4Game

I've just completed the Moder boss fight and, like many of you I suspect, I thought it kinda sucked. Obviously this post might contain spoilers. I haven't fought boss 5 yet but will probably spoiler myself will googling recipes anyway.

Let's start with the good.

I liked that the summoning requirements needed a couple of trips to bring and couldn't be portaled. I think the devs could consider this for all summoning items (maybe not Eikthyr as his are useful for the best swamp weapon). That would make getting to a boss fight harder work and more risky than "got all my weapons and lots of food. Let's step into the portal".

I liked the character model. Looks like you'd expect a badass dragon to look.

The actual fight though? Well, my main worry was falling off the mountain or a pack of wolves showing up on the rare occasions I was frozen. A couple drakes did show up but I didn't see any animation to suggest she was involved so I think that was RNJesusOdin. If she's the mother of dragons, maybe bring more drakes in to the fight.

I sacrifice 3 of her eggs to get her to show up – maybe make them turn into drakes immediately to start the fight off with a little rush? Or have eggs lying around that can be broken by careless players / hatched by her. Yes the Elder and Bonemass both summon minions but it's a mechanic that works to make a fight more varied.

Bonemass required me to brew some potions to fight him (and drinking them during the fight was funny and nerve-wracking), I don't think just having a wolf cape should be enough to protect me from frostbite for this fight. A rainstorm while silver mining came closer to freezing me to death than the boss of the mountains did. I should need mead for this fight too.

Freeze effects suck for players, you don't want to just be sitting there getting beat on, I get that and so I like that it's brief. But that also means it's not more than a minor inconvenience. Maybe if it also added Freezing (maybe even one that can only be dispelled by a fire at the alter or a spicy mead not just blocked by a sexy cape)?

She flies around slowly then turns towards the player, hovers, and breaths ice at them. Fine, but repetitive, maybe adding a swoop attack so I can't just stand there peppering her with arrows while she patrols.

Melee just felt like hitting a pinata. I didn't manage to block her wing strike (dunno if that's a feature or if I just suck at defence) but one would hit me, I'd lose a chunk of health and by the time the second came around I was running out of stamina anyway so usually got out of range. A tail whip would be cool (some good range and smashing up the terrain like the stone golems right hook), or summoning drakes when she lands so I have to think about what I'm doing rather than just "here's a chance to save some of my arrows".

And another good thing to finish – the trophy looks cool – can you put forsaken trophies on item stands? I'd consider resummoning only her to make my viking retirement home more badass.

I haven't used the power yet but it sounds brilliant (especially if it's passive as I suck at remembering I have them).

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Eikthyr was awesome to look at and his powers made me afraid I was going to die. Maybe that was because he was the first boss but I still think it was pretty cool and might go fight him again for fun.

The Elder forced me to use the terrain to hide from his ranged attacks (they covered more area I think and felt faster / harder to spot the animation for), and his summons put me on the back foot and forced me to change location. When I screwed up a couple times in a row, I died, which is the way it should be. If I hadn't built my base over his altar, I'd fight him again. Still might when I'm done with this world.

Bonemass was even better location wise (the swamp isn't somewhere you should run around willy nilly), his big attack encouraged you to get out the way. I died a few times (mostly on corpse runs) but not so many times it started to suck. I love that he heals when not being damaged – forces you to stay in the fight. I'll take some bones with me next time I need to fetch iron as I want to prove I can beat him without bothering the Valheim medical service.

So yeah, this game is great, but the Moder fight is a weak spot at the moment – if I wanted a boring viking vs dragon fight I'd go play Skyrim 🙂