The bosses will be down a side route from the main path, but I haven’t seen any definitive “rule” to determine which side route it is. Other than the knowledge that if a side route has an intersection at “4 steps away from the main path”, there is no dragon boss on that side route.
You effectively have to simply pick one side route at a time and follow it to its’ end and hope to find the dragons sooner rather than later.
I’ve yet to find a hard-and-fast rule to determine which of those side paths is more likely to lead to a boss dragon. If either of them does, as opposed to some of the other side paths you’ve got available, such as the one branching off the room to the “west” of the keystone.
Maybe I’d have a slightly-more-informed opinion if you provided a screenshot of the larger map so that I could determine if some of the other side paths simply aren’t long enough to lead to a dragon.
But given what you’re showing now? I’d just pick one and follow it to its’ end, so long as you don’t hit the “intersection at 4 steps away from the main path” scenario.
The bosses won’t be more than six steps off the main path. You won’t find a dragon boss on a path that branches at exactly four steps from the main path.
Other than that, no, there’s no “set rule”. Which means there are some weeks you might find the bosses really quickly and some weeks you might have to explore an entire region before finding it.
Next floor. Highest level worked but this is the bs im talking about. When looking for the boss there seems to be way more branches to try to encourage lantern use
Judging based on your maps above, I can’t see anything obvious that you’ve done wrong. It’s something I’d simply chalk up to “poor luck” in that you’ve managed to explore most of the side paths without finding the dragon. About the only thing there I can recommend is to figure out whatever criteria you were using to select paths and to throw it out the window and try something different.
I’ve never used a lantern on an ordinary fight and I never plan to do so. (I get the one free lantern per week; I use it on either the 4th dragon or the 6th dragon to double up on a particular Glory orb because I’m still working on making all my mythics gold elite.) I’ve had weeks when I’ve been obliged to purchase 10-15 torches on Sunday – and once even buying 15 on Saturday because I was “falling behind” – but weeks when I’ve had the sort of luck your screenshot suggests are few and far between.