The Beast's Stun ability needs to be removed.

[FlyingV]

We still never had a proper resolution regarding the "Balancing" of the Beast in LotB.

Devs thought the "Steal" move that CR, SOL and various assassin characters was too much of a cheat/hack and this has been patched. Fair enough. Unfortunately, the devs have merely swung the pendulum in the other direction of unfairness, and I am here to illustrate this for all to consider.

The Beast is armed with virtually everything but the kitchen sink, which would be acceptable if he could be beaten by skill, but this is not the case. The devs have rigged the beast in such a way that he cannot be beaten by skill. He can only be beaten by luck, and this is not playing... it is simply gambling.

Due to the way the Beast is patched, there is no combination of might and/or magic that can defeat him through his initial stages. A player must simply endure the Warrior, Sentinel, and Assassin phases of the beast's attack. Setting aside the complaint that the devs have dispensed with the gaming dynamic of having any attack/defend strategy, over this stale, unidimensional "survive and quickly or slowly, get him to assassin phase", the problem is that the combat scene turns to one of pure randomness.

IF the beast leaps into the 666 fury attack, the player's eddie either will be stunned (and will inevitably die on the next round) or the player will not. There is no counter/debuff to the stun attack (see afterthought below and unlike previous iterations of the game where the beast's charge was stolen/dispelled/removed and this 666 fury attack was disrupted from happening, the current patches allow for the beast to randomly choose this fury attack when changing class phases (regardless of whether the player stole/dispelled the Beast's charge or not)

Since there is no way to consistently interrupt this fury attack, it either happens or it doesn't. when it happens, the player is either stunned and inevitably killed next round, or not. There is no gamesmanship or strategy involved whatsoever. The player either runs through and succeeds or the player has to make the call to spend 10 ironite because (s)he RANDOMLY drew the short end of the stick.

This glorified slot machine is unacceptable as a dungeon, much less the dungeon of the great boss of the game, and it needs to be reworked.



Afterthought: but wait, what about Pharoah's 3-round invulnerability effect on his fury attack or Assassin Golden Son's immortality buff applied before the Beast potentially launches his fury attack? Sure, a fair point, but how many of the thousands of players own a Pharoah Eddie and/or an Assassin Golden Son? The point is that if everybody has to suffer a random (and unbeatable) scenario with the exception of the rare few who happen to have that elusive and magic character, then what the hell was the point of patching CR, SOL and buff-steal assassins in the first place, since that led to the exact same situation? If anything, the odds of scoring one from that handful of characters was fairer and more common to the general public than scoring one of these two rare characters.

[hold]

We still never had a proper resolution regarding the "Balancing" of the Beast in LotB.

Devs thought the "Steal" move that CR, SOL and various assassin characters was too much of a cheat/hack and this has been patched. Fair enough. Unfortunately, the devs have merely swung the pendulum in the other direction of unfairness, and I am here to illustrate this for all to consider.

The Beast is armed with virtually everything but the kitchen sink, which would be acceptable if he could be beaten by skill, but this is not the case. The devs have rigged the beast in such a way that he cannot be beaten by skill. He can only be beaten by luck, and this is not playing... it is simply gambling.

Due to the way the Beast is patched, there is no combination of might and/or magic that can defeat him through his initial stages. A player must simply endure the Warrior, Sentinel, and Assassin phases of the beast's attack. Setting aside the complaint that the devs have dispensed with the gaming dynamic of having any attack/defend strategy, over this stale, unidimensional "survive and quickly or slowly, get him to assassin phase", the problem is that the combat scene turns to one of pure randomness.

IF the beast leaps into the 666 fury attack, the player's eddie either will be stunned (and will inevitably die on the next round) or the player will not. There is no counter/debuff to the stun attack (see afterthought below and unlike previous iterations of the game where the beast's charge was stolen/dispelled/removed and this 666 fury attack was disrupted from happening, the current patches allow for the beast to randomly choose this fury attack when changing class phases (regardless of whether the player stole/dispelled the Beast's charge or not)

Since there is no way to consistently interrupt this fury attack, it either happens or it doesn't. when it happens, the player is either stunned and inevitably killed next round, or not. There is no gamesmanship or strategy involved whatsoever. The player either runs through and succeeds or the player has to make the call to spend 10 ironite because (s)he RANDOMLY drew the short end of the stick.

This glorified slot machine is unacceptable as a dungeon, much less the dungeon of the great boss of the game, and it needs to be reworked.



Afterthought: but wait, what about Pharoah's 3-round invulnerability effect on his fury attack or Assassin Golden Son's immortality buff applied before the Beast potentially launches his fury attack? Sure, a fair point, but how many of the thousands of players own a Pharoah Eddie and/or an Assassin Golden Son? The point is that if everybody has to suffer a random (and unbeatable) scenario with the exception of the rare few who happen to have that elusive and magic character, then what the hell was the point of patching CR, SOL and buff-steal assassins in the first place, since that led to the exact same situation? If anything, the odds of scoring one from that handful of characters was fairer and more common to the general public than scoring one of these two rare characters.

I beat it every single time with CR, Warrior Troll and Hellhound (immunity for the whole party the first round - and grants immunity every round to one ally ) ... I just need to make sure that I heal the whole party before the Beast transforms from 2nd to Assassin stage - that is a very hard hit. Apart from that ...