Killing the final boss is by far the most boring part of this wonderful game

[Shryke]

I'm not saying the boss is too hard, I have beaten him all the way through Madness 5 so far, but it's a ridiculous, drag-on snooze-fest of a grind. So much so, that sometimes I just quit the run at the final boss, because I don't want to do it.

Here's the thing, to start with, cut at least half of the boss's hit points. I have NEVER ground the boss down to half health and then not been able to finish him. If you have a deck that can beat him, you have a deck that can beat him. Forcing us to wade through a sea of boring, repetitive, smacky-smack that seems like it just goes on and on and on and on is just not fun.

I enjoy fighting every other boss in the game, so I know that you can design great boss fights! The final boss is not fun. I NEVER look forward to fighting him. Ever. It always feels like a punishment when I get to the end of the game. I don't think that's what you're going for...

I'm seriously asking -- who out there likes the final boss fight as it currently is? Not how many of you can beat him, or can beat him quickly by designing decks that cheese certain mechanics. I'm asking if anyone ENJOYS the fight. All the people I play with hate it, to the point that we usually bail at the end when we're doing multiplayer.

I should mention that this is one of my favorite games. My son and I have put crazy amounts of hours playing this, and we absolutely love everything about the game...except for the final boss.

Thoughts?

[Tsuru]

Once your characters are leveled enough. The game is easy no matter the difficulty. Till you get to about madness 12-16.

So all these cheesy strategies you talk about, dont exist that far up.

The boss is a sponge, yes. But witht he right deck, you can beat him within a couple rounds with the right setups. But as i mentioned before once you get to the higher difficulties, your gonna be thinking outside the box. and it then becomes a grind fest.

But the last boss isnt about beating it to submission. Its about whether you can survive. The boss has a soft enrage by punishing you for playing certain strategies. And thats the point. Its the final boss. Its not meant to be like the rest. Its to put you to the ultimate test and see if all you've done in the game matters.

[xathrax]

How do you do 10k damage in a couple of rounds?

[Shryke]

Yes, Tsuru, I understand everything you just said and I agree. What I'm saying is it isn't fun. It goes on way too long after you know you've won to grind him down.

[Selvon]

Originally posted by Shryke:

Yes, Tsuru, I understand everything you just said and I agree. What I'm saying is it isn't fun. It goes on way too long after you know you've won to grind him down.

But the point is that it punishes decks that have a short "life span", it's one of the only parts of the game that do so, it's fine.

In the current state of the game it normally only takes 3-4 rounds anyway, so it doesn't end up actually mattering, but the idea is great.

[Zeel Ara]

I agree. It's a tedious and gimmicky fight. And because it is so gimmicky you always know the result before the fight starts. It's a deck check and nothing else. You don't make any decisions during the fight itself, since it was decided by the time you clicked the node.

[Tsuru]

Originally posted by Ratley:

I agree. It's a tedious and gimmicky fight. And because it is so gimmicky you always know the result before the fight starts. It's a deck check and nothing else. You don't make any decisions during the fight itself, since it was decided by the time you clicked the node.

Again that only matters for low madness runs.

[TnJ]

Originally posted by xathrax:

How do you do 10k damage in a couple of rounds?

If you don't prevent it by taking a Madness? You can get some 30k stacks of burn bleed or poison. Hell, you can stack crack so high that your warrior is hitting for 2k+ a swing.

[Zeel Ara]

Originally posted by Tsuru:

Originally posted by Ratley:

I agree. It's a tedious and gimmicky fight. And because it is so gimmicky you always know the result before the fight starts. It's a deck check and nothing else. You don't make any decisions during the fight itself, since it was decided by the time you clicked the node.

Again that only matters for low madness runs.

No the exact same applies at max madness. Just because something is true for you does not make it universally so. Clearly you are not as great as you think you are.

[DJDiceZ]

He's not as awful as he was on release, but he's not an amazing fight either still, yes.

As i've said before, he needs less of those "check if you have too much of something, then ded" attacks, and more interesting/threatening ones without being an unfair spongey bursty boss.

I'm not sure i'd agree that it's the health pool of the boss that is a problem. You can beat him in under 15 turns with most decks, even average and sometimes perhaps even a little mediocre decks can. 10~20 turns isn't unreasonable for a final boss. Part of why it's annoying is because there's another boss before who is also spongey if you don't have a certain damage/turn threshold. And on top of that they both have summons that is preferable to kill first.

He's annoying in some ways, but is passable as a final boss. To act like he singlehandedly ruins the game is a bit of a stretch though. Improvements would be welcomed but it's not a gamebreaking issue.

[xathrax]

Originally posted by TnJ:

Originally posted by xathrax:

How do you do 10k damage in a couple of rounds?

If you don't prevent it by taking a Madness? You can get some 30k stacks of burn bleed or poison. Hell, you can stack crack so high that your warrior is hitting for 2k+ a swing.

My question is still - how? :) I know there are cards that double/triple poison, but not sure how you are getting 30k stacks in 2-3 turns. Don't recall anything multiplying crack and burn.

[TnJ]

Originally posted by xathrax:

Originally posted by TnJ:

If you don't prevent it by taking a Madness? You can get some 30k stacks of burn bleed or poison. Hell, you can stack crack so high that your warrior is hitting for 2k+ a swing.

My question is still - how? :) I know there are cards that double/triple poison, but not sure how you are getting 30k stacks in 2-3 turns. Don't recall anything multiplying crack and burn.

There are rings that bleed when you poison and others that poison when you bleed. Apply a lot of poison and bleed with Thuls and Andrin then use the card that turns bleed into poison (it reapplies bleed thanks to the rings) then triple the poison and the bleed a few times per each of them. Your warrior then applies some bleed that also applies poison and you play the card that doubles bleed. Etc, etc.

If you bring Nezgleckt or Malukah you can stack even more poison and bleed and then use your Vile Gas cards that will be hitting for 20-33% of the last bosses hp.

Siege Breaker doubles Crack. Burning Blood can turn your enormous Bleed stack into an enormous Fire Stack.

[kiturak]

So so far I'm at 130 hours of gameplay. I still tend to give up on runs once reaching Act IV. This is for a part because (personal preference) I'm not really interested in the setting/ worldbuilding in that act, but mainly because the boss fight is really anything but motivating. 100% agree with OP, you either have the deck to beat him or you don't, no need to draw it out forever. What use is it to me that it might get much faster/ bearable at high madness levels? That's like ppl telling you to watch that terrible series because it "really gets better with season 5" ;)
The first week I played, after winning the first time, I almost always deliberately gave up/ played needlessly high risk from Act IV on, just to avoid that final battle.
I just play to have fun, and agreed, this fight just isn't, for me or anyone I play it with. Repeating OP's question, is there anyone that actually ENJOYS that fight?
(Also, as a side note - wtf is going on with him casually killing all your pets at some point? Plot wise, makes no sense at all (either that he could or that he would) & is just cruel (lied to my kid who was watching). Is that bc of builds with pets that would somehow break the fight?)

[Xenith_Shadow]

Originally posted by kiturak:

So so far I'm at 130 hours of gameplay. I still tend to give up on runs once reaching Act IV. This is for a part because (personal preference) I'm not really interested in the setting/ worldbuilding in that act, but mainly because the boss fight is really anything but motivating. 100% agree with OP, you either have the deck to beat him or you don't, no need to draw it out forever. What use is it to me that it might get much faster/ bearable at high madness levels? That's like ppl telling you to watch that terrible series because it "really gets better with season 5" ;)
The first week I played, after winning the first time, I almost always deliberately gave up/ played needlessly high risk from Act IV on, just to avoid that final battle.
I just play to have fun, and agreed, this fight just isn't, for me or anyone I play it with. Repeating OP's question, is there anyone that actually ENJOYS that fight?
(Also, as a side note - wtf is going on with him casually killing all your pets at some point? Plot wise, makes no sense at all (either that he could or that he would) & is just cruel (lied to my kid who was watching). Is that bc of builds with pets that would somehow break the fight?)

He kill's your pet's cause they would make the 2 fight significantly easier, depending on which pet's and hero's. Grukli with mozzy can last a pretty long time. Asmodeus applying 3 marks and burn every round. The pets are the equivalent of 1-2 energy per turn per character of extra value applied in the fight.
Originally the tombstone would shuffle sads into your deck every turn, which i guess meant twilight slaughter (kills pet's) existed specifically to punish people who had taken advantage of pet's to reach the final boss.

[kiturak]

Originally posted by Xenith_Shadow:

Originally posted by kiturak:

(Also, as a side note - wtf is going on with him casually killing all your pets at some point? Plot wise, makes no sense at all (either that he could or that he would) & is just cruel (lied to my kid who was watching). Is that bc of builds with pets that would somehow break the fight?)

He kill's your pet's cause they would make the 2 fight significantly easier, depending on which pet's and hero's. Grukli with mozzy can last a pretty long time. Asmodeus applying 3 marks and burn every round. The pets are the equivalent of 1-2 energy per turn per character of extra value applied in the fight.
Originally the tombstone would shuffle sads into your deck every turn, which i guess meant twilight slaughter (kills pet's) existed specifically to punish people who had taken advantage of pet's to reach the final boss.

Why introduce them at all, then? And, again, plot-wise, needlessly cruel and doesn't make any sense at all - hard to keep up suspension of disbelief. Why not think of something like the pets sense danger/ freeze in terror & won't enter the room? Or are silenced? "kills all your pets" - seriously. I'm just hoping this is the beta version of it since we're still in early access - same as I expect the finale to gain a little plot, as well.

[TnJ]

Originally posted by kiturak:

Originally posted by Xenith_Shadow:

He kill's your pet's cause they would make the 2 fight significantly easier, depending on which pet's and hero's. Grukli with mozzy can last a pretty long time. Asmodeus applying 3 marks and burn every round. The pets are the equivalent of 1-2 energy per turn per character of extra value applied in the fight.
Originally the tombstone would shuffle sads into your deck every turn, which i guess meant twilight slaughter (kills pet's) existed specifically to punish people who had taken advantage of pet's to reach the final boss.

Why introduce them at all, then? And, again, plot-wise, needlessly cruel and doesn't make any sense at all - hard to keep up suspension of disbelief. Why not think of something like the pets sense danger/ freeze in terror & won't enter the room? Or are silenced? "kills all your pets" - seriously. I'm just hoping this is the beta version of it since we're still in early access - same as I expect the finale to gain a little plot, as well.

Or you can kill the boss fast enough to keep your pets.