[Battle] Leoric, The Mad King

The Mad King 

Boss: Leoric 

Scenario: Leoric Countryard could look really awesome with a dark filter, as well as Leoric Manor. 

Yes, Leoric as Skeleton appeared at Tristam Cathedral. But having his manor as an abandoned and enchanted place, local folks would probably feel fear about what lie into it. So, great reason to create an epic combat here.

I think there are enough bosses here to create memories that are fun for every kind of playstyle. Lots of people have been requesting some kind of rift/area with laughably high monster density, and what better place to do it in than with Leoric's endless undead army?

Like my suggestion with Diablo/Tristram (another comment), I think this battle should also be timed, but not with a hard cap. Just like there, where the time is limited to how long you can survive in a completely burning environment by the end, this battle could be "timed" in the sense of Leoric continuously raising more and more of the dead until you are literally drowned in them.

Start the battle out dark, in the Leoric Courtyard, as you suggested. Have monster density be almost nonexistant (this is a memory of course, and people likely stayed away from the Manor). Maybe throw in some merchant NPCs (that could sell some new dyes or something only available in this/other memories) out on the road with caravans.

When you reach the Manor and step inside, have the Skeleton King appear out of nowhere with his dash-hit thing and strike you, knocking you back 4-5x the normal knockback rate into the courtyard. Immediately, the king summons some skeletons and either walks towards you to fight or stays where he is to start summoning a continuous stream of skeletons (that starts out slow, but only increases over time).

As you run back towards Leoric, you see a few skellies headed your way, which you smash one or two on your way. Their bones fall to the ground, but do not disappear.

You reach Leoric, who is in the middle of a long casting animation that, if successful, raises one of those skeleton-summoning pillars from the campaign (right before his boss battle). Striking him interrupts the pillar from being created, but if it is created it shows up on your map and starts spawning skeletons outward from where it is unless you go destroy it.

Now you have a choice: continue to pummel Leoric as he switches off between battling you, summoning skeletons himself, or trying to summon pillars. You need to strategically dodge his attacks, because they still have 2-3x knockback, and you might not get back to him in time to interrupt him summoning more skeletons/pillars.

As you fight, you might also notice the bones on the ground moving. Eventually, they reorganize themselves and the skeleton you killed previously comes back to life, meaning the longer the battle takes the more and more skeletons you will be against, no matter what.

Basically, I'm describing this battle as a dream for anyone who loves pulling huge mobs and AoE-melting them all, but even then they need to pile on enough single-target damage to drop Leoric before the mob sizes get out of control.

Of course, the Countryard remains dark throughout the battle and is completely open, so there is plenty of room to kite and run around, but you can't always see whether there are skeletons in your path with the darkness.

In terms of replayability, I think one of the biggest proponents (past just being _fun_) is to provide some kind of score that people can try and beat their best of. In addition to being a breeding ground (literally) for massacre bonuses, you could also award score by how many skeletons you killed, how many pillars you stopped, how many hits you dodged, how long you lasted (if you die), or any other metric.