@@shidensasaki5527Ah yes, I'm sure that's good advice for new players when you: 1) Have endgame parts and max OS tuning 2) Have killed him multiple times to make his fight not an issue (Double Zimmerman) 3) Played the game enough to pilot your AC with no issues I'm sure every new player wont have any difficulty fighting these bosses for the first timr
Same here. I killed Balteus with ~20 different themed AC's pre-patch Some easy Some hard It's a fight that felt bullshit at first but over time you just kinda get used to it. Which I guess applies to like any boss ever but still.
@@boshwa20 the spider can barely hit you if you stay at point blank range and dodge under to avoid the slam. Couple that with something like a pile bunker and you can stagger lock it without much effort
Walter may not be super difficult but his dialogue, design, moveset and music make him my favorite boss in the game. I like to think he’s not so hard because he cancels his second phase with the knowledge that you found a friend, as he could have kept fighting. Also he killed rusty the previous mission, so you have a lot of motivation to kill him
No, the reason he's not so hard is cause he doesn't pull a Balteus the second the fight starts and puts up a Pulse Shield immediately that you have to keep shutting down before you can deal damage. *cough-"Ayre"- *cough-cough
@@diegomatos1419 I use the 10 round missile launcher (cant remember its name sorry) and the zimmerman to get the target to about half or 3/4 stagger, and then use a lance charged attack. For most enemies, the stagger window is large enough to then switch to the pile bunker and do a charged attack. This seems to kill most things. For enemies that get out of stagger very quickly, you'll want to do the reverse. Lance to build up stagger, and then swap to bunker and proc stagger with the zimmerman. Immediate charged pilebunker
Seeing Demod's mobility skills during Arquebus Balteus fight makes me realise just how much of a crutch dual zimmermans are. He's still moving around like he just learnt the game.
To be fair, considering he apparently got all the way through NG++ without knowing hard-lock is a thing... I think I can cut him some slack in that regard.
@@aclock2 If you press R3 or whatever the equivalent is on keyboard, enemies stay locked on and you don't have to move the camera at all to track them, although shot accuracy is somewhat reduced in exchange. It's most useful on a controller so your right thumb is free to actually press the jump and quick boost buttons, but I imagine it's less necessary on mouse and keyboard.
@@PositronCannon its useless on keyboard, gets removed by even a little mouse movement and does not track well compared to what you can do with simply moving your mouse.
Seeing the PCA helicopter ranked as a more difficult boss than Allmind is bonkers. Just because it's difficult for new players who don't know what they're doing, doesn't mean it's one of the hardest bosses in the game.
Allmind isn't that hard though. I died close to 10 times against the helicopter but only twice to all mind without any Zimmerman or stun needle cheese.
I beat the Helicopter on the first try and Allmind took me about seven. The hardest part is the beginning that has to be done as fast as possible to have AP for the rest of it.
@@sladevalenI died about 50 times to the Abyss Watchers because it was my first ever Souls game but I only died about 30 times to Lothric and Lorian but I still acknowledge that the watchers are piss easy compared to the princes.
Phase three is the bane of my existence right now. I have spent a few days trying to beat this thing, and ive gotten the first phase down okay, but once second phase comes in i start to struggle, and when phase 3 hits i immediately get hit with a 4-5 hit combo that ends me before i time to respond
he does swipe/swipe :pause: swipe if you dodge it ( i found back dodging to be the only consist way for my build) it can be punished. (also don't forget to give him a couple whacks during his dialogue)@@brazen_categories9755
@@brazen_categories9755 you could try my setup and see if it helps. I ran lance/moonlight on my left side, halderman/songbirds on the right side, all on a heavy set of biped legs. Full charged lance into shotgun+songbird will stun him every time, while having moonlight as the follow up allows you to get some distance to be ready for his next attack.
@@brazen_categories9755 to beat phase 2 & 3, just keep evading by moving outwards until he starts glowing green - 90% of the time, he'll zoom in for you to release a barrage that'll stagger him point blank :D there's a small 10% chance he'll cancel his attack, so don't be trigger happy and be patient (this is the real test!). phase 2 & 3 becomes really easy once you memorize this pattern! :D good luck!
I made the terrible decision to S Rank every mission, and it isn't the boss battles that are the hard part. The game is very forgiving with the bosses and will give you an S rank even with low health and no ammo by the end. It's the damn BAWS Arsenal 2 level that is impossible to S Rank!
Agreed. I tried to beat it regularly but never got the S-Rank no matter what. In the end (after I entered NG+), the best solution I found was to one-shot the stealth mechs with an optimized Pile Bunker as apparently the game expects you to not use ammo at all.
@@arsenicsulfide7549The S rank criteria for that mission is slightly different from others. You need to 1. Finish quickly 2. Destroy all optional fuel tanks 3. Destroy the LCs with combat logs. Don't worry too much about ammo, as that is much less of a factor in that mission
Usually I'm pretty close to agreeing with you on most of your boss rankings, but this time we were way off. I used miniguns on a tetrapod for most of my playthrough, and didn't use Zimmerman's until looking to S rank every mission. I think the diversity of builds and how people enjoy play the game dictate difficulty for each person more than anything else.
i agree, my op build started to make NG+ and NG++ kinda boring, exept here and there when i meet some challange, So i decided to change to a lesser build and the diference was night and day. It almost makes me feel bad because my personal build is like a cheat code. Nothing can stop me with it.
@ShadrackMeduson my biuld was double melee with lance and staff could actually kill acs while they had repair kits. The ng+ raven fight i killed raven in 5 seconds left hand was zimmerman stun needle before that it was zimmer and the other shotty that was a pistol shotty
Hot take: AC6 is one of modern Fromsoft's easier games. Salty and stubborn players that try to play like this was a souls game and are unwilling to change and adapt their playstyle, don't pay attention to the game's multiple VR tutorials, pop-ups and in-shop items descriptions are just the equivalent of G5 Iguazu during the entire 3 playthroughs, never adapting or changing his playstyle and being constantly salty about getting defeated by 621, which represents those players who got gud.
The Ibis series is actually not near as difficult as the other bosses once you understand it’s gimmick, it reacts to you entirely and input reads your attacks. If you pick and chose openings carefully and don’t spam, it is very passive. If you do spam though, it will constantly move and throw a shit ton of attacks at you.
You can also just use Karla’s missiles with a multi lock fcs and the pile driver against it since they trigger its initial dodge and ibis can’t really dodge the missiles well Just stay close to it and let the rockets do the staggering while you take half its health on stagger
For me the best strategy to deal with Ibis is... to back away and wait to bait it using the opening attack that you can then punish. I've had some runs where I had it do it twice, first one is mandatory in phase 1, and for phase 2 you can back away really far and after 1-2 attacks it'll use that opening attack that you can proceed to punish. With the right build(pilebunker/chainsaw), you only need these 2 openings to stagger Ibis and end the fight
I was surprised to not see this information passed on in videos. I died against it a few times so I knew I had to change my strat, and just focused on dodging and it hardly did anything until I started shooting. I wish there was another IBIS fight, hidden optional boss style that cranks everything up to 11 for the definitive most challenging experience. I guess for now, not updating and running that mod that increases the enemy difficulty is the closest we'll get, but I'd like to see that reactionary style even more punishing.
The helicopter in the tutorial only took me two tries, and I have never played an armored core game before. So I was shocked to hear that people were wanting to refund the game because they couldn’t get past it. I honestly think that the true newbie tester is Balteus. This dude made me walk away from the game for a few days because I couldn’t figure out how to get past him and I started getting angry.
It only took me one attempt so I’m pretty surprised that out of all bosses this was the one that made people quit, tbh balteus seemed like he would make people refund the game more than the damn tutorial boss. and this was also my first armored core game
I only struggled so much against the helicopter because it kept flying beyond where I could reach lol. First time I fought it where that didn't happen and I took it out, since I could actually use the sword.
I was the same with the Helicopter. Took me 2 tries and I was BAFFLED at the fact it was making people full on refund the game. Struggled with Balteus pretty hard but had fun with it and I'm bummed they nerfed the high tracking. It made you PRESSURED to escape the missles and looked cinematic as hell.
for most the game I was so frustrated (because Im not good at the game) that I would watch YT videos before every mission to get an idea of what to expect. Then I learned that dual zims and dual needle launchers was a carry, and stopped watching vids. I beat IBIS in one attempt only using 1 health pack
@@hillelbarer3974 If you're so cognitively impaired that you cant play a video game without somebody else first showing you exactly how to do it, then guess what, it's time to get a different hobby. You ask me why do I care? Why do you care? Why do you care at all about what I say if you don't even care to put the bare minimum of effort into figuring the game out, which is to just *play* it?
I will give credit to the helicopter. Not only being forced to use a specific build and the fact that he can just float out of the arena whenever he wants adds a lot more difficulty than necessary. The only fights I took more than 3 attempts to beat here the helicopter, balteus, and ibis. Nothing else in the game is close to these 3
Same I think he’s the hardest boss due to limited weapons at that point and just being new to the game, but after you get past him, the rest of the bosses are not as hard as you power up through the game
Agreed, ALLMIND gave me a lot of trouble when I reached it, despite having 2 playthroughs of experience. If you’re not careful, phase 1 can take a lot outta you. Then the enrage in phase 2 is very aggressive.
Aside from G1 Michigan, Allmind is the most I raged during all 3 playthroughs. Missions where you have to restart multiple phases if you failed right at the end were so triggering.
So far the Ibis gave me more trouble than Ayre, but barely. Ayre i was able to come up with a variant build that handled her. Ibis i had to completely switch up to disgusting Dual Zimmers dual stun needles. Not got to any of the other endings yet and not got back to middle of chapter 3 so not fought the CATAPHRACT or the alternative to G1 Michigan, (that fight i beat first go, but i was literally punching the last tetrapod to death). Honestly of the stuff i've fought so far i'd rate Ibis top, Ayre second, G1 3rd, and the custom heavy at the end of "Eliminate The Enforcement Squads" 4th, (with the caveat he's only that hard when going for the combat log in this mission).
ALLMIND and Ayre are some of the most susceptible bosses in the game to dual Zimmermans IMO. They melee a ton, making it easy to hit them for full damage.
After beating those three bosses in their original forms I honestly think those nerfs are doing players a huge disservice. Those victories were all highlights to me.
You cant fairly judge how difficult the new bosses are. An experienced player with endgame parts, max os tuning, and multiple kills on the boss isnt and will never be the same as someone fighting them for the first time
Totally agree. First time I beat Balteus I had 140 AP left, I literally yelled with excitement. Getting over those difficulty walls were definitely highlights.
@@boshwa20this. Its crazy to me how people dont understand that by the time you've beaten Balteus, youve already been morphed into the type of player required to beat the game. What was once a hail of missiles turned into an easily avoidable mechanic after an hour or two of deaths. You become a better pilot the more you play it and by the time you beat NG++, youve already adjusted to his song and dance. Most people complaining bout about his nerfs are confusing their own expertise with the boss and conflating with the patch as the cause.
@@eldritchautomaton Exactly, changing the tracking on the missiles doesn't affect me when I've been straight up ignoring the missiles now every time I fight him. I cant accurately say how hard or easy he is anymore when I got a fucking chainsaw welded to my arm
Especially the Baltues fight. And this is coming from some one that spent hours on the fight. I hated my time first time but when I finally overcame learned all the moves I didn’t even use a repair kit I felt godlike. Even for a short time I’ll never forget such an amazing feeling I got from the fight
So proud that I S ranked the IBIS series before the nerf. Having to do the mission all over again if you fail really puts on the pressure. I think this might’ve been the tensest I’ve been in this entire game.
I was stressing about replaying ALL-IGUANA for the S rank, but after spending 2 hours learning to fight Ibis without shotguns they felt like a far more modest fight.
@@ascendedboi2224I S-Ranked Ibis by accident too, i was just looking for the chest with the energy missiles and then i just used an AC i built specifically to counter it ages ago
It really is wild how difficulty is different from person to person, for me Ayre was far and away the hardest boss in the game, I died countless times, probably over 50 times. But I beat cel 240 ibis in like 3 tries on my first playthrough. I would probably choose the G1 Michigan fight as the second hardest imo I died like 15 times from running out of ammo. Anyway I always love when you make these lists every time FromSoft drops another game. Looking forward to Shadow of the Erdtree. Great work buddy.
“Protect its opening animation for all but the most skilled pilots.” Me after using Assault Armour to insta-stagger the first time I reached phase two: “Wait, really?”
I would place Ayre way higher than where you did. I can comfortably kill Allmind and Snailteus pretty easily with random builds, but Ayre always annihilates me if I'm not playing my best.
This is the copium I needed! I know that difficulty is subjective, but seeing Ayre so low on this list really made me doubt my capabilities in this game. But reading yours and some other peoples comments really does make me feel better about myself, seeing how high you'd rank her. I reached her fight yesterday evening, and now I'm about 15 tries in and I can now somewhat consistently take two thirds of her health. Thanks for the copium!
@@taida8511 Yeah, the list is just weird. Most people would say that Ayre, IBIS, and maybe ALLMIND are the hardest bosses in the game. Placing the Ephemera unit of all things above them is just strange.
Difficulty is relative, We all struggle with different fights, Ibis weapon was more difficult for me than Ayre, probably because they are similar-ish and I had gotten used to the Ibis Weapon, but now Allguazu is the hardest fight for me. ^-^
It's interesting that seeing your burst focused ranged build struggle on certain enemies but breeze through others is the opposite of how my own high speed melee focused AC performed. It's amazing how big of a difference AC composition and fighting style change your experience of the game.
it is *ABSOLUTELY fascinating* how different people struggle with different parts of the game based on their play style. Not at all like dark souls where there is allot of consensus. If I were to make a list like this it would be arranged totally differently
Double Needle cannons absolutely melt Snail and most other solo ACs. The AOE is so big when you use both it’s very difficult for them to get away even when you’re not targeting head on, that and the electric status effect build up chunks them for extra damage. Also works for the solo AC bosses at the end of the game. Pair the needle cannons with mini guns or Zimmermans and watch their health melt. It was really helpful when trying to S tank all the missions.
Double needle is better, in my opinion, to double laser cannon. Just due to aoe damage. Switch out the double shottys to double plasma, and you got an aoe nightmare.
I distinctly remember my fight with Ibis Cel taking out its first health bar on my 3rd try with barely any health left… then it got back up and started attacking without a health bar and I thought “it’s just a survival phase I can do this” and then the second health bar appeared.
Iguazu's design is brilliant in that he isn't that memorable. Every single time he showed up, my reaction was, "Him again? Didn't I already kill this guy?" P.S. We had VERY different experiences with this game lol
Genuinely cannot fucking believe you had more of a problem with Ephemera than ALL 3 phases of Allmind together Edit: AND THE HELICOPTER???? Nah fuck this I’m out
Bruh saying CEL240 has “the bulk of the C Spider” is laughably out of place. One staggered Pile Bunker does like 70% AP to it. The thing has fuck all health, it just doesn’t get hit much because it dodges a lot.
I didn't expect Allmind at #7. It's easily the boss I had the most difficulty with and actually caused me to switch off my melee build. An inherent incompatibility between the fight and my AC and the fact that I was playing with m&k, making the first phase a nightmare, made that fight a disappointingly unfun climax to the story.
Brief hint for M&K play that might or might not work for you: If you can, turn up the mouse's DPI. I play at 2200, and, personally, I find that it is much easier to track that way and control the camera, than to rely on the auto-lock, which seems to make a good quarter of my shots miss even at ideal distances. :)
@@Galgamos Manual tracking isn't the problem. But if you want to track a specific enemy out of multiple, you need the focus targeting and on PC that function is basically unusable because you have to keep your mouse still, else you constantly switch targets
Everyone told me, "Rusty and Ayre were so tough for the Fires of Raven ending!" Yaaa...I beat them first try with minimal difficulty 😅😂 I had a harder time fighting Walter because I didn't know anything about proper AC designing for energy protection
One thing I noticed is that faster ACs and bosses are extremely susceptible to dual SMGs. They build stagger extremely quickly and shred AP just as fast once their ACS breaks. I managed to beat IBIS with only SMGs on a fast-moving AC. No melee, no other ranged weapons, just twin SMGs was enough.
I think it speaks to the variety of this game and how many valid playstyles there are, that people have completely different takes on where on a difficulty scale a boss should land. My list would be very different from this. It's not even a git gud thing, just a people prefer to play this game in a lot of different ways. I've seen people say small speed mechs are broken, and I've seen the same about tanks, personally I prefer somewhere in the middle. Same with a lot of the weapons. Yes the Zimmermans are probably overtuned. But I like that they brought some other weapons up and focused on that. I've also seen people swear by dual mini guns, pilebunker and loads of different other weapons. I just really like this game.
Dual mini guns paired with dual zimmermans on a reverse joint mech I found to be so OP against just about everything. The level of aggression you can hold with that combo is unbeatable
Anyone else hate the fact that you cant use fun builds in this game cause speedy AC enemies are so tough to hit unless you have high impact/high stagger weapons equiped?
It’s funny how different the game feels first play through vs ng++, where you just wipe the floor with everything. It was so fun mastering armored core 6’s gameplay mechanics
Great video as always! Just wanted to let you know that if you hard lock the ACs, they can’t zoom away from you like that. I bring this up because when I realized Ayre couldn’t escape my lock, it made the fight much more manageable
Yeah, this is the reason why I've been avoiding it and reading these comments, I feel like it really does make things a bit more difficult. I hope Fromsoft adds some playroom in a future patch because while keeping up with most ACs is totally doable, Fights like Ayre or CEL 240 really ask you to have perfect hand eye coordination as they zoom across the screen circling around you at the speed of light.@@ironpablino
I disagree on nerfs being bad for the bosses in this game. Nerfing the tracking on things such as Balteus’ missle barrage and on Ibis’s sword slashes is probably a good call overall
Balteus' missle barrage catches you off-guard exactly once before you understand the gimmick to avoiding it. You can also trivialize the fight with the parts available very easily, which is why a nerf is completely unnecessary. Same with IBIS, who for all of it's damage output, isn't exactly built to take it.
I really hope this trend of FS nerfing bosses just because the internet cries about them doesn't become the new norm. Challenge is what makes these games fun.
That seems to be the problem for most reviewers who use soft-lock. They loose sight of the boss and start taking a dozen nukes while looking around like a jackass. A lot of the fights are a lot more manageable with just hard-locking on them.
@@nbaumg yeah, and loose track of the boss 70% of the time while getting ass fucked is a much more viable strategy. At least with hard-lock you can dodge properly.
As someone who uses a lighter mech with the needle style weapons the lock is important as it helps to avoid damage, contrarily I have used a heavy mech and could take a ton more damage. The thought process I have is death by a thousand cuts only works if you kill the target, think a light mech versing the steriotiplical tank with Zimms or missles, yeah you land a lot of hits but if the opponent is still standing you have lost the battle of attrition
@@thatloner2831 depends on the fight. other then a few that are extra speedy you should be able to manually follow them. on the other hand manually following them is going to make the biggest difference against fast targets
Just fought Raven and that fight was also a TON of fun. I found a great balance between closing the gap slowly and carefully with assault rifle and missile shots to cover my approach and then some well timed pulse sword strikes to take pretty big chunks out of his HP. Great fight
Also a tip for newer players, either ones who are picking this game up now or ones who are still finding difficulty. Balteus, Sea Spider, large bosses like this do have damage type weaknesses. When staggered, they take full damage from Explosive-based weaponry. Songbirds are a good weapon choice, as are bazookas. The Pile Bunker and the Double Trouble chainsaw do Explosive-type damage, which is why a full charge on either of those will delete 30-60% of its exposed HP bar when it is staggered depending on your build. With OS chips this can be even higher. BASHO arms increase Melee damage for all melee weaponry by a massive amount. Many bosses tend to have Energy (Pulse, laser, plasma) resistance when they are staggered despite having barriers that are more easily brought down by those sorts of weapons. Kinetic and Explosive are generally the best way to go, but any build can work if you are determined enough.
It's really interesting how different builds cause different bosses to be difficult. I was one of the few players who did not use the Zimmermans as a carry (though I was well aware of it from pvp), but instead relied on a full missile build I originally considered a meme until it turned ekdromi duo from impossible to cakewalk. This build also sports amazing matchups against bosses like Ayre (pronounced AIR, not IRE), Allmind, and Coral Guardian due to locking these bosses into doing nothing but dodge missiles. The few times they tried to retaliate, they were too far away to pose a threat, and they immediately ate 50 missiles to the face. All three of those bosses I beat first try, and while I could tell they were going to be the bane of others, they wouldn't have even ranked in my top 5-10. On the other hand, Enforcer, Balteus V.ii, and hilariously, ICE WORM consistently give me a greater challenge. Given, I haven't tried the missile build against enforcer due to the nature of the level preceeding it, but the other two bosses essentially force me to swap. Ice worm for obvious reasons, and Balteus V.ii because I run out of ammo from not being able to properly take advantage of staggers. Balteus V.ii is my personal pick for hardest boss, and is the reason that there is a build in my ac data called "Snail's Bane".
Yeah, missile builds make a lot of ac/ax-like bosses a joke, and simultaneously struggle against anything with a decent hit point pool like baltius and sea spider
I totally agree with the top 2, Ibis and Arquebus Balteus can be infuriating! Ibis's diagonal blades, star blade and huge beam are ridiculous and the entire fight is disorienting and makes me dizzy! While I can't beat Ibis consistently (in fact, I did it only once using the worm needle), for Arquebus Balteus a selection of weapons that works really well for me and kind of "cheese" him is double pulse gun and double laser turrets with OS investment in energy and direct damage.
Allmind is all the way at the top for me. At least for now. But I was also super stubborn about changing my build I was rocking pulse blade, laser shotgun (the bigger one) plasma cannon and rockets. So I was a CQC AC and the way Allmind constantly zipped all over the place made it a pain. Though I honestly think I'd have a far easier time with a different build
Just going to say, Ziimmerman, Songbirds, and Stun needle cannon are the 3 weapons that Ice the game. Going back, and re S ranking everything without those weapons was allot of fun. The nerf to Balteus was one I did not even know happened at first. I always closed tight to him, making him opt away from missiles (Ran my initial run of the 3 endings obsessed with pilebunker) I understand they want to make their game more accessible to the masses, but the heart of Armored core is literally, "In the face of adversity, adapt and overcome." My note to DeModcracy though is this. You are a trooper for using energy weapons through the whole game, seeing as most enemies actually have a high resistance to energy weapons. Most are made into minced meat by explosive. You have my respect for sticking to your guns, literally. May your following playthroughs be filled with new highs and new lows as you try new builds and new weapons. May the fires of adaptation forever burn.
I had the same problem. I had a habit of spamming my mini guns, and I really needed to manage my ammo more than before in that fight. Also I was garbage at dodging the melee attacks in the final phase
Your NG+ weapons loadout is the build I used for my first playthrough (except with HALDEMANs instead of ZIMMERMANs). They felt underpowered against Sea Spider since he seemed to have high energy defense. Was able to beat it after hours of attempts, but in my subsequent playthroughs I made sure to use harder-hitting solid weapons with high direct hit adjustment.
Dual Zimmermans legit spoil the game imo. Running dual Zimmermans is playing a fundamentally different game than another other load out, and one that trivializes the majority of the game's content. They're over tuned to fuck.
Correct. My friend who had issues beating sea spider found the zimmermans and before I could caution they would cheapen the experience he had blitzed all the way past ibis dying only once to ibis and the depth 2 boss
Balteus in my first playthrough was easily the hardest part of the entire game. Everything else after that was fairly easy. S Ranking all of the missions is the first real challenge I've had since then.
I think a major flaw for this “ranking” is the lack of variety when it comes to player AC builds. Especially since the difference of builds really speaks to how enjoyable, tough and challenging a fight might be. This is coming from someone who kept the pulse blade. A lot of fight were fun with back and forths
Exactly. For the entirety of my first playthrough I used a low tier build with a melee weapon that would be changing as I went on. First it was pulse plade, then I stuck with laser lance and I had a difficult but gun and rewarding time with victories that felt earned. It was on my second playthrough that I discovered Zimms and and Songbird and still only used one of both. I'm currently on my fifth run and decided to stick to using the starter frame with a few changes for the entirety of it.
I honestly thought Michigan was easy... until I went back to S-rank him. I looked up the best S-rank strategy, and it told me to use flamethrowers. I had just built my first flamethrower AC when I first did that mission in my original playthrough... and that was why it was so easy. I had randomly stumbled upon the ideal strategy, lmao. So I just did it again and boom, S-rank after floundering trying to use other builds. Some of those builds couldn't even survive the whole mission, but the flamethrowers really shred everything while allowing you to just keep moving. Edit: Oh wow, I didn't realize the Sea Spider was nerfed that heavily. I recall it being a brick wall, but yeah, in my NG+ runs it was no match for my shotguns. I guess it's just as much the nerf as it is the power of the Zimmermans. I'm glad I got to experience and conquer the pre-nerf bosses, even if they were horrifying a the time. Pilebunker ftw. Edit 2: (I really should have waited til' the end of the video...) I personally think Chatty and Carla are harder than Balteus V2. At least with Balteus 2.0 it's one thing to keep track of, and even in a first playthrough you have access to Zimmermans/Gatling guns/Stun Needles. There's nothing in the game that fully negates missiles and grenades pelting you from multiple angles from Chatty and Carla. Snailteus isn't much scarier than Balteus once you're used to him imo.
The new patch truly ruined the feeling of success a lot of us felt when we beat those bosses. Balteus doesn't fire the big missiles as much as it did, and the melee is barely seen now. C-Spider was the first time I used heavy weaponry to build up damage, but now, even light weaponry can quickly cut its health down. The last one, by that moment, we are pretty strong, but it kinda sucks that got nerfed too. Regardless, it is still a spectacle to see every one of them do what they do best.
Sometimes in the air the best dodge is made by releasing the controls because the boss is expecting you to run and boost to a specific direction, you can evade this if you just dont boost and press the oposite control doing a slow fall.
Good to know that Balteus and C-Spider are pretty high up there. I felt very, VERY garbage struggling so early on, so seeing that they are actually pretty damn difficult for how early they are... Yeah, good feeling.
They're up there in difficulty partially *because* of how early they are. They're already hard bosses plus at that point you're still just learning the ropes. Don't feel bad because I think most people struggled on them (although this is around the time we cue 5 commenters to come in telling us that they're easy and anyone who had a hard time with them is just trash)
I remember trying the chain tank everyone recommended for C-Spider and getting a hard lesson in the fact that I can't use heavy builds. Original C-Spider is still my favorite boss because it's 100% fair, but it is not easy by any means. I think I spent three hours on it (Balteaus took me around six if I remember correctly and Ibis took multiple nights).
Just a note for anyone who is still struggling with Sea Spider or any of the other C-weapons but ALL of them have really high energy damage resistance you do nearly half as much damage than what you would achieve with kinetic or explosive weapons. Using energy weapons against the C-weapons is like turning the fight into hard mode especially if you are trying to S rank the mission.
I agree with very little on this list but I think it's super interesting that this game can give such wildly different experiences for different players. While builds can matter in most fromsoft games, this game feels far more build dependant and they really impact people's experiences with different bosses. Though even the helicopter with the locked build has massively varying stories from players. I'll be super interested to see how community rankings shake out but honestly I think they'll still be all over the place.
Did...you even look at what the patch was? People have datamined what they did to the bosses. Sea Spider's changes weren't health pool, they were resistances, and phys resistance was brought down(probably because early game and they wanted to buff MGs/ARs). CEL-240 didn't have any tracking or accuracy changes, either. It was just about how fast you took damage after getting stunned from the sword slashes.
The loadout really makes the difference for most boss fights. For me many bosses that were like a wall, died easily to dual gattling guns paired with dual stun needle launchers.
Arquebus Balteus's purple lasers punish you if you fight verticality early on. The best way to avoid them is when he begins to do the animation, you MUST boost toward and above him, and he will miss entirely. If you are close enough to him when he starts, boosting straight up will do, but you must be above his current elevation to dodge them easily. The reason why you dont want to be too vertical early on is he adjusts his height generally to right above the elevation of your AC. If you fly too high and then he goes into his animation, he holds place in that spot and sweeps even more of the battlefield, and his tracking is much deadlier. Stay near the ground until he starts to, and always stay relatively near him.
Honestly, I think the patch should maybe have only affected the first playthrough at most, then from NG+ on, set them back to the original versions. They'd be a bit of a step up for players entering NG+ for the first time, but for veterans they'd be like greeting an old friend to some extent. One of the things I've picked up on from a lot of people's comments is that the game difficulty really doesn't step up until NG++, so giving these three difficult bosses their true power again on the first replay would actually help with that issue a bit. I really don't think they needed to touch Balteus at all, though. You can absolutely build your way through that one with Pulse weapons and a very aggressive style, which helps with the missile tracking being so powerful originally. Unfortunately haven't finished my first playthrough yet (just took out G1 Michigan and wow that was a rush), but it was nice to see this ranking. It's cool to see how different players deal with different threats. I feel a bit bad that I didn't get to try Ibis CEL 240 on 1.0, but I'm sure tutorials for easy downpatching will be waiting when I get around to wanting to take her on. Xp
Your analisys was flawless, tough i felt that you passed through some hard bits because your build was a bit off the necessary compatibility with some bosses. Awesome content my dude :)
Glad to see my nemesis at 2nd. I did the Liberator ending as my first playthrough so got to fight the various high rankers like that. Never used the Zimmies either.
Fun fact, while on the ground, you can actually consistently dodge the spider’s slam attack by quick bursting TOWARDS it just before it crashes down, even before the nerfs
Would be interesting to see something similar to what you did for the souls games, where you come back later in the game's life cycle to re-rank the bosses with more experience
Ranking the PCA Helicopter so high because new players struggle with it is like saying Margit is harder than Malenia. Also you should be consistent with your builds for rankings like this. It's obvious the ones you're using the double Zimmer and laser cannons ranked way lower than they should have. CEL 240 is hard but it's no way harder than Ayre or Allmind.
I love the Ayre fight and managed to end up going back and doing it Melee only yesterday. It absolutely kicked my ass for a long time but learning how to do stuff like figure out how to dodge the melee is so gratifying. I kind of ruined my first experience fighting her using Quad Laser Shotguns but going back and doing is melee only was incredibly fun.
A list on the difficulty of s ranking each mission with commentary on strategy like you do with the bosses would be fun. Its by far my favorite thing to do in the game because it calls for more build variety than Zimmermaning the everything. Though i also refuse using them or gats or needle launchers past my first playthrough because i'm trying not to optimize the fun out of the game. I'd recommend that restriction on anyone, there's a lot of other fun ways to play the game. Stun guns, flame throwers, truenos, viento, chang chens, the moonlight sword, laser lance and several other weapons all have as good a damage potential as the meta, just not as brainless and thus more fun and engaging to use.
I find it funny that a few days after I S-ranked every mission was when the changes came out. I had to work for that IBIS kill on S-rank, and it was only after learning how fucking bonkers the plasmas vertical missles tracking was that I managed to get the opportunity to get melee hits in along with my other shots. The game is a gem, and I can't wait to see more of it if they make it.
the V.II + Iguazu battle is kinda interesting because you can technically initiated the combat from the sewer and soon after iguazu will join the battle without you go down, as long as you stay in that pipe, you can just watch them fighting each other, as long as they don't bring the fight to you and when you get down, that's the time the sewer will be blocked
Every main boss dance curb checked me. I finally finished my first play through two days ago. Stick to it and learn the mechanics. And som rng luck helps. But I’ve spent hours on some of them. G1 Michigan was so fun, Ibis was a lot of coffee and smoke breaks lol. But the second play through is a breeze mostly and I’m loving the new tidbits to the missions. Keeps me on my toes
I'm beginning to resent how quickly fromsoftware is nerfing bosses when people bitch. I'm glad I blitzed this game on release so I could enjoy it the way it was supposed to be and not so watered down.
The new sea spider was a good change for NG but they should have kept it the same in NG+ because by then you have a ton of options. the issue is in NG most weapons dont even have the ammo to kill the thing.
Even prepatch, none of these bosses were as hard as the truly challenging bosses from Elden Ring or Bloodborne. It’s sort of a shame that they nerfed Balteus, Spider and ibis.
I'm extremely disappointed in From with these boss nerfs. With that said, even before they got it, Zimmer+Needle made everything in the game trivial, including Ibis CEL. It's kinda annoying how easy it is when you're stun locking everything and nuking their HP at the same time
One of the things that I think is important is technology not just the equipment difference but the skill difference On repeated play, I found that things which had given me a lot of trouble before gave me Much less trouble on my final play through even with a much less optimal build
I fought the sea spider two days ago (fromsoft fan, not a vet to this series) and he still took me a while. I went back to the garage 5 times to find the perfect balance of mobility for the laser section before the boss, dps, and energy to maintain my optimal distance. Still a very tough fight imo
![Ranking the Armored Core 6 Bosses from Easiest to Hardest [#50-29]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/JvtvE_bgr2U/mqdefault.jpg)
![Ranking the Armored Core 6 Bosses from Easiest to Hardest [#50-29]](/img/tr.png)
![Ranking the Elden Ring Bosses from Easiest to Hardest - Part 2 [#1-15]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/jzIPFAlItVw/mqdefault.jpg)
I can now wear “I defeated Balteus and Spider before the patch” badge
Spider wasn’t even that hard tbh
Same here. And they weren't that tough. The best way to beat Balteus is to be overly aggressive. Dual SMGs and Laser Cannons made short work of him.
@@shidensasaki5527Ah yes, I'm sure that's good advice for new players when you:
1) Have endgame parts and max OS tuning
2) Have killed him multiple times to make his fight not an issue (Double Zimmerman)
3) Played the game enough to pilot your AC with no issues
I'm sure every new player wont have any difficulty fighting these bosses for the first timr
Same here. I killed Balteus with ~20 different themed AC's pre-patch
Some easy
Some hard
It's a fight that felt bullshit at first but over time you just kinda get used to it. Which I guess applies to like any boss ever but still.
@@boshwa20 the spider can barely hit you if you stay at point blank range and dodge under to avoid the slam. Couple that with something like a pile bunker and you can stagger lock it without much effort
Walter may not be super difficult but his dialogue, design, moveset and music make him my favorite boss in the game. I like to think he’s not so hard because he cancels his second phase with the knowledge that you found a friend, as he could have kept fighting. Also he killed rusty the previous mission, so you have a lot of motivation to kill him
I actually was killed by him because instead of S ranking him i decided to listen her dialogues lol
he took me 35 minutes
I got stuck on him for quite a bit but it was because I was trying to pilebunker him.
No, the reason he's not so hard is cause he doesn't pull a Balteus the second the fight starts and puts up a Pulse Shield immediately that you have to keep shutting down before you can deal damage. *cough-"Ayre"- *cough-cough
Don’t talk badly about balteus, he’s a very well made boss@@nateklempner561
It's crazy how dual Zimms make my melee oneshot build look skillful
My S Rank go to setup was zimmermans, lance+pile bunker. Just stagger and assassinate absolutely everything
Yeah it’s not great how much they trivialize pve combat. Game and boss fights are way more interesting the second you don’t use 2 at once
how do u lance and pile bunker?@@Joshobeb
@@diegomatos1419 I use the 10 round missile launcher (cant remember its name sorry) and the zimmerman to get the target to about half or 3/4 stagger, and then use a lance charged attack. For most enemies, the stagger window is large enough to then switch to the pile bunker and do a charged attack. This seems to kill most things.
For enemies that get out of stagger very quickly, you'll want to do the reverse. Lance to build up stagger, and then swap to bunker and proc stagger with the zimmerman. Immediate charged pilebunker
I S ranked I think all but 3 or 4 missions (strider defense, missile defense, hacking defense, and the prisoner rescue) with that combo
Seeing Demod's mobility skills during Arquebus Balteus fight makes me realise just how much of a crutch dual zimmermans are. He's still moving around like he just learnt the game.
To be fair, considering he apparently got all the way through NG++ without knowing hard-lock is a thing... I think I can cut him some slack in that regard.
@@PositronCannon I still don't know what a hardlock is, already got the secret ending
@@aclock2hardlock is when you use target assist on an enemy.
softlock is just locking onto an enemy by looking at them.
@@aclock2 If you press R3 or whatever the equivalent is on keyboard, enemies stay locked on and you don't have to move the camera at all to track them, although shot accuracy is somewhat reduced in exchange. It's most useful on a controller so your right thumb is free to actually press the jump and quick boost buttons, but I imagine it's less necessary on mouse and keyboard.
@@PositronCannon its useless on keyboard, gets removed by even a little mouse movement and does not track well compared to what you can do with simply moving your mouse.
Seeing the PCA helicopter ranked as a more difficult boss than Allmind is bonkers.
Just because it's difficult for new players who don't know what they're doing, doesn't mean it's one of the hardest bosses in the game.
Allmind isn't that hard though. I died close to 10 times against the helicopter but only twice to all mind without any Zimmerman or stun needle cheese.
I beat the Helicopter on the first try and Allmind took me about seven. The hardest part is the beginning that has to be done as fast as possible to have AP for the rest of it.
We comparing AllMind kills? I ran out of ammo on my first run and had to kill Gamma with my fist.
I died to the helicopter over a dozen times. I killed Allmind on my second try.
@@sladevalenI died about 50 times to the Abyss Watchers because it was my first ever Souls game but I only died about 30 times to Lothric and Lorian but I still acknowledge that the watchers are piss easy compared to the princes.
Not sure what version of ALLMIND you fought, his phase 3 is insane.
Phase three is the bane of my existence right now. I have spent a few days trying to beat this thing, and ive gotten the first phase down okay, but once second phase comes in i start to struggle, and when phase 3 hits i immediately get hit with a 4-5 hit combo that ends me before i time to respond
he does swipe/swipe :pause: swipe if you dodge it ( i found back dodging to be the only consist way for my build) it can be punished. (also don't forget to give him a couple whacks during his dialogue)@@brazen_categories9755
@@brazen_categories9755 you could try my setup and see if it helps. I ran lance/moonlight on my left side, halderman/songbirds on the right side, all on a heavy set of biped legs. Full charged lance into shotgun+songbird will stun him every time, while having moonlight as the follow up allows you to get some distance to be ready for his next attack.
@@brazen_categories9755 to beat phase 2 & 3, just keep evading by moving outwards until he starts glowing green - 90% of the time, he'll zoom in for you to release a barrage that'll stagger him point blank :D there's a small 10% chance he'll cancel his attack, so don't be trigger happy and be patient (this is the real test!). phase 2 & 3 becomes really easy once you memorize this pattern! :D good luck!
Since I already mastered Ayre earlier. ALLMIND's sword attacks weren't that hard to dodge.
I made the terrible decision to S Rank every mission, and it isn't the boss battles that are the hard part. The game is very forgiving with the bosses and will give you an S rank even with low health and no ammo by the end. It's the damn BAWS Arsenal 2 level that is impossible to S Rank!
Agreed. I tried to beat it regularly but never got the S-Rank no matter what. In the end (after I entered NG+), the best solution I found was to one-shot the stealth mechs with an optimized Pile Bunker as apparently the game expects you to not use ammo at all.
For me, it's attack the refueling plant. Still can't figure out what I'm doing wrong on that one, any other mission would give me a S by now.
@@arsenicsulfide7549The S rank criteria for that mission is slightly different from others. You need to
1. Finish quickly
2. Destroy all optional fuel tanks
3. Destroy the LCs with combat logs.
Don't worry too much about ammo, as that is much less of a factor in that mission
@@arsenicsulfide7549You need to defeat the LC before the bridge. You don't need to destroy any fuel tanks.
@@trutyatces8699I did use ammo. I just had to get a really fast time for the s-rank.
Usually I'm pretty close to agreeing with you on most of your boss rankings, but this time we were way off.
I used miniguns on a tetrapod for most of my playthrough, and didn't use Zimmerman's until looking to S rank every mission. I think the diversity of builds and how people enjoy play the game dictate difficulty for each person more than anything else.
I'll give him credit for admitting they're more than a bit overpowered lol
double miniguns are pretty broken too tbh. even pre boss nerfs they trivialized those fights
i agree, my op build started to make NG+ and NG++ kinda boring, exept here and there when i meet some challange, So i decided to change to a lesser build and the diference was night and day. It almost makes me feel bad because my personal build is like a cheat code. Nothing can stop me with it.
@ShadrackMeduson my biuld was double melee with lance and staff could actually kill acs while they had repair kits. The ng+ raven fight i killed raven in 5 seconds left hand was zimmerman stun needle before that it was zimmer and the other shotty that was a pistol shotty
Yeah, it feels like he did double Zimmerman each fight. This makes it more a Zimmerman difficulty list than an actual boss ranking.
Hot take: AC6 is one of modern Fromsoft's easier games. Salty and stubborn players that try to play like this was a souls game and are unwilling to change and adapt their playstyle, don't pay attention to the game's multiple VR tutorials, pop-ups and in-shop items descriptions are just the equivalent of G5 Iguazu during the entire 3 playthroughs, never adapting or changing his playstyle and being constantly salty about getting defeated by 621, which represents those players who got gud.
The Ibis series is actually not near as difficult as the other bosses once you understand it’s gimmick, it reacts to you entirely and input reads your attacks. If you pick and chose openings carefully and don’t spam, it is very passive. If you do spam though, it will constantly move and throw a shit ton of attacks at you.
Well now, that explains a lot. I usually just hold down the fire button on my Scudder hahaha!
You can also just use Karla’s missiles with a multi lock fcs and the pile driver against it since they trigger its initial dodge and ibis can’t really dodge the missiles well
Just stay close to it and let the rockets do the staggering while you take half its health on stagger
For me the best strategy to deal with Ibis is... to back away and wait to bait it using the opening attack that you can then punish.
I've had some runs where I had it do it twice, first one is mandatory in phase 1, and for phase 2 you can back away really far and after 1-2 attacks it'll use that opening attack that you can proceed to punish. With the right build(pilebunker/chainsaw), you only need these 2 openings to stagger Ibis and end the fight
I was surprised to not see this information passed on in videos. I died against it a few times so I knew I had to change my strat, and just focused on dodging and it hardly did anything until I started shooting. I wish there was another IBIS fight, hidden optional boss style that cranks everything up to 11 for the definitive most challenging experience. I guess for now, not updating and running that mod that increases the enemy difficulty is the closest we'll get, but I'd like to see that reactionary style even more punishing.
The helicopter in the tutorial only took me two tries, and I have never played an armored core game before. So I was shocked to hear that people were wanting to refund the game because they couldn’t get past it. I honestly think that the true newbie tester is Balteus. This dude made me walk away from the game for a few days because I couldn’t figure out how to get past him and I started getting angry.
As soon as I realized you can swing the sword 2 times I could decimate the chopper. I bet many people were struggling for not knowing this
Struggled with baltaeus so i exited the mission to buy better gear
It only took me one attempt so I’m pretty surprised that out of all bosses this was the one that made people quit, tbh balteus seemed like he would make people refund the game more than the damn tutorial boss. and this was also my first armored core game
I only struggled so much against the helicopter because it kept flying beyond where I could reach lol. First time I fought it where that didn't happen and I took it out, since I could actually use the sword.
I was the same with the Helicopter. Took me 2 tries and I was BAFFLED at the fact it was making people full on refund the game. Struggled with Balteus pretty hard but had fun with it and I'm bummed they nerfed the high tracking. It made you PRESSURED to escape the missles and looked cinematic as hell.
I loved the challenge. Balteus was the Genichiro of this game and that was when I truly began to enjoy the game.
The ibis swoops could be very easily dodged by hovering, then raising your elevation slightly after each swoop. She'd go under you every time
for most the game I was so frustrated (because Im not good at the game) that I would watch YT videos before every mission to get an idea of what to expect. Then I learned that dual zims and dual needle launchers was a carry, and stopped watching vids. I beat IBIS in one attempt only using 1 health pack
@@DopeKenFresh "I would watch YT videos before every mission to get an idea of what to expect"
Jesus christ just play the game and figure it out ffs
@@SnoikeRight? These frickin babies man. If you fail then you've got the assembly. You can change your build.
@@Snoikewhy do you care man let him play how he wants jeez fromsoft hipsters are so annoying
@@hillelbarer3974 If you're so cognitively impaired that you cant play a video game without somebody else first showing you exactly how to do it, then guess what, it's time to get a different hobby.
You ask me why do I care? Why do you care? Why do you care at all about what I say if you don't even care to put the bare minimum of effort into figuring the game out, which is to just *play* it?
My man really ranked two final bosses before the tutorial boss because he didn't have access to dual Zimmermans.
He is the pinnacle of 'skill issue'
It was weird to rank tbh. I wanted to give credit to how difficult it felt initially. If I were to rank it now, it'd likely be in the 30-40's.
Random AC fight and the tutorial helicopter over Ayre and Allmind might be the worst take I've ever seen from this channel
Hopefully the sun still shines tmmr.
The fact that the iguazo boss fight in depth is higher than sulla is actually a joke.
@@GooberGuhher
Sulla is easy as shit, man.
Tutorial helicopter anywhere near the top 10 is a bad take
But top 5? Worst armored core 6 take I’ve seen
I will give credit to the helicopter. Not only being forced to use a specific build and the fact that he can just float out of the arena whenever he wants adds a lot more difficulty than necessary. The only fights I took more than 3 attempts to beat here the helicopter, balteus, and ibis. Nothing else in the game is close to these 3
I love Balteus, he was the fight that got me to 'synced' with my AC and make the rest of the game a breeze. Thank you Balteus, you will be missed
Same I think he’s the hardest boss due to limited weapons at that point and just being new to the game, but after you get past him, the rest of the bosses are not as hard as you power up through the game
Allmind and Ayre number 1 and 2 for me, they were so hard compared to every other boss in the game ☹️☹️☹️
Agreed, ALLMIND gave me a lot of trouble when I reached it, despite having 2 playthroughs of experience. If you’re not careful, phase 1 can take a lot outta you. Then the enrage in phase 2 is very aggressive.
Aside from G1 Michigan, Allmind is the most I raged during all 3 playthroughs. Missions where you have to restart multiple phases if you failed right at the end were so triggering.
AllMind and Ayre are objectively the hardest ones, others are countered too easily because they have huge weakness.
So far the Ibis gave me more trouble than Ayre, but barely. Ayre i was able to come up with a variant build that handled her. Ibis i had to completely switch up to disgusting Dual Zimmers dual stun needles.
Not got to any of the other endings yet and not got back to middle of chapter 3 so not fought the CATAPHRACT or the alternative to G1 Michigan, (that fight i beat first go, but i was literally punching the last tetrapod to death).
Honestly of the stuff i've fought so far i'd rate Ibis top, Ayre second, G1 3rd, and the custom heavy at the end of "Eliminate The Enforcement Squads" 4th, (with the caveat he's only that hard when going for the combat log in this mission).
ALLMIND and Ayre are some of the most susceptible bosses in the game to dual Zimmermans IMO. They melee a ton, making it easy to hit them for full damage.
After beating those three bosses in their original forms I honestly think those nerfs are doing players a huge disservice. Those victories were all highlights to me.
You cant fairly judge how difficult the new bosses are. An experienced player with endgame parts, max os tuning, and multiple kills on the boss isnt and will never be the same as someone fighting them for the first time
Totally agree. First time I beat Balteus I had 140 AP left, I literally yelled with excitement. Getting over those difficulty walls were definitely highlights.
@@boshwa20this.
Its crazy to me how people dont understand that by the time you've beaten Balteus, youve already been morphed into the type of player required to beat the game.
What was once a hail of missiles turned into an easily avoidable mechanic after an hour or two of deaths. You become a better pilot the more you play it and by the time you beat NG++, youve already adjusted to his song and dance.
Most people complaining bout about his nerfs are confusing their own expertise with the boss and conflating with the patch as the cause.
@@eldritchautomaton Exactly, changing the tracking on the missiles doesn't affect me when I've been straight up ignoring the missiles now every time I fight him.
I cant accurately say how hard or easy he is anymore when I got a fucking chainsaw welded to my arm
Especially the Baltues fight. And this is coming from some one that spent hours on the fight. I hated my time first time but when I finally overcame learned all the moves I didn’t even use a repair kit I felt godlike. Even for a short time I’ll never forget such an amazing feeling I got from the fight
So proud that I S ranked the IBIS series before the nerf. Having to do the mission all over again if you fail really puts on the pressure. I think this might’ve been the tensest I’ve been in this entire game.
I was stressing about replaying ALL-IGUANA for the S rank, but after spending 2 hours learning to fight Ibis without shotguns they felt like a far more modest fight.
I actually S ranked IBIS and Baltais by accident before the nerf and now I'm very glad I did.
@@ascendedboi2224I S-Ranked Ibis by accident too, i was just looking for the chest with the energy missiles and then i just used an AC i built specifically to counter it ages ago
If you're talking about CEL 240, you don't have to do the mission all over. There's literally a checkpoint at the start.
if you dont wanna watch the whole thing the video can be summarized to "boss was hard on ng but then I used op weapons on ng+ and it was easy"
It really is wild how difficulty is different from person to person, for me Ayre was far and away the hardest boss in the game, I died countless times, probably over 50 times. But I beat cel 240 ibis in like 3 tries on my first playthrough. I would probably choose the G1 Michigan fight as the second hardest imo I died like 15 times from running out of ammo. Anyway I always love when you make these lists every time FromSoft drops another game. Looking forward to Shadow of the Erdtree. Great work buddy.
“Protect its opening animation for all but the most skilled pilots.”
Me after using Assault Armour to insta-stagger the first time I reached phase two: “Wait, really?”
Number 6 was a cakewalk for my melee build, tight area with not many retreat options makes my laser lance rev!
I would place Ayre way higher than where you did. I can comfortably kill Allmind and Snailteus pretty easily with random builds, but Ayre always annihilates me if I'm not playing my best.
This is the copium I needed! I know that difficulty is subjective, but seeing Ayre so low on this list really made me doubt my capabilities in this game.
But reading yours and some other peoples comments really does make me feel better about myself, seeing how high you'd rank her.
I reached her fight yesterday evening, and now I'm about 15 tries in and I can now somewhat consistently take two thirds of her health.
Thanks for the copium!
@@taida8511 Yeah, the list is just weird. Most people would say that Ayre, IBIS, and maybe ALLMIND are the hardest bosses in the game. Placing the Ephemera unit of all things above them is just strange.
Difficulty is relative, We all struggle with different fights, Ibis weapon was more difficult for me than Ayre, probably because they are similar-ish and I had gotten used to the Ibis Weapon, but now Allguazu is the hardest fight for me. ^-^
Ayre is my hardest fight by fair have s ranked soo many other fights but she always does me in
It's interesting that seeing your burst focused ranged build struggle on certain enemies but breeze through others is the opposite of how my own high speed melee focused AC performed. It's amazing how big of a difference AC composition and fighting style change your experience of the game.
it is *ABSOLUTELY fascinating* how different people struggle with different parts of the game based on their play style. Not at all like dark souls where there is allot of consensus.
If I were to make a list like this it would be arranged totally differently
gotta love demod for putting the helicopter above allmind. started laughing when i saw that
Double Needle cannons absolutely melt Snail and most other solo ACs. The AOE is so big when you use both it’s very difficult for them to get away even when you’re not targeting head on, that and the electric status effect build up chunks them for extra damage. Also works for the solo AC bosses at the end of the game. Pair the needle cannons with mini guns or Zimmermans and watch their health melt. It was really helpful when trying to S tank all the missions.
A man of class i see.
Double needle is better, in my opinion, to double laser cannon. Just due to aoe damage. Switch out the double shottys to double plasma, and you got an aoe nightmare.
I distinctly remember my fight with Ibis Cel taking out its first health bar on my 3rd try with barely any health left… then it got back up and started attacking without a health bar and I thought “it’s just a survival phase I can do this” and then the second health bar appeared.
Iguazu's design is brilliant in that he isn't that memorable. Every single time he showed up, my reaction was, "Him again? Didn't I already kill this guy?"
P.S. We had VERY different experiences with this game lol
Genuinely cannot fucking believe you had more of a problem with Ephemera than ALL 3 phases of Allmind together
Edit: AND THE HELICOPTER???? Nah fuck this I’m out
Bruh saying CEL240 has “the bulk of the C Spider” is laughably out of place. One staggered Pile Bunker does like 70% AP to it. The thing has fuck all health, it just doesn’t get hit much because it dodges a lot.
I didn't expect Allmind at #7. It's easily the boss I had the most difficulty with and actually caused me to switch off my melee build. An inherent incompatibility between the fight and my AC and the fact that I was playing with m&k, making the first phase a nightmare, made that fight a disappointingly unfun climax to the story.
Brief hint for M&K play that might or might not work for you:
If you can, turn up the mouse's DPI. I play at 2200, and, personally, I find that it is much easier to track that way and control the camera, than to rely on the auto-lock, which seems to make a good quarter of my shots miss even at ideal distances. :)
@@Galgamos Manual tracking isn't the problem. But if you want to track a specific enemy out of multiple, you need the focus targeting and on PC that function is basically unusable because you have to keep your mouse still, else you constantly switch targets
Everyone told me, "Rusty and Ayre were so tough for the Fires of Raven ending!" Yaaa...I beat them first try with minimal difficulty 😅😂 I had a harder time fighting Walter because I didn't know anything about proper AC designing for energy protection
Common zimmerman moment
I’m gonna be so sad when the Zimmermans get nerfed even though they totally have it coming.
One thing I noticed is that faster ACs and bosses are extremely susceptible to dual SMGs. They build stagger extremely quickly and shred AP just as fast once their ACS breaks. I managed to beat IBIS with only SMGs on a fast-moving AC. No melee, no other ranged weapons, just twin SMGs was enough.
I think it speaks to the variety of this game and how many valid playstyles there are, that people have completely different takes on where on a difficulty scale a boss should land. My list would be very different from this. It's not even a git gud thing, just a people prefer to play this game in a lot of different ways. I've seen people say small speed mechs are broken, and I've seen the same about tanks, personally I prefer somewhere in the middle. Same with a lot of the weapons. Yes the Zimmermans are probably overtuned. But I like that they brought some other weapons up and focused on that. I've also seen people swear by dual mini guns, pilebunker and loads of different other weapons.
I just really like this game.
I personally love how different the lists are depending on each person. It says a lot about playstyles and preferred parts imo.
Dual mini guns paired with dual zimmermans on a reverse joint mech I found to be so OP against just about everything. The level of aggression you can hold with that combo is unbeatable
absolutely LOVED the nier music in the background
The HP was excessive for the Spider, dual trigger builds like Ludlowl's/Cheng's ran out of ammo well before you chipped it to low HP.
Anyone else hate the fact that you cant use fun builds in this game cause speedy AC enemies are so tough to hit unless you have high impact/high stagger weapons equiped?
It’s funny how different the game feels first play through vs ng++, where you just wipe the floor with everything. It was so fun mastering armored core 6’s gameplay mechanics
Great video as always! Just wanted to let you know that if you hard lock the ACs, they can’t zoom away from you like that. I bring this up because when I realized Ayre couldn’t escape my lock, it made the fight much more manageable
This is a keyboard+mouse only issue. Moving your mouse breaks hard-lock, even if it's only a breeze.
Yeah, this is the reason why I've been avoiding it and reading these comments, I feel like it really does make things a bit more difficult. I hope Fromsoft adds some playroom in a future patch because while keeping up with most ACs is totally doable, Fights like Ayre or CEL 240 really ask you to have perfect hand eye coordination as they zoom across the screen circling around you at the speed of light.@@ironpablino
I disagree on nerfs being bad for the bosses in this game. Nerfing the tracking on things such as Balteus’ missle barrage and on Ibis’s sword slashes is probably a good call overall
Yeah. I've always hated dodging a missile only for it to turn 180 degrees to hit me in the back
Balteus' missle barrage catches you off-guard exactly once before you understand the gimmick to avoiding it. You can also trivialize the fight with the parts available very easily, which is why a nerf is completely unnecessary. Same with IBIS, who for all of it's damage output, isn't exactly built to take it.
They only nerfed the tracking on balteus, dataminers could only find a damage nerf for certain attacks on ibis.
I really hope this trend of FS nerfing bosses just because the internet cries about them doesn't become the new norm. Challenge is what makes these games fun.
I think the main thing that bothers me is how he never uses the auto lock except for a few times, it helps to see what's coming
That seems to be the problem for most reviewers who use soft-lock. They loose sight of the boss and start taking a dozen nukes while looking around like a jackass. A lot of the fights are a lot more manageable with just hard-locking on them.
auto lock gives you worse weapon tracking. if you can keep track manually, do it
@@nbaumg yeah, and loose track of the boss 70% of the time while getting ass fucked is a much more viable strategy. At least with hard-lock you can dodge properly.
As someone who uses a lighter mech with the needle style weapons the lock is important as it helps to avoid damage, contrarily I have used a heavy mech and could take a ton more damage. The thought process I have is death by a thousand cuts only works if you kill the target, think a light mech versing the steriotiplical tank with Zimms or missles, yeah you land a lot of hits but if the opponent is still standing you have lost the battle of attrition
@@thatloner2831 depends on the fight. other then a few that are extra speedy you should be able to manually follow them. on the other hand manually following them is going to make the biggest difference against fast targets
Just fought Raven and that fight was also a TON of fun. I found a great balance between closing the gap slowly and carefully with assault rifle and missile shots to cover my approach and then some well timed pulse sword strikes to take pretty big chunks out of his HP. Great fight
I personally like that they toned down those early fights but I don't think I like them toning down an endgame boss
Also a tip for newer players, either ones who are picking this game up now or ones who are still finding difficulty. Balteus, Sea Spider, large bosses like this do have damage type weaknesses. When staggered, they take full damage from Explosive-based weaponry. Songbirds are a good weapon choice, as are bazookas. The Pile Bunker and the Double Trouble chainsaw do Explosive-type damage, which is why a full charge on either of those will delete 30-60% of its exposed HP bar when it is staggered depending on your build. With OS chips this can be even higher. BASHO arms increase Melee damage for all melee weaponry by a massive amount. Many bosses tend to have Energy (Pulse, laser, plasma) resistance when they are staggered despite having barriers that are more easily brought down by those sorts of weapons. Kinetic and Explosive are generally the best way to go, but any build can work if you are determined enough.
It's really interesting how different builds cause different bosses to be difficult. I was one of the few players who did not use the Zimmermans as a carry (though I was well aware of it from pvp), but instead relied on a full missile build I originally considered a meme until it turned ekdromi duo from impossible to cakewalk. This build also sports amazing matchups against bosses like Ayre (pronounced AIR, not IRE), Allmind, and Coral Guardian due to locking these bosses into doing nothing but dodge missiles. The few times they tried to retaliate, they were too far away to pose a threat, and they immediately ate 50 missiles to the face. All three of those bosses I beat first try, and while I could tell they were going to be the bane of others, they wouldn't have even ranked in my top 5-10. On the other hand, Enforcer, Balteus V.ii, and hilariously, ICE WORM consistently give me a greater challenge. Given, I haven't tried the missile build against enforcer due to the nature of the level preceeding it, but the other two bosses essentially force me to swap. Ice worm for obvious reasons, and Balteus V.ii because I run out of ammo from not being able to properly take advantage of staggers. Balteus V.ii is my personal pick for hardest boss, and is the reason that there is a build in my ac data called "Snail's Bane".
Yeah, missile builds make a lot of ac/ax-like bosses a joke, and simultaneously struggle against anything with a decent hit point pool like baltius and sea spider
I totally agree with the top 2, Ibis and Arquebus Balteus can be infuriating! Ibis's diagonal blades, star blade and huge beam are ridiculous and the entire fight is disorienting and makes me dizzy! While I can't beat Ibis consistently (in fact, I did it only once using the worm needle), for Arquebus Balteus a selection of weapons that works really well for me and kind of "cheese" him is double pulse gun and double laser turrets with OS investment in energy and direct damage.
Allmind is all the way at the top for me. At least for now. But I was also super stubborn about changing my build I was rocking pulse blade, laser shotgun (the bigger one) plasma cannon and rockets. So I was a CQC AC and the way Allmind constantly zipped all over the place made it a pain. Though I honestly think I'd have a far easier time with a different build
Just going to say, Ziimmerman, Songbirds, and Stun needle cannon are the 3 weapons that Ice the game. Going back, and re S ranking everything without those weapons was allot of fun. The nerf to Balteus was one I did not even know happened at first. I always closed tight to him, making him opt away from missiles (Ran my initial run of the 3 endings obsessed with pilebunker) I understand they want to make their game more accessible to the masses, but the heart of Armored core is literally, "In the face of adversity, adapt and overcome."
My note to DeModcracy though is this. You are a trooper for using energy weapons through the whole game, seeing as most enemies actually have a high resistance to energy weapons. Most are made into minced meat by explosive. You have my respect for sticking to your guns, literally. May your following playthroughs be filled with new highs and new lows as you try new builds and new weapons. May the fires of adaptation forever burn.
For me the difficulty of the allmind fight was less about staying alive and more about preserving enough ammo to finish the fight.
I had the same problem. I had a habit of spamming my mini guns, and I really needed to manage my ammo more than before in that fight. Also I was garbage at dodging the melee attacks in the final phase
Just ignore the ads honestly
Your NG+ weapons loadout is the build I used for my first playthrough (except with HALDEMANs instead of ZIMMERMANs). They felt underpowered against Sea Spider since he seemed to have high energy defense. Was able to beat it after hours of attempts, but in my subsequent playthroughs I made sure to use harder-hitting solid weapons with high direct hit adjustment.
Dual Zimmermans legit spoil the game imo. Running dual Zimmermans is playing a fundamentally different game than another other load out, and one that trivializes the majority of the game's content. They're over tuned to fuck.
Correct. My friend who had issues beating sea spider found the zimmermans and before I could caution they would cheapen the experience he had blitzed all the way past ibis dying only once to ibis and the depth 2 boss
Allmind was genuinly the only boss i found hard with zimmers, every other boss gets trivialized
I'm sorry, but since when does Ibis have *BULK*? A single charged hit from the pile bunker while in stun removes almost 2/3 of her health bar.
Balteus in my first playthrough was easily the hardest part of the entire game. Everything else after that was fairly easy. S Ranking all of the missions is the first real challenge I've had since then.
Love this game. Have all trophies besides s rank all missions. And I think I'm just gonna have to live with that.
I think a major flaw for this “ranking” is the lack of variety when it comes to player AC builds. Especially since the difference of builds really speaks to how enjoyable, tough and challenging a fight might be. This is coming from someone who kept the pulse blade. A lot of fight were fun with back and forths
Exactly. For the entirety of my first playthrough I used a low tier build with a melee weapon that would be changing as I went on. First it was pulse plade, then I stuck with laser lance and I had a difficult but gun and rewarding time with victories that felt earned. It was on my second playthrough that I discovered Zimms and and Songbird and still only used one of both.
I'm currently on my fifth run and decided to stick to using the starter frame with a few changes for the entirety of it.
yea the community ranking will be interesting, build variety is clearly a huge part in how difficult a boss is percieved
I honestly thought Michigan was easy... until I went back to S-rank him. I looked up the best S-rank strategy, and it told me to use flamethrowers. I had just built my first flamethrower AC when I first did that mission in my original playthrough... and that was why it was so easy. I had randomly stumbled upon the ideal strategy, lmao. So I just did it again and boom, S-rank after floundering trying to use other builds. Some of those builds couldn't even survive the whole mission, but the flamethrowers really shred everything while allowing you to just keep moving.
Edit: Oh wow, I didn't realize the Sea Spider was nerfed that heavily. I recall it being a brick wall, but yeah, in my NG+ runs it was no match for my shotguns. I guess it's just as much the nerf as it is the power of the Zimmermans. I'm glad I got to experience and conquer the pre-nerf bosses, even if they were horrifying a the time. Pilebunker ftw.
Edit 2: (I really should have waited til' the end of the video...) I personally think Chatty and Carla are harder than Balteus V2. At least with Balteus 2.0 it's one thing to keep track of, and even in a first playthrough you have access to Zimmermans/Gatling guns/Stun Needles. There's nothing in the game that fully negates missiles and grenades pelting you from multiple angles from Chatty and Carla. Snailteus isn't much scarier than Balteus once you're used to him imo.
The new patch truly ruined the feeling of success a lot of us felt when we beat those bosses.
Balteus doesn't fire the big missiles as much as it did, and the melee is barely seen now.
C-Spider was the first time I used heavy weaponry to build up damage, but now, even light weaponry can quickly cut its health down.
The last one, by that moment, we are pretty strong, but it kinda sucks that got nerfed too.
Regardless, it is still a spectacle to see every one of them do what they do best.
Sometimes in the air the best dodge is made by releasing the controls because the boss is expecting you to run and boost to a specific direction, you can evade this if you just dont boost and press the oposite control doing a slow fall.
Good to know that Balteus and C-Spider are pretty high up there. I felt very, VERY garbage struggling so early on, so seeing that they are actually pretty damn difficult for how early they are... Yeah, good feeling.
They're up there in difficulty partially *because* of how early they are. They're already hard bosses plus at that point you're still just learning the ropes. Don't feel bad because I think most people struggled on them (although this is around the time we cue 5 commenters to come in telling us that they're easy and anyone who had a hard time with them is just trash)
I remember trying the chain tank everyone recommended for C-Spider and getting a hard lesson in the fact that I can't use heavy builds. Original C-Spider is still my favorite boss because it's 100% fair, but it is not easy by any means. I think I spent three hours on it (Balteaus took me around six if I remember correctly and Ibis took multiple nights).
@@Auron3991 I took like 10 tries on balteus, angrily screaming. 30 tries on the smart cleaner and a whopping 50 or so on the spider.
G1 Michigan was by far one of my favorite fights.
Just a note for anyone who is still struggling with Sea Spider or any of the other C-weapons but ALL of them have really high energy damage resistance you do nearly half as much damage than what you would achieve with kinetic or explosive weapons. Using energy weapons against the C-weapons is like turning the fight into hard mode especially if you are trying to S rank the mission.
I agree with very little on this list but I think it's super interesting that this game can give such wildly different experiences for different players. While builds can matter in most fromsoft games, this game feels far more build dependant and they really impact people's experiences with different bosses. Though even the helicopter with the locked build has massively varying stories from players. I'll be super interested to see how community rankings shake out but honestly I think they'll still be all over the place.
The biggest heart wrencher in AC6 is not being able to fight the Spider and Balteus prepatch
Did...you even look at what the patch was? People have datamined what they did to the bosses.
Sea Spider's changes weren't health pool, they were resistances, and phys resistance was brought down(probably because early game and they wanted to buff MGs/ARs).
CEL-240 didn't have any tracking or accuracy changes, either. It was just about how fast you took damage after getting stunned from the sword slashes.
The loadout really makes the difference for most boss fights. For me many bosses that were like a wall, died easily to dual gattling guns paired with dual stun needle launchers.
Arquebus Balteus's purple lasers punish you if you fight verticality early on. The best way to avoid them is when he begins to do the animation, you MUST boost toward and above him, and he will miss entirely. If you are close enough to him when he starts, boosting straight up will do, but you must be above his current elevation to dodge them easily. The reason why you dont want to be too vertical early on is he adjusts his height generally to right above the elevation of your AC. If you fly too high and then he goes into his animation, he holds place in that spot and sweeps even more of the battlefield, and his tracking is much deadlier. Stay near the ground until he starts to, and always stay relatively near him.
I've also had luck avoiding Snail Balteus's attacks by standing straight under it and firing weapons to stagger Snail out of the attack.
Honestly, I think the patch should maybe have only affected the first playthrough at most, then from NG+ on, set them back to the original versions. They'd be a bit of a step up for players entering NG+ for the first time, but for veterans they'd be like greeting an old friend to some extent. One of the things I've picked up on from a lot of people's comments is that the game difficulty really doesn't step up until NG++, so giving these three difficult bosses their true power again on the first replay would actually help with that issue a bit.
I really don't think they needed to touch Balteus at all, though. You can absolutely build your way through that one with Pulse weapons and a very aggressive style, which helps with the missile tracking being so powerful originally.
Unfortunately haven't finished my first playthrough yet (just took out G1 Michigan and wow that was a rush), but it was nice to see this ranking. It's cool to see how different players deal with different threats. I feel a bit bad that I didn't get to try Ibis CEL 240 on 1.0, but I'm sure tutorials for easy downpatching will be waiting when I get around to wanting to take her on. Xp
They should have nerfec zimmermans and buffed most other weapons instead of nerfing the bosses. They are sooo easy now
I'm not bragging but I find it odd so many people found the helicopter difficult I beat it on my second attempt.
I am really happy that I beat all 3 playthroughs before the nerfs. IT WAS A THRILL RIDE that I do not regret.
Your analisys was flawless, tough i felt that you passed through some hard bits because your build was a bit off the necessary compatibility with some bosses. Awesome content my dude :)
My top 5
5 : enforcer
4 : balteus ( before nerf)
3 : ayre
2 : ibis 240 ( before nerf)
1 : sea spider ( before nerf)
Glad to see my nemesis at 2nd. I did the Liberator ending as my first playthrough so got to fight the various high rankers like that. Never used the Zimmies either.
Fun fact, while on the ground, you can actually consistently dodge the spider’s slam attack by quick bursting TOWARDS it just before it crashes down, even before the nerfs
You should redo this now that the Zimmerman got nerfed.
Imo, Allmind is the hardest boss though, but Ibis is my favorite, and his triple attack that looks like birds, just jump over it
Would be interesting to see something similar to what you did for the souls games, where you come back later in the game's life cycle to re-rank the bosses with more experience
What an AMAZING video! You havr an incredible vocavulary and an enjoyable voice, youll go far!!
Ranking the PCA Helicopter so high because new players struggle with it is like saying Margit is harder than Malenia. Also you should be consistent with your builds for rankings like this. It's obvious the ones you're using the double Zimmer and laser cannons ranked way lower than they should have. CEL 240 is hard but it's no way harder than Ayre or Allmind.
Allmind is the easiest of the three.
It's just three stage damage race.
Never realized how well bastion's ost works with this game, goddamn
I love the Ayre fight and managed to end up going back and doing it Melee only yesterday. It absolutely kicked my ass for a long time but learning how to do stuff like figure out how to dodge the melee is so gratifying. I kind of ruined my first experience fighting her using Quad Laser Shotguns but going back and doing is melee only was incredibly fun.
I'm so glad I managed to get two playthroughs before the nerfs.
A list on the difficulty of s ranking each mission with commentary on strategy like you do with the bosses would be fun. Its by far my favorite thing to do in the game because it calls for more build variety than Zimmermaning the everything. Though i also refuse using them or gats or needle launchers past my first playthrough because i'm trying not to optimize the fun out of the game. I'd recommend that restriction on anyone, there's a lot of other fun ways to play the game. Stun guns, flame throwers, truenos, viento, chang chens, the moonlight sword, laser lance and several other weapons all have as good a damage potential as the meta, just not as brainless and thus more fun and engaging to use.
I find it funny that a few days after I S-ranked every mission was when the changes came out. I had to work for that IBIS kill on S-rank, and it was only after learning how fucking bonkers the plasmas vertical missles tracking was that I managed to get the opportunity to get melee hits in along with my other shots. The game is a gem, and I can't wait to see more of it if they make it.
the V.II + Iguazu battle is kinda interesting because you can technically initiated the combat from the sewer and soon after iguazu will join the battle without you go down, as long as you stay in that pipe, you can just watch them fighting each other, as long as they don't bring the fight to you and when you get down, that's the time the sewer will be blocked
Ibis pushed me to the BRINK!!!!!
Every main boss dance curb checked me. I finally finished my first play through two days ago. Stick to it and learn the mechanics. And som rng luck helps. But I’ve spent hours on some of them. G1 Michigan was so fun, Ibis was a lot of coffee and smoke breaks lol. But the second play through is a breeze mostly and I’m loving the new tidbits to the missions. Keeps me on my toes
You've earned a sub simply because of the cyber sleuth and smt 4 music
I'm beginning to resent how quickly fromsoftware is nerfing bosses when people bitch. I'm glad I blitzed this game on release so I could enjoy it the way it was supposed to be and not so watered down.
The Battle B2 theme from Shim Migami Tensei that is playing behind Snail Balteus just matches perfectly.
The new sea spider was a good change for NG but they should have kept it the same in NG+ because by then you have a ton of options. the issue is in NG most weapons dont even have the ammo to kill the thing.
The SMT music fits the game so nicely, especially B2 from SMT4
Even prepatch, none of these bosses were as hard as the truly challenging bosses from Elden Ring or Bloodborne. It’s sort of a shame that they nerfed Balteus, Spider and ibis.
I'm extremely disappointed in From with these boss nerfs. With that said, even before they got it, Zimmer+Needle made everything in the game trivial, including Ibis CEL. It's kinda annoying how easy it is when you're stun locking everything and nuking their HP at the same time
One of the things that I think is important is technology not just the equipment difference but the skill difference
On repeated play, I found that things which had given me a lot of trouble before gave me Much less trouble on my final play through even with a much less optimal build
I fought the sea spider two days ago (fromsoft fan, not a vet to this series) and he still took me a while. I went back to the garage 5 times to find the perfect balance of mobility for the laser section before the boss, dps, and energy to maintain my optimal distance. Still a very tough fight imo