Citadel bosses don't feel fair or fluid

I don't know whether I've been particularly unlucky, but I've only found one citadel and I've played for over 200 hours.

Bosses on map nodes feel good. You do boss nodes, you die, it's a little frustrating at first but other nodes come along and there are plenty of opportunities to learn the fights and get better. I don't mind having to do something 10 times to learn it when I know another chance is just a little effort away. The first few times I died on boss nodes I raged, I walked away from the desk, I swore, but I came back because I knew it was just one node among hundreds.

The copper citadel was different. I've presumably done the boss twice during the campaign.......but it was around 200 hours ago now. That boss never shows up on boss nodes; presumably to make it feel more special when you meet them in citadels. But in my case that means spending 200 hours hunting a citadel to get a single opportunity on a fight I'm not familiar with. Can we generally agree there's very little opportunity to fight that boss and learn the timings unless you go back and do content you've outgrown? And presumably take your weapon off so you don't kill it in 3 seconds.

We need the opportunity to learn these mechanics before we get thrust into a single chance to do them when the opportunity is so rare and grindy. An NPC prompting us to revisit the old encounters? Perhaps a node where you skirmish with the boss, who then escapes; which could also serve as a way to indicate whether you're getting closer to a citadel so we have some direction and feeling of potential opportunity?

All I know is it felt very, very demotivating to lose those 200 hours I spent searching because i dodged half a second too early after the audio cue. It also felt jarringly different from the rest of the game - ie. bosses are tough, they can 1-shot you, figure them out by fighting them regularly.

Count yourself lucky, I am level 89 (nearly 90) and not found a single one :(

I just beat Stone citadel.

260 hours in. Level 90 Invoker here. 1 citadel in countless maps. Pretty brutal lol.

Found a dozen citidals and haven't tried a single one for that very reason. 1 attempt on bosses that rare is not fun for me, it's stressful.

I had a cheesy death to the expedition boss Olroth and now won't risk losing the entry opportunity until my character can ignore the mechanics.

I got one right at the start of the Atlas. Of course, I am ignoring it for now.

(Playing SSF too, so it might take a while, if I get to it at all, with this build. Maybe I should reroll.)

Over 200 hours, found 1 and it glitched.

I found the copper citadel myself at level 91. Died because I got clipped by the overlap on his electric slams. Was a sad learning experience.

I think the citadel bosses get all the mob boss juices you've got, so that was my fault for going in with +4 difficulty perks and deadly evolution I suppose. I also think deadly evolution gave the Sekhema ally the ice explosions. No idea if they hurt me or not, but I spent a while in the fight dodging them not knowing and that might have screwed me too.

Either way, will probably respec my atlas out of the dungeon boss perks and deadly evolution for my next Citadel attempt, at least until I get some gear upgrades ~get my Energy Shield up to hopefully 4k.

Still haven’t found one yet.

I think you should have a consumable you can slot into a tower to turn it into a citadel. Make the lore that citadels are built over towers in the future and you’re ripping it into the past to rob them of the key.