Unlocking the Athenaeum is a massive deal. It’s the last tier of research benches in the game. Without doing so and you can’t learn the best crafting recipes from weapons to armor, among other things. It also makes it quite a painful spot to be stuck if you can’t.
I did not think I'd be fighting a drunk, but there I was about to take out the head Sommelier myself. I don’t recall much of this fight, as it must not have been that challenging. I just recall picking lots of grapes afterward as I unlocked a new potion type that allowed me to extract blood at a small cost, which I of recover the individual I have imprisoned in my dungeon.
It’s never a good sign when you are about to engage in a boss fight and realize your gear needs to be fixed. Thankfully, nothing was broken yet. I was in quite a failing fight with another boss. Forcing me to go and finish off every other boss I could. While asking me for a break from that boss fight.
To make matters even worse, I ended up going to the wrong location to fight this boss three times. I looked at the time of the boss and just assumed I'd know where it was based on some location names of about where it should be on the map. Turns out today was just not my day.
I then got killed and took the wrong teleport back. I caught myself about halfway running to the wrong location when I realized I was getting further and further away from my corpse. Yep, something must have rattled my cage good to be making those kinds of mistakes.
Thankfully, after that mess-up of a fight. I ended up having it easy with the Elementalist. Outside of this boss just wants to set the woods on fire. As long as I was quick enough on my toes, this one was kind of a pushover.
After this, I went and farmed for quite some time. As I needed every single little upgrade I could get my dirty hands on. Every potion I thought might give me some kind of help that also would stack with others I needed to get as well. These former boss fights were the least of my issues that have been driving me slowly insane for a couple of days.
There's nothing like being bottlenecked on a boss fight that you just can’t kill. That happened with me regarding Henry Blackbrew, the Doctor. Getting this kill is massive, as that is how you unlock the Athenaeum.
There is always going to be that boss fight where it’s clear you are missing something, and you just are not seeing it. I don’t even want to think about all the times I died trying to come up with a solution to this boss.
It’s quite an annoying and agonizing wall to hit in a game. A boss, despite having the best possible gear, potions, and weapons that you can get. That you just fail to beat over and over again.
The biggest thing is that there is just so much going on in this fight. Like a lot of fights, there are different phases. However, unlike other fights, you tend to be able to make a mistake here or there and be fine. This fight is a single mistake, and you might as well just let it reset.
As you can tell from the screenshot above. A lot is going on. On this attempt, I was also already quite low on health, my burst damage still had a long cooldown, and I had just gotten the boss to below 50% health. Where I'd yet again get killed.
There are two points in the fight where the boss starts pushing you out towards the edge. Once you get too far out, the amount of damage you take ends up just finishing you off. Even more so if you are already quite low on health.
This was one of those fights where my current random build of spells, gear, and weapons I've been using as I went along was not good enough. In the end, I'd need to change up some spells to give me a better jumping spell that I could use twice. Along with a spell that allows me to be immune but unable to move, turning me for a short time into an ice block. During the phase where I'd get pushed outward, I had to stay as close to the middle as I could.
On top of that, I was still refusing to fully go into a ranged build for boss fights. So that ended up being yet another struggle of not being able to get in a lot of serious damage in close range. That is in part why I use the Reaper weapon, as it has that spinning blade move, so I can at least get some damage if I'm not that far away, but clearly not within melee range.
After far too many deaths. A few breaks. A few times of I just go to do other things in the game. I went back, and I defeated this boss. I then raced back to my base and crafted the Athenaeum. Despite the struggle, this was one of the more satisfying bosses to kill. I’d just like to have done it a bit quicker.
There was also a secret weapon I used to take this boss out. Well, not so secret for those who know. It’s called the blood moon, and unlike blood moons in other games, it causes you all kinds of issues. Since you are a vampire in V Rising, the blood moon helps you out. It gives you a nice 20% boost to damage, speed, and even boosts your blood type. All these things gave me the edge that was needed for the win in the end.
All of this was for this thing and this thing only. It’s in fact so massive that I did not have any room for it at my old base. My old base at the time was also once again a mess. I had outgrown, and I was being way too lazy about doing anything about that.
With the Athenaeum unlocked. I now no longer had an excuse not to start a massive endgame farming grind to get some of the best gear possible. I really can’t understate enough how important a milestone in V Rising having this unlocked is.
The only thing that sucked was that this was not the last time I'd need to unlock this thing. As I'd unlock it in my solo game, a game I was playing with another, and on a dedicated private server. If only I could have carried this thing over from one of my other games.
Despite what I now know about Blackbrew, the Doctor boss fight. It would still be one of those fights I was never looking forward to anytime I'd start over fresh elsewhere. Thankfully, later on, I'd just settle for using a ranged build to deal with bosses. That made life a lot easier in this game. Sometimes you just have to admit defeat and go the easy route.
Screenshots were taken, and content was written by @Enjar about V Rising.
Disclosure: A review copy of the game was received for free.
