Please note, I am not talking about bosses in which you jump around on platforms to avoid attacks or anything like that.

What I am asking is about Bosses that you can only deal damage to when they expose their weakness.

Say for example you were fighting a boss that could only be attacked when his shell was removed from his body, either by crushing him with a giant rock multiple times, or by forcefully removing with chains and hooks. Any other time, when he has the shell on, you can't do any damage to him, and you can only deal damage to his minions or focus on enduring/avoiding his attacks.

I'd say more, but I think I got my question across.

Originally posted by Enigmatus

Please note, I am not talking about bosses in which you jump around on platforms to avoid attacks or anything like that.

What I am asking is about Bosses that you can only deal damage to when they expose their weakness.

Say for example you were fighting a boss that could only be attacked when his shell was removed from his body, either by crushing him with a giant rock multiple times, or by forcefully removing with chains and hooks. Any other time, when he has the shell on, you can't do any damage to him, and you can only deal damage to his minions or focus on enduring/avoiding his attacks.

I'd say more, but I think I got my question across.

Luclin expansion in EQ1 (circa 2000-01?), to kill the Emperor (iirc) you had to farm components and build Bane weapons or he was immune to your attacks.

Many bosses in games EQ/WoW/Vanguard/Rift etc... become immune unless you kill adds, remove stances, use the proper element to attack. Some also become insanely strong if the wrong attack or condition occurs. For instance there was a Werewolf mob in Rift you had to keep out of the shafts of moonlight or it would heal and gain massive attack strength.

As well, look at the games where there are bosses that tunnel under the ground and become unattackable for the duration, or that have damage resist shields up 80+% of the time and can only be truly damage during the short downtimes.

Skimmed the responses, and I think I probably should have clarified:

I was thinking more along the lines of the bosses you see in the Legend of Zelda. One specific weakpoint and all that.

The answer is yes, they've been done before. They are not done very often because it usually means that the very frustrated player has to look up the solution in a walkthrough. This often causes the player to bitch to other players about this and turn a generally positive opinion into a very negative opinion. 

You turn a game into a 'find the pixel' hunt then you turn the game into a piece of shit.

Originally posted by Enigmatus

Please note, I am not talking about bosses in which you jump around on platforms to avoid attacks or anything like that.

What I am asking is about Bosses that you can only deal damage to when they expose their weakness.

Say for example you were fighting a boss that could only be attacked when his shell was removed from his body, either by crushing him with a giant rock multiple times, or by forcefully removing with chains and hooks. Any other time, when he has the shell on, you can't do any damage to him, and you can only deal damage to his minions or focus on enduring/avoiding his attacks.

I'd say more, but I think I got my question across.

Yes. There are many examples.

The Elder boss (forget its name) in WOW WOTLK heroic dungeon. You have to kill the minion when he is invulnerable.

One of the Echo in the CATA H dungeon. He is invulnerable when his minion is coming at you in a cicle.

Many many examples. This is nothing new.

Originally posted by Enigmatus

Skimmed the responses, and I think I probably should have clarified:

I was thinking more along the lines of the bosses you see in the Legend of Zelda. One specific weakpoint and all that.

Not so much exactly like that, but yes it has been done.

Kind of the inverse of what you are looking at... One of the nastiest overland bosses in Vanguard would progressively gain immunity to a damage type, over time I think it was, randomly Piercing/Slashing/Crushing would get locked out. Attackers would often have to shift weapons mid combat as their damage type became locked out.

Originally posted by grunty
There is usually one or two somewhere along the line in single player games that allow you to target. It wont work with Tab targetting. Well, Fallout 3 and later have a form of tab targetting with the G.E.C.K. but that pauses the game.

huh? both GW2 and Rift have this. and they both use Tab targeting.