What makes a boss encounter fun?!

[veemon_ro]

So what does it?

Does the boss need to be excruciatingly hard?

I think not. As we can see so far most hardmodes bosses are quite hard yet people don't bunch up to do them. Even some of the normal mode bosses can be considerd hard by some guilds yet they don't seem to make into those top memorable bosses.

Do they need to be easy?

Again the answer would be no. Nax 25 is full of easy bosses same as some bosses in ulduar, yet people never mention them when asked what is your favorite boss.

So what would it be? Well lets think in the past what those bosses were.
I think most people would agree that Vashj, Kaelthas, Ilidan, Kiljaden, mimiron were some of the best bosses in the game. But what made them fun?

Well first would be the obvious answer that it was the lore, but was that it?
I also think that the best reason was that these bosses made the raid work together as a team to defeat them.
They were quite hard yes, but the raid needed to work as a unit, every one had to do their part in order to win.
This made powerfull bonds and friendships in a guild, where you would have to trust the other guy to "watch your back" so you can play relaxed and at ease that player "x" is handling "Y" in the encounter so its geting done.

I wish more of these bosses would be implimented in the game, in contrast to bosses where they just hit hard , most of the times doing more damage then the tanks total hp so they require just the priests to pay atention.

A boss can be very poorly designed if they just focus on testing one type of players (healers tanks or dps) as the players who are tested can have a lot of fun, but the players who arent fall asleep and get frustrated when the players who are tested do not do their job.
Think of morogrim in the past. It was fun for a healer as he had a lot to do,stop casting when the murlocks would come, heal like crazy on the tanks and manage his mana.
But for a dpser to just stay and watch a boss's ass the whole 10 minutes was a pain.

But anway, what do you think makes a boss fun?

[TheMediator]

I think the most fun bosses are tests of survival. I personally like bosses where if a lot of idiots in the raid fail, that doesn't cost ME a repair bill. I personally think the Beasts of Northrend was a well-done encounter, the third phase is pretty calm in that you don't have to have a ton of people up to do it, its just the first phase is pretty hectic with fires being thrown everywhere, and the second phase people running around dispelling poisons, but if you're not bad and you survived to the third phase, then you'll be up for the boss kill.

[seam]

Hard for me to explain what I think makes a boss fun. I like a challenge, but not a M'uru hardness. I like it complexish for each class, but not too bad that Joe the hunter kills us each time (Eredar twins *shiver*)

Also, I generally love unique fights, not fights are are "Voidwalker + Vashj put together" fights.

[Cowiesh]

Fight which is about survivability and moving and keeping eye on stuff.

General, IC, Kologarn are just some of those which is REALLY boring. Cry a little every time were going to them. Especially when trying IC hard. Long and boring fight, and when you wipe at 40%> and have to start over you feel like smashing head into the keyboard.

Yogg, Freya, Mimiron, are some of the fun fights. You have to move, you have to keep track of stuff, and make sure you don't fuck it up(like running futher away when getting binded in yogg, killing small adds on Freya close to people low on hp)

[getefix]

whatever the answer to this question is, please tell blizz because Jaraxxus is boring as hell.

[PBitt]

Well it is indeed kind of hard to explain but some fights (end of raid boss fights for example) are meant to be the best usually and in most cases they are. These kind of encounters are long, have multiple phases, have new and unique err stuff, and because they are long and have many phases it is important for everyone to survive. Then there are fights like Algalon, which is a very very short fight compared to other fights that are hardmodes (Firefighter, Yogg1) Short and sweet and really rather simple. The best raiders are always looking for a boss that is well balanced and requires teamwork, quick thinking, etc. The bosses in Naxx sucked because they were almost all just one phase, and there was only like one or two things you had to learn per boss, and even then some could be completely ignored and half of them were pure tank and spank.

Keeping busy, I guess, is the real key to favorite fights. If there is nothing you have to avoid, nothing you have to insta-dispel before someone goes splat...having to keep an eye out while doing the best dps/heals/tanking makes encounters a lot of fun.

[sah303136]

unique ness to fights and amount of attention to detail etc ... i hate set backs

[Hypnotik]

when there is a new boss and everybody doesnt know what the hell to do!

[Dockery]

As mentioned above, something that keeps you busy, thinking and not bored out of your face standing still like Patchwerk. Yogg-Saron, Mimiron are nice fights, and personally my favourite at level 80 and to some extent I find Freya fun.

[Astray]

No fun:
Movement, Phases

Not fun:
Another 20 minutes of preparation and fight, just because someone else had a lag or stuff

My favorite Naxxfight was Heigan, because even after others screwed up, you could beat him by being awesome

[KandyCane]

As a tank I really love encounters where you have to move around, watch out for stuff, and/or rotate cooldowns to survive massive hits.

Kologarn used to be my favourite encounter, then they changed the duration of the armor reduction debuff, but it's still somewhat fun.

The Iron Council is great, as I also have to Cleanse myself when tanking Steelbreaker, while moving him away from Runes of Power, avoiding Death Runes and interrupting Stormcaller in the end(yay for casuals).

General Vezax is currently my favourite. My guild has got two tanks, so for one-tank encounters, I either go healing, or the other tank goes dps. For Vezax we usually already have three healers, so I'll tank him. We stopped using the kiting method last week, and killed him by doing that. I think it's quite fun to call out the cooldowns, or soak with Ardent Defender ready for action.

That's as a tank. Those are just examples of the fights I love, and there's even some Naxxramas and heroic-dungeon bosses I still love to kill because of the way the fight works(Lodi Dodi I love the Skadi).

As a healer(yay for Holy Paladins?), I find every fight where there isn't something to watch out for, or where intense healing is required, is terribly boring.

My favourite encounter as a healer is Hodir, with everything there is to look out for, and the massive amount of raid damage going on(Once again, yay for casuals).


So... in summary, I love to run around and grab/avoid stuff while keeping the raid alive in one way or the other.

[Mudkiper]

Cake.... lots of cake...

[lichy]

the bosses i like from wotlk are

flame levi, tho it gets kinda annoying after 200 times, both heroic and normal

xt, just the joy of breaking his heart over and over ;D

kolo, tho it gets boring after a while.. also the adds b4 him makes me wanna /wrist

mimiron, defenitly one of my favs... just because he has like a bilion ways to one shot u, yet i find it rlly easy to avoid all thoes things as a melee



bosses i rlly hate are

general vezax, coz i just feel useless there as a melee with a 1min stunn

auriaya, coz its just boring...

thorim, again.. just a boring fight...

i also hate the priestess in the new 5man.. every time i see her im like "oh shit... >)

[Ares42]

when there is a new boss and everybody doesnt know what the hell to do!

This, sorta..

Basically the fight needs to have elements that have not already been mastered by most raid groups. The elements also needs to be tuned to the point where you cannot ignore them, while still having room for small errors here and there.

Some examples of mistakes in Ulduar:
Mimiron is actually decently balanced, but the fight is all rehashed abilities. Run away from boss, move away from mark on the ground and avoid a spinning beam. All of these have been seen atleast 3-4 times before so any raidgroup with experience have mastered them going into the fight.

Hodir and Thorim easy modes. Both of these have somewhat new gameplay elements that can be easily ignored because of tuning. Hell, you might not even notice them before you try hard-mode.

Any fight you can down in just a few tries because you either already know how to deal with everything thrown at you or it's so forgiving you don't need to know what's happening is bad, simply because it's not really new content. It's old content wrapped in a new wrapping paper.

[Advent]

I love boss encounters where personal resposibility becomes a factor in success. It's easier to tell the raiders apart, and who should be continuing, than Mr. Joe Blow who's tunnel vision cost him to miss a rocket and was killed.

[Gron]

Its a good question - and it seems many answers have overlaps, like Mimiron, etc.

For me, BC had amazing raiding background, and I think it comes from multiple levels:
- Bossess were hard to do. Actually you felt you earned your gear. Multiple failures on Gruul, then downing him was really awesome feeling. This awesome feeling is gone in WOTLK.
- Bossess had characters. Not lore, but character. E.g. Kael, with the 4 weapons - and his style to announce a new opponent to face you - being confident your raid will fail. Then the first add comes, who just looks at you, and starts to go towards you with his huge axe up in the air... then you have to run! That was a lot of fun. Sometimes the bossess were a bit too hard, but Blizzard nerfed them overtime, and people were very happy to down hard bossess. Still, they had this "character".
- Its an amazing feeling to down a hard fight together as a guild, and progress for next one. Somehow the hard/easy modes don't translate to the same feeling. Back there was a competition of who done what in between guilds on my server. Now we don't even look at sites like wowjutsu, etc.
- The amount of loot was less, and this gave epics feeling of value. So it was harder to earn, and you cherished these items for longer. E.g. Karazhan dropped Moroes Pocket Watch, and I was over with joy when I got it. I even used it in Black Temple - kept it for so long, over multiple tiers. In WOTLK I don't use anything from Naxx25 in Ulduar.
- I like some of the WOTLK bossess now: e.g. Mimiron is great, and I have to say that even with Northrend beasts the 3rd boss is funny (though might not remain memorable).
- Last boss in Sunwell had this epic animation, as well as when you defeated him, you had this exit animation. It was great, and added to the epicness of the fight.
- In BC bosses were very varied. So if you think about Mount Hijal type raid, that was very interesting. If you think about Gruul, it had 2 very different fights. If you think about Karazhan, it had Opera that had 3 random events. If you think about Kara again, it had Chess, which broke your raiding day and you had a lot of fun. Not to mention Nightbane that was hard but rewarding. Very very different types of fights, you felt you were challenged. Even in Black Temple, ROS as tank you had to burn your excess rage else you wiped the whole raid. Really fantastic idea that was never done before.

In WOTLK you don't see this. You see copy/paste Naxxramas25. You see copy/paste Jormungular bossess that don't leave lasting impression. You will see AnubArak, who you killed at level 72 to come back as 'Nub'Arak. The ingenuity and creative effort that was put into raiding in BC seems to have lessened considerably.

I think this creativeness along with characteristical bossess would make boss encounters fun. Back it BC we all knew what bossess did, yet they were much more fun.

[Justîcar]

Its a good question - and it seems many answers have overlaps, like Mimiron, etc.

For me, BC had amazing raiding background, and I think it comes from multiple levels:
- Bossess were hard to do. Actually you felt you earned your gear. Multiple failures on Gruul, then downing him was really awesome feeling. This awesome feeling is gone in WOTLK.
- Bossess had characters. Not lore, but character. E.g. Kael, with the 4 weapons - and his style to announce a new opponent to face you - being confident your raid will fail. Then the first add comes, who just looks at you, and starts to go towards you with his huge axe up in the air... then you have to run! That was a lot of fun. Sometimes the bossess were a bit too hard, but Blizzard nerfed them overtime, and people were very happy to down hard bossess. Still, they had this "character".
- Its an amazing feeling to down a hard fight together as a guild, and progress for next one. Somehow the hard/easy modes don't translate to the same feeling. Back there was a competition of who done what in between guilds on my server. Now we don't even look at sites like wowjutsu, etc.
- The amount of loot was less, and this gave epics feeling of value. So it was harder to earn, and you cherished these items for longer. E.g. Karazhan dropped Moroes Pocket Watch, and I was over with joy when I got it. I even used it in Black Temple - kept it for so long, over multiple tiers. In WOTLK I don't use anything from Naxx25 in Ulduar.
- I like some of the WOTLK bossess now: e.g. Mimiron is great, and I have to say that even with Northrend beasts the 3rd boss is funny (though might not remain memorable).
- Last boss in Sunwell had this epic animation, as well as when you defeated him, you had this exit animation. It was great, and added to the epicness of the fight.
- In BC bosses were very varied. So if you think about Mount Hijal type raid, that was very interesting. If you think about Gruul, it had 2 very different fights. If you think about Karazhan, it had Opera that had 3 random events. If you think about Kara again, it had Chess, which broke your raiding day and you had a lot of fun. Not to mention Nightbane that was hard but rewarding. Very very different types of fights, you felt you were challenged. Even in Black Temple, ROS as tank you had to burn your excess rage else you wiped the whole raid. Really fantastic idea that was never done before.

In WOTLK you don't see this. You see copy/paste Naxxramas25. You see copy/paste Jormungular bossess that don't leave lasting impression. You will see AnubArak, who you killed at level 72 to come back as 'Nub'Arak. The ingenuity and creative effort that was put into raiding in BC seems to have lessened considerably.

I think this creativeness along with characteristical bossess would make boss encounters fun. Back it BC we all knew what bossess did, yet they were much more fun.

QFT

[moremana]

In WotLK, Mimiron, Freya and XT, and Heigan thats about it, all the others are meh.

TBC had alot more funner bosses I think, I actually liked Netherspite, Illhoof and Shade from Kara

I enjoyed just about all the bosses in ZA (Blizz should have made a 25 man flavor as well)

High King was fun, in BT TG and Illidan

[GrieverXIII]

I love boss encounters where personal resposibility becomes a factor in success. It's easier to tell the raiders apart, and who should be continuing, than Mr. Joe Blow who's tunnel vision cost him to miss a rocket and was killed.

Kinda agree with that. And the scenary/voice acting. To me one of the most epic boss i ever did was RoS. (Didn't killed Illidan or gone to SW before woltk so meh)The strat was nice. But boss himself was badass and is voice acting too.Algalon is the same, never did it, but i think he is easier than Yogg+0 from what i readed.But actualy, he feels so epic.The animations of his spells and his voicet acting are awseome.Same goes for Mimiron.

So i think good but not insane difficulty (Cockblocks) with good lore/acting/animations and individual responsability's make a boss realy epic.

[Deleted]

Intensity. I remember my guilds first High Warlord Naz'jentus. Now that's an intense fight (atleast from the healing side). I remember them screaming "PICK THE SPINE, PICK THE SPINE!!" and "HEAL UP -Insert Random Name-!!!" Followed by a "POP THE BUBBLE GDMNIT". The adrenaline was just flowing through the body during those bosses.

Also. Bosses shall be hard. Not Extreme M'uru. But almost. I liked Kael'Thas very very much. First of all, he introduced the battle perfectly. "Hi guys I'm like pro and you suck so I will poon your ass big time!". Secondly, he had alot of different phases. Sending in first one add of four (right?). All the adds were different from each others. And the weapons were a great twist in the fight too. That's one BIG thing that makes boss encounters fun. New things. Picking up a Legendary, each with a different Use abillity. I remember these rogues running around, though forgot what they did. And the tank had to pop a bubble or something. Just great.

And Gearchecks. Not many, but maybe 1 per instance, if even that many. I LOVE Patchwerk. I have no idea why, but I feel that the one who did him is a genius (lolwut?).

So yea. A great boss for me would be something like; Cool dude lore wise, with some great introduction (Now now, not every boss needs that.). Maybe a cinematic, would be nice for Arthas. It has to have plenty of DIFFERENT phases. Not just, oh we add a new spell to this phase, Fireball. I like fairly long bosses too, but not too long *cough* FFXI *cough*. Also, if one screws up, it shall be Hard. But not Archimonde style that it's almost a certain wipe.