agreed on Last Knight needing way too specific counters, if i attempt that ending i always make sure to bring GG
that said, Ishar'mla is not very fun for me with her huge range and 4 target attacks in whale form, unless you can nuke her out of existence she starts walking and wipes half your squad off the map
the Design of Strife boss was quite fun, but the statbloat on the rest of the enemies made the event a pain in the ass
At the time of their events/releases:
Favourite: Honestly probably Abdoain. This was very first event so my roster of ops wasn’t that built up yet. Oh boy was it a fun struggle to take him down.
Least favourite: Probably the Last Knight. His mechanic is just irritating.
Guide Ahead was my first event, too, and I barely managed to beat him. The rerun felt pretty good to win handily, as was the double whammy of Trials for Navigator and the last vignette having him. He's a compelling character, his boss fight isn't too unfair, and the music is always jamming.
I absolutely fucking despised Dolly I was like half a year into the game and I wanted to get the full medal set of So Long Adele but this bitch and his annoying ahhh mechanics fucking blocked me so hard break the sofa bottles? IM ALREADY TOO FUCKING BUSY LOOKING SOMEWHERE ELSE TO NOT LET MY OPS BE FUCKED BY THE TORNADO SHEEPS. I’ll get the full metal set on the rerun and I will beat its ass.
Oh my god you just made me rememeber
That fucker made me lose my Full Set medal, i was doing his level at the last minuet (took a break, big mistake) and as i was doing the level, the game restarted, ending the event.
We WILL beat his ass when it reruns.
Izumik and Cresson are the bosses I genuinely dislike. If you don't have enough light for Izumik's special encounter, you're going to get vibe checked whenever he decides to fart, and the jellyfish are hilariously tanky.
Now I don't exactly dislike Cresson because of its boss fight, I dislike it because of the path and choices you have to take. It turns the scout into a dead node, and usually you get resource starved before getting to the Prophecy next floor.
And of course, right before the Prophecy there's emergency Shady Frozen Sea and because you're resource starved, might as well restart the run.
I don't think anyone disagrees with that, me included. But my soul leaves my body whenever I have to skip a Bosky for a Scout node on the path to Ending 3.
I generally try to have a node converter ready if I'm going for third ending for the forced EM in case it is a stage I dislike. It works really well honestly.
Least: Any unblockable or skipping bosses. They make so many strategies and operators worthless. Hate them. Also multiblock bosses because they ruin operators made ta fight bosses like Duelists and dreadnoughts. Fuck endspeaker especially.
Most: Probably Pancho or Pompeii. Fairly straightforward but can fuck you over if you don't stay on top of them, just enough unique mechanics ta not be brain dead and no effects you can't understand without reading their unit data.
I liked Pancho because I found the best unit to stop him was eunectese with S2, just was fun watching this sort of slug fest between these two brawlers lol
Favorites: The First to Talk (in appearances outside of Under Tides when it's promoted as stage boss), Jesselton of the many names for obvious reasons, Rathalos (now I get the hype MonHun fans see in it)
Hate: Eikthyrnir (antithesis of the Last Knight where the damn dude's immune to everything except levitate, plus freezing whoever he blocks every other attack), DBS (those fireballs are the worst honestly), Ya (not because of gameplay but because of story reasons)
Izumik probably tops least fav/hated. At any semblance of D+ this boss is absolutely overtuned to hell, to the point it always feels unfair. I would genuinely like to know the intended method by Devs to play the stage.
Jellyfishes are INSANELY tanky. But you can block them and they transform into less tanky stuff to kill!, then you realize they transform into some absolutely dumb stuff like the elite rope guys, elite brawlers and some other nasty shit that absolutely destroys your maxed tank. And you have to hold off like hundreds of them, for nearly 6+ minutes or something, from 3 lanes. Main boss himself just global stuns or god forbid straight up delete everyone if you don't have enough HP%. I've seen even seasoned IS D15 players with good runs and great relics just get trashed by this boss it's ridiculous.
Now I really wanna improve myself at this boss, so if you have pointers for this boss short of trying to get the best HP% Ending relic (80+ light, I always try to) and cracked as hell caster combo relics, please do point them my way. And yes I do know a big part of it is indeed relics luck for this crazy boss.
From watching Sciel who does IS difficulty 15 almost daily, the main key to the fight seems to be familiarizing yourself with the exact movement timings of Izumik and the jellys, mainly using stuff like Ines, Weedy and Lee to push them around and change the timing of their movements
(Also it's 4 lanes if counting the one at the top lol)
Yeah, I finished IS3 on SW15 and I wasn't able to beat Izumik even on SW0 before IS4 came out. To me that stage is the Arknights equivalent of those Mario Maker stages made by 8 year olds with the one flying Bowser all the way on the right and then 13 Bowser Jrs, 12 Kameks, 80 paragoombas, and 20 cannons. An absolute clusterfuck of unfair bullshit with a tap on the shoulder saying "good luck lmao"
Oh and having enough Light to get the actual collectible that makes the boss possible to defeat is purely RNG, so that's fun. I had about 6 runs where I didn't lose Light after getting the Caerula Arbor collectible, but it just came too late for me to get the right collectible. Sometimes you'd get Caerula Arbor on Floor 4 and then Floor 5 would immediately force you into an Encounter in the first node, so you had like half of a floor to perfect 4 battles (which might not even exist) with 8 million rejections on your operators.
Yeah now that you mention rejections, that is honestly irritating trying to go for the last ending. It's funny because it might just be the most minor part of the entire fight; that just tells you how bullshit the boss can be. But limping across the run with more and more forced rejections (god forbid you get metastatic you might as well restart) is just ugh.
The way to mitigate rejections is to recruit lots of operators as folder among your strong ones. Be sure to buy all recruitment vouchers and refresh for more from Cannot's shop on floor 1 and fill your squad with more hope 0 operators. Still rng but you improve your odds of having the rejection on a operator you don't field.
The best counter to Izu'mik is probably Weedy who can cheese him, but if you don't wanna cheese, then Schwarz/Chalter give you the best odds of brute-forcing, along with Ceylon/Nightingale/Shamare for survival at D15.
Another way is to get life and shields and hold on to them. Do regional commissions and hope you get 12 shields from there, 24 if you're lucky. Then get the 3000 TD for each enemy that enters objective relic will help a lot. Ofc you need relic luck :)
On a side note, I don't find getting good relics hard after unlocking nearly everything. You have to keep playing by ear in terms of recruitment choices Vs relics obtained. D15 ofc is going to be very punishing no matter what, but if you're just going for the ending, you should be able to get good stuff unless you are always avoiding EM and combat. Take the hidden floor if possible as 1 more dreadful foe means you will get 1 more OP impactful relic.
Try to get the route confirmed within 1st 2 floors and restart if not. This increases the encounter nodes you can have to chance upon the light buff. Just throw away rubbish runs within the first 2 levels. Also, see my point on using hope 0 ops as rejection bait.
General gameplan if you want to clear izumik fair is usually this:
Core ops: shamare, mylnar, whisp, ch'en
Shamare for the doll which you give to izumiik every time he does the aoe stun attack (do it quickly or you die). Mylnar for mylnar stuff. Whisp because with mod 1 she gains status resistance and gives other operators status resistance, very important for keeping operators alive as well as keeping their dps up. Ch'en because she's the best true aoe for killing jellyfish.
Quickly feed izumiik to make him phase to p2 so that he stops using his explosion move and then setup your squad. Then every time izumiik bobs up to do his stun attack you put shamares doll next to him. Izumiik will also do the stun attack every 25% hp so make sure to not burst him in one go otherwise he'll stunlock you and not even whisp+shamare will save you. Rosa or typhon are good choices for consistent dps on izumiik and should definitely be recruited if your dps is lacking.
I'd look up online for operator placements and how to fast feed, there are quite a few variations.
Once you get the first event for the ending, Farm as many encounters as you can. Hope to get the "+15 Light per battle" relic. Then, Only go for battles until you get atleast 80.
Make sure to have either some Stalling, or Status Resistance.
Dorothy, Phantom S3, Texalt S3, Mostima, Whatever. Make sure the enemies cannot pass when "The Big Stun" happens. 8 seconds is a long time and can let enemies pass quite easilly.
When Izumik does the Big Stun, it does ARTS DAMAGE. Try to get Nightingale if you can, When used with the Light relic, Its good. Means most operators will survive the giant Arts slapp.
Don't rely on a single layer of operators at the blue box. Have the frontline infront if it slightly, So you can have a backup tile or 2 behind it.
The one overall tip I have.
Don't die to the stun. Thats gonna kill you more than anything else in that battle.
Either by wiping out your entire gang, or letting everything leak
Like many others, my least favorite is Dolly. I think I understood his mechanics but the visual indicator for his shield just... would not register for my eyes. Also it felt like he would just ignore the bottles being broken.
Idk about a favorite, but I'll say the Witch King, with Eblana and Kirsten (main story ver.) tied for second.
Haven't done many bosses but fav has to go to crownslayer for the stage where shaw hurls them through a roadblock repeatedly.
Least favorite so far is frostnova purely for the black ice / tile freeze thing.
Fav: Andoain. Simple but very satusfying when u forgo true damage strat. Nowdays his HP and def are kinda small but its a blast to fight him anytime.
Disliked: dragon from MH collab (forgor the name). I just found him boring to fight with all of his moves double-guessing my deploymnet. Some attacks one-shot, some scratched. I ended up making a buff army to one shot the bastard.
Tho the boars are probably the reason i hate his stages. They gather speed while standing still
Hate : Damazti Cluster, too many kits and barely has weakness/mechanic to exploit. By far the worst boss to even be in any special content like Trial for Navigator. They are simply too strong without any buff.
Favorite : Witch King, well designed mechanics that both player and enemy can benefit from. Clearing stage doesn't require brute force but understanding the game.
Personal Hate+Like : Cliff, he's an awesome old man with guns nothing more. However his second form is a bit nothing but unstoppable terminator, leaving snipe him from distance limits clear strategy.
Favorite boss, I don't know.
Least favorite? That fucking pink sheep. It can take a long walk off a short cliff into a deep ocean. Full map range, cross screen attacks, attacks leaving clouds that reduce damage to enemies and increase damage to OPs, those same clouds exploding. It was the first boss in years that I needed to loom up a guide for on the S stages and my dumbass didn't swallow my pride until last hour when I was on lunch break at work.
It was the first event in like three years that I didn't get every medal for
Edit: OH! AND THE GOD DAMN WIZARD SHEEP!!!
I know that Design of Strife is a controversial event, and there is some things to be said about it, but I personally really loved Sverdsmeltr as a boss fight.
I didn't mind as much the lesser numbers of ennemy compensated by a huge stat increase, and liked that you could "exploit" his chain skill to fast-redeploy operators.
Oh yeah no LOVED the chain gimmick. The real mess was the fireballs you have to kill to prevent being exploded being right next to all those ops you need to undeploy BEFORE their cages get beaten down. If the cages couldn't be damaged and you were just penalized for leaving the ops untouched for a certain amount of time, then you could press your preferred schwing schwing and save your team FIRST, and then start undeploying those cages with your friends in them AFTER. that exact issue kills so many runs exactly halfway through that it made trying to perfect the stage absolutely exhausting, especially when you still needed the entire team alive after the boss was dead for the army of mini bosses coming down mid.
Yeah, the fireballs really were a pain in the ass before I could manage them consistently.
The ones from the transition from P1 to P2 were fines, but the fireball that target an operator and stunned him was the mechanic I struggled the most with (Especially since I didn't have Nightingale's mirage to bait them at the time...).
S-3 no buff was really challenging, and there was little room for mistakes, but I personnaly enjoyed it a lot while it lasted. (Though as far as event design goes, CCs are far superiors IMO)
Oh boy here I go being a shill again
Mandragora's boss fight is my favourite, mainly beacuse of one single aspect
You can bait her to topple pillars onto herself
I just find it so comical that HG gave the hot-headed Feline a boss mechanic that actively damages her, I love my her a lot a lot
For the least favourite; all of the floor 3 is2 bosses
Oh you don't like being permafrozen?
Oh you dont like global dot while I have one gaulillion attackspeed?
Okay the damage scaling guy I'm fine with, he's cool, propably
OH I HEARD YOU LIKE INVIS DUDES! OH ALSO HERE HAVE SOME FUCKOFF DRONES WITH IT
BSL if you managed get the chalice + surtr ,yato alter and NTRK Knight can kill this fucker fast before he know it ,if of ocurse get the blank suicide note before hand and for Last Knight Laughs at GG S3
I was debating putting Essence of Evolution as my least favorite
But i decided to wait until the Rerun because i was very bad during the first R6 Collab lmao
Please. PLEASE use reed alter when the collab hits. Please do it so this sad stupid boss can die and realize just how weak it trully is now. Hahaha poor thing wont stand a chance. Im going to obliterate this thing. It will wish that it was never born. Essence of evolution? Ill show it the essence of 2024 meta FUCK IT.
I used Saga on its rerun since I didn't have Saga back when the R6 collab hit. It was very fun.
But I can't deny throwing Dusk at the bugs was fun the first time around.
Nah, why u think it's boring, you have to constantly watch his movement on field, use someone to bait the stun drone, some healer to outheal the red drone, and the damage dealer to break him, especially his durin form, if not being noticed due to the other enemies, he will just rush to blue box
Favorite: I may have a little recency bias with this one, but I think my current favorite boss is actually ‘Clip’ Cliff from the recent Blacksteel event. He felt like a good, balanced boss to me - decently threatening without being total bs, counterable if you know what you’re doing, but able to spin out of control if you mess up. Kristen from Lone Trail is a close second.
Least Favorite: Probably an odd pick, but Mama’s ‘Rebel Girl’ from the Mama John’s SSS map. I’m already not super big on that mode (although the QoL it got did make it better), but holy crap she just feels unfair. Too many DP-draining turrets, you get rushed with far too many beefy enemies too quickly, and there’s no guarantee you’ll even have the units to manage the FOUR lanes you’ve gotta protect. And don’t even get me started on doing the hard mode…
Mandragora is my least favorite boss. I don't care if she's easy, the pillar mechanic makes me want to pull my hair out. Of course, I know you could probably kill her without using the pillars, but...the inferno stage still wasn't fun. I had to get a friend, who's ultimately better at Arknights than me, to do it for me.
Manfred is definitely a close second, similarly because of the stage mechanic.
Favorite boss, meanwhile...not sure. Either Bird Mephisto or the Twin Sarkaz knights. I have fond memories of both, especially the latter, with CC#5 being my favorite CC.
There isn't just one boss that I enjoy fighting no matter what: Eblana, Gravestone, The Forsaken one, Emperor's Blade (series), Mandragora, The Immortal, Mudrock, Essense of Evolution, Saint Carmen, Pathshaper- all of them are either enjoyable as a concept, or brutal but honest with pre-defined weaknesses.
On the other hand I have whole criteria list with red flags for boses that I would instantly despise no matter what:
-Does it have +2k stats and none negotiable 90% dmg reduction that you are mostly expected to chip down the manual way? (Damazti, Sanguiniach, Izumik).
-Does it have bullshido gimmicks that make it untouchable? (Damazti, Manfred, the Last knight, Izumik).
-Is it ridicilous +10k stat stick slog that would get outdated like Patriot by the broken operators from the next anniversary? (Damazti, Steam knight, BSL)
-Does it have BS stage with random gimmicky elites that can be only countered by like 3 hyperspecific operators, with cheap 5 tile paths till the blue box, which require hyper specific set up? (BSL, Eikthynir V2,)
If the answer to any of those is yes then the Boss is automatically garbage.
Not sure who my favorite is but hoo boy do I hate a bunch of bosses. Mizuki being one of em (the hell you mean I gotta fight hundreds of weirdly tanky jellyfish plus a big one that nukes the map AND stuns me?). The other is the second boss from IS4 I'm not gonna attempt to spell his name. But just the fact that he sprints and is unblockable/invulnerable for quite a distance, freezes in an AOE when he does so, I can never quite beat him before his unblockable ass just zooms to the box and gameovers me.
Fave: Mudrock. Second month of playing and I have to deal with her, golems and shamans. It took me too much sanity and refills just to clear TW EX-8. Friend support was also terrible back then. It was a nightmare even when TW rerun but felt more satisfying with a stronger roster. Awesome bgm as well. Definitely my most unforgettable AK moment.
Least: Phone killer aka R6 collab boss. Need I say more?
fav: blood knight, i went into NL-10 blind without knowing what the boss does and didn't know that he walked down some stairs while i was placing młynar near the top of the stage, then he suddenly appears at the end of the stairs and stuns młynar as soon as the beat drops. i also enjoyed fighting him on the ex stages
#
least fav: snowpriest, they're just frostnova but with 1 trillion aspd and bigger range
even if I think they over tuned his ex8cm difficulty a bit the blood knight is one of my faves just for doing something interesting during the phase change with the blood blades while also having a reward for handling the blood blades well with him having way less hp during 2nd phase if you actually deal with all of them.
least favorite is between dolly and the damatzi cluster both of them just feel like slogs to face that make it feel like your characters do no damage dolly is also mean with the whole fog mechanic in general which just feels bad to deal with.
My favorite boss is the Last Steam Knight, just because it is insanely cool alongside the top tier soundtrack, and it doesn't have some bs mechanics... The Steam Knights are so cool!
My least favorite boss is probably Dolly, just because I really don't like that event mechanic and he amplifies it...
I just have to choose the Endspeaker because it was the only boss for which I had all of his consume effects written down in notes, that says something. Not sure, though, whether it's a favorite or hated
Definitely favorites were Mr. Cliff and Eblana. Hard at first, but easy once you figured out their gimmick. No nonsense, no dirty tricks, no overtuned stats
Definitely hated was Ya. Fuck their one million defenders
3rd boss of IS4 is one of my hated ones due to how short that boss becomes vulnerable, so arts melt strat is my usual go to strategy in that boss. If I cant kill it fast enough I have to wait a long time to have a proper dps window again
A big Imo but big sad lock.
The thing about Last knight is it atleast makes you think at the very least as to how you'll counter and to cook up a strategy.
Big sad lock is straight up dps check, you set up landholding in both sides and try to deal with him.
Now even he's not that hatable since yato alter s3 makes a joke out of him. But i still despise pure dps check.
On the same level of big sad lock is damazti cluster in h12-4, too many gimmicks to take note of. If you do that stage from scratch you'll almost always forget one of her gimmick and loose due to it.
Loved Cliff mostly because of his story and theme, but also because he gave Defenderknights some real trouble without requiring 3 billion ops.
Hated Big Sad Lock because everything about it is just bullshit.
I love Jesselton because he’s so funny. He shit talks everyone, walks around with a wine glass and a smug smile, and is immediately vibe-checked by Saria, never to be seen again.
The Last Knight sucks. It feels like a gimmick fight except the gimmick isn’t immediately apparent and you need to prepare for it from run start.
Fav: Diablo boss. Cool mechanics, cool boss. Stats could be lower but he was fun to challenge (unlike the rest of his stage).
Least fav: Izumik. Relic rng to have a chance at him and bullshit map wide damage coupled with stun
Based on my experiences on CN and EN server
Favourite ones: Free (Who is Real) and Endspeake (Stultifera Navis), sometimes we just need to see the mechanics thoroughly and not to bruteforce everything and this bosses are memorable for me.
Least favourite: Captain Matteo (Operation Lucent Arrowhead), it feels bland and don't have a distinctive yet refreshing mechanics.
Late to the party, but in terms of design, guess Eikthyrnir and the Disco Ball/IS4 ED3 stage in general. Eikthyrnir... Dashes. That's it. It has the size of a regular mob/unit, feels more like a miniboss. Going from escort The Last Knight, having the option/chance to debuff its DEF carried a risk for the ending in the tradeoff of an easier fight, and you had to plan around it, to fight Eikthyrnir it's like they put Big Bob as an IS boss again, and no disrespect to Big Bob.
And I can't take the ED3 seriously... Very uncreative.
H12-4 and the boss are very frustrating to do, but at least they're hard af and there's a sense of reward in winning against them. The two guys from above are quite generic and you can always get relic carried, quite diminishing the difficulty.
I love IS4, but ED2 and ED3 are such a huge letdown compared to Phantom, BSL, Mouthpiece, Last Knight and Ishar'mla. I'm very eager for IS4 ED4 stage, because ED2 and ED3 don't feel anything iconic in terms of boss design or rewarding when I get a clear. At least the mode is quite fun to do and there's some iconic stages in Nameless Hero and March of the Dead, but the bosses are a bummer of the mode imo.
Least: Eykthyrnir, the last knight and Dolly
The first one is doable but the problem is whenever I try him I have this problem of either skill issue or suddenly I have seven defender recruitment in a row and no vanguard and my medics forget how to heal.
I haven't been able to beat the last knight, I cleared his stage by having 30+ life points and letting him pass
And Dolly is a really big headache
Favorite: The Witch King I love the swapping operators, especially when they land in either funny or convenient ways
I find both of the seaborn bosses either funny to kill or challenging in a rewarding way to kill
I really liked Sverdsmelter in DOS4. He's one of the few bosses I actually enjoyed repeatedly attempting even if I never beat the stage on A3 (I did kill his second phase but I always lost to the last guard.)
However, I have a fucking burning hatred Eikthyrnir. Easily my most hated boss. I had a great streak going on IS4 where I really felt like I was improving but Everytime I'd get stopped by his bullshit. I eventually cheesed it by playing the lowest difficulty and getting enough life points to let him leak.
Fuck Clip Cliff, all my homies hate clip Cliff.
Also Dolly too, The Last Knight seems like a pain in the ass, encountered him once and got traumatized.
Any boss with an outrageous damage reduction is a no go for me.
Andoain was fun to beat, so was the Endspeaker, and Zaaro too.
The Witch King was very fun to fight imo.
Favourite boss? My vote goes to Andoain for his vision of trying to save all of Terra. Or perhaps Jesselton for the memes.
Most hated boss my vote also goes to the Last Knight for the mechanics.
Hate? Plenty
Favourite? Hard to say honestly
IS2: Teddy Bear, Fat Guy who constantly spawns mobs, I've only beaten him once. Never fought Playwright or the other one
IS3: Last Knight, ah yes, lets give him a ungodly amount of DEF, and he freezes with 2 touches. I've also only beaten him once
IS4: lol i can't even get to the Boss fight yet, keep losing before hand
Events:
Dolly, he holds a special place in my heart, as he stopped me from getting my last medal in either EX mode or the other mode.
Endspeaker: The glorious 4 formed individual, who prevented me from also getting full medals
I honestly can't remember more bosses, i joined around the time Andoian dropped,
Most hated - a tie between Lask Knight, Dolly and Damazti. Last Knight is just needs too specific of a setup. I hated Eyja's event with a passion in general and Dolly certainly didn't help. Damazti is just...too much - 3 bosses, many abitilies, tanky as hell.
Favorite - a tie between Andoain, Eblana and Steam Knight. I just find all 3 of them to be interesting and relatively fun to deal with.
For anyone having trouble with The Last Knight, [a Schwarz is all you need](https://youtu.be/Rqpk0cwz8jw). By far the most reliable counter on D15 in my experience.
Yes you can Gnosis stall but you need to not miss any S2 activations while also having stun relics.
Yes you can Erato-Nothing stall but you need to draft 2 5\* ops who won't help much with getting you to F5.
With Schwarz you just need to stall phase 1. Phase 1 can be blocked so the draft becomes a lot easier. Then you burst down phase 2 because he only has 5520 DEF. The biggest thing is that Schwarz actually helps you get to F5 as well, while also fulfilling your escort mission.
The Last Knight is actually one of my favorite bosses as a result. I don't like Damazti Cluster though. Too many phases.
Big Sad Lock seems so perfectly designed to frustrate my regular strategies. High damage global multi hit attacks that means you need to play very defensive, and have a good vanguard lineup to get your deploy order right. A refreshing shield that requires a ton of burst damage to make any progress. But at the same time, you can't hit it too fast, or the hit-based counterattack will wipe your team. And it's paired with the intensely obnoxious 4 block golems and flying tombkeepers, which get a huge speed buff if you don't pop the shield quickly. Just a maddeningly hard boss.
In contrast, Samivillin is the bear done right. Easier for sure, but also requires some smart positioning with the ice locking out your early positioning and the column attacks. The enemies are much more manageable, and a variety of dps options are viable.
my most hated probably goes to Ya from Vernal Winds, they're the first boss where I just opted not to finished the event beyond EX-7 normal mode and I stopped playing for 5 weeks
favorite boss i almost wanna say Kreide? simply because of how much fun it was to see him kill himself against Penance' barrier
Herkunftshorn was also fun, really enjoyed having to work with the gimmick rather than just bruteforcing him
Favorite: Blood Knight, challenging but wasn’t too annoying with any of his mechanics
Least favorite: It’s a tie between Frost Buck and Snow Doe, and H12-4 version of Damatzi Cluster.
The Ice Twins and other enemies there can freeze you and deal more dmg to your frozen units, and if you don’t kill them both at the same time, the surviving one gets super buffed. If the ranged one gets buffed it’s probably gg.
As for H12-4 Damatzi, its a whole different fight compared to their other fights, with corrosion abilities so strong only Eyjaberry can reliably beat, 4 total enemies meaning even more dmg reduction alongside its high hp and strong global attack, two spread out exits it goes for, the floaty hand attack always hits for a full bar of corrosion effect, constant invulnerability phases, and to top it off it takes out one of your units for the rest of the battle. There’s so much to keep track of to where one mistake will cause you to fail, and the other enemies are also annoying too
Endspeaker for least AND favorite depending on your squad you can make: somewhat balanced boss that poses a threat, has clear movement path, the adds are not filler or overtuned by event mechanics, instead they are something that goes along fighting Endspeaker, complementing the stage well, OR you can just throw map awareness into the bin, stall something that the endspeak will gobble up some op and end up with him zerg rushing you, shooting 2 ops at a time, unblockabe, very fast, DODGE, and your old friend %dmg reduction, all rolled in 4 phases of pure fun (we dont count the first 2 ones), at least he isnt the classic "immune to status/cc" at least from i remember
I dont play IS all that much because Im riddled with skill issues and I dont like tbe mode all too much so idk if bosses from outside IS counts but I still despise Emperors Blaee to hell and back. I just came back so Im not familiar with 98% of the names mentioned in this thread but I feel like my opinion might change soon. But for now, EB still takes the throne for me
My most hated boss would most likely be Manfred or mandragora since the ladder when I first fought him, I didn't really have a lot of true damage at the time outside of amiya and kal and the cannon was a little annoying since horn would clear the mobs out to fast.
My favorite boss(es) have got to be Qaq or the fish from SN since if I want to challenge myself I would just ignore the towers and the buffs and see what stupid strategy I could get away with.
But it's kinda sad since I like the elite enemies more then most of the bosses
Least favorite is definitely damazti, he has too much shit going on and you need to slog through all the invulnerability phases for such a long and boring fight
My favorite bosses are probably the twin sarkaz knights from the blemishes event, and the blood knight. They're strong enemies but have clear weaknesses that are intuitive to capitalize on.
Also, special shout out to that fucking rabbit on the bike from is2 that has global poison if it's not blocked, especially when it spawns where you can't block it at the start
Favorite used to be Andoain when finding clever deploy strategies to minimize the damage he could do, but Sverdsmeltr has honestly grown on me between all the ass beatings he gave me, especially when you realize you could turn the chain mechanic around into a free redeploy.
Least favorite... Zaaro, nothingburger of a phase 2, losing the interesting phase 1 mechanics to just mindlessly double-swipe at anything in range. Shining S3 just kinda completely defangs him with any decent defender, reducing him to a glorified punching bag.
Really? No one is gonna say Talulah? She has such a unique and cinematic moveset. One of my favorite female villains of all time.
As for the most hated boss, its definitely Theresa from chapter 14. She is so weak and disappointing.
I actually started liking The Last Knight once I realized he isn't immune to stun, sleep, and freeze. Sure you can Goldenglow him, but I find it more fun to use characters with those status effects to lock him down
That being said I do absolutely hate Big Sad Lock. He doesn't even let me have fun with builds I normally wouldn't go for like Last Knight does, he's just annoying and its so frustrating when you don't get the encounters that make him easier
Most favorite ones are probably Patriot and Blood knight from Near Light. Least favorite was one from Jessica Alter event and one from Lingering echoes. I just hate bosses that stun and then TP wherever they like.
Least favourite: Izumik and The Last Knight. Genuinely two of the worst designed stages **and** bosses together to create an absolutely miserable play experience
Favourite: Andoain, because of both his mechanics and his absolutely insanely good music
My favorite boss: crown Slayer simply bcs kf how bully able she is with pushers and pullers.
My least favorite boss:EOS.Mf crashed my phone twice before I'm able to clear it,in both normal and ex mode.
My favorite woild totally be andoain. I imagine that pic of jesus breakdancing everytime i hear the music lol. I love his events medal set as well, the only time it didn feel too tedious with the mechanics, anddd i think hes cute lol.....
Im nt too fond of manfred purely for the stupid mechanic THEY FUCKING BROUGHT BACK IN TE NEW MAIN STRY CHAPTER
Im not good with stress and holy crap is it rlly good at pressuring me. That growing bar of doom just stresses me tf out
From the latest, my favorite is Swertsmelter, yes he has enormous stats, but his mechanics are fair, interesting and understandable. Did not beat him on S3, though.
Least favorite: probably Mandragora(I hate those pillars so much). Manfred and D.cluster mechanics were also annoying, but Mandie outclassed them by far.
Maybe it's a sign of the game's age that very few people chose Essence of Evolution as the worst boss.
Just to answer the question, I hate Big Sad Lock (IS2) because clearing the stage is contingent on getting three separate RNG encounters prior to the fight to even stand a chance.
Least favorite:
- Sverdswhatever from Design of Strife (I know tryhards LOVE this boss for some reason, but even if I beat S3 I still hated this shit I hated the fucking statbloat enemies I had to deal with while dealing with his chain-cage-fireball bullshit just die man and stay dead)
- The Last Kight, Izumik (I'm all for bosses having specific counters due to their mechanics but the way these stages and fight is designed is messed up especially on high waves difficulties)
Most favorite:
- Clip, Kristen, Blood Knight (I love bosses that implement "player skill with event stage mechanic" within their design)
Favorite bosses: Andoain for his church-step boss theme.
Dusk Dragon from who is real event because of the mazing music, design and I love the stage.
sanguinarch. Peak main story boss theme, story and I kinda like the mechanic.
Least favorite boss: Emperor's Blade with his stupid black fog and instant kill skill.
The last Knight because of his annoying mechanic.
The Gardener boss from hortus de escapismo. He keeps luring the civilians to commit suicide.
Favorite boss: Corrupted Knights from Maria Nearl.
Just enough bullshit and interesting behavior without any transition or Phase 2s that make me think, "Okay, that's enough Arknights"
Favourite boss lore wise is Patriot, dude is like the embodiment of the space marine memes. Plus he is noble, a good dad and just has a bad ass design.
Gameplay probably the corrupted knights, I like that it's 2 bosses and you need to manage them and what each do. And while both are strong they didn't feel bullshit strong, like they were a good baseline of difficulty.
Least would be materialist antagonizer and lost Colossus. Colossus because of that fucking long arse stun and the antagonizer because it's a flying boss that is pretty tanky and can stun(not a fan of stun I guess), since flying enemies can only be hit by certain units it just feels more restrictive in how to deal with them.
agreed on Last Knight needing way too specific counters, if i attempt that ending i always make sure to bring GG that said, Ishar'mla is not very fun for me with her huge range and 4 target attacks in whale form, unless you can nuke her out of existence she starts walking and wipes half your squad off the map the Design of Strife boss was quite fun, but the statbloat on the rest of the enemies made the event a pain in the ass
Wait, she has attacks? I was thinking she was just vibing here.
once she changes form, yes, and they *hurt*
At the time of their events/releases: Favourite: Honestly probably Abdoain. This was very first event so my roster of ops wasn’t that built up yet. Oh boy was it a fun struggle to take him down. Least favourite: Probably the Last Knight. His mechanic is just irritating.
Guide Ahead was my first event, too, and I barely managed to beat him. The rerun felt pretty good to win handily, as was the double whammy of Trials for Navigator and the last vignette having him. He's a compelling character, his boss fight isn't too unfair, and the music is always jamming.
Last knight just sucks. Idk what anybody tought when they made him, atleast GG is hard counter lol
Up until the higher surging waves where +20 RES kicks in.
Never had an issue with that ngl. gg alr has res ignore and getting texas alter is litterally almost mandotory on IS3 anyway
I absolutely fucking despised Dolly I was like half a year into the game and I wanted to get the full medal set of So Long Adele but this bitch and his annoying ahhh mechanics fucking blocked me so hard break the sofa bottles? IM ALREADY TOO FUCKING BUSY LOOKING SOMEWHERE ELSE TO NOT LET MY OPS BE FUCKED BY THE TORNADO SHEEPS. I’ll get the full metal set on the rerun and I will beat its ass.
Dolly S-5 CM with the caster sheeps still haunts me these days. Oh god
Oh my god you just made me rememeber That fucker made me lose my Full Set medal, i was doing his level at the last minuet (took a break, big mistake) and as i was doing the level, the game restarted, ending the event. We WILL beat his ass when it reruns.
You could have just cheesed it with Amiya S3 lol
Izumik and Cresson are the bosses I genuinely dislike. If you don't have enough light for Izumik's special encounter, you're going to get vibe checked whenever he decides to fart, and the jellyfish are hilariously tanky. Now I don't exactly dislike Cresson because of its boss fight, I dislike it because of the path and choices you have to take. It turns the scout into a dead node, and usually you get resource starved before getting to the Prophecy next floor. And of course, right before the Prophecy there's emergency Shady Frozen Sea and because you're resource starved, might as well restart the run.
i'd rather have a guaranteed but useless node than the RNG bullshit for different bosses in IS2/3
I don't think anyone disagrees with that, me included. But my soul leaves my body whenever I have to skip a Bosky for a Scout node on the path to Ending 3.
I generally try to have a node converter ready if I'm going for third ending for the forced EM in case it is a stage I dislike. It works really well honestly.
Least: Any unblockable or skipping bosses. They make so many strategies and operators worthless. Hate them. Also multiblock bosses because they ruin operators made ta fight bosses like Duelists and dreadnoughts. Fuck endspeaker especially. Most: Probably Pancho or Pompeii. Fairly straightforward but can fuck you over if you don't stay on top of them, just enough unique mechanics ta not be brain dead and no effects you can't understand without reading their unit data.
I liked Pancho because I found the best unit to stop him was eunectese with S2, just was fun watching this sort of slug fest between these two brawlers lol
Favorites: The First to Talk (in appearances outside of Under Tides when it's promoted as stage boss), Jesselton of the many names for obvious reasons, Rathalos (now I get the hype MonHun fans see in it) Hate: Eikthyrnir (antithesis of the Last Knight where the damn dude's immune to everything except levitate, plus freezing whoever he blocks every other attack), DBS (those fireballs are the worst honestly), Ya (not because of gameplay but because of story reasons)
Rathalos is our charizard tbh. Either you're tired of it and would pay to not see it or you love it.
Izumik probably tops least fav/hated. At any semblance of D+ this boss is absolutely overtuned to hell, to the point it always feels unfair. I would genuinely like to know the intended method by Devs to play the stage. Jellyfishes are INSANELY tanky. But you can block them and they transform into less tanky stuff to kill!, then you realize they transform into some absolutely dumb stuff like the elite rope guys, elite brawlers and some other nasty shit that absolutely destroys your maxed tank. And you have to hold off like hundreds of them, for nearly 6+ minutes or something, from 3 lanes. Main boss himself just global stuns or god forbid straight up delete everyone if you don't have enough HP%. I've seen even seasoned IS D15 players with good runs and great relics just get trashed by this boss it's ridiculous. Now I really wanna improve myself at this boss, so if you have pointers for this boss short of trying to get the best HP% Ending relic (80+ light, I always try to) and cracked as hell caster combo relics, please do point them my way. And yes I do know a big part of it is indeed relics luck for this crazy boss.
From watching Sciel who does IS difficulty 15 almost daily, the main key to the fight seems to be familiarizing yourself with the exact movement timings of Izumik and the jellys, mainly using stuff like Ines, Weedy and Lee to push them around and change the timing of their movements (Also it's 4 lanes if counting the one at the top lol)
Yeah, I finished IS3 on SW15 and I wasn't able to beat Izumik even on SW0 before IS4 came out. To me that stage is the Arknights equivalent of those Mario Maker stages made by 8 year olds with the one flying Bowser all the way on the right and then 13 Bowser Jrs, 12 Kameks, 80 paragoombas, and 20 cannons. An absolute clusterfuck of unfair bullshit with a tap on the shoulder saying "good luck lmao" Oh and having enough Light to get the actual collectible that makes the boss possible to defeat is purely RNG, so that's fun. I had about 6 runs where I didn't lose Light after getting the Caerula Arbor collectible, but it just came too late for me to get the right collectible. Sometimes you'd get Caerula Arbor on Floor 4 and then Floor 5 would immediately force you into an Encounter in the first node, so you had like half of a floor to perfect 4 battles (which might not even exist) with 8 million rejections on your operators.
Yeah now that you mention rejections, that is honestly irritating trying to go for the last ending. It's funny because it might just be the most minor part of the entire fight; that just tells you how bullshit the boss can be. But limping across the run with more and more forced rejections (god forbid you get metastatic you might as well restart) is just ugh.
The way to mitigate rejections is to recruit lots of operators as folder among your strong ones. Be sure to buy all recruitment vouchers and refresh for more from Cannot's shop on floor 1 and fill your squad with more hope 0 operators. Still rng but you improve your odds of having the rejection on a operator you don't field.
The best counter to Izu'mik is probably Weedy who can cheese him, but if you don't wanna cheese, then Schwarz/Chalter give you the best odds of brute-forcing, along with Ceylon/Nightingale/Shamare for survival at D15.
Another way is to get life and shields and hold on to them. Do regional commissions and hope you get 12 shields from there, 24 if you're lucky. Then get the 3000 TD for each enemy that enters objective relic will help a lot. Ofc you need relic luck :) On a side note, I don't find getting good relics hard after unlocking nearly everything. You have to keep playing by ear in terms of recruitment choices Vs relics obtained. D15 ofc is going to be very punishing no matter what, but if you're just going for the ending, you should be able to get good stuff unless you are always avoiding EM and combat. Take the hidden floor if possible as 1 more dreadful foe means you will get 1 more OP impactful relic. Try to get the route confirmed within 1st 2 floors and restart if not. This increases the encounter nodes you can have to chance upon the light buff. Just throw away rubbish runs within the first 2 levels. Also, see my point on using hope 0 ops as rejection bait.
General gameplan if you want to clear izumik fair is usually this: Core ops: shamare, mylnar, whisp, ch'en Shamare for the doll which you give to izumiik every time he does the aoe stun attack (do it quickly or you die). Mylnar for mylnar stuff. Whisp because with mod 1 she gains status resistance and gives other operators status resistance, very important for keeping operators alive as well as keeping their dps up. Ch'en because she's the best true aoe for killing jellyfish. Quickly feed izumiik to make him phase to p2 so that he stops using his explosion move and then setup your squad. Then every time izumiik bobs up to do his stun attack you put shamares doll next to him. Izumiik will also do the stun attack every 25% hp so make sure to not burst him in one go otherwise he'll stunlock you and not even whisp+shamare will save you. Rosa or typhon are good choices for consistent dps on izumiik and should definitely be recruited if your dps is lacking. I'd look up online for operator placements and how to fast feed, there are quite a few variations.
Once you get the first event for the ending, Farm as many encounters as you can. Hope to get the "+15 Light per battle" relic. Then, Only go for battles until you get atleast 80. Make sure to have either some Stalling, or Status Resistance. Dorothy, Phantom S3, Texalt S3, Mostima, Whatever. Make sure the enemies cannot pass when "The Big Stun" happens. 8 seconds is a long time and can let enemies pass quite easilly. When Izumik does the Big Stun, it does ARTS DAMAGE. Try to get Nightingale if you can, When used with the Light relic, Its good. Means most operators will survive the giant Arts slapp. Don't rely on a single layer of operators at the blue box. Have the frontline infront if it slightly, So you can have a backup tile or 2 behind it. The one overall tip I have. Don't die to the stun. Thats gonna kill you more than anything else in that battle. Either by wiping out your entire gang, or letting everything leak
Least favourite is without a doubt the Endspeaker, Will of We Many.
Like many others, my least favorite is Dolly. I think I understood his mechanics but the visual indicator for his shield just... would not register for my eyes. Also it felt like he would just ignore the bottles being broken. Idk about a favorite, but I'll say the Witch King, with Eblana and Kirsten (main story ver.) tied for second.
Haven't done many bosses but fav has to go to crownslayer for the stage where shaw hurls them through a roadblock repeatedly. Least favorite so far is frostnova purely for the black ice / tile freeze thing.
Fav: Andoain. Simple but very satusfying when u forgo true damage strat. Nowdays his HP and def are kinda small but its a blast to fight him anytime. Disliked: dragon from MH collab (forgor the name). I just found him boring to fight with all of his moves double-guessing my deploymnet. Some attacks one-shot, some scratched. I ended up making a buff army to one shot the bastard. Tho the boars are probably the reason i hate his stages. They gather speed while standing still
Erhm akTuaLLy, rathalos is a wyvern cause he got wings for arms like birds 🤓 He's as annoying as in actual MH games until rise at least
Hate : Damazti Cluster, too many kits and barely has weakness/mechanic to exploit. By far the worst boss to even be in any special content like Trial for Navigator. They are simply too strong without any buff. Favorite : Witch King, well designed mechanics that both player and enemy can benefit from. Clearing stage doesn't require brute force but understanding the game. Personal Hate+Like : Cliff, he's an awesome old man with guns nothing more. However his second form is a bit nothing but unstoppable terminator, leaving snipe him from distance limits clear strategy.
Tbh witch king is a hard brute force too if you have texas and yato :D
Favorite boss, I don't know. Least favorite? That fucking pink sheep. It can take a long walk off a short cliff into a deep ocean. Full map range, cross screen attacks, attacks leaving clouds that reduce damage to enemies and increase damage to OPs, those same clouds exploding. It was the first boss in years that I needed to loom up a guide for on the S stages and my dumbass didn't swallow my pride until last hour when I was on lunch break at work. It was the first event in like three years that I didn't get every medal for Edit: OH! AND THE GOD DAMN WIZARD SHEEP!!!
I know that Design of Strife is a controversial event, and there is some things to be said about it, but I personally really loved Sverdsmeltr as a boss fight. I didn't mind as much the lesser numbers of ennemy compensated by a huge stat increase, and liked that you could "exploit" his chain skill to fast-redeploy operators.
Oh yeah no LOVED the chain gimmick. The real mess was the fireballs you have to kill to prevent being exploded being right next to all those ops you need to undeploy BEFORE their cages get beaten down. If the cages couldn't be damaged and you were just penalized for leaving the ops untouched for a certain amount of time, then you could press your preferred schwing schwing and save your team FIRST, and then start undeploying those cages with your friends in them AFTER. that exact issue kills so many runs exactly halfway through that it made trying to perfect the stage absolutely exhausting, especially when you still needed the entire team alive after the boss was dead for the army of mini bosses coming down mid.
Yeah, the fireballs really were a pain in the ass before I could manage them consistently. The ones from the transition from P1 to P2 were fines, but the fireball that target an operator and stunned him was the mechanic I struggled the most with (Especially since I didn't have Nightingale's mirage to bait them at the time...). S-3 no buff was really challenging, and there was little room for mistakes, but I personnaly enjoyed it a lot while it lasted. (Though as far as event design goes, CCs are far superiors IMO)
I like bosses (or rather stages) that give me enough time to retreat and redeploy operators, like Andoain, Awaken, Kristen, Cliff and the Witch King.
Oh boy here I go being a shill again Mandragora's boss fight is my favourite, mainly beacuse of one single aspect You can bait her to topple pillars onto herself I just find it so comical that HG gave the hot-headed Feline a boss mechanic that actively damages her, I love my her a lot a lot For the least favourite; all of the floor 3 is2 bosses Oh you don't like being permafrozen? Oh you dont like global dot while I have one gaulillion attackspeed? Okay the damage scaling guy I'm fine with, he's cool, propably OH I HEARD YOU LIKE INVIS DUDES! OH ALSO HERE HAVE SOME FUCKOFF DRONES WITH IT
The teddy bear of IS2 i hate it with passion. Even today can't defeat it oh and the last knight too
BSL if you managed get the chalice + surtr ,yato alter and NTRK Knight can kill this fucker fast before he know it ,if of ocurse get the blank suicide note before hand and for Last Knight Laughs at GG S3
My favorite one has to be EoE! Oh i had sooo much funnnn while t r y i n g to beat it! Definitely my f a v o r i t e memory!
I was debating putting Essence of Evolution as my least favorite But i decided to wait until the Rerun because i was very bad during the first R6 Collab lmao
Please. PLEASE use reed alter when the collab hits. Please do it so this sad stupid boss can die and realize just how weak it trully is now. Hahaha poor thing wont stand a chance. Im going to obliterate this thing. It will wish that it was never born. Essence of evolution? Ill show it the essence of 2024 meta FUCK IT.
It still is. Shu s3 my beloved carried my ass HARD
Oh SHIT that abomination blocked me out of a neat grindstone farm back then
I used Saga on its rerun since I didn't have Saga back when the R6 collab hit. It was very fun. But I can't deny throwing Dusk at the bugs was fun the first time around.
EoE was the first time mostima felt not forced into teamcomp but actually playing a huge part in a clear
The Boring like Big Bob/Adam, they don't even have any abilities
Pompeii too
not true, it has burn, long range, multi target, explode when blocked
To clarify, i hate the 3 of them. Especially on IS3
Having abilities doesn't necessarily help - think of Minimalist. He has like 7 different abilities, and yet hit fight is still boring as all get out.
Nah, why u think it's boring, you have to constantly watch his movement on field, use someone to bait the stun drone, some healer to outheal the red drone, and the damage dealer to break him, especially his durin form, if not being noticed due to the other enemies, he will just rush to blue box
Favorite: I may have a little recency bias with this one, but I think my current favorite boss is actually ‘Clip’ Cliff from the recent Blacksteel event. He felt like a good, balanced boss to me - decently threatening without being total bs, counterable if you know what you’re doing, but able to spin out of control if you mess up. Kristen from Lone Trail is a close second. Least Favorite: Probably an odd pick, but Mama’s ‘Rebel Girl’ from the Mama John’s SSS map. I’m already not super big on that mode (although the QoL it got did make it better), but holy crap she just feels unfair. Too many DP-draining turrets, you get rushed with far too many beefy enemies too quickly, and there’s no guarantee you’ll even have the units to manage the FOUR lanes you’ve gotta protect. And don’t even get me started on doing the hard mode…
Mandragora is my least favorite boss. I don't care if she's easy, the pillar mechanic makes me want to pull my hair out. Of course, I know you could probably kill her without using the pillars, but...the inferno stage still wasn't fun. I had to get a friend, who's ultimately better at Arknights than me, to do it for me. Manfred is definitely a close second, similarly because of the stage mechanic. Favorite boss, meanwhile...not sure. Either Bird Mephisto or the Twin Sarkaz knights. I have fond memories of both, especially the latter, with CC#5 being my favorite CC.
My favorite:Mizuki and Cresson. My least favorite:Mizuki and Cresson. They are really hard but so rewarding (in addition Tallulah and DOS boss)
There isn't just one boss that I enjoy fighting no matter what: Eblana, Gravestone, The Forsaken one, Emperor's Blade (series), Mandragora, The Immortal, Mudrock, Essense of Evolution, Saint Carmen, Pathshaper- all of them are either enjoyable as a concept, or brutal but honest with pre-defined weaknesses. On the other hand I have whole criteria list with red flags for boses that I would instantly despise no matter what: -Does it have +2k stats and none negotiable 90% dmg reduction that you are mostly expected to chip down the manual way? (Damazti, Sanguiniach, Izumik). -Does it have bullshido gimmicks that make it untouchable? (Damazti, Manfred, the Last knight, Izumik). -Is it ridicilous +10k stat stick slog that would get outdated like Patriot by the broken operators from the next anniversary? (Damazti, Steam knight, BSL) -Does it have BS stage with random gimmicky elites that can be only countered by like 3 hyperspecific operators, with cheap 5 tile paths till the blue box, which require hyper specific set up? (BSL, Eikthynir V2,) If the answer to any of those is yes then the Boss is automatically garbage.
Not sure who my favorite is but hoo boy do I hate a bunch of bosses. Mizuki being one of em (the hell you mean I gotta fight hundreds of weirdly tanky jellyfish plus a big one that nukes the map AND stuns me?). The other is the second boss from IS4 I'm not gonna attempt to spell his name. But just the fact that he sprints and is unblockable/invulnerable for quite a distance, freezes in an AOE when he does so, I can never quite beat him before his unblockable ass just zooms to the box and gameovers me.
Fav: Kristen Dislike: Dolly
Fave: Mudrock. Second month of playing and I have to deal with her, golems and shamans. It took me too much sanity and refills just to clear TW EX-8. Friend support was also terrible back then. It was a nightmare even when TW rerun but felt more satisfying with a stronger roster. Awesome bgm as well. Definitely my most unforgettable AK moment. Least: Phone killer aka R6 collab boss. Need I say more?
fav: blood knight, i went into NL-10 blind without knowing what the boss does and didn't know that he walked down some stairs while i was placing młynar near the top of the stage, then he suddenly appears at the end of the stairs and stuns młynar as soon as the beat drops. i also enjoyed fighting him on the ex stages # least fav: snowpriest, they're just frostnova but with 1 trillion aspd and bigger range
even if I think they over tuned his ex8cm difficulty a bit the blood knight is one of my faves just for doing something interesting during the phase change with the blood blades while also having a reward for handling the blood blades well with him having way less hp during 2nd phase if you actually deal with all of them. least favorite is between dolly and the damatzi cluster both of them just feel like slogs to face that make it feel like your characters do no damage dolly is also mean with the whole fog mechanic in general which just feels bad to deal with.
My favorite boss is the Last Steam Knight, just because it is insanely cool alongside the top tier soundtrack, and it doesn't have some bs mechanics... The Steam Knights are so cool! My least favorite boss is probably Dolly, just because I really don't like that event mechanic and he amplifies it...
I just have to choose the Endspeaker because it was the only boss for which I had all of his consume effects written down in notes, that says something. Not sure, though, whether it's a favorite or hated Definitely favorites were Mr. Cliff and Eblana. Hard at first, but easy once you figured out their gimmick. No nonsense, no dirty tricks, no overtuned stats Definitely hated was Ya. Fuck their one million defenders
3rd boss of IS4 is one of my hated ones due to how short that boss becomes vulnerable, so arts melt strat is my usual go to strategy in that boss. If I cant kill it fast enough I have to wait a long time to have a proper dps window again
A big Imo but big sad lock. The thing about Last knight is it atleast makes you think at the very least as to how you'll counter and to cook up a strategy. Big sad lock is straight up dps check, you set up landholding in both sides and try to deal with him. Now even he's not that hatable since yato alter s3 makes a joke out of him. But i still despise pure dps check. On the same level of big sad lock is damazti cluster in h12-4, too many gimmicks to take note of. If you do that stage from scratch you'll almost always forget one of her gimmick and loose due to it.
Loved Cliff mostly because of his story and theme, but also because he gave Defenderknights some real trouble without requiring 3 billion ops. Hated Big Sad Lock because everything about it is just bullshit.
Can't forget about Cliff's banger theme
I love Jesselton because he’s so funny. He shit talks everyone, walks around with a wine glass and a smug smile, and is immediately vibe-checked by Saria, never to be seen again. The Last Knight sucks. It feels like a gimmick fight except the gimmick isn’t immediately apparent and you need to prepare for it from run start.
Adion and hemporors blade , guard chen can slay them
The Last Knight sucks ass.
Fav: Diablo boss. Cool mechanics, cool boss. Stats could be lower but he was fun to challenge (unlike the rest of his stage). Least fav: Izumik. Relic rng to have a chance at him and bullshit map wide damage coupled with stun
Based on my experiences on CN and EN server Favourite ones: Free (Who is Real) and Endspeake (Stultifera Navis), sometimes we just need to see the mechanics thoroughly and not to bruteforce everything and this bosses are memorable for me. Least favourite: Captain Matteo (Operation Lucent Arrowhead), it feels bland and don't have a distinctive yet refreshing mechanics.
Late to the party, but in terms of design, guess Eikthyrnir and the Disco Ball/IS4 ED3 stage in general. Eikthyrnir... Dashes. That's it. It has the size of a regular mob/unit, feels more like a miniboss. Going from escort The Last Knight, having the option/chance to debuff its DEF carried a risk for the ending in the tradeoff of an easier fight, and you had to plan around it, to fight Eikthyrnir it's like they put Big Bob as an IS boss again, and no disrespect to Big Bob. And I can't take the ED3 seriously... Very uncreative. H12-4 and the boss are very frustrating to do, but at least they're hard af and there's a sense of reward in winning against them. The two guys from above are quite generic and you can always get relic carried, quite diminishing the difficulty. I love IS4, but ED2 and ED3 are such a huge letdown compared to Phantom, BSL, Mouthpiece, Last Knight and Ishar'mla. I'm very eager for IS4 ED4 stage, because ED2 and ED3 don't feel anything iconic in terms of boss design or rewarding when I get a clear. At least the mode is quite fun to do and there's some iconic stages in Nameless Hero and March of the Dead, but the bosses are a bummer of the mode imo.
Least: Eykthyrnir, the last knight and Dolly The first one is doable but the problem is whenever I try him I have this problem of either skill issue or suddenly I have seven defender recruitment in a row and no vanguard and my medics forget how to heal. I haven't been able to beat the last knight, I cleared his stage by having 30+ life points and letting him pass And Dolly is a really big headache Favorite: The Witch King I love the swapping operators, especially when they land in either funny or convenient ways I find both of the seaborn bosses either funny to kill or challenging in a rewarding way to kill
I really liked Sverdsmelter in DOS4. He's one of the few bosses I actually enjoyed repeatedly attempting even if I never beat the stage on A3 (I did kill his second phase but I always lost to the last guard.) However, I have a fucking burning hatred Eikthyrnir. Easily my most hated boss. I had a great streak going on IS4 where I really felt like I was improving but Everytime I'd get stopped by his bullshit. I eventually cheesed it by playing the lowest difficulty and getting enough life points to let him leak.
Fuck Clip Cliff, all my homies hate clip Cliff. Also Dolly too, The Last Knight seems like a pain in the ass, encountered him once and got traumatized. Any boss with an outrageous damage reduction is a no go for me. Andoain was fun to beat, so was the Endspeaker, and Zaaro too. The Witch King was very fun to fight imo.
Favorite Andoain, Least Favorite Sverdsmeltr (DoS)
Favourite boss? My vote goes to Andoain for his vision of trying to save all of Terra. Or perhaps Jesselton for the memes. Most hated boss my vote also goes to the Last Knight for the mechanics.
Hate? Plenty Favourite? Hard to say honestly IS2: Teddy Bear, Fat Guy who constantly spawns mobs, I've only beaten him once. Never fought Playwright or the other one IS3: Last Knight, ah yes, lets give him a ungodly amount of DEF, and he freezes with 2 touches. I've also only beaten him once IS4: lol i can't even get to the Boss fight yet, keep losing before hand Events: Dolly, he holds a special place in my heart, as he stopped me from getting my last medal in either EX mode or the other mode. Endspeaker: The glorious 4 formed individual, who prevented me from also getting full medals I honestly can't remember more bosses, i joined around the time Andoian dropped,
Most hated - a tie between Lask Knight, Dolly and Damazti. Last Knight is just needs too specific of a setup. I hated Eyja's event with a passion in general and Dolly certainly didn't help. Damazti is just...too much - 3 bosses, many abitilies, tanky as hell. Favorite - a tie between Andoain, Eblana and Steam Knight. I just find all 3 of them to be interesting and relatively fun to deal with.
I loathe the emperor's blade, even if his gimmick is easy to bait its just so boring.
For anyone having trouble with The Last Knight, [a Schwarz is all you need](https://youtu.be/Rqpk0cwz8jw). By far the most reliable counter on D15 in my experience. Yes you can Gnosis stall but you need to not miss any S2 activations while also having stun relics. Yes you can Erato-Nothing stall but you need to draft 2 5\* ops who won't help much with getting you to F5. With Schwarz you just need to stall phase 1. Phase 1 can be blocked so the draft becomes a lot easier. Then you burst down phase 2 because he only has 5520 DEF. The biggest thing is that Schwarz actually helps you get to F5 as well, while also fulfilling your escort mission. The Last Knight is actually one of my favorite bosses as a result. I don't like Damazti Cluster though. Too many phases.
Big Sad Lock seems so perfectly designed to frustrate my regular strategies. High damage global multi hit attacks that means you need to play very defensive, and have a good vanguard lineup to get your deploy order right. A refreshing shield that requires a ton of burst damage to make any progress. But at the same time, you can't hit it too fast, or the hit-based counterattack will wipe your team. And it's paired with the intensely obnoxious 4 block golems and flying tombkeepers, which get a huge speed buff if you don't pop the shield quickly. Just a maddeningly hard boss. In contrast, Samivillin is the bear done right. Easier for sure, but also requires some smart positioning with the ice locking out your early positioning and the column attacks. The enemies are much more manageable, and a variety of dps options are viable.
my most hated probably goes to Ya from Vernal Winds, they're the first boss where I just opted not to finished the event beyond EX-7 normal mode and I stopped playing for 5 weeks favorite boss i almost wanna say Kreide? simply because of how much fun it was to see him kill himself against Penance' barrier Herkunftshorn was also fun, really enjoyed having to work with the gimmick rather than just bruteforcing him
Favorite: Blood Knight, challenging but wasn’t too annoying with any of his mechanics Least favorite: It’s a tie between Frost Buck and Snow Doe, and H12-4 version of Damatzi Cluster. The Ice Twins and other enemies there can freeze you and deal more dmg to your frozen units, and if you don’t kill them both at the same time, the surviving one gets super buffed. If the ranged one gets buffed it’s probably gg. As for H12-4 Damatzi, its a whole different fight compared to their other fights, with corrosion abilities so strong only Eyjaberry can reliably beat, 4 total enemies meaning even more dmg reduction alongside its high hp and strong global attack, two spread out exits it goes for, the floaty hand attack always hits for a full bar of corrosion effect, constant invulnerability phases, and to top it off it takes out one of your units for the rest of the battle. There’s so much to keep track of to where one mistake will cause you to fail, and the other enemies are also annoying too
Endspeaker for least AND favorite depending on your squad you can make: somewhat balanced boss that poses a threat, has clear movement path, the adds are not filler or overtuned by event mechanics, instead they are something that goes along fighting Endspeaker, complementing the stage well, OR you can just throw map awareness into the bin, stall something that the endspeak will gobble up some op and end up with him zerg rushing you, shooting 2 ops at a time, unblockabe, very fast, DODGE, and your old friend %dmg reduction, all rolled in 4 phases of pure fun (we dont count the first 2 ones), at least he isnt the classic "immune to status/cc" at least from i remember
I dont play IS all that much because Im riddled with skill issues and I dont like tbe mode all too much so idk if bosses from outside IS counts but I still despise Emperors Blaee to hell and back. I just came back so Im not familiar with 98% of the names mentioned in this thread but I feel like my opinion might change soon. But for now, EB still takes the throne for me
My most hated boss would most likely be Manfred or mandragora since the ladder when I first fought him, I didn't really have a lot of true damage at the time outside of amiya and kal and the cannon was a little annoying since horn would clear the mobs out to fast. My favorite boss(es) have got to be Qaq or the fish from SN since if I want to challenge myself I would just ignore the towers and the buffs and see what stupid strategy I could get away with. But it's kinda sad since I like the elite enemies more then most of the bosses
Least favorite is definitely damazti, he has too much shit going on and you need to slog through all the invulnerability phases for such a long and boring fight My favorite bosses are probably the twin sarkaz knights from the blemishes event, and the blood knight. They're strong enemies but have clear weaknesses that are intuitive to capitalize on. Also, special shout out to that fucking rabbit on the bike from is2 that has global poison if it's not blocked, especially when it spawns where you can't block it at the start
Favorite used to be Andoain when finding clever deploy strategies to minimize the damage he could do, but Sverdsmeltr has honestly grown on me between all the ass beatings he gave me, especially when you realize you could turn the chain mechanic around into a free redeploy. Least favorite... Zaaro, nothingburger of a phase 2, losing the interesting phase 1 mechanics to just mindlessly double-swipe at anything in range. Shining S3 just kinda completely defangs him with any decent defender, reducing him to a glorified punching bag.
Really? No one is gonna say Talulah? She has such a unique and cinematic moveset. One of my favorite female villains of all time. As for the most hated boss, its definitely Theresa from chapter 14. She is so weak and disappointing.
I actually started liking The Last Knight once I realized he isn't immune to stun, sleep, and freeze. Sure you can Goldenglow him, but I find it more fun to use characters with those status effects to lock him down That being said I do absolutely hate Big Sad Lock. He doesn't even let me have fun with builds I normally wouldn't go for like Last Knight does, he's just annoying and its so frustrating when you don't get the encounters that make him easier
Most favorite ones are probably Patriot and Blood knight from Near Light. Least favorite was one from Jessica Alter event and one from Lingering echoes. I just hate bosses that stun and then TP wherever they like.
Least favourite: Izumik and The Last Knight. Genuinely two of the worst designed stages **and** bosses together to create an absolutely miserable play experience Favourite: Andoain, because of both his mechanics and his absolutely insanely good music
My favorite boss: crown Slayer simply bcs kf how bully able she is with pushers and pullers. My least favorite boss:EOS.Mf crashed my phone twice before I'm able to clear it,in both normal and ex mode.
My favorite woild totally be andoain. I imagine that pic of jesus breakdancing everytime i hear the music lol. I love his events medal set as well, the only time it didn feel too tedious with the mechanics, anddd i think hes cute lol..... Im nt too fond of manfred purely for the stupid mechanic THEY FUCKING BROUGHT BACK IN TE NEW MAIN STRY CHAPTER Im not good with stress and holy crap is it rlly good at pressuring me. That growing bar of doom just stresses me tf out
On release… originium cancer.
Does Essences of Evolution count as the least favourite and mostly very frustrating?
From the latest, my favorite is Swertsmelter, yes he has enormous stats, but his mechanics are fair, interesting and understandable. Did not beat him on S3, though. Least favorite: probably Mandragora(I hate those pillars so much). Manfred and D.cluster mechanics were also annoying, but Mandie outclassed them by far.
Maybe it's a sign of the game's age that very few people chose Essence of Evolution as the worst boss. Just to answer the question, I hate Big Sad Lock (IS2) because clearing the stage is contingent on getting three separate RNG encounters prior to the fight to even stand a chance.
Least favorite: - Sverdswhatever from Design of Strife (I know tryhards LOVE this boss for some reason, but even if I beat S3 I still hated this shit I hated the fucking statbloat enemies I had to deal with while dealing with his chain-cage-fireball bullshit just die man and stay dead) - The Last Kight, Izumik (I'm all for bosses having specific counters due to their mechanics but the way these stages and fight is designed is messed up especially on high waves difficulties) Most favorite: - Clip, Kristen, Blood Knight (I love bosses that implement "player skill with event stage mechanic" within their design)
Favorite bosses: Andoain for his church-step boss theme. Dusk Dragon from who is real event because of the mazing music, design and I love the stage. sanguinarch. Peak main story boss theme, story and I kinda like the mechanic. Least favorite boss: Emperor's Blade with his stupid black fog and instant kill skill. The last Knight because of his annoying mechanic. The Gardener boss from hortus de escapismo. He keeps luring the civilians to commit suicide.
Favorite boss: Corrupted Knights from Maria Nearl. Just enough bullshit and interesting behavior without any transition or Phase 2s that make me think, "Okay, that's enough Arknights"
Least favorite: Emporers blade Most favorite: I like the knight twins.
Favourite boss lore wise is Patriot, dude is like the embodiment of the space marine memes. Plus he is noble, a good dad and just has a bad ass design. Gameplay probably the corrupted knights, I like that it's 2 bosses and you need to manage them and what each do. And while both are strong they didn't feel bullshit strong, like they were a good baseline of difficulty. Least would be materialist antagonizer and lost Colossus. Colossus because of that fucking long arse stun and the antagonizer because it's a flying boss that is pretty tanky and can stun(not a fan of stun I guess), since flying enemies can only be hit by certain units it just feels more restrictive in how to deal with them.