The bosses are weak and are amongst the least engaging battles in the game. For Patch 2.5, I strongly urge the developers to consider a modest buff to boss survivability and improved abilities as follows:
Blood Raven
Will now cast single-target Amplify Damage more often on players
In addition to Fire Arrow, will now cast Cold Arrow (N), Ice Arrow (NM), and Immolation Arrow (H)
The Countess
Can now leave chamber she spawned in
Will now cast Fire Wall on players and not just to block entrance to chamber
Increase number of her minions from 6 / 7 / 9 for each difficulty to 8 / 10 / 12
The Smith
Will now always have Extra Fast modifier in addition to Extra Strong (harkens back to the Butcher)
Radament
Increase damage of Poison Breath
Add Horror Mages surrounding him
Will now fire Unholy Bolt projectiles, similar to Greater Mummies
The Summoner
Will now have 75% Magic Resistance
Will now cast Shiver Armor for defense
Will now cast Teleport for mobility
Note he has unused animation where he raises his staff and glows with energy, which was meant as a teleport animation as unused effect is called “summonerteleport”
Guardians Of Mount Arreat
Players will no longer be able to re-roll the random modifers by using a town portal (bound to map seed)
Korlic now uses Leap Attack as an actual attack and not just for mobility
Izual
Increase chill duration of Frost Nova
He will now gain 1 random modifier in Nightmare and 2 in Hell
Andariel
Increase projectile speed of Poison Spray
Make her tankier, increase life by 30%
Duriel
Will now use Charge attack once again, but movement speed will be slower
Fix issue so character no longer gets attacked during loading screen
Travincal Council
Increase damage of their pink lightning melee attacks
Mephisto
Will now cast cold/lightning spells more often and physically attack less often
Flying and not impeded by obstacles. With this change, ensure loot will be dropped to nearest platform area
Diablo
Significantly increase damage of Cold Touch, a melee attack that chills player
Will now cast Bone Prison more often on players trapping victims, but HP of Bone Prison will be nerfed to compensate
Fix diablo on nightmare/hell difficulty red lightning hose not inflicting any damage to characters in melee range
Increase his Magic Resistance in Hell Difficulty from 0% to 33%. His Magic Resistance in Normal and Nightmare Difficulty will remain at 0%
Lister the Tormentor
Will now always have Extra Strong modifier in addition to Spectral Hit
Increase his Magic Resistance in Hell Difficulty from 0% to 33%. His Magic Resistance in Normal and Nightmare Difficulty will remain at 0%
Baal
Will now cast Festering Appendages and Hoarfrost more often
Fix issue of Baal casting only mana burn spell when slowed
Clone will not despawn when player goes to town and not distinguishable by “Demon label" being offset
Increase his Magic Resistance in Hell Difficulty from 0% to 50%. His Magic Resistance in Normal and Nightmare Difficulty will remain at 0%
Will now cast single-target Amplify Damage more often on players
Will now cast Cold Arrow in addition to Fire Arrow
She’s now alone in the burial ground, zombies and skeleton periodically spawn from the nearby tombstones
She also uses immolation arrows
The Smith
Will now have Extra Fast modifier in addition to Extra Strong
Now also summons flying scimitar a
Radament
Increase damage of Poison Breath
Will now fire Unholy Bolt projectiles, similar to Greater Mummies
No more surrounded by a moshpit of undeads, instead the room is filled with sarcophagus that periodically spawn skeletons and putrid zombies
The Summoner
Will now use Teleport for added survivability
Note he has unused animation where he raises his staff and glows with energy, which was meant as a teleport animation as unused effect is called “summonerteleport”
Now has 7 summoners when you arrive, all 7 have the same life and deal damage, but only 1 is the true summoner… like the tombs
Guardians Of Mount Arreat
Korlic gets full benefits of Leap Attack
Talic damage on Whirlwind increased
Madawc now has chance to cast Battle Orders in addition to Shout
Korlic now has frost nova on landing
Talic has Blaze
Madawc has fanatism aura
Izual
Increase damage of Frost Nova
Now uses dragon flight
Andariel
Increase projectile speed of Poison Spray
Make her tankier, increase life by 30%
Now uses poison explosion to benefit from all the adds around her
Duriel
Will now use Charge attack once again
Will be slower but charge more often
Mephisto
Will now cast cold and lightning spells more often and physically attack less often
Flying and not impeded by obstacles. With this change, ensure loot will be dropped to nearest platform area
When half hP, now calls forth all the monsters you have not killed in the area
Diablo
Significantly increase damage of Cold Touch, a melee attack that freezes player
Increase his Magic Resistance in Hell Difficulty from 0% to 33%. His Magic Resistance in Normal and Nightmare Difficulty will remain at 0%
Also, when you seal pop, the monsters that died from it are spawned back around Diablo’s pentagram with extra life and damage
Baal
Will now cast Festering Appendages and Hoarfrost more often
Clone will not despawn when player goes to town and not distinguishable by “Demon label" being offset
Increase his Magic Resistance in Hell Difficulty from 0% to 33%. His Magic Resistance in Normal and Nightmare Difficulty will remain at 0%
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My issue with these is they are too simple. Making them one hitters and meat sponges isn’t that fun to me.
Why not more dynamic. Random ideas would be a Diablo seal can or does periodically refresh causing diablo to take 1/3 less dmg until the new sub boss by the seal is killed and unlocked again. Or blood raven can pop caskets out of the ground similar to mummy boxes and start popping out baddies.
Armourer can stay like you want, that guys was always supposed to make you poop at sound of his voice.
Dunno I dislike harder hitting meat sponges over more dynamic fights. Probably why D4 is trying to add more interesting situations.
Completely agree that bosses and monsters should receive buffs/nerfs along with the players.
Even in games like LoL, the Dragon and Baron were never ignored and this made the game a lot more interesting over time.
For starters I think they should make it so ALL bosses have life regen when the player is out of combat in HELL MODE (the highest difficulty).
And off the top of my casual head:
Andariels poison missile (that small one she shoots) should DEAL DAMAGE, and should be fired more often.
Diablo should bone prison from ALL RANGES and his electric attack shouldn’t bug from close range (right?)
and I have no idea how the boss melee works (crushing blow, deadly strike, etc), but I don’t think the bosses should ignore the rest of their kit in melee range:
Most of this really doesn’t do anything to make the bosses more “engaging” and instead just adds sponge mechanics and encourages MOAR and FASTER dps (see players x online argument vs build diversity decrease). More engaging would require coding different mechanical behavior and/or actual mechanics in dealing with the fight ala mmo style. All most of this stuff does is gate progression behind a stat wall and forces more grinding to get to the end point, where you farm for more and perfect gear.
Stuff like this is better suited to a new difficulty, a mod, or a new uber styled series of fights and pretty much just cancels out most of the balance changes we have been receiving to bring up lesser builds, only to yet stomp them out again. If you really desire more challenge, play Hardcore SSF with lesser used and weaker builds, perhaps not even bring a merc. Maybe even play Offline with difficulty slider to push your skills further.
Remember, stuff like this also affects Hardcore play, which has already a limited player pool (I don’t play it myself), as well as the fact that Diablo 2 is mostly a solo game. Screw over the balance too much in the name of challenge, you screw with solo viability.
Like all the changes actually, except maybe the ancients.
Talic’s WW is already extremely deadly, no need to buff it even higher.
They are kind of already big damage sponges so Battle Orders will make the fight a drag
Instead I recommend fixing the cheese strategies.
3.1. Make their random modifiers bound to the map seed. I.e. one shouldn’t be able to reroll them with a town portal. Want to reroll them? you’ll have to explore the ancient’s way again (speedrunnners will thank for this )
3.2. Increase their awareness so you actually have to fight all 3 at the same time.
3.3. While it’s already quite hard, maybe fix the Talic’s AI not WWing on you when you stand on the very edge. He could WW you on a tangent.
Additional suggestions:
Radament on NM & Hell could also use a couple more ice horror mages alongside him. All cold immune, even on NM - not shattering them.
Izual, Summoner - give them modifiers like other super unique monsters! Also I’d make Summoner immune to magic, for giggles
Fix Baal becoming a dummy when slowed and only casting the mana burning spell.
Significantly increase damage of Cold Touch, a melee attack that freezes player
I respectfully disagree, the proposed changes is simply increasing the effectiveness of their current abilities, movement, resistances, etc. (except adding teleport to Summoner), so the core gameplay of the bosses remains largely unchanged. Requiring these boss changes to be apart of a new difficulty or mod is unwarranted as I’m not proposing drastic changes to the player experience.
We’ve already seen how this scenario plays out when you keep making monsters stronger. 1.10 did it with D2, D3 did it with Monster Power and it’s evolutions. You push players to funnel their build choices into smaller pools of viability. This isn’t making the bosses more engaging, with dynamic mechanics such as phases where certain mechanics need to be followed or you wipe. It’s just a numbers pump mostly to make them stronger by adding more this, more that.
Giving Summoner the ability to teleport, Duriel the ability the charge, Countess the ability to cast Fire Wall on players, having Mephisto flying to prevent killing him with impunity (moat trick) is moving towards engaging boss battles. I purposely avoided changing boss mechanics significantly to not impact the player experience.
But what if altering the mechanic improves the players experience
Like, to be honest, the summoner is the most lacklustre “boss” encounter in the game
He’s super fragile… it’s super boring
But understandably so, he’s a sorcerer
But making him spawn alongside 6 copies of himself would not only keep him thematically fragile but make him tougher . And all this in accordance to the theme of the boss “summoner” and the theme of the content he protects “7 tombs, 1 real, 6 fakes”
So by changing how the boss works you can make it better for the game lore and better for the player at the same time
Those are great suggestions and should be implemented, especially the Summoner being immune to magic!
I agree in principle and think your idea of him spawning with 6 fake copies of himself is a cool idea, but see how hestiate the developers and community are in general to significant changes to design and mechanics. If everyone supports changes like this, then make it so.
While I’m not keen on tele due to melee needing to chase when it’s already less played than casters, I’m talking about all of the MOAR dmg, MOAR healing aspects. Not more engaging when it’s nothing more than a stat wall, forcing a longer encounter and requiring a few more pots.
Here is the problem loop…buff weaker classes, wahh game is boring buff monsters . Wahh game isn’t balanced, buff skills again, wahh game is boring, buff monsters, endless cycle.
I really wish they’d get a teaser up on their direction for the game. It really seems anymore all people keep doing is suggesting wish list changes just for the sake of change.
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