Uploaded December 2022 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago

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Kill performed for a $25 Bounty by @UnholyPancake on the Champion's Respite server for challenge running discord.gg/vESQQvm

I'll use this description mostly to explain the game and the fight's mechanics.

This was a doozy of a kill. A massively oversized thrust hitbox, a very common and difficult mix-up that includes it, relatively small arena causing troubles with walls, and a damage/hp system that does not carry over well to this restriction, causing the kill to be very lengthy. Initial estimations were above 20 minutes, though I optimised it a lot and somehow squeezed out a sub 9 minute run here.

The way enemy health works in this game is in two parts. White damage and blue damage. When you deal white damage, it leaves behind a blue bar. If the enemy is left alone for too long, it'll rapidly regenerate. In order to prevent that, you need to do blue damage with the claw. The enemy will die when nothing's left, unless they have multiple phases, indicated to the right of the health bar. This system causes combat to be aggressive and dynamic, it's very fun.

Speaking of phases. In phase 2, Varg gains new combos, extends existing combos and starts to incorporate his backhand attack much more frequently. On top of that, he gains an ultimate attack where he roars and then attempts to grab the player. It has massive range, and without the ability to dash you need to be very far away to avoid it. Fortunately, it is predictable. It has a ~50 second cooldown and when it's up, he's guaranteed to use it after he's finished his current attack sequence.

There are two strategies I developed to help with this. The first is that right before the roar hits, I turn to face him. While this initially puts me closer to him, it causes the stagger animation from the roar to move me away instead of closer to him, making it a bit more lenient.

The second strategy is to time the cooldown using the feather attack. This attack itself is useful to cancel animations with its short recovery, has 3 charges, and a 10 second recharge time. By using up 5 daggers, the first during the roar attack, I can tell when he's about to use the roar again, when I get back up to 2/3 daggers after. Thanks to @lecarbonator for helping me keep count of my feather usage during attempts.