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« on: August 24, 2012, 07:00:46 am »
This topic is made so people could give their ideas how to improve bossfights. When I played TCO, I found some bosses quite simple, so they didn't require much tactics to best them. Here everyone can share their opinions how to improve bossfights.
! - this topic is only about improving bosses, not nerfing them. If you find a boss too hard to beat, you can always lower the difficulty.
! - this topic is only about existing bosses, mini-bosses, elite and epic ones.
So, here I share some ideas:
1) Ice spider queen, Ch3 boss, has only ordinary ranged attack and summons adds. Difficulty of the fight is made by the amount of adds who overwhelm the player quite quickly. So, I would suggest the following:
- Reduce the amount and\or frequency of adds spawning. Instead: give them a stacking freezing attack ability, for example, each strike of each spider add reduces Galeoth's move speed by 1%. Additionally, give them a passive that increases boss' damage by, say, 3% per each add alive.
- Change the boss' attack missile - ice spider should hurl ice bolts, nerubian tower or lich missile would be just fine.
- Frozen blast - frost nova on Galeoth, dealing moderate damage and about 20% slow. If after X seconds he doesn't move Y meters away from the spot of the first nova, another nova shall strike at him with doubled damage.
- Frost bomb - boss hurls an orb of ice at players location. Galeoth shall run away, for the bomb one-shots him if he is in range of explosion (about 300), and sends ice bolts from the explosion point at several directions.
- Frost bite - passive - attacks of the boss stack a dot at Galeoth. To nullify the stacks, he should be not attacked by the boss for the next 5 seconds.
2) Xada. He is the weakest boss in his human form. Shouldn't the most hated Phodom's enemy be slightly more powerful?
- Add him a spell similar to Fradz's teleport strike - every 0.5 seconds he teleports behind Phodom and stabs him twice as stronger as Xada's normal attack. This ablilty shall last until you inflict X damage to the boss - depending on diffiulty. Boss will be stunned for 3-5 seconds when you interrupt the spell. This spell may be added at some phase of the fight, after one of the cinematics (where Xada says smth like "you could have had quick and painless death, now you die, blah-blah...").
- After cinematic of Zylcious freeing Galeoth add Xada ability to teleport away from Phodom and start to channel a stacking damage+slow at the player. In order to interrupt this, Xada should be attacked by melee attack or a spell.
- Add a pulling\knockback effect to his green line-type ablity - Phodom should not only get hit once, but also pulled back and damaged more and killed if he stands too close to the boss when he casts this. Also, it'd be good to increase the length of the line and give it a homing effect, so you should run away as soon as you see it. The sooner you run, the less damage you'll get.
- In his demon form, he is really powerful, but the main difficulty is the two lines that scissor you if you dont run quickly and follow a straight line. Anability may be added - demonic Xada hurls a chaos bolt at the location, deals huge damage if it hits Phodom and leaves behind a pool that slows and damages Phodom if he stands in it. This pools persists until the boss dies, and serve to redice the space of the room and a sort of a soft enrage.
3) Zarxof. This boss is even weaker than Xada. He is pathetic compared even to mini-bosses like Vampire Lord, though he is in charge of all the Kar'gath crew, so he's supposed to be stronger. What could I suggest?
Events:
- Stampede is quite identical (okay, similar) to Archmage's ability. I remember the older version where there were fewer lines of fire, but players were damaged while moving.
- Firestorm. A spell somewhat similar to Demon Fishtern's Cave In spell, but it's flame balls falling down to the floor. Not only they do damage, but give a stacking fire DOT, so players should do their best to evade them.
Spells:
- Fire nova: graphically identical to Phodom's Flame Explosion ability. Deals moderate damage and increases magical damage taken by the characters.
- Living bomb - debuffs a selected player for 5 seconds, damaging him each second.When debuff expires, character explodes. Player should spread out heroes to evade the damage.
- Flame torment - spell from the cinematic he uses to torture Galeoth (and supposedly kill the previous lord of Kar'Gath) - opposite to the previous one. Stuns a selected character and damages him for a huge amount of damage. Damage is shared between every character in range of the spell. Here we should group up. Swithching between spreadinf out and grouping up is the key mechanic.
4) Siluze. Just a small addition.
- He uses an AOE spell in an attempt to kill Archeon. This would look great in a battle too. Select a spot, pull the charachters to that spot, channel for 2 seconds and make a big bang, wiping everyone who fails to run away fast enough. That would be a fine addition to the fight.
5) The Healer - in his tree form - has virtually no spells.
-Entangling roots - give the root effect and damage over time for a selected character and all characters in 300 rande around him for 6 seconds. This, however, sould not occure right before his nova spell.
6) Zhitenxa. A good fight overall, but it's rather long than difficult.
Abilities:
1) First of all, her frost bolt volley has a tiny AOE and tiny damage. You can not even bother about dealing with it, it could only wipe you if you have about 20% hp and you are Fradz. I suggest to increase AOE, amount of missiles, remove stun effect and add an effect that increases magical dmg taken per each missile.
2) May it's a bit of hardmode, but I'd add to the frozen character a debuff that ticks for some precent of current (not maximum) hp.
3) Her line of frost has somewhat weird animation - like a pool of water, not frost. Perhaps it would look more suitable if it were changed for frost novas? And add here a knockback effect+stun (freeze) for 5 seconds.
Mini-events - happen by cooldown, new events added after reaching 75%, 50% and 25% health:
1) Triple line of frost - maybe that might be remade as a mini-event too? For example, boss casts these 3 times in a row. Damage is a bit decreased, but if you get hit once, you'll be chilled to the bones (for 50% slow). If you are somehow damaged while chilled to the bones, you are instanty killed. Only cast when the boss is below 75% hp.
2) Chain Frost. Launches a frost missile at a targeted player. It explodes in an AOE, makes damage and slows the player for 10 seconds. Then it jumps to the other player, then the first one again. The key is that the longer it takes for the missile to catch players, the sooner it'll die, cause it has a limited amount of lifetime. So, run away from eachother! The precious ice walls shall make it harder over the time. Cast when boss is below 50% hp.
3) Frozen meteors. Launches a magical ball of frost at the position of the selected (or random) target every X seconds for Y seconds. The ball lands within 2-3 seconds, makes a huge frostnova (model of those colored custom effects like fire nova, shafow nova etc) and leave behind a pool that ticks for some small damage and slows for, say, 10 seconds. Cast when the boss is below 25% hp.
Events - when do those occur? By cooldown or at some hp percentage of the boss?
1) Air phase. It's too easy now. A huge dragon flies in the air and makes a one tiny little line of frost. I'd suggest this:
- Boss chooses a random character and breathes a line of frost that follows its target, killing him if he runs not fast enough from the line. The "frostfire" effect lingers on the ground, slows and damages anyone who crosses it.
- Another spell for later stages of the fight (when the boss has cast ultimate at least once) is Frost Bomb. There should be ice walls present. Zhitenxa flies in the air and chooses a spot, then hurls a huuuuge bolt of frost. You can only survive the explosion if you are behind the ice walls at the moment. The bomb also destroys walls that were close to the impact point.
2) Magical Dragons are too weak, it takes no effort to bring them down. There are 2 types of dragons: ranged and melee. So, give them a little combo: one type of dragon stacks some debuff by their attack, a dot for example, and the other triggers it by his special attack. Clue is to throw down stacks before they make too strong explosion.
3) ULTIMATE - changed version of ice walls. Boss begins channeling animation, effects appear at random places on the ground, identical to Galeoth's Frozen Fang. If you are too slow to dodge the effects, frozen fang shall pierce you for some strong dmg, throw you in the air to a random point away, slowing\stunning. At the place of frozen spikes ice walls appear just like they are now, blocking the path.
I believe, these improvements can make bosses significantly stronger, but without them, for example, Zhinenxa would be way easier than the Healer.
SO, this were some of my ideas to improve the bossfights, and it would be great to have more ideas here. If Aero would find any of thenm interesting, we may eventually see them in-game!