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  1. #1
    Deleted

    What do YOU think makes a great boss fight?

    Simple question, what makes a fight enjoyable for you?

    Lei shen Hc epitomizes a great boss fight for me because you almost get to use all of your class abilities.
    You need aoe stuns for ball lightnings, you need single target stuns, knockbacks and slows for diffused lightnings. You need movement spells for helm of command. You need personal or raidwide cds for static shock. You need to stack, you need to spread and good positioning in general. You can also customize the fight by overloading different pillars which will change the fight drastically.

    So what makes a fight enjoyable for you?

  2. #2
    Deleted
    Something new.

    While buggy and pretty stupid i actually enjoyed Lord Rhyolith back in Firelands.

    Other than that, i enjoy complex fights like HC Lei Shen and HC Ragnaros.

  3. #3
    Not having adds.

    I don't mind a billion mechanics, also i don't mind council like fights, but for the love of god don't put adds on EVERYTHING.

  4. #4
    I guess I haft to say something that is a "elite only" type off boss. For the better % off players. While I never killed HC Ragnaros inn my old rather crappy guild (Only come later hehe), and was often frustrated wiping, it was great boss. Will always like it even if I did spend a good 300+ wipes on it.

    Basicly complex, hard and unforgiving. While it has a good lore to back it up, and never before seen mechanics, or atleast something that makes it stand out.
    Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/djuntas ARPG - RTS - MMO

  5. #5
    One where personal skill is a huge factor, like Lei Shen.
    People don't forgive, they forget. - Rust Cohle

  6. #6
    Individual responsibility (LK Defile)
    about 10 minutes long
    (almost) constant danger of wiping
    about 3 phases, the last one being really hard (=killing people)

  7. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by Inthislzon View Post
    Not having adds.

    I don't mind a billion mechanics, also i don't mind council like fights, but for the love of god don't put adds on EVERYTHING.
    can't agree more its like they think taking care of add's = harder fight its not hard it's just annoying as fuck to switch back and forth just to dps some little add's that wipe your ride if you ignore them
    the ultimate answer's to all rogue issues :

    -Rogues might still be dealing with the changes to combo points {2014}

  8. #8
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by reckoner04 View Post
    Individual responsibility (LK Defile)
    about 10 minutes long
    (almost) constant danger of wiping
    about 3 phases, the last one being really hard (=killing people)
    I'd have to go with this. I'd add a tight enrage timer too as a lot of epic fights came from those, Mimiron HM which was epic even without the enrage timer but that just made it so much better and Durumu HC come to mind.

    I think LK HC was spot on from this point of view. The RP at the end everytime was frustrating though.

  9. #9
    Bosses that require clever use of class mechanics, but are flexible in which mechanics can be used to achieve the same goal. Not only that but also a well delivered and written story that makes you want to actually kill the boss beyond loot reasons. H-LK I think is the best definition of this (Even knowing all the lore behind Deathwing, the Dragon Soul raid didn't actually feel all that well put together, I didn't kill him because I wanted to, I killed him because he was a raid boss, Illidan felt the same way and Kil'jaeden was slapped in at the last moment, Kel'thezud as well as all of Naxx in Vanilla held as much story continuity as the rest of Vanilla WoW so it really can't be compared to later iterations of WoW that attempted to have a story). Valk'yr calls, infest, defile, adds, and someone that you constantly saw running around trying to build up a force for destroying all life in one pass. Garrosh kinda meets the latter requirement (although it was a drastic personality 180º near the end of Cata/Tides of War, from someone obsessed with conquering Kalimdor honorably in early Cata to some one building super weapons to hide behind and kill everything and anything in late Cata/Tides of War), and we'll have to see exactly how well the mechanics actually play out on live, especially with the heroic variation.
    What are you willing to sacrifice?

  10. #10
    My favorite fights are the ones that call players out of their normal roles, or when there are specific responsibilities given to different players.

    High King Maulgar
    Magtheridon isn't the best example, but still fun in this regard.
    Leotheris the Blind (loved this fight)
    Lady Vashj
    Omnitron
    Nefarian (cata)
    Beth'tilac
    Ragnaros
    Thaddius
    Yogg-Saron
    Mimiron
    Spine of Deathwing

    Basically, the fights that cause a lot of team work and out of box thinking. Downing a fight that takes perfect execution is more satisfying than a DPS race or gear check, although DPS races and gear checks are fun in their own regard from time to time.
    Last edited by Louis CK; 2013-08-31 at 05:57 PM.

  11. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by Azlarn View Post
    I'd have to go with this. I'd add a tight enrage timer too as a lot of epic fights came from those, Mimiron HM which was epic even without the enrage timer but that just made it so much better and Durumu HC come to mind.

    I think LK HC was spot on from this point of view. The RP at the end everytime was frustrating though.
    10 Minutes doesn't mean it needs to have a hard enrage... But it should be pointing towards a 10 minutes line. I seriously can't stand this Cataclysm-Model of fights which took ages on every single boss. I cant remember how long they were in classic to be honest but these days some extremely long bosses are just tiresome, so i have to agree to rechoner... 8 to 10 minutes seems enough for me. :V
    If you are offended by something i said, im probably at least 45% sorry about it and there is a 3% Chance it was not on purpose!

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  12. #12
    Deleted
    Something new. That or dragons. Dragons makes everything better

  13. #13
    First of all, there has to exist an interesting enemy. Nothing brings as much positive anxiety to me as an enemy that I know of, am interested in, have (even partially) interacted with, and am dreading to face. If that connection is there, then the fight will start in very good spirits.

    Secondly, it has to be impecably balanced: to be just beatable by my raid group at our then current level of power.

    From there on it's mostly mechanics. I like an encounter that has depth and complexity. Complexity as in: lots of elements. Depth as in: lots of room to either increase your performance using your character's abilities, or using the encounter's mechanics.

    I enjoy fights that welcome variety in the raid group as well. A fight that can be done with a specific group, using specific classes/specialisations and abilities in a tight fight to victory; but, can be done just as enjoyably with a different set-up, using a different tactic: something which is missing quite a lot in this game's raiding. Streamlining be damned...

    On the same note, I enjoy(ed) fights that required characters to play in a way that was not expected, like warlocks tanking; and of course fights that force characters to perform very specific tasks tied to them, like hunters having to kite, shadow priests having to mind control, etc.

    Lastly, I like fights were there is no specific way that things will go: Faction Champions and Mimiron in Firefighter mode are examples of somewhat good fights with such elements. I am not much into fights that just go a certain way all the time. Too much auto-pilot mode, and the unavoidable attention to meters to try and find something interesting in the fight; the sadness...
    Last edited by Drithien; 2013-08-31 at 06:14 PM.

  14. #14
    In no specific order
    1) Somewhat challenging so beating it feels like an accomplishment
    2) Boss has to have personality or character so I care about the fight
    3) Varied mechanics. By this I mean a fight should test co-ordination / healing / whatever. It needs more than one element.

    I dislike add fights and it looks like SoO is chock full of them. I'm not sure I'll like the tier.

  15. #15
    The boss has to have some finality to it. It can't be like "oh well beat me quickly so you can move along to the next boss." It can't be a choice either, where you could have taken a different boss. That boss either has to be blocking your way or he's the man you're trying to defeat/rob. The more evil he is, the better.

    As for the fight. I'll agree with the 10 minute sentiment. When a boss is too long it's just annoying to have to wipe and lose so much. But the boss has to be challenging. I think a boss being on LFR defeats the feeling a little lol. The boss also can't be there for a whole year. If I see the boss too much he loses his importance.

    The boss has to have some cool mechanics, involve all the roles and certain classes can't cheese the encounter. The DPS check has to be nice.

    And the boss has to live/be in a cool room.

  16. #16
    Really depends on where in the instance said boss is located. The earlier it is, the easier/less complex it should be in my opinion. That is not to say the first boss should be a patchwerk fight always, just more forgiving or something similar. Usually the lower gear requirement takes care of this decently.

    An end boss should be a longer fight than most other bosses in the tier. 10 to 15 minutes being what I have in mind. You can have a couple of other longer bosses as well, depending on the size of the raid, but not too many. An end boss should also have, partially due to the increased time it takes to bring it down, more (different) abilities/phases. Heroic Ragnaros comes to mind as an example to give you an idea of an end boss with a good amount of different abilities/phases and enough health to last a while. Madness of Deathwing was just the same thing 4 times for the first 10 minutes, only a tiny bit harder each time. That's not different enough. Not an end boss? Something along the lines of 5-8 minutes sounds pretty good to me with the possibility of a fight or two going up to 10ish minutes.

    Having a dps check in one phase of a boss instead of the whole fight being the dps check is fine too (imagine phase 3 on heroic Ragnaros, trying to beat the timer for 2nd/3rd meteor spawn for 10/25 respectively). Also, not every fight needs to have a dps or a healer check. Some fights just have to be about the execution.

    I also prefer bosses that let you control who has to do what. You need to have some RNG once in a while, but not too much. My favorite boss (and quite frankly the only boss I even liked) in DS was Yor'sahj, although I'm somewhat biased due to the circumstances under which the kill happened making it so much more memorable. There's some RNG in which set of blobs you get out of the 6(?) possible combinations, but you still got to choose which blob you wanted to kill. Same thing applies to stuff that's more personal. On Ragnaros, you chose who did the firefighting in phase 4. Sinestra on the other hand could wipe you if you had that one guy out of the 25 (or worse, 10) who simply couldn't understand how to do the orbs picked even once. I'm not saying Sinestra was a bad fight because of that, sometimes you need to test the whole raid. But in general you getting to choose > RNG choosing for you.

    Lastly, I didn't really appreciate the story in games and such until a few years ago. Most of the time I still manage to skip the vast majority of it while playing and instead read up from third party websites and such when I specifically feel like it. However, every now and then a good story can really impact the experience very positively even for someone like me. I get that this isn't really feasible for every boss of a tier, though. Probably just the end boss, possibly one or two others depending on who they are. I also realize that a lot of people do not care one bit about the story.

    Surely there are many other elements to it as well, but those are the ones I could come up with for now.
    Last edited by Arhippa; 2013-08-31 at 09:29 PM.
    In Soviet Russia, you loot to raid.

    Hippa

  17. #17
    Currently it seems to be some mechanic that require group play not full 25 people, but a group of 3-5 people to go and fight as a team.

  18. #18
    I'm gonna go opposite and say I like simplicity. I would rather 2-3 simple but punishing tactics. I hate hate hate hate tank swap fights, or rather that they seem to be on almost every boss now.

    My perfect boss fight. 1 tank for boss who just gets punished, 1 tank for adds/cc'd players/pick up boss when main tank gets his ass beat down. Main tank needs an assigned heals. Rest of raid needs to focus on cleanses, dpsing adds, hiding behind stuff to avoid a wiping aoe attack.

    Stupid complex mechanics does not equal fun IMO. Make the challange about, hps, dps, not standing in shit and tanks needing to focus on survivability above dps.

    Hard hits, lots of heals, tight enrage timers. Make every fight a gear check.

  19. #19
    Variety within the instance.

    Tier 11 is a pretty good example of great boss fights all over with the exception of a few like Al'akir.

    Cata Nefarian was amazingly well done in my opinion.

    Edit: BWD was probably my favorite instance in general though T11 is not my favorite tier.
    Last edited by Woobels; 2013-08-31 at 09:46 PM.

  20. #20
    I don't suppose I could really pick out anything specifically related to a boss, but rather that my friends and I are able to complete it with a solid amount of effort and a minimal amount of bickering. That makes any boss fight a great boss fight.

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