Game Design The Nameless Anomaly (boss)

I have been doing TNA a lot lately, enough to get me a few stacks of LE. This has been mostly with two builds: a mixed fallen warrior who for some reason does a far better job as a healer; and a heavy melee sharpshooter archer which is by far my most functional build. Mostly the second one. I'll be talking about the boss fight mostly from the perspective of the latter.

First of all, I do like a lot the amount of attacks it has, and how well telegraphed they are. There is a visual or audible clue to what it is about to do, which makes this one of the most well designed fights in the game.

That said, I do think his attacks are a bit unbalanced. Not as in, as a whole they are too good or too weak but as in, some are ridiculous and others are kinda there.

The ones that I think are fairly balanced are:
-The jump one. He jumps to your position and makes a big hole there. Easy to dodge, cast some spell or make use of about 200% walk speed. Deals a decent amount of damage and leaves a very noticeable hole.

-The eyes. They deal a lot of damage and blind you, but they are very slow so they are easy to deal with.

-The watch. Again, deals A LOT of damage, but it is quite easy to dodge, either run away at maximum speed or use a spell.

The greater ones. They spawn after falling into a void hole, and if you hit the little ones they turn into the big ones, which are usually easy to deal with, but if not killed quickly enough, they can become extremely disruptive and definitely have the potential to kill you. I tried proccing rage by letting myself get hit by one, and got surprised by a sudden one-shot. Underestimating them is definitely a bad idea, but if you have the capacity to quickly kill them like I do, they are not that bad.

The rest. I can't recall the rest right now but if I can't it is probably because I don't have much to say

The ones that I think are a bit too weak:
-The explosion cages. They dont do much usually, as noone runs in a small area when fighting this boss. This means that most of the time, this attack is kind of just there.

The ones I think are beyond insane:
-The charge one. It does a dragon roar and then charges towards you while placing little holes. So the issue here is: It hits multiple times, which makes it deal an absurd amount of damage. Also the hitbox is absurd, at least around a few blocks wider than the holes it places and the actual model of the boss. It also tends to charge super far and since it turns around instantly, just casting a spell to the side won't really help you escape it.
This attack is usually what kills me and most other people I run with. It is by far the most threatening spell it has and it has ended many of my runs regardless of what kind of build was used, whether divzer guys, fatal guys, heavy melee archers, fallen warriors... This one has taken down by far the most people in my runs.

-The skulls. They are like the eyes. But way more threatening. They usually hit super hard since the guy shoots about 3 or 4 towards each player and if one lands, the rest are likely going to land too. This would be fine if they weren't far harder to dodge than the eyes. They charge at an enormous speed towards you about three times before disappearing. This attack is basically the eyes but they are way, way harder to dodge.
For whatever reason, this one is usually spammed along with the charge one most of the time. I have no clue why that happens but it makes these two attacks far too threatening compared to everything else. And they are already by far the boss's most threatening attacks.

The ones I think are weird:
-The void holes. So the void holes are a very good gimmick. Except when they do weird stuff, such as sometimes not spawning a little one, or sometimes teleporting you to a void hole at the top of the room while other times they just launch you upwards. Sometimes they reset super quickly and frequently and other times they take ages to reset and you have to pay more attention to where you step than to the actual boss itself.
Over all I think they are cool but I would like some more consistency with what they do. But I don't really have much of a complaint other than the fact they sometimes take too long to disappear. I think if they got individually cleaned a while after they were placed instead of occasionally cleaning the entire room at once they would be a lot cooler.

Over all I really like this boss, just... please, nerf the charge. The skulls can stay as they are even, but please just nerf that damn charge. Buff other things if necessary, but just nerf that one. Please.

 

The exploding seedpods deal heavy true damage if you are caught in their blast radius. I'd say they're pretty good as is because as the Nameless gets faster, they will leave them behind and block of a whole area that you would've otherwise been able to go to to avoid them, making it change from a "back off AOE" kind of spell to an area denial ability, which The Nameless has a surprising amount of.

The skulls the Nameless spawns move faster, charge more frequently, and charge further if you are airborne. If you are using movement spells or are in the air, they will get an incredible boost in movement. They're designed to suddenly demand for you to swap from being mobile to having to travel on foot (though if skilled enough and the right build you can avoid them airborne for a bit)

The Void Holes that The Nameless produces during the fight aren't inconsistent. The first time a player steps in them it spawns a Little One, deals damage, and launches them up in the air. The second time you take damage and are teleported to the entrance of the room.

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I'm surprised you didn't mention it but an attack a lot of people dislike is one where The Nameless will begin to glide and a purple ring will appear around them, and being nearby in a cylindrical hitbox you'll take damage. It paired with charging can be pretty devastating.

On the other side, they have an attack where they spew out a line of blue particles on the ground and it's super hard to notice both in appearance and also because it does very little in the fight

 

You mean this one? It is the charge attack I was referring to.

If you are referring to the wave spell it sometimes casts, yeah that one is also kind of just there.

Oh I see, my bad then.

 

Yes. That's two abilities paired into one attack.

They cast Heavy Wave as a normal mob spell, however they have a script spell that sends out a line of water.

The Nameless spews out a fifteen block line of a blue substance. It can be avoided with movement spells. This is the only standard mob spell the Nameless possesses, being Wave.
Players who draw near to it or attempt to cross it will rapidly take the following damage.
♥ 1% Maximum Health Damage
❉ 1000 Water Damage

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Wait someone edited that wiki text and made it say wave. That's where the confusion probably comes from. Yeah, no, it's its own spell

 

Oh so that's why it is so brutal compared to the rest of its kit.

If it isn't the generic wave spell, I have no clue what that is then.

 

I can only nod in agreement here.
The only way it is easy to avoid is when you are already at a good distance from greg and to then time your movement spell for after he locked on to you.

if I am the only one left and I hear the dragon roar I go full panic mode to try and survive, it is by far his most deadly attack and will one shot you if fully hit by even one charge.

 

It is also quite inconsistent. Sometimes the whole fight goes with boss only charging 1-2 times, but sometimes it'll go full rage and charge 4-5 times in rapid succession.

 

These lines?

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Honestly, the two worst Greg spells are the dragon leap and the purple rings one

 

Yes. Those lines

 

2.0.2. came out. The charge is still by far the deadliest attack Greg has. It's not even close at this point now that I finally get how the skulls work. Please nerf the hell out of the goddamn dash or make sure it can't be casted 5 times in a row in less than 20 seconds.