View Single Post
Lt. Commander
Join Date: Dec 2007
Posts: 120
# 30
01-06-2012, 06:02 PM
The problems with the Armek boss fight are many. Boss npc's are op. They pretty much have to be, in order to be a boss. The key to a boss fight is a to allow the player some "out" where by skill, timing creativity, etc, they can avoid or neutralize much of the bosses op'edness.

Classic example is is the original Punch-Out for the NES. Most of the later stages, you could get knocked out in 1-3 punches, but they always had a tell, and if you knew what it was you could always avoid their super-punch.

Now let's consider the stf's as they used to be. I'm lumping infected and cure together, because both rebecca and armek have similar chaining attacks.

In infected, there was a constrained space full of hazards, namely plasma and respawning pets. The alcoves provided cover so that there was no LOS to teammates forcing you to be self reliant, but it generally worked because her aggro would shift regularly.

The alcoves were taken out but there are still things you can use for cover.

For armek, good cover was harder to come by but having loads of room, you could break LOS with distance alone.

The cover shields were annoying, but you had room to strafe back and forth until you got a clear shot.

It was also possible to pull him to the left, into the water, where someone could climb up the mushroom and fire down at armek, while remaining out of chain range of the melee medic.

While I agree it was far to easy to tank him and take him down as a melee medic, the armek fight has swung much too far in the opposite direction. IMO certain elements need to be removed. Either the constrained forcefield room or armek's cover shields need to go.

Afaik, presently, while being melee'd, armek still does not use the chain attack, but that opens you up to being assimilated. Again, one or the other needs to go.

Personally, I think armek needs to be cut away from rebecca's mold, and made into something unique.

My proposal:

Give armek the ability to resist heavily either melee, or energy weapon damage, but not both at the same time. Make his aggro also shift focus between those doing melee dmg and those doing ranged dmg. This way, armek is not a copy of rebecca or a rebecca 2.0 but his own boss encounter.