[INV] Bosses Feedback

Overall nice thread and i can agree with most of what OP said.

But some changes on from my own experience (solo selffound player but very good geared, mercieless):

Perquil the Lucky:

There is a strategy to dodge his stormcalls but you need a good plan where you walk - always attack him short times after the last storms hit then immediately run again - never cross your own path.
But overall very annoying and time consuming and to high risk (possible shock stacks, run out of space, dead ends...)


Mother of the Hive:

I would not rate her as dangerous because the player has a fair ammount of time to get some range to her and the things she spawns, stay in range and nuke with AoE makes this fight very easy when kiting...but it might take some time.


Rima

You should mention the frostbite curse in combination with her ice rain is super deadly IN ADDITION to her shotgun trap spam making her insane dangerous. To counter the frostbite curse you would need immediately remove curse flasks or very high overcapped cold resists with a saphire flask. but never try to fight here after you managed to escape alive!


Sheaq Maker of Floods

Very depending on the surrounding area - very dangerous in small hallways, never fight in doorways. But in open zones i actually enjoy the fight - the trick is to attack him from the side while he is channeling his fireball stream, he wont change the direction, and then to circle around him until he starts channeling again.


Book Burner

In my opinion this one can be much more dangerous because he also uses Beartraps and he has a far shot mod. The damage can be surprisingly high. But propably still doable with high Armor (dont try it with evasion character the Beartrap will crush you).


Sunburst Queen


After seeing someone get one shot from her i always skip this boss. The Projectile can shotgun for insane burst damage (oh the irony with her name).


Conivaya

Like someone else in the thread said, better skip this one. The RoA can hit from insane distance and it hits very hard. In combination with the shocked ground and the possibility of a very high dmg puncture follow up this boss is a strict NOPE in mercieless.

Adding a few more snapshots. One thing I'm starting to see is that even the descriptions under the bosses aren't enough for you to prepare for what they are about to do.

This is a slight knock against GGG, but the descriptions are extremely vague and don't really add to much strategy...

Balus Stoneskull


Corpsestitch


Granitecrush


Guardian of the Mound


Jikeji


Junglemare


Konu, Maker of Wind

(someone actually ripped to this boss, very dangerous if you have low fire res)

Nighteater


Tailsinger


Thornrunner


Was able to take these shots due to an excellent freeze mine build character.

When posting feedback about these bosses, it would probably be helpful to know what parts of the progression are informing these opinions. I'm 86 having done maps up to 71, and I've found individual bosses vastly different in difficulty depending on where I fought them. I'd imagine this has something to do with Nick saying that they made a handful of different versions of each for different points in the progression, and that some of them aren't tuned properly. For example, I was pretty well off in resistances fighting pre-buff Evocata in normal Sewers, and she was making a mess of me. But once I was in Merciless, she was a joke. The same goes for both of the spiders--EK spider, unmodded, is generally no worse than the 68/69 map boss Hybrid Widow. But I recall them being substantially harder while leveling.


At endgame (2H sword ST Marauder), having encountered most of them in maps, I fight almost all of them. I go back to get fire pots for the RF miscreation and for Curator if he's modded. I can't beat Alpha Paradisae or the Birdman. Had to leave the spectre soul eater monkey once when he occurred in a bad place in the Submerged Passage tileset. I back off the Cyclone and Dual Striker Atziri miscreations when they enrage and spam them down from range, and have never so much as considered attempting Chaska. Never encountered the totemsmith guy, which may be the only reason I'm alive. Lightning Ball devourer is abort at all costs, and in general the other lightning ballers are severely overpowered, the skill just feels bugged. Some of the other rough-but-doables are Shrapnel and RoA pirate, but as long as you take the time to play around their mechanics (kite a lot, don't stand in the fire, etc.) and they aren't severely map modded, they're not terribly risky. Then you have the comic relief ones like Wonderwalker and Balus Stoneskull, who struggle to deal damage at all at endgame.

Really, the only boss I admire and enjoy is Perquil. I think it's the only one that's both well done and properly tuned, at least for 60+ areas. It's like playing Snake, it has a clear and unique mechanic, potential for high burst but only if you really push it and intentionally play sloppy. He isn't overly punitive to melee, he can't offscreen you, he's not overly fast or tanky, and he doesn't shit minions everywhere and punish you for killing them. I still don't think the Invasion concept is a good idea, because these bosses are far ahead of the rest of the difficulty curve in almost all cases, but Perquil at least makes the best argument for it. When the league is done, they should replace the Canyon boss with him.

Granite Crush is INSANE on merc. His AoE is at least 75% of the screen. It's dumb.

Nice thread, however, there is one thing that changes everything that should be mentioned for it to be more relevant:

- if range, melee or summoner.
This parameter needs to be taken in consideration for those fights, because the differences are quite high. There are invaders that will probably just shotgun to death summoners that are not careful enough, there are insane monsters for melee, there are also range very unfriend bosses with soul eaters on them, etc ...

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reboticon wrote:

Granite Crush is INSANE on merc. His AoE is at least 75% of the screen. It's dumb.

Indeed. He is stupid dangerous. And he's FAST, man. Couldn't they make him slower?

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Catchafire2000 wrote:

Adding a few more snapshots. One thing I'm starting to see is that even the descriptions under the bosses aren't enough for you to prepare for what they are about to do.

This is a slight knock against GGG, but the descriptions are extremely vague and don't really add to much strategy...

Was able to take these shots due to an excellent freeze mine build character.

Hey thank you again for your screenshots. I added them. Will also improve some of the comments and added some descriptions to easily identify what boss is what.

No problem. I'll try and add more shots if I can. It makes me feel like some wartime photographer taking pictures in the heat of battle: not recommended! The one theme I'm getting from this thread is that no matter what level you reach, just take extreme care against Invasion bosses or skip altogether. Also, Invasion league has potential but poorly implemented.

One month into the league now and lots of people have left the league for good, because of their "balanced, incredibly fun content" and still no word about this situation from GGG. This makes me sad and worried about the future of this game. :(

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Grigore wrote:

This makes me sad and worried about the future of this game. :(

for me it's about 4-month HC leagues
because many players got sucked into Piña colada league and aren't coming back.

and of course inv bosses are here to stay
they didn't hire new guy to scratch new content