What even is the justification for invuln phases?

[OgreEye]

I just started up a playthrough of borderlands 3 a few days ago with a mod, that, among other things, completely removed invuln phases from every boss in the entire game. And, honestly, I was surprised with how big of a difference it made; bosses that previously seemed like a chore were suddenly much more enjoyable when "wait around" was no longer a part of the strategy. And as I'm going through farming miter parts, I realized: how the do you actually even justify invulnerability phases on bosses? I'm holding a weapon that can kill somebody behind multiple meters of steel, that I use to kill dropships, something that can kill a kuva lich in one hit. How is a guy in armor going to be invulnerable to that? Forget shooting through his armor or shield, I can shoot so hard through those things that I can kill people behind him. And it's not like this is a complaint only I've had, I've heard the joke that bosses in this game are more waiting than they are fighting a good few times. What if we just. Didn't do that. If I have multiple meters of punch through anything you put in front of yourself, any armor you have, should do nothing to protect you. And I think it would honestly be a lot more fun for people who are fighting these bosses if they did figure out that interaction, and could work with it.

[rhoenix]

34 minutes ago, OgreEye said:

I just started up a playthrough of borderlands 3 a few days ago with a mod, that, among other things, completely removed invuln phases from every boss in the entire game. And, honestly, I was surprised with how big of a difference it made; bosses that previously seemed like a chore were suddenly much more enjoyable when "wait around" was no longer a part of the strategy. And as I'm going through farming miter parts, I realized: how the do you actually even justify invulnerability phases on bosses? I'm holding a weapon that can kill somebody behind multiple meters of steel, that I use to kill dropships, something that can kill a kuva lich in one hit. How is a guy in armor going to be invulnerable to that? Forget shooting through his armor or shield, I can shoot so hard through those things that I can kill people behind him. And it's not like this is a complaint only I've had, I've heard the joke that bosses in this game are more waiting than they are fighting a good few times. What if we just. Didn't do that. If I have multiple meters of punch through anything you put in front of yourself, any armor you have, should do nothing to protect you. And I think it would honestly be a lot more fun for people who are fighting these bosses if they did figure out that interaction, and could work with it.

Very short version - if bosses didn't have invulnerability phases, players would vaporize them before they could take a step. 

Invuln phases are essentially a way of introducing difficulty when the players can reduce the boss to scattered ash and a fading shout of "Wha...?" before said boss can do anything.

[VladYvhv]

I'd rather be able to just vaporize them with the comical "wha?". Or at least reducing the invulnerability times. 'Cause some of these fights are just stupid with the invulnerability phases. And some enemies really don't need them. Non-bosses like the manics that spawn in Sanctuary Onslaught. Their invulnerably phase breaks the gameplay for that mode.

[Tenno_Cobra]

I mean it's an imperfect solution to avoid one person one-shotting the boss while the other three players have yet to even get to the boss room.

Their other solutions are damage attenuation (which apparently everyone hates also as it makes their weapons useless and pushes you to use weak wpn with fast fire rate ), bosses with multiple phases (which most people hate too it seems)...

So yeah, not sure there's a miracle solution to make people happy. There's just too much potentialy DPS difference between the top of the line , perfectly modded weapon and a MK1 braton unmodded to really find a middleground that can accomodate both groups.

[OgreEye]

24 minutes ago, Tenno_Cobra said:

I mean it's an imperfect solution to avoid one person one-shotting the boss while the other three players have yet to even get to the boss room.

Their other solutions are damage attenuation (which apparently everyone hates also as it makes their weapons useless and pushes you to use weak wpn with fast fire rate ), bosses with multiple phases (which most people hate too it seems)...

So yeah, not sure there's a miracle solution to make people happy. There's just too much potentialy DPS difference between the top of the line , perfectly modded weapon and a MK1 braton unmodded to really find a middleground that can accomodate both groups.

Just lettin you know, current state of damage atten is you want to do one BIG hit then cool off for a bit, not doing high FR stuff, which is actually where it's most severe. But yeah, I hear you on the damage diff. idk, I'd at least like to see it turnt off in SP, because it's not like we'd be ruining any newby's experience there

[IDystopiaI]

The invuln phases (along with bosses actually doing something) actually allows a boss to feel like a boss. The Orowyrm actually does things and isn't instantly deleted like The Sergeant. It isn't a sponge with its "AI" turned off like Liches/Sisters/Archons. Damage attenuation has lead to some of the most boring bosses in the game; random spawns are the most dangerous things in an Archon hunt, or in the case of Liches/Sisters, a rad proc'd Wu-clone armed with a Bramma.

[(PSN)FunyFlyBoy]

On 2023-05-28 at 3:06 PM, VladYvhv said:

I'd rather be able to just vaporize them with the comical "wha?". Or at least reducing the invulnerability times. 'Cause some of these fights are just stupid with the invulnerability phases. And some enemies really don't need them. Non-bosses like the manics that spawn in Sanctuary Onslaught. Their invulnerably phase breaks the gameplay for that mode.

Hit 'em with a good status weapon. The DoT still hits them while they are invisible. I rarely shoot them more than once. One shot, walk away somewhere else, they'll burn to death anyways.

[VladYvhv]

On 2023-05-31 at 7:45 PM, IDystopiaI said:

The invuln phases (along with bosses actually doing something) actually allows a boss to feel like a boss. The Orowyrm actually does things and isn't instantly deleted like The Sergeant. It isn't a sponge with its "AI" turned off like Liches/Sisters/Archons. Damage attenuation has lead to some of the most boring bosses in the game; random spawns are the most dangerous things in an Archon hunt, or in the case of Liches/Sisters, a rad proc'd Wu-clone armed with a Bramma.

Eh... That comes down to preferences again. Though with the orowyrm, it's tied to the other enemies. Kill them, it spawns more rings to shoot. And you get a little mission note saying to kill the baddies. Something like that might be a better mechanic for other bosses... "Kill these fools, boss reverts to being killable again" is better than "shoot boss, wait around for them to be shootable again, repeat", or "boss tanks all damage to stupid levels" type of stuff.

On 2023-05-31 at 9:14 PM, (PSN)FunyFlyBoy said:

Hit 'em with a good status weapon. The DoT still hits them while they are invisible. I rarely shoot them more than once. One shot, walk away somewhere else, they'll burn to death anyways.

I normally run revenant and just enthrall them, so they go off to fight other baddies and leave me alone for a while. But it gets to be a real problem when there's multiple spawned and they're teleporting around in an area, invisible to enemy radar. It's not that they're invisible that's the problem. It's that they become invulnerable in a game mode where you need to maintain kill rate. It runs counter to the very concept of the mode. Ideally, DE needs to fix SO/ESO so that maniacs can't spawn there.