Currently, Vanaduke is totally tame, outside of a few broken issues, one of which was fixed when they slowed down slag guard movement. His main attack is strong, but too slow to be likely to hit a knight without complications interfering. Slag guards are now too slow to be much of a threat, espescially when players freeze the right one and vana on spawn, alongside stacking blitzes on the left one for a quick kill. Zombies move too slow to be a feasible spawn for such an open-aired boss fight, unless they are made into more of an ever-present force that respawns regularly and is so abundant that it's impossible to run from. Vanaduke's charge becomes more dangerous throughout the stages, sure, but that remains his only viable attack, since his fire-chain attack has a very, very low chance to hit knights, even if they're standing right in front of him. Mask phases can be dangerous if messed up, sure, but it's easy to stand on the right side and throw water at the mask over and over again, while your teammates spam their swords. The only remaining problem is shadow fire, which can spawn in front of your path, so close that you take damage, or directly on you so you get trapped in the fire block. They can also contribute to small difficulties in avoiding them, but they aren't really much of an issue for parties using a shivermist or if you draw all the shadow fire out of bounds/to the top of the stage. Sure, he has gobs of health, but hearts drop like rain in phase five, so it is easily sustained, and earlier phases are easier.
Now, it's clear that there NEEDS to be some sort of change to this fight, since it is simply so incredibly easy. The last boss in a game shouldn't be so easily defeated. So, how do we do this?
Well, there are a few options. One, we can change it almost completely, as was done after beta, OR we can attempt to fix it in it’s current state. I’m going to propose a fix, but if you have ideas for near-complete re-dos, don’t be afraid to post!
1: Fix slag guard spawn locations
Currently slag guards are vulnerable to freezing and/or damage on spawn. I think that OOO should reconsider this and, instead, make them spawn with their backs to vanaduke’s protective fireballs, close enough that knights will not dare to attack them at spawn, for fear of getting burned.
2: Change debris mechanics
I propose that debris be prevented from falling outside the arena of play, and that shadow fire not spawn if a player is in the hitbox of the debris. I also propose that the damage, stun and fire of the debris be re-introduced, and that a new feature, the burning barricade, like other barricades, you know, those spikey things that take two hits to kill, that spawns where debris fall if knights are not hit and no shadow fire spawns. It hurts and players who run into it, similar to shadow fire. It burns up in two seconds; the point is to remove the aspect of probability from when players run over places where shadow fire just spawned (and they can’t see it; debris are a pretty good visual inhibitor), so that they are forced to just avoid the places where debris just fell. Also, debris would be prevented from dropping within one square of pre-existing shadow fire; this is intended to space shadow fire out more and make it harder to clump all the fire towards the top of the stage.
3: Change phase five attack addition
The added attack in phase three is actually worse than vanaduke’s mace slam, and this seems... wrong. If a boss is getting progressively easier, you’re going against one of the oldest traditions in game design; progressive difficulty. This attack is “broken” because it’s damage is essentially random assuming the player is not shielding until the flames pass by (it’s the same for red rovers). I think that it would be nice if you made it so that, instead, three waves of fire (gremlin scorcher style) would move forward, each occupying a set angle (probably about 20 degrees, with ten degree spaces without fire in-between each) so that the waves were widening as they moved away from Vanaduke, the attack ending at the edge of his mace’s range. Also, the waves would move at the same pace as the fire chains currently do.
4: Change spawns
Perhaps two more zombies should be added to phase one, a slag guard to phase three, and a slag guard to phase five? I think that this seems like an okay change, given the way you nerfed slag guards, but it’s not entirely necessary.
5: Change mask phases
It’s too easy to just throw water at the mask from the right side, repeatedly. I think that you guys should give the mask a cooldown every time water is thrown at it (making it impossible to chain-water), as well as have at move to the middle of the stage on spawn (invincible to water), giving a few seconds for bullets to build up, so that it’s harder to just throw water at it at the start and kill it in one go.
6: Make it harder to shivermist
Currently, one can simply sit in place and lay down vanaduke-hazardous bombs. Also, freezing vana disables the shadow fire because he never gets to attack. I think that he should be able to rotate a touch faster in order to turn and face players blitzing from the back, at least allowing him to occasionally pound the floor. I think there should also be some method for bringing an element of skill into shivering, but I don’t really have any ideas for that that don’t involve expanding the area of influence for his fireballs to ridiculous levels.
7: Fireball warning
Currently, it is very difficult to assault vanaduke via sword because the fireballs respawn without any sort of warning. I’d appreciate it if OOO would bother to do this.
8: No trapping vana
Dead players or water (don’t know if water has been fixed yet) shouldn’t be able to trap vana; let him run right over them.
I was inspired to do this after doing a shiverless vanaduke run with a EU friend (I’m west coast and we were on my servers) who was waaaaay off their game, while my data rate got fuzzy, repeatedly. We made it through without any CE revs or real issues, and I was a bit disturbed that I could do this after not fighting vana more than twice a week for the past month.
Anyone care?
6: What if Vana went crazy with his mace and/or his fire attack whenever he was frozen? That way, players would still have to dodge stuff even when he's frozen.
7: Maybe respawning fireballs could reappear as harmless ghost balls (similar to the lost souls from the Soldier's Graveyard, except they don't explode), then catch on fire a second or two later. This would warn players of an imminent fireball respawn without using another timer.
Well anyway, these ideas all sound good to me. I'd also like to suggest preventing shadow fire from spawning right in front of the entrance gate. The gate blocks shadow fire in front of it from view, making it impossible (or at least very hard) to know it's there without running into it.