boss fights feel kinda cheap?

[Ahriman]

I just beat the hive ooze boss and I could barely tell what was even going on. the boss seems to have an unnecessarily large HP pool, some attacks that don't seem to have any animation cue at all like the roar and it spawns minions that keep stunlocking you, it's hard to see where they even are with this weird ass lock on system that keeps switching randomly (i manually lock onto a minion and it switches to someone else while i'm running at it....) and there doesn't seem to be a minimap while fighting for me to see enemy positions quickly on 1 glance. am i the only one who thinks this or am i missing something about the combat?

[Rayne_2007]

Lock on doesnt switch from the enemy I select, unless I have a 'weak spot' targeted. If that gets destroyed, it will lock on to the next/random target... Which could be another enemy entirely, if there are any others present.

I play on full manual control, so that might affect the behavior of auto-targeting. You can also adjust the camera behavior in the settings menu, so you can actually look where you want to.

[Ka-mai19]

Sponginess is definitely a thing. Enemies will have lots of HP and super armor (can't get easily staggered) if you're not on the same level as them or above.

[Leah]

Oh yeah, that boss sucks ass, I almost quit the game because of it. Just felt horrible. As for it changing lock on it can happen if you get hit or attack something that you're not locked on to, but it can be a bit inconsistent.

[RDG]

I play on manual but I never had that experience of switching targets automatically, I either hold L1 to manually target what I want or I tap L1 and that is what makes the switch to the closest target.

[DaciValt]

The ooze boss is awful, dw alot of us hate that boss.

Rinwell's boost is nice and all but at this point you just don't have enough boost gauge to have it up to help stop the sheer about of spam casting going on.

But hey he's weak to fire at least so Shionne and Alphen are super good, make tactical use of Alphens boost attack to help CC when needed.

[Xengre]

The fight isn't so bad if you utilize Rinwell's boost attack to negate their casting as well as Alphen's boost attack to CC the boss, or the mini slimes, and then deal with the mini slimes. Alphen's blazing attacks have very decent AoE range and can deal with the mini slimes very effectively making short work of them when they spawn (or from what I've heard but did not know of or test when I did it as I fought it before seeing someone mention this tip, if you kill all but 1 slime it will not spawn more until all mini slimes are killed).

The Aoe are easy to dodge as Alphen, just run along the outer edge until their casting stops then go to town on them. Your AI may occasionally falter to the slimes so it is ideal to bring some extra orange gels/life bottles to keep them up and going if they do actually die. You can also use the prior realm's accessory (Garnet) which cuts Fire/Water Damage -50%, and you can swap mid battle. You should already have at least two from the prior boss if properly prepared, but it should be obvious with extra resources available and how potent such an accessory is that for future needs four total would be ideal to go ahead and craft (think forward, it can help).

As for the lock on it should not be swapping at all unless you are pressing the lock on button so either you've a bug or you are unconsciously pressing/tapping it.

As for the boss, itself, it is very vulnerable to its core being broken at its mouth and Alphen's boost strike downing it. If you haven't already gotten boost strike related SP skills to increase its frequency I very highly recommend that you do as it is extremely effective in controlling and making boss/gigantic enemies more manageable.

You could also try using elemental defense food to further reduce damage, if you can leave and are really just struggling (I never attempted to leave nor bothered with it but it is a valid tip to stack with these accessories in such boss fights).