Bosses that do a lot with a little

[WhiteFangofWhoa]

Spinning off from the current topic 'Bosses that don't mess around', I would like to entries for the opposite type of boss:

'I do not fear the man who has practised ten thousand kicks. I fear the man who has practised one kick ten thousand times.' -Bruce Lee

It's all well and good to throw lightning around, split into an army copies or cleave dimensions in two with a single swing. The truly impressively skilled boss will manage to be challenging despite having an arsenal just as limited as that of the player. If a boss can manage to be challenging despite having just one weapon that he or she knows how to use very well, you don't mind losing so much. Well... at least the first time.

My starting submission is Murai from Ninja Gaiden. Just a simple little nunchuku in the hands of an old man, yet he earns his place as the wake up call in a legendarily hard game.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

We're really doing this? *Sigh* If someone makes a 'Would you Date a boss that does X' I'm gonna start making up my own curse words.

Okay, I'll play along for a little bit, but just know I'm brewing up some good ones.

Bongo Bongo from the Shadow Temple, OoT. All he has is a drum, a cloaking field and the floor is lava. And damn if he's not scary and difficult.

And even though he's not a boss in the strictest sense, the fist time you meet him might as well be. Certainly stuck with me way longer than final bosses from most games. I'm of course talking about Chainsaw Man from the Village in Resident Evil 4. He had a chainsaw, its instant death, you're frantic, panicked, low on ammo, no grenades, a dozen+ crazed Spaniards, and then this fucker shows up!

 

[Shoggoth2588]

Well...There's Whitney from Pokemon Silver/Gold & S-Silver/ H-Gold. I can't remember the movesets in the remakes but in the original games, she only uses 2 Pokemon: Clefairy and Miltank. The Clefairy is level 18 and isn't really anything to write home about: It can use double-slap, mimic, encore and, metronome so it could get you stuck in a buff-loop with encore and get lucky with a really powerful metronome attack but other than that, it should be easily dispatched, even if you haven't done a lot of grinding. Then there's her Miltank: level 20 might not sound like a big deal but at this point in the game, odds are you don't have an effective fighting type Pokemon to use against it and Miltank is a normal type Pokemon which has a really high defense. That thing can take a real pounding and it's capable of using Milk Drink which is essentially recover. It can use stomp which does moderate damage and has a chance to cause flinching (you didn't want to act on this turn, right?) and attract which can screw over a team of male-Pokemon. The real sweeper though is Rollout: It can do high damage the first time around but this is an attack that goes on for 5 consecutive turns. Each time it hits, the next roll does more damage. I'm not sure of the actual percentage the damage increases by each time but this can easily sweep your team if you aren't quick enough to disable that Miltank.

 

[EscapeGoat_v1legacy]

Snip.

Don't forget that in the remakes her Miltank has the passive ability Scrappy so the old trick of getting a Ghastly in Sprout Tower at night and raising solely as an anti-Whitney machine no longer works since Scrappy lets her Stomp away at it with impunity.

Anyway OT: my answer for this is probably The End from Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater. One of the best boss fights ever and all it is a sniper battle. Just Snake, an old man who can photosynthesise and shoot you from miles away and 3 big old areas to track him down in. The first time you face him is tough as nails and though it gets easier and shorter on subsequent playthroughs it's still one of my favourites due to just how down to the player everything is. All The End will do is wait for you to make a mistake and shoot you when you do, so it's all on you to be good enough to beat him. Pure gaming bliss.

 

[RedDeadFred]

Artorias from Dark Souls. Barring one move where he tosses corruption at you, it's just him and his greatsword. He has a varied moveset, does a lot of damage, and his animations are all quite intimidating. Fromsoft does duel boss fights the best IMO, and this one is the cream of the crop.

 

[Kingjackl]

Since Dark Souls pretty much dominates my thinking when it comes to boss design these days, I'm gonna go with Champion Gundyr from DS3. He's one of my favourite bosses in a Souls game and probably one of the most straight-forward. No gimmicks, no spells, no dual-wielding-magic-swords-while-also-having-ridiculous-stamina-damage-resistance-and-a-fucking-STAND bullshit (yeah, guess who my least favourite boss is). He just got a big long stick that he's good at swinging. I respect that.

 

[CaitSeith]

Shadow Link from Zelda II. He's you, with only a sword, a shield and your basic attacks... and he will wipe out the floor with your sorry ass at the very end of the game.

 

[CaitSeith]

snip

My tactic in my Nuzlocke run was sleep and screech. She woke and started to rollout, so she had no chance to heal.

 

[KoudelkaMorgan]

Micolash in Bloodborne. I hate this boss, you hate this boss, its the worst nonboss fight in the series and possibly all of modern gaming. All he does is run away, so you chase him in circles for a purely arbitrary length of time.

You can try going one way, he might go straight to the little room that time. You do that the same way next time and he might go around for 8 minutes as you hack at his ankles. All the while his puppet jerks casually block doors and pull your target lock the moment he rounds a corner.

Eventually you actually get to fight HIM and he does just one thing, spam Augur of Ebrietus which if it hits you pretty much means its gonna hit you twice and you die. But its easy to avoid. Of course he runs away again after you beat his ass. Then 1-10 minutes later he ends up in another tiny room.

Then he pretty much only has one thing to fall back on then.

Any time you aren't actively beating his ass for even a moment he will cast, in about .3 of a second, purely uninterruptible, even if you knock him flat on his ass while he does it, A Call Beyond.

This spell is unavoidable by anything other than the game glitching out. If even one of the bajillion homing soulspears that erupt filling the room and exploding on impact hit you, you will die. If you are wearing full Choir attire for max arcane resistance, and have 50 vitality (I never had above 30 because I never needed more than that for platinum) you will still get one shot.

That's it. They made a boss that trolls you so hard most people probably consider The One Reborn to be the final boss on subsequent playthroughs or just do chalice dungeons. Kind of like how I consider Nito to be the final boss of Dark Souls because I can't be bothered to fight Bed of Chaos, or do the Duke's Archives anymore.

 

[Bobular]

Micolash in Bloodborne. I hate this boss, you hate this boss, its the worst nonboss fight in the series and possibly all of modern gaming. All he does is run away, so you chase him in circles for a purely arbitrary length of time.

You can try going one way, he might go straight to the little room that time. You do that the same way next time and he might go around for 8 minutes as you hack at his ankles. All the while his puppet jerks casually block doors and pull your target lock the moment he rounds a corner.

Eventually you actually get to fight HIM and he does just one thing, spam Augur of Ebrietus which if it hits you pretty much means its gonna hit you twice and you die. But its easy to avoid. Of course he runs away again after you beat his ass. Then 1-10 minutes later he ends up in another tiny room.

Then he pretty much only has one thing to fall back on then.

Any time you aren't actively beating his ass for even a moment he will cast, in about .3 of a second, purely uninterruptible, even if you knock him flat on his ass while he does it, A Call Beyond.

This spell is unavoidable by anything other than the game glitching out. If even one of the bajillion homing soulspears that erupt filling the room and exploding on impact hit you, you will die. If you are wearing full Choir attire for max arcane resistance, and have 50 vitality (I never had above 30 because I never needed more than that for platinum) you will still get one shot.

That's it. They made a boss that trolls you so hard most people probably consider The One Reborn to be the final boss on subsequent playthroughs or just do chalice dungeons. Kind of like how I consider Nito to be the final boss of Dark Souls because I can't be bothered to fight Bed of Chaos, or do the Duke's Archives anymore.

I think there's something wrong with your build or strategy, he's more of a distraction than a boss

First time I went up against him I almost killed him first time. Second time I thought he was easy so went in a bit over confident and got my arse handed to me. And the third time. And the fourth time. I've not actually beat him yet as my PS4 had/still has a problem and I lost my save game. I'm slowly going through again but its probably going to be ages before I get back up to him.