Favorite and least favorite BOSS MECHANICS

Wandering Mist

Sort of a sequel to my previous post regarding pvp mechanics, I'm curious to hear what your favourite and least favourite boss mechanics are. Here are some of mine:

Favourite:
1. In-fight buffs with a sting in the tail. I love mechanics where if you do a certain action you gain a buff during the fight. Even better are buffs that have some sort of downside that you have to manage, for example you deal increased damage but take some kind of guaranteed damage over time.
2. Multiple bosses in a single fight. I love fights that force the raid to split their attention between multiple boss mobs. Even better when those mobs have different mechanics/weaknesses and the order you kill them affects the fight.

Least-Favourite:
1. Fight-specific action buttons. Really dislike fights where I'm given extra buttons to press. Even worse are fights where my entire hotbar is replaced by fight-specific actions.
2. One-shots. This is any mechanic that if done incorrectly instantly kills a player or wipes the raid. To me, failing a single mechanic should make the fight harder, but not out-right impossible. After all nobody can play perfectly 100% of the time and expecting 20-40 people to all play perfectly 100% of the time is ridiculous.

That's it for me, so what are YOUR favorite and least favorite boss mechanics?

DISCLAIMER: I am NOT making this thread as a member of Intrepid Studios and nothing in this thread is meant to provide feedback to the developers. This is purely for fun and an interesting discussion point.

Enigmatic Sage

Predictability with Systemic Mechanics = BORING

Once learned, the challenge diminishes and becomes a chore for farming.

Depraved

i like fights where i have to think fast and press my buttons fast and constantly (and not just one button). i also like it when im challenged to think how to beat the boss using strategy, mana management, etc.

i dont like it when one person can ruin the run for everybody. failing everything because one dude was lagged or couldnt do what he was supposed to do. it makes pugging (or even with guildies) harder and more depressing.

Korela

I don't like boss battles per se. The only thing I need is something with a big AoE to punish the slow zerg near the legendary bosses.

Ludullu

I don't think I've seen bosses with the mechanics I'd like, so I don't currently like bosses. Ashes won't have those mechanics either, so it's all about the pvp for me.

Thecatslock

Things I like in Boss Mechanics: Cool abilities with easy tells like Monster Hunter. Basically making a boss a fun spectacle that's also fair to fight. Bosses that use their environment around them.

Things I dont like: Boss spells blending into their environments making them hard to see the AoE. Enrage timers that insta wipe the party ( If mage fam is the last standing guy and boss is 1% hp but enrages and uses a 1 hit AoE were mage would have won it feels cheap and ruins what could have been a epic scraped by teeth moment.)

Liniker

I like that most content in AoC has open world pvp,

don't like instanced pve only content, best memories I have come from games where a 20 minute boss ended up being hours long fights due to pvp,

also, boss mechanics that target individual/multiple ranged classes and not just AoEs or melees is always good to keep things interesting

Thokan

Fun and engaging PvE is a must, and half of it is fun boss fights!

Fun and diverse mechanics I can think of would include for example:

• The boss enraging when hit with certain types of damage. Like an frost giant boss enraging, gaining damage values, when hit with fire.
• The boss casting an AoE CC which only a select few, gated by item, class or skill, can break
• Boss spawning adds that needs to be burned down. For example they heal the boss, or do lots of damage, or other.
• Multiple bosses you have to control. Either CC them to keep them apart, or fight them in a specific order.
• The boss spawning a huge amount of adds giving the AoErs their time to shine.
• Plague debuffs that players can spread between eachother if not careful or attentive.
• Puzzles!
• Burn times. Sometimes its fun to just have a burn time you need to win before a boss enrages and wipes everyone.
• Buffs and debuffs. Boss gives you a debuff you need to cleanse in a particular way!
• And many, many, more! The key is diversity!

Bad: Just tank and spank, AoEs. Boring. Boooo!

Voxtrium

Going off the idea these are top tier bosses

things I enjoy

- I enjoy raids being wiped due to failing a certain test or mechanics especially in a OW boss area. These enemies should be massive, or extraordinarily devastating, why shouldn't they have an ability that could wipe 20 of us out if it hits or actives?

- I believe each player should be tested for their class mechanics and their ability to work as a team, Clerics shouldn't just be tested on their judgement calls of who/how to heal(team test) but also tested for their specific control of their class (Individual)

- Variability in bosses is key as well. Every boss can have the most awesome art we have ever witnessed, but if they play similarly it won't matter long term. Give is a wide variety of bosses, Tank bosses, Rogue/Assassin style bosses, Summoner bosses, your own classes give the ideas for the bosses, especially considering essence is universal among beings

- Test like a low damage large area of affect DOT AOE combined with a targeted high DPS targeted ability where the combo is specifically high enough to kill any squishy class, are great at giving a chance for utility characters to shine. Additionally within a 40 man raid the 8 man squads that IS plans to balance around would be encouraged to work together since no 1 utility character should be able to cover 40 players.

- Personally I enjoy a bit of chaos, being forced to make decisions on the go is key to preventing easy farming once the boss is learned, like adds that explode on death, or leave a puddle of flame goo for you to step in, changing terrain and variable PVP of course

Things I don't enjoy most of the time

- Puzzles, typically speaking all it does is create a website with the puzzle solution to it. Additionally it gates any players just showing up to the raid season into either looking something up or playing with the seasoned veterans. Before you say they can just figure it out, for any puzzle to be difficult enough to matter it will have to require players to try many times through trial and error to beat. Check out Destiny for example, basically everything is a puzzle boss and basically ever raid is just spearheaded by a veteran player who tells everyone exactly what to do negating 98% of the difficulty of the raid.

- Having debuffs that wipe a raid if players don't take a specific action is a bit over used imo. I can't tell you the number of raids I have done where if you get x debuff then you have to jump in the water, or let it expire and kill you so you stand in a corner away from the team, or you have to stand on a specific spot etc. Don't utilize these as a primary mechanic, it should at best be an addition to a more thought out mechanic.

Moofinity

Favourite mechanics of bosses are player initiated hard modes (Ulduar, WoW comes to mind...) or the dance mechanic of Heigan the Unclean. I like these because generally speaking it would depend on the player and not so much the class, to succeed in these at first.
I also really like the tank swapping mechanic based on debuffs.

Least favourite mechanics of bosses for me would be uninterruptable mechanics or dps races.

What I think would be fun to see, but probably too much of a gimmick, would be a challenge type mechanic, where a boss single's out on nearby player and fights them for x amount of seconds; if the player survives the boss gets intimidated or some negative debuff to itself, but if the player dies, the boss gains a positive buff for itself - for both either permanent buff/debuff or temporary. Probably been done before, but just I haven't encountered it.