Damage Sponge Boss: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

 

 

Named after an industry term for this type of boss, whose main attribute is that they can soak up damage like a sponge absorbs water.

 

If the HP is ''really'' high and the boss doesn't have any interesting moves, you have [[Fake Longevity]].

 

Related to [[Smash Mook]], [[When All You Have Is a Hammer]], [[Health Damage Asymmetry]]. God help you if this overlaps with [[Sequential Boss]].

 

* The Cyberdemon boss from ''[[Doom]]'' is one of the more memorable examples - he takes a lot of hits, shoots rockets which can one-shot you with a direct hit at 100% health, and is defeated by circle strafing and shooting. The same goes for just about every other boss in the original ''Doom'' games, including the Barons of Hell and the Spider Mastermind.

** Although at least with the Spider Mastermind, the fact that its Triple Chaingun is a [[Hit Scan]] weapon does require you to put a little thought into not getting killed. But still, that only changes the strategy to "Shoot it until it dies, and don't wind up full of hot lead."

** There's another complication regarding the Cyberdemon in the first Doom game. When you first encounter him, the level there has a [[Suspicious Videogame Generosity|huge]] supply of ammo for your Rocket Launcher, which is (at that point in the game) the weapon with the most raw power. Problem is, the Cyberdemon is immune to splash damage, meaning that only the damage caused by the direct hit has any effect on him. If you opt to use the rocket launcher, the battle ends up being drawn out even longer. If you have a surplus of plasma ammo, it might be faster to whip out the [[Energy Weapon|Plasma Rifle]] instead. Thankfully when he appears again {{spoiler|in the secret level of episode 3}}, you might've finally found '''[[Trope Namer|the]]''' [[BFG]], which makes the rematch [[Curb Stomp Battle|a lot easier]].

** In its first appearance, you can get the Cyberdemon caught up on the building architecture. Then shoot through a tiny gap in the building. Safely pecking it to death with the pistol becomes tedious though.

** The hard part about the fight is that your weapons will eventually wear out.

** Before ''Wrath'' launched these were often known as Patchwerks after the vanilla game's most infamous instance of this. The original Patchwerk was a boss in the first iteration of Naxxramas with only one special ability that was easily countered. The main difficulty was his enrage timer, as he would wipe a raid if he was not killed before it ran out. Patchwerk returned in the ''Wrath'' version of Naxxramas, but like the rest of the instance he was considerably easier (the fight mechanics were the same but the enrage timer was more forgiving).

** The first bosses made available on the Test Realms tend to be variants of this. The more complicated bosses appear later in the testing and raids.

* Every boss in ''[[Knights of the Old Republic]]'' (both games) except Malak (as the final boss) in game one and Sion in game 2.

* ''[[Left 4 Dead]]''. The Tank is basically a [[Boss in Mook Clothing]] in that they can take a ludicrous amount of punishment before their demise, which is why most players prefer to just toss a molotov at one of them to kill them quickly. The Charger in ''[[Left 4 Dead]] 2'' acts like a light version of the Tank in some respects, but dies much faster, so he's more akin to a [[Bullfight Boss]].

** Pretty much every boss in [[Bullet Hell]] shooters qualifies for this.

* The group of demon-statues that act as [[The Dragon]] to {{spoiler|Master Li}} in ''[[Jade Empire]]'' are a definite case of this. Fight strategy: run around and hit them a lot. If low on health, stick your companion on Support mode and hide. Rinse and repeat.

* The major difference between the difficulties in the first [[Mass Effect]] game was that on higher difficulties you had to spend more time sitting there on full-auto before anything died, leading to enemies taking comical amounts of punishment without the 'warp' de-buff or special ammo types.

* The two main bosses in ''[[Total Carnage]]'', Orcus and General Akhboob, require an inordinate amount of heavy weaponry before they finally go down.

* {{spoiler|Ming Xiao and the Landshark}} in ''[[Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines]]''. They have respectively the highest and second-to-highest HP in the game and no real weaknesses, tricks to defeat them or attack patterns, just an [[Instant Death Radius]] and the prior also spawns [[Mooks]]. Both tend to be [[That One Boss]] for that particular reason, the latter even more so because it's part of an [[Escort Mission]].

* ''[[Guild Wars]]'' has the infamous Rotscale, a bone dragon that has fairly simple moves, a small entourage of mooks... and over 20,000 HP. In a game where a SERIOUSLY stacked player might get up to 1,500. If you somehow manage not to get mauled by the always-poisoned arena and the mob that's with him, it can still take upwards of ten minutes to whittle him down.

* ''[[Grand Chase]]'' has a couple of these. Starkiln has a large amount of health compared to previous bosses, but his attack patterns are very easy to avoid, provided you keep near him. Arawn, the highest level boss in the game so far, deals rather low damage, and the only attack to really worry about is his 'Thunder Hammer'. He also has about 14 health bars on 3* difficulty, and 38 on Champion Mode. Throw in Increased Defense, and it's more like you're fighting 50.

* All the bosses in ''[[Rule of Rose]]'' follow this mechanic: keep away from their decimating attacks. Attack whenever there's an opening. Continue for 15 minutes or so. Especially frustrating with the Mermaid Princess who you can only hit twice in a row before she retreats back to the ceiling for another attack.

* The final boss in ''[[Sunset Riders]],'' ''a guy in a business suit'', can take an absolutely insane amount of punishment.

* Every boss in the obscure SNES game Xardion. Ideally you're supposed to level your characters up to do more damage to them, but even then they still take forever to kill.

* Dangaard in ''[[Seiken Densetsu 3]]''. The fight isn't difficult, just ''long''. It is split into four phases, alternating between overhead and side views. Prolonging the fight even further is the fact that you have to recast any buffs or debuffs you want to use each time the perspective changes.

* In [[Halo]], Brutes soak up an absurd amount of damage, and barely react until they suddenly collapse, in Halos 2, 3, and Reach. Tartarus takes this to absurd levels in Halo 2 as the final boss.

** Hunters might seem like this if you don't know to shoot for the orange goo... and in Halo Reach, they actually are this even if you're aiming for the orange.

* In the [[Call of Duty]] series, Juggernauts are this ''with a light machine gun''. In [[MW 3]], you can just gib them, but it takes about seven blocks of C4. Each of those blocks is a several-pound solid hunk of explosives.

* The Gaets in ''[[Tales of Legendia]]'' have truckloads of HP compared to other bosses (The first one has triple the HP of the previous boss, and the last one has the highest HP in the game), but aren't particularly difficult due to being huge targets and slow attackers.

 

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[[Category:Boss Battle]]