The hoar-bear

The hoar-bear
Scenery 7 of 31 · the approach to Ostvalden. Alone · Nightmare · Alchemist.

A long fight, six to ten minutes, and nearly every attack you must answer is a walk-out. Fight from range: the one test run that died was fighting close.

What you hold

Four spells, exactly: your two starting spells plus one pick from each boss draft (scenery 3 and 5). A solo hero drafts once per boss, never after ordinary sceneries.

• Tap: The Measure: a healing pool with 2 charges, one back every 16 s. Press Cast to launch it and press again to stop it where you want the pool. Alone, it heals you while you stand in it.
• Hold: Priced ground: a decay Beam from a 6 s pool. It prices the ground where it touches: a body takes damage only while it stands in that patch, which follows your aim with a short lag and ends when you let go.
• Your drafts. Each draft deals four cards. Card one is always one of the Alchemist's own spells, and the rest are random, so no particular card is promised. The rule: At each boss draft take, in this order: a new damage, control or summon spell; if none is offered, an upgrade of a damage, control or summon spell you hold; if neither, any new spell. Between two equal cards, take the Alchemist's own.

The build we used: At scenery 3, card one was Anchor, the Alchemist's own; we passed on it and took Sinkhold, also the Alchemist's own, over Where you stood and Digger. At scenery 5, card one was Where you stood; we passed on it and took Downdraft, the Alchemist's own, over Overburden and The Hush. Sinkhold and Downdraft are both Halts that leave a pool. Their Slow does nothing to the bear on Nightmare, where a boss ignores every control status (Mark, Weaken, Slow, Root, Stun), but their damage still counts.

If your hand differs: every draft order cleared at least five of its six runs. Other pairs included Vesper + The Hush, The rim + Second wind, The grain + The long grass, The late reading + Where you stood and Shotrock + Hollowpoint.

Talents

You have 6 points, and they are your choice. The runs put all of them into The Aura (Alchemist talents), bought in this order:

1. The Colour He Carries ×2: decay spells deal 3% more damage per point.
2. What the Party Makes Together ×2: hitting a body with a second element deals 3% more combo damage per point.
3. The Same Air ×1: take 4% less decay damage per point.
4. It Lasts on Them ×1: shield, ward, empower and haste you apply last 4% longer per point.

Each point went to the deepest open row (rows open at 5, 10 and 15 points, the ultimate at 20), a new talent before a second rank.

The fight

Controls (keyboard / pad): move with WASD / left stick, and aim with the mouse / right stick. Cast is Left mouse / South; hold it to channel. Blink is Shift / East and jump is Space / North. Next spell is E or → / R1 or D-pad right.

1. Opening. Keep Priced ground's patch under the bear; the runs averaged about 300 holds and 32 Measures per fight. Drop The Measure where you will stand.
2. Come down (answer: walk out). It rears and lands where it looked. On Nightmare you get 0.95 s instead of 1.3 s. Let go of Cast and walk.
3. Settle (answer: jump; leaves Slow). A low front. Jump it (Space / North).
4. Snap close (answer: blink). Fighting alone, expect it about every 20 seconds. Blink (Shift / East).
5. Swat (answer: kite) and Driven front (answer: strafe) come with no warning. Swat punishes standing close; sidestep Driven front.
6. The road. While the bear itself stands on the metalled road, it cannot use Settle or Overtopping.
7. Phase two starts at half health. On Nightmare it also starts the moment you and the bear are both on the road. It adds Overtopping (answer: walk out), a second drop with about 1.5 s of warning.
8. What the runs met. Every tell recorded catching the hero was a walk-out (Come down or Overtopping); never Settle, Snap close or Crossing.

What goes wrong

• The one loss. It came in the draft order that took Where you stood and Windfall, playing the close-fighting style at the lower skill level. The hero went down once, 425 s in. Alone, that is Defeated. The same build cleared its five other runs, never below 70.6%.
• Fighting close. That same style at that skill level also produced two of the three near misses (41% health), and it had the worst average low point (66%). The keep-range and dodge-first styles cleared every run.
• Nightmare. No pause, and some attacks have only one escape. Health resets each scenery.

Tested

We ran 60 automated runs on the shipped rules: ten draft orders, three play styles (keep range, fight close, dodge first) and two skill levels. 59 cleared and 1 was defeated. The clears took 362 s to 587 s. The build shown above cleared all six of its runs in 523 to 536 s and never fell below 84.8% health. These were automated test runs, not human play.

Screenshots

One complete fight in the current build, played by an automated test player with the game's normal controls: the Alchemist alone on Nightmare, holding the build used above. The fight took 8 min 43 s of game time.