Guild Wars 2

Now that the boss health is effectively doubled, I’d like to comment on Anet’s boss fight designs, as they seem to get a bit repetitive.

Almost all world boss monsters in GW2 are quite similar in how they are fought.

1. We do a pre
2. We fight the boss (Normally by just zerg DPS)
3. After certain time, or health threshold (normally @ around 25%), a sub-quest begins. We have to do something different, e.g.. charge vigil megalaser, destroy the portals to the underworld, etc..
4. Repeat 2 and 3 until the boss monster is dead.

Now I haven’t really played other MMORPGs to compare, but this particular set of method seems like it’s becoming a “norm” within GW2, which can be seen even in personal stories. (Like the latest season 2 living story where we had to fight the Shadow of the something?)

Now that the boss health is doubled, the step 2-3 sometimes have to be done several times, which even in a single boss fight becomes pretty boring.

I think Triple Trouble, in this sense, is a “better” boss design, although each individual heads does the same set of method mentioned above, i.e. placing kegs, collecting toxins and such, but it takes a step further than that, so a “single” boss has to be done simultaneously over three different places.

VW and Breach, they are also “better” boss fights than the original world boss fights.

But, Triple Trouble is too difficult, and VW and Breach are endgame. Hopefully in HoT there would be more diverse methods in killing the boss that’s not too hardcore so it can be enjoyed by all PvE community regardless of level and experience.

/comment

I assume you’re commenting on open world bosses, rather than say dungeon and fractal bosses, which do have more variety.

Also the bosses you seem to like the best are ones that were added to the game later…Vine Wrath, Triple Trouble etc.

There’s been an evolution of bosses in this game, and there’s no reason to believe that that evolution won’t continue.

VladeKR.9851:

VW and Breach, they are also “better” boss fights than the original world boss fights.

They’re still rather bad, though.

All boss fights in this game are rather bad.

The first time I did Breach, I couldn’t help but laugh at the boss. I was at the sourthern lane… And I saw the boss doing its point blank AoE attack…

…With no player around him.

The bosses follow a script. They do not react to players – they would do the same attacks, move to the same places and do the same things, no matter if there’s no player around, or if there’s a massive zerg attacking from range, or if everyone is clustered in a melee range around the boss.

Even the level 2 bandits we fight in Queensdale are smarter than that. They’re not standing still shooting in random directions, just in case a player goes within range and happens to be within the path of a shot. No, they reach when we get close, they used to be able to even dodge our attacks, and so on.

I’m sure ArenaNet decided to make the bosses as static as they are for the sake of efficiency. But keeping basically the same design after all those YEARS feels like, well, laziness. They could have made the boss fights smarter, but in the end they all are about DPSing the boss as fast as you can.