Why? spinning attacks. how many times? who knows? theres a reddit post showing one guy having to dodge 12 spins in a row.
its also super huge aoe with huge knock back
tbh its kinda manageable.
whats the most BULLSHIT thing about this boss? the fucking purple area of denials. they might as well be permanent as they last so long and denies so much area. where the fuck am i supposed to fight? or are you going to tell me “oh you should have used some overperforming build”.
yah nrftw bosses are bad, mostly becasue they use annoying aoes and ground effects and this one is the worst offender
If you ran out of area, then the damage in your build is terrible.
That part is basically a soft enrage.
Tweak your build to do better damage. This is one of the easiest bosses, god knows what you would be saying about the Plagued Echo Knight or Winged Brood.
If you’re doing Pestilence, you are in endgame. You should have a well crafted build.
lol, I agree.. that boss was frustrating XD
*Once you get a solid frost build, the boss can be solo’d in what feels like less than 10 seconds.
That said, it is funny to watch new players suffer through their first encounter with this boss. Especially if they’re like EJE (doesn’t like to parry and isn’t interested in “meta” builds).
It gives you a much more “raw” example of the casual player experience.
Funny enough, I lost count of how many potions and meals he wasted on these failed attempts.. he still fared better than I did.
Taking close to 20+ attempts with my fire hammer build.
Killed him on my fire mage fine before lv30, no cheese. The story one was especially easy.
What I notice from that video is that he’s using focus on a bow.
Any build that does not make use of decent/good rune attacks is gonna suffer unelss they’re a lifesteal drain tank build.
Regular attacks simply don’t do enough damage without hyperoptimized builds and open you up to being stunlocked by the boss due to the way the game gives enemies stagger spam and player poise in general is really bad on top of long attack animation locks.
Him spawning in the cellar is dumb though.
Oh indeed, that’s what makes the video interesting from a developers perspective.
Once he moved over to a meta build, he steam rolls through content and is even capable of doing a T4, C10 with very little issue.
One core problem (why so many think the game is harder than it is) is due to a lack of explanation from the game itself.
*Even I didn’t know Embers could reroll perks until practically “end game”.
The effects from this problem (lack of explanation) is compounded due to “bad builds” having a really hard time clearing upto level 5 of the crucible to unlock respec.
Even worse, the grind for embers that’s necessary to complete a single build, let alone if you want to test out your own ideas.
All that said, we have a lot of features and potential solutions coming in Patch 1.
I’m still a fan of the idea that we move the “tutorial” to the dream sequence you have when you go to sleep on the ship.
Much like Metroid Prime, you’d get to experience combat with a full build (the class you select from character creation).. leading up to the final boss of the dream:
Funny enough, this “dream” is something that the devs can release as a “demo” to help get people to buy into EA (something they’re struggling with at the moment).
It was super painful to watch. Darkness is super annoying in this fight, I give him that, but…
Let’s start with his equipment, it is bad. Most items are blue with useless enchants. Additionally he got baited to use worst bow in the entire game, probably because it was yellow. It is common newbie mistake to think that yellow items are best 
Instead of the bow he should go for shield or at least torch to have vision and instead of wasting focus on useless tingly bow attacks he should have used it on rune attacks that actually do something.
When it comes to boss mechanics, he never tried to actually learn any, just smashed his head against the wall with brute force attempts. He polluted whole arena with the bubbles every single time instead of placing them one near the other in some corner. He was too greedy or tilted and tanked a lot of them too, and this is literally the easiest attack to dodge in the entire game. Most of his rolls were what’s called “panic dodge”, where he spams it without thinking, which costed him a lot of deaths. Very often he rolled towards the boss and got stuck between boss and terrain, or got him to have less time to react to incoming attacks. For example the blender attack, it should be logical that the closer to the center you are the less reaction time you have to avoid the attack, and further you are from the center the more time you have. He almost always rolled towards the boss when he was doing this attack… And i could point a lot more mistakes like this.
Last thing i would like to discuss is this “i don’t like to parry” approach that some “players” have. Parrying is a core element of the game, not using it, not even trying to learn it and then complaining about the game difficulty is super dumb. It is level of dumb equivalent to “i don’t like using items” and complaining about difficulty. This comment isn’t directed at you, but to “i don’t like to use this X system that is core to the game” people. Just… go learn to parry guys.
Yeah, the embers rerolling was a real headscratcher, I kept going to Eleanor and being annoyed to not find the stat reroll, so I had to google it.
I know why they did it, it’s a QoL to not need the npc to fine tune gear, but the UI should communicate that and more tutorial tips placed in.
I think the game just has too big a delta between baseline performance and rune attack/% damage stacking optimized builds.
I hope Patch 1 comes with nerfs to all the % damage stacking affixes (would prefer if they deleted them), and just adjust the base character power to work with items and their upgrade tracks while affixes can mainly impact gameplay/playstyle flavor instead of being raw throughput scalars.
Same goes for damage intake. It feels terrible when bosses are hitting you for 1/2 your health regardless of what attack they land, but then you get % damage reduction affixes and at least 40% DR from armor and suddenly the damage intake is nowhere near as terrible.
It’s too large a swing from baseline functionality to gear optimization. Gotta put more toward the base and shave off the gear damage/defense creep.
Obviously, they want to make gear upgrades feel good, but this again come through flavor and visuals and gameplay effects in terms of ability enhancements like adding a dashback or a projectile reflection property, etc instead of flat % increase bonuses that just get stacked and break the game.
This is likely why the “do you parry” topic has so many replies..
*Most don’t like the mechanic and refuse to engage with it.
I’m in the same boat, it was neat at first.. but later felt poorly implemented almost to the point of feeling like RNG.
Thankfully once you have a solid range/magic build, you are no longer chained down by the mechanic.
This is likely why Focus potions were changed from a set amount to a % bonus gain as well as why Bows got hit by the nerf stick so hard over the past year.
*Range/Magic trivializes the parry system.
I’m personally a fan of having more interesting mechanics and energy systems added to the game.
Giving players options and interesting systems to theory craft.
Basically this. Parry/block is very inconsistent, and with the attack speed of some animations the window is expressly small, making it pointless to try. Parry/block would probably feel better overall of it could be left up like a shield, enjoy less mitigation (and little or no defense against ranged). But the timing/window for the interrupt mechanic of parry/block still needs a lot of work.
Dodge-roll itself feels notably better than parry/block but about 15%-20% of the time I am left scratching my head wondering how I was hit, still.
As it pertains to this boss, I generally agree. Was the first plagued boss that spawned for me in the caves after the Twin Sisters beast. The long-lived, high plague damage area denial…combined with the fact that not just the boss’s weapon…but the WHOLE BOSS itself counts as a “hit” against you during the club rotations if his leg or butt touches you…is a bit much. Those two things combined with the fact that this boss’s AI will just keep club-rotating until you get hit (or what feels like it) is a bit ridiculous.
I think the thing that is the most jarring is that on the surface this seems like it is a perfect melee boss that clean timing and tactical play will reward. But with the mechanics at work (and the grating inconsistency of parry/block and dodge against these attacks specifically) players are really forced to play mid or far afield. High damage focus builds delete this guy, while melee players end up struggling the most.
I remember struggling with this boss as well. He had been casting puddles for so long that I thought I had to run close to him so he would damage himself and interrupt the casting sequence. Lol. Anyway, I don’t think killing the boss before he can do anything is a real solution.
Most are bad at the mechanic and that’s why they don’t like it and complain.
I was in similar boat too, even voted in this poll “I very rarely or never use the parry mechanic” just like you. I tried once, failed and never bothered to properly learn it till endgame, because campaign was easy enough. When i started doing endgame, friction began to appear, so i decided to learn parrying. Now i feel comfortable parrying enemies with weapons, but still have a bit of trouble finding parry windows of unarmed enemies. Im sure i will learn it too when i dedicate some time to it. So i’ve changed my vote to “I parry very frequently” since then.
The problem with most players is that they think learning parrying on one enemy will instantly make them parry gods that will always successfully do it on every single enemy the game throws at them. And they couldn’t be further from truth. Every enemy, every attack has slightly different parry window you need to learn and you do it by practicing. You cannot be a master of piano simply because you practiced some violin a while ago. Same goes for dodging, but it has much much much wider window.
It is inconsistent because of player that is using it. I don’t think it was meant to be consistent, what would be the point of implementing dodge then. But it is crazy powerful mechanic that players should learn, how and when to use it.
Im not so sure about that… Attack animation speed is not that important if you know enemy moves and actively think about fight instead of auto piloting or heavily relying on your eyes and reflexes to parry just a millisecond before impact. For example if you know enemy has super fast sword swing attack, instead of using your eyes only to try to react when blade will be close to your neck, you should recognize earlier what kind of attack will happen and simply press parry button right before the swing happens. It’s a matter of recognizing what attacks are being used and their timings, nothing fancy, “simple” rhythmic game.
Oh god, please no. I’d rather see some checkboxes “make enemies ai 80% dumber / slower” in the world settings to satisfy casuals instead of destroying perfectly normal mechanics. Isn’t this exactly how shields work (you rise them up to mitigate some amount of damage)?
I agree that plague bubble attack is a bit annoying, but mostly because it is super long attack. I’d prefer if boss just placed all 8 bubbles randomly all at once. Or maybe make them more like Shaper balls in path of exile that follows you and “explode” with delay on touch, reduce their damage a bit to allow stacking them somewhere in the corner.
When it comes to blender attack i have a nice diagram of angular velocity and arc length in rotational motion for you:
… What? What is the difference between focus builds vs melee? Melee builds cannot use focus or what? If you’re not using runes that’s on you my friend.
I think it might be a dps check in this case. In most my fights against this boss, even with somewhat weak builds he does this bubble attack two to three times before he dies, including one in first phase. Do you have a video recorded of your fight?
i dont normally stream so i dont have any. personally i feel that DPS checks goes against all the care the devs have made trying to make this game having deliberate combat.
whenever a game introduces dps/defence/recovery check, then the game would effectively kill off a lot of build diversity where players will be forced to hyper optimize.
i would say defence checks are reasonable to an extent. if everything one shots you, then you definitely need to reconsider your build.
in fact, players can overcome defence checks via player skill, which is something that i like about NRFTW. you could be undergeared BUT for the most part you can do a hitless run and kill a boss.
on the opposite side, any “diablo boss enrage mechanic” or shitting out “permanent” area denials or monsters regenning HP is simply going against any notion of deliberate gameplay. similarly any timed mechanic where you have to race against the time is simply bad.
i come from the mindset that optimized/hyper optimization should make the game easier but should never be the bare minimum requirement.
if a build is overperforming, the devs need to nerf it.
if the answer is “kill the monster faster”, the game devs have failed.
if i wanted the kill before being killed/be so tanky i can facetank everything philosophy prevalent in the game, i’d just play poe or a survivorslike.
The opposite.
Games that have a binary of “you can avoid 100% damage by pressing y button at right time” are not great design for build variety. Ultimately, they all devolve into DPS optimization, since if you can avoid all attacks with twitch reflex, you make defensive stats pointless and just a luxury item for people lacking the skills.
Games have to make you care about both offensive and defensive stats, and part of that is doing away with rewarding highly deliberate play where playing defensively is far preferred to aggression. It should be a mix of both, that you might need eating some hits to make the DPS check and that your build should be required to have some baseline of damage and survival because some boss damage should be unavoidable to not make defensive/support aspects of build making useless thanks to the dodge/parry button, while also having the DPS to kill the boss before his offense overwhelms your defense.
Look at Expedition 33. It devolved into a mess of one shots as both sides do way too much damage to have triage combat, so the optimal strategy since you can just dodge/parry everything is to completely discard HP/defense/supportive traits like cleanse/etc for completely damage amplification glass cannon builds. Terrible design by Act 3, over 2/3 of its pictos and character spells made worthless.
its not a luxury for people who lack skills. its a necessity. i m not shy to admit, i dumped 10ish points into life because i m not too good. i believe i m above average but that 10 points allows me so much more room to make mistakes.
you talk as tho every tom dick and harry are at the pinnacle of gaming where they can all always perform no hit runs. there is some truth to what you said but it requires a stretch of imagination that everyone is a god tier gamer.
no not all of us are at that level. check the “do you parry poll”. last i check almost 50% players voted that they do not parry.
if you’re good enough to avoid all damage and go full glass cannon, thats a benefit you get for being that skilled.
for the rest of us, we will definitely be getting fully upgraded armor whenever possible. i take some points in carry load, and some points in health. i do expect to get hit a few times because i know i m not “that level”.
highly disagree. the entire reason why life regen/life leech/food has limits in the game is you’re meant to avoid damage in the first place. nrftw bosses have highly telegraphed moves. some people say the bosses in this game are bad. i would say theyre quite good actually except of course some bosses with bullshit aoe denials such as this one i posted.
but i would say the numbers are too high both ways. players can do too much damage that they trivialize bosses. bosses do too much damage that players feel forced to dodge all attacks. this is a numbers issue. defences should always be relevant regardless of whether or not you can just dodge and avoid all damage.
this is why we have “non bossing” content. can we “no hit” trash mobs? yes we can, but we dont need to. the damage can be mitigated with defences. similarly when fighting bosses, defences allows us to make more mistakes.
Parry is not the same as dodge, and dodging is pretty generous. Anyone with an hour into a boss will most likely dodge 90%+ most of the damage, by which point they can transition to fully offensive builds.
It does not take a god to dodge damage.
Even if you don’t dodge it all, if you can dodge the vast majority of it, you trivialize the need for defensive stats. By that point, why would they exist?
Defensive stats are not meant to be training wheels. They should matter like any other stats in build-making.
Otherwise you get the current situation where nobody feels it worthwhile to wear more than leather/mesh over plate because what really matters is what dodge roll you get, not the actual DR, since dodge rolls with higher iframes = 100% DR when you dodge as opposed to a fat roll getting you hit at 40-50% DR.
Damage avoidance is always superior to mitigation, and this completely strangles out build variety if you make damage avoidance freely available.
The alternative is they limit the rolls, which then people get mad at because of the poise system, where eating a hit also means being stunlocked by the mobs/boss, making dodge/parry even a vastly superior investment over armor, life, or any defensive stat for that matter.
true, which is where people who play monster hunter, when asked for tips are told “dont get hit, hit it till it dies”.
and yet i get smacked around once in a while. heck people on youtube that i see giving “parry tutorials” fail dodges once in a while.
dodging is not free isnt it? learning to dodge also doesnt mean people will not mistakes. i’ve actually killed a breach boss (no burning area level 25) using a fresh character from level 1, naked but using a maxed out 2 hander. by the time i got to the breach boss i was around level 18-19? cant recall. every hit kills me. boss runs at me with his shield, shield grazes me I DIE. boss does a bitchslap back hand swipe with his sword out of nowhere? i die. it took me literal HOURS for me to actually kill him. all because i had ZERO defence.
i m pretty proud of doing that. but i still get slapped around anyway as i still make mistakes. you’re trying too hard to sell the idea that dodging is free. it simply is not. for sure, its more easier to dodge than to parry, but you still need to know when to dodge, and what direction to dodge, you also need to manage your stamina.
it simply is not a free damage mitigation.
we already share stamina costs with attacks and sprinting. hence the need to dump points into stamina. we already have this soft limit.
nerfing dodges can be made, and i would actually be up for it, but only if it includes rebalancing the monster attacks so it isnt as huge. i would prefer to simply sidestep/walk/sprint out of the way. but some attacks are already made with huge aoe with the idea that players are meant to dodge/parry/block.
poe2 actually does rolls quite well. you can roll as much as you want. but if you spam your rolls, theres a chance you’ll eat a slam.
i would also add, poe2 doesnt have a boss doing a 360 spin that hits almost the entire arena 12 times in a row.
