Boss

Bosses in the Diablo games come in various shapes and forms. From the randomly generated mini-bosses on a level to Superunique big quest boss like Diablo, they are all bosses of some description.

Diablo III Bosses

What's known about the Diablo 3 bosses comes almost entirely from player observations during the Blizzcon 2008 and 2009 demos. This information is subject to change, and may be biased, since it's known that Blizzard turned up the monster rates and item drop rates in the demos, in order to make them more fast paced, exciting, and new-player-friendly.

The organizational system of bosses in Diablo 3 is much as it was in Diablo 2. There are numerous Champions and random bosses scattered around the game world, while SuperUniques are rarer, and usually set in special, scripted locations or as part of larger encounters. Scripted events and special scenarios seem to be much more common in Diablo 3 than it they were in Diablo 2.

Scripted events such as the ones that led to battles against massive bosses in the WWI 2008 gameplay movie (Siegebreaker and Thousand Pounder) have not been included in the playable Blizzcon builds, aside from the dungeon ending in the battle with the Skeleton King in the 2008 Blizzcon demo. Players have seen more random bosses and champions, and these have been much as they were in Diablo 2.

That said, the developers are clearly holding back the good stuff and not letting fans see any of the bigger encounters at this early stage in the game's development.

Boss Names

The free-range boss monsters in Diablo 3 have randomly-assigned names that are fairly similar to the names they had in Diablo and Diablo 2. A few samples noted from Blizzcon 2009.

• Death Froth -- Sand Wasp.
• Spirit Hawk -- Lacuni Warrior.
• Bile Feast -- Lacuni Warrior.
• Rust Raven -- Lacuni Warrior.
• Haze Fuse -- Tomb Viper.
• Pit Thorn -- Tomb Viper.

There will also be plenty of superuniques and other high level bosses with have fixed names, who will appear in the same place each game, whether they're part of the plot or just localized events. Only a few of these are known thus far, but you can read about Thousand Pounder, Siegebreaker, and the Skeleton King for more details.

Lengthy Boss Battles

One thing the developers have talked about is their goal to create larger, multi-stage, more impressive battles in Diablo 3. They aren't going to be happy with just one big boss players must spend lots of time spent whacking away at. They want the big fights to involve more variety and difficulty, and this was seen to some extent in the way that the Skeleton King kept resurrecting more skeletons during his battle, at the end of the 2008 Blizzcon demo.

This issue was discussed by Kevin Martens and Julian Love during an interview at Blizzcon 2009. [1]

Diii.net: I’m curious to hear more about the big bosses in the game. The only one that’s been seen is the Siegebreaker, and Jay Wilson said that he wasn’t even an Act Boss. So what does an act boss look like? What will an encounter of that sort be like for players?

Kevin: Players will know they’re up against a big boss when they have to change their gameplay style. You won’t be able to just charge in and keep using the same tactics you use against a group of Fallen. You have to be more careful against a big boss. A tank character can’t just stand and tank as he’s used to. New strategy will be required. We want to make bosses interesting and powerful. They should be a challenge and be varied in what they require of all classes and abilities, as well as from parties. We want to make bosses more interesting than in the previous Diablo games. We look forward to showing them off, but we can’t talk about any specifics yet.

Diii.net: When Siegebreaker dies in the WWI gameplay movie, he spawns about a thousand skeletons from his corpse. Is that the sort of thing we’ll see from big bosses? Multi-stage events?

Kevin: Some may be multistage. Some don’t need to be that way. It depends on the boss, the stage, the player level, etc. We require different tactics to keep it interesting. We can’t pre-plan everything at this stage, since we don’t know what range of levels the players will be when they reach the boss. And we need to consider how to keep the boss fun through additional encounters. So the third or tenth time a player fights the boss, it’s still fun and exciting.

Julian: We also want to use bosses to move the story forward. We have story-based elements to vary the bosses. For one thing, we gave the bosses different ways to kill players.

Diii.net: Like when Siegebreaker bites off the Barbarian’s head?

Julian: That’s his way of killing players, but that’s not the only way a boss can finish off a player.

To assist players in these long, treacherous battles, boss monsters will periodically drop health globes during the fight. [2]

Jay Wilson: ...we deal with some of the harder monsters, like bosses and rares and champions ...they would drop health globes at percentages of their health. Rares in particular are almost guaranteed to drop about every 25%. The other thing we did, because we design everything for cooperative play, if you pick up a health globe and you have a friend nearby, you both get the benefit. So that's something we did to make sure the system didn't favor people who are running forward, melee classes, who used to pull up all the health potions. Now they're actually helping the people in the back.

Boss Modifiers

Most of the special, random modifiers found on bosses in Diablo 3 are reminiscent of those seen in Diablo 2, but there are some new ones mixed in. All of the bosses seen (on normal difficulty) in the Blizzcon 2008 and 2009 demos had at least one modifier, but quite a few had two. It's not known if the bosses with two mods were SuperUniques sporting their own innate mod + a random one, or if some bosses can just spawn with multiple modifiers on normal difficulty.

Most of the special, random modifiers found on bosses in Diablo 3 are reminiscent of those seen in Diablo 2, but there are some new ones mixed in. This should be considered a partial list, and was compiled from play experience at Blizzcon 2009. [3]

Cold Aura

This was reported by a fan, but not seen in any videos of the event. It reputedly worked just as it did in Diablo 2, chilling and slowing players within the radius of effect. After Blizzcon, Jay Wilson let it be known that Auras would return to the game, most likely as Monk skills, so monsters having auras as well doesn't seem that unlikely.

Doppelganger

A fairly common boss property; this one allowed bosses to create clones of themselves, much as Baal does in Diablo 2. The clones had the same properties as the boss, and fought just as the boss did. (Making them very dangerous, when they were clones of a nasty boss with a dangerous property.) Fortunately, they had fewer hit points (possibly 50% as much, as Baal's clone does), and their name hovers said "clone of _____" so they were fairly easy to spot. They disappeared when killed, dropping nothing, and all vanished when the boss was killed.

Individual bosses were able to produce numerous clones at the same time, essentially making their own minion packs. In most cases at Blizzcon 2009 (where this property was first observed) it was strategically better to ignore the clones and go right for the boss, since it would make more clones as (or more) quickly than players could kill them off.

Electrified

Diablo 3's version of Lightning Enchanted bosses, these guys emitted sparks when struck, added lightning damage to their attacks, and presumably resisted lightning damage as well. It's unknown if Multi-Shot will return as a boss property in Diablo 3, but if so it's assumed that Diablo 2's buggy, mega-damage from MSLE bosses will not be repeated in Diablo 3.

Fast

These were much quicker than normal, making the property seem identical to Diablo 2's "Extra Fast" boss modifier. Most bosses looked to be about twice as fast, but Diii.net reported seeing a crazy fast desert wasp boss. [4]

It’s a substantial speed increase; I got a Doppelganger, Fast, Desert Wasp, and the boss and its clones were moving like lightning. Far faster than any other monster I ever saw in the Blizzcon build, and Desert Wasps usually just hovered in place, hardly moving at all. The boss and the clones did not shoot out any of the little green wasp BBs, at least.

Frozen

Diablo 3's version of Cold Enchanted. These monsters hit with bonus cold damage that chilled the target, and will presumably have boosted cold resistance as well. They give off a visual clue to their nature, by sparkling with frost and emitting shimmering little puffs of cold as they moved and fought.

Magical

This modifier was seen several times during Blizzcon 2009 play testing, but its effect wasn't apparent to any of the players.

Molten

A property that adds fire damage (and presumably fire resistance) to monsters, much as Fire Enchanted did in Diablo 2. This modifier was also seen on some normal monsters; Molten skeletons were seen, and they appeared to have fire damage added. From this sighting players are speculating that boss modifiers may regularly appear on normal monsters, adding to their abilities. Rather than Diablo 2's Burning Dead skeletons, Diablo 3 might just have regular skeletons with Molten or other boss properties.

Multi-Shot

The dreaded multi-shot boss modifier returns in Diablo 3, as confirmed by Bashiok.[5] The mod itself wasn't that bad in Diablo 3, since bosses with projectiles were seldom dangerous. The danger in Diablo 2 came when MS paired with LE (Lightning-Enchanted), known as Electrified in Diablo 3, since the sparks emitted when the boss was hit were multiplied by the MS property. That was a bug and was fixed in later versions of the game. The bug does not recur in Diablo 3, so a boss with those two properties is not uniquely dangerous.

However, since some of the projectiles fired in Diablo 3 are much more dangerous than those in Diablo 2, this modifier may be more dangerous on the whole.

Mythical

This modifier was seen several times during Blizzcon 2009 play testing, but its effect wasn't apparent to any of the players.

Nightmarish

A new boss mod in Diablo 3, this one inflicts Horrify, the Witch Doctor spell, during battle. This causes players and their minions to run away in fear for 2 seconds. It's an interesting property, since none of the mind control curses worked on players in Diablo 2. More testing will be required to determine just how dangerous this one is. Would horrified players run into fields of fire, or through a doorway into a room packed with enemies?

That a boss can do this opens the door to speculation that some mind control might work in PvP as well, which would be a very new angle on things.

Plagued

Bosses with this modifier added poison damage to their attacks, and presumably enjoyed greater resistance to poison damage as well. They gave off a visual identifier, with little clouds of green smoke rising up from them. This mod seems to be the Diablo 3 version of Poison Enchanted.

Powerful

Another mod that wasn't exactly clear. Players speculated that it might be the Diablo 3 version of Extra Strong, enabling bosses to hit for extra damage, but that wasn't clear from the play testing. These bosses did not seem to take any longer to kill, so apparently it's not a boost to their hit points or other defensive stats.

Stoneskin

This mod returns from Diablo 2, granting the monsters with it higher defense. It didn't seem to boost other resistances, since Wizards who got SS monsters blasted through them without pause.

Teleporting

Another returning modifier from Diablo 2, though it's been changed a bit in function. Diablo 3 bosses with Teleport used it regularly and randomly; about every 6 seconds the monster would vanish, reappearing at a random location elsewhere on the screen. They did not heal when they teleported, and if they were a melee attacker the boss would charge right back at the character without pause.

This one looked like it could be nasty on a ranged attacking enemy, especially in a dungeon with narrow pathways and different levels. The teleporting boss would be constantly popping around the screen, never pausing in its ranged attack, while the player chased it up and down stairways, etc.

Vampirific

These bosses had life leech, and a very high level of it. They didn't do more damage, but the fights took much longer since they were constantly healing themselves. Hard hitting enemies seemed to almost entirely refill their hit points with each successful strike, and some players reported enduring long, tricky battles with these bosses. [6]

A vampiric monster ruined my last playthrough of the con. I tried to hit it with my Witch Doctor, but it kept healing itself by hitting my mongrels. I spent something like 5 minutes gently kiting it around, trying to get off a Skull of Flame or two before it could melee me. I didn’t even get to level up that time. Very, very mad.

--ExtraCrispy

Boss Images

A few screenshots of bosses, each of which is detailed on their own wiki pages.

• 

  Siegebreaker Assault Beast.

• 

  Thousand Pounder.

• 

  King Leoric.

• 

  Diablo, Lord of Terror.