I want to talk about Morpheus for a bit, particularly about how her characterization is translated well to her gameplay as a boss enemy.
First of all, her boss battle theme:
You go into the fight banging out to a fusion of electrogothic and circus music, and you've seen Morpheus be a goofy gremlin brat throughout the event, so you expect her to be a pretty trivial challenge; Mifune, from the previous event, was a grizzled yakuza patriarch and he folds like paper at the first implication of damage, what's an unshowered, bratty video game developer-coded dream weaver going to do? Well it turns out she's got her position despite being a goofy gremlin for a reason because she starts shooting out the kind of jutsus that could kill your father in one hit.
A new player probably is still figuring out deployment order, engaging with mechanics, and properly reading what the boss does in her in-game profile and, most importantly, applying this information to gameplay, because even a significant amount of day 1 players are still figuring all that out, and Morpheus surgically aims at precisely all those points:
Morpheus, contrary to the vast majority of bosses, actually moves very fast. This can immediately play as an intimidating factor, but all it means in essence is that map coverage becomes more important since she'll be less time in any given zone of the map compared to other bosses, because she doesn't really go to your point quickly, she likes to faff around, given how capricious and carefree she is. You could try to block her, of course, but the thing is,
Morpheus has the ability to bypass Block. Morpheus will mount a big goofy dog, doubling her already fast speed, and become unblockable, immune to Bind, and gaining a barrier of 20000 HP. For reference, Big Bob has 22000 HP. She equips a Big Bob every 18 seconds.
In essence, she kinda barrels through the map while checking you for both burst and map presence, because even if you pop her barrier after she passed by your block, well, she's free to keep running around with her silly mug. Not only that, she trolls you, because she will sprint at full speed towards your point, unblockable and unstoppable... Then stop right before entering, and then goes back, just to fuck with you.
Morpheus, as a dream weaver, is associated with weaving threads of dreams into landscapes and dream worlds, thus, some of her main abilities are themed about threads, and the counter is severing them. Her first thread ability is connecting a Red Thread to the farthest player unit in her range and basically doing a Morphilion Arts damage to them per second. The counter is that if there is a unit in between Morpheus and her target, the thread is severed and it does nothing. In Phase 2, true to her role as an antagonist that trapped Ave Mujica in her dream world, allies defeated by her Red Thread are put in suspension, not being defeated but rather being placed in a dreamlike stasis for a while, before properly retreating and beginning their redeployment timer.
Morpheus, throughout the event, is shown to basically be a nuclear bomb of a brat, SSS rank kusogaki, and she's a kusogaki with a rank of authority, so of course, she's an awful boss to her minions. This is represented by her Blue Thread, which connects her to nearby enemies and, basically, she uses them as meat shields against your attacks, transferring most of the damage you'd be dealing to her to her connected, unfortunate minions. Of course, like Red Thread, you can sever these threads with your units to render them powerless.
By the way, she gets a buff of 10% Attack for each unsevered thread currently at play, so if she gets too many threads out, she can snowball really fast.
Ok! You finished her HP bar! She enters a 30 second period of revival, and every 4 seconds, she deals mapwide Arts damage equivalent to a full 100% of her Attack. Remember, she's a sore, sore loser, and went back on her word against Sakiko when Sakiko beat her in her own game.
On phase 2, surprise surprise, she has global range now. You better mind your deployment order because now you are always getting shot by her no matter what, and that includes her threads. Both threads, she now connects to EVERY enemy, so all enemies in the field are her meat shields, and she generates extra enemies every 30 seconds, so you can't exhaust her meat shields conclusively. Also, her Red Thread will now target the farthest unit in the map since it's global, so if you have a solitary unit on the other side of the map dealing with other enemies and no one in between them and Morpheus, Morpheus adds them to her Call of Duty noscope sniper kill montage.
The dog is tired at this point so instead Morpheus will have one of her clowns inflate a big goofy balloon and she will ride it, making her a temporary Aerial Unit (Low Altitude Hovering).
As you can see, Morpheus is packed to the brim with mechanics, damage reductions, damage amplifications, mobility, engaging counters, the works. I like how they very much represent her as a character as well, being consistent with how she behaves and how she is in the event, all while also being a fun and engaging challenge. At the same time, it's hilarious that a lot of people just jumping in will have to fight this absolute monster of a boss with new player units and new player resources, but don't give up, put this brat in her place, and take solace that whatever comes after Morpheus for you, be it event boss or main story boss, is not a quarter as fucked up as she is.
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