I think one that was missed is the chase boss, or "slippery pig". He isn't particular powerful on his own but he moves quickly meaning you have to run after him more than actually shooting him. Regular slows and binds and holds aren't as effective on this particular boss. And you'll have to pay attention to surrounding mobs to keep from being overwhelmed as you give chase. The Boss could also trigger traps and powers that would slow you down so you'd have to dodge those in order to avoid losing him. However, that is a two way street, a special power or change in environment (blowing up a nearby barrel to knock him off his feet) would slow or stop him temporarily so the player or team could deal some damage.

I can see a chase boss in the open world, too. One variant of it could be just your average bag of a zillion hp (I know, that's the opposite of what the OP suggested, but stick with me) but with an irresistable trajectory to the center of town. Imagine something like the colossus from Cloverfield, spawning homicidal man-sized mites that drop off it as it trudges into the center of Titan City with the same kind of invasion mechanic like we see in Rift. It leaves world-changing destruction in its wake and if it makes it into the center of town it will dig in, set up camp and build even tougher defenses. All services and NPCs will be defunct or relocated to the outskirts of town (so people can still do a limited amount of other content) kind of like when your capital city got captured in Warhammer. So during its path across the world, the heroes/villians have only so much time to stop it, all the while running into not just the spawning mites but the indiginous gangs and ne'erdowells that populate the world. It wouldn't have to be a colossus, it could be an alien invasion dreadnaught, or a necromancer animating all the dead in the lands he walks over with an aura of constant AoE death around him, or an enormous radioactive sea cucumber looking for his son Nematode. All with the common element being a slow but steady march of destruction the players have to delay or stop before it gets worse.

Can you imagine being a lowbie on the first day of playing the game and you see all the great heroes and villians in such a desperate slugfest across the world? Talk about awe!

I see some people here may have missed this update :P

http://cityoftitans.com/content/when-fist-meets-face-momentum

Basically, we have a powerful mechanic for enabling and managing more complex bosses. There are some interesting ideas in here though. But lets also hear how we might leverage Momentum

Fireheart wrote:

This is why you need a Controller, to lock-down the (mechanism) so everyone else can pile on the DPS. Can't have 'momentum' if they can't move!
Be Well!
Fireheart

They sure can. The momentum mechanic isn't built by movement, it's built by attacking and taking attacks. Actually, it's built by whatever combination of things makes most sense for a particular archetype/build, there'll be a fair amount of refining in playtesting. But if the thing is a tank, I guarantee piling on the DPS will build its meter. If it's an attacker, getting hit will. If you are a healer, we will probably work out a formula to allow for healing to build momentum, and if not, some other formula that keeps things fair. It's a metaphorical momentum, not in the physics sense.

Now I think about it, it might be interesting to make a boss whose momentum meter goes through the roof if it's rendered immobile..*evil chuckle*

On a related but still completely different note, I'd like to see some bosses we don't fight. The reason we don't fight them is because they can't fight. For a gang it makes some sense that the leader is usually the toughest guy, but not so much for organized crime syndicates. Or the scientist who creates cybernetically enhanced super animals.

That could make for some interesting two-part encounters. E.g. One group would "fight the boss" (the boss' lackey) while the other group would fight through the base to cut off the boss' escape.

Darth Fez wrote:

It could be something as basic as the boss triggering certain events. For example, if the boss takes too much damage (or is put under too much pressure or in too great danger) they retreat to a position of safety and send out the likes of very dangerous but relatively fragile drones.

A variant of something like this could be lets say the boss is in a cave and when no it takes x amount of damage it stomps and causes the stalactites(or stalagmites not sure which I forgot) to fall from the roof and he does like a rush attack which also makes him immune to damage stuns and binding effects and the only way to stop im is to make him crash into one of the stalactites/stalagmites he caused to fall in the first place.

I think a good comparison is fighting Pete in Kingdom Hearts 2. I think. Ideas, ideas, ideas.

Thanks for clarifying lol

Oooh, such auto usage of momentum could actually be very useful, and a very nice feature. Though to be safe it should be off by default.

I offer no explanation for my ideas. Dev asked for ideas, so I provided an idea. I wouldn't want to pin a writer into some explanation as to why it works that way. That's for the writer. I merely supplied the mechanic.

Another way to use momentum would be a taunt functionality. The specifics are up for some debate but generally the idea is that not attacking the tank, with the taunt based momentum would be bad. My initial thought was to have the tanks damage increase as his team mates were damaged. And hitting the tank would cause the bar to decrease. But that might encourage tanks to avoid damage and allow team mates to take that damage to fill up their momentum bars and sacrifice their team for their own benefit. This type of momentum could have some vicious ramifications in PVP, but while playing solo, in either PVE or PVP, provides almost zero benefit. Of course that is a bit outside the discussion being relevant to a player not an NPC. Then you have to consider the balance of facing two tanks. If you focused on either one the other would gain a lot of momentum and be quite damaging while the other can sit there and take it.

So instead of having a strict taunt mechanic that forcefully redirects the targeted foe to the tank. The foe (PC) would be greatly encouraged to focus on the tank less the tank goes super saiyan and destroys everyone.

Another delightfully cruel use of momentum would be a non-newtonian field. The harder and faster you hit it the stronger and more resistant it becomes, but if you don't hit hard enough all the attacks pass right through like water. It would force attackers to throttle their attack rate (which is so counter intuitive to every MMO boss ever) so that they could simply finish the boss in a meaningful time frame. This would be especially devilish if you had to beat this boss before say a bomb exploded or some other timed task. "No No No your hitting too hard we're going to run out of time!" Evil, truly evil. Imagine running into a boss like that at the end of the TF where the TF fails if you fail the final mission against this boss. You know the first few days will be spent trying to put together a team where the DPS is absurd just to overcome the momentum resistance on that final boss.

Grimfox wrote:

Another way to use momentum would be a taunt functionality. The specifics are up for some debate but generally the idea is that not attacking the tank, with the taunt based momentum would be bad. My initial thought was to have the tanks damage increase as his team mates were damaged. And hitting the tank would cause the bar to decrease. But that might encourage tanks to avoid damage and allow team mates to take that damage to fill up their momentum bars and sacrifice their team for their own benefit. This type of momentum could have some vicious ramifications in PVP, but while playing solo, in either PVE or PVP, provides almost zero benefit. Of course that is a bit outside the discussion being relevant to a player not an NPC. Then you have to consider the balance of facing two tanks. If you focused on either one the other would gain a lot of momentum and be quite damaging while the other can sit there and take it.

I think you discounted your own idea too soon. There is definite merit here. But rather than building your tank's damage output, make it a debuff of the taunted target's damage output instead. In other words, the more a target ignores your taunt, the less damage they do. There is very real incentive there on all sides, especially if your tank is an evasion tank that avoids getting hit! O.o

Mechanically there are a few ways this could work... but the only ways I see that would make it work only for the taunted target and not for every opponent your team is facing would be to either
1) make it a channelled ability, applicable to both AoE taunts and targeted taunts, or
2) make it an actual applied debuff effect on the taunted targets that can only be broken when a certain number of attacks (successful or not) or a certain amount of damage (prior to damage reduction) is applied to the taunter. The higher the skill level and the higher the momentum, the more attacks or damage would be required to break it.

From the point of view of the taunted target, we would need to make the taunter readily identifiable. I imagine a red string of fate connecting the two of you would be appropriate here. So at a glance you know who to attack. You could even go so far as to automatically change the taunted's target to the taunter, causeing the taunted to manually change their target back to whomever they are trying to target instead. A willpower save negates the retarget effect.

And in PvP I see this being abused by having a tank run up taunt and then run behind the lines, so there would have to be a maximum range limit, beyond which the taunt effect dispells. So if a tank runs behind the lines the damage reduction on the taunted goes away. Likewise if someone is taunted and then runs from the tank in order to dispell the debuff, the tank still did his or her job by preventing the taunted from damaging the tanks teammates. Seems like this would work.

Redlynne wrote:

Counter-proposal.
The BIG BAD™ is highly resistant to whatever/whoever hit them LAST.
This means that the "trick" to defeating them is to have a rolling cascade of different types of attacks from different sources so as to "stay ahead" of the rolling cascade of heavy resistances. This makes them almost impossible to solo, but they can be taken down by a DIVERSE team.

What about HOMOGENEOUS teams? I see no reason to create a mechanic that limits teaming. One of CoH's greatest successes was inclusive teaming, as opposed to the exclusive teaming prevalent in almost every other MMO.

Please forgive the GW2 references below, I just started playing that and have it very much in the forefront of my brain at the present.

That warning said, there are a lot of TF/trial type things in GW2. Dungeons and Fractals, they're called. In almost all cases, the map you're on is an instance and there are objects in that map you can interact with, pick up, put down, use, throw, etc. For example. There's this one where the badguys have trapped this HUGE, Statue of Liberty-sized stone titan using magic seals. You have to defeat the mobs, pick up the magic hammer, then ascend the scaffolding they've put in place around the titan to get to the seals and use the hammer to break them, in the correct order, to free the titan. The hammer get''s hot and does damage to you as you hold it, so you have to drop it once in a while and let it cool off, all while trying to fight off the constant respawns of mobs and not fall off the scaffolding, which is trapped. At one point, you have to hammer the seal for the left arm, then go over to the other side and hit the right arm, then back and forth until both are broken. Just hammering on the left until it greaks doesn't work, because a force field springs up preventing you from hitting either of those seals twice in a row.

In another content thing I did, you're in a pirate cave and you want to get through the cave to the ship to open the lost treasure chest. The front room of that cave system has a gate that you cant destroy or open by force, but there are these pressure plates on the floor, and you have to hold all three of them down at the same time to get he gate to open for you. So you put stones, which are available and can be picked up, on the pressure plates, the gate opens, etc. Then you have to fight your way through the ghost pirates, jump up and down and swim etc until you get to the treasure chest.

I'm not suggesting we have jumping puzzles or anything like that, but just having objects that can be interacted with, picked up, moved around, thrown, set back down again, etc is a thing. You might find a shovel. Digging probably isn't possible just anywhere, but there might be a weird looking area on the floor that you can click on, and when you have the shovel, you can dig THERE to do something.

Sometimes the boss is invulnerable and there's a way to defeat that, on the map, by doing a specific thing with as specific item. This kind of thing is fun, to me. Puzzles and fights that require planning, strategy, reading the wiki, paying attention, teamwork, cooperation, etc.

One last GW2 example. In Prof. Portamatt's lab, which is underwater, you have to destroy either one of two nondescript objects, then acces the RIGHT control panel, and answer a series of questions on the dialog boxes that pop up. This opens a portal to you-don't-know-where. If you go in it, it TPs you to a random part of the map. BUT IF, after you open the portal, you access the set of control panels on the right, it will give you a set of numbers representing nonsensical "calibration settings" of the portal device. It gives you three numbers, and based on those you are supposed to adjust the three controls by increasing the power to the gasnausenfosser, throttling the whatzit, etc. If you do that stuff right, based on the calibrated numbers they give you, THEN go through the portal, it takes you to the treasure chest room. The three variables they give you have three possible number settings each, and based on what they are when it tells them to you, you have to consult a table on the wiki to get the right set of adjustments to make. I don't know how long it took for people to figure out how this all worked, but I don't think they originally told people anything except "There's a treasure chest, this is a puzzle." and the community finally cracked it, or so I assume. And that's not even a boss fight with a huge payoff, it's a pretty random thing out in the middle of nowhere that gives pretty blah treasure. All it uses is objects that can be attacked and dialog boxes that pop up when you click on objects. This is a little more advanced than "just click the glowwie", and pretty fun, if you ask me.

Nothing at all wrong with complexity in the boss fights, I really enjoyed the Incarnate trials with some of the odd mechanics they had. Certainly though you don't want a must have "x" powerset mechanic... if it's required then temp powers are certainly needed. One of CoH's biggest strengths was that almost any combination of random characters could succeed if they played it well... most other games seem to be married to the Holy Trinity of Tank/Heal/DPS.

I would save the really complex mechanics for late game stuff though, let new players cut their teeth on simpler fare for the most part. Or, how about a "veteran" difficulty setting? Setting it could enable some more complex mechanics with the encounters for experienced players while turning it off could make it easier for newer players still learning the game; albeit at probably a small XP loss. Something so that instead of simply setting "+4 x 8" for high difficulty you just have things run normally but add new mechanics or abilities to keep things interesting?

I doubt anyone would disagree that mobs like the Circle of Thorns, Malta, Devouring Earth and Knives of Artemis were considerably harder than vanilla mobs like Council. Why were they tougher? Because they had different abilities and mechanics. And Sappers. I really hated Sappers. ;)

CMA wrote:

I would save the really complex mechanics for late game stuff though, let new players cut their teeth on simpler fare for the most part. Or, how about a "veteran" difficulty setting? Setting it could enable some more complex mechanics with the encounters for experienced players while turning it off could make it easier for newer players still learning the game; albeit at probably a small XP loss. Something so that instead of simply setting "+4 x 8" for high difficulty you just have things run normally but add new mechanics or abilities to keep things interesting?

While it most likely won't enable more complex behaviour from the boss the challenges system will fill a large part of what you propose since it will make the encounter more "complex" by having additional conditions for additional/higher rewards. One of those challenges could be a more "intelligent" boss, though to my knowledge that possibility has not been mentioned by the devs so far.

Not that I'm pro-bag of HP, but it could be argued that they beat out glass cannon characters. If you're the guy that burns down a group of mobs in 3 moves, you probably don't fare well against the defensive rock monster that survived and started to punch you.

Obviously we can have tanky defensive bosses that have more mechanics than 'a larger than average health pool' for this purpose though.

Empyrean wrote:

I like variety. Let's have a bag of HP once in a while. Here and there. Just not most of the time.

This is pretty much where I stand on the issue. Variety is the spice of life... and I like it hot.

If the only thing that increases is the HP, or the effective HP through increased defensive stats, then I would agree that that should be avoided at all costs. There needs to be something more to make them unique, that thing that "justified" them becoming a boss.

In the early games I think, due to the low number of powers, that it's reasonable that bosses are more HP based than tactics, but with increases in levels it should shift towards tactics over HP with end game ones being almost only tactics based.

I wish they would come out and tell us how it was intended.

Brand X wrote:

I hear lots of talk of tactics, but no mention of tactics to be used.

Please use an example of tactics, that won't come off as work to other players who just want to smash buttons.

What? Like, every 10 seconds, you have to run off the big tile that just vanished and exposed you to melting lava and possibly killed someone, so they now think that tactics is a dumb way for a boss?

The devs have stated that one of the inspirations for their trial content is Final Fantasy XIV. In fact, when I suggested trial content to them in a thread in the suggestions forum, Tyche swooped in like a badass and proceeded to say that they were already doing that long before I made the request.

Here's a great example of a tactical encounter. There's lots of things you have to keep an eye on, but everything is fairly well telegraphed to the players that are paying attention
[youtube]AAfv8cPkfK4[/youtube]

I've played this fight before. It's honestly really damn fun because nothing is really difficult to get a grasp of, and if you're kind of a dumb player the other players can pick up the slack for you. It's got everything - adds, DDR, explosive runes, and lots of dodging, but it never feels overwhelming. It's designed such that with a little bit of talking, you can work out all the information you need to win the fight quickly, efficiently, and without dying very often.

While I can respect that some players will always want a big dumb boss fight that doesn't do anything you need to worry about - and I'm deeply certain that that will happen, even if complex bosses like the one I linked above get added to the game - a big part of what makes a boss "easy to understand" is having the tuning be right and controlling the sorts of input the players receive.

But we're talking about a mission creator, right? And so they basically have to entrust to players to make these complex boss fights fun. The problem with that is there's no way to guarantee it - there will always be played that use User Generated Content as a shortcut, a way to abuse the system for rewards, or are just friggin lazy. When it comes to that sort of thing in an MMO, Sturgeon was a wild-eyed idealist. But as long as we have the tools to make the good fights, those bad ones can largely be ignored.

I'm personally looking forward to the idea of getting a badass arena story going. I like designing fights, and I like doing stories, but the whole "mass of hallways and rooms filled with dudes" thing has never been something I enjoyed putting together, so if we have the chance to make complex boss fights, I'll be damned happy.

Cobalt Azurean wrote:

Brand X wrote:

I wish they would come out and tell us how it was intended.

I think one of the devs (maybe it was Posi or Babs in one of their AMAs, I can't recall at this point) said it was basically to run around the exterior of the jello and shoot the mitos in the original Hami encounter, working inward.

That doesn't solve the "pop" when Hami reached 50% and summoned a yellow mito for every player and pet in the bowl. Having been there for a couple there's no way you're gonna clear that... we tried several times and got wiped in seconds each time. Loose the hold on Hami at that point in the takedown and no more raids until the next server reset.

desviper wrote:

Brand X wrote:

The Healing NPC...just more HP to smash, except you have another target to go after instead. No difference really.

Shield to take down...just more HP to smash, except you're not targeting the boss.

Final Form...just more HP to smash, except now there's a new form.

Multiple bosses spawn...just more HP to smash, except it's split into different targets.

Really, your ideas seem to be, MORE HP TO SMASH DOWN, except split the HP into different targets.

How about a Boss that everyone on the team has to use their STUN on at the same time, or the boss doesn't get stunned and maintains high levels of resists/defenses/HP, but when they all use their stun at once, it all drops quickly.

Now, it all goes onto one member of the team either not using their stun or not having one and then the tactic is...SMASH DOWN HP!

Removing tiles from floor. If you don't get out of the lava that just appeared under your feet, you're going to go down QUICK! No use to help on the boss with the rest of your team, so less damage and now it feels like more HP, because there's less people to take him down.

I have the high ground! If you have a member with flight/hover abilities doing damage to the target, they take more damage! Speedster teams cry, but the Flying Angels love the boss!

Boss has high resists, but if you can still lay down 2k DPS in a 10 second window, then his resists take a dive and they keep taking a dive until he dead, as long as you hit the DPS target window (or exceed it).

Seeing as how I'm guessing CoT won't be Tank/DPS/Healer focused, if it's like CoH anyways, maybe a boss that takes a hit to resists/defenses whenever it's taunted. Encouraging the taking of a taunt or the using of one. Not punchvoke, but actual taunt use.

You got me, multiple bags of HP is better than one bag of HP :p

I wasn't trying to be mean, and I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic, but it is what your examples looked like. That one million HP split into multiple targets is better than one target. I guess it gives the feeling of finishing a thing off faster, but either way, you're going through one million HP.

Don’t forget that we can leverage our Momentum mechanic for regular encounters to switch up their abilties, Beeak Free from controls, and possibly change behaviors. The higher the rank of the opponent npc, the more we have to work with in terms of possible individual npc mechanics.

And as NPC ranks get higher, the more complex encounters can become.

Now one example here was of another npc healing the other. A statement was made that this was just “more hp” to burn through to win.

I posit that this doesn’t have to be the case. If Badguy A is the objective and he is being healed by Badguy B, then Badguy B doesn’t necessarily have to be defeated to win, and you don’t necessarily have to fight through the extra healing.

What if you had 2 Stlwarts in your team and one with the Living Target Mastery. He goes and tanks Badguy B so he stops healing Badguy A.

Meanwhile the other Stalwart helps the team because he has Battle Leader.

Or maybe you have a commander than can consistently control Badguy B, perhaps even stub a Charm that causes his heal to work for your own team. Suddenly the counter shifts differently.

Two different tactics. Yet both are viable. The encounter is open to multiple possible team configurations to work together toward a win without the devs enforcing one particular method.

And this isn’t to say that there shoudmnt be encounters that are particularly difficult that have different phases when’re different actions are required. There is plenty of room for all sorts of encounters with a myriad of mechanics.

Cobalt Azurean wrote:

CMA wrote:

Cobalt Azurean wrote:

Brand X wrote:

I wish they would come out and tell us how it was intended.

I think one of the devs (maybe it was Posi or Babs in one of their AMAs, I can't recall at this point) said it was basically to run around the exterior of the jello and shoot the mitos in the original Hami encounter, working inward.

That doesn't solve the "pop" when Hami reached 50% and summoned a yellow mito for every player and pet in the bowl. Having been there for a couple there's no way you're gonna clear that... we tried several times and got wiped in seconds each time. Loose the hold on Hami at that point in the takedown and no more raids until the next server reset.

Again, my recollection isn't the best, but I believe that how many of the "yellow dawn" was based on those who were in the actual jello geometry, not necessarily the bowl. If you stayed outside the goo itself, and Hami hit those HP thresholds, it wouldn't matter that they happened because nothing would spawn based on the fact that no actual character was in the jello. Or if you had limited melee numbers in the bowl, those limited yellow dawn spawns could be taken care of during the course of the raid. I honestly think the method that was devised by Marut and co. is the better strat because it allowed for more participation by the melee players.

I was a pretty regular Hami raider, original encounter and revamp, and its not impossible to clear a yellow dawn. Mind you, it's not pleasant but it is entirely do-able if you've got the patience.

Well, in the time I was actively raiding Guardian never cleared one to my knowledge, we did try on at least three occasions I remember.

On the yellow dawn, I remember quite a few yellows spawning outside the jello, right on top of characters who were running or once on a group of griefers who dragged several of the GM's into the raid at the critical point. After that little trick we always assigned a couple tanks on griefer duty to pull GM's away if idiots would drag them in. It's not conclusive but there were usually some that spawned outside so we always assumed it was targeted on everyone in the bowl.

CMA wrote:

Cobalt Azurean wrote:

CMA wrote:

Cobalt Azurean wrote:

Brand X wrote:

I wish they would come out and tell us how it was intended.

I think one of the devs (maybe it was Posi or Babs in one of their AMAs, I can't recall at this point) said it was basically to run around the exterior of the jello and shoot the mitos in the original Hami encounter, working inward.

That doesn't solve the "pop" when Hami reached 50% and summoned a yellow mito for every player and pet in the bowl. Having been there for a couple there's no way you're gonna clear that... we tried several times and got wiped in seconds each time. Loose the hold on Hami at that point in the takedown and no more raids until the next server reset.

Again, my recollection isn't the best, but I believe that how many of the "yellow dawn" was based on those who were in the actual jello geometry, not necessarily the bowl. If you stayed outside the goo itself, and Hami hit those HP thresholds, it wouldn't matter that they happened because nothing would spawn based on the fact that no actual character was in the jello. Or if you had limited melee numbers in the bowl, those limited yellow dawn spawns could be taken care of during the course of the raid. I honestly think the method that was devised by Marut and co. is the better strat because it allowed for more participation by the melee players.

I was a pretty regular Hami raider, original encounter and revamp, and its not impossible to clear a yellow dawn. Mind you, it's not pleasant but it is entirely do-able if you've got the patience.

Well, in the time I was actively raiding Guardian never cleared one to my knowledge, we did try on at least three occasions I remember.

On the yellow dawn, I remember quite a few yellows spawning outside the jello, right on top of characters who were running or once on a group of griefers who dragged several of the GM's into the raid at the critical point. After that little trick we always assigned a couple tanks on griefer duty to pull GM's away if idiots would drag them in. It's not conclusive but there were usually some that spawned outside so we always assumed it was targeted on everyone in the bowl.

Hm. I may be completely mistaken then. I did some brief internet searches and even Posi can't remember what it was but believes it had to do with the monsters in the zone.
https://twitter.com/ManyThingsDeck/status/938109984646209536

The smartest, toughest Boss is the one the Heroes never see. That's because he's always in Bermuda when the PCs show up.

Be Well!
Fireheart

Cinnder wrote:

Darth Fez wrote:

An important element to more interesting boss battles is that if something should be avoided, it needn't be a one-shot kill element. I think it also makes the characters and team feel more powerful if there's the opportunity to recover from a mistake.

I couldn't agree more. To me it would feel a lot more like the comics or movies if a big enemy attack took you down to almost-dead rather than dead, so you can react with a 'Whoa -- I better not let [i]that[/i] happen again!'

+ 1

Big Monster! So 'kill' its pinkie-toe!

Ahh a topic I would realy like to spread my thoughts.

Again we take the King of MMO´s, WoW, as an example. Bosses that have boring dps mechanics are.. boring. I always liked the bosses where you have special Teams that have to do stuff in the bossfight. I volunteered everytime to be in such groups. Best examples here are Siegecrafter Blackfuse and the current Boss G´Hun. (There are more, but I dont want to list them all) You had to design groups that do special stuff. A fight on a assembly line, that was actually cool.

Sorry its only a small text today. But theese are my thoughts about making Bosses fun. I could List Wildstar aswell but I can only remember the first Boss of that Matrix-Raid.. it was long time ago. I only now that this Boss was pretty hard. (Compared to WoW you had sprint, double-jump and dash AND you have to use it! Also everyone should have interrupter there, was part of the game. Shouldnt be copied though.)

Gute Nacht und gute Schlacht!

Kuraikari wrote:

In one of the earlier updates MWM talked about Momentum. That they will use that on every character. [b]So, a boss might have it as well.[/b] Pair it with some other strategies (those you already mentioned sound good) and we get a pretty interesting boss fight.

Bosses will have momentum, and I think most will change attack patterns, power usage, and/or "combat phase" based upon momentum level.

However these end up being done, it should always be clear what's going on and why. There should be unmistakable signs WELL ahead of time that someone off the front line is about to take damage, and doubly so if it is a significant amount of damage. "Floor turns green" by itself is not especially explanatory; maybe that's where everyone is SUPPOSED to stand, after all.

Also, there should always be room for individual improvisation and creativity. Significant amounts of randomness could help prevent so-called "perfect plans," and more importantly forestall the sorts of idiots who try to force such things onto others...