That One Boss / Dragalia Lost

• The final boss of Chapter 5, Zodiark, is a Wake-Up call for those taking the game on easily. First, he uses Chaos Cage, which traps party members in bone cages that they can't escape until they deal enough damage to break them. If you have some form of Staff-user on the team, expect it to take them a while to get out. And then Zodiark enters Overdrive. When in Overdrive, Zodiark begins to use Accursed Venom, which does MASSIVE damage over time. Combine this with Chaos Cage, and let's just say that party member is doomed.
• The boss of the "Trick or Treasure!" Event, Pumpking, is notably vicious, even in easy difficulties, making it hard for lower leveled players to fight it alone, due to his high damage output and easily cursing players, which stops them from using Skills or turning into Dragons. Co-Op is a requirement to defeat him in Standard difficulty. Though, thanks to Power Creep, Power Seep, even new players can easily whallop on him.
• Every Raid Boss, like Phraeganoth and Hypnos, counts as they have high HP and devastating attacks that are hard to dodge. Especially in Extra mode, where they are highly aggressive and really fast. Good luck trying to beat them under 90 seconds for a new title and on a No Death Run. Much like the Pumpking above, Power Creep, Power Seep has made so that even new players can slaughter the Master Difficulty Raid Bosses, so it's the Omega Difficulty ones that bring the challenge. Especially since those you have to conquer Solo before challenging it via Co-Op.
• At the dawn of Void Battles, Void Zephyr was tricky. Not only does he come with the ability to Dull your attacks, but he can also can suppress your Dragon Gauge. In addition, during Overdrive, he has some additional attacks, such as an unavoidable cascading attack and an attack similar to High Midgardsormr, where he targets a specific Adventurer to kill them instantly, that can only be countered by grouping together to share the pain. After Void Weapons got overhauled, players can get resistances to both gimmicks, making the fight easier.
• Chronos Nyx, the one-winged angel form of the Raid Boss from the "Fractured Future" Event. Most of the time, he likes to spam large and unpredictable AoE attacks, that are very chaotic and hard to dodge. Then, there's his Dimensional Oblivion attack which can one shot everyone in your team if you don't break his weak-point (which is Wind-element in contrast to Chronos being Light) fast enough. On top of all that, he can also inflict six status afflictions when the typical boss can only inflict two at most, so there's high a chance your characters will get afflicted with at least one status condition they do not resist, hindering their movement or causing them to be unable to use a Skill or Dragon Shift.
• Astral Raid bosses on Master can be tough, but Phraeganoth takes the cake. He sports a breath attack that can instakill if you're not careful. He also has a spin attack which cuts defense on those affected. While many advise to break his tail to hamper that, his constant movements make that task difficult. Add to that instant Overdrive, and it'll take luck to finish with your team intact.
• Upon its release, the Expert difficulty for Ayaha & Otoha was considered to be the hardest. The fight is scaled for Adventurers with Mana Spirals (since the twins have a high HP pool when compared to the other Agito bosses, meaning the damage check is significantly higher when compared to Volk), but the problem is that not many Water Adventurers were given Mana Spirals to meet the damage check. Not helping the matter is that, unlike the previous Agito fights, the twins have a lot of unavoidable purple attacks (particularly their second form where they also have a vacuuming "blackhole"-type attack that is difficult to bait out), and can punish the player for their bad positioning. In fact, it's so difficult that it's not uncommon for fights to last for as long as 7-8 minutes. Thankfully, they've gone down in difficulty significantly upon the advent of such meta-defining forces as Elisanne, Karina or Summer Celliera and the plethora of buffs granted to the Water element in version 2.0; in fact, some might say those very same qualities now make them pretty fun now that they're reasonably difficult.
• Of all the Agito fights, Tartarus' Wrath on Expert is generally considered the hardest of the lot. His first phase carries two special status effects; Fury of the Fallen ^note stacks up to 3 times, and caps your damage at 999, 99 or 9 based on the number of stacks and Hell's Brand ^note all healing only restores 1 HP until the first clone is destroyed. He also has a move called Dimensional Shift, where he traps several or all party members in a bubble that requires an attack from a Dragon to break out of. However, he also follows up said attack with either Mortal Chaser or Punishment Arrows, which are invariably lethal, so you have to stay in the bubble until they pass, but if you stay in too long or nobody has a shapeshift ready, then everyone's screwed, as the bubbles kill whoever's inside after a set amount of time. He can also grant himself a special buff called Relentless Rage that increases the strength of his attacks and changes them from red to purple. But things really go to hell when he Turns Red and enters his second form. The aforementioned Mortal Chaser is now an arena-wide instant death move, so if the member that's just come out of a portal is the only one with a shapeshift ready, everyone's screwed. Meanwhile, the aforementioned Punishment Arrows change to Punishment Waves, which is another arena-wide instant death attack that requires everyone to get behind a dimension-shifted teammate or teammate in dragon form. Relentless Rage also becomes more of a problem; his tweaked-out attacks come hard and fast while covering a huge amount of the arena, and he begins throwing Void Showers into the mix, which make the fight very frantic very fast. It doesn't help that he has the most health out of all the Expert Agito fight. It says something that he's still considered a pain in the ass even with several solid Light Adventurers and spirals, unlike Ayaha and Otoha above. Fun invariably ensues during the Time Attack challenge, since this version is the one you're up against.
• Tiki's Trial in the "Fire Emblem: Kindred Ties" Event. Bring a high-level Wind team with a healer, problem solved, right? Nope. About a quarter of the way through Dragon Tiki's health, she summons backup... In the form of Marth. Whose element is Flame, aka the element your team is weak against. And knowing how the AI is, chances are he will either utterly destroy your team, or you'll be spending the rest of the fight running away from him while trying to bring down Tiki. A good Water team can handle him just fine, but at the expense of drawing out the fight against Tiki herself significantly more.
• Onslaught Events brought a new remixed boss called the Astral High Dragon Assault. There, you must face one of the High Greatwyrms alone, transformed as a Dragon. Because you're locked into your Dragonform, your healing options are limited. Only a handful of Dragons come equipped with a healing Skill and even fewer have Skills that will activate a Healing Doublebuff Wyrmprint. If you don't have one of those healing Dragons, and especially one with an Element advantage against the High Dragon, you'll need to have pixel perfect timing to dodge all of their attacks. Some of them allowed you to use Dragondrive or Persona 5 Adventurers to sort of cheat your way through, but sometimes the initial transformation is bugged until you close the game.
• Wait, they did it again? How crazy is that?! Intentional puns aside, the "Princess Connect Re:Code: A Voracious Visitor" crossover event gives us Pecorine's Trial. But rather than just summon one backup midway through the fight, she has both Forager Cleo and Forager Mitsuba as allies from the start, which means AOE attacks for days, and since everyone has a different element, you have to accommodate with a well-rounded group lest you get struck down; bringing a Flame adventurer for Mitsuba means Cleo will frag them fast, and Shadow may resist Pecorine, but has no such protection against the backup dancers. If you don't have your head on a swivel and a good strong team, either they bring you down or the clock gets you first. Have fun with that.
• Rise of the Sinister Dominion ups the ante in difficulty, and all of them are nasty for different reasons. Know that they will both shut down most of your buffs and deny their effects (Curse of Nihility) and inflict Damage-Over-Time that can kill you if untreated with potent healing (Creeping Corrosion). Bring your best healers and all the Punisher Wyrmprints you can spare if you want to win these battles, and don't forget your dispels if you know what's good for you. The July 2021 Time pits you against Expert Lilith as proof that you're in for hell in a handbasket, and two separate Trials of the Mighty in August 2021 pit you against her too. So, let's try for a little more agony this time, 'kay?
• Trials of the Mighty brings the pain, especially on Master:
  • Thor. Not only does he have his typical spammy lightning attacks, but he also gets the same Curse of Nihility that the Sinister Dominion bosses have. As if the restrictions on Weapon types wasn't bad enough, due to the way the boss is structured, it's very, very dangerous for Sword users (like Alberius and Gala Alex) to attack. Poseidon, while still very nasty on the higher difficulties, is much more manageable, even if his constant dashes push aside Dagger users like poor ol' Notte.
  • Mars is already an HP sponge, but add in Curse of Nihilty and he turns into an absolute slog, especially on Solo. Even with Co-Op, it's not uncommon for the party to run out of time before they finish off Leonidas' Dragon. And that's not even counting his massive laser that fills up most of the screen.
  • When Lilith appeared in the Trials of the Mighty, she was made into a Raid Boss. Unfortunately, her HP got jacked up proportionally, and even when you have four teams over 45,000 Might, it's still extremely difficult to claim victory, despite the time limit being 8 minutes. Her various attacks aren't too difficult to tank, but because she throws out so many purple attacks, the various CPU players retreat to avoid the attack, wasting valuable seconds not attacking, which just adds to the frustration. To make matters worse, the Trial is for Gala Cleo's Mana Spiral, which mostly just adds the Amp mechanic to her moveset. Many people are so frustrated by this Trial, much moreso than even stuff like Mars or Thor, that they're throwing in the towel for Master and just completing Expert instead.
  • Grimnir's Trial puts you up against the nerd again, but whereas his original challenge was a joke, here he lives up to the self-issued 'war god' title. Forget shapeshifting to evade Nihility; Voidlight Eraser will beat you to the punch every time. As if that sudden downer wasn't enough, on his first Overdrive he'll set up a barrier around himself and the cyclones he spawns, which themselves will spawn a number of cyclones that bombard the party with unavoidable damage should they reach the far wall, and once those run out, he'll start attacking you through his barrier while you try to bring down those cyclones. If you're not paying attention or you're underperforming, you run the very real risk of losing your party before you can finally attack him again. Attempt Master undertuned at the peril of your own sanity.
  • Jaldabaoth got the same buffs that Lilith did, and was also made a Raid Boss. All of her attacks are the same as the regular version, but thanks to the buff via Jalda being a Raid Boss, they're tougher to take down, most notably Void Agni, and just like the regular version, Jaldabaoth is invulnerable as long as Void Agni is on the field. Many players have found this significantly harder than Lilith.
  • Nidhogg is a pretty easy boss to take care on in Void Battles, provided you have Enervation Resistance unlocked. His Trials version? Hoo boy. He not only has all his old attacks, he can also make a moat around the edge of the arena, squeezing you in much tighter, and if you wander into it, you'll be inflicted with Poison. Then, Nidhogg shoots out a variety of blue flames that you can't destroy. They'll wander the arena before stopping and unleashing purple AoE attacks, and thanks to the moat you have very little safe space and very little time to find it. As if that wasn't bad enough, once Nidhogg's health drops far enough, he spawns Shadow versions of himself that has all the same attacks. And since this is Master, all of those attacks are purple. Did I mention that the blue flames are still going? It's almost impossible to find a safe space to attack from and you'll be constantly bombardded by purple attack after purple attack. Also, the shades can inflict Enervation, meaning those who skip over Void weaponry to go straight to Chimeratech risk killing the run for their entire party. To make matters worse, the attacking Weapon types allowed during its first run are Lances and Daggers, most of which (including popular picks like Halloween Elisanne, Mitsuhide, Ryszarda. Sha Wujing, and Curran) are Curse Resistant instead, meaning you'll either have to go with a Poison Resistant Adventurer you either aren't used to or have built up^note The eligible Poison Resistant Adventurers are Wu Kong, Fritz, Annelie, and Malka or waste two Wyrmprint slots on Poison Resistance. Don't think Healers get a break either. With all the super attacks going around, you're gonna wanna have Regen healing Skills, but Hildegarde is another Curse-only Resister. Gala Zena resists Poison, but her heal isn't regen and healing Shared Skills take a lot of time to charge up. The only Light Healer with Poison Resist and regen healing is Vixel. Hope you've got him powered up!
  • Harle keeps the tradition going, though in a different way than the others. Instead of being a tank that absorbs tons of hits, he's a Lightning Bruiser who can't stay still. Half of his attacks send him from one end of the battlefield to the other instantly, while the other half sends you to the other end of the battlefield instantly. And most of his attacks have a huge area of effect, not letting you get close to damage him. After a while, he'll launch four green helicopter orbs. You can destroy these to heal and fill your Dragon Gauge, but unless your entire team is concentrating on each one, it will take too long and you'll likely run out of time if you focus on the orbs too much. The topper on this frustrating fight? The first run only allowed, as the attacking classes, Axes and Bows. The former is a Mighty Glacier and is absolutely dreadful in this fight, while the latter lacks the homing shots Wands have, which would help out a lot with Harle zipping around everywhere. And the best units for both (Halloween Mym and Gala Sarisse) are Limited units.
• The Primal Dragon Trials are to test players who thought the Sinister Dominion was too easy.
  • Primal Midgardsormr is rather deceptively fast. His Humanoid form has Storm Piercer, which inflicts Stormlash and can be hard to avoid if you are in the purple area when he begins charging. Then there's his Rampaging Winds, which creates tornadoes all around the arena, with no colored trails to warn you where each one will go. You can dodge by hiding out between the tornadoes at the edge of the arena, but good luck not touching the hitbox. Upon transforming, Mids has several extremely annoying attacks. First off it's Surging Tempest, which covers the whole arena and will juggle you like a ball unless you're a Dragon or you hide touch a small tornado left behind by one of his other attacks. Master also has a variant where he targets the ceiling instead of the floor, meaning if you aren't paying attention to where Surging Tempest will strike, you'll unwittingly fly into your doom. Second is his various Manifestations of War, which create shadow versions of Adventurers, all of which can trap you in a devastating combo if you don't avoid it. And while it isn't an attack per se, he also has the standard "destroy the orbs before time runs out or you're dead" technique. He follows that up with a massive blast that's basically an upgraded one of his Advanced Trial opening blast. While it IS beatable without him, you're going to have a really tough time if you were unlucky enough not to get Gala Gatov and his Knockback Immunity ability.
  • Primal Brunhilda is just as powerful as Primal Mids, and much more irritating to fight. Her human form, Mym, can lay a giant strip of lava in the middle of the arena and also launch various series of flame pyres, shrinking the battlefield something fierce. But things get crazy once she transforms. Her attacks are much faster than Mids, cover more ground, and she engages in Beam Spam far more often. And all of those attacks are purple attacks, to boot. Some of her basic attacks include raining down three waves of embers (that can inflict Burning and/or Scorchrend), crafting four Soul Crystals that will automatically KO everyone if they aren't dealt with, creating another Soul Crystal on the outside of a lava maze, and spewing flame tornadoes that roam the battlefield. But what really sets her apart are her versions of the Manifestations of War. In particular, two can be really difficult to deal with. Child Ranzal, who appears on both Expert and Master, has a small attack range, but if he connects, it's an instant KO. Leonidas only appears on Master, but his attack range covers almost the entire arena and lasts quite a long time. As if that wasn't enough, Brunhilda spams them and her other attacks all the time, giving you very little time to breathe or coordinate your attacks.
• In normal battles, most people can handle the High Dragons and Agito relatively easily. In the Kaleidoscape, those same bosses become this. You fight a random High Dragon, demi-human Agito, and unleashed Agito on floors 40, 45, and 50 respectively. Depending on who you picked and what drops you got, these bosses can be exceptionally tough. For the Dragons, Brunhilda and Jupiter are the most problematic due to their Afflictions being easy to catch and many of their attacks being hard to dodge. With the Agito, if you lack some kind of healing skill and/or a move that dispels buffs, you are going to be in for a real, real hard time. It's not unheard of for people to be forced to quit their runs because they were unlucky enough to run into Kai Yan without a dispel.
  • Also in the Kaleidoscape are the Sword Templars. While the Axe Templar isn't a problem as long as you keep your distance or attack them from behind, and the Lance Templar is tedious but has attacks that are simple to evade, the Sword Templar is easily one of the most dangerous enemies thanks to their range and speed. Their standard attacks comes out fast, hit hard, and have good horizontal reach, with the third hit even able to hit behind them. Their spin attack can hit if you don't time your skills right and their jumping beam attack can allow them to evade your skills. No other Menace requires you to pay attention as much as the Sword Templars, because they can easily wipe you out if you get reckless.
  • Pumpking gets his revenge in the Kaleidoscape, where he becomes a Menace that can appear on any Exploration floor. What makes him especially dangerous is that, unlike every other Menace in that mode, his wake-up radius is huge, and he will more than likely already be throwing rocks at you as soon as you enter. Since he's already awake, that means you get to deal with not just Pumpking, but all the other regular enemies at the same time. Worse, there's a floor that has you take on six Pumpkings at once! Even Tiki, who has little to no problem with any other Menace in the game, can get completely overwhelmed by this. Luckily, players who don't want to deal with them can just zip by and move on.
  • Harle is one of the possible bosses to appear in the Kaleidoscape, and even though you can use any Adventurer you want, he's still just as irritating and annoying to deal with, especially since you don't have teammates to distract him this time around. An update extended the intervals between his attacks along with his Raven's Gale taking longer to activate making him much less of a pain. Also, like every other boss in the update, his health and strength were lowered.