Arbiter of Ash is a master class in bad boss/game design
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In general, "fear the floor, not the boss" is a bad design unless used very sporadically.
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" Yes. One major thing GGG needs to learn from the designs of FromSoftware (and even other action games) is that the damage of an enemy attack needs to be directly proportional to the player's ability to respond. Faster attacks do light damage, slower attacks hit harder. It's simple, but somehow in PoE2 boss attack damage seems to have no relevance to the attack speed or telegraphing. I can think of two attacks off the top of my head in Elden Ring that are likely to one-hit kill an average player at the appropriate level: Rykard's big overhead sword slam and Placidusax's "nuke." However both of these attacks each have a highly visible wind-up that takes 7 seconds and the boss isn't doing anything else. These attacks punish players who aren't paying attention and/or are getting greedy with damage dealing. In an interview a while back one of the PoE2 devs asked, "when is it okay to one-shot the player?". I think the correct - if pithy - answer is: "When you earn it." A one-hit kill should never feel cheap or unavoidable. |
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Don't forget very little DPS windows. Looking at second phase of every single pinnacle boss..... it's literally just a shit show of stuff on your screen and if you don't have the DPS to just insta kill them it is pretty much a soft DPS check.
Xesht? Bs hands coming out of the ground and freeze shot at the same time. Orloth? 800 freeze rays, 5 mobs, a freeze wave, and a dash all at the same time. KoTM? LITERALLY EVERY RITUAL MECHANIC AT ONCE. Arbiter? Run to this orb and this orb and this hallway and this different orb and this other elemental orb. Souls games have big wind ups you can punish and get DPS off, but if you get too greedy it's over. All the potential DPS windows they give you in these fights the bosses become immune or gain insane resistances. Last edited by DankWeebTrash#7386 on Jun 3, 2025, 8:09:53 PM
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agreed
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This...
While all bosses are bs arbiter is a little bit special. Here, let me drop these balls where you have zero chance to make it from one safe zone to the other if your boots aren't 35%. or, here is the ball safezone. It would be a pity if someone threw a big lava lazer on it. Xesht has also bs mechs. That handrop is also almost impossible to avoid with anything under 35% boots or blink mech. " |
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V rising has meaningful combat, not one encounter feels cheap or does not have a clever way to play around.
Perhaps they should take a page from that book, not all fights should devolve into instant nuke or nothing. At no point was the fight unfair (unless you were not supposed to be there yet) The fights all had counterplay measures before and during Every encounter was fraught with ups and downs and near deaths, giving the player agency the entire time. POE2 is a glorified calculator where you MUST abuse their faulty development in order add a few more multiplicative modifiers to get "big number" so you can avoid the terrible mechanics (exactly like d4). This "vision" is stale and boring and gives me no incentive to engage in skinner box mechanics to get "big number". Especially when loot is awful, boring, and gated behind a system designed to EAT time. |
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