Probably the single most annoying kind of spam post I see in the data pack category on this site is "bosses". Many people claim to have made a boss mob in their datapack. Often times, this supposed boss is just a normal mob with buffed stats. This is extremely annoying to me because this kind of "boss" is highly cheesable, not exciting to fight for the player, and as such does not meet the very definition of a boss, which is a challenging enemy meant to test the player's skills.

Not all "bosses" in datapacks fall into this category. An example of a good, well-designed boss fight is the Hovering Inferno by Starmute. This is a true boss battle because it is challenging through not being a reskin of an existing mob with buffed stats. Its many attacks, including dashing and summoning blazes, force the player to adapt their tactics constantly instead of being able to utilize cheese. One can still, however, learn the boss fight and be able to kill it efficiently.

How can you make your boss battles better? It's simple in theory. Progress beyond reskins of existing mobs. Make your boss fight more special than a simple melee mob. Perhaps make it stop and shoot projectiles at the player, or jump if the player is above it. From there, take into consideration boss design. Incorporate multiple phases to keep the player guessing. Think about how your attacks mesh together; for example, one could combine an attack designed to combat players who stay at range, such as a deathray, with an attack designed to punish players who stay too close, such as a powerful melee attack. Think about how players might cheese your boss and implement counters.

To demonstrate effective boss design, I will break down the Elder's boss fight in my datapack, Undermagic. This foe spawns with two hands, which fire bolts at the player; this is the boss's basic attack. Strafing is an effective way to dodge this. The boss's hands also attack the player, punishing players who carelessly stray too close. The boss's other attacks are easily countered by running away and strafing, so the boss has a deathray with an audio cue. This warns players who stray too far away to come closer or risk being decimated. In the boss's second phase, it no longer has the hands, making straying closer safer; however, it teleports around often, forcing the player to adapt their tactics around the boss's position. And if players strafe too much, the boss has another attack, where it spawns several hands around the player, which then fire beams. This can catch players who use inflexible tactics off-guard. Finally, all the boss's attacks ignore blocks, preventing many types of cheese.

If you are a datapack developer (or a modder for that matter), I hope this has taught you something about boss design. I encourage you to try your hand at making a boss if you haven't before, keeping these principles in mind; creating bosses is quite fun if you do it well!