Please Install This On SSE Nexus Too, We Need This!!
--> Agreed! the bosses are so weak without it! 

Installation/Load Order :

Can install mid game - however enemy level is set upon first being encountered.  

Install the same as you would any other esp.  MO2 recommended but use whatever you like.  Must install the Real Bosses Light main file.  There's 3 optional files to choose from:


Real Bosses - Medium
Real Bosses - Heavy
Real Bosses - Hardcore


Only choose ONE of the optional files. These are not required if you don't want their options. There are no scripts with this mod, you are free to change your optional files at any time if you find you want a change.  Optional files need to be loaded after the main file but will not conflict with any other mod so can be anywhere in your load order after that.  

When considering whether to use an optional file please don't consider the version to be the difficulty of the boss - but rather the difficulty jump you will experience from a normal enemy to fighting a boss. If you have normal enemies set to be a challenge in your game, you will want the light version. Otherwise the jump will be too much and you run the risk of being overwhelmed.  If you have the game set in a way that your character is a god and cannot be hurt easily by most enemies but still want a challenge against a boss, then that's what the heavy/hardcore versions are for.  Naturally if all you want is the most challenge possible then go for the hardcore anyway, these are just recommendations please use this mod however you want. 

The progress in difficulty from Light to Heavy is pretty smooth - however the jump to hardcore is very significant.

This mod will conflict with any other mod that directly edits these same NPC's.  Most mods that do this will be very explicit in making this clear and will be a mod that either directly edits facegen data ( so not just textures ), or directly edits the NPC to be more difficult.  Difficulty/gameplay overhauls do not typical do this but things labelled as an enemy overhaul might.  

There are patches available for Skyrim Revamped and for WICO.  Only choose one Patch file.  Patch files must obviously be loaded after any mods they are patching.

For those who want Regen back I suggest Vigor - Enhanced Combat , this mod adds regen in a way that is beyond the scope of Real Bosses and has several great features.  It's the new revised version of the old Vigor and IMO it's a significant improvement. 

This mod does not alter AI so is compatible with all mods that do so.  Ultimate Combat is my recommendation for this.  On top of everything else it does it adds new spells to dragon priests that synergize perfectly with this mod and do not overwrite anything.  They are slow moving dodge-able projectiles that also get buffed by this mod and it's hard to imagine fighting dragon priests without it. Be careful of the slow moving red orb - it's easy to dodge but hits very hard with the boost it gets.

I also recommend using Skyrim Revamped Enemy Overhaul  alongside this mod and using the SRCEO patch ( WICO option also available ).  The patch for Skyrim Revamped is tuned to work well with this mod.  Skyrim Revamped does a great job of adding new abilities to NPC's. Real Bosses adds some extra oomph to physical hits and spells, and some more damage mitigation only on the bosses.  The patch also reduces some functions of SRCEO I considered overpowered when paired with Real Bosses.  ( like toning down the speed increase to vampires a bit so it functions better with current gameplay overhauls and the damage increase, they're still fast tho ).  Running Skyrim Revamped also lessens the gap between normal enemies and bosses. Allowing you to tune your game and character to the difficulty you prefer more easily without large spikes in difficulty change.  

EEOS is also a nice addition to add spells to enemies. But will affect balance in unpredictable ways, be mindful of the spell mods you add to EEOS, the author carefully placed most spells available, but most enemies in real bosses are at the high end of the spell list so will get some strong spells that could potentially one shot you depending on your resistances and depending on what mods you add to it- this is because this mod does not alter spells directly but rather increases the enemies overall spell power and melee damage directly.  I recommend not using spells that are focused around the PC for this mod - such as Arcanum, Colorful Magic, Dragon age spells etc. They have very unpredictable effects, especially when boosted by this mod. Naturally feel free to use them for your character just avoid adding them to the enemy list.   That said spells tailored around vanilla work just fine - Mysticism, Tomebound, Apocalypse scale along vanilla very closely and work great.  

The last addition I'd recommend is Know your Enemy This mod has been updated from it's origins to use a zEdit patcher to work with any other mods in your load order and IMO should be in everyone's game.  Adds variety and depth to your gameplay and I'd suggest checking the mod page for details.  This will also make the bosses harder ( or easier ) depending on your setup and will help change the approach you decide to take when fighting them.  

in the above example including every option your load order should be :

Ultimate Combat
Vigor
WICO
SRCEO
Real Bosses light
Real Bosses - Optional difficulty choice
SRCEO WICO patch ( from SRCEO page )
Real Bosses light SRCEO+WICO patch
{KYE Patches}

Be careful as LOOT will not necessarily arrange the patches from this mod correctly

None of these options are necessary and this mod works well on its own as that was it's original design. 


Read Below if you want to see which enemies are changed or if experiencing any difficulties.  If you would like to be surprised by your encounters or work out how to beat certain enemies yourself there is no need to read further.  There are some tips and recommendations near the end of the page for anyone experiencing difficulties getting their game balanced to their liking.

DragonPriests

• All Dragon Priests have elemental based resistances, fire will be 'almost' completely ineffective against a fire casting Priest for example
• All priests have a spell damage buff which is indicated by their Tier
• Their spell damage increase means all effects are increased - so shock spells draining magicka is enhanced - frost slow down is enhanced etc
• All priests have a measure of damage reduction indicated by their Tier
• Spell lists are customized to Priests element or focus and care was taken to prevent AI being overwhelmed by too many options
• Redundant shield spells removed - Dragon priests get confused with multiple self cast spells and can tend to keep spamming them without this
  

Hevnoraak  Tier 1 Shock based - Extremely high physical resistance

Krosis  Tier 1Frost based - Speedy

Morokei  Tier 3 Shock based - Very high magicka due to staff of magnus - focus on summons

Nahkriin   Tier 3 Universal 

Otar The Mad   Tier 2 Universal - Extremely high magic resistance 

Rahgot  Tier 1 Fire based - has healing 

Vokun   Tier 2 Universal

Volsung   Tier 1 Frost based -has unique attack spell that ignores all magic resistance 

Dragonborn DragonPriests

Ahzidal  Tier 3 Fire Based 

Duukan   Tier 2 Frost based 

Vahlok    Tier 4 Fire based
The strongest dragon priest - he's the one who defeated Miraak 

Zahkriisos   Tier 3 Shock based - Immune to shock dmg - higher than avg mag resist

 I keep forgetting I have this, then I'll have a 10-15 minute "boss fight". 

I'm sure I've said it before, but thanks again for this awesome mod!

Usually categorized as 'fighters' and 'Wizards', Wizards have 2 Tiers. Both Tiers are powerful however.
Fighters strength can vary greatly. Perks like reflect, which you should know about so you don't kill yourself will be noted, same with any custom perks i made then added to the character.  Using mods like Ordinator may alter some of the perks these enemies use, but that will keep it fun.  Any custom perks i added will retain their effects. General perks are added to all enemies in this mod. Spells are added to those that need them.




Ancano  Tier 2 - New abilities - Using the eye of magnus so a massive boost to his Magicka







Ulfric Stormcloak Access to couple more shouts
General Tullius  Reflect blows
Malyn Varen   Tier 1  
Kematu 
Mercer Frey  Custom Perk 40% chance to dodge all incoming melee damage. He was supposed to be a death sentence to cross swords against..now he is.
Malkoran  Tier 1 Universal Dragon Priest
This mod only edits his shade form. 
Legatte Rikke 
Galmor Stonefist
Orchendor  Tier 1 
Jaree-Ra 
Deeja 
Captain Hargar 
Estormo   Tier 1 
Lu'ah Al-Skaven   Tier 2 can use multiple summons
Tsun - 40% chance to nullify physical damage taken
Drascua tier 1 





The Dawnguard and Volkihar vampires also have a tier system.

The volkihar vampires get faster, have higher stats, do more damage, and have more magic resistance as they get higher in their Tiers. 

The Dawnguard doesn't have the raw power the vampires do, but their specific skills against the undead make them extremely deadly and specialized. 









Malkus - Tier 3, the leader of the expedition into forebears if you side with Dawnguard. He has extra increase to his health to make him function more like a mini boss style character.
Feran Sadri - Tier 3 
Fura Bloodmouth - Tier 2 speed of a Tier 3
Garan Marathi - Tier 2
Hestla - Tier 1
Modhna - Tier 1
Namasur - Tier 1
Orthjolf - Tier 3 Larger health and perk boost comparatively to others
Rargal Thrallmaster - Tier 2
Ronthil - Tier 1
Salonia Caelia - Tier 1 HP of a Tier 3 for a sub-boss like encounter
Stalf - Tier 1 HP of a Tier 3 for a sub-boss like encounter
Vingalmo - Tier 3 focus on summoning

Harkon - Tier 5 
tips below if needed







Agmaer - Tier 1  
Beleval - Tier 1 
Celann - Tier 1 
Durak - Tier 1 
Florentius Baenius - Tier 3 
Gunmar - Tier 3, 
Ingjard - Tier 1
Isran - Tier 4 
*When his aura is up magic barely hurts him..forcing to get in close..but if you're in close..he can hit you with that undead smashing warhammer*
Sorine - Tier 3 
Vanik - Tier 3 
Armored Trolls 
*only changes the tamed trolls*








Arch-Curate Vyrthur - Tier 4
Tips below if needed

Minorn - Tier 1 
Keepers in the Soul Cairn 









Miraak  Tier 3 Dragon Priest w/ Lightning based DragonPriest stats
tips below if needed
Haknir Death Brand 
Karstaag 
General Falx Carius 
Ebony Warrior - Deliberately made him broken.  Meant to be that ridiculously hard enemy that takes everything to beat.  

 Love your mod! It's what Skyrim lacks, epic boss fights, the key of all action games. Now I can really call Skyrim ARPG.

- Even on the light version physical damage of bosses gets quite high.  There are many mods offering timed blocking now, mortal enemies gives ability to dodge along with a dodge mod, physical damage needs to still be high to prevent bosses being too easy that rely on it

- Perk overhauls make a massive difference to damage output.  By default most of these NPC's don't have many perks and use a custom perk to beef up their damage but the defaults are still very weak.  All NPC's added by this mod have perks added to them.  If using Vanilla this will be a marginal boost.  If using something like ordinator it will heavily boost not only their physical damage but their magic damage also.  These boosts are applied before being boosted by the custom perks that further enhance these.  So someone just using the light version of this mod will only experience a small increase in damage.  Someone using Light version + Ordinator + Wildcat/smilodon + ultimate combat will have a very significant increase in damage, approximately 4x in that scenario.    This is why the different versions of this mod exist, to help balance the difficulty around other mods you have.  

- Consider your Armor.  Armor cap is 542 - which offers 80%.  Someone with 20% reduction is going to have a very very very different experience than someone getting to 80%.  You don't have to use heavy armor but you're going to want some means of getting your armor north of 50% against physical bosses depending on your setup

- Consider your magic resistances.  Magic resistance caps at 85%, and then Elemental resistance is applied after that.  So a tier 1 Dragon Priest you'll probably be fine around 20-30% of each ( or less really, it all depends how good you are at using wards/evading/using line of sight ).  However a Tier 3/4 Dragon Priest/Vampire/Mage you probably will want more.  I just did a play through on medium version w/ SRCEO where I maintained about 50% mag res and 25-50% elemental resistance and it felt good, i could eat a hit or two and be fine, but if i tried to be careless I'd die.  There are lots of ways to obtain decent resistances - the lord stone alone gives 25% mag res in vanilla

- also regarding magic, if your resistances aren't high enough to tank magic ( and the goal of this mod is to not let you just waltz straight into enemy fire and shrug it off like it's nothing ) you really should use Ward spells or spells that have a similar effect against magic.  Lots of magic you can use line of sight to block but not everything and not in every encounter.  This mod tries to give a purpose to using the defensive tools in the game.  Ward Functionalities Extended will help you!

- Some tips for the hardest bosses that people some times struggle with : 

- Arch-Curate Vyrthur : Probably the most deadly along with Miraak.  Unlike Miraak he has drain abilities.  He likes to keep a frost atronach going all fight unless you can take away his magicka.  He has enchanted daggers and is very fast and hits very hard, and the daggers stop you from relying on timed blocks to negate his physical damage.   He puts a lot of pressure on you and in turn makes it hard for you to pressure him in order to block his regen.   Remember you can run back and use line of sight to get a breather.  Try and keep a DoT on him at all times like marked for death and drain vitality, use banish Daedra on his summon or if you have strong follower or summons they can keep it busy.  Wards or super high magic resistance can block his drain from restoring his health.  Lots of ways to deal with him but he's very hard.

- Harkon: This is a battle of attrition.  He's not as deadly as Vyrthur - but he's harder to kill.  Again his regen is a problem, his tactic to run away and spam drain makes him hard to kill.  Him alone is not too hard to deal with, but he keeps using his powerful necromancy and summons to keep you busy.   Same as Vyrthur, DoTs are essential, and you really want to keep him from absorbing health with drain.  This makes summons/followers double edged, yes they help deal with the summons but they also give Harkon juicy health restoration.  It's up to you which tactic you want to use, go solo and line of sight/Ward/Absorb his drain, or go for the path of overwhelming him with all you have in summons/followers and try to out damage his heal attempts.  Also reminder, sunhallowed arrows don't break his blood bubble - use regular arrows with Auriels bow and do it quickly so he doesn't regen.  When he comes in with his Claws this is a great opportunity to deal as much damage as possible - but this is also when Harkon hits his hardest.   This fight is intentionally set this way so you never quite feel comfortable fighting him.  You gotta really go all out to kill him but get overzealous and forget about your own health will kill you, also take a breather for too long to handle yourself and get composed and it may result in him getting too much health back or you just spending too much time fighting his summons and not hurting him enough. 

- Miraak: This fight is very different depending on what version you use, and what other mods effect him. Most recent fight against him I was using SRCEO+Medium+EEOS+Relic overhaul ( which augments his gear )  and it felt great.  He was deadly, and was difficult to find opportunities to attack.  In melee he would activate his tentacle cloak thing to counter being hit when in close and at range was frequently evading his slower moving magical projectiles while looking for chances to hit with magic of my own - which could also cause him to regen his magic some of the time thanks to Atronach effect.  I had the most success when using summons/followers to distract and draining his magicka.  Drain vitality shout was my go to for this but there's lots of ways to do this also - will very much depend on your mod list.  Be advised however that even without magicka he can still be very deadly if he chooses to be- he still has his shouts and his melee damage along with tentacle staff/cloak is very dangerous.  Bear in mind mods which change his gear are compatible with this mod and will make him significantly harder - typically increasing his poison damage.   Don't go into this fight unprepared.  Vampire character will have a lot easier time attacking due to poison immunity.  If you're not a vampire then make sure you have some form of poison resistance or immunity to deal with his cloak/extra weapon damage - this goes triple for character using melee or relying on getting n close since every time you hit him it activates this counter, wards don't block it.  The other obvious thing is to achieve some decent magic resistance, if you have to choose between elemental or magic get magic - since he uses all 3 elements. How much of these resistances you need will depend on your mods and which difficulty of real bosses you choose.  If you have any unique skills that bypass resistances this is the time to use them - spells have a hard time getting through his absorption, although they do work.  However even if they do he has high resistances.  To counter his resistances use Dispel abilities, especially when he has a cloak up or is using Dragon Aspect.  Unlike Vyrthur and Harkon you don't have to worry about drain, so summons are a big help.  Seekers can actually be useful since they drain his magicka.  If you have a way to get followers with you into Apocrypha they are a big help also, mostly for distractions but it all helps.    I did upload a video of a recent fight I did against him, although one game to the next will always vary wildly, i listed my characters specs and mods used in the video. 






Increased Enemy Spawns  ( good scriptless way to add more enemies from level lists to your game )

Ultimate Combat

Smilodon

EEOS

Sekiro Combat

Faster Get up Stand Up

Ultimate Dragons

KS Dragon Overhaul 2

Floating Damage

Zim's Immersive Artifacts

Skyrim Revamped Enemy Overhaul  ( loot and encounter zones personal preference but enemy overhaul is excellent ) Patch for this in optional files

Apocalypse

Ward Functionalities Extended  ( this is now the only Ward mod you need )

Ordinator ( timed blocking helps against melee and also works on spells once you get the timing, be advised this can change some of the perks enemies have )

Mortal Enemies ( physical damage of enemies in Real Bosses have mods like this in mind )

Forgotten Magic Redone 

Thunderchild ( the only shout mod you need - along with ordinator speech tree and high kyne favor shouts get pretty strong )

-----VR----

Immersive VR Quickslots  Amazing mod ( probably outdated suggestion, just getting into VR again )

Way Of The Voice Also amazing

DragonBorn Speaks Naturally Works with the least setup and can equip mod added spells/items without needing to be configured

No Stagger Mod  ( Stagger has no place in VR IMO )