Skyrim: Now THAT'S a boss fight!

[Ryank1908]

Easily Firkraag from Baldur's Gate 2. By the time you fight him you're generally NOT prepared at all to kill him, and the game doesn't even really encourage you to - the option to walk away and return at any time is always there - but killing him nets you the absolute best weapon in the game, the Holy mother-effing Avenger.

If you're a Paladin then you absolutely need that sword. Seeing as my characters are always Paladins, I constantly find myself in the dungeon, hideously underlevelled and pooping bricks, loading attempt after failed attempt. Only through some cheeky use of traps from Yoshimo, my most furious kamikaze spells, the highest level summons I have, and Minsc wielding the mighty Dragonslayer axe can I take him down at that level. Thing is, I've done it countless times by now and it NEVER gets boring. The rush of seeing Carsomyr on his corpse and finally getting it in my sweaty fictional gauntlets never ceases to inspire.

Edit: I forgot two absolute corkers. First, of course, Dark Souls. Ornstein and Smough. Mother of God these guys are horrible. Fighting one boss in Dark Souls is pant-shittingly terrifying enough, but these guys? Forget it. One is a gigantic hammer-wielding ball of lard and anger, and the other is a nippy dragoon with the ability to blow you to pieces with a lightning bolt. Even if you manage to kill one of them - which, trust me, is hard enough - the OTHER one gets all his health back and gains the powers of his fallen ally. Giant sumo dude was tough enough to begin with, and then he gets imbued with the power of thunder and really starts to wreck your shit.

Next, I've got to go with something from WoW. The feeling of grinding your way through a new raid with your guildmates was fantastic, and that feeling when you dunk a boss that very little is known about, your victory scored in blood? Amazing. Victory is even better when shared through a battlecry over Ventrilo.

 

[WhiteFangofWhoa]

I actually had a most satisfying one just yesterday- the final boss of the Jedi Consular's quest in SWTOR, or at least the final one of Chapter 3, which brings you up to the level cap.

He has more powerful versions of everything you have that isn't a healing ability. One of these is an instant kill if you don't interrupt it immediately. He teleports, and is scripted to kill your companion at a certain point no matter what. No other enemy before him dispells your buffs either.

Naturally, he killed me more than any other boss before I finally triumphed. Very satisfying with the final battle theme backing you up for his last phase. I only wish you'd gotten a more interesting battleground for it. It's just a cave deep underground without any interesting scenery.

 

[Ryank1908]

I actually had a most satisfying one just yesterday- the final boss of the Jedi Consular's quest in SWTOR, or at least the final one of Chapter 3, which brings you up to the level cap.

He has more powerful versions of everything you have that isn't a healing ability. One of these is an instant kill if you don't interrupt it immediately. He teleports, and is scripted to kill your companion at a certain point no matter what. No other enemy before him dispells your buffs either.

Naturally, he killed me more than any other boss before I finally triumphed. Very satisfying with the final battle theme backing you up for his last phase. I only wish you'd gotten a more interesting battleground for it. It's just a cave deep underground without any interesting scenery.

Actually that's a great one, too. Normally when you think of hard fights in MMO's, you think of full groups taking down a giant, but the scripted story bosses in that game were fantastic. The Bounty Hunter boss fight at the end of the first Act is great, battling a Jedi Master on an exploding ship. You really have to know your class and throw everything you have at these fights.

 

[Bloodtrozorx]

I have to agree with the OP, if I die a dozen times in Skyrim I don't get mad I start thinking. I appreciate that it makes me fight it again but it doesn't feel annoying. It's more of a "back to the drawing board" sort of thing.

The best fights for me honestly are random encounters feat. dragons. Yesterday I fought alongside a Sabrecat and another Nord in armor and after the dragon died they both tried to kill me.

 

[repeating integers]

Also, until your at least level 40, most bears are basically bosses that can and will annihilate you if you are not careful.

Well, that depends. My current character was massacring them, and Frost Trolls, at about level 12 due to my insane specialisation on two-handed combat and heavy armour (on the default Adept difficulty, but I didn't feel like raising it because my last character had been woefully underpowered). The level scaling's made the game a challenge again now that I'm about level 20 though, so it's all good.

 

[Sansha]

My Daedric Bow does 371 damage per hit. My dual-wield weapons do 170 and 74 damage, right-hand and left-hand respectively. I'm working on Alchemy to create a super potion that will allow me to enchant a better smithing set and brew a better smithing potion to up this damage to the coveted 759.

Absolutely nothing poses any sense of a challenge to me, and I have the game on Master. Bandits are cut down in two or three hits, dragons die to four or five arrows, even Dragon Priests can get one-shot by a sneak hit.

And y'know what? I love it. I love cutting a swath of horrid destruction through my enemies with zero effort. I believe I'm going to overcome whatever challenge the game throws at me regardless, so roflstomping through just saves time.

That, and going genocidal on the Forsworn and Falmer is just breasts-level fun.

 

[Ascarus]

I had three dragons appear. No console commands either. That was intense.

i got my ass handed to me the one time that happened. i was fighting two (and losing) when i was suddenly picked up from behind and tossed around like a rag doll by a third dragon i didn't even know was there.

 

[Mordekaien]

In Dark Messiah of Might & Magic was a pretty darn hard boss fight

Spoiler: Spoilers for DMM&M

About halfway through the game you run into Agnorak I think he's called. He's a powered up version of standart orc mook.... BUT
He comes with four other orcs and challenges you in a melee fight, one-on-one. There is simple rule, you cannot use spells, bow or potions during this fight. Not a big problem if you play as warrior type, but I've played a mage run and on the hardest difficulty- well he was a ***** to bring down.

In Skyrim, I've run to one Overlord who pretty much killed my warrior in about 10 hits or so... I thought it no biggie, but that bugger uses fus ro dah and that disarming shout, so I lose my weapon, then I will fly around and he runs up to me and kills me while I'm getting up (I've yet to beat this one)

 

[nuba km]

when it comes to skyrim I have 3 stories:

1. At some point I realized I picked up a a quest to go to a dungeon, and I noticed I already completed the fetching items part of the quest which surprised me, so I went to a dungeon that was behind a waterfall. I went to the end of the dungeon without a single enemy, I placed the three items on three stands. then a named drauger teleported into the dungeon, a fight ensued with him and my fist fighting battle mage, he teleported around the place, shooting him with spells at range and punching when close up. After I killed him a named drauger warrior appeared as well as that normal draugers came out of tombs, his broad sword took of 2/3 of my health so I had to jump over walls and across gaps in order to avoid him and stand a chance fighting him. After that I had to fight a drauger mage, using my conjuration skill to make an atronach tank his heavy spells. After he was dead the three items I brought fused into a necklace that increased stamina, health, and mana. The best boss fight I ever had in a Bethesda game.

2. There was a frost dragon I encountered near a dragon wall at around level 11, it absolutely kicked my ass. after that I returned to the frost dragon every time I leveled up, I killed many other frost dragons but this frost dragon seemed to have much more damage and health of any of the frost dragons. Once I reached level 30 I finally killed the frost dragon and got to the dragon wall, I miss that dragon sometimes, killing all other frost dragons who think that they can sit on his dragon wall.

3. Just after I finished the story I was about level 50, I was walking around in a storm when I saw the outline of a tower, when I reached the bottom of the tower I noticed the top of it looked funny. The tower then looked back at me and I realized it was an elder dragon, the first time I saw or heard of an elder dragon. it swooped down form the tower breathing fire at me, the breath took of nearly all of my health, I used my dragon shout to call the dragon to help me fight, the shadows of the two dragons fighting was visible in the sky during the thunder storm. I shot my strongest spells when ever possible and conjured two fire atronachs to help me fight, having to run into cover for every one of the elder dragon's attacks. the fight lasted so long I could use my storm call level 3 shout and after that the elder dragon was still alive, the fight ended when the elder dragon crashed undo the tower and slided along the bridge on the tower, I ran up to the dragon shooting spells and then doing a finishing blow with my fist.

those are also in my top 5 things I did in skyrim

 

[repeating integers]

those are also in my top 5 things I did in skyrim

What are the other 2, may I ask?

 

[nuba km]

those are also in my top 5 things I did in skyrim

What are the other 2, may I ask?

1. of those two is when I was defending whiterun, in ebony armour on shadow mare, in third person, I watched as the stormcloaks ran towards me, I got off shadow mare and fus ro dah'ed their face in with level 3, the fight that followed was just awesome, with the dragon helping me and slow time level 3.

2. when I saw that cave which is connected to all the dwemer ruins and has the glowing mushrooms, that place is just awesome looking.

 

[Steel_crab]

And while we're on the subject of hard RPG bosses, how about Minamimoto/Leo Cantus in The World Ends With You?

[raises JRPG flame shield]

-Can't be damaged at all for the first minute or two
-Very high defense, making the fight marathon-length
-Only able to be hit by one character at a time
-Attacks hit hard and are hard to avoid if you go overboard with attacking
-Teleports, usually when you're attacking (there's a trick to this but I'll let you work it out yourself)
-Whole bunch of smaller enemies bothering the other character

And trust me, it's unbelievably cathartic when you finally win. It might be annoying to get to that point, but it's completely doable without any luck.

Oh that guy was a COMPLETE git =D

Though you know what took me even longer than him? That goddamn sleeping pig you can only beat by shutting and re-opening the DS. I spent hours getting the highest-damage pin I could find (Tigre punks spinning hit, And the maxed-out dope line series pin) and after that didn't work, spent ages getting the CAT Nexus beam pins...God I felt stupid T_T

 

[repeating integers]

those are also in my top 5 things I did in skyrim

What are the other 2, may I ask?

1. of those two is when I was defending whiterun, in ebony armour on shadow mare, in third person, I watched as the stormcloaks ran towards me, I got off shadow mare and fus ro dah'ed their face in with level 3, the fight that followed was just awesome, with the dragon helping me and slow time level 3.

2. when I saw that cave which is connected to all the dwemer ruins and has the glowing mushrooms, that place is just awesome looking.

Heh, that second one reminds me of how impressed I was that every Dwemer ruin even slightly nearby to Blackreach seems to eventually lead into it. It reminds me of that old saying - "All roads lead to Rome, and that is where all roads end".

 

[BiggyShackleton]

Dragon Age: Origins. I can't remember his exact name but he's just a random bloke in a hut that also happens to be a lich. Having 4 people (and i'm sure he has summons) fighting in a tiny hut was hard. On top of that he has some fucking monstrous spells. That was a pretty intense fight, even when all of my party were around level 20.

 

[TakeshiLive]

I felt like some bosses were pretty damn powerful later on in the game :l

At least compared to the other enemies in the same dungeon with the ability to one-hit some of my lower level companions. Yeah, they're supposed to be weak but not by that much.

 

[Booze_Hound]

Doesn't anyone encounter that teleport dude in skyrim? That guy is freaking hard if you are low level.

Do tell?
My random encounters are minimal. I fast travel too much, I think. Unless I'm on a character with specific plans to explore. But even then I don't do enough quests to activate various encounters.

I believe he means Orchendor, for peryite's quest. He's immune to most spells and shouts, heals and teleports around the place. He's impossible as a mage unless you have frost atronach and poisons. He doesn't do a huge amount of damage though.

 

[Zydrate]

Doesn't anyone encounter that teleport dude in skyrim? That guy is freaking hard if you are low level.

Do tell?
My random encounters are minimal. I fast travel too much, I think. Unless I'm on a character with specific plans to explore. But even then I don't do enough quests to activate various encounters.

I believe he means Orchendor, for peryite's quest. He's immune to most spells and shouts, heals and teleports around the place. He's impossible as a mage unless you have frost atronach and poisons. He doesn't do a huge amount of damage though.

Gotcha. Most of my characters are still stuck on the damn scavenger hunt to even activate the quest :/

I've NEVER had multiple dragons.
What's up? I saw two in the distance once I couldn't get two.

It happens only very occasionally. I once had to fight two at once with Kharjo as my companion, but only because one was a random encounter and we happened to be decking out beside a dragon mound, so the other came down to join the fun.

And then I ran into Aela and Farkas being ganged up on by a group of forsworn, who seemed to decide that I was the best target despite the two dragons flying overhead. It was a pretty epic moment.

Oh, I love multiple-sided battles. Especially the one in the main quest where you meet up with the two blades at a certain Forsworn camp. It's a guaranteed dragon encounter (Usually frost, I think), so it's very chaotic, I find myself running back and forth between the camp, since the dragon lands on the hill opposite of the cave you need to be.

 

[Thespian]

Morokei at the end of the Mage quest line was epic. I was quite a low level at that point, probably as low as you can be after the Mage quest line. It was an epic battle indeed. By which I mean, I kept running from one end of the room to the other shooting him with arrows, and zapping him with magicka-drainers until I summoned up the nerve to just spam two staves of flame in his face.

There was a lot of saving, a lot of hiding, and one of those beer-hats with the straws attached except it was health potions instead of beer.

 

[renegade7]

Oh yea, I too played a mage and Malkoran would one hit me every time. I had to mana burn him with a bunch of lightning scrolls and mana poison (I had archery skills as well) and use a REALLY boosted ward spell (I didn't have Spellbreaker yet)

He also managed to usually one shot my combat guy in Fully upgraded Dwemer armor with 60% total frost resist as well, or at least slow me down while his minions picked me apart with weaker spells.

On my mage, I think it took maybe a dozen tries. With my Orc combat guy (and a bit more experience, since that was my second time through) I found it to be a bit easier, since I could kill him pretty quickly once I got into melee range.

My recommendation for anyone doing that quest : GET SPELLBREAKER FIRST! IT IS THE ONLY THING THAT WILL SAVE YOU FROM THAT DAMN FROST SPELL!!

 

[theultimateend]

Best fight I've had in Skyrim?

Fighting a dragon.

As a werewolf.

Transmission ends.

Werewolf was weird. RIGHT when you get it it feels AMAZING, then 2 levels later it is easier to live without it.

Never thought I'd be angry when I forget to take off werewolf from my Z key.