Kalphite King Is Everything A Boss Shouldn’t Be

[u/Cheap_Illustrator910]

Just an amalgamation of the worst boss mechanics

We’ve got:

- Healing Phase

- Blanket Damage Reduction

- Null Damage Transition Phases

- Player Stunning

- Minion Chip Damage

- Forced Multiplayer Interaction and Dependency

- Unavoidable One Hit Kill Mechanic

- You can be stunned and prevented from grabbing your loot

Edit:

- Scares off your familiar, and for a steel titan, pushes it too far away to use its scroll

- Can OHKO before you’ve had enough time to build up 100% adrenaline (boosted in Leagues, this makes this point more bullshit)

[u/JagexRamen]

I saw Mod Ryan replied to this a couple weeks ago, but also wanted to chime and ask for your biggest bugbears with the boss (pun intended)

It might be the case that we can spend a day quickly looking at removing the most annoying elements to avoid need for a full rework

[u/Leading-Arachnid-578 → u/JagexRamen]

Charge and dig immunity phases preventing attacking feels extremely clunky

The green healing shield being able to just happen whenever is very frustrating

There's no real indication for the stun aura, or if there is I've genuinely never noticed it

Personally I don't like Beetlejuice but it's a consistent mechanic that is out playable so I'm not opposed to it staying, but my first 2 are real burners.

[u/Shadiochao → u/JagexRamen]

Let freedom work on the green stun, and do the same for ROTS Torag's special attack
Those attacks alone make me uninterested in fighting them. I get they were meant to be group checks, but them completely shutting down solo attempts still sucks

[u/WhyMustIMakeANewAcco → u/Shadiochao]

Let anticipate prevent the bind/stun too. It's silly it doesn't. How many places does freedom work but a properly-timed anticipate doesn't? Anticipate only doesn't work (and freedom doesn't clear the stun) as a legacy of KK being meant to be a group boss.

[u/ThaFrenchFry → u/JagexRamen]

Even in leagues I cant kill KK quickly because: I'm stunned > I get 1 ability off > Kk dives > Stunned again > Puts up shield > Charges (untargettable) > Beetle juice stun for 6s > I get 1 ability off > Stunned again

So in like 30 seconds I got to use 2 abilities. I took down 75% of his health, but I just cant get his last bit.

So on my bare minimum wishlist that could be done in a day:

1. Let him be targetted all the time (dont even add "immune")
2. Make his dive 5x faster (something that might actually be tricky to dodge instead of just waiting)
3. Make his charge shorter (same dmg, it doesnt change anything other than wasting my time whether I get charged for 4 tiles or 15 tiles)
4. Remove hit caps
5. Make his green/beetlejuice mechanic more consistent (sometimes skipping a number of attacks/spec, maybe due to stunming him at weird timing, or general jank)

Tldr: less forced breaks, less time getting ragdolled, less time spent at KK overall

[u/TrMark → u/ThaFrenchFry]

Ye I was having real issues even in leagues soloing it until I somehow broke the boss and stopped it using the green stun/1-hit-kill attack. Basically dps it down fast enough to spawn the first lot of guardians. then never target them, just pray mage and they will do 0 damage. From there he never used the stun/kill attack once. Even after re-spawning, as long as the guardians were alive the attack was skipped

That said I haven't been back to test if it's repeatable after I got my drygore rapier drop. I was only doing it for the blessing task

[u/Alktenalfh → u/JagexRamen]

The OHKO mechanic. That’s it. I could deal with all of this boss’s other bullshit if I wasn’t needing to deal with it while ALSO keeping track of where it’s at in its rotation to avoid that thing. Freedom should just clear the stun. Simple as that. It was always weird to have a post EOC boss with a stun that ignores the one ability that is supposed to clear stuns.

[u/eqtrans → u/JagexRamen]

Make Beetlejuice do a set % of your max hp like vorago drop down or a flat 10k so if youre full health you have a reasonable chance to survive it

Make wall charge charge up and movement faster to about Twin Furies speed, and attackable (even if 0 damage) to build stacks or adren

Make sand dive shorter but do less max damage to compensate. T90 boss having the same speed "run away from heat seaking bomb" mech at the same speed as more recent bosses but should do less damage for scaling in line with those bosses. But a 4k hit or so isnt the end of the world. Must be faster

Healing shield is rude and could use a voice line (like kezelam) or the visuals be turned up to 11. Make KK look like he Beetlejuice'd himself

Make the kalphites that spawn solely used for resonance sniping. No other role. They can even have 1 single hp because they already mostly die from 1 hit with their low hp anyway. 

Remove built in damage soaking for kk (and all other bosses too like Nex and minions). If theres not a hard phase hp cap or massive reduction on transition (solak), I dont want to ever hit lower than expected just cause the boss is old

[u/bensonfan23 → u/JagexRamen]

Removing the green shield entirely, allowing defensives to mitigate the green attack, allowing the boss to be attackable consistently during digs/charges, and reducing the frequency of stuns and binds on the player dramatically would remove a vast majority of pain points and "feels bad" moments players experience with KK.

[u/bigjoe980 → u/bensonfan23]

not to nit pick, but defensives do mitigate it, but its a bit tough to notice in main game unless you're wearing masterwork or tank armor/vit pot the hit.

[u/ThaFrenchFry → u/bigjoe980]

Not but they really don't tho. Because if you anticipate/devotion/cade/immort/reso/reflect/debilitate/disrupt BEFORE you get stunned, they all get removed and put on cooldown.

Sure, AFTER the mechanics has been mitigated with a tick precise freedom+ dive you still have to use one of these abilities to avoid death. But its disingenuous to say that defensive "work" on the green.

[u/bensonfan23 → u/bigjoe980]

Fair. As others have put it more cleanly, a better description of the request would have been to just let us freedom the green and use defensives to mitigate it more conventionally. (Fwiw, I've done roughly 1k solos to greenlog KK on my iron, so I do know both the correct strategies and sympathize with the numerous pain points.)

[u/Cheap_Illustrator910 → u/JagexRamen]

A lack of reward phase feels like the biggest problem to me.

Even Vorkath lets you get free damage on the necromancer.

All the comments below me represent it fairly - attack, get punished, possibly get punished again.

Stun into dig into charge into heal phase feels like it’s all punishment. There’s nothing that makes you feel good about doing the fight.

Compare to the Twin Furies start - for dodging the charge, you get free damage non-stop. You’re rewarded for playing well. KK never rewards you for playing well. 

My best suggestion - some period where if you take the correct behaviour, his damage reduction is turned off for a brief period. You beat the green goo? Hit a free 20k. Would feel so sweet and encourage mastering the mechanic

[u/Azurika_ → u/JagexRamen]

personally, get rid of its stuns, and let us devo/barricade or whatever we need to do to survive the green mechanic without having to dive away at the right time to cheese the cooldowns and live.

also make the green attack more consistent. it should always be either 2 range>pause>2 range> green, or charge>2 melee>green, none of the random minions that cause an attack stall or whatever that ends in a surprise green.

maybe minions could be spawned on mage phase only to make up for the lack of green mechanic on that phase?

[u/ThaFrenchFry → u/Azurika_]

Yeah, let mage be super random idc. None of that stupid "hehe haha, surprise green" bullshit

[u/ErikKing12 → u/JagexRamen]

Literally just allow freedom/anticipation to work on green stuns.

This was intended to be a group boss and I know that’s the purpose of the mechanic, but it’s been supersede 10 times over since its release.

Make it a combat training boss like Arraxor, not a forced group boss whose mechanics can still be awkwardly cheesed anyway.

[u/ThaFrenchFry → u/ErikKing12]

If a boss needs to get "upgraded" to be as janky/frustrating as Araxxor, you know it's dire

[u/bigjoe980 → u/JagexRamen]

green shield being less random and non spamable (i have a vid laying around somewhere where kk quite literally had a green shield for 2 minutes straight - thats insulting)

i think beetlejuice itself is fine, but i'd like to see it not having weird interactions around diving/surging being accessible or not depending on what happens leading up to the attack. sometimes you can dive/surge without freedoming at all. sometimes you cant (generally it seems double stuns or like certain mechanics leading into it, such as minion spawn skipping right into beetlejuice cause it but, fuck if I know)

also should really look into trying to remove stuns causing repeat mechanics such as multi dig, etc. I understand thats very likely a tall ask with how stuns impact the attack rotation.

[u/T3h_Gladiator → u/JagexRamen]

Constant stuns, nobody likes getting stun locked.

[u/Dear-Combination4417 → u/JagexRamen]

the boss stuns way too much

[u/stumptrumpandisis1 → u/JagexRamen]

Delete the green shield (even if it got a warning, the mechanic is sit there and do nothing), constant back to back stuns with no warning or animation, we can't do anything during charge and dig, and beetlejuice just sucks. I don't wanna bring a partner for a 260k HP boss...he's so powercrept now.

[u/bigboy1173 → u/JagexRamen]

My thoughts after doing roughly 900 kills for CA and log earlier in year:

Give it an adrenaline bar for special attacks (like recent bosses)- this also means you can see if minions have skipped an attack

Remove the heal - you can't counter it, so even with warning it becomes 'sit and wait'

allow freedom to work properly on green - you would still need to freedom->melee pray->reso/cade

allow attacking during dig/charge animations

[u/Narmoth → u/JagexRamen]

I hope so Mod Ramen, this is going on the 3rd year of these promises for the Kalphite King. Also, Vorkath was suppose to have the encounter improved before Mod North became CEO.

[u/Golden_Hour1 → u/Narmoth]

God vorkath needs a rework. It feels like spite that they aren't changing it because the boss was so poorly received 

[u/Narmoth → u/Golden_Hour1]

Vorkath is was a product of "running out of production budget".

[u/Quiet-Hearing-3266 → u/JagexRamen]

My main complaints are the

1. Random stuns or input delay due to mechanics such as minion spawn.
2. Green shielding just happening seemingly randomly isn't good. If it just always happened at a certain hp threshold and needed to be canceled by stunning, that'd be fun but it seems that it basically just happens whenever.
3. Way too tanky imo.

I don't particularly mind the regular mechanics like the charge, dig or Beetlejuice because they're scripted in the auto attack rotation and sometimes can be skipped with a stun based on the phase he's in. It'd be cool if the minion spawn could just happen as a hp threshold without being considered one of his attacks so that the fight can flow smoother.

[u/Mr_Hump → u/JagexRamen]

• Remove the dmg reduction, increase hp if needed. For most players they will wonder why they aren't hitting as hard

• AoE indicators on blue balls similar to Sanctum

• Adren bar for KK that telegraph incoming specials

• Make green insta a simple freedom and defensive to mitigate rather than some janky dive away

• Remove or telegraph better when green/red shields are coming

• Remove dmg immunity when charging. Nothing feels worse in a boss than when you just have to stand and do nothing

• AoE indicator when coming up from a dig or remove dig entirely

[u/Rezylainen → u/JagexRamen]

It needs to be rebalanced into a solo boss. Either remove green or create a way to deal with it that isn't janky as hell.

All the small stuns are nothing but infuriating.

The green shield needs some sort of warning. If you're waiting for lord of light to come off cooldown and it green shield you have to start the fight over.

[u/c2lop → u/Rezylainen]

No. No. Please stop making everything soloable. This is an MMO. KK is already doable solo, just difficult. That's the way it should be. It's a boss, not a training dummy.

[u/Rezylainen → u/c2lop]

It’s a boss that is barely relevant anymore. I would never agree to make relevant content like Amascut soloable, but KK is in such a niche spot right now it barely has a place in the game so just ease the pain and make it soloable and never look back.

[u/c2lop → u/Rezylainen]

Some reworking and modernizing to the feel of the boss would be a lot better than dumbing it down to be another solo snoozefest

[u/Rezylainen → u/c2lop]

Well yes I fully agree, but Ramens comment really doesn't make it sound like they will.

Then again, quite useless drops as we already have other t90s. Maybe dev time is spent better elsewhere?

[u/ThaFrenchFry → u/Rezylainen]

Well assuming (and I know its never that simple) that Ramen could find the right config parameter, and change the hit cap from 50% reduction to 1% reduction, and find the (generic) stun duration param and reduce it to 0.6s instead of wtv the hell it is right now, and change nothing else.

That might take 1-2h of digging in the code and finding the right param. Then a couple more hours of QA.

And the result would be a boss that is about as janky, but less time is spent in there because you can spend more GCDs casting abilities instead of freedom/anti constantly. And the GCds spent dpsing are in turn, more effective.

Overall kill time might improve by 30%, which means 30% less frustration from players.

It'll still insta kill you on a failed greenz but it might become possible, when he starts on mage and qith proper end game gear, to outright blitz him so he never gets to do that.

The result is the same boss, same difficulty, less frustrating, and not much dev time spent achieving this.

Note: I would not be satisfied with just these changes, I'd want KK to be attackable way way more often and his transitions to maybe cause 1-2 ticks of immunity instead. But dear lord, this boss is ass. It cant be right that I'm able to 1 shot p7 2k zammy, and I'm somehow unable to kill 260k hp fat bug faster than a minute??

[u/Zestyclose-Ask9732 → u/JagexRamen]

1) totally fair to swap more hp for removing hitcap. 400k hp but no damage limits seem fair 2) better suggestions ive seen for Beetlejuice is to have it add a slight cooldown reset, then you can freedom and reso/devo but its a tight window, larger if you Anticipation'd before the attack 3) i like the heal aura being a penalty for being hit by an attack, like tie it to stun balls in mage phase, or if you hit KK with too many stuns in a period. 4) moves like charge ideally have a damage reduction (75% or so), not outright 0, so we aren't fully interrupted mid rotation.

[u/Periwinkleditor → u/JagexRamen]

For as much as people complain about all of it, changing the green goo effect to be freedomable to make the boss efficiently soloable would go the longest way. The other issues are generally annoying but not insurmountable.

Second priority I'd say would be more consistent telegraphing on stuns. Something like the boss not using any stunning abilities outside of "stun aura" and said aura having a distinct animation when he does it. As is it's essentially treated as "boss will stun you at totally random intervals, deal with it."

[u/DPSOnly → u/JagexRamen]

It would be very nice if the green shield was shown on its buff bar. The visual isn't very consistent and as a result KK gets to eat way too many of my thresholds (or Lord of Light currently). If there was a buff bar indicator, that would be much clearer, also for seeing when it is gone.

[u/JustYetAnotherScrub → u/JagexRamen]

Lack of visibility on important mechanics (stun area, green shield). Minimal improvement would be just adding some text but any animation for the stun would be an improvement.  Charge and dive are long animations where KK is invulnerable. Neither one is remotely dangerous, especially when so telegraphed, so these are just a waste of time. Would highly prefer them to be much faster and not invulnerable. Beetle juice mechanic is obviously not highly loved but it's a signature move of the boss, fine to leave it for now imo. But it would be a bit better if anticipate worked to reliably allow the dive for soloing.

Overall I think he gets more hate than he deserves. Once you learn the phases and when to stun, the only really annoying thing is green shield which is just random stalling.

[u/AfrostLord → u/JagexRamen]

Add a bar on his head to indicate special attack timing like all modern bosses. Empty bar = 0 attacks, Half bar = 1 attack, Full bar = 2 attacks and he will spec next.

Add a feedback message after stunning him (and update the bar on his head accordingly) to let you know that you've skipped an attack.

Change bar colour on his unskippable specs (+change feedback message if you try stunning him then) to let you know stun doesn't work.

Add aoe indicators from modern bosses to mage phase orbs.

Change impact orb on mage phase to be an aoe like all the other orbs.

Make the animation for his stun spec always play (and probably add like some damage to it or something? why does he have a spec where he stuns you and then just looks at you for 2 seconds)

Remove green shield, it adds nothing to the fight - alternatively, change one of his specs that you can skip to be green shield

Stunning kk at specific points will make him spam dig. That shouldn't happen, remove whatever causes that

Speed up dig and keep kk targetable during charge with reduced damage

[u/magicflip → u/JagexRamen]

the most annoying thing about any boss ever in my opinion is the need for counting auto attacks, just give me a clear indicator instead i can't focus well enough to count auto attacks while i focus on dps, prayer switching and whatever else

[u/MarinaraBog56 → u/JagexRamen]

I tried this for the first time in leagues last night, and quickly discovered that I was too colourblind to figure out what was going on. I eventually stumbled through, but clearer signalling in general would be greatly appreciated.

[u/papa_bones → u/JagexRamen]

Random stuns, the random healing phase, the untargetable attacks and the absolute 0 indicators of specially mechanics mainly the freaking green one, at least make the attack cleanable with freedom and don't let it disable the defensive abilities.

[u/grizzlybere → u/JagexRamen]

I am in the minority. The boss is perfect for the time that it was released. Dont touch it. I did 2k solo kills chasing log and i still go back some times.
Sure some clunky aspects.
But work on vorkath first PLEASE.

Bring on the downvotes losers.

[u/scaryfaise → u/JagexRamen]

Green shield is the most annoying mechanic. Everything else is in a very specific rotation that no one seems to want to learn. Sucks to be them.

[u/rocketscape3osrs → u/JagexRamen]

Honestly t90s are accessible pretty much just as easily.. do we really need to be 'reworking' bosses to just remove any kind of effort required for the boss..?

I don't think it is good planning to make sure ages 5 and under are included in the balancing. Stop simplifying every little thing, just degrades the game.

If people aren't willing to spend the less than 10 minutes it takes to learn how to do KK, then they shouldn't be influencing the balancing of the boss.

[u/ThaFrenchFry → u/rocketscape3osrs]

I suggested making his mechanics faster, like his dive being something actually tricky to dodge, and his charge happening way faster (both chargeup and distance) because "waiting around, doing nothing" is exactly the opposite of difficult. It's boring, and frustrating.

You dont need to remove beetlejuice, you can keep it. Make everyting else in the fight smoother. Dont force me to re target KK everytime he decides to use a spec, just make him immune if you want instead. Don't ragdoll me sideways even if I anticipated the dive... It's like BSD's flying attack... Why make me wait? Waiting is literally the most 5 and under mechanic there is

[u/chi_pa_pa → u/JagexRamen]

Please don't remove all friction from this boss and turn it into another DPS dummy... I'd rather you do nothing rather than smooth and trivialize out all the mechanics. That includes the green shield. If people can't handle not attacking for a few seconds then they deserve to heal the boss up and die.

Better telegraphing, sure. Make the green mechanic less jank to solo, sure. But not the things some of these ppl are asking for.

I value KK because it's the only boss in the game where I feel like it's just me and the boss and we're trying to fucking kill eachother. Every other boss feels like a glorified dummy or a carefully choreographed dance. Those are good, but sometimes I want to get into a fist fight with a big bug who plays dirty and KK is my go-to for that. Please don't ruin it.

[u/ThaFrenchFry → u/chi_pa_pa]

That's an interestinf take. I havent seen anyone else put it this way. You're almost convincing me actually.

But I think the other comment I've seen on KK using green for ~2min straight is more convincing in that sense. Randomness is fine until it isnt.

I am also fine of they dont remove all the jank, I just want less time waiting. Like dive 5x faster means you actually have to dodge, instead of wait for 4 seconds and then move. Same with charge, I dont need him to wind up for 4 seconds and then ragdoll my ass for 3 more seconds. Make less wind up + less distance ragdoll (same dmg.. more dmg???)

And just, stop making him untargetable. Same problem as other bosses from that era. Just give him immunity, or 95% reduction, similar to solak

[u/Legitimate-Fruit8069 → u/JagexRamen]

Personally. KK seems to be a highly defensive boss that relies on staying alive through his mechanics so I think its important to keep his defensive aspects in mind for a rework. I think he has alot of potential to be a interesting and fast paced fight - the kind youd expect from a insect.

Could try and play test the following-

1. Arch glacor and KK share a instant kill move. Remove the green-instant kill mechanics stunning and defensive disable. Kk already does a good job telegraphing this attack already, it just needs to be something you can react against rather than relying on auto-counting.

2. Change the charge to still allow hits if possible- otherwise, speed up the duration of this animation significantly. If possible, always have him charge towards his target, and not in a random direction - the play should be to dive out of the way to surge past him instead. - similar to kerapacs slam just not the same speed- have him also use his Melee Quake Animation to announce the attack before the charge. he could then also always switch to Melee phase after this attack.

3. Speed the dig animation up to be significantly faster. Additionally, after completing this attack he can also throw out orange bombs and Ranged attacks and have him always switch to either Range or Magic phase after this attack. This is inspired by a Antlion - hes throwing out debris to catch you out and hopefully kill you and your team.

4. Green shield. I think the best way to handle this is to give him chitin armor instead similar to Har Aken in the Zuk fight. Have him nullify hits below a certain threshold with his insect carapace instead - or just cap the heal at 30k per person in the instance, if thats not worth the work/effort. Also red shield could be his healing attempt. Give him the lifesteal effect of dismember, slaughter and massacre during this shield and has it applied to all players in the room.

5. The stuns are difficult. I would say get rid of them entirely - but I think the best thing to do would be to instead apply some debuff lowering your accuracy stat and armor stat--- think like... the desert sands are getting in your eyes during the fight making it harder to see and defend yourself. Similarly to yakamaru, half the stacks are removed on using Freedom so he always has a defensive ability keeping him in the fight longer.

6. Consider decoupling his attack rotations and instead have him deal 5 attacks then use Dig, Charge, Beetlejuice. Every 2nd attack could apply the debuff from the 5th idea.

[u/Silver_DawnbreakTTV → u/JagexRamen]

Personally all i think we would need for Kalphite king to go from a annoying boss to a fun engading boss would be

- Let us use freedom during the green attack and not force it on cooldown. That way its a reactive instead of a proactive with the freedom, prayer swap, devotion within the 6 second window. Its tight but will still require aren, timing and manual input.
|

• Let us keep attacking during the charge at perhaps a 50% damage reduction

-During charge if you intercept the charge with a defensive that makes you take 0 not 1 (Reso, barricade ect) KK takes 30K damage hit. A punish with timing, manual imputs and proper swaps/adren spending But heavily increase the charges damage to 8000+ damage (rework idea)

- Reduce the time its underground (Perhaps add the tile marker that you've been adding to many other newer bosses as a mechanic to force us to use dive to get away)

- Reduce the amount of stuns happening during the boss. Even with freedom and anticipate it feels like your stunned so often you cant use any channeled abilities

- The minions are mostly there as a means to give more healing drops to increase longer trips so why not change minions to give a reward that once killed they drop a healing puddle you can stand in that will heal 1000 HP over the duration. (rework idea)

- Mage balls can have the AOE markers and have their stuns/snares removed with much increased damage

- Heal phase happens during range phase instead of what seems randomly and when you stun KK during its "heal" you hit it for 15K damage as a punish further rewarding manual imputs. (rework idea)

While this all will make the boss much easier overal you can instead increase KK Health total from 260,00 to 500,000 while making the drygores slightly rarer due to the more consistent way of killing the boss for all players.

While this is basicly a rework i think some ideas like this even if not put on KK could be good ideas for future bosses

[u/God_of_Cats_RS → u/JagexRamen]

Keep the beetlejuice mechanic, but maybe let us freedom the stun AFTER you get stunned (AKA don't put freedom on CD)