Everything leading up to the Zhaitan fight was fantastic and had me on the edge of my seat. But when we actually got to fight Zhaitan it was incredibly anti-climatic and boring. Getting on the cannons and pressing 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 wasn’t really my hopes for the end game main boss.
How I pictured the fight being:
Lets rewind to when we hit Zhaitan with the mega laser and go from there. Hitting zhaitan with the laser would have made him start to fall from the sky. He would grab onto the side of the ship with his hand and pull himself onto the front of the ship with his head and wings being the only thing above the ship (Crappy halfkitten concept art: http://i.imgur.com/FRHB6.jpg his hands would be holding onto the sides of the ship behind the wing) The players would then have to run up and fight Zhaitan’s tentacle-mouth-head-things. The heads could have some mechanic that makes one grab hold of a party member and deal damage to them and everyone in the party would have to switch targets and hit it to free him. When a head is defeated it could be sucked back into the green thing on Zhaitan’s head that they call come out of and would lower the damage the party is taking as a result… His wings could also shoot projectiles that explode in an AoE. The entire time you’re fighting Zhaitan’s tentacles and the adds he’s spawning the mega laser would be charging up. Once the laser is fully charged it would fire at Zhaitan’s head and knock him off the ship.
He would then enter a flying mode where he flys by the side of the ship (Its random which side he comes by each time and he can come from the back or from the front) firing some undead projectiles at the ship. The players have to then shoot the projectiles with the cannons before the projectiles hit the cannon. If one of the projectiles hit a cannon it would break the cannon and spawn adds. You would then have to protect an engineer from the adds while they fix the cannon. After a certain amount of times he’s flown by (say 3 for example) he will fly up by the ship and the players will have to shoot at his wings to damage him. (insert additional mechanics for this phase here. Also here is some more crappy 5 minute concept art to show what it would be like http://i.imgur.com/hwRMO.jpg ) They’ll be able to do this for a certain amount of time before he flys off and starts shooting projectiles again. After he reaches a certain HP his wings will turn red (like they did in the current version) and he will fall once more.
In a desperate attempt to keep himself from falling to the ground and probably dying he desperatly grabs on to the ship again, but this time he impales himself on the spike on the ship (The same spike thats in the first picture and thats actually on the current model of the ship.) He will then try to use his wings to push himself off the ship. The players then run down his wings and onto his impaled chest. The players then need to attack his wings in an attempt to sever them from his body. His tentacle heads will be attacking the players once more (with new mechanics… I can’t think of any atm but will add some if I think of some) Globs of zhaitan’s blood could attack the players (insert more new mechanics for globs, its late here.) Once all the wings have been severed some of the helicopter-heads seen before in the dungeon will come to pick up the players and another one or two on the top of the ship for the NPCs and the unmanned ship would then fly zhaitan into the building he was clinging to in the current version of the dungeon to kill him.
This is just something I thought up after the fight… I think its decent. But the current version of the fight really needs to be replaced. Its sort of a huge let down… Don’t get me wrong the rest of the dungeon was absolutely amazing. I just think that Zhaitan should be the most interesting and complex fight within the launch phase of the game. (before expansions)
Thanks for reading my thread! I look forward to your feedback and if I’m lucky, a response from Arenanet.