Boarrior Could Use a Nerf

[The Curator]

The first few times it's like, wow this boss is hard. Clearly we can't win because we aren't good enough yet.

Eventually it gets to, this boss is so hard that we really are only going to win if we have the right team composition.

Then it goes to, alright we need the right team composition and every member must know the strategies to fighting him.

Finally it ends up at, doesn't matter how good we are if the game decides we lose well then we just lose.

 

 

It really doesn't feel like the Boarrior is a real boss fight once you've realized that the "challenge" comes from him massively spamming his half-health hitting long range instant smash once he's reached low health. Have gone into the fight with multiple good teams and we lost just, because. There's no substance to countering the Boarrior or improving your survivability and there's no substance to why a team loses or succeeds. Outside of learning the basic strategies of spreading out, luring him away from dead players and letting him sleep on the heal that's it. That isn't enough to win yet there's nothing else that you can do to actually win, the boost which allows you to win is just random chance.

Does he randomly swap targets to your Healer or Wilson, does he randomly swap targets to somebody attempting a revive, does he land an attack off before he falls asleep, does he walk off of the heal before it puts him to sleep, does he camp on some corpse, does he precisely strike when two players randomly are close to eachother and gets the double hit, does he target the DPS instead of the tank when they're both the last ones left alive.

 

In the end it just feels extremely arbitrary. A normal good team isn't actually enough to kill him consistently, you need a good team in order to roll the dice to have a chance of winning.

 

 

[Ashkain]

I have to agree. The past few matches I've had, even with teams of 5 total people who ain't the best we always fail at the Boarrior, especially directly after he summons his wave of pit pigs. His long range smash attack just devastates entire teams and requires strong coordination which is near impossible to do mid fight via text.

The difficulty spike of the battle is massive compared to anything else in the arena and I can understand that. He's the final boss, hes supposed to be hard. But It feels unfair how is smash attack is near impossible to dodge in regular conditions, making it unable to kite them effectively giving next to no room for error.

I'd rather they make the attack have a much smaller radius since it feels like he can hit things well out of the reach, especially to the sides. I don't care if they have to buff every other aspect of the Forge ^{(which, tbh, would be nice. difficulty options pls)}if they have to nerf the Boarrior, Its bumming me out consistently getting that far.

But hey, it's possible this is just a hurdle we'll all find out how to overcome soon. It's definitely possible just... not as possible when playing with randoms which I can only do (without posting in LFG forums) until everyone adapts to it. Which I hope we can do.

[RancorSnp]

Personally I would say Boarrior is not a challenge at all as long as he is the only enemy on the field. IF your runner disables him long enough for the rest of the party to kill all remaining monsters (and then does this again when he summons banners) you shouldn't have any problems.

Your tanks should prevent him from attacking anyone else, but in case you are having issue with having him focused on targeting the tank, make Woodie a tank (or a runner). Throwing Lucy will force him to aggro on Woodie unless something with even more aggro priority appears, which is rare. 

Remember to let him sleep at every single heal too.

The only randomness I can think of in this fight is which legendary drops, but it's not really a big change no matter which one it is. 

[PicklePet]

I feel like Boarriar is decently challenging. I've gotten to the point with my group where we can reliably win about half the time now, we're improving. There are times when he doesn't fall asleep even though he's standing right in the middle of the heal, or one time he woke up even though I did not see anybody even make a move, but overall it's been doable for us. But if the challenge were knocked down, it would be too much of a cake walk. It would take out the excitement of winning for me and just make the forge a grind for skins, which would be terribly sad.

Also the bonus for winning is only 500XP - not sure if this is because the boss is so hard that they don't want to make it that big of a difference if you lose? It's possible.

A team should also space out abilities to try to stunlock him or interrupt his abilities.

A team should also take note of who has his aggro once the heal is up, and whoever has the aggro has to figure out if they can get him into the circle before he attacks, and if not, which angle they have to stand at so he doesn't groundpound the entire healing area. In a snap decision. It's not easy, but it is a skill you can gain.

If you have a Woodie, he can pretty much always get aggro - Lucy axes seem to have the strongest aggro priority.

 

Edit: But my team coordinates through voice chat. That is one thing that I will say is probably necessary if you want the best chance of winning against Boarriar consistently, and just the Forge in general.

[JohnWatson]

Quote

multiple good teams

Quote

and we lost 

They were not good teams.

[Ashkain]

The main issue I have with the Boarrior (well, this more attune to the entirety of the forge) is that his difficultly curve compared to the rest of the fight. The arena ramps up in difficulty somewhat well then it shoots up so much the difficulty spike grows an overhang. It just feels... off? I'd rather have a tough fire throughout the arena then an easy one with a tricky boss.

Plus the whole fact communication can help a metric tonne and its hard to do with random people through chat mid getting-your-face-smashed-in. The event prides itself in being able to hop in with some randos via quick play and have fun. (which despite loosing more then winning, I still do!)

[JohnWatson]

the main issue with the boarrior is that you need coordination and minimal mistakes to win instead of complaining about 'random chance' or 'bad seed' when forge has zero randomness besides some item drops

[Maslak]

He does 4 kinds of attack, and they appear gradually based on his hp.

1 hour ago, The Curator said:

spamming his half-health hitting long range instant smash once he's reached low health.

This one is a second one, actually. So it's not low hp.
Tanks can't avoid that, but hey, they are tanks. Players using darts and staves can totally avoid it. Just don't stand in one line with Boarrior and tank. So when he hits tank, extended attack's range will miss you. Unless you're tank, then it's your job to take it on your chest.

1 hour ago, The Curator said:

Have gone into the fight with multiple good teams and we lost just, because.

There's always some reason. Lag, incompetence, bad communication or bad timing. Most of these are common for new players. That's fine, everyone is supposed to learn through progression and listening to more experienced players.

1 hour ago, The Curator said:

luring him away from dead players

Why not cast sleeping/healing *on* dead player? Doesn't matter if Boarrior's right to dead player if he's sleeping.

1 hour ago, The Curator said:

does he camp on some corpse

Monsters never target dead players. When they kill player, they go to next, closest one (or the one that started attacking).

1 hour ago, The Curator said:

Does he randomly swap targets to your Healer or Wilson, does he randomly swap targets to somebody attempting a revive

As any other enemy, he has chance to switch aggro when there is some other player closer to them. Or when they get hit by other player. He won't switch aggro to dart/staff user if tank keeps smacking him.

1 hour ago, The Curator said:

does he land an attack off before he falls asleep

Bad timing. When healer starts casting animation all attack has to stop. Either incompetent player or lag. Sometimes Boarrior can get one attack before falling asleep, simply because there's a delay between firing dart/staff and projectile hitting him. That's fine, just move away when healing is being cast or take that one hit. If you die it's not a *big* problem, you can get revived next to sleeping boss.

1 hour ago, The Curator said:

does he precisely strike when two players randomly are close to eachother and gets the double hit,

It's team's problem if two players are *randomly* close together. Well, okay, not really. Still, if tanks keep him busy and ranged fighters are not in the line of tank-targeting attack then they won't get hit.

Any enemy's dps can be negated by healing as long as you fight a single one. The only exception is Boarrior - that's why you have to let him rest. Not a big philosophy.

I'm sorry but you lack knowledge on this matter yet you act like you know everything and know best. Classic, tbh.

[Ashkain]

Also I noticed, If you have a Woodie during his smashing phase, for lords sake don't try and be a ranged DPS with Lucy since it draws aggro towards Woodie and can mess up the tanking set up with a stray smash towards Woodie's direction, potentially hitting a ranged squishy DPS. Woodie either needs to get stuck in or let the other tank(s) do their job.

[Maslak]

What do you mean by smashing phase? There's attack "circulation", he does them in some kind of order.
If there are more enemies than just Boarrior - Woodie should pick up feathered hat and kite Boarrior around. If there's just boss alone - Woodie should switch to some helmet and tanking armor, if possible. It's all about changing roles if you're playing Woodie, he excels both at tanking and running around.

[Ashkain]

3 minutes ago, Maslak said:

What do you mean by smashing phase? There's attack "circulation", he does them in some kind of order.
If there are more enemies than just Boarrior - Woodie should pick up feathered hat and kite Boarrior around. If there's just boss alone - Woodie should switch to some helmet and tanking armor, if possible. It's all about changing roles if you're playing Woodie, he excels both at tanking and running around.

I meant during any time he can do the smash attack. Yeah Woodie should bounce back to decoy as soon as the pit pig phase starts. In my experience, that's the phase most people have troubles with. Panicking and getting overwhelmed

[CarlZalph]

If you play as Woodie with all the movement speed stuff, you can keep the boss on you permanently.

Just throw Lucy at him when he even thinks about retargetting, and with all the movement speed items you can always outrun him and his attacks.

Keep your allies near the center of the arena as you make your round trips around the border.

[Electroely]

If you have a Woodie in the team I do believe he can throw his axe to stun the boss during the pre-attack animation. Which means he can cancel the attack before it begins (with good enough prediction and timing) and not get hit at all while running.

Despite the game mode being so repetitive (same drops and enemy waves every time) it still requires a good amount of skill to beat.

[Lumina]

It's why it's repetitive, so you can learn stuff. But some attacks of the last boss could have a better way to be prevented, i think.

[JohnWatson]

9 minutes ago, Lumina said:

It's why it's repetitive, so you can learn stuff. But some attacks of the last boss could have a better way to be prevented, i think.

I think it's because of the lack of variety in character abilities. Maybe give Webber or Wendy a softstun mechanic like Woodie's?

[The Curator]

14 hours ago, JohnWatson said:

the main issue with the boarrior is that you need coordination and minimal mistakes to win instead of complaining about 'random chance' or 'bad seed' when forge has zero randomness besides some item drops

Well I mentioned an array of random elements but you can just ignore them for the sake of pushing your attempt at a point yes.

14 hours ago, JohnWatson said:

They were not good teams.

Actually they were good teams. They followed every classic strategy for fighting the Boarrior which has won games in the past. There was zero difference between the matches that won and failed other then it just didn't work out. Even though the teams were well coordinated and knew what to do each time. It's called random chance.

14 hours ago, Maslak said:

What do you mean by smashing phase?

This says a lot about how much you actually know about the Boarrior. Once he reaches extremely low health he almost exclusively spams his double smash which is the only thing that makes the final unfair is when he is near death he goes into hyper mode and it's just an arbitrary damage mashing contest.

 

14 hours ago, Maslak said:

1 He does 4 kinds of attack, and they appear gradually based on his hp.

2 This one is a second one, actually. So it's not low hp.
Tanks can't avoid that, but hey, they are tanks. Players using darts and staves can totally avoid it. Just don't stand in one line with Boarrior and tank. So when he hits tank, extended attack's range will miss you. Unless you're tank, then it's your job to take it on your chest.

3 There's always some reason. Lag, incompetence, bad communication or bad timing. Most of these are common for new players. That's fine, everyone is supposed to learn through progression and listening to more experienced players.

4 Why not cast sleeping/healing *on* dead player? Doesn't matter if Boarrior's right to dead player if he's sleeping.

5 Monsters never target dead players. When they kill player, they go to next, closest one (or the one that started attacking).

6 As any other enemy, he has chance to switch aggro when there is some other player closer to them. Or when they get hit by other player. He won't switch aggro to dart/staff user if tank keeps smacking him.

7 Bad timing. When healer starts casting animation all attack has to stop. Either incompetent player or lag. Sometimes Boarrior can get one attack before falling asleep, simply because there's a delay between firing dart/staff and projectile hitting him. That's fine, just move away when healing is being cast or take that one hit. If you die it's not a *big* problem, you can get revived next to sleeping boss.

8 It's team's problem if two players are *randomly* close together. Well, okay, not really. Still, if tanks keep him busy and ranged fighters are not in the line of tank-targeting attack then they won't get hit.

9 Any enemy's dps can be negated by healing as long as you fight a single one. The only exception is Boarrior - that's why you have to let him rest. Not a big philosophy.

I'm sorry but you lack knowledge on this matter yet you act like you know everything and know best. Classic, tbh.

1 Yes I know. I happen to have written an extensive guide on The Forge.

2 This is fundamentally wrong, again a testament to your lack of knowledge. The Boarrior randomly will swap his aggravation and target players other then the tanks. Have you even fought the Boarrior before, it is a fundamental element of his AI that he random changes his aggravation to target other players besides the tanks, if he focused on the tanks the whole fight it would be easy as you could just heal them perpetually. But he doesn't, and it is why the team spreading out is important is he could randomly swap targets to any player attacking him so every player must be separated so he can't land any double hits.

3 I have killed the Boarrior twice, have wrote an extensive guide on The Forge, and every team I have reached the Boarrior with has had no strategic incompetencies. Your arrogance mixed with your ignorance, is amazing.

4 Oh really, casting healing on a dead player. It's not as if that's a basic Healer strategy that I mention in my guide. Never knew about it, wonder how I thought to put it in my guide. Except the Boarrior can strike a player from outside the healing field since his main attack has massive range, and he can briefly resist the healing field at random times as well. You just do not know what you are talking about.

5 Monsters never target dead players. That's great.

6 This contradicts your above statement which does not acknowledge that he switches aggravation. If he switches aggravation when the tanks aren't smashing him, then he gets away with it. And since his aggravation switch is instant, you can't predict it. So, random chance, whether this works or not.

7 This is what the team does, but sometimes there is a delay on the Boarriors sleeping. This is also subject to when he last attacked as his attacks make him immune to sleeping as well. So if he attacks while the heal is being cast he can briefly force his way through it, random chance. Once again you do not know what you are talking about.

8 Yes randomly. Believe it or not is it possible in the limited space of the arena for two players to end up being in range of his massive smash AOE at a given time in the chaos when they're running around trying to get revives.

 

9 Oh really, I had no idea. Not as if I wrote a guide or anything.

 

I am not sorry but your blatant ignorance on what you are attempting to talk about has me questioning if you've even fought the Boarrior more then once, as you straight up say things that just are not correct. Like, saying if every body stops attacking he will sleep on the healing field. No, he won't, there is a chance the sleep effect will be delayed even if he is not being attacked. Saying to use the healing field as cover while you revive, that literally doesn't work as he can hit you from a distance and often his damage will out race healing if he's hitting anything other then a Tank. Perhaps some day we will exchange text where you are not foolish, and no I am not humoring this again. Replying to this wall of ignorant narcissism was toxic enough the first time.

 

 

With the rest of these comments again it's highly amusing to have people recommend basic strategies I knew days ago when I wrote about them in my guide to The Forge. Which is why I am here is because I literally know all the strategies, I have fought the Boarrior multiple times with good teams which knew all the strategies; and they win and lose based on absolutely nothing. I've reached the Boarrior now with much better teams then the one that I first won with, still lose. There's no consistency to it. Yes, the hyper-coorindated teams made up of friends who can talk things over or just use voicechat likely win because they can coordinate on the spot when the team is in trouble. I play with randoms, where there is very little coordination beyond knowing the basics to surviving each wave.

[Sicko Hog]

15 minutes ago, The Curator said:

I am not sorry but your blatant ignorance on what you are attempting to talk about has me questioning if you've even fought the Boarrior more then once, as you straight up say things that just are not correct. Like, saying if every body stops attacking he will sleep on the healing field. No, he won't, there is a chance the sleep effect will be delayed even if he is not being attacked. Saying to use the healing field as cover while you revive, that literally doesn't work as he can hit you from a distance and often his damage will out race healing if he's hitting anything other then a Tank. Perhaps some day we will exchange text where you are not foolish, and no I am not humoring this again. Replying to this wall of ignorant narcissism was toxic enough the first time.

How do you manage to be so condescending in every single sentence you say?

I've played the Forge up to the Boarrior probably 6 times with John Watson, winning for most of those, and everything he's saying is 100% true. You're the one being "blatantly ignorant", by believing every single thing you say is fact. 

[Mani E.]

Nah, he's perfectly fine. If people can beat him with 5 to even 4 people, that means Klei did something right.

I've personally teamed with a bunch of randos where we had a Winona tank and a Wilson healer, he's really not hard at all. Really, you just need some good coordination, competence and knowledge of the boss' attack patterns to survive and thrive in the harsh flames of the forge.

Challenging, yes, impossible and nerf worthy? Definitely not! He's definitely more fun than most bosses I've seen in some games.

[The Curator]

13 minutes ago, JellyUltra said:

How do you manage to be so condescending in every single sentence you say?

I've played the Forge up to the Boarrior probably 6 times with John Watson, winning for most of those, and everything he's saying is 100% true. You're the one being "blatantly ignorant", by believing every single thing you say is fact. 

I took classes.

Really, because JohnWatson is saying very little other then his typical snarky flame spitting. Virtually all he did say is "You're wrong". That happens to not be an argument.

Based on what you are saying though I assume you're not playing with randoms in which case you might as well be playing a different game entirely.

 

That fact part though is some hilarious hypocrisy. Since, most people in this forum do that. But if you do it when you aren't being agreed with, that's when it's specifically taboo, when one person claiming what they say is fact wants to try to invalidate their opponent who is also claiming what they say is fact.

11 minutes ago, Mani E. said:

Nah, he's perfectly fine. If people can beat him with 5 to even 4 people, that means Klei did something right.

I've personally teamed with a bunch of randos where we had a Winona tank and a Wilson healer, he's really not hard at all. Really, you just need some good coordination, competence and knowledge of the boss' attack patterns to survive and thrive in the harsh flames of the forge.

Challenging, yes, impossible and nerf worthy? Definitely not! He's definitely more fun than most bosses I've seen in some games.

These comments are great. "Did you know: you can win if you're good"

It's literally the topic post, but the opposite. The topic post is, even if you're good you still potentially can lose. These posts are, if you're good you will win. Yes, this fundamental paradox that says nothing.

[Mani E.]

 

8 minutes ago, The Curator said:

These comments are great. "Did you know: you can win if you're good"

It's literally the topic post, but the opposite. The topic post is, even if you're good you still potentially can lose. These posts are, if you're good you will win. Yes, this fundamental paradox that says nothing.

Well, that's because in my experience there's nothing really random about Boarrior. I wouldn't be claiming you needed to be good to beat him if he was some random boss flinging everything at you at once, I've lost about 8 times and won about 3 I guess. Nothing spectacular, but I can tell you for sure the lad just needs coordination. The randomness factor you claim about him shouldn't even be a problem actually, if his attacks were random that wouldn't be much different. He's very telegraphed and what his next move will be is quite obvious after a bit of dying before him. The half health splitting fissure you claim to be so deadly is so easily avoidable that the only reason you should be getting hit by it is simple overextension, lag or if you're a tank and don't have enough space to move around him.

[JohnWatson]

13 minutes ago, The Curator said:

Well I mentioned an array of random elements but you can just ignore them for the sake of pushing your attempt at a point yes.

The entire Forge has absolutely no random elements except for the drops. It's not random chance, your team just made mistakes.

13 minutes ago, The Curator said:

Actually they were good teams. They followed every classic strategy for fighting the Boarrior which has won games in the past. There was zero difference between the matches that won and failed other then it just didn't work out. Even though the teams were well coordinated and knew what to do each time. It's called random chance.

Again, not random chance, just incompetence.

13 minutes ago, The Curator said:

I have killed the Boarrior twice, have wrote an extensive guide on The Forge

Boye, I've been no-lifing the Forge and killed him a lot more times with different teams for the past week, along with Maslak who I've played with and won games with suboptimal setups or incomplete player numbers, not to mention severe lag. And we're not even the best players, there's players who have beaten the forge with 0 deaths, 18 minutes, or with 4/6 players. I and a lot of people who have actually experienced the boss fight a lot will know that it isn't completely random, you're using 'random chance' as an excuse for being incompetent and having an equally incompetent team. If your team has absolutely no 'strategic incompetencies', then why do you keep losing with the meta setup meanwhile other teams can consistently win with even worse setups? I guess your team is just 'randomly' being bad at the game, so it's the game's fault for having a dice roll. You're the ignorant one here acting like killing the boss just twice makes you know more than people with significantly more experience and success in actually beating the Forge. What are you going to use an excuse now? Are you going to say that significant experience has no say in the matter because you're smarter than everyone or whatever? Is experience a 'random chance' also? Is having excellent coordination, good decision-making, and proper positioning also based on a dice roll?

It's mind-boggling how you can insult and call other people narcissistic or arrogant.

[Lumina]

I'm sorry but the last boss targeting choice is random. Maybe a needed random, but still random. This part of randomness could make the difference between success and failure, depending if your healer or wilson is often the target for example.