Final Boss Second Stage Help? [SPOILERS]

[PeopleEatPie]

OK... here's the situation. I'm a decent FTL player, I can get to the final boss fairly easily. I can beat the first stage fairly easily. (Double Bio-Beams FTW!) But when I get to the final stage... oh man. His power surge completely destroys me. No, wait, that doesn't do it justice... it rips me to shreds, lights me on fire, then stomps on the ashes. And I always make sure I have a defense drone, sometimes a MK II, level 3 or 4 shields, high engines... I get destroyed. Cloaking's frustrating because it doesn't recharge fast enough for the next surge, and taking out the drones, though it stops the normal boarding, attack, beam and defense drones he has, doesn't affect the power surges. I have an idea of what the third stage offers, and because I kill the crew, that should be almost a pushover. Almost. But I can't get there, because those %^#$ drones, combined with the triple leto launcher, rip me to shreds. Any tips? (Also: I've heard some debate about Mantis VS Rock as boarders. I like to have both, but who should I level up in combat?)

[Red Earth]

Get defense drone 1. It can shoot down the boarding drones before they get in the ship and if you don't have to shuffle the crew around to fight those constantly then repairs aren't a problem. defense Drone 2 shoots at lasers and missiles so if you use it, it might fire too often and not be charged when you need it to shoot the boarding drone.

I can't remember what the cooldown for cloak is right now but is it fully leveled up? Also don't activate the cloak until after you're shields take some hits.

It's OK to upgrade your engines to more than you can usually power. Weapons and shields need to stay powered up because they need to charge to work. Everything else you can shut down and redirect power to the engines for the brief time you need it. Ten seconds without oxygen doesn't hurt and drones can be turned right back on.
Also, if you're about to be hit by missiles you can power down your shields and put that into engines. Watch how low your shields get with the constant attack drone attacks and you'll know how much you need to maintain. If you recharge fast enough you may only need two shields most of the time, so put that extra four power into engines since the shields can't stop missiles anyway.

Otherwise beam into the missile room. You need to shut that thing down.

I actually haven't beaten normal because I've been trying to unlock all the ships but with random chance being a factor it's taking forever to get the last ones.

[cicobuff]

The thing about cloaking is NOT to use more than level 1 cloak when facing stage 2 boss. Level 1 cloak recharge time is the same as his drone surge attack cool down. Just activate cloak when u see his surge start. Your cloak will be ready again when he starts his surge again.

[Teoes]

Yeah what Cicobuff said - use only Cloak lvl 1 for Phase 2 and it'll cool down quickly enough to be ready for the next drone surge. Without heading too much into spoiler territory (I hope) there's a different kind of power surge in phase 3 too - again, lvl 1 Cloak should recharge quickly enough to be ready each time.

The only time with the flagship that I use more than lvl 1 Cloak is in phase 1; pop it when it fires the first missile volley, then by the time it wears off my boarders have smashed the missile room and there's nothing else to worry about.

[PeopleEatPie]

Hey, thanks everyone- I'll be sure to try that out. BTW- has anyone else ever had double bio beams before? Waaay OP- just sweep them in the same path and you can drop crew in one hit! And you can't run for the medbay when you're dead.

[al244098]

Hey, thanks everyone- I'll be sure to try that out. BTW- has anyone else ever had double bio beams before? Waaay OP- just sweep them in the same path and you can drop crew in one hit! And you can't run for the medbay when you're dead.

i wouldnt rely on double bio, killing all the crew on te flagship makes it into a super AI, which is hard to beat.
but double Bio could be useful for scrap farming

[PeopleEatPie]

Hey, thanks everyone- I'll be sure to try that out. BTW- has anyone else ever had double bio beams before? Waaay OP- just sweep them in the same path and you can drop crew in one hit! And you can't run for the medbay when you're dead.

i wouldnt rely on double bio, killing all the crew on te flagship makes it into a super AI, which is hard to beat.
but double Bio could be useful for scrap farming

I don't kill all the crew- I board the weapons, but leave the laser guy, and kill everyone on the main part of the flagship. And although double bio is OP in my opinion, the chances of coming accross them are really rare (I started with one!) and they cost 50 scrap each. Sure, that guy gives you it when he surrenders, but thats only one of many surrender events. Still- sure a lot of fun to play with! It's like having an insta-death ray: "yeah... Ill let you live... Hmm... No, I think you should die." Its a lot of fun playing god if you're like me.