RtA seems tougher than CoN

[cjmnews]

Return to Arms seems to be a lot harder than CoN. I don't seem to remember dying so much with new characters on the first 4 bosses. Smush (in the vampire's castle) was unexpectedly hard. We must have respawned 3-4 times each. I remember the second boss in CoN being hard, but none of them seemed hard after that one.

I am playing as that new Tiger character. Any tips on how to prevent throwing axes from bouncing off? Do I need more Dex? They tend to bounce off the Ogre types so far, the three in the Islands and Smush too. There must have 50 axes on the ground that bounced off of one of the ogres.

[TheFaceless]

I think it's about time I post something about those hard bosses everyone hates. (Smush, Tormentor, Rallos Zek, etc) The thing is that they push you on the ground and then hit you while you're getting on your feets BUT they only do it when you are far from them. So the trick to get those bosses is to close in on them and guard most of the time until you are used to their delay of attack. As long as you stay there they wont push.

[cjmnews]

I think it may have something to do with attack bonus. Now that my axes are better, they seem to hit more often and bounce off less.

Smush was HARD. He seemed harder than Innoruk in CON.

[jcnoren]

all the bonus rounds in RtA are not neccesary to the main quest.. i found it best to leave the side quests until just before the finale of RtA.. Smush and the other side quest bosses are much more beatable once you are up to level 27+.

the big side quest is collecting all 11 bloodstones (one from each side arena) and besting 5 bosses in a row at the end of nightmare passage... since you can't drop quest items from inventory and you are limited to 64 (different) items in each invetory panel, it is not a great idea to pick up the bloodstones until you are ready to go after nightmare passage.. if you best the 5 bosses you are "a true champion" and you are free to collect innoruk's sword (or fist) located near the start of the plane of valor.. a nice weapon for couagous and champion levels..

there is also a quest to get bloodvine for sylea again.. but you have to beat the bonus round soul break (plane of torment) to find sylea...the reward is she bites your ear so you can wear 2 earrings.. the bloodvine is in the castle so wait 'till you discover sylea before going back to the castle if you want to go for all the goodies...........good luck.....jcn

[cjmnews]

We found Smush in the vampire's castle after we successfully protected all 8 gnomes. We haven't started any side quests yet.

Thanks for the advice.