Let's talk talk about Boss Fights.

[(PSN)Croewe]

So invincibility in boss fights is needed, without it they'd be one shot with a properly modded Lato and it is done right in many cases but let's take a look at not only invincibility but other mechanics that make or break a boss fight.

CC spam is the worst as you are unable to control your character.Look the armoured rollers Kela has. They expect you to stand on a tiny pad while getting pounded by rollers knocking you of it. It would be nice if they had a respawn cap or perhaps add in random Grineer from the arena in between phases. The magnetic spam vor has is obnoxious and honestly it leaves nothing but frustration just add a minute or so cooldown in the thing. One final bad example is Mutalist Salad V, he takes COMPLETE control from your frame and you are able to do nothing to break this early. Now look at cc done right with the jackal and ambulas fight. (jackal in sorties is one of my favourite!)

Then there is also conditional invincibility which can be good but looking at Lech Krill it fails due to the way his invincibility is non trigerable in some scenarios (and this is annoying when he glitches and gets suck so he can't move end you can't kill him) again salad v is another example of this. Also we can't forget Vay Jerk (that's what autocorrect said and I find it amusing enough to leave it like that) who flies around people without letting them get a shot in edge wise. Let's look at it done right though. Vor is an entertaining fight as he uses multiple phases to do different attacks as well as kela using multiple phases to up the hype. Surprisingly regular Salad V earns a spot here as he has a decent fight that teaches newer players too prioritise targets.

 

Let's talk about damage. Boss's should have a damage cap in sorties/floods/etc or should have better readability/dodgability in their attacks. It's just simply no fun to fight against Kela who can instant down you with a rocket (I'm not talking about the air strike in between phases) you can't dodge or how about the damage of lech's gorgon? Boss's that earn points here are (suprisingly) Vay Jerk who's use of his abilities leaves him weak offensively but has lots of minions you need to focus on first and ambulas/jackal who have clear well defined attacks.

 

I'll go through later in and try to do a more comprehensive list of the boss's I feel need changes and post them here.

[Epsik-kun]

21 minutes ago, (PS4)Chris_Robet said:

So invincibility in boss fights is needed

No.

There are multiple ways of balancing an enemy around excessive damage and invulnerability phases is pretty much the worst of them.

Enemy damage and scaling should be overhauled all-around - not only for bosses. Vay Hek should be deleted from the game.

[Xelyum]

Bosses that have invincibility mechanics are just bullS#&$, bosses like Vay Hek, Lt. Lech Kril, Vay Hek, Gen. Sargeras Ruk, Mutalist Alad V should get a complete overhaul because they're just becoming invincible and dealing high AoE damage without any real way to avoid it.

Also they should make armor scale less at higher levels, high level grineer have higher Effective health than all of the units in the other factions combined.

[Nazrethim]

8 minutes ago, RyuZakon said:

Bosses that have invincibility mechanics are just bullS#&$, bosses like Vay Hek, Lt. Lech Kril, Vay Hek, Gen. Sargeras Ruk, Mutalist Alad V should get a complete overhaul because they're just becoming invincible and dealing high AoE damage without any real way to avoid it.

I think the bossfights are mostly fine as they are. Sure Vay Hek is bs and The Sergeant and Phorid are laughable. But other than those examples they are pretty ok.

HOWEVER. The problem arises in Sorties. The only actually balanced boss at Sortie levels is Lephantis imo. His attacks are avoidable, telegraphed, adds spawn in reasonable numbers (unlike Vay Hek's armies of Helions).

I think the solution should be to make Bosses in Sorties be stuck at lvl 60 where they are still kind of fair. But make up for it with additional mechanics.

Quote

Also they should make armor scale less at higher levels, high level grineer have higher Effective health than all of the units in the other factions combined.

Armor shouldn't scale at all. We have different types of Grineer units (tusk, frontier, common, kuva, nightwatch, etc). It would be much better if they had armor values adjusted for their level of content (so Frontier units for example having less armor than Kuva units) and not scale at all.

Counter to this I think CP aura should then be nerfed to not trivialize them even more, like making it reduce less armor, have diminishing returns on aura stacking (for example, if there's 1 player with CP it's -30% armor, 2 players each provide -25%, 3 players -20%, 4 players 17.5% and so on) or simply making it no longer stack (to counter THIS also make enemy Eximi auras no longer stack).

Problem with balance in WF is that it's currently a jenga tower of broken stuff, so if you wanna fix one you gotta fix a lot more or everything. And there lies the main question: Would you, as a player, agree to be massively nerfed if it means enemies will get too and the game will be fair and balanced?

Edited October 18, 2017 by Nazrethim

[(PSN)The_Verethragna]

I've always felt that bosses in this game should be manifestations of preexisting mission types, only pushed to the next level.

 

For instance, Mutalist Alad V should be the boss version of the Hive mission type, since his boss room is a Hive mission room anyway. So he keeps his moves and his invulnerability, but rather than standing around waiting for the game to decide to make him vulnerable, you have to destroy four Hives around the room that are protecting him. Kill the Hives, damage the boss, Hives regenerate, destroy them again, ect.

 

The only other idea I've come up with along those lines is that Sargas Ruk should incorporate Sabotage mechanics with coolant tanks, but that's less fleshed out in my mind.