I’ve fought the tank/spider a few times now and every time it’s been a slog. It has some of the more annoying abilities grabbed from other bosses, ex the Eidolon’s stomp, and seems to have the most staggering attacks out of all bosses, or at least uses them very frequently.
With most other bosses, even the more annoying ones like Kela or Profit Taker, I’m mostly thinking about how to play better using normal means to beat the boss… with H-09 I am just thinking to myself: ‘OK, how do I cheese this?’ for most of the second phase.
I actually love it, it doesn’t feel like a slog but I guess I am cheesing it a bit. It’s much more fun than the Murmur boss since instead of being a damage sponge with tons of attenuation, here you actually have to move around the area, aim at weakspots, grab the RPG from other units, CC the healers in the 2nd phase, etc… It’s dynamic and requires skill over fighting dmg attenuation IMHO.
And in the end, what’s wrong with cheese? It’s called bringing the right tool for the right job and being prepared/adaptable, whether that’s Unairu/PSF, Incarnon weapons, armor strip, rolling guard or w/e else you might need.
edit: I have been doing the secret apex H-09 fight for the accolade glyphs and honestly it’s one of the more satisfying accomplishments in recent memory. Not only is the fight pretty fun and maybe even too easy with the correct weapons, just the feeling of seeing these really pretty glyphs as my loadout icons or backroom decorations is 10/10.
If I can endure the much longer 60 eyes setup and fight I should probably go for that one too…
What I call cheesing is tools meant to wholly subvert the challenge. Back when Raptor was first introduced I brought Loki and switch-teleported it into a hallway because it’d get stuck and wouldn’t be able to shoot at the team, wholly invalidating the difficulty of the flying boss bombing us.
So for H-09 it’s bringing the Corufell, or possibly the OG Opticore (haven’t tried it yet), and spamming heavy attacks rather than trying to poke the roaming weak points while trying not to be bashed around by it’s obsession with knockback abilities.
I am probably bringing the wrong guns/loadouts. In my fights with this thing in phase 2 I can shoot the body for chip damage or the weak points for chip damage x5 or so. Makes this fight at least feel like it takes significantly longer than anything else I’ve been successful at.
I dunno, I did the first fight with felarx and it took a while, the incarnon mode fire wasn’t doing that well with the weak points either. On later attempts I tried my one true love Lex Prime Incarnon and it was melting the boss weakpoints, just sweeping through the tank and destroying all weakpoints in one charge. Even the regular fire oneshots the weakpoints in the first above-ground phase which makes it so satisfying to pop them all in one aimglide.
I’ve heard about the heavy slam build strategy and haven’t tried it but allegedly it’s a good one too.
Also keep in mind that you get the benefits from the calendar Hex overrides - the longer you wait the easier it’s gonna be as you continue stacking upgrades (just remember to do it before the calendar year resets).