God of War: Ragnorak Is anyone playing?

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SteveGrabowski

Diamond Member
Oct 20, 2014
6,806
5,769
136
Stick drift...

SSSUUUURRRREEEE...

You find it hard to believe the crap DualSense gets stick drift? You think those axe throws are easy to make in a short time period when you can't hold your aim still? Plugged my DualSense into my PC to test it and sure enough my right thumbstick sometimes centers significantly above center, which manifests as my view rising quickly, but most of the time a little below center, which manifests as my view creeping downward slowly when aiming the axe. It takes pressing the R3 and sometimes moving the stick around a bit to get it to center properly. Not something you have time to do for a sequence of three axe throws on a tight timer. Never had any major problems with the same Nornir Chest puzzles on God of War 2018 when I played it on my PS4 since I didn't have stick drift on the DualShock 4.
 

purbeast0

No Lifer
Sep 13, 2001
52,834
5,713
126
You find it hard to believe the crap DualSense gets stick drift? You think those axe throws are easy to make in a short time period when you can't hold your aim still? Plugged my DualSense into my PC to test it and sure enough my right thumbstick sometimes centers significantly above center, which manifests as my view rising quickly, but most of the time a little below center, which manifests as my view creeping downward slowly when aiming the axe. It takes pressing the R3 and sometimes moving the stick around a bit to get it to center properly. Not something you have time to do for a sequence of three axe throws on a tight timer. Never had any major problems with the same Nornir Chest puzzles on God of War 2018 when I played it on my PS4 since I didn't have stick drift on the DualShock 4.
I'd put money on you having high blood pressure.
 

SteveGrabowski

Diamond Member
Oct 20, 2014
6,806
5,769
136
Lunda's armor set with barehand attacks to inflict poison which buffs melee attacks hugely is monstrously strong in bossfights, much better than using the axe or the blades so far for me. Though when I'm being attacked by six scrubs at once I much prefer the axe for the ability to throw it and to do attacks that hit multiple scrubs.
 
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Saylick

Diamond Member
Sep 10, 2012
3,084
6,184
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Lunda's armor set with barehand attacks to inflict poison which buffs melee attacks hugely is monstrously strong in bossfights, much better than using the axe or the blades so far for me. Though when I'm being attacked by six scrubs at once I much prefer the axe for the ability to throw it and to do attacks that hit multiple scrubs.
Poison build is pretty potent in the game. The extra damage you deal comes from the enemy's level being reduced when poisoned, which lowers their stats, so in theory you take less damage too if you're hit by a poisoned foe. You can enhance Lunda's armor with buffed sigil arrows, which makes status effects easier to apply, and there's a shield rond that does extra damage by consuming an affliction when you shield bash (double tap L1). I usually wait until the affliction is almost run out then use the bash to get more damage out of it. Rinse and repeat.
 
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SteveGrabowski

Diamond Member
Oct 20, 2014
6,806
5,769
136
Poison build is pretty potent in the game. The extra damage you deal comes from the enemy's level being reduced when poisoned, which lowers their stats, so in theory you take less damage too if you're hit by a poisoned foe. You can enhance Lunda's armor with buffed sigil arrows, which makes status effects easier to apply, and there's a shield rond that does extra damage by consuming an affliction when you shield bash (double tap L1). I usually wait until the affliction is almost run out then use the bash to get more damage out of it. Rinse and repeat.

Wow you're not kidding, this build has wrecked a couple of berserkers I have come across so far, though a couple of them with skulls next to their names have one shotted me. Probably best not to fight those guys at level 4 I guess.
 

RPD

Diamond Member
Jul 22, 2009
4,971
483
126
I told my buddy, my one regret was building around stun/stun damage, as I was like oh get those fast R3 icons to show up to burn dudes down. Only to learn in boss fights they do they ol switchero on you and have that progress reset. I know you can make it regress slower, but just felt soul crushing to watch it go away. If I were to play again I would just build around with pure damage.
 

SteveGrabowski

Diamond Member
Oct 20, 2014
6,806
5,769
136
Game is mostly amazing and have really enjoyed every berserker fight so far except for one: Hvitserkr is one of the worst bosses I have ever seen in a game. Just lazy taking a couple of moves from other bersekers and then adding an ability for him to summon trash mobs constantly. Only way I could beat him on Give Me No Mercy is to unleash all my runic attacks early on to knock out a couple of health bars and then stand far away with my shield up while keeping all enemies in view and then when he rushes me I'd block his attacks and snipe a couple of hits with the blades if I didn't have poison coming at me from the nightmares in his trash mob. And chase him and snipe a few hits with the blades when he rises up to do that five explosions on the ground attack before circling around him to keep all the enemies in view. And also use Spartan Rage to gain some health back and take down one of his health bars once I drop to about half health. There's no point to even parrying any of the attacks except the one poison attack he does when rushing you since if you parry say his poison throw it just goes into the trash mob and he summons new ones whenever you kill the ones already there. Even the triple berserker fight still falls into the hard but fair category but Hvitserkr is hard and cheap.
 
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SteveGrabowski

Diamond Member
Oct 20, 2014
6,806
5,769
136
You really should put a video on Youtube of that.

Nah it would be boring as hell, plus Give Me God of War is the really hard setting for the game. Might do a second playthrough on that difficulty but the second highest difficulties are the ones I have found most fun in the two recent God of War games.
 

SteveGrabowski

Diamond Member
Oct 20, 2014
6,806
5,769
136
So after taking out 8 berserkers now I finally find out there are revival stones in Ragnarok. Even worse I found out they were in God of War 2018 too and they would have made my fight with Sigrun there 10x easier since I kept dying to her with her health bar nearly depleted over and over again when I played it haha. Oh well guess I'm glad I found out about them for that triple berserker fight that has waxed me every time I have tried.
 
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SteveGrabowski

Diamond Member
Oct 20, 2014
6,806
5,769
136
I just want to chuck my PS5 into traffic fighting that triple berserker fight. Gonna have to try a new armor set because Lunda's sucks for this fight.
 
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SteveGrabowski

Diamond Member
Oct 20, 2014
6,806
5,769
136
OMG that triple berserker fight is nuts, but finally beat it by going back to using Lunda's armor + poison shield attack by going after the ice sister and then once she's dead the aggressive red sob ain't too hard to kill by himself if you have any health left. Ugh I suck against multiple enemy fights in this game, even the draugr holes were wrecking me early on while single boss fights have been mostly easy with this armor set.
 

purbeast0

No Lifer
Sep 13, 2001
52,834
5,713
126
Yeah I turned the difficulty down to the easiest at that triple berserker fight. It just wasn't a very fun fight lol.
 

SteveGrabowski

Diamond Member
Oct 20, 2014
6,806
5,769
136
Yeah I turned the difficulty down to the easiest at that triple berserker fight. It just wasn't a very fun fight lol.

Still think the Hvitserkr fight with the gank mobs was the worst so far even though I was the same level as him while below the three berserkers in level when I fought them.
 

purbeast0

No Lifer
Sep 13, 2001
52,834
5,713
126
Still think the Hvitserkr fight with the gank mobs was the worst so far even though I was the same level as him while below the three berserkers in level when I fought them.
I don't know which one that was but the 3 berserkers at once was the only one I had trouble with before having to change the difficulty. Then the king berserker was easier than that one. I also had to turn down the difficulty to beat another after game boss. And I was only playing on normal difficulty.
 

SteveGrabowski

Diamond Member
Oct 20, 2014
6,806
5,769
136
I don't know which one that was but the 3 berserkers at once was the only one I had trouble with before having to change the difficulty. Then the king berserker was easier than that one. I also had to turn down the difficulty to beat another after game boss. And I was only playing on normal difficulty.

The one thing I found really helped me in the triple berserker fight was turning off aim lock, which made it much easier to keep Svipdagr (the aggressive red one) in frame to be able to dodge attacks while sniping hits at the sisters until I could kill them. And since switching to the axe is so slow from barehand when the sisters would throw that big ice orb or fire orb at me so instead I'd just jump into spartan rage right before getting hit if I couldn't dodge it. Was a decent strategy but still took me a lot of tries to execute it well enough to win.
 
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SteveGrabowski

Diamond Member
Oct 20, 2014
6,806
5,769
136
Might be recency bias, but I think this is probably a better game than God of War 2018 was and I loved that game.
 

SteveGrabowski

Diamond Member
Oct 20, 2014
6,806
5,769
136
Man, Gna had been wrecking me since I got to her last night and the closest I got was maybe 1/3 of one health bar left on her before she'd For Asgard me to death (the For Asgard where she drops bifrost first is really tough to dodge IMO). Then I changed two of Freya's accessories, one to buff my attack when she's out of arrows and another to shoot 3 arrows on every third sigil arrow shot, and I massacred Gna only taking one hit the entire way. Kind of surprised since I'm playing on Give Me No Mercy.
 

Anasabdullah

Junior Member
Apr 21, 2023
11
3
41
I finally had it. Whoo-hoo! Honestly - the game pleased, while I found a couple of minuses.Perception of the game world has become more, more side quests. Did not like the change pumping things. The game now has no class gear (standard, legendary, epic), all of one class, but with their own characteristics.