Tree of Savior Forum

Tone down tedious boss fights

Suggestions Game
#1

I’ve noticed that some boss fights take way too long to kill for my enjoyment. They’ve got too might health to kill with a small group, let alone solo.

One such example is the Specter Monarch. Full HP bug aside, the Spectre Monarch is actually very easy if lag permits me. However, its HP is way too much for a level 20 boss that it would take me about 20 minutes to whittle it down to almost 25% HP (and then the bug kicks in and I have to kill it again).

Worse is the fact that it creates a Summon Post which also has a pretty high HP for a target that takes only 1 damage at a time. Sometimes, it even creates a new Summon Post while I’m in the process of destroying the old one, leaving me with no time at all to try to kill the Specter Monarch itself and making the boss fight even more tedious.

I understand that there are some boss fights that can be taken down with a full party, but IMO, this is a particularly bad design overall.

#2

I solo’ed the entire game up to level 45 and so far had no problems. That boss actually went down pretty quick for me.

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#3

I disagree. Boss fights should be difficult. Not the kind where you just run in, hit it for some seconds and it’s dead. You can easily solo that boss if you’re capable, and if you can’t, well… This is an MMO, invite someone to do it with you.

If you’re lagging that bad that it takes you 20 minutes, you really should take advantage of the fact that most likely every single other player playing the game will also be doing that boss.

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#4

@naruku: Tedium does not equal difficulty. Bloated HP pools does not make a boss easier or harder. The Specter Monarch does not have difficult attacks to dodge and is thus an easy boss to fight. Whether it takes a minute or 400 minutes does change a thing about the difficulty of the fight, it just changes how tedious it is. This becomes very apparent later on when the game starts tossing boss fight after boss fight at you.

#5

I’ve killed it with 2 Catar Stroke rofl gg easy

I’m lvl 82 and i’ve solo all the bosses till now and was very very easy

#6

yeah… my attack damages around 50+ when I got into the Monarch boss…and it just get hit by around 15pts…they’re too though

#7

A boss that takes a person one minute and another 20 minutes is not bloated with a massive HP pool. Clearly the difference is in actual playing skill. I did not say or imply that having a large HP pool is the same as difficulty, please don’t assume so.

Dodging attacks is not the only thing affecting how fast your fight goes, but also how you deal damage. I think the issue here is that people are not fully utilizing their damage potentials. Simply basic attacking bosses is going to be slow, no doubt. Equip yourself with better gear, allocate your stats for more damage, but most importantly use your skills, and pop some potions so you can keep using them. Though, I’m also not sure how the class balance is, Personally I’m playing a wizard pumped with int. I hear archers are weak on the damage side, but I wouldn’t know since I don’t play with any. As a wizard I can tell that I do close to no damage with my basic attacks and need to constantly use potions to keep using my skills.

What disappoints me is that so many developers are listening to the whiners, giving them their casual and easy experience, leaving those who love challenge with nothing. If you want a casual, effortless experience there’s countless other games available for you if this one doesn’t provide it. Personally I think it’s already easy, but I’m still low level.

I also believe the game was designed in a way that advices you to group up and play with others. If you really want to solo, go ahead but bosses will go down twice as fast if you bring even one other with you. I believe this is good design, thus my original point. It brings out the fact that it’s an MMO and not a singleplayer RPG.

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#8

Wizards are the most solo friendly class atm.
Archers are having issues with supplies and dps
Warriors are trumped by anything with knockdown (I could have sworn there was a heavy stander skill but i can’t find it now) or restrict attack
Clerks are clerks but if you’re playing a party based class in an mmo it depends on the player meta.

Depending on how you like to play and what you want to build some classes have ridiculously imba charge/channel attacks: Highlander’s Carter Stroke, Psycho’s Psy Press. But in order to make those builds effective you have to plan and play around being extremely fragile and taking big risks. Keep in mind not every player wants to run in face first at a boss to risk a charge attack, just because you’re playing an insane dps wizard doesn’t mean the rest of the classes are balanced that way.

Back on point, the bosses do feel like they have a bit much HP, even as a barb soloing most of the 40~50 content, it’s infuriating to run around in circles until the boss decides to do an animation long enough for me to charge my finisher. Couple that with iffy server lag causing me to get hit by attacks I clearly was no where near and totems that can prevent movement, prevent attack, reduce attack, or knockdown and you can see how some boss fights can drag out.

I think OP is just expressing concerns a lot of non-mages have atm, if you don’t have a reliable huge dmg attack, bosses are going to feel more like a 10 minute dance with 1 minute of interspersed fighting. Lastly, this game seems to be promoting freedom to build and play how you want, forcing us into high dmg, low defense builds in order to be effective on our own seems to run counter to that, though that could just be the class imba we’re trying to work out for them atm.

As a final note, I will say as a melee class restrain attack totems are the absolute worst for me to deal with. Granted if I angle it correctly I can cleave or bash these totems without being in range, but those skills have cooldowns so it should be much faster to auto attack. So the formula becomes: Run up, attack, run away for 5 sec, repeat. The simple solution might be “lute the boss away from them” but things like that again don’t add to the challenge because you’re not doing anything strategy or intensely engaging by luring it away. You simply run to the opposite end of the arena and pray the the boss moves fast enough to get out of range before the next wave of totems is summoned. Things like that are what I believe are causing tedium and frustration.

#9

Except I spent way too many mana potions bringing him down to 50%. I’ve practically minmaxed my archer and kept spamming whatever I could throw at the guy and it took me way too long than I want it to be. Maybe the class balance is a factor here, but the fact remains that certain boss fights like this one are needlessly long for one that is supposed to be easy to deal with.

Also, I’m not exactly whining. I understand the fact that MMOs should also value partying with other people. It’s just that there are also times where you can’t party all the time yet want to finish a couple of quests while waiting for some friends to go online. All I’m asking is that bosses be more balanced and be given a more reasonable amount of HP and Defense for its difficulty so that it won’t take like 40 minutes trying to solo it, yet at the same time not give it only 40 seconds to kill it with a full party in the recommended level.

#10

That got me thinking. How different is this version from the KR one? Are there balance changes that are already done in the KR and are just waiting to be thrown to us? Would be nice to know if there has already been changes. My info is very lacking and I haven’t really tried investigating the balance either. Would be nice to know if it’d be just a waste of time to even do so if there’s a patch coming that would completely negate all of it.

Before anything should be done to the bosses HP we need to come to a conclusion whether it’s classes being unbalanced or not.

Oh, if only I knew Korean.

#11

I think that the boss are easy to kill because their attacks are pretty obvious to follow, but even with that, the boss part is the only part of the game that I feel like I’m playing something. For me, it’s tedious to stay in a map killing a flood of mobs with just one skill attack. I preffer to play boss fight, where I can run around the enemy and attack him with different “strategies”.

So I like the fact that the boss has an “enormous” HP, but it’s sad that some of them are pretty easy once you learn their pattern.

#12

@naruku: Yes, because I’m playing poorly. Clearly I’m just really bad at the game. Clearly I’m not trying all sorts of builds and stat distributions trying to find an optimal one that makes boss fights not take a ridiculous amount of time.

No, I don’t think the difference in playing skill. That highlander that 5shots the boss is not necessarily playing with more or less skill, that highlander is just playing a better class. But sure, let’s just ignore that and then proceed to write off my experience with the game as ‘lack of player skill’ because you have no personal experience with the class.

This is the reality Naruku: My class’s damage output is garbage for at least three circles. This is with a +5 level-relevant bow and a stat spread tailored to damage (I have tried all of a 1:1 STR/Dex, a full strength build, a build that added in a bit of spirit for skill casting, a crit-focused build, and so on). This is not with just a bad spread and weapon, and chugging potions will not save this archetype. My skills only do the damage of around 12 autoattacks or so, and in a fight where I need several hundred, if not a thousand or more, 12 is not a lot, and definitely gives the impression that it is not cost-efficient damage, given how resource-intensive it is.

Lastly, I could accept the game being designed in a way to force you to group up and play with others if this was either side material or if this was endgame content. I cannot accept the main questline being designed in a way to force you to seek out others to fight the uninteresting meat sponges with, especially at level 60. It’s like in Ragnarok Online, all the actual bosses were beatable solo (quite easily in fact) except for the MVPs, which were definitely party-orientated, and that was fine because MVPs were all endgame content.

@teddywuggles: I had a fun encounter with the restrain attack totems yesterday as an archer with kneeling shot. If you’re in kneeling shot and totems spawn around you, not only can you not attack, you can’t get out of kneeling shot to move out of their range. You become functionally incapacitated until the silence wears off, and while I feel like that’s an oversight, god damn is it bad design.

#13

I think boss fights are actually what makes it more enjoyable. Without them, it’d be just grinding or killing tons of mobs (which gets annoying/boring pretty fast if you don’t have many aoes or if they have big cooldowns).
I don’t think that they are that tedious or difficult… And when my SP starts getting low, I wait for boss to prepare a huge attack, then simply rest for it to go back up (because I’m a cheapskate for pots).

Bosses are actually a good way for low levels to understand how their skills work, how to fight with their class, and what skills-combo to use, in my opinion. I only find them annoying when the boss can basically spams a knock down attack~
Although I have a wizard friend, and at lower levels he finds a few bosses quite difficult… Usually bosses who summon a lot of mobs, and quite often (but I suppose his lag is a big part of the difficulty).

To make them more enjoyable, faster, and easier, you need a party. Which isn’t that bad, frankly, because it’s an MMO, where you’re supposed to play with other people. But you can still solo them if you want, although it can be a bit more tedious/challenging.
I think they’re good as they are.