The Duchess really needs a nerf.

Let me start off by saying that I don't have a problem with the new leagues being "harder" than the standard leagues. Hell, this is my first time ever playing on a "hardcore" league and so far I'm on my third character. The first two didn't even get past level 5, and given the circumstances of their deaths I just about stopped bothering with the Invasion league altogether. However, I really do like the invasion idea, and wanted to see it through.

Until I found The Duchess for the second time. The first time I fought her was with a level 4 or 5 summoner. She was dead in seconds, had no chance of summoning any zombies, and the last few hits that killed her didn't even appear on my screen.

The second time I did manage to kill her. I killed her after 50 minutes on a level 14 summoner. Trying to play my summoner as a summoner was useless. I could raise zombies maybe once to her 20 zombies. My skeletons, which were level 1 given that it didn't occur to me that power-leveling the gem would be necessary, were usually slaughtered before they could do anything useful. Raging Spirit was useless. Fireball was very useful, but only during the 1% of the time when there wasn't at least one zombie between me and The Duchess.

I tried being a summoner for 20 minutes before giving up. After that it was circle around her for 30 minutes tossing out fire traps. Thirty minutes of having to try to get into throwing range of her as her zombies kept running interference far, far, ***FAR*** better than I've ever seen any of my characters' zombies do it. Thirty minutes of trying to keep her from regenerating her ES by tossing a fireball only to watch it blocked by those zombies and her now being at full ES. Thirty minutes of dealing with an ES recharge delay that felt like it was under 2 seconds. Thirty minutes of dealing with an ES recharge rate so fast that typing /oos took enough time for her to regenerate 50-70% of her ES. Thirty minutes of mobs walking over traps and not detonating them, traps being thrown at mobs and not hitting them, mobs catching fire when they aren't near traps, mobs teleporting around, my character firing off her wand instead of moving, my character running in the wrong direction, my character taking damage from attacks that I see and attacks that are invisible, and thirty minutes of my frame rate dropping steadily as the zombie corpses pile up.

This is not fun: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkFrf_vYaUI
This is not worth it: http://i238.photobucket.com/albums/ff8/Marikhen/TheDuchess.jpg

I get that this is supposed to be hard, but this goes beyond hard. It goes beyond fun or enjoyable into the realm of "why the hell am I even bothering with this."

Honestly, that "Quick" affix on her in combination with the summons and ES is brutal. The other invasion bosses I've dealt with ranged from easy to challenging but rewarding. She was far from that.

I'm not suggesting she be turned into a Lowest Common Denominator boss straight out of a modern Blizzard game, but I really do have to ask what the point is of having invasion bosses that people actively avoid? I mean if nobody wants to fight The Duchess or similar bosses they're basically wasted content and development time.

Ironically, in some respects at least, no sooner did I leave The Ship Graveyard for the Cave in it than I found a second Duchess. Two in two zones. Seriously? F*** that s***.

Left, created a new instance, and got Pewterfang instead. Thirty seconds got me 3 blues, 3 yellows, a chromatic orb, and a 15% discount on my car insurance. The Graveyard had reset by the time I exited so I got yet another invasion boss, Corrector Draconides. This guy hit just about as hard and as often as The Duchess, was just about as harsh on my minions, and dropped equally crappy loot, but killing him only took a few minutes so it was actually a fun fight and not an exercise in beating my face against the wall until I coat the insulation with my brains.

I'm not asking that The Duchess become as easy, and rich, as Pewterfang there, but bringing her in line with Draconides would actually be a major improvement.

Wrong forum buddy

damn this cati: oos

I will enjoy your thread after you met Inti of the Bloodmoon ;D

summoner doesn't get strong till level 25. Before that. keep leveling your gems, but use something else as a main nuke. Preferably Flameblast