Oh look, a boss fight. Will this be a fair-and-balanced skill-based experience? Or will it be a DPS race against the clock and hoping I get good RNG on the enemy attack patterns so I don't die to mostly unavoidable or unreactable damage?
If you want to play the game as a glass cannon DPS machine, you can do that with the right parts. But there's nothing stopping you from actually reading boss patterns and dodging them. The only boss this doesn't apply to is the first one, and I suspect it will get nerfed because of how many people are complaining about it. Some damage is unavoidable but it's minor, every big attack is dodgable and even accompanied by a loud warning sound. I don't think it's unfair.
But there’s nothing stopping you from actually reading boss patterns and dodging them.
Is there enough information to do this on the first time through, if you have enough skill? Or is it necessary to try and fail multiple times to see and learn each pattern?
I think the boss is fairly readable and I can take it down quickly, it's just annoying that it can fly out of bounds where I can't hit it but it can still fire at me. That and your starting mech isn't the best either but I got an S rank on that level after 4-5 attempts.
In my experience, you don't have to compromise. You can take meta dual shotguns and two heavy hitting shoulder mounts and just vaporize enemies. Almost trivially, in fact.
The problem is, the game is not more fun if you force yourself into something like a melee hybrid build. It's significantly harder and there's less room for error when piloting lightweight ACs, so it's no surprise that most people find the most comfortable build to be one where you have high health and damage mitigation, insane burst DPS, and stunlock potential.
In short, there's not a good balance between the different playstyles and difficulty. Some bosses are actually really fun to fight, but two or three of them have made my shit list already just due to the nonsense you are forced to put up with. Juggernaut, Balteus, and Sea Spider are the three biggest offenders right now.
It's a Dark Souls boss, not an Armored Core boss. AC bosses in previous games were usually (with the exception of For Answer) just other ACs with really good AI piloting them, not giant, unique things with mechanics that you don't see anywhere else.
That alone is enough for me to wish they'd called it something else.
This is how we know they really nailed it on AC6, this is exactly the experience. Well, whenever I didn't say FUCK IT, and equipped dual Zimmermans and the stun nail launcher.
Maybe it's just the only way I learned to play, but armored core 3 I found only the floating legs were very viable. Then I would equip self aimed missiles and found arena quite simple. The missions you could use different set ups, but I could never win arena much with any other legs.
Don't overuse dodges, a lot of attacks will miss if you're just boost-moving around the boss, so save the dodges for stuff that you actually need it for, so you always have EN to spare.
Don't be afraid to burn your EN on flight when warranted, the spinny thing that the Spider does in its final phase is really easy to avoid if you just fly over it.
Don't stop doing damage, consider having something that you can use to at least poke at the enemy just enough to keep the stun bar from decaying, so you can build it up to get a stagger. Or switch to weapons that have a high impact stat to build stagger faster.
Don't sleep on melee weapons. They do MASSIVE damage if you can land the hit.
New to AC myself. Having a lot of fun with it. I don't get why people are upset about it. Like it isn't the greatest game I've ever played but I'm definitely enjoying it