I'm a sorry sap and Ming Xiao keeps killing me

Hullo.
I've been lurking here a little while. Then I decided it might be nice to register. Then I lurked some more. Standard Nossie stuff I s'pose. I would've liked to introduce myself some other way but I'm really having a problem with my game right now and I'm hoping someone can help end my misery.

I am currently playing vanilla... I was going to wait until the second playthrough to start adding mods, but I haven't quite gotten that far because I'm stuck with CthuMing. I've played through basically the entire game on obfuscate and unarmed combat until now, when I have to fight Ming Xiao. Fighting unarmed only shaves like 15% off her healthbar before I die. With the sword from Hallowbrook I can shave off maybe 30-35%.

Every walkthrough I can find says to use the flamethrower, but I don't have a flamethrower... I never found it. Is my character doomed just because of this? Was that my only option? I've been replaying the same fight over and over for days now with the same result and it's getting really discouraging.

Any help would be extremely appreciated.

Welcome to the board Ett. :3
From you lurking, you probably already know I'm Sally, so nice to meet you.

Anyways, on Slug Xiao well...what clan are you exactly playing as? That would help abit. Secondly, what level are your disciplines? And thirdly, do you have any points left over and/or any firearms?

Greetings!

Sorry that I forgot all the important stuff. My character's a Nossie... so, level 2 Animalism, maxed out Obfuscate, and level 1 Potence. Not much that's helpful in a direct fight, unfortunately. Strength is 3, stamina 3, brawl 5, dodge 4, firearms 1 and melee 1; unarmed combat 8, melee 4, ranged 3, defense 7. Bashing soak 3, lethal and aggravated 0.

I have 18 experience points to spare, which I've tried spending on different things each time I play. I stuck with hand-to-hand for most of the game because my skills as a player are so strongly slanted in that direction--I suck at shooting.

As for weapons, I have fists (woot!), a knife, the sword you get from Hallowbrook, and a katana. I also have the Brokk (1/360), Anaconda (0/69) and Utica (2/90). I used to have plenty of ammo, but who knows where it went! The fact that I barely used them makes my lack of ammo something of a mystery.

CthuMing. I like that.

Anywho, yeah, she's a tough cookie. If you screwed over Mercurio, then you never got a chance to get the flamethrower, if I recall correctly. I think I wound up having to go godmode on her.

This is an interesting logic puzzle.

You should know that the last bit of bloodlines, where previously melee reigned supreme in all things... firearms are much better for the bosses (won't spoil what happens after Ming).

How many bloodpacks do you have? Do you have the odious chalice (and is it full of blood?).

In vanilla the bloodpacks give you a decent amount of healing. Especially the blueblood and elder blood packs. Opening your inventory to use a bloodpack or the chalice will pause the action allowing you to instantly heal during this fight. Feel free to use as many bloodpacks as needed, this fight will be much harder for you than the rest of the game!

Honestly, for your character, Ming is probably the hardest thing in the game.

I have two suggestions, the first is a melee suggestion.

Given your stats, I would suggest raising potence by 1, leaving you 13 exp to boost your melee skill. The sword from Hallowbrook is the best weapon you have. This will not be easy, as this boss is a hard fight for a melee build even with much higher feats/disciplines.

My second suggestion is to spend those 18 exp raising your firearms feat. Keep your distance from ming (and dodge the green crap she spits at you). Just fill her full of lead. If you have any of the otherwise crappy guns (mac-10, assault shotgun... anything that fires or reloads fast) unload them on her. Avoid her long distance tentacle attack (she whips it around over her "head" you just need to back further up when you see this one coming, then move a little closer to bait her into doing it again). If you have a save from before the temple, it may help (since you can shop for stuff, etc).

Honestly for ming, I find it easier to beat her with a 2-3 firearms feat and a lot of ammo... even on characters with capped melee skills.

If I can give you some advice for character building in bloodlines... the unarmed feat is really only good with the protean discipline (gangrel). Sure, the feeding success from it being so high is nice in vanilla... but when you move on to mods you will find that feeding is a LOT less powerful (you won't heal while you feed in camarilla edition or final nights). As a fellow nossie, I prefer melee weapons. They work very well with both obfuscate and potence... and once you start playing mods animalism 5 is actually a melee power (gives you the +5 stats that frenzy normally does).

Hope that helps.

I've always found it much easier to beat Ming with guns than with melee. You don't even need that much Ranged. Steyer Aug + 6 Ranged worked just fine.

IIRC in vanilla you can find the flamethrower in Hallowbrook.

Did you save before visiting the temple? How much money do you have? I think in vanilla you can find some chests with lots of ammo in the outside section of the temple. Or more accurately in the housing between the two courtyards.

Voraxith wrote:

If you screwed over Mercurio, then you never got a chance to get the flamethrower, if I recall correctly.

You can buy it off the herb shop guy in Chinatown for like 800$
You can also find it in Hallowbrook.

But the flamethrower honestly isn't that good against Xiao.
Like Draggy said: Steyer Aug is your best go, preferably with some dots in firearms/perception and plenty of ammo.

I would only recommend melee if you have 3+ Celerity myself.

I always do the same thing with her.

First use ammo of all weapons I have on her. Not too much of it usually, because I tend to use it otherwise, too And keep dodging.

Then Swordplay with dodging: cut, when she goes in for an attack, dodge.

Takes some perception (of the player ) and fast fingers, but it is doable. The trick is not to allow her hit you with the slime or tentackles.

Ah, and welcome to our Pack, Ettinarius. Vaulderie chalice is waiting for your Vitae.

Hmm...
Well, at the least I see this more of the Infinite Monkey Theorem, where if you strapped a monkey to a keyboard, made a phrase but hidden it from him, sooner or later he'll get it right. This senario you have is somewhat like that, but I hope the phrase hidden isn't the entire screenplay of Hamlet (Which means that the chances of you winning is infinitetessimally small).

Well, I'll also need to know some more minor details. Do you have any armor, what bloodpacks do you have and how much money?

5 bloodpacs and katana made it for me

I always use the flame thrower on her. I'm too lazy to bother.

*sidesteps away from Feral* I thought this was the Team Camarilla forum? What have I gotten myself into?

I don't recall the subject of a flamethrower coming up with Mercurio, but there could easily have been a few conversations I missed... like when he showed up on the beach. I just snuck around him and left for the Dane because I didn't recognize him without the black eye.

As far as bloodpacks go (which isn't far in my case!) I have eight, but they don't work very well... I didn't notice this except for the last few attempts, when I started to get suspicious about how fast I was dying and kept a closer eye on my health. It doesn't seem to matter if I have 60% health left or only 10%, either way I get three "good" packs that help me heal the way they're supposed to, but the five after that only seem to add maybe 1% to my health bar. That's probably half my problem right there (at least), but it has me pretty stumped.

I don't have any other blood-related goodies, sadly. I have maybe $25 left, and no armor except for the default "light clothing" (well, you know what I mean... it shows a tee, but she runs around in her bra... maybe she stuffed the tee into her pant legs?)

No armor is bad. You should've put some money into armor upgrades.

But yeah, the game can easily mislead the player into a bad build because for so long you have so many options to progress further, but then you get stuck in two unavoidable boss fights where you simply need to be good at fighting.

And the name may say Camarilla, but we have kindred of all sects here. Makes it more fun that way.

What you did with your money Oo

Claudia wrote:

What you did with your money Oo

Given that he's playing vanilla, I'd imagine books?

You buy books in vanilla ? Nah... Weapons and ammo ? Not when playing obfuscate.. Oo

Huh. Well, my ideas at this point would be spending the points into Animalism, then spamming Animalism 3, then using the bloodpacks as you need them. If not, then do as Sezneg said, spend the points in Potence and Melee, however, I shall add in a suggestion to that.
As you do that, each time you hit Ming, then run. If you didnt get hit, save, then repeat. Should you get hit, reload the save you've been using in this fight so you can retry and do it again, and hopefully without getting hit.

What I suggest is VERY much like the Infinite Monkey Theorem (Blame Umineko and Higurashi), however, sooner or later, you will get through this. This is the best I can tell you for this.

You aren't the only one who has a hard time with Ming-Xiao.

Well, I've killed her. Finally.

I tried as many suggestions as I could... the sword ended up working best out of anything I had, although I still got killed within the first 2-3 minutes. So I finally sniffed out how to access the cheat console, since it's less straightforward with Steam... and turned on god mode. I don't usually like to cheat, but the amount of time I'd spent on Ming was starting to look a bit obscene. It was about time.

Still, thanks so much for all the helpful suggestions! And the video... which brought up some interesting points I hadn't known (like the killability of the grubs). Even though I did resort to cheating on this playthrough, I'm sure I'll end up having to kill her again on one of my next ones, so the advice is not by any means wasted.

On the second run-through of the game, you'll have a better idea which skills and disciplines to put points into, for the type of character you're running. That should help considerably.

I usually prefer a melee-based character, because guns aren't very powerful in this game, especially at lower skill levels. "Guns mean nothing to a lifeless heart," as it says in the V:tM core rulebook.

Don't feel too bad about using the cheat to pass Ming-Xiao. In Hollywood, I got frustrated at fighting the zombies in the cemetery, and used the no-clip option to zip back and forth between upper and lower sections. Then I learned the trick, and didn't need to do that anymore. Next time you'll be ready for the slug-bitch, and kick her butt.

Currently playing the boss battle as a Toreador and its just impossible I just cannot beat her at all I'm gonna have to start a new game.

*little tear seeing PGM's price*


If you really have trouble beating her, get the flamethrower from Mercurio, or use the console to "cheat a little"

I agree that Ming Xiao is by the far the most powerful boss in the game, vanilla or modded. In the vanilla game, fists are completely worthless as a main combat option, so in TFN I created a new occult item called the Fang of Vukodlak which turns your fists into lethal damage instead of bashing, which makes fists a viable option for combat. In TFN 1.4, Followers of Set are being made into Warriors of Set granting Setites Potence instead of Obfuscate. Potence + Fang of Vukodlak + Unarmed + Strength is a very powerful hand to hand fighter.

Am I the only one who never had problems with Xiao at all?

Karavolos wrote:

Am I the only one who never had problems with Xiao at all?

Me neither. I've never been enough of a doofus to invest in non-combat traits after reaching hollywood