Guild Wars 2

Hi!

I tought it would be nice to have a topic about future bosses that may be implemented in the future, or for Arenanet to draw ideas from.
With that said, here are 3 of my ideas for future bosses:

1. Boss that throws out yellow pick-up objects that harm you

Much like the guild bounty boss Big Mayana. He throws out pick-up object that harm you when you go near them (burning, poison, bleed). He does this every now and then, and at every 25% he throws out like 10. The objects stay there until they are picked up and destroyed by the players. Preferably in a closed area to make it intense.

2. Boss with closing walls

As you are killing the boss, walls are closing on you, and will crush you, unless you preform a specific action with teammates or objects (stones). Like standing on pressure plates, or activiating switches at once, or in a (changing) pattern. Boss doesnt care if he’s crushed too, becouse he’s insane, or an ooze.

3. Boss with collapsing floors

Something like the end of the JP (some lab – Vexa or Dexa?, can’t remeber) in Firehearth Rise. At first, you start out on a large amount of space, but as the battle progresses, the floor under you starts to collapse, and you have to go ever nearer to the boss, or face death below. Well not neceserally death, but some good punishment if you fall off. Important here is the have a good indication wich part of the floor is going to disappear.

Well that’s here for starters, if you have any ideas, post it here. Hopefully Anet will also stumple upon this thread.

A lovely idea. Okay, here’s an idea I posted a few months ago:

Make a dungeon with several bosses that you can tackle in any order, and let every boss reward you with a super power that lasts for the duration of the dungeon. Then once you’ve collected them all, you are basically an overpowered superhero that easily wipes the floor with any trash mobs instantly. And then you take on the final boss that is balanced to be tackles with those powers.

Some of these special powers that you earn could be:

• Everyone gains a permanent doppleganger, that uses the same skill bar as you.
• Everyone gains double attack speed and movement speed
• Everyone receives a new elite that can only be used once, and when all players activate it at the same time, causes massive damage.
• Everyone receives infinite dodges.
• Everyone gains triple jumping height.

After you leave the dungeon, all these effects would of course disappear.
The bosses could then be designed around these new mechanics:

• A boss that requires to player to not touch the floor occasionally, by leaping on to the rafters above the room. Made easier of course with triple jumping height.
• A boss that is extremely fast, made easier if the players have infinite dodges, or have double movement speed.
• A boss that clones himself into many dopplegangers, made easier if the players have dopplegangers as well.

Reminds me of Final Fantasy VIIIs final ‘dungeon’ (wich is a good thing). It could work but it’s surealy hard to implement. I like the idea in general:)

Here’s one new:

Boss with regen stacks
So this boss has 10 stacks of healing on him. At every 3-4 mins of the bossfighst, he consumes all of his stacks, then regains all of his 10 stacks. With every stack consumed he regains 10% of his health.
From here on, I tought of 2 ways (not both at the same time fo course) of how you could remove the stacks:
- Either you could lure him into various traps, that has to be activated by another player (think AC patch 2 or Dredge Fractal)
- Or he could spawn some strong veterans, that drop yellow usable items when killed, wich you would then have to throw at him at a specific time to get some of his stacks off

Of course, this one has to be balanced out so that the best way to kill him is to get the stacks off, and not just DPs to boss directly.

Another simple one:

Boss with rising anger and timer

Thsi boss has some shield stacks on it, say like 50. Every stack is 2% damage reduction of you normal and condition damage. You can get the stacks off by performing a specific action, like knocking/pulling him into something. For every stack lost, he gains an ‘anger’ stack, wich is 2% (or any precent) damage increase.

So the challange here is: find the right balance between him losing his armor stacks do to proper damage to him, and not get him overpowered to 1 hit you. This of course, is only challanging with a timer, say like, you have 10 mins to beat this boss.

Some random elements to his stacks (gaining and getting rid of them) could also work.

Mega ooze boos

So, you have this relativly small ooze in the middle of the room, who is immune to damage. From 5 corners of the room, other oozes are trying to reach the middle ooze. If they rich it, they merge with it, making it stronger and stronger (and larger). The players have to take care of the ‘incoming’ oozes. All oozes vary in stats and in the most effective way in killing them Some have high armor, some are fast, some can be only damaged by the enviroment, etc. So there is like 10 waves of oozes. If too many reach the middle one, the boss may become impossible to handle.

Ps.: This is beginning to be my solo thread:)

Mechanical fire turret boss

Round shaped arena, the boss has 4 streams of burning lava (or something) laying at your feet in all 4 directions (east, wast, north, south). These streams rotate, so you have to jump over them, every time they reach you.

In addition, the boss gains abilities the lower it’s health is, and the rotation gets faster with the % of HP.

So, at 100%:
- Rotating streams + respawning embers
75%:
- Rotating streams + respawning embers + random firestorm falling from the sky
50:
- Rotating streams + respawning embers + random firestorm falling from the sky + knockdown waves when you jump (much like the Molten berserker did in Molten Facility)
25%:
- Rotating streams + respawning embers + random firestorm falling from the sky + knockdown waves when you jump + arc shaped fire blast that covers 25% of the arena

Hot potato boss

In order to damage this boss, you have to use an item (yellow one). This is the only way to damage it. You have to channel some skill up really close to him.
The boss has mobs. Whoever has the item, draws the aggro of the mobs (not the boss).
The item cannot be put down, just passed to other players (like in crab toss). Therefore the most efficient way to kill the boss is to pass the item to eachother at the right time, before you get killed by the mobs.

It’s a trap! Boss

So this one accured to me while I was doing the Cliffside Fractal.

Thsi boss is located in a square arena, then consist of 10×10 smaller squares (or more, or less). All the small squares can be potentially traps. The boss in every 25 seconds highlights 20 squares that are now active traps. The highlight disappears. If you step into a trap it will impale you, causing damage + 2-5 stacks of bleed.
Optional additions for this boss: Dart traps on the wall, a few mobs so you cant just stand in one place, knockback effect for the boss attacks.

Great? I’d say so!

Timed JP boss

Very simple. 20 mins timer limit. A JP. At the end a boss, wich you have to finish off within the time limit. JP people would love it, non JP people still have a mesmer.
JP could be done with ‘checkpoints’.

Dynamic Boss Fight

I want to see a dungeon where the boss keeps appearing. Crashing through walls and whatnot as you go along, keeping you on your toes. I also want to see a boss fight that isn’t contained to one boxed area, but requires you to move along a tunnel or something while you fight.

Your idea somewhat reminds me of the Resident Evil 3 boss monster that was chasing you troughout the wholde game:) Nice idea.

Here’s another simple one in concept altough probably hard to implement:

Reverse turtle boss

You can only hit it from one side at a time. He rotates as he chases you, so some members of the team have to be on the squishy side, some on the ‘aggro’ side. Why reverse? Cause a turtle has it’s ‘armor’ on the back, so the squishy would be his front:)

Why hard to implement? Many attacks go through walls and stuff becouse of their AoE. So it’s hard to decide when the attack actually hits. Maybe this boss should be in SAB. With slingshot only?

Deception boss

Boss turns allies against your team OR boss makes a clone of an ally that has increased stats and attacks you. Sometimes in pug groups, i really just wana kill my teamate…

:) Nice idea.

Here’s another one:

Epic siege boss

You and you’re party are standing on the edge of a fort. A HUGE monster is headed toward the fort. Going near him, he stomps on you, causing instant death. So what can you do? Build and use siege weapons of course!

Build siege weapons WvW style and use your ballistas, catapults, etc. to defeat the boss. In return, it throws minions at the fort, which try to dispatch you and your equipment. Boss can also hurl boulders, summon fire/ice storms etc. (to make you move and think, not just stand behind the catapult).

If you cant bring him down ’til he reaches the fort, he crushes you and your allies.

Here is one somewhat similar:

Bubi.7942:

Your idea somewhat reminds me of the Resident Evil 3 boss monster that was chasing you troughout the wholde game:) Nice idea.

You mean the Nemesis. Yeah, that was a cool boss. Resident Evil 2 also had a similar foe, the T-zombie. It would be cool to have a boss fight that is basically just the boss chasing the players, or the players chasing the boss.

For example, how about a dragon champion that actually moves through the explorable and attacks various settlements? The players fight him while they are chasing him down. Using buckets of water to put out fires, using siege weaponry to defend the town. Maybe springing traps along the way to slow him down. And the event fails if the dragon reaches it’s end goal (maybe some important city). Which then results in a new battle, where players must defend the city and defeat the dragon. Maybe players could also get a bonus chest for each town they successfully managed to defend.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Bubi.7942:

Your idea somewhat reminds me of the Resident Evil 3 boss monster that was chasing you troughout the wholde game:) Nice idea.

You mean the Nemesis. Yeah, that was a cool boss. Resident Evil 2 also had a similar foe, the T-zombie. It would be cool to have a boss fight that is basically just the boss chasing the players, or the players chasing the boss.

Yep. That’s the one:)

Here’s yet another idea:

Boss where bodyparts actually matter

Unlike the Shatterer or Tequatl this boss would have differenct functions (attacks) assigned to it’s bodyparts. For instance: Left leg – stomp attack, right leg- single target powerful attack, chest – body slam, head – fire breath, etc..

You have to defeat ALL of the body parts in order to defeat the boss. When you defeat one, it no longer attacks, the others however get significally stronger (simple solution: they gain 5 “enraged” stacks).

I would like to see a pixelated head of Colin Johanson, as boss of DOOM. <3

Bubi.7942:

You have to defeat ALL of the body parts in order to defeat the boss. When you defeat one, it no longer attacks, the others however get significally stronger (simple solution: they gain 5 “enraged” stacks).

I could see this working for Dragon Bosses in a sort of Shadow of the Colossus way. Players must first do enough damage to the legs of the boss, so it falls to the ground, and only then can they attack his head.

Mostly the above described bosses have been about mechanics, here’s one about the story:

Best buddy boss

Have an NPC accompany you through multiple instances of the living story, that’s really helping you out (aka. not useless in fights). Have some nice cutscenes with him/her. Have some fun moments with him/her (drinking together etc.). Make the player generally really like the charcter.

And…

have the NPC betray the player and then have them clash in an epic fight.
NPC survives? All the better, he can return some other time to redeem him/herself, or to cause you trouble once again.

Now THAT is a villain.

Edit: Whenever I write an idea, a similar one occurs to me from another game. A great example for the above posted idea would be Jowy, from Suikoden II. If that rings a bell for anyone:)

Simon says boss

A boss with lots of AoEs so you have to pay attention to them and dodge right. In the meantime patterns show up in one specific (or even more) spots. You have to do those patterns or suffer for failing (HP halved or smtg). How to do patterns? Stand on pressure plates, or Tears of Itacol way.
Memory, perception, and gaming skill test. All in one.

Dehydration dungeon and boss

At the start of the dungeon you get a debuff – like electrolyze (at Subdirector NULL) or at the latest Southsun survival (dehydrated in this case). This debuff stacks intensity with every minute spent. Some mobs would drop stuff, that takes some, or all of your stacks away. Then they start restacking. So you have to search and kill these mobs, or find items, safepoints (so you can go afk a bit) to survive.

The boss is basicly the same, only here, the debuff stacks more intansly. Like every 30 secs a stack. So you have to keep an eye out for the mobs it spawns, and slay them to et your stakcs off. It could be so, that a mob only drops 1 item, so only 1 player may use it at the time -means you have to cooperate and decide who gets the next one.

Sounds great, yes?

HP Reducing boss

This boss wouldn’t be capable of immediately melting down a glass cannon, dealing low damage in general, but compensates for it with an attack that inflicts a debuff that lowers a player’s max health, and maybe even an AoE attack that inflicts the same debuff on multiple players. Obviously the AoE attack wouldn’t be spammed, and should be a rare attack. So this boss punishes all attempts at tanking. Also, the debuff cannot be removed until the player dies or the boss is defeated. Obviously, you can dodge the attacks that inflicts the debuff, though I’d like to see them unblockable.

Additionally, this boss could summon weak minions that dies in few hits. However, the boss can put a lot of minions on the boss arena, so the DPS adds up. Also deadly with the boss’ special debuff

Stealth-ish boss

(This one is a little complicated (perhaps too complicated), please bear with me)

This boss is normally invulnerable against damage (or at least has a massive toughness stat normally), so the player party has to activate some kind of a mechanic to make him more vulnerable to damage. The player party has to cover the area in darkness somehow either via magic or by turning off some sort of switch (depending on if you want this to be magical or scientific in nature). [This will be a channel. I will explain why in a moment)

When that’s done, each player will get the buff “Undetected”, which basically means “The Boss cannot see you”. The boss will remove the darkness somehow, and proceed to try and look for the player party. There will be weapons or items throughout the boss area that can be used to make the boss vulnerable to damage, but they can only be activated by a player with the buff “Undetected”. Once a weapon is used, the entire party will lose that buff and the weapon can’t be used anymore in later phases (but can be reused if the party wipes). The player party must sneak around and stay out of the boss’ sight and attempt to activate one of the weapons.

The boss will regain his armor after he loses a certain amount of health. That’s the moment where you cover the area in darkness once again. This time around, he will summon sentry drones/minions to fly around and try and detect the player party. He will summon a few more if he loses more health. Also, if a player starts channeling the darkness switch on the final phase, when he has let’s say 20% health left, he will immediately cease all attacks on the player party and rush straight for that player in an attempt to interrupt him. On the final phase, a part of the player party should move the boss as far away from the switch as possible so that he doesn’t interrupt the player.

As for his skills, I imagine he should have AoE attacks that can suck in nearby players if they’re close to them, including those with the “Undetected” buff. It also interrupts.

The darkness switch will return after the boss’ armor is back up, or after a short time if the entire player party loses the “Undetected” buff.

Those are both great:)

Power rangers-like boss

Perhaps somekind of a golem. Like a big one. He has some smaller golems (but still though) to help him. Whenever you defeat a smaller golem, the main golem absorbs the pieces thus becoming stronger and larger, gaining new abilities. With every golem absorbed, he is more and more powerful.
Naturally you have to kill ht e main golem last. He is by this time mecha-like with laser beams, rockest, hadoukens and such.
I can even imagine some cheesy powerrangers-like music in the background.
For a goofy asura, or SAB maybe:)

What GW2 needs are more epic bosses.

Hydra Queen “Morganna”
A hugescaled 9 headed Hydra who will get for every slain head 2 new and is one of the “Gods” for the Krait that live in the Maguuma Djungle.

Stage 1: Slay off nearly all Heads-Phase.
The party has to find out how they can beat off the heads of the hydra Queen faster, than new ones will regrow twice as fast.
The Hydra Queen will become more powerful so more heads regrow and she es very good in healing herself and can also regenerate over time damage by draining also life from victims with its attacks. Also starting with 9 independent heads she starts with the ability to be able to attack 9 targets at the same time.
3 Heads will stay until Stage 2 begins.

Stage 2: Beat all reinforcements of Kraits while Morgannas starts to transform into her True Form
Alot of various Kraits and alot of new never to be seen before forms iof new evolutions of krait species arrive as reinforcements to aid their god in battle over multiples waves which also try to help in the progress to heal Morganna by being eaten alive by her, what will bring the players back to Stage 1, if they don’t stop Morganna from eating Kraits often enough due to interrupting her when she tries to eat one and slug it down.

Stage 3: Beat the true Form of Morganna.
Morganna ends her transformation and turns into her true form of an super evolved humanoid Krait like species, who begins in that form also to speak in the language of the other races showing them that way a bit more respect, that her enemies have come so far to bring her to have to use her true form against them, while in the previous stages she speaks only in the language of the Krait, that no one understands (unless you are a lore addict to learn what she says by learning the so called “Snake Tongue” in game. Player Characters which did that will understand also the other parts of the battle talks by Morganna and will find out something interesting maybe)
Players which have learned the Snake Tongue, will receive also some defensive powers against certain specific attacks of Morganna and the Kraits in all of her 3 Stages.

Beating her will reward the Player with the Djungle Treaturies of Morganna, 9 different themed treasure chests that will be possible for all players that participated in the battle to be opened once daily.

Thats my vision of an epic multi stage boss that should be really dangerous, large sized at the beginning with reinforcements that also don’t get really treaten by the boss as allies, but more like food (as krait see this more like a gift to be eaten by her god, being chosen by her as a privilege)
This together with a new Boss Achievement for her (and renaming that one of the Hydra Queen, that is no hydra queen at all)

Achievement for Hydra Queen Morganna:

Beat Stage 1 of the Battle in less than 15 Minutes by slaying 6 heads off in a unique way. There would be 9 different ways to slay off one of her heads that could be done by the players.

Option 1: Throw one of the nearby explosive big barrels full of black powder into one of the hydras open mouths and shoot an arrow or a bullet at the barrle, while the head is trying to slug it down.

Option 2: Climb the Hydra from behind and slay off one climbed up head while trying not to fall off

Option 3: Use a Mega Laser Cannon of the Asura to blast one head off

Option 4: Lure the Hydra Queen Morganna to a Rock Trap to let a huge rock fall down onto one of its heads smashing it down

Option 5: Kill a head just by using normal player Attacks beating it to a pulp what will be not as easy as it may sound…

Option 6: Use the Acid Attacks of the Hydra Queen against herself by catching shot Acid Attacks with a mechanism that is protected against acids to turn the collected acid into an Acid Bomb that will be shot against one head via catapult. Players have to collect the acid from the ground carefully, without touching it, as it will massively damage player characters if they touch it.

Option 7: Shoot a huge Arrow through a head and pull down the head then together to the ground by a strong rope that was tied to that arrow to cut off the head, once it got pulled by the players enough to the ground. A kind of tug war will start then, once the players start to pull down the head. If the hydra should win, all players on the rope will be sling away by Morganna and receive fall damage and land also maybe somewhere into acid fields what will lead to deaths

Option 8: Lure the Boss into a poison trap, that will stun the boss for some time to give other players the time to let a guillotine cut of another head from far above the boss

Option 9: Prepare a mighty ritual that will call for a big spirit avatar warrior, that will rush through the hydra queen and slice off one of her heard with its spirit sword.

Great idea right there above me. I’ve been away from the forums, but I would like to continue this thread. Don’t know if the devs are reading it, but reecently I’ve seen a few familiar bosses that are mentioned here… so maybe

The music boss

Basic fight mechanics, a few mobs and such. But! This boss has some instruments lying around it (or you brought a cart of instruments with you). It is extremly vulnerable to music (dredge boss maybe?). So there are few oppurtinities here:

Option1: the boss takes very little damage from normal attacks, but at every 10% HP lost, it gets stunned. This is your chance! Get your instruments and play the tunes that light up (on the wall or anywhere – dwarf inscriptions for all I care). If you play it right: the boss takes massive amounts of damage.

Option2: Lots of AoE, lots of mobs. Boss has a 5 stacks of shield up, all reduce damage by 20%. Music that should be played is constantly lighting up. If someone on your team manages to play 5 notes correctly, 1 stack of the shield disappears for 10 secs. This means some of your party has to try and play, and some have to fight the boss.

Option3: I forgot, but it was cool too.

Defuse that bomb! boss

Location: instanced city scene (like Ebonhawke or DR)

Plot: A notorius criminal has planted bombs all over the city, your goal is to locate them and defuse them. Each bomb is guarded by some elite mobs (silver tier) and you have to solve some mini puzzle for the defusing.

After all the bombs have been defused, the boss fight begins. Simple, normal bossfight, but at times, a nw bomb is planted, and you have to go and defuse it. If any of the bombs explode, the event fails.

Of course the bombs are timed, so you have to split up and search for them the most effective way you can.

Scarlet maybe? She like booms I heard.

I’m not sure if Arenanet has read this forum, but the recent new Fractal (theumanova) had two very similar bosses to those described (see: Boss with collapsing floors and Mega Ooze Boss). So if they have picked up maybe some ideas from here: I’m very happy (and was content with those 2 bosses too).

But to stay on topic, here’s another one, actually this is not a new one, this is an improvement for the Jade Maw as it gets very-very boring after 2-3 times.

Improved Jade Maw

lv 1-10 – Normal usual Jade Maw we all know (exists currently)
lv 10-20 – Normal Jade Maw with agony at the phases (exists currently)
lv 20-30 – Tentacles now infilct agony on hit (new)
lv 30-40 – Tentacles spawn more frequently and at more pre-set (or random might be even better) locations
lv 40-50 – The one-shot killing lazer thingy in now undodgeable
lv 50+ – Emerald colossi now spawn at the 3rd phase

And there. You have an interesting bossfight, that requires good coordination and good teamplay every time!

Charge that magic thingy boss!

So there is this boss, who is invulnerable or takes minimal damage. AoE-s falling all the time (like at Mai Trin), some minions, etc.

There is one (or more) magic thingy (be it a crystal, or orb – hey, everyone loves orbs!) on the boss stage, lying around at the floor. A palyer has to pick it up (gets a new skill set) and start charging it using Skill #1. For the first few seconds the thing doesn’t charge, only after that (like building siege in WvW). If anything hits you, you get interrupted, and have to start over again.

When the thing is charged to 100% you can unleash it and make the boss vulnerable for a period of time.

It would take a total of 25-30 seconds of charging to charge the crystal (not counting the initial time when you don’t charge). The charge doesn’t go to waste if a player doesn’t succeed, it stays charged (example: a player manages to charge it only to 7%, then passes it on the another player, who then charges it by 20% more, then downs, thus dropping it – when the 3rd player picks it up, it’s already at 27%).The current charge % could be tracked via an event in the top right corner.

Skill ideas for the magic thing:

Skill#1: Charge – explained above
Skill#2: Throw – Pass it on to another player
SKill#3: Force field – AoE Knockback around the caster
Skill #4: Discharge – Massive damage (over 9000) for a single target – uses up 20% of the charge – only works on the boss if it’s 100%

Ideas to spice up this boss:

- Add a spots (or items) that spawn and give you a short period of invulnerabilty (1-2 secs at most)
- Make the magic thingy decrease it’s charge % over time

a simple fight against a flying enemy that actually flies (unable to be damaged by melee) until you do enough ranged damage on it or knock it out of the sky with like baliista or something then when enough damage is dealt it falls out of the sky and its true hp appears (while its flying it cannot be damaged and instead stacks fall off until it runs out and crashes into the area your in) it would do sweeping attacks across the stage and youd have to move from side to side to get into position to fire at i. everytime it falls into the stage portions of the stage start to fall off. if you take too long to defeat this boss the entire area falls apart and you lose the fight.