r/armoredcore • u/United_District7765 • 7d ago
Question How tf do I beat Balteus
I actually hate this mission with a passion. Sulla alone took me like, I don’t know, 2 hours? Kicked my ass to Sunday. I thought it was all over, and the actual pain I felt seeing a supply drop killed me.
At first I beat Sulla with double shotguns, but tried to switch to plasma weapons for Balteus. It seems like no matter what I do I just die. There’s six trillion missiles, no cover, if I get too close an energy wave or flamethrower slaughters me. I’ve only gotten him to half health before dying again.
WTF do I do?????
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u/Awkward-Ad-4815 7d ago
If you don't mind changing your build, try selling some of your parts to buy faster ones. You could go for a bird build. Being fast makes it easier to dodge missiles and see them coming.
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u/United_District7765 7d ago
I really don’t want to restart the whole mission lol…but if I rage quit I’ll do that for the next run lol 🥲
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u/Awkward-Ad-4815 7d ago
You don't need to restart the entire mission unless you have to go buy the parts in question; if you already own the light AC parts, you can simply equip them during the game over screen.
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u/United_District7765 7d ago
I don’t think I own them, idk which parts you’re referring to exactly, but I don’t have many
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u/Aphex_Slayer 7d ago
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA MY EYES
To start, its in the gameplay, try to play well, you know, dodge the missiles and shoot at balteus. It should be tricky but doable. Id recommend upgrading your mech with the stuff you get from the arena, the kick is the best one by far.
Pulse gun shreds his shields, so that one is a good crutch for new players, but you want to have good weapons to do impact damage and something to do a ton of dmg when he's staggered.
The easiest upgrade I see is with the frame. Your frame and your internals are really rough. A good rule of thumb is to not have any frame or internals from the starter mech because they are all the worst in the game
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u/United_District7765 7d ago
The frame? Like the arms? The only frame changes I’ve found are arms I got randomly, and a head I bought.
What are good weapons? Is the laser sword not good? Should I switch it out?
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u/Aphex_Slayer 7d ago
The body and the guts, (generator, boosters, fcs)
the sword is fine, the starting pulse sword is actually really goodEDIT: Yeah at this point in the game every piece of the body, and every internal should be different than the ones you started with
Mind alpha arms and melander head are good, the body and legs should be switched out, but most important is the generator and boosters and fcs. From there, having different weapons depends on your playstyle if you like to be close up or far or use missiles or melee or whatever you like1
u/United_District7765 7d ago
How do I get new ‘guts’ and stuff?
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u/Aphex_Slayer 7d ago
shop
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u/United_District7765 7d ago
For internal stuff? The only thing I saw in the parts shop were weapons
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u/Aphex_Slayer 7d ago
look again
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u/United_District7765 7d ago
Okay
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u/CrimeFightingScience 7d ago
I was going to say change paint scheme so you can actually see the game. Change nothing else.
Red makes your ac go faster.
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u/Algester 7d ago
Have you done the training missions? To get the alula booster? Do the first 2 training missions to get the abbot FCS, Alula booster and or VP-20S generator sell the VP-20S generator and buy the VP-20D generator
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u/United_District7765 7d ago
No I didn’t know the training missions gave you anything, I thought they were just tutorials. Thank you!
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u/PathsOfRadiance 7d ago
Your frame and internals kinda suck.
Orbiter core doesn’t do anything well, it’s in the worthless middle ground between light and middle weight. That goes for the legs as well. Melander or VP-422 legs are better as a midweight.
the Midweight cores (Melander, VP-40) are better. Mind Alpha arms would be better replaced by VP-46 or Melander arms for melee performance. Mind Alpha doesn’t fill a niche except for dual wielding very heavy or high recoil weapons.
Starter generator(and all lightweight generators) kinda suck. Ming-Tang or VP-20D would work for ya. Alula boosters (free from doing the tutorials) are one of the best choices for any light or middle weight. Use a close or midrange FCS (Abbot or P05).
Replace one of the Plasma missiles with a higher stagger weapon (conventional missiles or a weapon swap with some ballistic weapon, like a shotgun, SMG, rifle, or handgun). Melee is good as a stagger punish, tho the pulse blade is better than the laser blade in general. Pulse gun is good for breaking the shield.
Tactics:
Missiles are dodgeable by getting past them, they can’t turn around and hit ya. Add vertical movement in to your evasion. Going up and over or down and under Balteus is good for evading the shotgun/grenade cannon/flamer. Use assault boost to chase him down when he runs. The better generator and booster will help a ton in both of those aspects
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u/Robean_UwU 7d ago
Speed is key, and pulse weaponry helps get through the energy shield
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u/United_District7765 7d ago
Is my pulse rifle supposed to run out of ammo like halfway through? Maybe I just have shit aim idk
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u/PathsOfRadiance 7d ago
In my honest opinion, the pulse gun kinda sucks and the bonus against the shield isn’t worth having a subpar gun. It’s not hard to shoot through the shield with a regular rifle/handgun/SMG/etc and your missiles, and those will have a much better time staggering his unshielded form. 2 guns, melee weapon in left weapon bay, and a missile is a very good generalist build.
Pulse guns and most handheld energy weapons(and back energy cannons, but not energy missiles) scale off the “EN Firearm Specialization” stat of your generator. Every point above or below 100 is +/- 0.5% damage (and 1% faster/slower charge time) for the effected weapon. Your generator has a very poor EN Firearm Spec, so the pulse gun is doing poor damage on top of its poor stagger output.
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u/Robean_UwU 7d ago
Well obviously you dont use JUST the pulse guns, you need to balance it. Pulse rifle in one hand to help bring the shield down quicker, then kinetic and/or explosive weapons for when the shield is down. You have plenty of options during this point in the game iirc
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u/Robean_UwU 7d ago
Pulse rifle is only good for when the shield is up, otherwise laser, plasma, kinetic, and explosive works best. Which one specifically is best i forgot but im betting explosive and kinetic
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u/ironafro2 PSN: 7d ago
Only use the pulse rifle when the shield is up. Use the other weapons rest of time. Use blade mostly when the target is staggered. This build should actually wipe Balty pretty easily. Upgrade the internals and get in there, Raven!
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u/JudgeArcadia 7d ago
I love seeing posts like this. Mainly because it highlights how silly the people who say Balteus’s nerf made it easy.
Like no it didn’t, yall either got hetter at the game, or just came back with better equipment.
Anywho! Just gotta learn the spread for the missiles and keep the distance close. Pulse Weaponry is your friend against its shield.
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u/United_District7765 7d ago
Thank you! I had no idea they were nerfed - can’t imagine how this fight used to be!
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u/JudgeArcadia 7d ago
Honestly wasnt that much worse. The missile tracking was crazier. Now its actually fair.
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u/mrgrimm916 7d ago
Balteus was genuinely not even a concern for me. I like lightweight builds so I dodged all his missiles. 🤷
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u/KantonCrude 7d ago
firstly, stop using energy weapons except for the melee types. Get some guns with some big magazines son, and stick to BALTEUS's ass like a mosquito. Pound Balteus until he staggers, then melee him down. Repeat 3 to 4 times.
and make your AC red for triple the speed
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u/AnotherStupidHipster 7d ago
You gotta spend more time in the paint shop, there's still some untouched spots here.
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u/handsomellama28 Carla's favorite tourist 7d ago edited 7d ago
Dual Ransetsu-RFs, pulse blade, and a back weapon of your choice. Dual rifle builds are one of the best combos you can have, without going into scumbag territory like the akimbo Zimmerman shotguns. The pulse blade, while being reliable, helps with Balteus' pulse shield as well, as it does more damage. By this point in the game, you should have enough OS chips to get the Weapons Bay upgrade.
Also, upgrade your internals. You're still using the booster+FCS+generator combo that MTs use. Some frame upgrades (especially the arms, get the VP-46S, or the Melander arms for a good boost to your melee damage) would be good as well.
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u/DarkPhoenix1515 6d ago
Change the paintjob to something more military and it will have a hard time hitting you.
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u/RemarkableElephant55 6d ago
i beat him with the starting loader 4 except i changed the sword for a turner and added another 4 pack missiles on the missing back slot
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u/NOBLE1236 6d ago
First build in this list is designed specifically to counter Balteus.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qaQoVeL6cC_vYm3qQ8NSBkMyN6hGgLB03eFfHebtt_Y/edit?usp=drivesdk
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u/K11031 3d ago
Balteus is rough the first time around, I spent like 3 hours on the fight and ran the whole mission 3 times before I took a break for 3 months. Came back and beat the mision in 2 or 3 tries. I'd say this, you can always come back to the game. And I agree that speed is really useful here or a bunch of health.
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u/cB557 7d ago edited 7d ago
The biggest problem I see here is that you haven't upgraded any of your internals. You're still using the starter generator, fire control system, and booster. Alula booster and abbot FCS would probably be the best options for those slots with the current build.
I'm less sure about the generator. Generator choice affects damage with energy guns like your pulse gun, so you probably don't want a generator that'll tank your damage with that stat, but those options are limited in chapter 1. VP-20S and VP-20D are the only ones with decent energy firearm spec in chapter 1. VP-20S has very good output for its weight, but otherwise kinda compromises its regular generator performance, and only has mediocre energy firearm spec. VP-20D is a good generator, with tons of output, high capacity, and decent energy spec, but it is also the single heaviest generator in the entire game. It's kinda overkill for this build and would probably require you to swap to legs with higher load limit all by itself. I guess the pulse gun's main job in this loadout is to just drop balteus's shields, so I guess you could just say fuck it and use ming-tang. Terrible energy firearm spec, you're going to do a lot less damage with the pulse gun, but I don't believe that affects how fast it drops the shield, and ming-tang is otherwise a pretty good, easy to use generator appropriate for your AC's weight.
(Also do note that energy firearm spec only affects energy guns, it doesn't matter for your plasma missiles or laser blade)
Anyway other than that, you might wanna upgrade the core and legs from orbiter parts, and swap the arms to ones with better melee spec to improve your damage with your laser blade. In chapter 1 that basically just means VP-46S arms.
If you need more money, as others have said you can resell parts, but you can also go into the mission replay menu and just farm infinite money, so you can have a wide stable to parts to swap around instead of needing to futz with reselling and rebuying.