What's a good strategy for defeating the Tower boss, Ponce de Leon?

He's kicking my butt all over the room and I'm not good enough at dodging all his attacks to do hit and runs for 10 minutes. Are there any classes, spells, runes, or strategies that are well suited to taking him out?

Solution 1:

A Sprint Rune or the ADHD trait (+30% speed) help against bosses. The Shinobi class comes with this extra speed by default. You also should take a Vault Rune (double jump); maybe even two. Two vault runes gives you unprecedented mobility throughout the game. (FYI Sky Cape gives two jumps)

Avoid Gigantism because it makes it harder to dodge flames. Also avoid Dwarfism because it makes it harder to safely hit Ponce. Vampirism/Siphon/Balance runes are great for keeping topped up before the boss fight, but in the case of Ponce de Leon, they are useless during the boss fight itself. (They however viable against the Dungeon boss, and great against the Forest boss)

If you're early in the game, a an upgraded Barbaian (Barbarian King) might be best because of his shout ability; it clears the flames if you get cornered. He also has lots of health so you have more chances if you mistakenly run into a flame.

If you have the upgraded Knave (Assassin), then you can use his sneak ability to simply walk through flames in a tight spot; his ability ALSO can be used to evade Ponce himself! With some Damage/Crit Chance/Crit Damage manor upgrades, he will make very quick work of any boss.

An upgraded Shinobi (Hokage) can also teleport/flash/blink through the flames. If you have quick reflexes, a Shinobi's Replacement Technique is the most mana effective dodge. He also does far and above the most damage in the game before you start maxing manor upgrades and acquiring gear (by then an Assassin or Spellblade are heavier hitting).

Solution 2:

It all depends on your stats of course, but here are a few setups that helped me.

• The barbarian king's special extinguishes the flames Ponce leaves behind.
• having a sprint rune as well as a double jump helps me avoid his flames.
• The shinobi + a time stop spell does wonders here. freeze time and hack away.
• even better might be a lich + time stop. use the special to get a lot of mp and then time stop + hack away. You dont really need any health for this. The goal is to kill him before the spell wears off.

I found the archmage not to have enough attack power to kill him even if the time spell lasts longer.

Solution 3:

I find Spellsword with the upgraded spells, preferably with the fire ring/shield, else chakram or dagger, and maybe even the sword wall can do well against any of the bosses.

Maybe get at least 1 flight rune for a bit of mobility.

Just spam the upgraded spell you have and only when you run low on mana do you have to do a few hit and runs, an Air Dash rune can also be useful for hit and runs, hit 'em once and the dash backwards, but with the fire and spikes around the room you may run into one.

Following a wide path around the whole room so you don't have to dodge as much fire helps as well, just running in a counter-clockwise square or something.

Solution 4:

Another combo which hasn't been mentioned is Dragon + Dwarfism. The normal disadvantage of Dwarfism - the shortened melee attack-range - doesn't apply to Dragon class, since it's ranged-attacks only. Meanwhile, you're so tiny it's easy to fly around and evade pretty much everything.

I died to Ponce de Leon a few times before getting this OP combination, at which point I beat him without taking any damage.

Solution 5:

I got quite frustrated by this one, came on here and neither of the barbarian/assassin classes worked for me (lvl 125) - disclaimer: I'm probably just terrible at the game.

Anyways, in case it helps anyone I ended up beating him with a Paladin who had conflux orbs. Spammed the conflux and I think knowing that he was always taking damage helped me focus on dodging stuff. Got some hits in as well of course and finally beat him.

Very satisfying.