u/DewIt2

After 4 days on and off and what felt like under 90 deaths (I lost count of the real number): I got him with a B score. Incidentally on the last day today I had a big panic attack and I felt like I needed a real distraction so after breathing exercises to ground myself I then channeled my emotions into fighting Armstrong. With the last 3 or so tries I muted all the music and sound because I wanted to fully lock in. What I'm saying is Jack is back! I read what attacks would happen and alternate between every type of attack to overwhelm/tire the boss out. Left mouse button, right mouse button spam. Near the end I realised I forgot to press "R" for Ripper mode so I started doing that, it made some but not too significant a difference in this run. Since I regualrly Zandatsu him whenever he was standing up. Even threw in 2 or 3 aerial moves by accident which I had previously wrongly thought Armstrong would always 100% parry air; turns out I needed the right opening or staggering for them to connect. No previous saves were needed, I did this without backtracking.

My 2 health packs just managed to work after I got the 5 health Zandatsu drops. I found 2 forward sword thrusts or 1 of them into left right slashes into the "W" button attacks sometimes cancelled his powerful pyroclastic AOE ground cracks leaving me damage free from that at least forcing him into an attack sequence that I could parry. I also Zandatsu whenever he green healed as best I could and always ran backwards to "F" collect the blade which most of the time felt like a tiny moment of invulerability. If I couldn't make a dodge/slide/run I might as well hit him as much as he hit me during a yellow AOE blast. So yeah The War Still Rages Within; got to play Blade Wolf and Jetstream Sam when I feel up for it. I also wanted to hear Raiden say Revengence with the Konami code but couldn't get it that to work on PC unless that is really only for console versions.

Turns out I've been playing on hard not normal and I just forgot I set it to that difficulty at the start. Of course I did Sundowner's second phase and the most difficult part was running up to the helicopters as I was out of rockets. They were a nuisance so I wanted to deal with them. I found with my abilities even though I died more to Sam once I recognised the attack patterns I actually found Sam easy as long as I don't run up to him at the disarmed phase. Was my rng lucky because he only threw rocks a single time? Anyway the parrying was very satisfying and for Sam I resulted in a B. Not half bad!

I have mastered the air parry and dodging to buy time and get some distance on the small platform but at this point: I had no grenades or rockets, no healing and only full electrolye packs. I used the flying enemies by Zandatsu to heal up; I even tried to burst down the hammer boss first thing as he jumped down by clicking my mouse as fast as I humanly could but even when I put pressure and majorly avoiding unblockables and shake off grapples with max upgrades: my empty inventory makes this part near impossible. 2 times I RNG immobilized the hammer guy but the camera move tilted upwards from a very low angle which ended those run's chances to legitimately win.

Final last try I ran away, the two apes eventually followed me into the next room. With exhausted fingers eventually I spun the L'etranger to futilely keep the 2 apes at arms length which slowed their advance so I could retreat and breathe. By accident I found out with its range that the weapon can clip past the thin dividing wall. Anyway if I knew it was going to be this hard I would never have auto used anything from my inventory until this fight. I was seriously considering selecting a lower difficulty or restarting the story to hoard healing/damage items. If there were more fodder ground soldiers I could Zandatsu heal from I would be able to beat that properly. One ape and one hammer boss I can say is balanced gameplay for a noob such as myself but in my opinion 3 mini bosses in a small space was too much for normal. My point is with hindsight I can see I should have been paying attention to my stockpile and I only have myself to blame for making a tough part even tougher.

I could use some pointers for the PC version before I attempt Sundowner's shield targeting. I am still wildly/clumsily up and downing when I do Zandatsu. Is the trick to not panic and move/rotate the mouse fluidly? I am very bad at these types of games so getting Monsoon to say no stop it surprised me even if it took me hours and used up all my weapons. So it goes Shift button then WASD to a single mouse click: nothing to drag or hold down right? Should I go back to the tutorials or continue jumping into the boss fights like I have done? I know I won't be able to beat Armstrong if I can't get the hang this.