Fallen Legion: Rise To Glory has thrust you against a fair few bosses in its opening hours. These have typically rewarded you with new Exemplars allowing you to mix and match parties, and experiment to a decent degree. Manticore is the first boss Rise To Glory throws your way that won’t become an ally.
That’s because Manticore is, for all intents and purposes, the first “real” boss in the game. Manticore has plenty of attacks, a chunky health bar, and unlike the Exemplars, you have been scrapping with, and can be broken. This means Rushdown attacks and plenty of opportunities to deal bonus damage.
Manticore’s Attack
Manticore is no pushover and comes with a bevy of attacks that it can use to mix you up and deal sneaky damage. Not only that, if you were paying attention earlier, you would have even gleaned a small hint on how to defeat Manticore more effectively. Manticore is fast, powerful, and a whole lot of fun.
|
Attack |
Explanation |
Counter |
|---|---|---|
|
Poison Spit |
Manticore launches a slow-moving poisonous projectile at the closest Exemplar. This attack deals a decent chunk of damage. |
This is possibly the easiest projectile to parry you have encountered thus far. The projectile moves incredibly slowly compared to standard enemies, but the trade-off is that it deals much more damage. You want to parry this attack 100% of the time because Manticore is weak to its own venom (more on that in the Mechanics section). |
|
Jumping Claw Slash |
This is Manticore's fastest attack. Manticore quickly leaps forward and slashes with its claws mid leap. |
This attack has very little wind up. Uniquely, this attack comes out before Manticore reaches your party, giving it a very difficult parry timing. Parry if you spot the brief animation that plays before the leap, otherwise tank the hit. It doesn’t do too much damage. |
|
Tail Attack |
Manticore leaps towards the party and then lashes out with its tail after a brief delay. |
This attack will be mixed up with Jumping Claw Slash, but thankfully, the delay is so long on this attack that you can use the Jumping Claw Slash parry timing, and still recover in time to successfully parry the Tail Attack. You can counterattack if you land the parry for bonus damage. |
|
Roar |
Manticore will occasionally roar, dealing damage to all Exemplars. |
This attack can be parried, but the timing feels a bit awkward, and like with a lot of Manticore's attacks, its windup animation is not exactly clear. The damage is fairly low. Manticore will also use this attack after a Rushdown Attack, so be prepared to parry since this version of the attack is far more predictable. |
Manticore’s Mechanics
Manticore’s only real Mechanic is its Poison Spit. If you reflect this attack, then Manticore will instantly be stunned (not Staggered). This effect lasts for around 10 seconds, leaving Manticore open to attacks. Not only that, but Manticore also takes increased damage during this time, which could lead to a Stagger.
Because Manticore is a boss, Staggering it will allow you to unleash a Rushdown Attack for major damage. You don’t need to Stagger Manticore to kill it, but it certainly helps. As a result, try and poison Manticore as much as possible. It shortens the fight, prevents Manticore from attacking, and increases your damage. It’s all a win.
Which Exemplars To Use
For Exemplars, we found great success running two ranged and one tank. At this point in the game, you don’t have access to many Exemplars, so we would recommend Apolon, Winchester, and Zulfiqar.
Zulfiqar in particular is outstanding in this fight - and frankly is one of the best Exemplars in the game. His Link Attack is staggeringly good. It allows Zulfiqar to dash toward the enemy and attack. The hook, however, is that Zulfiqar will perfectly parry any attack that hits him during this animation. You can use this to effortlessly negate any attack Manticore throws out.
Winchester and Apolon want to be attacking whenever they can. Zulfiqar is a good enough tank to keep them safe, so unleashing a constant stream of DPS is just a good idea. You can also use various Deathblows here to reduce Manticore’s defences even further.
Battle Strategy
The strategy here is very simple. You want to focus on reflecting Manticore's poison at every opportunity. You can either time your block, or you can use Zulfiqar’s Link Attack to achieve this.
Between Manticore’s attacks, you want to be using your ranged DPS to deal as much damage as you can. Try not to spam attacks as you want to have control over which Deathblows are used and when. Ideally, you want to cycle between Winchester and Apolon.
Try not to attack with Zulfiqar unless it is a Rushdown Attack scenario. The reason for this is that you want to be able to parry at a moment's notice, and more importantly, you want to have 3AP at all times. You can trigger your Link Attack by spending all of your AP at once, giving you constant access to Zulfiqar’s amazing “parry everything for free” ability.
Zulfiqar doesn’t deal too much damage anyway, so saving his AP to shut down Manticore is the best way to use him. Your ranged DPS will do more than enough damage on their own. During a Rushdown Attack, everyone gains infinite AP so make sure to use Zulfiqar in these situations.
With Manticore dead, you are free to move on.