This is one of three threads I made in the Steam Forums but remained ignored as people prefer flaming each other instead of discussing feedback. I hope it is better here:
We definetely don’t have enough threads about Halescourge ^^. But this is less a thread for complaining or telling others how easy the fight is but more about gameplay ideas which could make the fight more scalable, balanced or interesting. Of course the easiest possibility is leaving the fight as it is. It’s not that bad and even if you get wiped once in a while it isn’t the end of the world (technically questionable as these are the Endimtes …), you still had fun playing.
The post will adress different aspects of the fight. The first is about the melee/range balance. With a mixed team mele can concentrate on the spawns while the range can nuke down the actual boss. Everything is fine. With pure range you can nuke the boss down even faster but you have to pay a bit Attention. Everything is more or less fine. With pure melee you can kill the spawns quite fast but will have trouble damaging the boss as he can cross the room in miliseconds and is invincible during the cross. Also he stands in place only a very limited time. You have a problem. As such it could be helpful:
- Halescourge takes more damage by melee as he currently does and maybe delays his spell casting teleportation and/or others by a second. So you can get a second hit in. Not staggering him, just delaying the spells. Don’t know how it is in Warhammer but most mages don’t like to be hammered in the face anyway.
The second part is about general changes in the gameplay which makes the fight more scalable depending on player choices and maybe making the fight also more interesting. Also it gives the Books a bit more use in-game instead of just randomly lying around in the map for loot reasons.
Halescourge is a Chaos Mage. As such let him be influenced by the Grims:
- If you bring both Grims with you to the fight. The fight will be the same as it currently is.
- If you decide to bring less Grims with you, he will have less power/health
- If you destroy a Grim actively during the fight, he will loose health and the power he had because of the Grim Close by
- If you die and the Grim gets destroyed passively, he will lose half of the power he had because of the Grim.
- He gets a new animation like the leech where he will attack the Grim carrier directly and try to extract the power of the Grim to get even stronger. The group has then five seconds to stagger Halescourge either by special ability, bomb or a critical hit.
- Make tome blocking a thing. Those are magical books to. Give them the ability to block the acid clones. If unbalanced make the Tomes destroyable if they took to many hits (3-5).
The implementation of either one or all of these suggestions would make the fight more scalable. If you want better loot you have to bleed for it. But if you are not good with the fight you can make easier. Halescourge getting weaker by Grims being destroyed passively reducing the chances of getting full wiped. Although you can still wipe. And most important it gives the Grims (and Tomes) some actual interesting in-game function. I would like some more functions for them anyway. Like a magical barrier that can only be destroyed if you throw the Grim at it. If you want something you have to sacrifice something. Opinions? Like I said, leaving it as it is is also a choice and a prepared and good team can take him out easily. And these teams would mostly be unaffected by the discussed changes. For the rest it can be helpful.