Crystalline Resurgence 2 Boss

Morning everyone,

I'm going to try and put my thoughts into words here.. so forgive me if it drifts topics a bit... 

The boss fight in Crystalline Resurgence is a great challenge. However, the presentation and design for it is lacking.

I played this map on Insane the first time, with Mayhem. We played the map and saw the "lamps" everywhere and knew "this is a genie boss". (We looked at the map for signs of what to bring to the fight...)

So for the last wave, we brought a monk (primary dps 7k, but a 3k boost), and a barbarian (5k dps, 4k hawk). Surely that would be able to handle a boss on insane. The boss spawns and the monk does literally 0 damage to it. Equipped with a spearmint and a chicken... all normal damage, zero damage to the boss. The barbarian does 500 damage per hit. Dual gladius with a cat. 

We go after the white djinn (maybe we have to hurt them to target the boss).. nope.. we try to rub lamps.. we look for anything on the map to hurt the boss.. end result: We did almost no damage to it. 

There was literally NOTHING before the boss spawns telling us "this boss is only vulnerable if you bring a seahorse or a phoenix" or "make sure to bring in your rainmaker to hurt it". 

So.. Here we are.. 8k hours between us.. on insane difficulty.. unable to beat a boss. Well.. I lie.. the boss has 119M life or so, and we do 500 a hit.. so only 238,000,000 hits to kill it. Well worth the fight and effort. 

To be honest, I think I would love to see a series (or a game mode) where you go into the fight knowing the whole map was going to be immune to poison, or the boss is weak to electric, but immune to everything else.. that sounds great, and makes a large challenge... 

However, going into a map and getting to the boss and finding that "oh sorry you didnt equip the right item, that we didnt tell you that you needed, you cannot win now" is stupid. Put a BIG SIGN in the map or give cutscenes that show the boss immune to normal damage or something.. But in the current state that it is in is poorly designed. 

Again, apology for the random path of thought...

TL;DR = Immunity to the MAIN DAMAGE type of the game, without telling you in advance is bad choice making. Needs to be fixed.

I think making you run the map only once before you're able to figure out the boss is immune to generic damage is not something that needs fixing.

For comparison, when you first ran polybius, did you know that the apprentice killed everyone in the map with his mana bomb after charging for 60s? If you didn't play with other people you probably didn't, and probably got killed at least once by it due to the lack of knowledge. 

Same thing for when you first go to sky city. When you damage the boss until it gets invulnerable, you can see that there's a charging, but not many people figure out in their first time that you need to jump out of the ship to be able to survive.

I don't think it's necessary to tell you in advance, but if it really is, just give a hint of in the the map description. The CR maps made me feel like playing a boss map for the first time, with you not knowing how the boss attacks, where is spawns and how to damage it.

Honestly - When I ran poly for the first time on hard (i think it was, maybe insane) - i ran out of time, because i took too long to kill the krakken.. but it DID warn me that one of them was fake. I was given an honest option to kill it, if I shot the wrong krakken then thats my problem. And, if I had infinite time, I can run around and find the Poly, kill it, then go back and kill the correct krakken. Given time, I could have beaten it. 

 Also.. does the apprentice kill everyone? I did not know that... I know it does a big attack thingy with a huge area and nasty damage, but did not know it was a 100% level end-er

However, to put a sincere rebuttal to your comment:

As a newer player, when I ran sky city, I was not playing hardcore. I did die to the boss. And I learned "oh, that kills me", but I was able to continue in that map and try to beat the boss. I lost because my defenses were not amazing. But I did not lose because the boss was literally impossible for me when I ran it. I was able to replay the map, make my defenses better, and try again. 

For some bosses I learned that a barbarian is better to use than a huntress (for example: genie boss). But if I used the blaster rifle, the genie would go back into a lamp and I would just have to attack it multiple times. Using a barbarian I can (hopefully) kill it in 1 hawk. Or maybe 2 (my gear isnt that uber always).

I dont mind that the boss is immune to normal damage, but there is literally no warning prior to the boss that lets you beat it. And if I was to think as a new player, someone who doesnt have thousands of hours of experience, and they are beating everything (barely) on normal.. and come into that map.. and dont just get an easy walk to the boss.. and get to the boss and are literally unable to do anything to the boss.. that is cruel. 

Putting a clue in the description is not anywhere I would look.. I dont think I have read many of the map descriptions.. have you honestly read them all? In Moonbase there are clues hidden around about the secret.. in Akatiti there are signs that clue you in that there is a secret.. in Poly there is a giant message saying "THERE IS A FAKE DUDE".. in Moraggo, we see the Genie King getting sucked into a lamp (a hint to use the lamp to release him).. There is always something to help the players know how to proceed. There arent warnings of "Oh btw, the old one will hit you WAY off the map, learn his attacks".  I'm not saying we need everyone to get a comprehensive guide to "how to fight this boss". But there does need to be a warning that it may be entirely impossible for you to fight this boss because you love your huntress with her megachicken, and your blaster rifle and chicken cant hurt this boss.