Grim Dawn has mostly amazing boss fights, some of them might be a little bit frustrating but in most cases you can actually figure out what’s going on, what’s hitting you and so dodge it or use your active defensive skills smartly.
With Kra’vall, Gargabol and to a lesser degree Shar’Zul this is not the case. They create an absolute pandemonium on the screen. The boss and the environment bombard you with projectiles, ground effects and summons. At last for me it’s next to impossible to figure out what’s going on, not to speak of reacting in any way strategically to it. Either you nuke them in a few seconds before they gain momentum or are so tanky that you can just weather the storm of crap. If you are not one of those builds you are doomed to do the panicking cat, till some random aoe/summon of yours kills the boss or much more likely, you get killed.
Furthermore amazing as AoM was, there appears to be this trend of handing AoE projectiles, ground effects and death effects to enemies like candy. Gargabol and Kra’vall are just the worst examples. Well designed bosses like Krieg, Anasteria, Alkamos, Zantarin and even to some extend our beloved Mad Queen all have hard hitting attacks, but if you watch out for them, they are beatable even with subpar gear. Since it’s an ARPG, farming plays a very important role but it shouldn’t be all. The bullet hell attacks of enemies, coupled with ground effects and on-death explosions, places nearly all emphasis on gear because you don’t really see half of the time what’s going on and just fire your attacks until the enemies hopefully die and thus soley depend of the protection/DPS of your gear. This robs you of the fun to anticipate attacks, dodge them or rely on anything but brute force.
All enemies have a pattern and you need to learn their pattern. Garbagol and Krav’Vall do the same things in a row, all you need to do is have a mental image of the pattern and then react accordingly.
Kra’vall - Truth be told I haven’t run this boss quite so much so I haven’t figured everything out about the fight, but the key thing to bear in mind is distance. Kra’vall behaves different based on how far you are from him, and kiting will also open you up to attacks from the tentacles. Like the Loghorrean, a lot of his attacks are telegraphed with mouth movements/particle effects.
Gargabol - Not an easy fight by any stretch of the imagination, but it is very straightforward. Other than the fire-turrets around the arena, all of Gargabol’s attacks are well telegraphed. You mostly just need to learn the telegraph for the 2x Volcano spawn, as that’s where the majority of his damage spikes come from. With Gargabol, you need to be willing to kite around for extensive periods of time if your resists aren’t well overcapped, due to how aggressive the arena itself is as well as how much range Gargabol has on the volcanoes. Gargabol probably has the highest damage potential of all Roguelike endbosses, but by no means are you forced to endure that damage.
Shar’zul - Actually one of my favorite fights in the game - top 10 for sure. I like it because, ability-wise, Shar’zul doesn’t change at all throughout the entire fight. Despite that, he has a ‘mechanic’ in the form of his Fire-tornadoes stacking up on you and overwhelming you with lots of resist-shred, coupled with his own ability to shred your resists with his autoattacks. This makes him more dangerous as the fight progresses, but not because he himself behaves any differently. Understanding that Shar’zul’s damage potential will amplify tremendously with time is the key to surviving the encounter. Even if you can facetank him for 60% of his HP, that last 40% might be a lot more difficult.
I agree honestly, Kra’Vall isn’t impossible but a great deal of his fight is being forced to take his projectiles in the face and just try and minimize the damage because it’s basically impossible to not get hit. Gargabol suffers a similar problem where you absolutely, under no feasible circumstances, can dodge the arena fire consistently. You just sort of pray and hope the arena fire doesn’t activate during the precious few seconds you get to try and attack him.
One of my favorite fights in the whole game is the entire Master of Flesh segment at the end of Ashes of Malmouth, because he has really well telegraphed AoE attacks, lots of attacks that can be dodged consistently and hits super hard so you’re punished for mistakes. His attacks are definitely oppresive and force you to think about where you’re positioned, but I never fought him and felt like I died because I absolutely could not kite myself away from an attack.
Honestly, I don’t even like the Mad Queen because unlike Gargabol, you can’t effectively hit and run against her as a melee character if your DPS isn’t super high. It doesn’t matter how good your build is or how skilled you are, if you don’t have the deeps to outpace her healing, you won’t win. Mad Queen is nothing but a gear check, and I’ve never been fond of bosses like that.
I’m saying this as somebody who enjoys the Kubacabra fight, because at least there you can minimize the life leech and have opportunities to attack back. Mad Queen just sucks and doesn’t even drop good stuff. Kubacabra guarantees a Nemesis Trove at least.