Why do bosses deal such massive damage compared to all the rest of the mobs?

I'm in a dungeon (one of many) and reach the boss (or one of them)... suddenly instead of taking 10% damage on a hit, I'm taking 50% damage on a hit?

What?

Even with a shield up and decent block skill the damage is still through the roof.

10 minutes ago I went from battling 2 mobs at once to getting killed in 2 shots from a BOW(?!?) by a boss.

That's not even fun and it means you can't really fight the boss with melee. You have to use other ways, such as the 3 word Unrelenting Force to knock them down then hack at them... or use pathing glitches in order to kill them with bow or spells.

As a melee focused character I would cherish the idea of fighting bosses in melee. And sure, give them good damage, but not THAT much damage (killing you in 2 hits). Also, if you use a shield the damage should be reduced alot so you can have some good fights where you have to time your blocks. Against the bosses now it doesn't matter if you time your blocks or not. The only difference if you block is the boss killing you in 3 hits instead of 2.

Seems they went the super easy way when designing bosses and just took a regular trash mob and gave him x 20 on all his stats, damage, mitigation and so on.

Very, very disappointed with the poor mechanics behind the bosses. Just stacking up extra damage and health on the boss doesn't make it more fun... on the contrary, it encourages excessive use of F5 and pathing glitches, bugs and other ways to defeat the bosses. Not through actual combat, timing, dodging hits and so on.

Have to say my impression of the bosses reached an all-time low when a mini-boss (not even end one) could kill me in 2 arrows.

Poor design.

I agree, sort of. I think that their health is too high, damage is how it should be on a boss.

Get the block skills that lower damage from arrows and the one that lowers damage from spells, once I got those I've had few problems before that I got oneshotted mainly by the frost spells.

Once you got those try to get close to the mobs and bash them (or stagger them in some other way) and they should be much easier to deal with.

errr.... bosses are meant to be hard and typically require a different attack strategy. in fact i was rather disappointed that many bosses later on were just hack and slash. this is a personal preference of play style. either turn down your difficulty or mix things up with magic shouts poisons or summons or whatever. drag in a companion to make things more bearable perhaps.

As a sneaky archer I love it as it makes me think ahead. Maybe change up your strategy?

Yeah, it does get annoying. What really frustrates me with boss fights however are finishing moves. Even at 300 HP, when I'm at 3/4 a bandit chief can effortlessly impale or decapitate me. It's just plain unfair; it takes combat out of your hands. It's incredibly frustrating.

Stop playing over your head with the difficulty slider. The solution to your problem is sitting right there.

playing on 360 i still have the resistance bug, so hopefully after the patch it will be more bearable. but saying that only had a problem with one particular boss on a certain amulet quest where by you fight all 3 one after another, the problem being the one that shouts at you and sends you flying time and time again.

This issue is not with the difficulty slider, it's the game itself being weird. Go into a bandit camp at the start, every "bandit" dies instantly while a "bandit chief" is pretty much massive damage and massive hp. The problem in Skyrim is that there are far too many weak monsters, and then one strong one at the end. It should be balanced more in that perspective.

I feel for you then, as you have a legitimate excuse for the difficulty being higher than normal. PC user here - I had to avoid all magic characters until I got patched to 1.3 because I'd get 1-2 shotted.

As for the OP - I say turn down your gameplay difficulty. I only play on Master, but I realize that mobs and bosses can be too hard for me if I'm either: undergeared or underleveled.

http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=1269 =), hopefully this can help for the time being, still a work in progress but promises to correct and improve the overall experience and AI of mobs.

I should say that if one chooses not to change tactics for different difficulties of opponents, then judicious use of the difficulty slider is needed.

I think what the op is trying to say is: there is a difference between a challenge and a ridiculously frustrating enemy. So far the only enemies I haven't been able to kill is the scourg lord or whatever. Having a follower helps in boss battles. Bosses that hurl ice are the most annoying since you're slowed to a crawl and basically a sitting duck. I remember one boss, I tried sneaking, arrows, magic buffs, werewolf, but the only time I didn't die was basically a straight forward run at-em and kill em quickly. That's not a strategy, thats lame.

Yeah bosses should do more damage than trash, but killing you in 2 hits is just overly idiotic. Not even dragons, blood dragons or ancient dragons kill you in 2 hits. So why would some miniboss with no name, halfway through a random dungeon, kill you in 2 hits ?

Does being killed in 2 hits make it more challenging? I guess so, but that's pretty much like saying hey, why doesn't all the bosses, or even trash mobs, just oneshot you like giants do when you are level 8. That way it would definately be challenging and difficult?

The gap between trash mobs and bosses is also way too much. When you go from killing trash in 1 powerattack, and then get annihilated in 2 hits while your own hits do about 5-10% damage makes no sense.

A tougher boss would have more health and damage, sure. But there is a difference in how much you scale it. Just adding more damage is a cheap and disappointing way of making a boss more challenging. If they gave the boss more tactical abilities, such as slowing you, disarming you (which some do) and stuff like that, then it would be fun and challenging.

But when you are a melee based character, and you get shredded in 2 hits by a bow (which, if you compare it to your own weapons, the bow does 1/3 of the damage a 2H does, and roughly the same as a 1H sword/mace/axe) then it's not more difficult, it's just encouraging exploiting pathing and other ways to defeat the boss.

As for dumb, sure, if I lower the difficulty then I can go oneshot the trash using a 1H weapon instead. Which makes the entire game completely dull. In fact, it's easy enough already against trash mobs, trolls, giants and dragons. I would love to actually ramp it up, but then you have bosses oneshotting you instead of it taking 2 hits. Gee, that's fun. Almost as fun as fighting giants at level 8 with a stock Iron Sword and hide armor.

If your idea of more challenging bosses = boss kills you in 2 hits, well... I have to say you have a low standard for what makes things challenging.

For my part, simply making boss kill you in 2 hits isn't more of a challenge. It's just more frustration and exploit-playstyle. When bosses disarm you, slow you, knock you down and things like that... then it's challenging. You need to watch the boss and dodge when he tries to use disarm shout on you. Just like anyone who plays a melee based character needs to dodge from power attacks, or at the very least block them.

You go ahead and try blocking the powerattack of bosses that can shred you in 2 hits. Only thing you achieve is a nice cut-scene finisher where you are on the receiving end.

Bethesda simply doesn't know how to design combat that's not stat based. They've been making a transition towards more player control(which I personally don't mind), but it's sadly still in a very awkward phase.

There is no real challenge to the combat in the game. There's a very low ceiling when it comes to genuine playing improvement compared to stat improvement, it's all very simple and certain approaches are flat out better. Archery and/or sneak attacks, summons, illusion are all superior ways of dealing with high damage, high mitigation enemies than pure melee ever will be. Especially with the limited AI. The enemies in this game are mostly strong + stupid, you're automatically choosing an inferior method of combating them if you go melee. Higher difficulty, master in particular, just exaggerates this. It's like running up to and trying to fist fight bears instead of shooting them with a rifle from a safe spot at a safe distance.

People will always complain. It's always too easy or too hard.
I'm glad they're a little hard to beat, it makes for a good challenge and doesn't allow you to feel like a god at level 20.

For melee the fights could be more like the fights vs trolls. I like those alot. They do enough damage that you want to not get hit, but don't kill you in 2 hits either. You have opportunity to rush in and deliver a hit then dodge away again as long as you read their movements right. I love fighting trolls for that reason will always engage them in melee for that fun.

Sure, melee might be the weakest part of the game (except maybe pure destruction mages which is just laughable), but that just proves my point though doesn't it? As I said, you are forced to exploit pathing or resort to sitting back picking off 3-5% of their health with arrows until they die.

I don't see how that is a challenge really. I did play a thief character and I got so bored of picking off targets at range and doing x30 damage and oneshotting mobs that I ended up ignoring all mobs, even bosses, and just stealthed my way through the entire dungeons. Stealing as I went, pickpocketting bosses and such for required keys, distracting mobs with arrows and stealing chests and loot behind them.

Thats why I started a melee based character in the first place. And now I really notice how messed up the trash vs boss scaling is in this game. It's downright appalling. Especially when an unnamed, miniboss does x5 more damage than an ancient dragon. Seriously... what gives?

lvl your armor increase health dont let arrows hit u they dont move fast cant really help after that my guy can actually take a hit

Some of the most frustrating times I've ever had with this game as a melee character are Bandit Chiefs. They are a bit ridiculous at earlier levels going sword and board on them. Once you get a few perks in block it changes that up though. The perk that goes into slow mo when they power attack is incredibly useful because you can then bash, interrupt it and deliver your own power attack. Do this until you run out of stamina, back off, use stamina potions and repeat. They'll still one hit you but it makes feel like you have some kind of strategy so when you do die you come back and think "I just need to do that a little better". I don't mind dying against a boss. I just need to feel like there's something I can do better to win. Deadly bash makes them, and anything else really, a cakewalk because if you time it right you can pretty much keep them staggered constantly and be doing damage until you stamina runs out.

I kind of agree that the bosses are too powerful. There's been more than a few bandit and forsworn camps where I've cleared out 10-15 ordinary bandits without having to heal or buff at all only to be killed in two hits by a boss that's stronger than the rest of their entire gang combined. To compare, I have never once died fighting a dragon. Don't you think it's a bit weird that a boss Forsworn Ravager's icebolt spell is more dangerous than a Frost Dragon's ice breath?

I agree. At lower levels and higher difficulties, it's not 50% damage, rather it's a one hit kill. Which is kind of unfun. After all it doesn't take much skill to be killed in under a second with no means to fight back.

The real, in my opinion, is in the "compared to all the rest of the mobs". There appears to be a huge difference in the power (offensive and defensive) of "bosses" vs regulars. My character could be wandering through a dungeon smacking down bandits like they were sick skeevers, but then meet up with a Bandit Chief, and BAM, one hit kill of my character.

Actually blocking does mitigate damage very well for me as a melee character. You just have to invest in blocking skill and have something with block enchantment. The slow down perk (on power hits) also helps as it lets you know when to counter atack, or move away, making it effectively useful for beating bosses. If its still too much you should perhaps lower difficulty level. As a melee, bosses are much more fun as they dont die in 2 or 3 hits like most mobs - actually present a challenge

I know exactly what you're talking about.

Without getting too spoilerly, I was cutting my way through a dungeon dropping bandits with one, or at most two, sneak shots from my bow. Then I come upon this Krev the Skinner guy. My sneak shot deals about 1/8 damage to his health. I figure "ok, he's a boss, he should be tough....."

And then he comes up and does a hurricane spin move and one shots me.

I have never died battling a dragon yet this one dungeon boss completely trounces me in one shot? No way.

I got 1 shotted by a deathlords shout. Not exactly sure how that worked, but damn.

I like it the way it is. My current character is level 20 (Master difficulty), and I spent well over 100 dwarven arrows and about 10 health potions (and about 15-20 minutes) fighting a dragon lord. ONE hit from this bad boy and I went from 100% to about 15% health. I did my best to keep rocks/trees/etc between my and him, popping out to fire an arrow before quickly retreating behind cover.

You just have to find the tactics that work for you. If you're a berzerker meelee type then you can either A: Wait until you're a higher level (I bypass plenty of enemies), B: Buy a ton of health potions, or C: Lower the difficulty