Genshin Impact has many bosses in the overworld and the Spiral Abyss. Some of them can get pretty frustrating.
That One Boss
- The Oceanid is easily one of the hardest of the world bosses introduced at launch. A Flunky Boss par excellence that spawns aggressive enemies that deal large amounts of damage and are Immune to Flinching. The Hydro Mimic Raptors fly above, making them hard targets for melee characters, thus encouraging you to rely on your ranged units in order to take them down, and even then, archers in particular have a window of vulnerability where they are open to being knocked down by the Raptor's swoop attack while charging up an elemental arrow. There's also the rain that's constantly downpouring over the arena, gradually healing the already-durable Hydro Mimic Boars for a deceptive amount of health, often healing them back to full if you shift to a different target after awhile. If you don't have the DPS to kill the boars faster than they can heal, you're gonna have a hard time. And if you take too long to defeat a wave, the Oceanid will launch a whirlpool right below you that deals absurd amounts of damage, enough to power through shields and kill your character. The Oceanid will also gradually sink the platforms you're fighting it on, giving you even less space to move around in, and increasing the risk of being overwhelmed by its Hydro Mimics. If you happen to run out of stamina and drown, the battle will be interrupted by a loading screen, respawning you outside of the arena, and resetting the Oceanid to full HP.
- Lupus Boreas can be this for any player without a decent ranged attacker. The first phase of the fight isn't too difficult, as Boreas gives you a lot of free opportunities to attack, while his own attacks are easy to read and dodge. The second phase, however, ramps up the difficulty by having Boreas move extremely quickly, darting about the field and attacking constantly, summoning shadow wolves that strike every few seconds (and attack more frequently as the battle goes on), and has brutal counters for anyone that gets up close. You basically need a unit that can keep moving while attacking from a distance, so anyone without a decent archer/mage has little choice but to rush Boreas and tank the damage while trying to bring him down before your health and/or food run out. Not helping is the fact that he's immune to both Cryo and Anemo attacks throughout the fight; if you rely too heavily on an Anemo or Cryo character, you're in for a hard time.
- Stormterror was also widely hated, party due to Fake Difficulty, and while balancing and power creep has knocked his difficulty down significantly, he can be frustrating for newer players who don't know what to expect. Several of his actions trigger unskippable cutscenes that tear control away from the player momentarily but don't fully pause the game, which can be disastrous if they happen while you're trying to glide between the platforms (as you will end up falling), or while you're standing on the "corrupted platforms" (as you'll take damage over time). Climbing his neck is also much trickier than it looks as characters have a tendency to clip into it and get stuck if they are too close when he lands, and doing anything other than mashing the attack button while on top of the neck is liable to make you slip off and lose precious time, robbing you of the ability to use elemental reactions in a meaningful way. Lastly, he also has a "soft enrage" mechanic in which he eventually renders every platform damaging to stand on, which can easily catch unsuspecting players off guard and ruin them on their first attempt since it's not clearly communicated that the fight has a time limit of sorts. Even worse, it's possible to trigger a bug where he triggers multiple sections of platform at once, making the fight impossible to complete without abusing buffing food.
- The Pure Anemo Hypostasis from the Hypostatic Symphony event. It's notable for the very specific methods you have to employ to counter it, as well as being borderline immune to elemental reactions as most elements will immediately trigger Swirl on-hit. It's also the only one of the bosses that can heal mid-phase, and will revive regardless of whether or not you absorb all of the Anemo crystals. All of this wouldn't be too bad if you weren't on a time limit that gets stricter the more points you want to score, giving you almost no room for error if you want to beat it in time.
- Azhdaha has a lot of health, twice the amount of all Golden House boss phases combined, he's huge, making it somewhat difficult to maneuver around him to prevent him from using his nastier attacks, and his attacks all deal tremendous damage with wide areas of effect, and leave Damage Over Time unless your character is shielded. If it's any consolation though, his boss battle is accompanied by one of the best fight tracks in the game.
- The Pyro Hypostasis is by far the most difficult Hypostasis fight. It's hyper-aggressive, can zip around the arena frequently, and has a dangerous arsenal of AoE attacks which are difficult to avoid. It also averts the Tactical Suicide Boss trope that its brethren are prone to by not giving you any openings to attack its core in its ignited state, and said openings are so small that you barely have time to get enough damage in before it re-ignites itself, exposing you to more Cycle of Hurting from its attacks. Fighting it becomes a battle of attrition to see how long you can last against its punishment while trying to douse its Pyro armor.
- The Coral Defenders, aka Bathysmal Vishap Herd in Enkanomiya. First of all, it's a Dual Boss fight. Second, one of them is Cryo, which is often considered That One Element. Third, many of their attacks drain Energy, so if you rely on your Bursts, you are not going to have a good time. Finally, they like to do massive AoE or multiple homing attacks, which will either drain your Energy to 0 or start hitting for massive damage. They're even worse in the Spiral Abyss, as they will revive each other with half health if they are not killed within 10 seconds of each other, meaning their health must be carefully managed to avoid falling afoul of the time limit for full rewards.
- The Golden Wolflord, Ruin Serpent, and Setekh Wenut in the context of the Spiral Abyss. While normally these bosses are just annoying bosses with long periods of invulnerability (with the Wolflord having the extra distinction of applying Corrosion), these invulnerability periods bring all three into That One Boss territory when the encounter must be passed on a strict timer.
Goddamned Boss
- The Geo Hypostasis; one word: pillars. Breaking the pillars is a key aspect of defeating the boss, but the pillars will take a while to whittle down, even with attacks that normally deal bonus damage to Geo such as with Claymores or Klee's bombs. And when the boss is near-death, it will summon 3 pillars that must be taken down to prevent it from healing, just like the Electro Hypostasis. But unlike the Electro Hypostasis, if you're not using Noelle's Elemental Burst, then the pillars take way more than just 3 hits to break, meaning that in solo mode, the boss will heal itself, prolonging the fight and giving you even more pillars to break.
- The Resurgent Cryo Regisvine was a special boss fought during "The Chalk Prince and the Dragon". It has all but one of the regular Cryo Regisvine's attacks, except they all do much more damage, and the vine itself has tougher shields and more HP. It was possible to whittle its HP to zero after stunning it from having its weak point attacked enough, but if you couldn't kill it in time, it would do its "blizzard attack" pattern (see That One Attack below for details). Oh, and since this is Dragonspine, you could also freeze to death if you went too long without warming up at one of the torches at the outer edge of the arena. Additionally, co-op introduced dozens of other potential obstacles, like spawning into a match during the blizzard attack and instantly dying.
- The Primo Geovishap, namely due to being a severe case of Damage-Sponge Boss. It is the second tankiest world boss with approximately 800,000 HP at WL8, and unlike the tankiest (Hydro Tulpa), it has no permanent elemental aura to facilitate Elemental Reactions. It also randomizes its element between Pyro, Cryo, Hydro and Electro for each encounter, which also affects its elemental gem drops. Its Primordial Shower deals lots of damage and has a massive radius. You can reflect it for some good damage which can speed up the run, but only with a corresponding elemental shield or a Geo shield. Thankfully, only three characters use this boss' special drops as ascension materials.
- The fourth Unusual Hilichurl from the Mimi Tomo event. Just getting to it is painful enough as is, as it chose to situate itself on top of a mountain that will take two bars of stamina just to reach the summit. The Hilichurl itself is backed by Grenadiers and Shield Mitachurls, two enemies that can easily launch you off the small mountain and send you to an unavoidable death, forcing you to climb all the way back up to the top to start the fight over from the beginning after you're done healing whoever took the plunge.
- The battle against La Signora is less of a fight against the Harbinger herself, but moreso one against her mechanics. She coats the arena in an icy aura right off the bat, imbuing the room with the much-maligned Sheer Cold mechanic from Dragonspine. Much like the actual region, getting hit by a Cryo attack greatly speeds up the onset of damage, and since La Signora uses mainly Cryo attacks, one slip up means it's back to the corners of the room for you. There are four gems called Hearts of Flame in the room, and they act like torches in Dragonspine in that they gradually purge Sheer Cold from your characters. However, she also forces you to destroy the gems after a certain point, as they fully purge Sheer Cold and dispel the Frosted Floor some of her Cryo attacks leave behind. It gets worse when she enters her Crimson Witch phase, as this swaps out the Sheer Cold for a Pyro-themed version of the mechanic called Blazing Heat. This is also where she goes berserk with her attacks, throwing out volley upon volley of Pyro tornadoes and projectiles, and every single one leaves Embered Earth on the ground, forcing you to destroy the Eyes of Frost in the room at a much faster rate than before. Up to two of them regenerate, thankfully, but they may respawn at a slower rate than Signora pukes out fire all over the floor, causing you to suffer Pyro Damage Over Time due to the inability to clean up the Embered Earth, which in turn means that the onset of Blazing Heat will begin much faster. Yet another point of contention is that players are actively punished for trying to kill her too fast, as hitting Signora with a single suffieciently powerful attack in a bid to One-Hit Kill her will not only negate the surplus damage beyond a set percentage of her max health (30% in her first phase, and 20% in her second), but will also immediately fill your Sheer Cold/Blazing Heat bar and deal massive damage, which is especially tiresome for players who use characters with powerful single-hit Bursts that are sure to trigger this attack, such as Childe, Hu Tao, or Eula.
- Beisht is disliked for her long, long periods of invincibility. She often dives and swims in the surrounding waters, forcing the player to spend time doing nothing but sitting and waiting around for her to re-emerge, or she sends her already defeated heads to attack the player instead of the heads with remaining HP. While she only has to be fought only once during the main story, the Fleeting Colors in Flight flagship event required players to repeat this time-consuming battle at least six times to get all the rewards.
- The Ruin Serpent and Setekh Wenut are highly evasive bosses that dive under the ground repeatedly, giving them substantial invulnerability periods. While the boss fights aren't difficult otherwise, it becomes annoying to be forced to wait around for long periods of time simply waiting until the boss can be fought again. The former also forces you to bring a very specific item in order to prevent its strongest and hardest to dodge attack, which is very easy to forget because the mines is the only place you will be using said item. In the Spiral Abyss, their constant burrowing wastes precious seconds on the clock.
- The Coral Defenders has a really cool twin gimmick that quickly loses its luster as you have to tend with unpredictable attacks. There's points where one of them will jump onto a piece of rubble and constantly shoot at you while the other one starts spamming attacks quickly, and the one on the rubble refuses to come down until you destroy what it's standing on, leading to unavoidable damage. If you think that getting rid of one will make the fight easier, you'll be surprised at seeing whichever one you defeated retreating and taking pot shots at you for the rest of the fight. Thankfully very few characters actually use the items they drop.
- The All-Devouring Narwhal is another "Get Back Here!" Boss. Despite its massive size, it is not easy to hit at all, as it swims underwater or flies through portals most of the time and only exposes itself when attacking, and it often pops up on the other side of the massive arena when it uses its ranged attacks, forcing the player to run long distances to catch up to it. Some have complained of the Narwhal being an Anti-Climax Boss for the Fontaine arc as a result.
