Post patch feedback and suggesition : Remove malachai from HC servers. or from game.

First I want to say that I absolutely like some part of act 4, especially daresso Arena and Dried Lake. I find the music and atmosphere just perfect and appreciate the works done. I also like that we can get gems since start and others changes.

Sadly you just ruined all this good works with the malachai boss and this is more than shooting a bullet in his own foot you just fucked up your whole game balance and said strength of your game I talk about the supposed "infinite builds possibility".

I feel that the Malachai fight is the continuity of a new politic to make "game harder", you have failed to implement this politics and instead create what we can call "random death". This politic start with the nerf of cwdt set up + liche leech mechanics. It was a fun mechanics that would allow your character to trade with monsters and also counter-balance the aweful drop mechanics.
I will argue that this politics has failed to be implemented and also is a bad politics for this game.


These "random deaths" can be defined as death that a player can not avoid not matter of his build and actions during the game. Typical example is malachai fight and his teleport slam:

1.No matter of your dps malachai fight will be long hence multiply your risk of death meaning dps don't help you that much.
2.No matter how much life and defences you have if you take the full malachai attack you will die.
3.You can not avoid his lethal teleport attack as you just don't have time to avoid it. Ton of video and gif can be found as a proof.
4.His lethal teleport attack his random, hence some players feel they dodged when it's just a roll dice about if he will teleport on your face or not.
5. You have to move every time, hence only flame totem allow you to kill him.

https://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/3cztfz/46k_hp_cruel_malachai_oneshot/

http://gfycat.com/OldfashionedFocusedIbis

1-2 means passive node doesn't matter hence there is no build diversity, 3-4 mean malachai fight is just a roll of dice.
This is an insult to players who have put money into your game, basically taking malachai fight is just rolling some dice on your death no matter what your build is or strategy.
I would prefer to have a portal to next difficulty with random death rather than have this malachai fight at least it would save us some time.

How can you even create a boss on normal that is harder than dominus on cruel ? And a cruel boss harder than dominus merciless ?


Result of this politic for players are :
-1 you need to be overleed the area 10-15 lvl just to deal with the others attacks
-2 you have no area to farm effectively as much lvl (big waste of time)
-3 you take a roll dice fighting him
-4 if you kill him the next three acts are pointless.
-5 there is no build diversity.


Some fight can be hard because player lack dps or defense(like daresso small arena), creating some random death is just bullcrap.


This is a feedback after having fight the new Malachai boss with a 64 character on normal difficulty and cruel. I sold malachai kill on normal difficulty several times so i'm accustom to his mechanics. My 64 char was full of bought gear bought gear and crafted with masters, 4life flask lvl 60 (you can't get them on cruel). I would do some 66 maps with this char and still I riped because I had no time to move from his attacks.


Malachai fight is unfair and need to be removed from HC period, and this is without talking about the possible latency during the fight (frame time, fps, or ping).

I love tempest league but i'm out of any new league or the game because of this fight.

I agree with most of what you have typed down.

Currently I do not have the feeling that this game promotes build diversity with a boss like Malachai ingame. Only when using instant skills you have a chance at him.


If you need to actively aim and cast skills at Malachai, it means you are standing still and that means you are already as good as dead. It is a fight where you continuously need to run, hide, get hit anyway, drink some pots and portal out for good.

Brutus, Merveil, Fidelitas, Vaal, Piety and Dominus are all better designs. Actually I am not a fan of all act 4 belly of the beast bosses. That part was released way too early and leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

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EzBreesy wrote:

3.You can not avoid his lethal teleport attack as you just don't have time to avoid it. Ton of video and gif can be found as a proof.
5. You have to move every time, hence only flame totem allow you to kill him.

I'm very very rarely hit by his port attack.. all you need to do is listen to the sound cues, or visual cues if you can see him. Listen out for a big sound, or if you see him.. when he goes into the ground. If you miss it and see him coming up below you.. just quicksilver the crap out of there.

As for point 5.. I have killed him pre-nerf on a spectral throw character without deaths, so not true that only flame totem builds can kill him.. sure.. they have it easier but it's certainly not impossible with other characters.

Malachai is completely a mechanical fight.. keep doing him untill you learn all you need to about him.. it only took me a couple of tries to fully understand him, it may take you more.. but once you understand his attacks are all fairly easily avoidable he turns into a fairly simple boss mechanical wise.

Your post is so dramatic for no reason. I killed malichi on normal with crap gear and was level 42.5 (when my spell gems leveled up)

I actually LIKE the fact that you can't just faceroll all the content of the game and progress into endgame super easy, you know what malachai does in normal\cruel, it forces you to have a balanced character.

You cant just take all the dps nodes and clear super fast, you can't skimp out on mitigation, ect.

While I agree hes more difficult then the next 3 acts (aka next 3 in following difficulty) hes serves the purpose of "build/gear check" quite well. I think of him like Baal, especially the NM (cruel) version.


Do I think certain builds struggle with him, yes, but there are so many that don't you can avoid the fight if you want to.

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goetzjam wrote:

I actually LIKE the fact that you can't just faceroll all the content of the game and progress into endgame super easy, you know what malachai does in normal\cruel, it forces you to have a balanced character.

You cant just take all the dps nodes and clear super fast, you can't skimp out on mitigation, ect.

While I agree hes more difficult then the next 3 acts (aka next 3 in following difficulty) hes serves the purpose of "build/gear check" quite well. I think of him like Baal, especially the NM (cruel) version.

This is completly false for malachai it's better to have high dps low life.
My first death to malachai was with a marauder flame totem / moltenstrike tank build, using molten shell and enfeeble with almost only defensive nodes. He had 76% fire res, 26+block chance, 2200 hp and 2700 armor when facing normal malachai and he riped with endurance charges on. I would challenge you to have a build more tanky at this stage of game.

I did whole two phase solo and some people joined my party just at the end and he killed me just before we kill him. I had not time to avoid the attack I was moving and he would tp where i was going the time I clicked to get back it was way too late.


This isn't a gear check when a char 55+ can die to malachai normal and a char 80+ can die to malachai cruel. It is a random check, not a gear check.


Then the next char I created I took minimal defense nodes to increase my DPS and shorten the fight which worked as he didn't killed me.

I challenge you to kill him lvl 40-45 three-four times in a row on HC and post a video about it.

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Mxeon wrote:

Malachai is completely a mechanical fight..

What is mechanical to this ? http://gfycat.com/OldfashionedFocusedIbis

Instant tp on the character, still he was moving away from the location : endurance charges on and still dead.

Your geting lucky on a standard character and brag yourself for not havind died too much when I tested him 10+ times on HC selling kills on normal difficulty.

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EzBreesy wrote:

"

goetzjam wrote:

I actually LIKE the fact that you can't just faceroll all the content of the game and progress into endgame super easy, you know what malachai does in normal\cruel, it forces you to have a balanced character.

You cant just take all the dps nodes and clear super fast, you can't skimp out on mitigation, ect.

While I agree hes more difficult then the next 3 acts (aka next 3 in following difficulty) hes serves the purpose of "build/gear check" quite well. I think of him like Baal, especially the NM (cruel) version.

This is completly false for malachai it's better to have high dps low life.
My first death to malachai was with a marauder flame totem / moltenstrike tank build, using molten shell and enfeeble with almost only defensive nodes. He had 76% fire res, 26+block chance, 2200 hp and 2700 armor when facing normal malachai and he riped with endurance charges on. I would challenge you to have a build more tanky at this stage of game.

I did whole two phase solo and some people joined my party just at the end and he killed me just before we kill him. I had not time to avoid the attack I was moving and he would tp where i was going the time I clicked to get back it was way too late.


This isn't a gear check when a char 55+ can die to malachai normal and a char 80+ can die to malachai cruel. It is a random check, not a gear check.


Then the next char I created I took minimal defense nodes to increase my DPS and shorten the fight which worked as he didn't killed me.

I challenge you to kill him lvl 40-45 three-four times in a row on HC and post a video about it.

Tank isn't the problem there, the problem is your inability to know when to and how to DPS. I did the fight in normal with 1200 life, no endurance charges, no cwdt, no enfeeble. The fight is 100% mechanics. But that isn't to say a character doesn't have to be balanced to do it, they do, because if you mess up a mechanic your dead. Btw I mainly used a flame totem to DPS him and BL for some extra DPS.


That gif you linked shows you how to make it EVEN EASIER to fight him. Flame totem cheats and starts shooting where he is coming up at. You can dodge\leap\quicksilver away from him.

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I challenge you to kill him lvl 40-45 three-four times in a row on HC and post a video about it.

I killed him with a level 42.5 character, on the first day by myself. Did I use portals, yep, did I die, no. I don't need to show you anything, I know what I accomplished and I know that it requires you to LEARN THE MECHANICS.


I'm not saying the fight is easy, but it isn't so difficult to have to be removed from the game.

Are we talking about the 4 second teleports when he comes from underground or whatever? That one?

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Ten_of_Swords wrote:

The part that bothers me the most is that you can have a character so powerful that all content is utterly trivial leading up to and for a few acts after that fight and STILL get one-shot with stacked defenses with no warning.

As a HC only player who refuses to pay others to do quests for me, the only recourse is to spend an extra few days grinding low xp monsters in order to 'over-level' by 6+... And even then I'm not so sure.

for the record: I got one shot by him in cruel at lv 61 with 3200 hp and 5 endurance charges going + plus AA and Fortify and Grace and decent armor. (pre-patch nerf) no idea what hit me, was full life and he was at the final stage with 1/5 life left. It just went to 'welcome to standard' screen instantly.

I rerolled, spent everything I had left on top gear before the fight, then got one-shot again at lv 40 with 1380 hp in normal. This time the fight just started and I didn’t even have time to get an enduring cry off. the dialogue just ended and it was literally his very first swing... As my guild mate put it "that was fucking brutal!"

I honestly dont care of they nerf him more or not though. Its their game and if this fight is the way it was intended then so be it. - at least I know what I'm in for now.

Your 2nd death is literally helman's death while racing to get the laptop in merciless. He slammed you. Never, ever start boss fights in melee range if they have a slam, that is just common sense to me. Starting out of melee range gives you time to get endurance charges, perhaps attack something and get fortify or even manually cast a curse.

As for the cruel kill, he has a 1 shot mechanic when he slams (1st stage) and when he goes up and down (in both stages)

Its really about positioning and knowing when you can and can't dps. Flame totem is a really good indicator of where hes coming up or down, perhaps they could improve this as the effects on the ground sometimes makes that hard to see.