Hi, I haven't fought horntail before and I have some inquiries. So from what I understand, he wasn't working properly before and couldn't cast certain skills, you could freeze his body, etc. As of now I'm aware that mass dispel has been added to HT's arsenal, and eventually, a fully functional HT will be unfreezable, and will cast both mass dispel and mass seduce. Old guides have stated that you could survive as a ranged attacker with 5.6k hp, but now, it's recommended to have 9k hp so that you could survive a 7k att + 2k rock if you lose your HB. My main concern is, with HT getting fixed, how big of a problem is it to not meet the new, recommended base hp? I'd like to receive as many opinions as possible from players who have experience fighting HT, especially ranged attackers with the low end hp requirements. In the past (before mass dispel was fixed) vs now , when fighting HT with around 5.6k hp, how often have you died? Have you, for example, found that you die like twice as many times or more than before? How big of a problem will it really be to have like 6k hp base with the fully functional HT in the new source. Is the window between losing your HB and regaining it really such a problem that there will be a large number of deaths occuring? Do you for example, speculate that, eventually, not having 9k base hp as a ranged attacker at HT, will render you as an inefficient member who dies too frequently, and no one will want to take you as an attacker / you won't be expected to actually finish the run all the way? Sorry about the wall of text, but thanks for reading it all through if you did. I'm sure many players unfamiliar to bossing might share this concern and I'd like to know if we're worrying over something that's not really as a big a deal as it sounds. Thanks guys, I appreciate the replies
For some background info: As it stands right now, the 1st person who enters the HT Cave is the main seduced target for both arms. This means they'll be getting randomly seduced as long as arms are alive. Generally, Warriors are used as these sed targets. The problem occurs when/if the sed target dies and can't be resurrected or just disconnects. If that happens, the sed target changes to a random person in the map (if i recall correctly). I'd say if there's a common way I've died (NL with 6.7k hp), it's because of that. If your party has HB, and is doing what they're supposed to be doing, I'd say dying on runs is a bit more frequent than old HT but not by much. It helps that now in this new HT meta, your whole party is with each other the entire run which means closer to the bishop healing and casting debuffs, and the Dark Knight recasting HB (s0 mass dispel isn't a big problem if you're watching for it). The nice thing about HT is that certain attacks only occur when certain body parts hit specific percentages. The main ones to be concerned of is mass dispel when left arm is below 60%, and Head B when it's below 60% and 30%. Those are the big times to look for mass dispel (mostly worrying for your Bishop because of Magic Guard). Mass seduce (not the target seduced mentioned earlier) occurs when the arms are below 30%. The popular strategy now to prevent these mass seds from being an issue is to kill all the other body parts first and leave both arms for last. This is done in order to prevent the heads from casting 1/1 (brings your HP and MP to 1) attacks or other miscellaneous attacks while you're being seduced by the arms. If only the arms are left, the only thing that can damage you are the rocks, which you can comfortably live with HB, or survive if your bishop casts Hero's Will and heals you, or you cast Hero's Will yourself. Generally I don't run without HB because it's much more efficient to run with it. It's definitely possible to HT without the HP requirement but you're more limited to what you can do. You essentially would have to stay up top attacking the head (which requires 5.6k hp) until the tail, legs, and wings are downed. Hope this helps you out, lemme know if you have any more questions (or to correct any misinformation I may have given)!
Does the sed target really changes randomly? The last time I HT, it seemed to change according to the order we entered the main map. Unless that's a complete coincidence, but 5 conincidences? (lol yes, we kept dying consecutively because all our bishops either died/dced before that... fail....)
So when you say you're limited to what you can do and have to stay up top, is that only if you have ~5.6k hp and no HB? Or even with HB? If the legs hit for 9k and you have 5.6k hp base. If you have HB can you still go down and attack legs and stuff since the arms are saved for later (and I assume Head B as well) so you don't have to worry about the mass dispels and seduces? So basically, even with mass dispel, mass seduce and the removal of freezing, based on the attack strategy, HB will still be reliable for the majority of the run, and you can attack other parts of the body like tail with 5.6k base?
I think you're right about that because we do enter the map in a specific order. I'd say the only thing you can attack safely with 5.6k base HP w/out HB are the heads. You won't be able to fall down while tail, legs, or wings are active otherwise you're most likely dead. So yes it's possible, but can be difficult. A good party can take down tail, legs, and wings in maybe 15-20 minutes. If you have HB you'd need around 6k base HP or whatever it is needed for around 9k to do everything else.
