Having read all of that has been written regarding this boss fight on multiple threads, this is the general consensus:
- The flies are annoying - decrease number of flies
- People do not feel the need for specials/elites to be introduced - We already have 1 wave of elites, which can be bad enough
- In Phase 3: Either ring frequency needs to be nerfed, the knockback removed (ONLY IN PHASE 3) from the rings to allow for revives, make the scythe swing dodge-able or remove its knockback.
STRATS AND MY THOUGHTS
Quite a few, with good reason, draw parallels between the flies Nurgloth and Burpee send out. Burpee too sends out flies, yes, FLIES, plural, not one, but 2. I’ve seen it send out only 1 and I’ve also seen it send out 2. For easier comparison here is what I know of the Nurgle-Gurgle flies and the Burpee flies:
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Nurgle-Gurgle flies - Only takes 1 hit, they are also quite fast. It seems to me that the closer the flies are to Nurgloth, the faster they are, hence they slow down quite a bit by the time they get to you and can be quite tricky to shoot from the sides due to their initial high speed.
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Burpee flies - Multiple hits - Don’t know how many from the top of my head. These flies are rather slow. Not sure if it is possible to simply outrun them but dodging will definitely keep you out of range.
STRAT FOR PHASE 1 - McFly
If any team wipes at PHASE 1. You can only blame yourself. That is a fact and here is why. If there is a single loading screen tip that applies to any and all circumstances in V2 it’s this: Don’t get separated. Stick together. TOGETHER. During PHASE 1. TOGETHER. The flies are the non-elite equivalent of taking a DOT overhead. Stick to your teammates so that if you do get hit by the damn things, you will not immediately be pummelled into the afterlife.
The strat itself. There are 4 locations where adds can come from. Stay away from the ones closest to the boss. You won’t see the flies coming in time. That leaves you with the 2 pillars closest to the entrance. All huddle behind a pillar but back off till your back is against the wall. Do this in a way to make sure that your line of sight of the boss is blocked. If you cannot see him, he cannot see you. This means that the flies will kill themselves by smashing into the pillar and since you are far enough from the pillar, the explosion caused by the flies will not harm you. Pay attention to the the adds dropping down nearest you and watch out for the adds coming from the other spawns. If you have positioned yourself correctly, your back is against the wall, the nearest spawn location is either to your right or left; depending on which of the 2 pillars you went to, and nobody has their back to the boss. Kind of like so.
Even if a fly does managed to hit somebody, no problem, since you are TOGETHER.
Fire ring time! Simple really. He will cast the rings in a way that keeps you from being able to approach him. There will be an instance where you will be forced to stand at the very edge of the room. You move in after this particular eruption. Smack him 'till he leaves.
If you still have adds when he starts casting, try to push them into the rings. Better them than you.
PHASE 2 - FRONT, BACK, LEFT AND RIGHT
When Nurgloth is off his throne, not in the middle and is not yet swinging, then he is standing somewhere close to a wall at one of the sides, ringing the dinner bell. Adds will only spawn from TWO(2) locations.
Directions are based around the player just entering the room. The back side of the room has the entrance, the front side has the throne and as you come into the room; to your left is the left side and to your right is the right side. There are 4 spawn locations will be referred to as top left, top right, bottom left and bottom right.
If Nurgle has his back to the front side, then adds will spawn from the top left and top right.
If Nurgle has his back to the left side, then adds will spawn from the bottom left and top left.
If Nurgle has his back to the right side, then adds will spawn from the bottom right and top right.
If Nurgle has his back to the back side, the adds will spawn from the bottom left and bottom right.
He is also sending out non-stunning orange-ish flies that do little damage so beware in case you are low but generally speaking they are of no threat. This phase can be approached in a few ways, depending on team comp and player skill. Split into pairs, a pair goes to each currently active spawn location and gets rid of what comes at them. If Nurgle is standing too close to one of the spawns then all go the other spawn location and hold there until he moves his ass.
Depending on team comp/player skill, 1 person can split off from each pair to shoot at Nurgle. Melee is ill advised as he will do an AoE knockback. Probably the simplest phase after his fire ring casting.
PHASE 3 - NURGLE AGGRO = BACK TO THE PILLAR,
Constant spawns, he swings, you fly, and fire ring knock ups. A mess really. I also don’t know what triggers an aggro change. Still testing that.
The most crucial advice, make sure you know how to get to the closest pillar. If you are facing the middle of the room while your back is to a pillar(and blocking of course), doesn’t matter which, then he keep hitting you into the pillar and the eruption will not harm you(most of the time). The positioning is quite tricky as his continued hits can move you little by little and the eruption will hit you if you are not in the correct spot at the pillar. To avoid this almost certain eventuality, after an eruption, move or let him knock you away from your current pillar and move onto another one so that you can once again get into the correct position and hold for a little bit. Like I said this can be tricky to do so some practice is in order. This is not foolproof by the way. His knockback swing lifts you, briefly, into the air. Truly short duration, probably less than a second. But a well timed swing from an add can get through your block because as we all know, you cannot block while flying through the air due to a knockback. Even if your stamina shields are shown on the screen, even if they are full, there is no blocking.
If he is not on you then deal with adds, then do boss damage. Kiting around the outside then pushing in before an eruption will kill the adds in the ring allowing you to damage Nurgle. It is easy to screw this up and get stuck in the rings so play carefully. But once again sticking together is still a good idea. One person scratching their back on a pillar while Nurgle is swinging away at them and the other 3 are TOGETHER doing what have you but at the very least you are alive.
LAST MAN STANDING?!?!? Pray to Sigmar. What I have outlined above has little to do with skill, therefore it should guarantee survival until PHASE 3.
So, one person left, PHASE 3. The pretty constant knockback swings, the eruption knockback + the damage, and the adds make this one hell of a boss fight to clutch. Even with invisibility, if timed incorrectly, the revive will be interrupted by the eruption. So I propose one of the 3 following changes:
- Option 1 - PHASE 3 eruption has no knockback.
- Option 2 - Nurgle’s knockback swing, as not all his swings send you flying, has an internal cooldown. Similar to what Bestigors have. Only 1 Bestigor can charge you every 10 seconds, or something like that anyway. Implementing this change would retain much of the difficulty but still allow for runs to be saved by a well timed revive.
- Option 3 - Nurgle only does a knockback swing on the first hit after an aggro change. This would maybe make the boss fight a bit too easy to get used to? His normal swings still push the player away so careful positioning and situational awareness is still a necessity. Hard to say for sure.
- Option 4 - Reduce frequency of eruption in PHASE 3
One change that I really really really do not want to see. Making his swings dodge-able. Dodge back to avoid his swings? So he becomes what, another Chaos Spawn? This change would completely trivialise PHASE 3.
I personally would like either option 2 or 3 implemented as option 1 still leaves the player with an arduous scenario as reviving without invisibility is not simple at the moment. Option 4 would have to be nailed ABSOLUTELY PERFECTLY. As in down to the tenth of a second. A bit too slow means that timing is no longer an issue. A bit too fast means that hardly anything’s changed. Option 4 would still leave the players with a lot of knockbacks though and from what I’ve seen that seems to be a relatively major concern.
Whatever happens, a change needs to be made. But I would like this change to be in the form of a beta so that players can at least see what they are given and have an opportunity to give feedback.