Siren the most poorly designed boss?

[Snobby Hobo]

We all knew that previously the Siren would, with 75% certainty, take the lowest resist party member. People cheesed this by bringing the Antiquarian and always having her nabbed from your team - which would be of absolutely no harm. This was allegedly later changed.

This boss feels like there is no strategy involved in any way. Cleave bosses are at least countered by riposte, but the Siren has no obvious strategy at all; she's just a complete high- or low roll boss that either wipes your entire team without any effort, or does practically nothing. The boss itself is not dangerous at all and has no offensive attacks to watch out for. The only thing to watch out for her is her "Song of Desire", which steals a party member for 2 turns. This is the bosses gimmick and by far her most dangerous move. If it steals the main damage dealer (like a Helion or Shieldbreaker) you're in a massive lose-lose situation. These champions are placed into the first spot severely limiting your options to stun them (which results in them returning to your side, stunned - if it applies). You will deal significantly reduced damage for 3 turns while taking an immense amount in return, with a priority target you cannot focus. It's like the opponent has suddenly gotten a Skiver with shroud.

On my second playthrough I've lost 2 full parties to this boss, twice in a row for it would steal one of my damage dealers and proceed to beat the ♥♥♥♥ out of my team with them. On my first run it stole my Shieldbreaker, which then proceeded to hit my backline for 41 damage (instantly putting my Plague doctor at death's door). I was forced to stun her and after it wore off she immediately stole her again, proceeding to kill the Plague doctor and putting another ally at death's door while applying blight to all of them. In my second attempt she stole one of my Grave robbers (tried to use a dodge comp), which again I had to stun, and then proceeded to steal another one, leaving my party in complete shackles.

This is genuinely the only boss where I feel there is no strategy involved. It's just "hope she doesn't get the high roll", for her only ability that matters is extremely RNG dependent, and has a disastrous outcome if it lands.

[ZarahNeander]

'most poorly designed boss', that trophy goes to TftS, followed closely by guardian.

The trick with that lady is bringing your worst team, just barely good enough to get the job done. Something like Arb/Mus-Anti-BH-something. Arb is useless in pos1, anti is anti, bh has that 0 dmg soft stun. Dont bring heavy hitters like lep/sbr, or bring it if you like the thrill.

But I agree, siren is too gimmicky for my taste...

[Justice]

Stealing one of your heroes to her side is the thing that makes this boss so interesting.

[gongher]

Well it's not real strategy but she seems to prefer taking heroes with buffs so I like to use my camping skills on someone like the occultist and toss him to her lol. I won't call it poorly designed but the fight's either party wipe or a cakewalk and it can really depend on luck.

[Drokmon]

Do you have a source on Siren's target selection no longer prioritizing your party member with the lowest debuff resist?
At least before that, it was possible to manipulate debuff resist of party members using holy water, forcing the Siren to pull a backline hero into a useless frontline position.

[sasiji]

Both Cove bosses are poorly designed mainly because that dungeon was added kinda later.

-Song of Desire still have priority for lowest debuff resist hero (when she was added song of desire could be resisted by debuffs, right now it is just leftover).
-Her difficulty is directly related if she was able to take dmg dealer hero on her side.
-She is fragile to just simple dmg rush.

Worth mention that .contoll effect (SoD taking hero to enemy side) is one of the most broken effect (and mechanic) in game.
For years it could cause crash if taken hero had quirk-actout.
But now it still can crash on instant effects or
force guard by enemy. UI green dots gets uglier and many workaround dependant class get f uk up.

Crew is almost no better really.
Only boss that can crash in vanilla without reasons.
"Capture not take from party" is broken and unstable. Immobilize is super cheeseable because it get clear by closing game (close by crash mid fight included).

[No One]

Siren cheese is low damage stuns. She steals your dude, you stun him, she is sad.

[De_faulty]

I agree that she’s terribly designed. Not even the swine god or flesh monster thingy gave me genuine hatred and anger towards the game.

It’s even worse when she steals your dps and then summons her guard to protect her. Without your dps, there’s nothing you can do to kill him quickly. Sure, you can stack bleed/blight, but it’ll take at least 3 turns, 2 if you get lucky, to kill the guard. Stun is nice, but again, depends entirely on your rng and will only last 1 turn anyway,

The “you have to bring a weak team” strategy is just plain bad design. Nobody builds their character to be as weak as possible in a game like this. I would be like playing XCOM where you deliberately have characters with terrible guns and armor.

A xounter to her charm attack like how you can knock the cauldron to rescue your character from the witch could’ve been nice. But no, it’s just screw you and screw your team composition.

[RopeDrink]

The trick with that lady is bringing your worst team

The flaw with this logic is that 99% of the dungeon doesn't involve the boss.

Bringing your worst is an imaginary solution to the threat of a hero slapping you upside the head, like a Leper, who will probably spend most of his time spamming Solemnity or eating a stun from your own team while he faffs about with 2-5 SPD.

Meanwhile, you'll find me bringing my best team so that they reach her in pristine condition and then DoT her to death in a few turns, all day, every day. For maximum comfort, just bring a bundle of stun-bots to bop your charmed hero over the head and put them out of action.

[No One]

Just don't bring FLG. Unless you enjoy guaranteed 50-point heals on the boss. (I won anyway, but I had a bad time.)

[RCMidas]

Sheesh No One, was that something like your first couple of runs after release, because that strikes me as the kind of mistake you wouldn't make after, like, 2017?

[No One]

This was somewhat after per-battle limits came in. I wasn't thinking, okay? I used to used hel/pd stuns but I was worried about hel running out of stuns during the fight, so I used a different group...