about bosses: part 1 - Mother Treek

[HondorDrache]

The boss stands atop the arena for the entire fight, in the center.

Throughout all phases, he has two reactions to the player:
- If the player stands next to Mother Treek, he strikes with his hand to the left or right, depending on the player's position.
- If the player moves away, Mother Treek will strike with spikes from under the player's feet in a small radius.

The hand strike is very easy to avoid by being vertically below him in front of his face. We'll talk about the spikes later.

What the boss does by phase:

1. Phase 1:
   - The boss attacks with spikes from the ground in three different patterns:
     1. A "pizza" attack, similar to Mithrix from RoR2.
     2. An attack with vertical rows.
     3. Spikes spread from the boss to the edges of the arena.

2. Interphase:
   - Mob spawn. In all interphases, the mobs become stronger. The interphase ends after a certain number of mobs are killed.

3. Phase 2:
   - At the start, the boss throws  pinecone bombs.
   - Does the same as in Phase 1.

4. Interphase.

5. Phase 3:
   - At the start, the boss throws  pinecone bombs.
   - Instead of the second pattern, a circular spike attack.
   - On the third pattern, the spikes converge back to the boss, having reached the edge of the arena.

6. Interphase.

7. Phase 4:
   - Circular and "pizza".
   - Spawns mobs and pinecones.

The problem with this boss is that, regardless of the boss's pattern, the only thing you need to do to avoid any spike attack is to use dodge. Even if the entire arena is in spikes, or spikes are coming out of the player's monitor, attacking him in real life, it doesn't matter - you just press dodge.

I propose to do so all spike attacks, or at least some of them, should not be avoidable by dodge. The boss actively uses pinecones only in the last phase. Mother Treek could throw small pinecones with a shorter explosion timer and a smaller radius throughout the entire fight. This would pair well with his spike attacks. Mother Treek's close combat attack should cover a larger area.

Another problem with Mother Treek and all other bosses is very long animations. For example, after a spike attack, Mother Treek still waves his arms for some time. The close and long-range attack has a very long swing animation.
 

[Sasza22]

Iirc the "pizza" attack gets faster with each phase so it`s harder to dodge. Still this is the first boss so it shouldn`t be super hard. Only thing i`d change is the frequency of attacks. Other rots get a shorter delay between attacks on higher frenzies the boss should benefit from that as well. Maybe she could toss more explosive pinecones to make it harder since she detonates them with the spikes anyway most of the time.

[HondorDrache]

the fact that this is the starting boss doesn't mean anything, she can get these upgrades at later difficulty levels that are no longer the initial stage of the game, on the contrary, it will be good to get a new challenge from the starting boss. The “pizza” attack, even in the last phase, allows you to easily attack the boss, except for the hammer, which is impossible to normally attack with during the pizza.