Well...my encounters with Duke Fishron went pretty much as I expected. For the first round of fights I had three Truffle worms, meaning three fights.
I was not expecting to win against him in the first fight, but I was surprised that I got him into his second phase. What killed me was me still getting to grips with his attack patterns.
Second fight turned out much better, I used more potion buffs and I had the upper hand right up until he went into his third phase (an Expert Mode-only event) and everything went to shit from there.
For the third fight I switched weapons, and ended up getting him down to less than 500 HP before dying, all due to the cheesy-as-fuck third phase. To be honest I'm surprised the game didn't just turn off my monitor and tell me to fight him blind. Because by that point I had him pegged good and proper, attack patterns sorted and knowing what to dodge...but none of that's any good if you can't see what you're supposed to be dodging.
To prove to myself that I had Duke Fishron pegged, I harvested three more Truffle Worms and tried fighting him in a non-Expert Mode world. Kicked his ass three times in a row, in such short time that I didn't even bother to refresh my buffs for the second fight. He dropped the Fishron wings, the Tsunami, the Razorwheel spellbook and the Bubble Gun. Most of these look interesting but the clear winner are the wings, for despite all my planning I was starting to notice a weakness in my setup: My flight ability. I was using the Hoverboard and that just isn't enough against Expert Mode-Duke Fishron. Time to harvest some more Truffle Worms and try again.
CthulhuIsSpy said:
What class are you? If you're a mage you will want the Razorwind Typhoon from Duke; its really good against what you'll be facing next.
If Summoner, the tempest staff which is one of the best summoning items in the game.
The drops for ranger and warrior aren't too good though.
To be honest I haven't decided, but so far I've been going Melee for most things and haven't come across much problems, though I lean towards melee weapons with range, like the Enchanted Sword, Terra Blade, Scourge of the Corruptor, Influx Waver and (most recently against Duke Fishron) the Possessed Hatchet.
I haven't really taken a good look at proper ranged weapons, but I used them as support for my melee killing when needed...or until the Scourge of the Corruptor came along and made most of them trivial.
Ditto with magic, much of it looks and sounds nice, but I feel I'd be making myself too vulnerable to get the "Alpha Strike"-esque damage levels that good spellcasters can get.
The Summoner class, however, just makes me scratch my head. All you do is summon invulnerable allies that do all the damage (and killing) for you, while you sit on the sidelines and hope nothing reaches you. I have the Staff of the Frost Hydra and that's quite a useful thingie, but beyond that the concept of the class somehow just doesn't feel right.
Alienman said:
Do you play with drop all on death?
I tried MediumCore a couple of times, but when I got hit by the one-two combo of dying (and all my stuff dropped) and the game crashing and wiping out all my stuff (for the second time in 3+ years of playing the game) I lost any and all interest in that game mode.
Up next: Rematch with Expert-Mode Fishron. Equipped with his own wings, I should stand a much better chance of survival.