If you could "rebalance" a couple bosses, how would you do it and who would they be?

[Melchiah]

My first thought was Malenia and her Waterflow Dance (and maybe her multiclones jutsu), you could easily lower it's damage by half and people would still die from it, but at least not so fast to feel it's OP.

And then the Elden Beast... allowing us to call Torrent would be enough honestly, this fight sucks because it's a constant chase across the arena (and pretty much a DPS test, what an awful endgame boss).

[Dank Sidious]

Bosses don't need balance everything people are whining about is perfectly beatable using Spirit Summons. The bosses should not be balanced around people who gimp themselves with self imposed challenges but are unable to follow through. No boss in this game needs a nerf.

[Melchiah]

Kanaev の投稿を引用：

Twin Gargoyles is an absolute cancer, as they were not designed to work in tandem. I would remove damage (and stagger) on contact from their poison vomit.

Speaking of things not designed to work in tandem:

• Crucible Knights (Spear and sword).
  
• Misbegotten & Crucible Knight (sword).
  
• Godskin Duo is super chaotic (specially when the fat one starts rolling), but at least you can put their asses to sleep.

I'm pretty sure I'm missing something (someone) in that list, but most of those team fights are so chaotic and out of place they basically force you into calling for help or throwing in your Ditto.

Walrus-Sama の投稿を引用：

Malenia's Waterfowl Dance:
- Increase the startup duration by 1-2 seconds, allowing players to get away or attempt to knock her out of it.
- Reduce damage of first volley (0.75).

I still think cutting her waterflow dance's damage in half is enough, since it would give you enough room to survive the first wave (unless you decided VIG is useless), and react to the second and third that are actually easy to dodge (and you can still panic roll and get killed by it, even with it's damage cut by half)

Walrus-Sama の投稿を引用：

Mohg's 'Nihil, Nihil, Nihil':
- Make it iframe-able.

I'm not sure of this because I'm stupid and did this fight without the purifying crystal tear, but it says it negates "the curse" damage so... maybe that's how you deal with that?

[Sgt. Flaw]

Old Man Gamer (OMG) の投稿を引用：

I would remove Elden Runaway and replace it with a proper phase 2 Radagon.

This

[Julymorning]

I would make Malenia's waterfowl dance traditionally dodgeable.

[grandma_moses]

I copy&pasted this from a thread of mine about three weeks ago, my thoughts on the bosses still stand, although I've softened on a few issues by now:




Hey guys, what a ride it has been. Some of the best hours in my gaming life were had during the last three weeks - also some of the worst, but that's for another topic.

I thought I'd give my my impressions on a few of the bosses I thought were hardest, here goes. Samurai starting class, dual wielded Keen Uchis until the end. Obviously, spoilers ahead.



Malekith, Black Blade: One of the three hardest bosses in the game for me, he punished my agressive build constantly and forced me to play more carefully than I normally would have. Tough, but enjoyable P1. P2 gave me quite a bit of problems, from learning the disc timings to simply tracking his movements throughout the huge chamber we fought in. For the sheer epicness of his P2 I do not think the HP pool is correctly balanced as P2 can be done so ( too ) quickly with the right RNG.

Suggestion: Pretty cool fight, maybe trigger his P2 10% earlier to balance time in both phases.




Radagon: Started out as a weakling in my mind, then started to gain his ground from the moment he 'holies up'. Very different timings to what came before, which makes dodging him a complete joy when you got his timings down - this is the 'dance' style of combat so many DS veterans rave on about and it feels glorious. Maybe my favorite 'human-type' encounter in the game.

Then his P2 arrives and from then on out finishing the beautiful battle against Radagon becomes just a chore. It's not that his P2 is that hard, but it contains the usual pitfalls of a superhuman sized boss in a grotesquely large arena, namely you spending 60% of the fight holding down B to get to the boss.

It's visual presentation is just stunning, tho, and makes up for some problems with the boss design like glowing orbs chasing you in the same yellow hue that spells of his have, which makes it virtually impossible to recognize what he does when the spirit ball is on top of you.

Funnily, it was the boss on NG+2 that gave me by far the most trouble as it is even more of a sponge than it is on NG. So, P2 has the 'Midir problem' in higher NGs, which is when a fight isn't a dance anymore, it's more of an endurance test.

Radagon is brilliant, P2 is visually brilliant but mechanically lacking.

Suggestion: The P2 could do with a bit less HP on higher NG+, but overall it is a fight that's worthy of being the end boss, story-wise. If the brightness of the ball chasing you could get turned down a bit, it would help alleviate some frustrating death experiences.




Malenia: She is Malenia, Blade of Miquella - enough said, but said time and time and time again when you die to her as often as I did, The whole fight to me feels more like a concept drawing than a fully fledged-out fight, but still there's no doubt in my mind that she is the hardest boss around, at least until the DLC arrive.

After learning her moves in P1, I could almost be persuaded to call the fight balanced, it reminds me of the fight with Maria in BB, an aggressive, human foe with incredible damage, but easily staggered and poise-broken. In this sense, she is a tough, but fair boss fight, even with her healing. The healing itself is much less worrysome than some commentators choose to make you believe, if you play P1 in a way that leaves you enough flasks for P2, you will have healed her like 15% of her HP, maximum. Annyoing? Maybe, but not the deal breaker it's sometimes made out to be.

Let's just get to it, Waterfoul Dance. A move comparable to only one move I've seen in my thousands of hours of Souls - the grab from Manus in DS1's Artorias DLC. it is bullcrap, it is not really fun to learn the timing of it, her pathing is counterintuitive during this move and it deals damage, oh boy does it deal damage. What's really horrible about this one is that she can do it in P2 again, and it's even more deadly than in P1 if you aren't ready.

Or she doesn't do it in P2, which makes the whole P2 like 40% easier and not coincidentally was what happened in my first kill. You can dodge it, after like 70 tries I feel confident in saying that I can dodge the Waterfoul Dance completely MOST of the time, but that move is just bull, even if I can dodge it by now. I have seldomed had so little motivation to go back to rekill a boss.

Suggestion: As I said, even if it sounds bonkers, I think her fight and her healing and even her rot in P2 are all fine. The Waterfoul Dance is what makes and breaks this fight, I wouldn't know how to fiddle with such an integral part of a boss. Nerfing it or taking it out is the wrong way to go I feel. But maybe shorten the first hit of the combo so its dodge timing becomes a smidge more lenient? That could be a way to go about it.


Will add more if I feel like it, just written this in the post-game bliss without thinking too much. I hope it provides a fine read for one or two guys out there.

[Dank Sidious]

Walrus-Sama の投稿を引用：

Mohg's 'Nihil, Nihil, Nihil':
- Make it iframe-able.

Crying for nerf for mohg when there's a already a mechanic in the game made to counter this move specifically. This shows that most people whining for nerfs don't even themselves understand what they are asking for and should instead use the options the game provides them to make things easier.

[MingQWERTY]

Malenia:
-Remove her ability to heal through a 100% physical guard shield.
-Lower the damage of her waterfowl dance so it's not an instant death.
-Delay the waterfowl dance startup so melee players can have an opportunity to run further away if too close.

Elden Beast:
-Add torrent
-Maybe reduce the duration of that homing ball of light

Mohg, LoB:
-Give him more resistance to bleed or something. The Lord of Blood is weak to bleed?

Morgott:
-Higher HP.

Radahn:
-Revert the changes made to him except for the hitbox and the 4 gravity meteor.

Beast Clergyman:
-Transform into phase 2 by around 65% hp so the fight with Maliketh is longer.

Godskin Duo:
-Lower the hp or damage
-Stop the respawning bs
-Alternatively just replace the whole damn fight with something else

Astel:
-Make the multiple ground slam aoe more avoidable.

Twin Gargoyles:
-Remove the damage from the poison cloud, it's already giving you the status effect why make it do damage?
-Make the cloud more visible

[Dragonirian]

Roll back the nerfs made to Ragahn, Margit and Malenia.
Buff Radahn's arrow attacks.

[Walrus-Sama]

Pääpeelsepuuppi の投稿を引用：

Walrus-Sama の投稿を引用：

Malenia's Waterfowl Dance:
- Increase the startup duration by 1-2 seconds, allowing players to get away or attempt to knock her out of it.
- Reduce damage of first volley (0.75).

Mohg's 'Nihil, Nihil, Nihil':
- Make it iframe-able.

Crying for nerf for mohg when there's a already a mechanic in the game made to counter this move...

I am aware.

I just think the idea of a move that is 100% unavoidable (you still take a little bit of damage even with the Purifying Crystal Tear applied) is just straight up unfair.

[trash]

• slightly more relaxed spacing between boss attacks across the board would solve a myriad of issues
  
• more intuitive timings on the first swing of attacks, followups are already set up to catch spam rolls so there's no reason for the openers to be so noticeably weird
  
• rebalance bleed so non-bleed options are actually practical
  
• buff heavy armor so its a more compelling choice
  
• differentiate light roll better so its a more compelling choice
  
• lock bloodhound to daggers/claws/fists
  
• nerf the top tier ashes and buff the weaker ones to be more viable
  
• ash overhaul making individual summons better at either dealing damage or taking aggro so you have to make a choice of what you want them to do
  give them notable damage types and add boss resistances to certain ashes forcing you to make a strategic choice about which ash might compliment the fight instead of just throwing the same handful of ashes at every boss because it'll always be 100x more effective than anything else
  give them more defined properties instead of having all the rare ashes just be jack-of-all-trades
  more lattenna, less tiche/knights/mimic
  
• zoom the camera out for fire giant
  
• better hp distributions for 1-healthbar multiphase bosses
  the presentation for horah loux and maliketh suffer from the second phases starting at a health range where they're liable to be melted before you can get invested in the fight
  
• reduce some of the damage and tweak the health in lategame so fights are more involved instead of it either being melt or be melted with not much chance to sink your teeth into the encounter
  
• add torrent to elden beast, adjust beast as needed, jack up radagon and make beast more of a cinematic closer

[Melchiah]

Dragonirian の投稿を引用：

Roll back the nerfs made to Ragahn, Margit and Malenia.
Buff Radahn's arrow attacks.

Excuse me but what exactly was nerfed from Malenia and Margit?.

Also, I don't think buffing Radahn's arrow attacks is a good idea since it would lead to a very short fight (I've been running co-op there with a new character, and most players have between 50% and 80% of their HP taken by a single arrow).

trash の投稿を引用：

• slightly more relaxed spacing between boss attacks across the board would solve a myriad of issues
  
• more intuitive timings on the first swing of attacks, followups are already set up to catch spam rolls so there's no reason for the openers to be so noticeably weird
  
• rebalance bleed so non-bleed options are actually practical
  
• buff heavy armor so its a more compelling choice
  
• differentiate light roll better so its a more compelling choice
  
• lock bloodhound to daggers/claws/fists
  
• nerf the top tier ashes and buff the weaker ones to be more viable
  
• ash overhaul making individual summons better at either dealing damage or taking aggro so you have to make a choice of what you want them to do
  give them notable damage types and add boss resistances to certain ashes forcing you to make a strategic choice about which ash might compliment the fight instead of just throwing the same handful of ashes at every boss because it'll always be 100x more effective than anything else
  give them more defined properties instead of having all the rare ashes just be jack-of-all-trades
  more lattenna, less tiche/knights/mimic
  
• zoom the camera out for fire giant
  
• better hp distributions for 1-healthbar multiphase bosses
  the presentation for horah loux and maliketh suffer from the second phases starting at a health range where they're liable to be melted before you can get invested in the fight
  
• reduce some of the damage and tweak the health in lategame so fights are more involved instead of it either being melt or be melted with not much chance to sink your teeth into the encounter
  
• add torrent to elden beast, adjust beast as needed, jack up radagon and make beast more of a cinematic closer

You do realise this is about bosses specifically right?; I also think limiting bloodhound to small weapons is not a real solution since people are still going to just switch to it and spam, something more realistic like a cooldown between uses would be better (maybe a second).

[Dollmaker]

Dollmaker の投稿を引用：

Maliketh, would make it so the second phase starts at 70% HP instead of 50%

Forgot to add, but i would also increase his hurtbox a bit, im constantly missing attacks on him sometimes cause his hitbox is bigger than his hurtbox.

This is mainly when you are below him, and it can apply to both phases.

[trash]

Melchiah の投稿を引用：

You do realise this is about bosses specifically right?

yeah
the biggest problem with the bosses is how the overall jank balancing makes them a lot less interesting than they could be
you instantly improve a significant chunk of the bosses by cleaning up the game as a whole

[MingQWERTY]

Dollmaker の投稿を引用：

Dollmaker の投稿を引用：

Maliketh, would make it so the second phase starts at 70% HP instead of 50%

Forgot to add, but i would also increase his hurtbox a bit, im constantly missing attacks on him sometimes cause his hitbox is bigger than his hurtbox.

This is mainly when you are below him, and it can apply to both phases.

I think that is just a disadvantage of hitboxes being too good and more of the problem with the terrible camera.

[Melchiah]

trash の投稿を引用：

yeah
the biggest problem with the bosses is how the overall jank balancing makes them a lot less interesting than than they could be
you instantly improve a significant chunk of the bosses by cleaning up the game as a whole

While I agree with things like improving defense on armor types (and compensating for less armor with a light roll), I also think that boat has sailed a long time ago (DS3 to be precise) and we're NEVER getting defense, poise and light roll like in the old days.

I also find weird how we can use Crucible Feather Talisman or Windy Crystal Tear to increase your iFrames, making a mid roll as good as a ninja flip back in the days while increasing the damage you take. Just be aware that these things stack ONLY FOR THE DAMAGE INCREASE, NOT FOR THE iFRAMES!!; that's the closest thing we can get to a "light roll", unless they decide to make it like DS3 where mid and light had the same iFrames (i think), but light traveled farther than mid.