Best and worst Boss designs in game?

phantasmalD · March 2023

Least favourite I'd Doylemish Ironheart, mostly just because of those petrify orbs and their snares.

Most favourite, that's a tough competition. hmm, Encratis has a great voice over and a pretty fun fight, so maybe that alone makes it my fav.
Some other memorable fights are Tarcyr, Domihaus, Magligalig, the Stonekeeper. And yeah, the MoL Twins too.
And to give some love to Arena, Rahdgarak, the mino with the sun-moon mechanic.

Agenericname wrote: »

My least favorite is Varzunon in Graven Deep and similarly Corruption of Stone in Earthen Root Enclave.

Im still not entirely sure if or what the actual mechanics in the Varzunon fight are. I know we burn, avoid standing in bad, and hope that it dies before it becomes too large to reliably taunt/target.

The blue skeletons are what trigger his growth, you are supposed to kill them before they can reach him.

Agenericname · March 2023

phantasmalD wrote: »

Least favourite I'd Doylemish Ironheart, mostly just because of those petrify orbs and their snares.

Most favourite, that's a tough competition. hmm, Encratis has a great voice over and a pretty fun fight, so maybe that alone makes it my fav.
Some other memorable fights are Tarcyr, Domihaus, Magligalig, the Stonekeeper. And yeah, the MoL Twins too.
And to give some love to Arena, Rahdgarak, the mino with the sun-moon mechanic.

Agenericname wrote: »

My least favorite is Varzunon in Graven Deep and similarly Corruption of Stone in Earthen Root Enclave.

Im still not entirely sure if or what the actual mechanics in the Varzunon fight are. I know we burn, avoid standing in bad, and hope that it dies before it becomes too large to reliably taunt/target.

The blue skeletons are what trigger his growth, you are supposed to kill them before they can reach him.

Yeah, but Im not sure that I've ever seen anyone successfully do it on HM.

Necrotech_Master · March 2023

worst fights for me would be:

kuthro kethba in moongrave fane (20 sec invuln phases while dealing with a gimmicky mechanic)
walks like thunder WB in murkmire (absurd healing)
z'maja (portal mechanic)
centurion boss in frostvault (constant invuln phases)

best fights:

anything that doesnt have invuln phases or a full instant unblockable group wipe on complicated mechanic failure

mochizx · March 2023

Vault of Madness ( base game dungeon)

Worst boss design: 1st boss, unnecessary reflect dmg on a random person that cause them to explode within 0.5s, like u rlly expect pugs or even friends to either have enough dmg to just burst the boss down or failed the dps check ( sort of ) and completely stop any dmg (20S ST dots cough) and no death it? C'mon...

Best boss design: Last boss, the mech requires groups either to roll out of aoe or stay inside and watch the cool animation from shattered glasses, one of fav boss scene in the base game.

Woodenplank · March 2023

mochizx wrote: »

Best boss design: Last boss, the mech requires groups either to roll out of aoe or stay inside and watch the cool animation from shattered glasses, one of fav boss scene in the base game.

Always loved that bit. It's frankly a bit sad that it's a base game dungeon, where even the vet version burns down too fast. No chance to appreciate the cool animation work.

Jusey1 · March 2023

Woodenplank wrote: »

I would probably add Lord Warden Dusk to this list.

Lord Warden is also the only boss who can become your companion and even insults you if you redo the Imperial Prison, love him. (Funnily enough, that's probably my favorite quest reward because it's not just a set piece, it has an unique mechanic tied to it which is Lord Warden talking to you).

Necrotech_Master · March 2023

Jusey1 wrote: »

Woodenplank wrote: »

I would probably add Lord Warden Dusk to this list.

Lord Warden is also the only boss who can become your companion and even insults you if you redo the Imperial Prison, love him. (Funnily enough, that's probably my favorite quest reward because it's not just a set piece, it has an unique mechanic tied to it which is Lord Warden talking to you).

i love that item too lol, i have one of those on every character (because its "unique" and cant bank more than 1 copy)

i still use it to this day on my main since the first time i cleared ICP many many years ago lol

RevJJ · March 2023

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

Jusey1 wrote: »

Woodenplank wrote: »

I would probably add Lord Warden Dusk to this list.

Lord Warden is also the only boss who can become your companion and even insults you if you redo the Imperial Prison, love him. (Funnily enough, that's probably my favorite quest reward because it's not just a set piece, it has an unique mechanic tied to it which is Lord Warden talking to you).

i love that item too lol, i have one of those on every character (because its "unique" and cant bank more than 1 copy)

i still use it to this day on my main since the first time i cleared ICP many many years ago lol

I wish we had more unique quest rewards like that. A unique look, glow, sound. Something like that instead of only a different name.

Hapexamendios · March 2023

Best - Ash Titan COA2, love the voice and atmosphere

Worst - B'Kragen - stupid sload shields

CrashTest · March 2023

One of the worst is being abruptly yanked to a boss or mob. That's stupidly annoying bc it breaks the flow of combat and is disorienting. It's like the mobs are using the Dark Convergence set on us.

Examples are the behemoth add in the Rockgrove Oax fight, Kyne's Aegis Bulwarks, and the second to the last boss in Crypt of Hearts 2.

Jaimeh · March 2023

Hapexamendios wrote: »

Worst - B'Kragen - stupid sload shields

Agreed about B'Korgen: nice visuals but a really tedious fight.

magnusthorek · March 2023

It would be nice if we could extract Lord warden's essence from that one shield and imbue any other shield. That could add a new line to his repertoire, like, saying the new shield isn't comfy or that it's a humiliating situation constantly switching his soul to different gear like that.

Snamyap · March 2023

Jaraal wrote: »

Woodenplank wrote: »

I would probably add Lord Warden Dusk to this list. 'Powercreep' has it made very easy, but it's a very intricate fight in reality.
The mechanic of jumping into a portal to avoid a one-shot is perhaps not the most interesting, but the limit of 2 people per portal, and the fact that accidentally stepping in will cost a life later makes it work, I think - failing this mechanic won't cost a one-shot death now, but it will later! Possibly you, possibly another group member.

Of all the dungeons I've soloed, this one has to be the most challenging. Getting past Ibomez, getting past the gates, and then the Lord Warden fight. But because of the challenges, it was the most satisfying to finish.

Having to gimmick oneself past the gates killed the enjoyment for me. But at least it's of the to-do-solo list.

code65536 · March 2023

Woodenplank wrote: »

Worst: Caillaoife - Bloodroot Forge
The Boss' main mechanic is also my main gripe with it. This hagraven will occasionally form a 'Garden' around herself; a ring of vines and branches that makes her wimmune to damage and reflects projectiles. Only, it takes a while to come into effect, to the point where DDs often fail to notice she's no longer taking damage, or - in Normal Mode - enough time that they can kill her before the immunity actually kicks in. This has convinced a lot of people that she is, in fact, not immune at all.a

Furthermore, it's not a visual "shield" or bubble around the Boss. It's a pretty wide ring, with enough space to comfortably fit the entire group, which convinces a lot of people that you're supposed to stack inside it, thinking that it's like the Death Ring from Praxin Doure in Spindleclutch II, or the toxic ring from ICP's Abomination, which punish you for trying to leave them.

I think you've misunderstood how the mechanic works.

The ring protects the boss from damage originating from outside the ring, and it protects the adds that are inside the ring.

So there are two ways to play this mechanic. The safe way is to pull all the adds out of the ring, kill them, and re-engage the boss when the ring disappears. She always spawns a wave of adds before the ring, so that's a cue for players to get ready for the ring to spawn. This creates distinct damage-boss and damage-add phases. Damage the boss when the ring is not there, and when it comes up, kill the adds that have just spawned.

The other option is to stay inside. Your post makes it seem like that this is not what people are supposed to do. But it is actually a legitimate strategy, and it's very commonly-used by premade groups with a lot of damage output. So with this strategy, everyone hugs that boss, and when the ring comes up, you are inside (once you leave the ring, you cannot re-enter it, so you must be inside when the ring spawns). When you are inside the ring, you can damage the boss normally. The downside, though, is that the ring protects all of the adds, so the difficulty of this approach is that you will be swarmed by invincible adds.

So the stay-inside strategy is a high-risk but high-reward approach. You risk being overwhelmed by invincible adds, but you can straight-burn the boss with no immunity and it has the potential for making it a very short fight.

And finally... the Boss has an alternating Winter's Grasp/Summer's Heat thing going on, where being hit by her fire damage causes the next frost to hit harder, and vice versa. But unless you're bringing an off-tank to a regular 4-man Dungeon, there's not much avoiding it any way... ?

Those attacks aren't tauntable. The icy blasts are sufficiently slow that players should be able to sidestep them, esp. if they have the debuff that weakens them to ice damage.

code65536 · March 2023

Agenericname wrote: »

Corruption of Stone, the only way that I have ever seen the HM completed was just ignore the stone attronarchs and burn him.

I assume you mean the final phase, and yes, that is very much the intended approach.

Every time you enter a new phase, any remaining stone atronachs will enrage, so you must kill them during the earlier phases. But in the final phase, you are presented with a room-wide unavoidable AoE that increases in damage over time. This clearly means that execute is intended to be a DPS race. And since there are no phase changes after that, the stone atros cannot enrage. So, yea, ignoring stone atros in the final phase and going for a straight burn is clearly the approach that was intended.

phantasmalD wrote: »

Agenericname wrote: »

Im still not entirely sure if or what the actual mechanics in the Varzunon fight are. I know we burn, avoid standing in bad, and hope that it dies before it becomes too large to reliably taunt/target.

The blue skeletons are what trigger his growth, you are supposed to kill them before they can reach him.

That is the intended mechanic, but it's a poorly-balanced mechanic. The problem is that those blue skeletons have too much health and there are too many of them that spawn at once. They cannot be CC'ed, snared, or controlled in any way. Killing them is just too inefficient. If your group has the DPS to kill them, your group has the DPS to ignore them and just burn the boss. And if your group's DPS isn't high enough to burn the boss before he grows to maximum size, you almost certainly will not have enough to reliably kill those skeletons, so the boss will grow to maximum size anyway. If they reduced the health on those skeletons, then the mechanic would be interesting and worth playing, but at the moment, doing the mechanic will make the fight harder and it should be ignored.

Unfortunately, this was an issue that was reported back during the dungeon's PTS, and it was never addressed. The same problem plagues the second boss in the upcoming Scrivener's Hall, where there is an intended mechanic, but doing that intended mechanic will actually make the fight harder, and there too the feedback from the first week of PTS about the mechanic not being worth doing was ignored.