The boss design you're proud of / you had in mind

I just finished up making a boss battle for my project, and I'm quite proud of it even it was the first boss and wasn't really difficult to beat. Granted, a first boss encounter, but you still need to know what to do to beat the boss.

That got me thinking. In the past, I used to made a boss that basically a punching bag and hit hard asf (or just bringing annoying debuff). But now, since I want to make a boss that has pattern to defeat or mitigate, I want to know if you already made one in your game, or you have the idea for a boss that haven't yet implemented. For future references, just maybe I won't repeat the same idea for the next bosses

Eh, I got two bosses.

"Sweeper", which is a plant boss. It's got a regular attack. It's got "Poison Cloud", which is a full party poison attack with 50% chance of inflicting the state "Poison Level 1". It also has "Stinger", which it doesn't use often, but is a single target Poison attack with a 50% chance of inflicting the state "Poison Level 2". If hit with a Fire spell or inflicted with "Burn Level 1" or "Burn Level 2", it then casts "Foul Bile". It uses "Foul Bile" as a counter-attack to being hit with Fire spells, and every turn it is inflicted with Burn Level 1 or 2, it will cast "Foul Bile" instead of any other attack. Foul Bile has a 75% chance to inflict both Level 1 and Level 2 Poison on the target. It's final skill is "Tentacle Sweep". This is a melee attack that uses "Speed" as the element (and AGI to hit with). It casts this when it's HP reaches 50% as well as 25%. It hits the whole party. No states inflicted.

"Pouncer", which is a spider boss. It's got a regular attack. It's got "Spin Web", which hits the whole party and lowers their "Luck" stat by 50% for a few turns. Luck stat is used to defend against Agility attacks. It has "Poison Fangs", which will hit a single target and inflict them with "Poison Level 2" at 50%. It uses Agility and Piercing elements. It has "Poison Spit", which will also hit a single target and inflict them with "Poison Level 1" at 50%. It also uses the Agility elements/stats to attack. Final Ability is "Maul", which it will use against anyone using Fire against it, or when Burn Level 1 or 2 are inflicted on it. "Maul" is a physical hit using Attack and Strength as stats and elements. It inflicts Poison Level 1 and Poison Level 2 on the target at a 75% rate.

For reference:
Poison Level 1 - 2% HP loss every turn for 3 to 5 turns.
Poison Level 2 - 5% HP loss every turn for 5 to 8 turns.
Burn Level 1 - 3% HP loss every turn for 3 to 5 turns and 3% DEF stat loss.
Burn Level 2 - 5% HP loss every turn for 3 to 6 turns and 5% DEF stat loss.

Conclusion:
Keep in mind that I'm using "low stats" in my game, so having an 8% loss of HP each turn is a big deal. Especially early in my game. 2% loss of HP is measurable as well.

That's all I got for "bosses". My goal is to have each boss fight be a "test" on the lessons learned throughout battle. The tests are that a single defensive stat won't save you all the time, Poison can be deadly so be prepared to cure it, and sometimes hitting an enemy with something they're weak to causes problems you didn't anticipate. I should probably mention that there are like 8 different monsters in the dungeon these two appear in that can all do variations of their skills. They all carry Poison as well.

Regular enemies are the lessons. Bosses are the tests to make sure those lessons were learned.

Brain Badger
He has regular and psionic attacks. But every so often he "transforms" to go into a charging state. Then he's soft, for a couple of turns before unleashing a powerful energy blast. He also has 2 minions he can summon to help guard him during charging. If you focus on the minions and then when he's charging you can go all in with attacks and skills, heal up, or take defensive stances.

The Shadow Guardian
The Light Guardian
(name might change later)

The Shadow Guardian has shadow elemental skills , and the light guardian has light elemental skills
They have water elemental skills,

in this battle you have 2 phases:
- The Light's on phase ( the light guardian will resist all attacks, and the shadow guardian can be attacked).
start at turn 1,3,5, and so on...
- The Light's off phase ( the shadow guardian will resist all attacks, and the light guardian can be attacked).
start at turn 2,4,6, and so on...

Psychologically saying, each phase changes per turn, so you must target your enemy carefully, otherwise you'll hit the wrong enemy. However, using AOE or all-target skills are the safest way to beat them.

The Clockwork Dragon
He has two forms, normal and broken. He's a dragon made of brass with lots of gears and stuff in him.
In his normal form, his stats are balanced.
However, when his health reaches halfway, he goes into broken form. In that form, his defense drops a lot, but his attack power skyrockets, so ATK debuff skills are a good idea.
He has a repair skill, healing him.
He attacks twice in one turn as well.
I'm thinking about giving him a summon skill, where he summons two little clockwork dragons that die quickly, but would that make the game too hard?
His special skill is a fireblast skill called "Firebane." It deals damage to all enemies and can cause a burn.

Dragon Statue

This boss has two major stances. It starts with Stoneskin, which reduces physical damage. Each time it takes physical damage, it counts toward a counter that, at a certain point, the Stoneskin breaks, damaging the party, and the statue becomes Shattered. When Shattered, physical damage is not reduced, but after enough physical attacks, the Stoneskin reapplies. In the game I made this for, the magic system was just introduced not long ago, and this fight gave an incentive to use it more, since physical damage had a significant drawback.

Already got some ideas from these. Keep em coming!
I had the similar one too. It's won't make it too hard if you know who to balance. Usually the mob is just for the distractions (which is not really a distraction because you have to kill em as well)
Yes, in my game you downloaded

I think I'll go with the summon.

To, me for a first boss, it's probs the best boss in the game. Games nowadays are too handheld with the boss's they give us in today's gaming world.

This is an antagonist name for a boss, but I'm kinda proud of his design.

Solomon:
A powerful foe in which one half of his body is a completely ashen state with a wispy red eye. The other half is one of the main protagonists (whose body has been taken over by the ashen state, becoming solomon) The fight is taken into 3 forms

Solomon: standard solomon fight, with his normal half using light and ice attacks and is very aggressive, his ashen half uses support magic and inflicts deadly debuffs on the party for his normal half to take advantage.

Solomon Alpha, and Solomon Omega: Solomon abandons the protagonist's body, killing him. He then splits into two beings of the opposite gender as they become the new creators for "Paradiso." Solomon Alpha Inflicts fire based attacks and physical Aoes, while Solomon Omega summons Ashen souls to assist them in battle, she also works similar to how the original Solomon's ashen half can perform. They are fought within the transformation of Paradiso. The fight also works as a timer, as the two begin to recite the Alpha and Omega chant, and if the chant ends, the entire universe restarts in a big bang, killing everyone. Beating this phase leads into the final phase.

Our Fallen Angel, Solomon: Solomon, due to him forcing his own ascension, is punished by Providence and ends up crucified to a Silver Spire, which represents the world in Solomon's chokehold. Black veins surround the spire into Solomon's exposed heart, representing the new world's worship of Solomon, as their blood keeps him alive. Two beings sit ontop of the spire's arms, representing Providence watching over Solomon, who has become a slave to his own creation.

Solomon fights using all of his elements while his heart inflicts debilitating debuffs to the party. He can also manipulate reality within the party, inflicting various debuffs and transform Solomon into various beasts or people which Solomon uses to his advantage. In a sense, this form allows him to fight with physical, elemental, AND mental attacks.

I want to create a battle that incorporates narrative. It's going to be very tricky to program, but here's the concept:

Doppelganger.
A kind of shape-shifting vampire. First uses a Spirit Drain attack, which drastically reduces HP and MP of an individual character.
The doppelganger then creates a smokescreen. When it lifts,
there are two identical battlers on the field. Having absorbed your character's spirit, the doppelganger is now mimicking their body. But which is which? Brief dialogue ensues in which the two identical battlers each insist the other one is really the doppelganger! This battle occurs late in the game, so the player must choose a target based on how well they know the character. Attack the doppelganger and most of the energy sapped by Spirit Drain will be restored. But because Spirit Drain is so devastating, attacking your own character will probably KO them!

I don´t know if this is helping you since I am using a Action Battle Script, but currently I got three bosses in the works:

1 Skräck, the fire ogre. A gigantic ogres that throws boulders at you while standing in a lava flow. You have to navigate the area and get close to him. The battle afterwards is faitly easy since he only has long range attacks apart from a weak punch.
2 An unnamed giant spider. Completely invincible. You have to find a handle which disables the bridge the spider is standing on, sending it plummeting downwards.
3 Jormungandr the giant snake. A more traditional boss that sticks its head out from the walls, leaving it open for attacks. It may also spit poison, and there is a certain tell that shows you what the boss will do.

I tend to prefer puzzle bosses.

Heavily armored:
Basically a boss enemy that appears to be extremely weak. It has low max HP, but insanely high DEF. The only way to kill it is to use items or attacks that lower its DEF before actually attacking it. Immune to damage over time effects.

Fast and powerful:
Very fast, and high ATK but low DEF and MAX HP. Defeating it is extremely difficult without proper armor.

Limited turn:
This enemy is EXTREMELY slow (taking multiple turns to pull off a single attack) but its attack is so devastating that not even the strongest warriors can survive getting hit. The only way to kill it is to finish it off before it can attack.

I posted this several months ago in the "Interesting Enemies" thread, but it fully applies here, and it's still possibly the best enemy I've ever designed,. I'm really proud of the combination of strategic theme, interesting (and thematic) twists, and multiple viable strategies in this boss fight. So here's a word-for-word repost of the explanation of my Android Boss enemy in "timeblazer":

Probably my favorite enemy that I've ever created was a boss that's essentially a "runaway robot" which has malfunctioned and attacks anything that "she" sees (and of course you happen to find yourself in her path). I feel that I did a lot of things right with this boss, so I'll explain a bit about the flow of the battle and possible tactics that the player can use to gain an edge.

This boss has a sort of strategic theme, which is Critical Hits. "She" has a high chance to Crit, and it's hard to Crit her.

• The player can use certain moves that raise a character's Crit rate to 100% for a short time, making the robot's usual resistance to crits irrelevant.
• The player can focus on defending characters who are more prone to taking Crits.
• The player can just accept the fact that the robot does well with Crits, and compensate with advantages over the robot in other stats.

On turn 1 of the battle she will target one of your party members (crosshairs and all). She is much more likely to target that character over any other character, and much more likely to Crit that character on any given hit as well. (I inform the player of this fact, which I feel is important for them to know.) Every few turns, she changes her target to another character.

• The player can allow non-targeted characters to use high-risk moves that deal lots of damage but leave the character vulnerable.
• The player can have the targeted character use the Guard action to defend themselves.
• The player can have other characters Substitute for a targeted character who is taking too many hits too quickly.
• The player can go aggressive in general if the targeted character has high Defense stats and/or still has high HP.

On turn 4 and every few turns thereafter, the robot will ask the player to "select a Mode" (in the form of cards) to reprogram her with. At first this is a blind guess between three face-down cards, but once you flip a card face-up you can always select it in the future when asked to select a Mode, or you can flip one of the other face-down cards. Physical Mode contains several sword skills that the player has seen before, and heals the robot for a % of her missing HP each time she crits you. Magical Mode contains several magic skills the player has seen, and gives her 30% resistance to magic. Minigun Mode contains only one special move which hits you 5 times for very minor damage, but once she's accumulated 10 crits she will unload on you for big damage.

• The player can choose to go with "the devil they know" and choose a Mode they've already seen.
• The player can choose one of the other Modes if the robot is countering them in this Mode.
• The player can avoid Physical Mode if the robot is at fairly low HP.
• The player can avoid Magical Mode if the robot is targeting the party's warrior.
• The player can avoid Minigun Mode if the robot has already accumulated several Crits.
• The player can seek any of the above modes if the opposite is true!
• The player can also seek Physical or Magical Mode if their characters have high resistance to physical or magic damage.

Once the robot is reduced to 30% HP or less, she will go haywire. Instead of asking you to select a Mode, the Modes will flash quickly in a specified pattern and you're asked to hit the Spacebar to "lock in" a mode every few turns.

• The player can use most of the above reasons to seek or avoid a specific Mode.
• The player can try to use their reflexes to lock in the exact Mode they want (challenging but definitely feasible for most gamers).
• The player can much more easily avoid a specific Mode by locking in a fraction of a second after that Mode is pulled offscreen.

Finally, there's a "temptation" of sorts available to the player: a "Reset Mechanism" enemy is also onscreen. The reset mechanism isn't a threat and can't do anything but heal itself, but if you hit it enough times before you defeat the robot (this isn't a victory condition - you still need to defeat the robot), you will be able to fix the runaway robot afterwards instead of destroying her, which grants you a certain benefit later on.

• The player can decide to take the risk of "wasting" actions hitting the Reset Mechanism in order to achieve this bonus condition.
• The player can decide they can't afford the wasted actions, and ignore the Reset Mechanism entirely.
• The player can use (generally expensive) multi-target skills to attack the robot at the same time they hit the Reset Mechanism.

In my opinion, this is the best enemy I've ever made because it's thematic and memorable, because it introduces a unique twist that distorts but doesn't replace the player's standard battle strategies, and because it offers the player a wide variety of interesting choices to make about how they want to deal with the enemy's mechanics.

Necroing this old topic because we have some new faces around :)
I also need some ideas

Well, I got creative with the help of Yanfly's Battle system and how it changed how force action worked, and used it to create bosses that could attack 2x or 3x a turn but never repeat a spell. The way I did it was I would put a command in the troop event to select an action from this list (usually done via a variable), then force action the choice at either the start or end of turn (or both if I want 3 actions).

This worked as Yanfly's Battle Engine overwrote how force action worked so your selection in the standard action queue still stayed in the list too. So you can do start turn -> Force action -> Boss acts. Later in turn, boss acts when they would normally act, and at end of turn force action -> Boss acts.

This was nice as if I used the default I could find the boss selects a very powerful AOE 3x on the same turn otherwise, and this way I can better control it. Usually what I did was the boss used the start of turn move to cast a debuff or status ailment, and the end of turn one to buff itself.

People who have played my game (Eternal Twilight) can vouch for some of my more creative and challenging bossfights, but I would have to say that one of my favorites is a secret boss: Echo Magi (they don't have a specific name, because the magi you fight are based on certain choices you made while playing through the main storyline).

In this battle, the bosses themselves have pretty simple/standard attacks, some large single target burst spells, an AOE spell, and a spell that hits 6-8 times on random targets. The biggest part of the fight is dealing with a number of debuffs they place on you:

Choking Gas: (Cannot be dispelled and is not removed on death)

• This is a debuff you have to pretty much keep a close eye on every turn. It will start off at anywhere from 1 to 5 stacks. This debuff deals 1% of your MaxHP in damage at the end of every turn for every stack that you have. At the end of the turn, the debuff stacks will be multiplied by anywhere from 1x - 3x their current amount of stacks. To counter this, you have to use GUARD to reset the stacks back down to 1. Now, it would be simple enough to just use GUARD every few turns to keep the stacks low, but the next debuff makes sure that you can't just turtle and win the fight by doing that.

Burdened: (Cannot be dispelled and is not removed on death)

• Burdened starts off by reducing your MaxHP and MaxMP by a certain percentage. Every 3-5 turns, the Burdened debuff evolves into a stronger version, reducing your MaxHP and MaxMP by an even greater amount. The MaxHP debuff caps off at reducing you to 40% of your MaxHP, but the MaxMP one continues to stack until you have ZERO MP left. Essentially, this serves as a party wipe type of ability when the stacks get super high and you don't have the HP to survive the enemy attacks and/or your MaxMP gets so low that you can't even cast your spells anymore.

Tether: (Cannot be dispelled and is not removed on death)

• To add one more layer of difficulty to this boss fight, every 3 turns, each boss will "tether" to one party member. If that party member attacks the boss they're tethered to, that party member will take 125% of the damage they dealt, back at themselves.

Last, but not least, you HAVE to kill both magi on the same turn, because if you don't, the surviving magi will enrage and deal 300% more damage with all attacks, which will very likely lead to a party wipe. The people who have gotten to this boss and have beaten it have told me that this boss was A TON of fun and very challenging.

The final boss of a tournament.

You reach him after getting to the finals of a tournament, he's excited to fight the newcomer who has reached the finals on their first time.
You can beat him by not attacking him, he gets progressively more agitated and angry that you aren't giving him the fight he's been waiting for until he reaches a point where he forfeits and quits fighting forever due to the immense disappointment

I think I mentioned my first boss ages ago, but here's a reminder:

Phase 1: A basic Fireball and a Charge-Megaflare. After the charge, one of your party members needs to Guard to turn that group attack into a reduced single-target attack.
Phase 2: (66% HP) Charge is replaced with Seal, which negates one of your party member's ability to Guard. In other words, you need to Guard with the unaffected character on the next turn.
Phase 3: (33% HP) Fireball is replaced with Icicle, which deals a bit more damage but will deal much more damage to whoever's Guarding. This keeps the player from tanking the whole fight.

---

Anyway, that project was going to have more ideas, so I might as well post some of them before I forget:

Sanitation Boss: This boss switches between two phases. Its Quarantine Phase is pretty standard. When a giant bug joins in, however, its Contamination Phase kicks up and the boss will AOE the bug and the party! With bugs joining in at an interval, the party needs to get rid of the bug to minimize damage.

Marching Orders Boss: This boss will inflict his two soldiers with states that will determine their attacks on the next turn. Soldiers are simply replaced when killed, though adds a bit of meter to the boss for each killed. When you reduce the boss's HP, more soldiers will join the battle.

Snapping Dragon Boss: The boss only has two attacks: Summon a smaller dragon or snap. The smaller dragons are capable of attacks that leave a bit of smoke on a party member. The boss's snap is an AoE that deals little damage...but it deals big damage to anyone with smoke.

I personally love my game's last boss. Her first turn is a random buff on herself, so each try is a little bit different. And the rest of her skills, are just from every element in the game. (which is around 50 different skills she can use) At turn 31, she goes into a rage, at turn 32, she casts Meteor which is an almost guaranteed wipe.

She also has two weaker, albeit different, forms of herself in the battle. Forms that don't show up until the second turn.

Like all enemies in the game, she's able to stand up if knocked down.
Like all enemies in the game, she casts gather if out of MP.
Like all large picture enemies in the game, she'll randomly spend a turn observing.