KotFE Chapters 4, 5 & 6 Master Mode

Just like when I did them on veteran mode, I'm finding that the KotFE chapters seem to fly by on master mode, and I'm actually eager to do more. They are much better balanced than the KotET ones, and while I still think that giving trash mobs the ability to kill you in three hits is not the best way of creating difficulty, I've got to admit that I'm deriving a certain entertainment out of puzzling out how to best tackle each fight. It certainly turns all the mobs between cut scenes into more than annoying bumps on the road.

After respeccing my Sage in chapter three I actually left her in Telekinetics spec (just to promptly go "oops" when I joined a story mode EC run as a healer and didn't realise that I was still set up to dps until we pulled the first boss). Burning things down quickly feels much more fun than endlessly drawn-out engagements, and the fact that I don't really know what I'm doing also adds a dimension of learning how to play to the whole thing.

Chapter four was fairly unremarkable; I just kept practising my default tactic of trying to nuke things as quickly as possible while slowly back-pedalling away from them. What was kind of funny was that I momentarily forgot that part of the chapter actually takes place in the outside world and the mobs were therefore not actually dangerous in any way - I've never crept around the Eternal Swamp that carefully before! The iknayid mini-boss at the end of the chapter killed me with its adds, but not before I had successfully taken down the boss itself.

In chapter five I remembered the Skytrooper Control Droid giving me trouble on veteran mode and the master mode version didn't disappoint either, though the difficulty seemed about the same actually. Playing as dps with a healing companion instead of as a healer with a tanking companion I had to change my approach a little however, making sure to get aggro on adds quickly so they wouldn't all shoot Lana, while also being cognisant of the fact that she wasn't able to keep up with healing me through the damage very well. In the recording I made of the fight you can see me messing up in more than one way, such as accidentally tab-targeting to the boss while he was immune to damage, thinking of using heroic moment way too late and letting Lana die, but I still made it through. I think the most useful tip I can give is to pause for a moment when you're down to a single add to give yourself a chance to get both you and your companion healed up as much as you can, as that's about the point at which you will be exposed to the least damage.



Chapter six featured all the fun of the Scion trial of course, which I recalled being interesting on veteran mode as well. I decided against uploading any recordings of it in the end however as I didn't find any of the fights too tough, despite of suffering a few deaths. With the first two batches of Scions it certainly helps that if you kill one of the two, the killed one won't respawn even if you die, leaving you to contend with only a single enemy afterwards. With the second batch (Vanat and Berusal) I even found that after dying to their initial ambush, I could just pull them separately (or at least Berusal didn't even aggro after I cast a CC on Vanat). Just watch out for Force Crush, that was still a one-shot on me even in full 248 gear.

The end of the chapter featured the fun of fighting Heskal without a companion of course, which went down similarly to how I did it veteran mode, with me focusing on doing damage while he was channeling Debris Storm (while avoiding its red circles obviously) and spending the rest of the time trying to line of sight his Turbulence, which still took off most of my health even in full 248 if I allowed it to hit me. It is interruptable the normal way too, but with my fairly long cooldown on that it felt safer to "save it" for situations when I might find myself unable to use line of sight instead. The parts when he summoned the various vision adds were actually kind of funny due to how little health they have: As I have the utility that causes your bubble to cause a bit of backlash damage, they basically kept killing themselves instantly as soon as they attacked.

I expect the next few chapters will continue to be relatively painless - the ones I'm most worried about based on my veteran mode experiences are chapter ten for its insane trash and sixteen for a potentially even more merciless incarnation of the Arcann fight. Nonethless, I'm actually looking forward to all of them!