LIKE A BOSS

This isn't technically a boss I made, but it's a boss one of my partners (Elantios) made for one of my projects. He's unlikely to come here and post this himself since afaik he A) quit doing game design a couple years ago and B) doesn't use RPG Maker. So, I'm going to post it, since it's an amazing boss. Yes, these are based on Secret of Mana characters, but the strategies involved in the fight are his original creation.

The Elemental Battle Royale is a fight against eight enemies embodying different elements. To unlock this fight, you first have to beat each of the eight elemental spirits in 1v1 fights. This teaches you their abilities, and allows you to prepare for the big battle. After beating the eight 1v1 fights, you unlock this fight... where you fight them all. But you're alone, with only a single character.

You fight the elementals two at a time. When you kill one, the next one spawns immediately. The order is randomized, but you can pick which two you start with.

All elementals (and the enemies they spawn) deal physical damage, non-elemental magic damage, and magic damage of their native element.

Jinn, the elemental spirit of air
Every turn, his attack and mattack grow slightly. If you take too long, they will start to get crazy high. Hardest for healer characters, who will die in one hit before too long.

Gnome, the elemental spirit of earth
Every time you attack him, the rocks surrounding him grow denser, increasing his defense. At 10 stacks, the rocks break apart, removing his defense but spawning two small killable gnomelings which join the fight. Hardest for fast characters with lots of weak attacks and counterattacks.

Salamando, the elemental spirit of fire
On turn 1, summons two lava orbs which join the fight. They are immune to damage, but die when Salamando dies. Hardest for offensive-based characters, who will not be able to easily withstand three enemies' worth of damage, and also for anyone using area attacks, since most area attacks become weaker the more enemies there are.

Undine, the elemental spirit of water
Uses a water-elemental drain attack to heal herself when she attacks you, sometimes. Every 12 turns, she turns into a puddle of water for 2 turns, regaining about a tenth of her max HP. Hardest for tank and healer characters, who may end up fighting forever.

Lumina, the elemental spirit of light
Heals herself every few rounds, and casts Light Saber on the player, making your physical attacks light-elemental so that they heal her. Hardest for physical characters.

Shade, the elemental spirit of darkness
Uses Chaos Rift to deal unavoidable gravity damage equal to half of your max HP plus half of your current HP. Can only do so once every few rounds. In the 1v1 fight, this means you have to stay above half HP at all times, and heal after he uses it. In the battle royale, the other elemental will attack simultaneously, so this means you have to be at full health any time he's done charging this skill up. It also means that if the other elemental's attack does more than 25% of your max HP, you die. This makes Shade hardest for low HP characters who rely on healing rather than defense. Also shifts between taking damage normally and absorbing all magical damage, and increases his magic attack power if you hit him with magic while he's absorbing it, making him harder for magical characters than physical ones.

Luna, the elemental spirit of moon
Lowers your max HP with Spiral Moon. Drains your MP, making her hardest for anyone who relies on it (which actually isn't particularly biased against mages, surprisingly). If your attack power is higher than your magic power, she will periodically temporarily lower your attack to equal your magic. If your magic power is higher, she'll do the opposite. This makes her hardest for anyone who has minmaxed their character's offensive capabilities - compounded by the fact that the strongest physical/magical hybrid class has attack skills and healing skills that all cost 0 MP.

Dryad, the elemental spirit of mana
Summons pumpkin bombs, which explode after 10 turns, killing the player. Also summons beatsticks, which deal physical and magical damage. Also summons siphoners, which drain your HP to heal themselves. Casts a buff which increases damage dealt by the entire enemy party for a few rounds - including the other elemental, as well as any monsters summoned by Salamando or Gnome (if present). Hardest for anyone who uses single-target attacks.


As you can see, the fight as a whole revolves around OH SHIT I HAVE TO DO EVERYTHING AT ONCE AND ALL THE BEST STRATEGIES FOR THE INDIVIDUAL ENEMIES CONFLICT WITH EACH-OTHER. So you have to constantly weigh the penalties for doing things wrong against each-other, because any time you're doing something right for one of the enemies, you're probably doing something wrong for the other one. You can't avoid every problem, but you can pick which problems to have. The typical strategy, which mitigates this dilemma to a great degree, is to pick one relatively nonthreatening boss, based on your character's build, to leave alive for the entire battle while you work through the other seven. That way you don't have to constantly re-evaluate as many things on the fly (and you can make sure you never get shade and dryad at the same time).

This isn't an easy boss. In fact, to date, only five players have killed it. (Being an online game, I can keep easy track.) Originally you had to fight three at a time instead of two, but I nerfed it. ;)

If you didn't fight each of the eight elementals individually beforehand, the group battle would absolutely be way, way, way, way overwhelming to the point of being almost unbeatable. I've played fights like that in WoW. They weren't fun. Someone with experience would be explaining the strategy to the group... and it would take 20 minutes to explain everything, and by the end I'd have forgotten the first half of it.

I think most types of complexity are fine as long as the player is trained up to them gradually, though.