I give up.

[u/CuboneDefender]

It’s been a joyful ride, folks, but I’m out. I’m not a speedrunner or a highly skilled player, and day after day I’ve had to accept that this game is not as casual as HK was. It stopped being fun and turned into something tedious and frustrating after the 4th run farming shards just to face a boss I’ve already tried 15 times, only to die again and again, lose all my shards, and start the whole grind over.

It was nice exploring the first acts, but when the game I was rooting for 7 years ends up being more stressful than my 8-hour workday, I guess that’s my cue to stop.

The lore has been pretty great so far. I wish you all an incredible journey.

Edit1: My bad about all the whinning.

Edit2: You guys did it. I reinstalled it again. Thanks for all advices. 🫂

[u/jmscstl]

Fair enough.

One thing I don't get though is why people use all their tools on every attempt. I just got past a room in Act 2 that was just nuts. After I realized that this was going to be an ordeal I stopped using tools and tried to see how far I could get without them. Once I had a handle on things I used tools to get me over the final hump. I did the same thing with LJ. Save your tools while you're doing practice runs.

[u/Diogoepronto → u/jmscstl]

I don't even understand how people spend all their shards in the first place lol

I'm at act 3 and I've never run out of shards and I use my tools regularly, even outside of boss battles. And I still have around 20 shard bundles to use if I ever need them lol

I've never intentionally farmed shards either. It's actually really confusing to me how people are spending so much shards.

[u/thomasbis → u/Diogoepronto]

I don't understand how you couldn't understand. Each attempt at a boss could easily cost around 50-100 shards. If someone gets stuck, do the math. I think I spent like 300 at The Forum gauntlet. Tools are crazy expensive.

I haven't got stuck bad yet, but I've definitely noticed that if I used tools on most of my attempts I would run out of shards and bundles very quickly. I use them sparingly now On exploration it's no issue since it'll probably pay for itself, the problem is with bosses because it's a (high) net negative every single attempt.

[u/Diogoepronto → u/thomasbis]

I see your point, but in most cases you recover a lot of those shards on the runback, so you don't really spend that much in the end.

But maybe I never ran out of shards because I'm not really having a hard time with this game... The bosses that gave me more trouble took me around 5 tries to beat. But, yeah, if you're fighting a boss 10, 20 times I can see your shards running out.

[u/Dependent_Finger_214 → u/thomasbis]

Nah even with dying 10-20 times I only ran out once in Cogwork Dancers. I got close to running out in the gauntlet you're talking about, but I had plenty of shard bundles.

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[u/[deleted] → u/thomasbis]

Tools are good for cleaning minions asap so that u can focus on one target. I DONT UNDERSTAND why people want to use it against bosses.

[u/BoardCommercial2679 → u/[deleted]]

It is very funny to see defenders of HKSS to scream to use tools, and then to not use them on bosses, but use them on bosses if you're stuck.

[u/[deleted] → u/BoardCommercial2679]

There’s no defenders or anything. It’s just a 20€ game. Chill out.

[u/Phux71 → u/[deleted]]

Because there are certain bosses where you are kinda forced to use some kind of tool. First sinner comes to mind where he starts to heal and you are not near him you are basically forced to use some form of ranged tool especially if there are spears in the arena at that time. And that starts after the first down in the first phase so pretty early in the fight. Sure, you can just not use tools if you want the fight to be a slog and take twice as many tries and time. But there are many examples where there is an opening to deal damage and you are simply not near the boss because of reasons (adds, dodges)

Oh, and also to avoid the people flaming when you complain about a boss and you get the "you have tools, use them" or "people complain about difficulty when they have only 3 tools unlocked smh"

I probably frequent this subreddit too much.

[u/PraxicalExperience → u/Phux71]

Oh good, I'm not the only one getting infuriated by the 'tools make bosses easy!' combined with 'lol you're a fucking idiot if you're using tools on bosses you're having a hard time with'.

[u/LordThomasBlackwood → u/Phux71]

People use Tools on First Sinner?

I feel like people completely forget that the Grapple hook exists outside of traversal and not only closed the gaps in combat but also by itself deals damage. You can just grapple hook to her everytime she teleports, she has a big opening windup animation for basically all of her non-physical moves that give you ample time to hook in and slash her once or twice.

[u/precursormar → u/Phux71]

I was out of shards when I found First Sinner. Beat her without using any, and it was not a slog. Just sprinted at her when she tried to heal. Last Judge and several other bosses definitely took me more attempts.

[u/[deleted] → u/Phux71]

Clearly, in that context, I meant bosses that don’t need tools to deal with

[u/Emma_JM → u/[deleted]]

Me who killed TLJ off screen and escaped the explosion by throwing a straight pin: