosses, I'll cover the ones you covered first then I'll talk about my personal favorite picks.
Patriot is a case where I think his reputation is warranted but also he's clearly made restrictively so with hindsight he isn't actually that big of a deal. I won't go into detail since it's clear he mainly got a mention for the old days and not as a huge contender.
Mudrock I'll argue against HARD. She's wayyyy too vulnerable to arts to be a real contender imo, even though EX-8 is a rightful fustercluck of a stage she isn't really that strong. This was long before the devs realized how strong arts is and it shows, I don't think she's really close to the spot here.
Dikaiopolis? Nah. Maybe S-4 Dikaiopolis but I think he's just far too stall susceptible to be in the running for strongest boss. He's still a formidable opponent, and I think he works with the game's mechanics as a whole really well, but I don't think he really deserves to be on the level of other folks. I'd chalk this up to casual perception though.
Endspeaker... I can agree with that. Little Handy massively lowers the strengths of the maps because nethersea brand just. Doesn't exist anymore but on its own the Endspeaker is pretty good.
I'm sorry but the Emperor's Blade isn't really a hard boss. They was one of the first bosses you couldn't Surtr but that doesn't make them _hard_, just massively polarizing. Now we simply know how to spread dps out across a boss's path, which this boss taught us to do (if you were around back then, nowadays it's Andoain who does that).
I mentioned Steam Knight and Damazti already but to reiterate for the former I wouldn't call him anything close to the strongest boss in the game, he's honestly pretty weak and I'd call him a more modern version of a Patriot boss (read: statstick).
Dolly is honestly in the running for me, Fred I wouldn't really say he's the strongest mostly since he interacts with the cannon in simultaneously harmful and beneficial ways (for himself).
So here are my personal picks.
Dolly is definitely up there (where he deserves to be I love him), he's a very odd type of check where you want hits/second on specific points in the map with limited windows to deal good damage high hp and he is a drone so no matter what he's living for at least half of the map.
Degenbrecher whilst not the hardest I think should deserve a mention just because she's such a brutal design for the environment at the time, the whole event theme dissuaded Surtr usage and Degen practically shat on the majority of most dps units at the time since she asked for 4 tile range which could really only be given by Rosa and Schwa, with the latter needing Elysium support and the former being less than ideal since she didn't have her mod yet. I think because she was so overly specific in what she required at the time that she is in the running for one of the hardest... potentially. I have a bias against her.
Now for the big one: Essence of Evolution. It's not the hardest boss, but if we're taking maps into account it knocks the competition out of the part. OD-8 is a five lane stage where pressure is placed on all five lanes and the actual enemy count is decently paced so it doesn't end quickly. Absolute terror, and then OD-EX-8 is a joke so whoops.
I also wanna mention Mandragora, if we're taking H stages into account H9-6 is in the running for one of the hardest (even though that isn't a high bar) and she is a huge part of the stage, but tbf it's also a grueling gauntlet of ~110 (I think?) enemies which doesn't really let up the intensity and is probably one of the longer boss stages in the game this side of Annihilation.
Mephisto, the Singer is probably up there. The hardest of the three ch8 bosses and a masssive healing check which while nowadays isn't that big of a deal back then was absolutely brutal.
Ngl the hardest is really hard to determine because Arknights is a pretty easy game all things considered and most bosses are in some way exploitable, so ig I should look at it through that lens huh.
Then Dolly, even with Exu being the main exploiting op Dolly still serves as an incredibly tanky, dangerous option that asks so much of the player. If we're counting H stages then probably Damazti, runner up/third place would be OD-8 EoE, for IS it'd probably go to SW15 Izu'mik, for CC it'd probably be max risk CC1 Crownslayer, for SSS probably the Fruit of Life or one of the og bosses, for Trials of Navigator probably some iteration of Andoain or DBS, for main story only then Damazti or Mandragora.
Also vignettes deserve a mention, VI-7 puts you through the absolute wringer but I can't in good faith mention it because it comes with five bosses and not one.
TLDR Dolly is the best
I'm honestly surprised you rank Blood Knight that high. I've been playing since launch, and am not a particularly good player, but NL was one event I insisted on doing everything in the initial release. Blood Knight gave me less trouble than the Last Steam Knight or Dolly. I've not bothered with the Last Steam Knight's hardest stages after getting so irritated with him as a story boss, but I did do all CMs in So Long, Adele and genuinely hurt my hand pounding it on my armrest in frustration. Even with guides, the goddamn steam mechanic was a bigger problem for me than the blood blades.
Ehh i was expecting talulah would be the top, but the damazti, now that i think about it again, was pretty damn hard. but I'll still put Talulah above her due to those civvies.
Additional award for the most annoying goes to that r6 collab boss.
The boss I had the most trouble even today is 'Ya' from Chongyue's event because there's isn't exactly a good Ifrit Tile on it.
But of course it's the damn civilian Amogus that gets the hardest stage, why are you civilians guys like this?
Ya huh... My problem with her is CM
Minus 1 block yup no more mountain 😂😂😂 but again I managed to string her with provence
i start playing not that long ago but this video gave me some nostalgic trip for all the struggle i went through lol
from what i can remember here's some stages that gave me a lot of trouble
JT8-3 : classic but this stage, boi it's brutal for new player. this is prob the first stage i have to play in x1 speed because ignition and FDR cooldown are up almost at the same times so precise deplo are needed or my ops gonna exploded
H9-6 : Tons of Enemy rush, super annoying gargoyle, and mandragora commiting Warcrimes.
H10-1 : fuck manfred
H10-3 : Fuck Mandred
H11-1 : the caster are sooo annoying
H11-4 : doggos, corrosion, devour and Steam knight hit like a truck. also 5 minutes stall to chop the tree kinda annoying tbh.
H12-4 : fuck damazti
IS-10 : Texalter event are running when i start playing, it's miracle i able to clear normal stages tbh. but zaaro kick my ass hard
BI-8 : Rerun right after il siracusano concluded, Degen Mechanic Surprisingly tough for new player
TW-8 : too stupid to figure out the Tower Mech at the time. the ex went smoothly tho
NL-ex-8 : This stage are brutal, like holy moly. this is probably the longest one for me to figure out how to clear them. Blood knight stun Mech, mobs hit hard, Blade hits hard, BK hit harder on 2nd phase, aand your only shifter are shaw
DH-s-2 : this stage harder than S-4 for some reason.
Also Steam knight, Kristen and Mandragora are my Fav boss.
My fave bosses are probably Kristen, Dolly, and (controversial alter) Clement the Gardener. The first two are pretty simple bosses mechanically but still leave a lot of room for skill expression with their mechanics, which I love... And I just like the puzzle boss nature of Clement lmao
And yeah I can imagine a lot of different events that would be much harder if you're new, a lot of stages that would just be stat check to see if your operators are levelled up enough, or if you have an entire squad built.
I think the Bloodknight was kind of overrated, because once people figured out that the blades had low weight he became easily tankable. I think Emperors Blade was way harder especially considering the stage with the 4 bosses at the end and some juicy tiles banned. Yes, it was mainly cloud management, but managing the damage was never easy and always involved an infuriating amount of attempts to figure out the timings.
To me Talulah was the hardest because she was hard even with a guide. And the biggest problem was that group of dumb spectators staring at the fireballs.
Not to undermine your great work
But the Originium dust boss is hands down the hardest boss.
didn't feature lucian or playwright, gotta unsub. it's been an honor friend, i wish you luck on your future endeavors.
Damn didn't think i'd fuck up this fast. Would it help to say that I was saving them for a "best bosses" video? LMAO
@Git's fine, lucian isn't the hardest boss but he's the only boss that makes me hard 👍
@@cirokumayou son of a gun, you had us in the first half not gonna lie
@@cirokuma _sad Playtight noises_
I totally agree with how Damazti cluster is so far the hardest boss, since
1. You had to watch your dp amount and limit
2. His stage has awkward placements and you can easily get tunnel vision due to having way too much pressure everywhere
3. You cant have operators adjacent to one another, giving guardian defenders HALF of their range cut for their skill 1, making the likes of gummy and nearl hard to use
I think its essense of evolution
For me all the bosses are easy except Talulah i went insane and it took me like 6 month to finally defeat her
I love boss discussion video I fucking love boss discussion video! I love the bosses!!!
What about the rainbow 6 siege bosses? I heard rumors that they were the strongest?
Right now.. The one I can think of being the hardest is Eblana (What the firelight casts story boss) I hated the mud debuffs, burning rice fields, mobs that revive if their soul is not killed immediately. If not for the kaltsit/Ling strat I saw I would probably still be malding at the last stage.
What about Essence of Evolution? I heard ptsd memes from it
tbh, Essence of Evolution's mechanics got countered pretty easily if you had either Siege or Saga or Blaze to take care of all the mobs, a decent AoE medic, and two of these: (Amiya, Schwarz, SilverAsh, Eyjafjalla)
Hello FABKnight! We are an Arknights EN Strategy Group. We are interested in inviting you to a planned event that will be promoted by Arknights EN. May we get in touch to discuss the proposal? This is time sensitive.
Hello! I'd love to! Which socials do I need to provide for communication? I'm comfortable with both discord and through email
@@FABKlNG Discord would be the faster approach!
HAA🗣️🗣️🗣️🗣️🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🥶🥶🥶🥶
No IS bosses. Disliked. Unsubbed. Video Reported.