Hades EX is a bit... underwhelming mechanically (spoilers obviously)

I like all the phase changes and everything with the Ascians but... I feel like it was more of a nostalgia trip than an actually interesting and complicated fight. I almost feel as if the two tokens don't even need to be a thing. Now, don't misinterpret this, I do enjoy the fight.... but its no where near as difficult as Shinryu was or as outstanding. I was really hoping to see more mechanics based on what Hades does but I feel like we instead got a bunch of filler add phases. Idk, maybe it's just me I guess, but something's underwhelming about the fight.

Honestly add phase is the most interesting part, which is hella sad. The last two phases are seriously kind of a joke, it's just annoying how much downtime there is because of all the transitions, especially since they seem to break off at the worst possible times. Really disappointing compared to Shinryu in SB : /

I'm sensing a pattern there with SHB content we got so far, hopefully Alex Ultimate breaks the mold.

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Originally Posted by Valic

I like all the phase changes and everything with the Ascians but... I feel like it was more of a nostalgia trip than an actually interesting and complicated fight. I almost feel as if the two tokens don't even need to be a thing. Now, don't misinterpret this, I do enjoy the fight.... but its no where near as difficult as Shinryu was or as outstanding. I was really hoping to see more mechanics based on what Hades does but I feel like we instead got a bunch of filler add phases. Idk, maybe it's just me I guess, but something's underwhelming about the fight.

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You think so? Idk, I felt like it was super challenging! What I like about it is how unforgiving the mechanics are (for example, if a SINGLE meteor is missed, it's a wipe :OOOOOOO), plus the fight is so long, so there's a lot of mechanics to remember. I definitely respect your opinion though bro!

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Originally Posted by TheForce

You think so? Idk, I felt like it was super challenging! What I like about it is how unforgiving the mechanics are (for example, if a SINGLE meteor is missed, it's a wipe :OOOOOOO), plus the fight is so long, so there's a lot of mechanics to remember. I definitely respect your opinion though bro!

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Yeah but the meteors are literally 1-2-3-4 in the same two spots every single time. Hell even in Nabriales's fight, the meteors dropped at random spots all over the place forcing both tanks to have to run to each one without even considering keeping up time on the aetherial tear. That was arguably harder than both tanks knowing to stand north and south and then move clockwise to all 4 of them. During the normal fight of Hades, there's a mech forcing a majority of the group to stan on spots to remove the Doom effect from the whole party, or it's a wipe.... meaning if one person somehow doesn't spot one of the 6 random locations to stand, they all wiped... That's arguably better difficult than the only 2 meteors in set locations too. The fight itself I can't even say is long either, first phase is boring and simple, 2nd phase is a lot of transitions of adds and placement, third and fourth phases are practically just aoe dodge'ing bland things, no thought or contemplation needed.

Not to melt your post there... But looking back at Shinryu. You had to watch his wings, understand which colors meant which effects and would be paired with which mechanics so the mechanics you dealt with were both randomized and forced the player to think at spur of the moment notice. The whole fight just seemed like it was simpler than when Titania was released. Stand here at X, move to X, return back to X and repeat while dps'ing. The dp check wasn't hard to reach, the mechanics were easy to read, not very complicated to learn, and doesn't really make anything chaotic to handle since everything handled comes from the focus of the boss being in the middle of the field. Everything else mechanically is just simple "don't stand in the shit" mechanics. 3rd and 4th phase most noticeably... which is very sad they give us a new cutscene transformation and he hardly does anything different, just a few more differently styled aoes that are easily healed up. My monk was also saying what I was saying.. WHY IS THERE SO MUCH DOWN TIME BETWEEN PHASES.


Imo they missed a lot of interesting opportunities to make the fight interesting. By not using some of the normal mode mechanics and recreating harder difficulties for them, or by not inventing more interesting mechanics to deal with and couple with what he currently has. Susano was a great example of this concept.... Sword causes a divide in the playing field in EX, making 2 separate platforms, invented a mechanic forcing the party to strafe sides or forcing a player to strafe sides, as well as adding in the dice "stop on time" mechanic coupled with aoe's tot rick you into moving while this is up. All of that wasn't in the original Susano fight and it's only half of the new additions changed in the EX...


Again, not trying to obliterate your post, everyone has their own opinions of course. But if I could make this fight myself... I would've made the final phase of the fight have all the ascians combine into one or just have them all present doing their mechanics into mixed intervals, causing players to gain specific responsibilities to handle. Something representative of the whole idea of ascians sowing chaos... a mechanic that would force players to have to read and adapt to mechanics on the fly that are applied at random would fit that quota. Or better yet, the 4th phase could just be... ya know, not a glowy and very minor altered version of the third phase look.

Imagine him showing up with a modernized and good looking version of this Hades from FF?
https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/...20130625043633

Imagine him turning into a simulacrum of what his future self would look like. A champion of the former supreme race of Amourot, savior of the doomed star. True servant of Zodiark type deal... using the ice and fire mechanic and using that with the donuts, forcing players to have to stack with one another randomly to mitigate the damage the donuts would deal while meteors dropped in random sections of the map. Something that ya know.. makes us have to think and coordinate more than the little we did....

I really need to do this fight, but been so busy trying to prepare for Ishgard. Still have 16 tools to craft.

To be fair, ShB savage is also easier then SB.
SB savage was easier then HW...


I think SE is making everything (outside Ultimate) more casual friendly.

The fight feels like it was unfinished or incredibly undertuned at the last moment. Once we figured out what to do at the AoE spam at the beginning of his "big phase" we cleared the whole thing in one shot.

I was surely expecting more. It's just a burst of mechanics, then a downtime. I didn't feel this fight was harder (or as hard) than either Thordan or Shinryu on release.

This fight seemed more like a puzzle in that the challenge was mostly about figuring out how to execute the mechanics properly.

Most of EX trials tend to be pretty self-explanatory in how their mechanics should be handled but the actual execution is rougher due to more random factors to account for and/or the mechanics happening quickly. Everything in Hades EX has little randomness to it and mostly gives you a ton of time to position for what's coming.

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Originally Posted by Satarn

Honestly add phase is the most interesting part, which is hella sad. The last two phases are seriously kind of a joke, it's just annoying how much downtime there is because of all the transitions, especially since they seem to break off at the worst possible times. Really disappointing compared to Shinryu in SB : /

I'm sensing a pattern there with SHB content we got so far, hopefully Alex Ultimate breaks the mold.

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And all those transitions and cutscenes and extra time doing pointless things do nothing except make farming later a pain in the butt (looking at you Byakko)

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Originally Posted by Deceptus

And all those transitions and cutscenes and extra time doing pointless things do nothing except make farming later a pain in the butt (looking at you Byakko)

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The most messed up thing about this is that I remember Yoshi P saying in some interview that they took feedback from Byakko and will try to avoid long downtime transitions in the future... and then we got Eden Prime and Hades = - =.
Idc that Eden thing is a reference to the long-ass summon cutscene in FF8, they could make savage version a "reference" to how FF9 inroduced shorter versions for repeated casts and cut that shit.

This is how i view the fight mechanically, Watered down ultimate,
-Dps checks gating different parts of the fights
-Occasional barrage of mechanics
-Simple mechanically end phase
-new reskin at end of previous boss.

Now this isn't necessarily bad but when compared to previous X.1 trials it is underwhelming except Shinyru last phase where they are on par but it is a step up from Titania and Innocence so i'm content, they have made it clear nothing would reach Thordan ex levels of difficult on release again for extreme trials so I don't expect too much anymore.

Let's have all content where there is mechanics within mechanics so that it isn't possible to deal damage anymore. All we can do is try not to die.

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Originally Posted by Satarn

The most messed up thing about this is that I remember Yoshi P saying in some interview that they took feedback from Byakko and will try to avoid long downtime transitions in the future... and then we got Eden Prime and Hades = - =.
Idc that Eden thing is a reference to the long-ass summon cutscene in FF8, they could make savage version a "reference" to how FF9 inroduced shorter versions for repeated casts and cut that shit.

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To be fair, the Eden one I welcome because it's definitely pleasing for an FF8 fan like myself, and it serves a good purpose of refreshing cooldowns. Whereas Hades... doesn't give much of that in the right spots. At that point, it's down time because down time.... no real benefit to waiting these short odd timed periods.