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.
The hit boxes are very janky on this boss. My recommended build is Rauta Primary and a Stropha modded for gas heavy attacks. You should be able to 1-2 shot each phase with that. You want to be able to get your damage in before damage attenuation kicks in.
If this is more for the “secret boss”, I really don’t like that fight, it feels like it was designed to make meta a requirement. Heavy slam attacks are still useful for this version of the boss, and landing on top of the tank should keep you out of the nullifying corrosive sludge. I still dislike that it mostly revolves around abusing invulnerability to defeat a boss.
And I guess for anyone that doesn’t know about that boss yet,
spoiler
Defeating it gives your landing craft a turret Sumdali, and defeating it solo with a Hex warframe will give you a glyph.
Apparently there are another 6 warframes which will get a glyph for defeating the 60 eyes boss solo.
Jade’s AC-130 mode helps a lot. Funnily enough, she can get staggered in the air when the tank first shows up, but after that she’s fine.
Its not an overly hard boss but its exmplery of how rotten warframes core mechanics are at this point. Especially in the apex version its just cheese the boss before it cheeses you.
Personally I think its down to how abundant healing has become, We can instant heal at will so the only damage thats meaingful is oneshots, and when that’s the case it invalidates all the survivability mechanics that aren’t one one shot resistant in turn, and the only worthwhile defence for enemies is either weird damage calculations or disabling half the mechanics we play the game for in the first place. Healing is out of control and player damage is out of control and its eating away at the core gameplay loop.
If healing is the problem then healing mitigation or max-HP damage (as in attacks that reduce the maximum HP you have) seem like a better alternative to building more of one of the most hated game mechanics into the game. Hell, either of those would give importance to status clear… I know there’s some strong healers that have that too but that could be made the differentiating factor between a major healer frame and generally durable frames.
I really haven’t found it all that bad, the key was staying mobile. I beat the Steel Path version while using Mesa with no stagger immunity mods at all by bullet jumping around and aim gliding, most of it’s attacks can’t do anything to you when you’re in the air. It also goes down pretty fast when you shoot it’s weak points, and doesn’t appear to have attenuation when doing so (or at least it’s not noticeable). I’ll take more bosses like this guy and Exploiter Orb any day over more attenuation/damage sponge bosses like the Archons or the Murmur boss.
Thanks. Not sure how much that’ll help me but I could try staying airborne more… I’m not fond of that style of combat but if it makes the fight not take a half hour then it might be worth it. I’m fairly certain Tridolon would take me less time than H-09.
I probably need to remod some of my guns, for me shooting the armor plates did like 300-500 damage. Shooting the weak points does ~1400-3000. Faster to shoot the weakpoints, not factoring in time to aim, but not by much.
FYI I used a Vasto Prime Incarnon when I cleared the Steel Path node and it absolutely shredded the weak points, even when I was firing it from quite far away. Laetum works wonders too, at least the status/raw damage version with the no crit evolution did. Incarnon guns are generally great because the weak points in both phases count for granting them charge, makes keeping them transformed during the fight trivial (it helps that they are generally incredibly powerful guns too). Just avoid anything that relies on status, the weak points are immune.
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.
Primed Surefooted is a thing. It is pretty valuable already, on this boss it negates all staggers.
Thank you. I’ll have to put something together using that specifically for this thing. Normally don’t use it because I can just evade knockdowns and staggers in normal gameplay… not that things spamming.
Primed Sure Footed also negates staggers?
I never really cared for it too much in earlier content, but in 1999 everything seems to stagger you and it becomes annoying.
I honestly enjoyed the tank! I do agree with you that the second phase is far more ground AoE and stagger-centric than what we’ve seen before, but I started Aim Gliding around the thing and barely get damaged now (boosting Parkour Speed helps a lot, I have a single Tauforged Yellow Archon Shard slotted for +22.5%). That should keep you clear of any ground-based shenanigans.
As for the big physical attacks, I try to Bullet Jump straight up whenever I see it rearing, then hover with Aim Glide while it does its thing. It sucks a lot that they capped the ceiling to the crater’s lip, being boxed in like that does tend to make things a bit… cramped for my taste.
I also found it vital to manage those tendrils it pokes out of the ground with priority, as those can DoT you down pretty fast.
Other than that, it’s down to popping the weak points as fast as possible. I’ve had runs in Pub where neither I nor the tank got to do much, because my squadmates brought it down in under a minute (not counting the healing phase).
To be honest, I have more trouble with its first phase, mainly with the aerial adds. It’s like my brain can’t fit them into its action plan. Still find it a good challenge, though, it’s just that it hasn’t clicked yet.
Thanks! Bullet Jumping isn’t normally part of my moveset, I rely a lot more on Void Sling as I find I have more control over it in most instances. So, going 'round trying to, effectively, get headshots while flying at some random angle relative to the boss isn’t really my jam. At least I know there’s something that should work now.
The first phase doesn’t phase me… except on hard mode where it turns off abilities and there’s a few orders of magnitude more adds than I can keep track of. I find trying to kill the spider inside the tank a lot more frustrating… to the point it’s less so damaging my warframe and more damaging my resolve not to quit mission.
