Boss difficulty

BrightLord · Post by **BrightLord** » 20 Apr, 2014 22:43

Seems like some bosses are too big brickwalls. Which bosses you think should be retuned and what is exactly cause of problem? Keep in mind some of them have abbilities that should be avoided like Diablo meteors.

Jofuss · Post by **Jofuss** » 21 Apr, 2014 0:02

Generally I have seen the Butcher in normal to be almost universally unbeatable when you first meet him with any character (normal) unless you have farmed experience beforehand. Being that this is likely the first boss mob anyone will meet, I think its a little excessive to have him be so hard... at least on normal.

Just the FIRST one to come to mind...

Styner · Post by **Styner** » 21 Apr, 2014 0:13

I think, which boss is not important.
Ability that the boss has is important.

For example, Behemoth + poison enchant combination is very hard.
after update stone curse make damage lower, this combination is more powerful.
poison is direct poison damage + poison puddle damage is overlapped

Bosses with haste + bethmoth + poison is most powerful, i think.
Because, to give damege to behemoth bosses, character should go near that boss.
But after stone curses ended, rogue & mage are easily killed by them (cause haste option)

riesa · Post by **riesa** » 21 Apr, 2014 0:16

Butcher was always that boss to firstly farm eq and exp before encounter. So it's still the same

most problems are with bosses with poison enchantment. It's such powerfull that even 75% magic resists can't deal with it or those type of poison have other type of damage...

radicool · Post by **radicool** » 21 Apr, 2014 6:04

What bosses need a nerf?

My suggestions are about removing or changing spells which are unfair, normally because they're impossible or not viable to dodge.

Diablo - his apocalpyse is a stupid ability. Its so powerful, little cooldown and high damage. Worst part is. You cannot dodge it. I just suggest removing it and maybe buffing his other abilites to compensate for removing apocolypse.

Elites - no elites should be immune to all elements. Having to use physical damage with a sorcerror is just....annoying, lol.

Butcher - I just suggest you somehow rework how flinching works ( hit recovery). Since he attacks so fast, particularly in nightnare, he stunlocks you a lot. Ive suggested before you could implement a system which could limit a given unit to flinch only once per x seconds. Even capping at 0.75 seconds or something could allow you to escape a stun lock. This is the case woth some uniques with an affix that makes them attack fast.

Bone spirit - cant remember their names. anyway some use this bone spirit spell. Like other suggestions, it would be great if there was some way to dodge it. They chase you for a tedious 10 seond before they vanish and because they move quiet fast and are over spammed, they are impossible to dodge. Add a 2 second cooldown, slow them slightly and make them last 6 seconds max. Pump up their damage to make sure the player avoids them.

If anyone disagrees let me know. Im definately NOT saying I want easier bosses. I just don't want stupid bosses. Im just suggesting to rework or remove abilities which are unfair.

Important Edit

Come to think of it, I know why these changes arn't really feasible. The game relies on mechanics which forces the player to take large amounts of damage really quickly. It's stupid right? Where's the skill in a game where you can't dodge or avoid spells or smartly fight a boss?

I believe the reason is because health and mana potions are too powerful. They heal all your HP or MP instantly. How does the game fight against such an OP method of healing? Enemies need OP mechanics of their own... It needs to pump up the damage and rate you take damage. Then its all about having a quick finger on your potions. It's not about dodging or being smart about boss fights. Just get your potions ready and tank it.

But wait you say. You could dodge some enemies' abilities! Let me just say, the only enemies that posed a threat to me were ones that charged me and insta killed me (because I had half a mana pool with manashield and full Hp at the time. Yes they do that much damage to me), ones that walked super super fast and got to me then stunlocked me before I could teleport away, or enemies like Diablo who just apocalypse and gave me no hope of surviving.

So then what? I could be flamed for this! Why don't potions heal the specified amount over time? Yes, I'm referring to Diablo 2's potion system. Just to remind you, the point of this is so the game doesn't need to balance around the silly concept that it must burst you with huge amounts of damage really quickly in the chance we wern't ready to use a potion. Then it makes sense. Mechanics can be introduced which players need to think about and dodge. The game doesn't need to rely on cheap mechanics to apply difficulty anymore. If you get hurt, there's no more click of a button and your back to full HP. You get penalized for getting hurt and will slowly recover.

Can I get some feedback on this anyone?

hellnecrotom · Post by **hellnecrotom** » 23 Apr, 2014 14:26

What Radicool said is completely accurate.

I mean, in a way, you could escape the Apocalypse of Diablo. But man, those elites with stunlock (such as Butcher or The Smith), they are so tedious to kill, that you can't do it with certain characters. Someone has to lower their stunlock and their resistances, because, as the posts say, they are extremely powerful and, of course, IMPASSABLE BRICKWALLS.

Nerfing unique creatures and elites would extremely balance the game.

And for the love of Hephasto the Armorer and the Seven Heavens, please buff the Assassin, she is the weakest character of all time and cannot progress.

All this + multiplayer would make the game perfect

Cheers

Jofuss · Post by **Jofuss** » 23 Apr, 2014 16:35

radicool wrote: Elites - no elites should be immune to all elements. Having to use physical damage with a sorcerror is just....annoying, lol.

I disagree. I do however think that there shouldn't be elites or bosses that are immune to all elements, completely immune to fire and lightning and can only have cold broken with elemental drain and a neg cold resist staff... This coupled with 10 zillion HP makes for a frustrating fight since my cold spells all do very low damage and elemental drain runs out before I've even put a dent in the guy.

While keeping in mind that a lack of physical damage tends to be THE disadvantage of a sorcerer (unless you go battlemage or whatnot,) consider the following:

What about a spell that does physical damage? Something along the lines of "Magic Stone" (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Magic_Stone) from dungeons and dragons. Yes I know apocalypse has partial physical damage... but that's endgame. I'm talking about a lowly spell that isn't too terribly powerful but deals mostly (all?) physical damage that can be obtained around the time you start seeing the quad immunes. Mind mace seemed an excellent addition, until I noticed its magic damage... When I originally got it and saw it I thought it was physical...

I also do not necessarily want things EASIER... I just want to be able to play without rage-quitting because of things that are ridiculous. Making a situation where you die in 1 hit does not make it "HARD" it makes it frustrating, annoying, and foolish. I want a challenge when I come to a boss but I want it to be more about strategy and less about the RNG.

Andrettin · Post by **Andrettin** » 23 Apr, 2014 17:16

Gharbad the Weak is too strong. It feels weird to have a rather tough fight and have your character say at the end "I'm not impressed."

Jofuss · Post by **Jofuss** » 23 Apr, 2014 21:41

Gharbad the Weak is too strong. It feels weird to have a rather tough fight and have your character say at the end "I'm not impressed."

I only agree due to the irony of the situation... I have no objections to him being strong... but maybe rename him to Gharbad the Cowardly or some other "weakness."

The "not impressed" soundclip could be related to not being impressed with the results from taking him for his word.

andronnik · Post by **andronnik** » 23 Apr, 2014 22:26

Gharbad the Weak was called Gharbad the Weak in the original Diablo too, there is no point to change his name...

But i like the Jofuss's idea of giving some bosses 4 quad-resistances, except for cold/elemental drain/neg res staff - combo. And yes, there are too little spells with physical dmg (only Apocalypse and Meteor Cluster i think....?) Maybe changing Mind Mace to dealing phisical dmg would be nice indeed, because i never use it since it deals magic damage and Bone Spirit is more powerfull there.

Cheers

riesa · Post by **riesa** » 23 Apr, 2014 23:06

As long as i know Jofuss he said about renaming much sarcastic ;p

And IMHO that 'not impressed' dialog is related to his drops xD

Jofuss · Post by **Jofuss** » 24 Apr, 2014 2:05

riesa is half right. I do not actually endorse the renaming of NPC's from the vanilla version. I do tend to rely heavily on sarcasm some times and it does not translate well into a forum post. My apologies.

The point of my post is that Gharbad the weak isn't named as such as that he is physically weak, it is that he is weak of soul and will. He is cowardly and trying to save himself but can not even follow through with promises he has made.

It may not translate well which may be part of the misunderstanding. Then again, some people have difficulty with metaphor.

Nomic · Post by **Nomic** » 24 Apr, 2014 6:29

The only major brickwall I've ever encountered was the first seal boss on Diablo's level. I forgot his name but he's the balrog that does the circle of magic projectiles that also reduce magic resistance each time you are hit. He also opens portals that summon more balrogs.

This boss has been a major brickwall on every difficulty because as a melee class you cannot help but to be hit by many of the projectiles every time he casts. At range you can expect to be hit by 1 projectile each time but standing directly in front of him you get hit by 3-4 every time. The magic resistance penalty stacks up very high very quickly and he ends up one-hitting you if you cant burst him down quickly.

On normal and nightmare I was able to stack massive magic resist and get him dead (barely) but on hell I can barely even dent him before the stack gets too big and I get one-shot. The only way is to carpet the floor in potions and chip away at him until the stack gets large then teleport very far away so he doesn't summon more balrogs and wait for the debuff to wear off and repeat this over and over.

angra · Post by **angra** » 25 Apr, 2014 2:38

All bosses with very fast powerful attack should be nerfed in either way:
1. decrease their attack speed - obvious but boring
2. decrease their ToHit - high AC will become an option
3. decrease their minimum damage - only some percent of their attacks will put character in HR, shield block reduce this percent even further
4. decrease both min and max damage - high -DFE will become an option
5. reduce their HR rate and threshold - fast attack will become an option

It would be nice to apply different nerfs to different bosses as it can motivate player to find specific equipment/tactic against particular boss.

Jofuss · Post by **Jofuss** » 26 Apr, 2014 0:19

Really?!?

... I mean... yeah I killed him immediately after that but... Really?!?

Boss difficulty

Boss difficulty

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