Are auto immune bosses good for the game?

[Pnumbra]

***PLEASE, LET'S KEEP THE CONVERSATION RESPECTFUL AND ENGAGING***

I read a post in the Bodak thread that made me think about this question. How does giving red name mobs immunity to nearly everything contribute to a more engaging game? Doesn't this just feed the DPS train?

[Grailhawk]

***PLEASE, LET'S KEEP THE CONVERSATION RESPECTFUL AND ENGAGING***

I read a post in the Bodak thread that made me think about this question. How does giving red name mobs immunity to nearly everything contribute to a more engaging game? Doesn't this just feed the DPS train?

There are some effects that bosses are immune to that should effect them (slow for instance) there are also probably some bosses immune to things like Poison that they shouldn't be. But why should Instakills work on a boss?

If you could instakill a boss you would trivialize the encounter all you would need is one Wizard to go full ****** on his DC's and make sure he can kill the boss in one cast (or maybe one cast +debuffs) this would make the encounter boring and meaningless.

Yes bosses should be immune to all save or die effects and should be immune to most save or suck effects (suck = can not act, a save or suck effect like slow that still allows action is something that should effect most bosses).

[dunklezhan]

There are some effects that bosses are immune to that should effect them (slow for instance) there are also probably some bosses immune to things like Poison that they shouldn't be. But why should Instakills work on a boss?

If you could instakill a boss you would trivialize the encounter all you would need is one Wizard to go full ****** on his DC's and make sure he can kill the boss in one cast (or maybe one cast +debuffs) this would make the encounter boring and meaningless.

Yes bosses should be immune to all save or die effects and should be immune to most save or suck effects (suck = can not act, a save or suck effect like slow that still allows action is something that should effect most bosses).

Agree - all debuffs yes, insta-incapacitates/kills no.

[Memnir]

I can recall way back in the game, at least the first few months after launch, when red-named were not immune to a lot of what they are now. Stunning Blow, Trip, Phantasmal Killer... all worked. And it was silly.


While I do wish that more debuffs worked nowadays, I am glad those days ended, and boss fights became more worthy of the name.

[Dandonk]

If bosses were vulnerable to non-DPS spells the same way normal mobs are, it would quickly get boring as well. A few fods away, and hey, boss dead. 500k hp? Who cares!

Still, I do wish the debuffing played a bit more of a role in boss fights. To add something more than MOAR DPS PLOX to the game. Fod could sap the life force of the red named, making him hit a little less hard. Hold monster could reduce AC, flesh to stone could slow... or whatever. Something along those lines.

It is something of a balance act, though. Too much of this could trivialize some encounters, while not enough would render it unused, even if it did work. So, tough one.

[Erdrique]

This has always been an interesting topic on the forums. I don't think end bosses should be so easy to kill with a single spell or ability. One thing to keep in mind, the bosses are powerful warriors and combatants, just like the players. There is no reason to assume that they don't have the same protections we have has players. It would be nice to have a different encounter with them that didn't just have to deal with straight damage but they should retain their immunities, in my humble opinion.

[Qezuzu]

I would also like to see red-name immunities tweaked.

Obviously they should remain immune to insta-kill effects or else DC Wizards and Assassins would be extremely unbalanced, but I think it would be interesting to at least experiment with, say, making red-names in general more powerful but allow them to be affected by more abilities.

Of course, while insta-killing is too strong, so would indefinite CC. A boss that gets chain held/tripped/stoned/stunned/danced/feared/paralyzed/etc. is about as good as dead, red-names get a reputation for being bags of HP but in this case they're even more a bag of HP.

Additionally, stacking Solid Fog/Ice Storm/Exhaustion/LGS Salt/Slow/Limbchopper/Hamstring/etc. on them is about the same as having them CC'd.

What I would like to see is:

Boss Monster: This monster has a massive amount of experience in dealing with adventurers. Some abilities will have a smaller impact on this monster*, and it will break out of most helpless states sooner than usual**. Some abilities will have no effect at all***. This monster receives a bonus to will and fort saves every time it breaks out of an effect.

*e.g. Solid Fog would be a 5% slow instead of a 25% slow
**e.g. Most abilities would only last 5 seconds
*** e.g. Balanced Attacks

Just throwing an idea out there.

[IronClan]

This also contributes to the game being too easy. Obviously bosses have saves for a reason, if they have well designed saves, and also select RESISTANCE then blanket immunity just makes them one dimensional surround and pound encounters.

On my CC and tactical builds getting to the boss is the worst part of every raid and quest... straight DPS is boring as ****.

On the other hand imagine a Raid boss:

Three players land stuns (boss fails his hefty save) at roughly the same time = 3 second stun immune to further stunns for however long works to maintain balance (maybe 10 secs?)

Or two players land Trip (Boss fails his save) falls down for 2 seconds and can't cast/hit or land specials immune to further trips for a few seconds.

Or two casters land Hold Monster (fails very high spell penn and fails save) which of course has a much reduced effect on a Boss, say 1 second for every caster that lands, boss is held for 2 seconds. with same short term immunity after.

Not only would stuff like this lead to much more dynamic boss battles, it would increase the value of CC and tactics. But that's not all, it would allow bosses to have more formidable special attacks. Imagine a Legendary LOB but his Stun attack stuns players for 1 minute no save, and his cleave (whirlwind) does one shot 3k damage regardless of PRR say this whirlwind lasts for 3-4 seconds from the start of the "tell" animation, everyone calls out "whirlwind" and the Tank and two off tanks hit trip within ~1 second of each other, LOB falls down and his one shotty whirlwind doesn't kill half the raid. If only 2 land trip he still gets 1 second of whirlwind and kills a couple people potentially, if only the tank lands trip he's only lost 1 out of 3 seconds but this still saves some people potentially. Of course Slowing and otherwise impeding the boss could easily be a part of battles as well, a Slowed LOB hits less people with Whirlwind or his stun.

Ofc you can also require debuffing before anything works, and the debuffs can be limited for balance reasons, short duration, constant reapplication, or complicated combinations would all add dynamics to boss battles.Obviously they have to avoid allowing stuff to be too good:


(ss used without asking will remove if he objects.)

[IronClan]

No insta kills should not work, but how about this scenario, same Legenday LOB hypothetical as above

You must debuff to land tacticals debuffs must be maintained with reasonably short durations (not spammy)
tacticals allow mitigating special attacks
DPS must beat LOB down but each "killing blow" must be a death effect, and his defenses must be debuffed enough to allow it to land
Finger, Hurl, Visage of Terror, Phantasmal Killer, Quivering Palm, Coup, Assassinate but all must meet requirements (for Coup to work LOB must be stunned/dazed which must be accomplished as detailed above for example).

Yes this would be **** hard and require great coordination... but if we had a Reaper Mode LOB isn't this exactly the type of thing that's needed to actually be more challenging without being purely about getting One-shot and DPS'ing 100,000,000 hit points?

[Grailhawk]

This also contributes to the game being too easy. Obviously bosses have saves for a reason, if they have well designed saves, and also select RESISTANCE then blanket immunity just makes them one dimensional surround and pound encounters.

On my CC and tactical builds getting to the boss is the worst part of every raid and quest... straight DPS is boring as ****.

On the other hand imagine a Raid boss:

Three players land stuns (boss fails his hefty save) at roughly the same time = 3 second stun immune to further stunns for however long works to maintain balance (maybe 10 secs?)

Or two players land Trip (Boss fails his save) falls down for 2 seconds and can't cast/hit or land specials immune to further trips for a few seconds.

Or two casters land Hold Monster (fails very high spell penn and fails save) which of course has a much reduced effect on a Boss, say 1 second for every caster that lands, boss is held for 2 seconds. with same short term immunity after.

Not only would stuff like this lead to much more dynamic boss battles, it would increase the value of CC and tactics. But that's not all, it would allow bosses to have more formidable special attacks. Imagine a Legendary LOB but his Stun attack stuns players for 1 minute no save, and his cleave (whirlwind) does one shot 3k damage regardless of PRR say this whirlwind lasts for 3-4 seconds from the start of the "tell" animation, everyone calls out "whirlwind" and the Tank and two off tanks hit trip within ~1 second of each other, LOB falls down and his one shotty whirlwind doesn't kill half the raid. If only 2 land trip he still gets 1 second of whirlwind and kills a couple people potentially, if only the tank lands trip he's only lost 1 out of 3 seconds but this still saves some people potentially. Of course Slowing and otherwise impeding the boss could easily be a part of battles as well, a Slowed LOB hits less people with Whirlwind or his stun.

Ofc you can also require debuffing before anything works, and the debuffs can be limited for balance reasons, short duration, constant reapplication, or complicated combinations would all add dynamics to boss battles.Obviously they have to avoid allowing stuff to be too good:


(ss used without asking will remove if he objects.)

If that kind of thing had been built into the game from the get go I could get behind it but we are way to far in the current design space to add that kind of thing.

[Aletys]

This also contributes to the game being too easy. Obviously bosses have saves for a reason, if they have well designed saves, and also select RESISTANCE then blanket immunity just makes them one dimensional surround and pound encounters.

On my CC and tactical builds getting to the boss is the worst part of every raid and quest... straight DPS is boring as ****.

On the other hand imagine a Raid boss:

Three players land stuns (boss fails his hefty save) at roughly the same time = 3 second stun immune to further stunns for however long works to maintain balance (maybe 10 secs?)

Or two players land Trip (Boss fails his save) falls down for 2 seconds and can't cast/hit or land specials immune to further trips for a few seconds.

Or two casters land Hold Monster (fails very high spell penn and fails save) which of course has a much reduced effect on a Boss, say 1 second for every caster that lands, boss is held for 2 seconds. with same short term immunity after.

Not only would stuff like this lead to much more dynamic boss battles, it would increase the value of CC and tactics. But that's not all, it would allow bosses to have more formidable special attacks. Imagine a Legendary LOB but his Stun attack stuns players for 1 minute no save, and his cleave (whirlwind) does one shot 3k damage regardless of PRR say this whirlwind lasts for 3-4 seconds from the start of the "tell" animation, everyone calls out "whirlwind" and the Tank and two off tanks hit trip within ~1 second of each other, LOB falls down and his one shotty whirlwind doesn't kill half the raid. If only 2 land trip he still gets 1 second of whirlwind and kills a couple people potentially, if only the tank lands trip he's only lost 1 out of 3 seconds but this still saves some people potentially. Of course Slowing and otherwise impeding the boss could easily be a part of battles as well, a Slowed LOB hits less people with Whirlwind or his stun.

Ofc you can also require debuffing before anything works, and the debuffs can be limited for balance reasons, short duration, constant reapplication, or complicated combinations would all add dynamics to boss battles.Obviously they have to avoid allowing stuff to be too good:


(ss used without asking will remove if he objects.)

The issue is not insta-kills, and I agree that insta-kills should not be possible with end-bosses. The problem is that there are too many bosses that are completely immune to nearly anything a spell-caster can throw at them, and when they're not completely immune they're so resistant that the spell caster wonders what they're doing there, as they're doing pitiful dps. They're just ping-pinging away, using all their spell points with nothing to show for it. And, since so many of the mobs in legendary content are red-named, not just the end bosses, it's most of the mobs, not just a few.

Further, why should bosses be able to insta-kill us, whether with physical damage or with a spell, when we cannot do the same? That's just cheesy.

Your suggestion on durations are also off base. If a boss can stun player toons for 1 minute, and we can only stun the boss for 3 seconds with a 10 second wait for the next one to be able to land, that is so skewed it's almost laughable. No toon without super high PRR & MRR even has a chance to survive a 15 second stun, let a lone a 1 minute stun. not with the huge spawns & damage output of those mobs.

So, basically, only heavy armor users who have maxed everything on PRR & MRR need bother showing up. That does not promote group play or better tactics or encourage grouping with spellcasters. It will simply cause spellcasters to be excluded, or to not bother even trying until they're in a more survivable class.

[Gremmlynn]

This also contributes to the game being too easy. Obviously bosses have saves for a reason, if they have well designed saves, and also select RESISTANCE then blanket immunity just makes them one dimensional surround and pound encounters.

On my CC and tactical builds getting to the boss is the worst part of every raid and quest... straight DPS is boring as ****.

On the other hand imagine a Raid boss:

Three players land stuns (boss fails his hefty save) at roughly the same time = 3 second stun immune to further stunns for however long works to maintain balance (maybe 10 secs?)

Or two players land Trip (Boss fails his save) falls down for 2 seconds and can't cast/hit or land specials immune to further trips for a few seconds.

Or two casters land Hold Monster (fails very high spell penn and fails save) which of course has a much reduced effect on a Boss, say 1 second for every caster that lands, boss is held for 2 seconds. with same short term immunity after.

Not only would stuff like this lead to much more dynamic boss battles, it would increase the value of CC and tactics. But that's not all, it would allow bosses to have more formidable special attacks. Imagine a Legendary LOB but his Stun attack stuns players for 1 minute no save, and his cleave (whirlwind) does one shot 3k damage regardless of PRR say this whirlwind lasts for 3-4 seconds from the start of the "tell" animation, everyone calls out "whirlwind" and the Tank and two off tanks hit trip within ~1 second of each other, LOB falls down and his one shotty whirlwind doesn't kill half the raid. If only 2 land trip he still gets 1 second of whirlwind and kills a couple people potentially, if only the tank lands trip he's only lost 1 out of 3 seconds but this still saves some people potentially. Of course Slowing and otherwise impeding the boss could easily be a part of battles as well, a Slowed LOB hits less people with Whirlwind or his stun.

Ofc you can also require debuffing before anything works, and the debuffs can be limited for balance reasons, short duration, constant reapplication, or complicated combinations would all add dynamics to boss battles.Obviously they have to avoid allowing stuff to be too good:

I would say it should just interrupt special attacks if timed right on an unlikely failed save. Or if it does do more, no helpless damage bonus anyway.

[Hobgoblin]

I can recall way back in the game, at least the first few months after launch, when red-named were not immune to a lot of what they are now. Stunning Blow, Trip, Phantasmal Killer... all worked. And it was silly.


While I do wish that more debuffs worked nowadays, I am glad those days ended, and boss fights became more worthy of the name.

vorpal. on crit. sorjeck.


nough said


mostly glad it got changed

[Memnir]

vorpal. on crit. sorjeck.


nough said


mostly glad it got changed

Yeah, that was one I didn't mention - but was thinking of when I called it silly.

Back in those fabled days of yore, we had a player on Xoriat with a Vorpal scimitar. I still remember running with him, and his French Canadian accent over the headphones half-yelling to let him go first! "Just Haste me, I go first, and all will be dead soon! Just haste and I go!"


This was also back in the day when you could Vorpal Beholders. Yeah, them's were the (silly) days.

[kemetka]

There are some effects that bosses are immune to that should effect them (slow for instance) there are also probably some bosses immune to things like Poison that they shouldn't be. But why should Instakills work on a boss?

If you could instakill a boss you would trivialize the encounter all you would need is one Wizard to go full ****** on his DC's and make sure he can kill the boss in one cast (or maybe one cast +debuffs) this would make the encounter boring and meaningless.

Yes bosses should be immune to all save or die effects and should be immune to most save or suck effects (suck = can not act, a save or suck effect like slow that still allows action is something that should effect most bosses).

You. An slow bosses with the right spells

[Gremmlynn]

There are some effects that bosses are immune to that should effect them (slow for instance) there are also probably some bosses immune to things like Poison that they shouldn't be. But why should Instakills work on a boss?

If you could instakill a boss you would trivialize the encounter all you would need is one Wizard to go full ****** on his DC's and make sure he can kill the boss in one cast (or maybe one cast +debuffs) this would make the encounter boring and meaningless.

Yes bosses should be immune to all save or die effects and should be immune to most save or suck effects (suck = can not act, a save or suck effect like slow that still allows action is something that should effect most bosses).

Or just spam until it rolls a 1 regardless of DCs.

[nokowi]

***PLEASE, LET'S KEEP THE CONVERSATION RESPECTFUL AND ENGAGING***

I read a post in the Bodak thread that made me think about this question. How does giving red name mobs immunity to nearly everything contribute to a more engaging game? Doesn't this just feed the DPS train?

The game was worse when red names did not have these immunities.

I wouldn't link this to requiring max DPS. It provides a trade off between insta-kill and DPS.

[redoubt]

***PLEASE, LET'S KEEP THE CONVERSATION RESPECTFUL AND ENGAGING***

I read a post in the Bodak thread that made me think about this question. How does giving red name mobs immunity to nearly everything contribute to a more engaging game? Doesn't this just feed the DPS train?

Insta-kills and complete mez's should be avoided in most circumstances, but many other debuffs would and should be employed (both existing debuffs and ones to come.)

Imagine if you could cast silence (I think there is something in game now that is similar) on a boss and it could not cast spells for a minute and had to do more melee instead. (If it just stood there trying to cast and not fighting that would be horrible, but rather have it switch to melee/ranged.)

What if fatigue/exhaustion, when successfully applied could prevent sorjek from knocking people off the platform? He could still fight and do regular damage, but he doesn't knock you off as long as the debuff is applied.

Sure, debuffing the bosses save and SR before landing the more effective spells may also be required.

The game now is all about dps because none of the rest matters in the end fight and if you have enough dps for the end fight, the mobs on the way can be solved with dps as well. I'd love to see some options where smart application of other abilities was as effective as straight up dps.

[nokowi]

Insta-kills and complete mez's should be avoided in most circumstances, but many other debuffs would and should be employed (both existing debuffs and ones to come.)

Imagine if you could cast silence (I think there is something in game now that is similar) on a boss and it could not cast spells for a minute and had to do more melee instead. (If it just stood there trying to cast and not fighting that would be horrible, but rather have it switch to melee/ranged.)

What if fatigue/exhaustion, when successfully applied could prevent sorjek from knocking people off the platform? He could still fight and do regular damage, but he doesn't knock you off as long as the debuff is applied.

Sure, debuffing the bosses save and SR before landing the more effective spells may also be required.

The game now is all about dps because none of the rest matters in the end fight and if you have enough dps for the end fight, the mobs on the way can be solved with dps as well. I'd love to see some options where smart application of other abilities was as effective as straight up dps.

The problem is that players quickly find the best combo, and bosses provide even less challenge than they do now.

Bosses can't have interesting abilities until player saves are more uniform. (good vs bad saves within 10-15 of each other). Right now a good (maximized) save can be 100 and a bad (maximized) save can be 50.

[Riddle_of_Steel]

I remember a PnP game one, we had a huge build up to a dragon encounter... Big Big beast and one we fully expected to loose a couple of characters to. My cleric and a mage teamed up with a "hope for the best" attack where I dumped Harm and hoped to beat his SR (we gave it about a 33% chance) and he would dropped magic missile as each missile got a SR check.

I got through and dropped it to 2 HP instantly and then the Mage's first missile got through on his check and BOOM a 20 and big bad dragon dead in about 5 seconds.

Was it awesome ... well kinda .. but that feeling of that was awesome quickly drained away and in it's wake was disappointment. hell we even asked if we could fight it again (consciously choosing not to use Harm) just to see if we were up to the task. Happy to note we had the **** kicked out of us, my Cleric ended up pretty much naked but we scraped through.

DDO without some boss immunities would be the same, hell it was the same. Kinda cool at first but quickly turning into a big pile of"meh". Now if they were to tweak it a little so that tactics could be used (probably not insta kills though) then I would be OK with that.

Say, for example, that you could trip bosses but they had to fail 4 checks in 5 or 6 seconds, same for CC and once they fell to it it lasted a lot less time. Say 10 seconds max. You would then have to have a party that really coordinated well that could take the boss down without too much damage but then if they are playing together and working together well isn't that a good reward for successful group tactics?

I don't mind the idea of some tactics and CC working in even more limited fashions against bosses but the real bugger is when they have blanket immunity and resistances to everything DPS wise. As a caster I almost always just pike the fight and buff and scroll / spot heal if I can because it's a complete waste of SP. At least if the group seems to have it in hand. Occasionally I have had an intim specced caster and ran in there and pulled agro off the tanks (generally sacrificing myself) so they could get a heal in. As a 10 - 45 second distraction I am generally sill more useful