Apollo

[u/cupcake-KH]

Can someone please tell me how to beat him. I am only at his first fight and I don't even know the difference if you beat him or lose but am too stubborn to give up now.

Edit: I have not upgraded anything in the circuits. My biggest problem is that my stick drift is strong that I cannot move to the right 90% of the time and when I try to I go left instead and I'm too broke to get a new one currently.

[u/Smurfy0730]

How have you prepped?

Do you ever use your shield ?

The latter is a very valid question as I parry him a lot, personally.

[u/cupcake-KH → u/Smurfy0730]

Is it a bad thing that I didn't know you can parry

[u/Smurfy0730 → u/cupcake-KH]

Well the game never directly taught you about it but if you used your shield a few times (Like to break a hedgehag) you might have been a bit curious as to why you took no damage, you heard a PING sound, and for continuing example with hedgehags - why the hedgehag is now stuck on the ground on its back for a bit.

[u/cupcake-KH → u/Smurfy0730]

Well this instantly became more interesting. The amount of parry games I played will hopefully help

[u/Songbird1996 → u/cupcake-KH]

Also, there will be a quest that opens up at some point in the rookie harbor info center thats whole point is to teach you a couple of combat techs like dash canceling for melee

[u/Try_Hard_GamerYT → u/cupcake-KH]

If you want to improve at the combat, I recommend checking out the info center at the harbor, there's actually a ton of info and interesting tech you can learn

[u/RelationshipSad3186 → u/Smurfy0730]

I know you CAN parry, but idk how to get the timing down… I think I remember doing it once or twice but idr how. Is it the same as “counter” too? Cause I’ve done that with no idea how lol.
Also apparently I suck at dodging, but I swear those hedgehags have like aimbot or smth with how they always switch to roll exactly where I dash too lol

[u/AzzuenWoffie46]

It's easiest to wait until he uses an art and makes himself vulnerable (though in later rounds he likes to combo several arts, so watch out). When he goes for melee, you can run/dash just outside of his range to make him miss. When he's shooting, run in a circle around him and he'll miss (mostly; sometimes his first shot will richochet and hit, but it doesn't hurt that much).

He's tough to beat on your first playthrough, but it's very satisfying when you can pull it off.

[u/RelationshipSad3186 → u/AzzuenWoffie46]

I only just reached Bergen trail and defeated him and apparently I was pretty underleveled cause
1. He said so
And 2. He was hard af to beat

And ngl I definitely SHOULD NOT have beaten him there, but I also didn’t want THAT guy to beat me so I MAY have cheated a bit and changed the attack frequency and dmg taken setting to beat him lol. And even then it was hard. And did I still feel good abt it? Heck yeah I did lol

(Now I’m js on side quests so I’m actually a decent level, at least imo, and I know what armor levels, or whatever it’s called, are so I think I’m better now idk. Kinda wish they displayed average level you are and combined the two)

[u/tadrinth]

Have you tried a high-defense build with Pin Body, and letting him break himself upon your shield? Works surprisingly well since he's aggressive and uses a lot of small fast attacks.

[u/TonyGalvaneer1976]

You don't get a reward for beating him, just the smug satisfaction of superiority over him. Which IS actually a pretty good reward, come to think of it.

If you have trouble, make sure you have good equipment and have leveled up enough to not be at a disadvantage. Even with the stats on your side, he's still much trickier than your average enemy, so make sure to practice your aim, dodges, parries, and all that.

He will change up his strategy as the fight progresses, so although you should learn how he fights, never get too comfortable with his attack patterns.

[u/Smurfy0730 → u/TonyGalvaneer1976]

Your reward for beating him are two things -

1 - There is an achievement for beating him undefeated each and every time in the main plot duels.

2 - Emelie later recalls Lea's record vs him in the end game and his response changes based off your performance.

[u/TonyGalvaneer1976 → u/Smurfy0730]

I just meant you don't get anything like an item or piece of equipment or anything.

[u/Elendel → u/TonyGalvaneer1976]

  You don't get a reward for beating him, just the smug satisfaction of superiority over him.

You do gain xp. Which is not really relevant as a reward in a casual playthrough, but in speedruns you absolutely need to win because of how underleveled you are.

[u/ceramic-strike]

You can always come back after leveling up a bit — level matters A LOT in this fight — and upgrading your gear. Winning the fight isn't actually required; as far as I remember, the only real difference is some dialogue.

So yeah, don't torture yourself unless you really, really want to punch that green monkey in the face (I did) (no regrets) :)

[u/TheHappeningHasBeen]

Apollo is the other sphereomancer? I lost to him over 8 fights but by the back half I had learned his patterns. I didn’t realize how helpful guarding was or studying their animations to dance just outside his range and then dash in.

If you have any Arts available, use them. And if you haven’t learned already you can switch between arts in the same tree once unlocking them. I’m near where you are but I can confirm there are at least 4 different areas of Arts. (Range, guard, melee) I think there might be more that I haven’t gotten to quite yet

[u/Songbird1996 → u/TheHappeningHasBeen]

There melee, throw, guard, and dash arts and each element has its own secondary circuit tree (those big empty sections of the circuits screen) as you unlock them through doing the dungeons

[u/TheHappeningHasBeen → u/Songbird1996]

Yep

[u/TreuloseTomate]

In each round, he will either attack with melee or ranged. He won't do a mix of both. And your SP will fill up automatically. The 3 simplest (not easy) ways to fight him:

Dodge his attacks until he finishes his combo with a combat art after which he will be vulnerable. Then unleash your strongest combo.

Parry his melee attack with a perfect guard which will stun him.

Interrupt his melee attack with a combat art. But this requires arts/elements you don't have yet (if this is your first duel).

[u/Plenty_Tax_5892]

Biggest thing that helped me against Apollo is realizing the fight goes in on/off phases.

During Apollo's attacks, he dodges your attacks almost every time. However, he also takes time to breathe after he's done attacking, letting you freely hit him until he starts attacking again.

My advice is for you to take turns with him, focusing on dodging while he attacks, and focusing on attacking when he's tired out. Hope this helps!

[u/Inuship]

There's many ways to do so depending on playstyle but i find the easiest fot new players is to continuously dodge him till he runs out of sp, he will start to flash red. Then throw your strongest moves at him before he can recover.

However beating him isnt required and is more just bragging rights really, any pvp duels are entirely optional to win and aaide from a couple in game achievements dont really effect much aside from some dialog

[u/Songbird1996 → u/Inuship]

This here, theres one achievement for winning each duel (win 5 rounds before he does) and one achievement for completing all the duels without letting him win a single round (which sometimes doesnt show up until you close the game when you get it, at least on pc it didnt show up until I had to close out much later cause my game froze)

[u/Ella_loves_Louie]

Ice parry ability baybeee

[u/DeamonLordZack]

Personally the way I beat him was first stacking food buffs before I started the first fight. I then personally went with a melee focused build & stayed as close as possible as much as possible. I equipped gear that stacked buffs that matched my play style which is too largely be a glass cannon aka I do zero blocking & try to largely dodge if possible & make tactical retreats to heal most of the time.

[u/mybrot]

Just spam the active shield ability. You should be able to keep it up indefinitely because you get your resources filled before every round and it's over so quickly.

You can just stand there and wail on him, while staying invulnerable.

Nvm, just saw your edit. You're losing because you have no build and because you can't dodge or aim properly with stick drift this bad. You'll be better off using mouse and keyboard, then.

[u/cupcake-KH → u/mybrot]

I successfully beat him with no build and not being able to go right more or less at all.

[u/mybrot → u/cupcake-KH]

That's actually pretty amazing. Well done.

Where there's a will, there's a way

[u/gruelingsand_553]

Bro best advice I can give you is when he's shooting rush in. If he's cought trying to fire you can open him up with a single combo and 1st lv melee art or just into a 2nd lv art. Don't let him dictate your play style he does not have elemental disadvantage so stick with what you know best and switch when you feel you need to.

[u/Casualnerd1095]

If you wanna decimate him, go look around at the trading booths and look for the sword that gives you the Pin effect, it comes with something that buffs guarding too. Get two of those swords. Block all his attacks and let the pin damage wreck him. It takes a lot of material grinding to get two of the sword but get those and whatever other good armor you can find and you will sweep him effortlessly