I feel like General Sargas Ruk needs some work

[Darthplagueis13]

So, I was doing the boss fight on Saturn yesterday and I'm not gonna lie, I wasn't having a good time, really. General Sargas Ruk is one of those bosses with the rather unfortunate design principle of not letting the player damage the boss when and how they choose to. I'm generally not a big fan of that, I understand it's to prevent players from instantly melting the boss to the point where it just isn't a challenge anymore (which is an issue with the Sergeant on Phobos) and add some difficulty, but it doesn't actually make the boss feel difficult, just frustrating.

The issue boils down to several factors:

1: Crowd control. Two of Ruks abilities, namely his homing missile and his flame vortex will throw you back if they hit you without you having a melee weapon out to block it. You likely won't have a melee weapon out since is difficult if not borderline impossible to target the generals weak spots with melee weapons. Additionally, the minions that keep on spawning during the fight may also knock you down or pull you away (shield bearers, Scorpions, Powerfists, etc). With a boss who requires you to aim well and use short windows of opportunity, getting juggled around is utterly rage-inducing.

2: Wayfinding. This seems to be an issue with either Ruk's AI or the arena you fight him in. Sometimes he'll just get caught on something and proceed to stare into a wall until you eventually change your position in a way that lures him out. I probably don't need to mention that having a boss who can at times only be damaged from the front face walls and other terrain is not particularily great.

3: Blinding. Sometimes, especially when he's doing his eruption or flame vortex moves and you were aiming down sights, you can get blinded, making it difficult to see anything. It doesn't feel like that was intentional like with some other blinding effects.

4: Questionable hitboxes. Now, some of this may boil down to me using a Boltor which isn't the most accurate gun in the game, but whether or not a hit actually manages to land can feel quite random. Sometimes, I get damage numbers from what should have been a miss and other times, I fire right at the blue light and nothing happens.

 

All this comes together to form a boss who overstays his welcome and annoys the ever-living hell out of you whilst you are trying to damage his weak spots. It doesn't feel like you are fighting the boss, it feels like you are fighting the mechanics, which is never a good sign.

 

I think at the least, he should be re-homed to a tile that is less confusing to him, the knockback range on his fire vortex and his homing missile need to be tuned down, his glowy hitboxes need some work and the minion spawns should be reduced a little.

[Quimoth]

wait, you think he is to hard?

[Darthplagueis13]

vor 44 Minuten schrieb Quimoth:

wait, you think he is to hard?

Not hard, just a little boring, not very fun and a needlessly lengthy fight that's also sometimes incredibly clunky. I didn't mind Protea during the Deadlock Protocol at all, even though she's arguably much harder, but the General just feels like he's wasting your time in the most annoying way possible.

[Quimoth]

Oh and the bosses that you can't damage or that stall their fight like this are quite numerous.

Lets make a list:

1. Vay Hek
2. Lech Krill
3. Captain Vor
4. Ambulas (to some extent since you wait 5 years for the dropships to arrive)
5. The Jackal
6. Exploiter
7. The Razorback
8. Sargas Ruk
9. Alad V (to some extent because you need to deal with zanuka and him in the right order)
10. Ropalolyst
11. Lephantis
12. Zealoid Prelate
13. Mutalist Alad V
14. Stalker (although he is a miniboss)
15. Every Lich/Sister (miniboss)
16. Every arbitration drone protected enemy
17. Tyl Regor
18. Enemy Necramechs (when using their storm shroud)
19. Kela De Thaym
20. Profit-taker orb, pillar phase.
21. Condrix
22. Shielded crew-ships

I probably missed more than a few, but I think the picture is clear, almost every boss/miniboss has some kind of staging/damage immunity to it because we would simply nuke them the moment they show up.

Sargas Ruk is quite far down the list of bosses that I find a nuisance. Ambulas is much worse considering the hour long wait for the dropships, not to mention it requiring you to farm the ambulas beacons in missions first.

Exception list:

1. The Sergeant, he is a joke and still waiting for a rework
2. Corrupted Captain Vor, a miniboss so w/e.

I actually run out of options here, but perhaps someone can add a few to this.

 

[Darthplagueis13]

vor 6 Minuten schrieb Quimoth:

Oh and the bosses that you can't damage or that stall their fight like this are quite numerous.

Lets make a list:

1. Vay Hek
2. Lech Krill
3. Captain Vor
4. Ambulas (to some extent since you wait 5 years for the dropships to arrive)
5. The Jackal
6. Exploiter
7. The Razorback
8. Sargas Ruk
9. Alad V (to some extent because you need to deal with zanuka and him in the right order)
10. Ropalolyst
11. Lephantis
12. Zealoid Prelate
13. Mutalist Alad V
14. Stalker (although he is a miniboss)
15. Every Lich/Sister (miniboss)
16. Every arbitration drone protected enemy
17. Tyl Regor
18. Enemy Necramechs (when using their storm shroud)
19. Kela De Thaym
20. Profit-taker orb, pillar phase.
21. Condrix
22. Shielded crew-ships

I probably missed more than a few, but I think the picture is clear, almost every boss/miniboss has some kind of staging/damage immunity to it because we would simply nuke them the moment they show up.

Sargas Ruk is quite far down the list of bosses that I find a nuisance. Ambulas is much worse considering the hour long wait for the dropships, not to mention it requiring you to farm the ambulas beacons in missions first.

Exception list:

1. The Sergeant, he is a joke and still waiting for a rework
2. Corrupted Captain Vor, a miniboss so w/e.

I actually run out of options here, but perhaps someone can add a few to this.

 

Sure, there's a lot of those bosses (and fair warning, I am still a new player so I haven't seen anywhere near all of them) but a lot of them are more about doing specific things to disable or circumvent the immunity. Lech Kril for instance requires you to break the machines on his back, at which point he'll enter his second phase and become damageable. Or Alad V's order of how to take out him and Zanuka. Those bosses require you to play in more deliberate way, but their fight still is reasonably fast-paced and simply separated into windows where they can be damaged and windows where you need to be doing something else.

I find Ruk particularily annoying because it's not about doing something specific to break his immunity but instead you are only allowed to damage him in a particular way and that way just doesn't work out well because it requires you to be accurate when both the boss and his minions constantly seem to be juggling you around or when his fire effects make it difficult to see or when he decides that some random wall, door or set of stairs is more interesting than you and just simply refuses to do anything. I think I'd probably have less complaints if, instead of only dealing damage to those weakpoints, you'd first have to break those weakpoints but then he'd become vulnerable for the rest of that phase. Because right now the fight is just a bit of a drag.

[Quimoth]

8 minutes ago, Darthplagueis13 said:

Sure, there's a lot of those bosses (and fair warning, I am still a new player so I haven't seen anywhere near all of them) but a lot of them are more about doing specific things to disable or circumvent the immunity. Lech Kril for instance requires you to break the machines on his back, at which point he'll enter his second phase and become damageable. Or Alad V's order of how to take out him and Zanuka. Those bosses require you to play in more deliberate way, but their fight still is reasonably fast-paced and simply separated into windows where they can be damaged and windows where you need to be doing something else.

I find Ruk particularily annoying because it's not about doing something specific to break his immunity but instead you are only allowed to damage him in a particular way and that way just doesn't work out well because it requires you to be accurate when both the boss and his minions constantly seem to be juggling you around or when his fire effects make it difficult to see or when he decides that some random wall, door or set of stairs is more interesting than you and just simply refuses to do anything. I think I'd probably have less complaints if, instead of only dealing damage to those weakpoints, you'd first have to break those weakpoints but then he'd become vulnerable for the rest of that phase. Because right now the fight is just a bit of a drag.

Same mechanic as Vay Hek.

I think your issue is the type of weapon you are using. Using a gunblade or high damage per shot weapon will definitely help against your Sargas Ruk encounters. There are plenty of weapons that can one-shot his weakspots as soon as they open.

In which case he goes from one stagger to the other, each stagger opening another weakspot. The weakspots are always in the same order so this makes it really easy. Also, there are warframes and mods to reduce stagger/knockdown or even take them all away.

In general Sargas Ruk is one of the better designed bosses in my opinion because he has little to no actual time-gates compared to the majority of current bosses. A skilled player will deal with sargas ruk as if he were a little more than a juggernaut or eximus unit.

[Uhkretor]

@Darthplagueis13

If you're using a Boltor, you can't use it as if you were using a hit-scan weapon.

The Boltor is a projectile weapon. It doesn't bypass hitboxes in order to hit the exact point that you're crosshair dot is touching... So, during his movement, if any of the other hitboxes of his body pass ahead, your projectiles will not hit the weak point.

In order to hit those weak points, you have to do more than just aiming at it. This also includes positioning yourself relative to Sargas in order to have clear line of fire...

 

... Now, the blinding of his attacks, specifically in the last phase, is somewhat of a problem but less so in your case.

Boltor projectiles fly straight, arrows or throwing knives do not, even in such a short distance.

 

Is Sargas annoying? I don't think it is.

Is Sargas difficult? No. But the fact that players actually have to flank his weak points makes it overwhelming, and often misunderstood, most of the times...

... Its just the next step beyond "Start -> Objective -> Extract" that public squads show to everyone.

[Darthplagueis13]

vor 19 Stunden schrieb Uhkretor:

The Boltor is a projectile weapon. It doesn't bypass hitboxes in order to hit the exact point that you're crosshair dot is touching... So, during his movement, if any of the other hitboxes of his body pass ahead, your projectiles will not hit the weak point.

I am quite aware of that, however I've had moments where he was standing perfectly still (for instance during his big flame vortex attack) and I was directly aiming at the exposed weak spot and it would still be very unreliable.

Granted, there's probably just better weapons for that purpose, but I'm also still fairly new to the game and I don't have the inventory space (nor am I willing to buy it rn) to really experiment around on a large scale. I was just using it as my main gun because it dealt better damage than the starting rifle and because I had been using it for long enough that it actually had a decent level.

[(NSW)Zergmaster999]

The only thing I hate about Sargas Ruk is having to wait for his first weakpoint to open (which feels like it only opens after he uses enough flame-based attacks, at least to me, compared to the other two, each with their own dedicated attack).

[Darthplagueis13]

Well, I just fought Vay Hek today with the same weapons. I reckon the fight might have been somewhat fun if he hadn't gotten himself stuck next to the small building in his arena, below a root. I ended up having to let him kill my Kubrow because it would always charge him in melee which made it impossible to aim for his weakspots because he started spinning on the spot.

Luckily, he broke free from that position in his second phase so for like two minutes in the 30 minute grind to get him killed, I actually managed to have some fun fighting him.