The Third Thing achievement in Control

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Pretty easy boss fight compared to previous boss fights.

Hartman teleports, switching between melee attacks and long-range attacks. When his back glows, he’ll either launch tracking spines or a shotgun blast of spines. Keep a decent distance away from him (I stayed up on the control panel section on the right of the room for long periods), and use launch (multi launch if you've got it), with the occasion blast of Surge or whatever weapon form you prefer. After ranged attacks, he’ll teleport near you and stomp or attempt to grab you. Dodge away quickly, as he will grab you if you're too slow and drain your health. If you do get grabbed, just shoot him to break free. He will recover his health from yours.

Once you get his health bar all the way down it'll go dark. Two of the power cubes will have been knocked out, and have to get them back in place. There will be some lighted places still in action, so use these as resting stops to recharge energy. Some enemies will spawn, I'd recommend taking them out from the lighted areas before working on the cubes. Using the seize ability can be useful on some of these enemies, as they provide useful distractions to Hartman while you damage him during light phases.

With the cubes back in you notice a second healthbar. Rinse and repeat and damage him down. When he’s low on health, he may knock out the power cubes out again. Quickly reconnect them or he’ll recover his health.

After every cycle, Hartman will be slightly weaker. He’ll take more damage from your attacks, so even if he fully heals, you’ll still be able to defeat him faster. The trick is just keeping distance, dodging his attacks and keeping the damage going.

Overall a fairly easy boss fight compared to others. His attacks are fairly easy to dodge and with new multi-launch you can deal damage quite quick too.

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My recommendation to complement this guide: Hartman telegraphs that he is about to knock out the power cubes with a very specific gesture. He'll raise one hand in the air and then slam it to the ground. It is possible to interrupt him while he's doing this and keep the lights on.

With that in mind, this is fight can be won without losing the lights a second time (he will knock out the cubes once, that is scripted) if you are patient. The instincts most gamers have in a situation like this is to overwhelm Hartman with as much damage as you can quickly, but that's not the best way to proceed.

Attach him consistently, but never exhaust your Service Weapon's ammo or your Energy for Launch. Always leave something back so you can interrupt him when he's telegraphing the power loss. If you always have an attack available when this happens you can keep the lights from going out a second time, and defeat him. It just takes patience to attack consistently but not so much that you find yourself unable to interrupt him.

Other than that, like Eel Why says, keep your distance from him, use Shield to protect yourself from his distance attacks (he'll glow red before he uses them), and keep moving. If he teleports next to you, use Evade as fast as you can to get away and put distance between you.

Posted by Kimieva on 16 Dec 20 at 15:45

My achievement bugged, i can't get It, anyone knows How to resolve this?

Posted by IthaloJesus on 28 Apr 21 at 02:55

Have you tried rebooting your Xbox and going back into the game? Can sometimes cause achievements to pull through

Posted by Eel Why on 28 Apr 21 at 14:17

I found it much easier to use Spin/Shield and not use any other powers at all (other than Evade, obviously). As much as I was tempted to start Launching things, it just uses too much Energy so you are far too weak to quickly reconnect the power cores. Use triple launch when he starts spouting nonsense about Darkness and raising his arm to stagger him and prevent a blackout, thus giving you enough time to whittle him away with Spin/Shield.

Posted by mrsunshine95 on 27 Jun 21 at 17:17

Like Kimieva and mrsunshine95 have mentioned, it's possible to stagger Hartman when he goes to knock out the power cubes. Surge/Charge regular shots and Multi Launch are all you really need to make sure he doesn't knock out the lights and it takes him a while to cycle through his attacks to get to knocking out the lights again during which time the two attack types will melt his shield.

Posted by ComicKaze23 on 12 Jul 21 at 07:12

Control

AWE

The Third Thing achievement in Control

How to unlock the The Third Thing achievement