A few issues with the bosses:
MC: 1.16.5
Forge: 36.2.2
Mowzies: 1.5.19

1. Elenai dodge is meant to give I-frames, so you can pass through attacks etc. But as far as I can tell, barako and frostmaw can both attack and damage you through it. Will this require special compatibility for Elenai's dodge frames to recognize these special kinds of projectiles from different mods?
   This is particularly nuts when trying to get away from frostmaw ice breathing while rotating on a dime, or trying to avoid iceballs that hard stun you and are rather very sizey. Or trying to not die to a surprise solar beam instagib.

2. Sometimes Frostmaw's hitbox or the ability to strike frostmaw just... fails for no apparent reason. I'm hitting him with a spartans weps halberd and +6ish range (eidolon prestigeous palm + meet your fight spectres grasp) so he's not wobbling me at the same time. But sometimes it feels like his hitbox will just switch off. Is this some kind of anti-cheese potentially misfiring or a bug?

I don’t know how Elenai’s dodge works, but this sounds like an issue on their end.
Solar beam instagib? Solar beams shouldn’t be killing you in one hit if you’re using a shield or fire resistance.

Are you sure you aren’t just missing? It only happens on weapons with extended range? I use normal hitboxes. A video showing what you mean would help.

instagib solar beams is probably a side-effect of better hurt timers, I keep forgetting to blacklist barako and friends, but often times it still engulfs you with shields and you get cooked and not sure if fire res was avoiding it though. but the point still stands that becoming apparently invulnerable to attacks doesn't let me dodge through it. although the dodge doesn't block fire and other environmental damages, so it could be likely that you use fire damage for solar attacks and such since fire res blocks them. :V

I'm swinging directly at his general bulk, and when he starts moving the hitbox comes back sometimes. I was in creative though to test it and often times he'd stop walking around and hang out and thats when the missing would start despite not having gone any further or closer. Sometimes also happens when right under him near a tree I'm using to block snowstorms. I swing and it doesn't actually connect unless I swing towards his upper body a bit more or something of the sort.

Oh, yeah, right, thats what 3 was.
3. Snowstorm isn't really feasibly dodgeable even with rapid movements like move plus or elenai dodge, much less sprinting in a general direction hoping to escape it, nor can you shield from it as an alternative. he's basically getting free damage and likely a stun :V Can it be made that he has a maximum rotation speed while breathing the snowstorm? Something like when barako's sweeping his laser in your general direction with a maximum turn radius while active so you can try to get around it rather than try to get away from it?

Well yeah, if you mess with hurt timers my mobs’ attacks will deal damage differently. Solar beam applies damage every tick if possible, relying on hurt timers to space that out to reasonable amounts. Barako deals half physical, half fire damage. Frostmaw’s ice magic deals magic damage. Sounds like the dodge mod intentionally doesn’t let you dodge through these.

This sounds like server lag or a bad interaction with other mods. Sounds like you have a lot of combat mods that mess with hurt timers and attack ranges. Please answer my question from before - does this happen with vanilla weapons or only weapons with extended attack range? Also, like I said before, a video would better help me understand what is happening.

This is deliberate. You have to be more creative than just dodging to avoid it. Some players use ender pearls, and some use a flint and steel on themselves (fire damage prevents freezing). Most players just build a barrier with blocks to block it. This isn’t Dark Souls, it’s Minecraft; be creative in your approach to these boss fights.
The frostmaw already has a maximum turning speed when using it and at all other times.

This isn’t Dark Souls, it’s Minecraft; be creative in your approach to these boss fights.

pardon? I thought you were against cheesing when you put in the super nova pull power half suggested by me ages back for barako so he can yoink those "creative approach" players out of their holes in the ground and annihilate them, and further now having him make shield magic bois to make you be active in the fight. :V

Cause "placing blocks" is like giving me permission to box frostmaw in with a build gadget or float just barely over his head with an immersive engineering balloon and kill his kneecaps/forehead respectively, rather than actually fight him out in the tundra where you have him spawn.

No offense, cause thats likely what everyone else might do. But I tend to like my fights even in a block game to be a bit more... raw... since people go through the bother to design cool mobs like these and it's a pity to just "place blocks and cheese em up good" like a speedrunner vs an iron golem. :V

Some players use ender pearls

he's got unlimited breath, and one only has so many ender pearls. and that means reacting to being frost breathed which means you're already being frostbreathed or you've run off prematurely expecting it in which case you don't need to ender pearl at all.

some use a flint and steel on themselves (fire damage prevents freezing)

didn't seem to be the case when he became an enkindling champion and lit me up with a flaming shulker bullet then iced me with an frostball. :V and thats more pain than it's worth considering you're constantly ticking damage and unable to move properly and having your vision obscured because you're perpetually being thrown into the ground by damage hits.

btw, you can "sorta" move by shifting to "get off" the ice effect and then kinda stiffly wiggle yourself away using move plus. but thats a my pack shenanigans thing.

Well yeah, if you mess with hurt timers my mobs’ attacks will deal damage differently. Solar beam applies damage every tick if possible, relying on hurt timers to space that out to reasonable amounts. Barako deals half physical, half fire damage. Frostmaw’s ice magic deals magic damage. Sounds like the dodge mod intentionally doesn’t let you dodge through these.

I knew this from like 3 previous packs. Since the axe shockwave also obliterates people where they stand when you shockwave, but atleast the player casted solar beam actually does respectable damage for the cost of it's acquisition once this happens. :V and yeah, I gathered what frostmaw was doing, cause my diamond+ armor was garbage against him. >_>' but didn't know barako also had a physical component. interesting.

This sounds like server lag or a bad interaction with other mods. Sounds like you have a lot of combat mods that mess with hurt timers and attack ranges.

No to the first cause it's single player, probably to the second. absolutely to third cause hurt timers are both a boon and a pain and the reason I hate fighting using damage over time effects (been ignited too many times to count by mobs who phase through my attacks and take no knockback cause of a fire damage tick). :V

I have some footage I can squish together after I get some sleep. But it seems like Project War Dance's offhand can usually reliably hit him regardless of reach. But spartan's reach stuff from his weapons might just be a little wonky when it's present on a weapon, which was the case when I used a greatsword to squeeze a bit more reach off on him.
The ability to attack from afar based on "reach" which normally only works for weapons specifically made that way is a Project War Dance feature.
Further: interestingly, your spear doesn't seem to add 3.5 reach. it's more like 1 or 2 extra over punching with my offhand when it's stacked with attribute based reach. Buuuut this seems like it might just be a design and coding thing for how you achieve your own reach, kinda like how spartan adds 1 or 2 reach based on weapon also.

Creative strategies are different from cheese strategies, though it is a fine line. Cheesing strategies are inherently not creative, reducing the amount of thought, effort, and planning to nothing. Digging your way under Barako to avoid his attacks was not a “creative strategy” in this sense, as it reduces the thought and effort needed to beat him. Utilizing your environment, building blocks, ender pearls, and fire damage to beat the Frostmaw does not. But this wasn’t even my point; I was suggesting you think outside of the box and not simply expect to be able to dodge everything with movement or the Dodge mod.

I can’t account for other mod’s tools when balancing my mod. But it sounds like those aren’t easy devices to make. So beating the frostmaw with them is not cheesing, since obtaining those tools took effort and applying them to the fight took thought.

I don’t know how this “build gadget” works, but with regular block placing mechanics, containing a frostmaw is very difficult to do. It moves away from pathing restrictions and will attack you the entire time.

For multiple reasons, I reject the idea that players should not use ender pearls during the frostmaw fight because they are limited in quantity. Ender pearls are a resource, just like a sword’s durability. You go into the fight with your resources, and expend them to win. That’s how the game works. Additionally, the frostmaw does not have unlimited frost breath; it is limited by the time it takes the player to kill it.

I’m unfamiliar with this “Enkindling Champion” mod. Like I said, I can’t speak to how other mods work. Players using the flint and steel strategy typically use a water bucket as well.

Since I suspect you still don’t believe me, here is a video of someone fighting a frostmaw using these tools: https://streamable.com/73m9fz

You find the solar beam dealing damage every tick to be balanced? We seem to have different ideas of balancing, then. I’d encourage you to explore my config file and fine tune things to match your needs. But I’ll remind you that the solar beam can deal its damage to any number of mobs in a line in front of you, which is very powerful in vanilla Minecraft.

Single player Minecraft runs a “dedicated server” locally on your machine, which can experience server lag if your CPU is not strong enough or a mod you have installed is poorly optimized.

If a mob takes damage from a fire damage tick, but then during the hurt timer takes damage from a more damaging source like a player’s attack, the mob will take the difference between the damage amounts as additional damage. It may not flash red or be knocked back, though.

My spear is coded differently from Spartan weaponry’s reach and Project War Dance’s reach. I assure you, 3.5 blocks is accurate. I agree, it is likely an interaction of the two systems causing it to behave otherwise.

Creative strategies are different from cheese strategies, though it is a fine line. Cheesing strategies are inherently not creative, reducing the amount of thought, effort, and planning to nothing. Digging your way under Barako to avoid his attacks was not a “creative strategy” in this sense, as it reduces the thought and effort needed to beat him. Utilizing your environment, building blocks, ender pearls, and fire damage to beat the Frostmaw does not.

So shenanigans and preparation, but not to the point of negating all difficulty.

But this wasn’t even my point; I was suggesting you think outside of the box and not simply expect to be able to dodge everything with movement or the Dodge mod.

alrighty. Note to self. Don't shun the block building entirely in the block building game in exchange for fun action combat mechanics.

I can’t account for other mod’s tools when balancing my mod. But it sounds like those aren’t easy devices to make. So beating the frostmaw with them is not cheesing, since obtaining those tools took effort and applying them to the fight took thought.

I don’t know how this “build gadget” works, but with regular block placing mechanics, containing a frostmaw is very difficult to do. It moves away from pathing restrictions and will attack you the entire time.

it's direwolf20's signature RF run building tool that can place things at range and in different configurations and selectable sizes. just needs some vanilla based mining resources and an energy system of your choice set up from a tech mod.
with enough blocks and sneaking up on him while he's sleeping from above you could probably achieve it.

The balloon is just a block from IE that can be placed infront of the player in the air and can have cables run to it. but thats a little sketchy cause it's only one block unless you make a platform of them. relatively cheapish otherwise. but anyways.

For multiple reasons, I reject the idea that players should not use ender pearls during the frostmaw fight because they are limited in quantity. Ender pearls are a resource, just like a sword’s durability. You go into the fight with your resources, and expend them to win. That’s how the game works. Additionally, the frostmaw does not have unlimited frost breath; it is limited by the time it takes the player to kill it.

you got me. damn my always "it's too good to use" mentality. Although I dare say you make up for the damage "dodged" from frostmaws snowstorm by fall damaging yourself with a pearl on the way out. >_>'.

I’m unfamiliar with this “Enkindling Champion” mod. Like I said, I can’t speak to how other mods work. Players using the flint and steel strategy typically use a water bucket as well.

It's just the champions mod. Basically mobs spawn randomly or preset in different champion tiers, gaining some additional benefits/auto skills and statistical modifiers. I have him spawning tier 2 which makes him significantly rougher to compensate for the modpack tending to get on the op side. So he needs to be able to take and hand out some significant beatings. and quite honestly, he was, as much as I raged at undodgeable snow breathe.

Since I suspect you still don’t believe me, here is a video of someone fighting a frostmaw using these tools: https://streamable.com/73m9fz

I believed you it's just not my cups of tea. But that was a pretty standard vanilla style showcase combat set up, with the stacks of steak to just endlessly heal and neatly set out inventory that doesn't cause panic cause it's full of other junk from a modpack. :V And they were competent.

15 seconds in though, lingering active hitboxes coming out from behind line of sight already causing some annoyance. Atleast you didn't make him crit the heck out of frozen people... :V

You find the solar beam dealing damage every tick to be balanced? We seem to have different ideas of balancing, then. I’d encourage you to explore my config file and fine tune things to match your needs. But I’ll remind you that the solar beam can deal its damage to any number of mobs in a line in front of you, which is very powerful in vanilla Minecraft.

it's every few ticks gets to around 5 procs a second, there is a very limited amount of I-frames towards things which are the same source, but effect is the same: yes. Since if it can't evaporate a zombie from full where he stands for something like that, I think you're likely doing it wrong and people will disregard it in larger modded set ups, cause lets be honest, I don't think anyone just puts in a mod or two just for that mod very much anymore. they're usually running into these things blindly using modpacks or are atleast influenced by a few to several other things. :V

and I have gone through the config, player used stuff is 50% stronger but it's still not that great unless it damages constantly. Takes almost a full beam to still toast a 40 HP zombie with the hit timers reduced by it, once they get stronger from majrusz difficulty.
I made the Bosses also a lot chunkier and heavier hitting to be able to stand up to players eventual power thinking it'd balance against the more actiony op stuff and other options of play.

Single player Minecraft runs a “dedicated server” locally on your machine, which can experience server lag if your CPU is not strong enough or a mod you have installed is poorly optimized.

yeah, I know of this. I'm on a ryzen 7 3700x so, I would think it should be handling relatively well after the world gen in the area was all said and done.

If a mob takes damage from a fire damage tick, but then during the hurt timer takes damage from a more damaging source like a player’s attack, the mob will take the difference between the damage amounts as additional damage. It may not flash red or be knocked back, though.

the lack of reactionary knockback or stunning is usually what gets me lit up. :V

My spear is coded differently from Spartan weaponry’s reach and Project War Dance’s reach. I assure you, 3.5 blocks is accurate. I agree, it is likely an interaction of the two systems causing it to behave otherwise.

Alrighty, got that video put together and annotated just gonna upload it. For moments in there as it goes where the hits just fail but come back or work in some situations. Is probably just weirdness with hit calcs all around.

got it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPkGYS4BLdc

Watching the video, this does not appear to be a bug with the frostmaw's hitbox. It seems to be an issue or combination of issues from those weapon-adding mods extending your reach. Possibly also the mod letting you dual-wield. I suggest you report this to them.

Alrighty I figured, I guess it only really surfaced and was noticeable when I was trying to hit frosty and was annoyed at it already.

and the other stuff like dodges are an elenai issue and the hitscanny anti-open combat snowstorm breathe gripes is just me not utilizing blocks and cover properly in a block game and trying to play the video game a semi-unintended way. :V