Lair Bosses Ranked!

I was wondering how to write about the new lair boss added with patch 7.6 without being too repetitive, seeing how I already put down some thoughts on the fight (at least about its difficulty tuning) after killing it on the PTS. I finally settled on this idea, to write about all the lair bosses currently in the game and rank them, seeing how there aren't that many of them and I haven't talked about the others all that much in the past either.

1. Xenoanalyst II

My favourite lair boss is still the very first one they ever added to the game: Xenoanayst II from the Gree event. The concept of a fight that is openly just a test of your strength rather than hostility towards you has always tickled me (I liked that about Colicoid War Game too), and it always cracks me up how the boss is openly jubilant at the end after you beat him because you've done so well.

The mechanics require everyone to do their part on veteran mode but are fairly straightforward and easy to understand, while story mode is easy to pug with pretty much any group. The random chance to get Jawas during the species comparison is a fun little Easter egg, and reward-wise, it's always worth getting a bit more of the Gree-specific event currency. People like farming the boss for his rare mount drop as well.

The fact that he's only available for a few weeks each year also makes it impossible to ever overdose on the guy, so there's that.

2. Propagator Core XR-53

Yes, I honestly think that the new lair boss is the best boss we've had of this type that isn't tied to a Conquest event. Story mode is tuned in such a way that you can kill it with a pug without needing to give long explanations of anything, yet it also isn't impossible to die if you mess up enough. Veteran mode is a challenge, with several interesting mechanics that can be dealt with in more than one way and most of which have a decent margin for error, meaning that consistent mistakes do make things considerably harder, but there are very few things that will turn your attempt into an instant wipe. The dps check is tight for a standard ops group setup but not insurmountable, and you can also play with the group setup to squeeze more dps out of your raid.

Other things that make it good are the fact that it's very easily accessible, with the entrance being located right inside your faction's main base on Ilum. I don't think this is something that really matters a lot for ops in general, but when you're getting a group together to kill only one boss, you don't want to spend too much time faffing around just to get there.

In the same vein I like that there's a little bit of trash for flavour, but it's extremely quick to get past and doesn't really slow you down.

Finally, I know not everyone's excited about a new tier of augments, but I like that there's a reason to actually visit this boss in specific. Chasing better gear isn't as much of a motivation in SWTOR as it is in other MMOs, but I do think us raiders do appreciate a bit of a carrot to lure us in and make it worthwhile to do new content every now and then. I do suspect that whenever these augments become obsolete, the boss's appeal will also be somewhat diminished.

3. The Eyeless

The second lair boss that's tied to a recurring event is another one of my favourites. His mechanics are very simple on both story and hard mode, but he always feels like a fun romp. Someone always feels the need to comment on his perfectly sculpted butt cheeks, and on hard mode, at least one of the melee always dies to the very obvious and very easy to avoid AoE smash, but it won't cause you to wipe.

Like with Xeno, limited availability and drops that always retain their usefulness are other points in this guy's favour. The reason I rank him slightly below Propagator is that his mechanics are a bit basic.

4. Hive of the Mountain Queen

While we're now getting to the bottom half of the list, 4th place overall still isn't all bad, as it's effectively second place for bosses that aren't tied to Conquest events. Hive of the Mountain Queen's strongest point is that it's a very flavourful operation, with moody environments, interesting trash, and a fight that uses the theme of "insect queen using her minions to fight you" to great effect.

The reasons I rank it slightly lower is that I think the veteran mode is a bit overtuned, and while the trash is very interesting the first time you do it, it does feel like a tad much for frequent repeat visits. Also, the Queen basically offers no interesting loot (which was even a problem when the fight first came out!) - there's technically a rare companion from what I hear, but it's apparently so rare that few people have ever even seen it.

5. Toborro's Courtyard

I wasn't a fan of Toborro's Courtyard when it first came out, and I still struggle to find a lot of nice things to say about it today. I guess story mode is easy enough to pug, and veteran mode feels like it has an appropriate difficulty level as well. The mechanic of having to blow up barrels during the fight, as well as having to flit in and out of the boss's range (because he's completely static but does that laser beam of death every so often) are mildly interesting.

The problem is that you have to repeat the same couple of moves in the exact same way for far too long, which turns the hard mode version of the fight into a tedious exercise in struggling not to lose focus out of sheer boredom. There also isn't any interesting loot to be had, and the fact that prepping the barrels gets you stuck in combat, making it impossible to do a proper ready check before the pull, is a bit of a nuisance (even if "jump if you're ready" is always good for a bit of nostalgia).

Finally, the location is also a bit annoying to get to. I like Makeb as a planet, but navigating all the different mesas is not easy, and getting to the courtyard requires riding through a pretty trash-filled area that is likely to force you to dismount and fight for a bit.

6. Colossal Monolith

I can imagine that some people might question my choice to put this fight at the very bottom of the list, making an argument that it should be above Golden Fury at the very least, if not higher up. I will give you that the Mololith has more interesting mechanics, but I still dislike him all the same. Both story and hard mode feel overtuned for what they're supposed to be (I've actually never killed this guy on 8-man VM to this day), and while you could argue that his mechanics may be interesting, several of them are what I refer to as "circles for circles' sake", meaning it makes no sense whatsoever in universe that you stop this guy from hurting you by having people jump into coloured floor tiles around his head on cue (I always disliked that about Underlurker as well). Like, what's even supposed to be happening there diagetically? Maybe I'm a sucker for caring about this stuff, but I actually find it more enjoyable when boss fight mechanics align with abilities that actually make sense in universe, and Golden Fury at least has that going for it.

Additionally, the Monolith is yet another boss that drops nothing of interest and is kind of a pain to get to. There's pretty much always someone who needs a summon because they haven't unlocked Ziost yet, and if you're unlucky, it will then turn out that someone else can't even accept the summon because they don't have their ship yet. Just being able to get to a boss that isn't even that much fun to fight shouldn't be this much of a hassle.

Have you had a chance to defeat the XR-Propagator Core on Ilum yet? If so, what did you think of the fight? And do you agree or disagree with my rankings?