Constructive feedback on CC fight

[chaosmonkey]

First off, I'd like to say that I love this fight so much! The phases, the animations, the attacks, all excellent. I've spent a few hours playing with the boss, and I have a few thoughts on how to tune it to make it feel even better. It seems to me that there's supposed to be a progression of difficult from phase 1 to 2 and 2 to 3, but right now the 1-2 jump is huge, and the 2-3 is actually a decrease in difficulty.

Initial comments are for build 461106.

Phase 1

I think this phase is supposed to be somewhat easy as the feeling of "I did it!... was that it?" right before it reanimates into phase 2 is golden. I feel only minor tweaks are needed. It's a bit of a snooze, and the step in difficulty to phase 2 is quite large. I believe this phase should be tuned to be slightly more difficult. Ideas on how to achieve:

• Allow for fewer attacks while idle (reduce idle time between attacks)
• Reduce the distance of each roll direction to force player to dodge more frequently
• Reduce the cast time of gestalt summon

It's difficult to comment about the ground slam attack here because it's broken in this build, but I'm guessing this is supposed to alternate with the gestalt summon.

Phase 2

This part of the fight actually feels quite good; I don't recommend any changes. The speed matching mechanic going into spin is awesome and maintains the mechanic regardless of which character or speed buffs the player employs

Phase 3

I think this part of the fight needs the most dramatic tuning. After the difficult in phase 2 and the step up from phase 1, it strikes me as odd that this phase feels so much easier than phase 2. I would like to see the pace of this phase and the overall difficulty increase. Here are my ideas:

• If I could choose one tweak, this is it: Remove the leash tied to center of summoned crystals, and allow the boss to summon more crystals when it's far enough away. Because the boss tends to run from the player and at the same time the boss tends to return to the center, "pushing" the boss to the edge allows for a lot of free hits. Sure, the boss will ground slam and push the player away, but after 1 second, the player can resume hitting the boss. The current state of the leash feels very cheesable. Allow the boss to move away from the crystals and then summon more crystals.
• Make the laser hit more than once, and make it dodgeable. This mechanic is completely negated by bone armor right now. Right now, it doesn't appear that there's any indication which laser pattern will be used. On the other hand, maybe this mechanic is just a gear check?
• Due to the leashing mechanic, it seems like laser attack isn't used very much.
• Gestalt summoning fine fine
• ground slam / shard shield feels fine

Even if this changes aren't implemented, I'll still enjoy the boss very much. That said, I would love to see phase 1 be a bit more difficult, and phase 3 being more difficult than phase 2 and losing the leash cheese.

Thanks for reading!

[DaZoul]

I pretty much agree with what you said. However, there is a tell for which laser pattern will be used. The animation has a s l i g h t difference. It raises it's little flaps either a bit to the side, or directly in front of it's milky face.

[chaosmonkey]

2 minutes ago, DaZoul said:

there is a tell for which laser pattern will be used. The animation has a s l i g h t difference. It raises it's little flaps either a bit to the side, or directly in front of it's milky face.

Whaaaaat?? After spending a few hours with the boss I didn't once notice any difference. Admittedly I wasn't looking that closely because bone armor completely trivializes that mechanic. I'm going to have to go check this out after work!

[lakhnish]

1 hour ago, chaosmonkey said:

Whaaaaat?? After spending a few hours with the boss I didn't once notice any difference.

It's very slight. You can also look at the very small white gestalt/flame in the center of the giant flame. It shows when its going round vs its 3 pronged attack I think, but it's hard to tell regardless. 

Would probably be better if it could be distinguished by sound instead.