BOSS VS enemy hero

[Razorflame]

I edited my main post so now it's better to read

@ fatt_shade

I am personally not very fond of boss fights Since it just leaves alot of strat out. If i compare this to AP you needed some items to get a high phys res and/or magic resistance. So your unit adjacent to the boss would survive the damage he would get. While the rest of your army is killing spawns and/or support the unit adjacent to the boss.

[Razorflame]

Originally Posted by ckdamascus

I think it depends. It can be problematic if you are playing in Impossible and you haven't pre-planned a build to beat a boss and relied heavily on Rage Centric strategies as a Viking/Warrior.

A Soothsayer/Mage can also have similar problems if he relies on winning early on without any method of mana regeneration mid battle. Oops.

I had to take fairly severe losses as a mage against the spider boss, even with the 'trolls'. Heck, I almost simply didn't win the battle because I don't do enough damage with units or with spells. (this was a huge concern of mine in Armored Princess that a Mage could never spell nuke a boss effectively as a Warrior using sheer leadership/damage to wipe out a boss in a fraction of the time).

Incidentally, I won by using Polar Bears and Ancient Bears, using the jacket that gave me -15% leadership for bears. Trolls for consistent damage (and ultimately one of the last survivors) Jarls/Maidens for some damage control.

But then again, this only seems to be a 'problem' in Impossible mode so significant pre-planning and game experience is expected.

yes that is also another problem with boss fights that it takes very long to take like 30k HP down. IN ap the bosses came a bit later so u could plan them a bit more carefully. But in WOTN u can't and are forced to use less good units. Which will take quite some time to get him down. The longer a round takes the less chance u have of winning vs a boss

Since u cannot use rage and your mana will deplete eventually unless u have some kind of mana regen. Which isn't always there.

[ckdamascus]

Originally Posted by Razorflame

yes that is also another problem with boss fights that it takes very long to take like 30k HP down. IN ap the bosses came a bit later so u could plan them a bit more carefully. But in WOTN u can't and are forced to use less good units. Which will take quite some time to get him down. The longer a round takes the less chance u have of winning vs a boss

Since u cannot use rage and your mana will deplete eventually unless u have some kind of mana regen. Which isn't always there.

Well, not just later, but you could skip them.

In Armored Princess, I was able to skip Driller until I had a better setup to no-loss him really fast rather than no-lossing him after taking a LONG time.

I think if people accept losses, it doesn't seem so bad.

You are completely right on the general strategy to beat bosses (hitter who can resist retaliation). It is hard to make a challenging single player game that doesn't feel like "bullcrap".

[Razorflame]

I know but that's why I said that by giving heroes some abilities of your own it could be way more interesting than just plain boss fights

[Nirual]

I've never been much of a fan of boss fights for exactly that reason.

On the upside, they provide an unique type of battle which can be interesting, at least the first time. But I've seen enough of that damn spider they keep reusing. At least in AP it was optional (and replenishing your troops afterwards not as painful).
But the rage restriction just feels really arbitrary and doesn't really make the fight more interesting.

WotN excuses not being able to use rage to "make it fairer for the boss" but considering rage abilities are usually better against groups rather than one guy, I really doubt that's actually the problem. Its probably more that the rage abilities just aren't coded to work properly against a boss.
If that is the case, they should've just made the boss immune to rage abilities and allowed the use to thin out the summons, which most bosses have plenty of anyway.

[dainbramage]

In WotN it feels like warriors get kinda shafted against bosses. Not using rage skills I expected having played the prequels, but at least in those warriors had the highest leadership. It really makes focusing on rage skills a bad idea in the first 4 islands because the spider then becomes quite a wall if you don't have frenzy or the +50% crit dam.

EDIT: I do like the wider range of abilities that enemy heroes have in WotN though. Like Guilford having higher magic.

[Fatt_Shade]

@Nirual
It would be nice to make so you cant target bosses with rage skills, but can use them on summons. It`s on wish list i guess.

@dainbramage
This is among turn based strategy also role playing type of game, and you decide what role your hero do. So making high spell dmg mage or mass buff/debuff , or high rage dmg warrior, or high unit dmg/crit% is your pick. Sure for first boss fight warrior is last place, but in previous games paladin held that place and no1 asked him if he likes it So now warrior is warming bench in boss fights comparing to pala/mage.

For your statement enemy heroes have high magic and some other skills, that is old news. Year ago that was implemented in the Legend mod, devs of WotN didnt invent anything new here.

[Razorflame]

the only thing that changed was that heroes got insane amount of mana like 200+

and could cast geyser/armageddon and stuff

[Bunnle]

People seem to assume that Soothsayers have unlimited mana in boss fights. The undead spider boss took me about 15 rounds to defeat as a soothsayer the first time and I barely got by. Remember that it's the first boss in the game, and concentration (mana regen skill) is deep in the magic tree and takes a lot of magic runes to max out. Unless you are really lucky and find the rage to mana conversion spell before that, but that still uses up a turn of the book to use.

Soothsayers have a smaller army, and their stats aren't tailored around attack/defense. So I'd disagree with the fact that mages have an easier time with boss fights. Much later in the game however, when mana isn't an issue that balance may shift. But I doubt Skalds and Vikings have much of an issue either with the ridiculous damage they can produce with their much bigger army and higher attack/defense stats, which makes it much easier to dispatch all the summons that bosses throw at you better than a mage can until the spell Geysers at rank 3 comes into play.

Both the Skald and Viking aren't excluded from using magic either in boss fights. It's never "useless" to buff your whole army to deal max damage, or give them extra speed or teleport for example. Mages excel at dealing damage, but the utility spells like Bless and Berserker are still very powerful for non-mages to use.

[Razorflame]

yes but mage doesn't need an big army

since the spell selection allows for 1 stack victories

and the more units you have the more challenging a battle becomes(regarding losses etc)

A very simple trick to beat bosses with mage used to be
EGD(emerald geen dragon)
cast invisiblity first turn then cast offensive spells or w/e
keep doing this until u run out of mana then use the dragon's ability to generate mana and w/e you want and just run down the boss with spells
;D