Continuing with fighting bosses on my juggernaut file we got the Jarl. Still my second favourite boss in the game. He is really fun to fight on the alt file. It feels like he has a move to cover all situations, long range with the grab or sword slash, close range with the slam or the sword slash again, a blocking move that can trap you in it for a while, area denial with the walls to play around and constant secondary damage with arcane apotheosis (i think). The fight feels very fast paced cause of how he chains moves together, you really have to pay attention to him to call what’s coming next. The downside is that the fight can end too fast if you know what you’re doing because of his low health pool but not every boss needs to be a tank.
Here’s a clip beating him, i tried to use only fighting style moves cause the spirit rites (especially spirit rain) were making the fight a bit too easy:
Regardless of your opinion with Ivar, he remains a constant thorn in the average player’s side due to the difficulty spike on top of the relatively small arena.
Forumers when someone enjoys the game “nooo nooo but… but its flawed! its garbage! youre not allowed to have a different opinion and live a happier life than me! “
what
don’t put words into my mouth, I never said he wasn’t allowed to have a different opinion, I especially said “REGARDLESS of your opinion”.
His sole purpose on the forums is making unproductive replies or unfunny attempts at humor that annoy people as much as possible. And I think it’s a problem that’s common among the community here; they will just try and fail at being humorous several times only to contribute nothing meaningful.
I don’t think that’s a problem. Calvus is also a difficulty spike, people would often send global messages, or messages to others in the server, to ask for help. I am glad to see threads like this - these bosses can be overcome, we should be encouraging learning the fight rather than wallowing in a mutual pity party that the fight isn’t easy enough that “just hit him until he dies” works.
There’s room to dodge most attacks, you just have to dodge in the correct direction and be willing to dodge towards the boss.
True, I think it comes from trying to fit in, so they’ll imitate whatever they think will get people to like them. This ties into the “mutual pity party” I mentioned above - people had trouble with bosses that weren’t easy enough to be walked over, people voiced their knee-jerk reactions, people agreed. So, months later, people will pretend this boss is impossibly hard in an exaggerated attempt to chase acceptance within the community. “Woe to anyone fighting this boss, it’s impossible to beat for any normal player! Shame on Vetex for making an impossible boss, he’s the worst thing to ever happen to AO! Anyone that says differently is baiting! Do I fit in yet?”
Jarl Ivar just need a bit of time to learn the moves and stuff, when to block etc.
He’s just disliked because he has a steep learning curve, so you die a lot at first
Ignoring the people derailing, another good thing about the jarl is the music, especially in the second phase. He has the best boss theme in the game and it makes the fight feel even grander. Senterea cooked on that
Follows the pattern of Nimbus Sea bosses always having a climactic, reasonably balanced, tensional first phase, then they whack you with a sucky second phase out of nowhere, saying “do it all again, but this time with a worse layout to the fight and heavier attacks”.
There’s no need to subvert a boss being beaten if all you’re gonna do is refill their health and either put them somewhere else but angrier or make them do something else.
Maria is the jerk pirate who organized a blockade that nearly got your entire crew killed right on your way to explore a new sea, and taking her out was almost cathartic.
Allanon went through a surprisingly big story arc where eventually he went off the deep end and almost killed everyone. Personally, for me, this boss felt very triumphant to defeat, but I can absolutely see where people are coming from if they don’t like it at all.
Ivar is a big man in a war that you started, and he’s not really that important in the grand scheme of things, but he’s in charge of the Fenrir that blew over a whole town you were about to explore, so busting through his metal shell and beating the snot out of him was a good opportunity for the story, but we had to do the two health bars thing again, instead of just one cohesive health bar like Argos, and he had to entirely change his attack patterns to be way worse for the battlefield he’s in.
Ivar is cool for sure but as a mage I prefer to note engage with the primordial concept of “skill”… Therefore in my personal and humble opinion… He is OK, Calvus is still supreme
This reads like you’re trying to make a boss design critique when you could have just said you like the first phase more than the second.
If by worse layout you mean cramped arena too small for his moves the first phase is way more guilty of that than the second, if i remember right every single attack in the first phase was a huge aoe move in that small arena.
The two things you listed are the only reasons to have a second phase in any boss ever. If it’s the same enemy with no changes to moveset (jarl) or theming (allanon), there would be no reason at all to have second phases. And at this point in gaming, bosses having a second phase isn’t an attempt to subvert expectations, it’s pretty expected.
I disagree, i think the attack patterns in the second phase are better and require more out of the player, which i usually like in fights, and again, if by worse you mean aoe, the first phase does that more. But that’s just my opinion, I don’t mind someone liking the first phase more, but you could have just said that instead of trying to do a boss design critique
