Anyone else agree that Merciless Malachai sucks?

 Ok, I'll state it up front that I'm no elite PoE player and never will be great at min/maxing my passive skills so as to try to avoid the inevitable "you suck so quit already" or "you have a crap build" troll responses. That being partially true it is still a fact that the final Malachai battle in Act 4 is a shining example as to just how bad a boss battle can be and how out of sync with the rest of PoE content it is. I will try to not let my frustrations of Act 4 cause me to digress into another rant post that no one wants.

Here's what I have in a Darkshrine build:
1. Scion archer
2. got as many crit passives as possible with 95 points
3. got life wheel + herbalism + Blood Siphon for some life but still under 3000
4. have approx. 5500 dps with RoA + heralds
5. only 4L gear
5. ok rare Thicket bow (can clear Dry lake mobs quite nicely and fast)
6. +47% speed + Art of the Gladiator passive (good movement speed)
7. No unique gear of anything usable (normal starvation)

 We all know that GGG had as a design goal for act 4 the desire to make it much harder than act 3. Congrats GGG on that, you achieved that with flying colors. TBH, I am not against hard content (I don't want to play Whimseyshire My Little Pony arpg) so the harder content in general is not the problem. Where I see the Malachai arena battle break down and fail for kiting builds is:

1. Arena is too small to kite in (all other boss arenas are also too small except Grand Arena)
    (Grand Arena is a head scratching puzzler since GGG designed that one perfectly with ample
     room to kite, plenty of obstacles to duck behind, and we have some mob release control.
     So how can that be that Grand Arena is a great design and all others are failure?)
2. Quantity of blood gore makes it hard to see incoming damage threats.
3. Too much incoming damage is from off-screen (must keep Malachai at a distance) and
    with too similar of colors on everything it's near impossible to see clearly.
4. Slug (grenade) damage is a one-shot death spike (Merciless Malachai can throw up to 5)
5. Server processing lag causes death before the next damage graphics to be seen.
    (This is not Internet lag, my latency to Dallas to constantly in the 45 to 55 ms range)

 Of all the difficulties I have with the final battle it's number 4 that causes me the most frustrations and
headaches. Merciless Malachai can throw up to 5 slugs at a time. When he throws them in a spread there is no place I can kite to evade a hit. Coupled with the fact that any one direct hit causes death (one-shot kill) and that adds up to a very frustrating experience. Most of the time I want to keep Malachai at max distance (evasion build) so he is at the edge or off screen quite a lot (being close to him is even worse). That means the slugs are coming in and blindsiding me for another instant death. with all the other blood gore and other visuals cluttering up the arena the grey slugs are too hard to visually see in time to react to move or Blink Arrow away in time. Consider 2 things here:

1. I'm level 75 and this final battle is a level 70 zone.
2. I can cruise through mobs in Dry Lake easily with this build and only pause for the one champion and boss.

You'd think that being 5 levels above the zone level would even things out but I've been here since CB PoE and know better than to think that. GGG has always (and probably will forever) made zone/map end battles that require you to be many levels above it just to even think of surviving (think spider lair arena at the end of the Jungle Valley map). At the beginning of a build being at the same build level as the zone level or even tackling zones that are higher than your build is quite doable and fun. But by the time we get to Merciless Act 3 it is the norm to make sure my build is 2, 3, or 4 levels above the zone (any higher and I incur the damn loot drop penalty). Act 4 just makes that even more of a necessity. I guess that is one measure of how GGG views "hardcore". Whatever the reason, bashing our desires to play PoE (masochists don't count) at every turn (remember the words of Jose Wales "Dyin' ain't much of a living, boy.") is a strange way to make an FTP arpg where our level of playing happiness is usually directly related to how much mtx we are inclined to buy. I guess my view of hardcore is way off from the rest of the hardcore community.

 So I decided last night "what the hell, Darkshrine will end soon so I'll just push through the act 4 Malachai battle no matter how many deaths" (softcore of course). I started out at 125 deaths and ended with 337 deaths = 212 Malachai deaths. I estimate that 75 to 80% if these deaths were from the slug grenades. I tried for a little while to open a portal, go back to town, come back with full flasks and repeat as needed, but after I went through 2 dozen portals quickly it just wasn't worth the effort so I just got stubborn, mentally got into a "I'll be damned if I'm going to quit now" mood, and fired a few RoA + Puncture + attempted kiting, die, and repeated that for the next half hour or so, and finally got him to die. Yea... I guess. Besides the too many one-shot slug deaths I also died to visual stuttering issues and a lag problem whereby I would know I'm dead before the portal/tentacles visuals could even be seen (dead, then a second or 2 later the special effects showed me being hit with the tentacles). Running PoE on a mid range HD6870, Intel i5-660 oc'ed to 3.8 GHz, and 8 GB of ram in Windows 7 64-bit on an Internet connection with low latency and 45 to 55 ms pings to Dallas should be enough performance to not lag (D3, TL2, other FPS rarely lag) but this is PoE so lag, stuttering, etc. is the norm so we deal with it always (or we quit).

 So what can I say that most don't know (probably not much). We all know average PoE players (like me) suck compared to top of ladder elites but still find something to like playing PoE or else we'd have permanently pulled the plug years ago. We hate the fact that GGG has such an extreme view of upper levels (70+) and endgame playing to the extent that "the grind" and "starvation" supersedes any and all other "fun to play" content. The actual Dark Shrines in Darkshrine are little more than a distraction and most of the messages that show when a rare is used to activate a shrine is followed by a "I don't see any difference so what did it actually do" moment. The one that gives 100% crit until we leave the zone is super cool but as is the norm in PoE, all super cool items/effects are gated behind super low RNG drop chances (another "hardcore" feature I guess). A 5L or 6L is very unlikely to drop in a 1 month league there is nothing else of interest.

 On a completely different side note I tried 2 70 minute Endless Ledge races last weekend. I'd get to the 13:52 time and then my build and mobs would just freeze. Wasn't a client crash as everything else worked, only nothing in the map moved so all I could be was ESC, quit, and bug report it.

 Sigh! Maybe on the 11th I'll try a DoT Chaos build. Suggestions?

 Hope everyones Thanskgiving was good.

I am no top ladder player but I know you can't kill Merci Malachai with less than 4k life and 10/15k dps, and it will still be a pain in the ***.

I can't see your passive tree nor your gear but honestly, decent gear costs very few chaoses and if you have been farming voll (as you mention lake runs) i am 100% sure you could afford some items that would greatly improve your build (Crit RoA build? a decent harbinger bow will cost you around 20 chaos, you could even play with a lioneye's glare or a chin sol that cost like 2c ).

Try to get capped resists and life on gear (if you have at least 130/140% increased life from the tree you should reach the 4k mark).

Merciless yes but it's not needed
Core yes but that's not needed as well

Cruel and normal are fine.

You should change your title to "Merciless Malachai". That being said, Malachai is a finely designed boss. One of my favourites (even if it's unfair on Merciless).

Act 4 Merciless is intended as a parallel endgame to maps, mostly for farming. Even if the area level is 70, you should go with a character that can defeat mid tier maps and beyond. I remember being crushed by Dominus before 2.0 because of similar reasons, :P

Your confusion is the reason GGG implemented tiers in maps (because there is not a strong correlation between difficulty and area level at higher levels).

I'm also disappointed with Act 4 in general (apart from dried lake it's one long corridor), but especially the bossfights from Kaom/Daresso onwards. It feels like the devs' idea of adding difficulty pretty much amounted to "let's just spam damage everywhere LOL".

Some problems, all of which extend to Kaom/Daresso/Piety to varying degrees:
- The arenas, the monsters in them, and their attacks are all roughly the same color.
- There is very little telegraphing of attacks, even the instakill ones. Audio cues are notably absent.
- Generally too much visual clutter.
- Small arenas with constant damage spam everywhere.

Not all of these apply to all the bosses equally, but it's an overarching theme. Basically, the previous bossfights are more about timing and coordination, these feel like they're mostly about just raw power.

Malachai fight and rest of act 4 is good.

"

I'll just push through the act 4 Malachai battle no matter how many deaths" (softcore of course). I started out at 125 deaths and ended with 337 deaths = 212 Malachai deaths.

You just dont know how to fight Malachai.

"

1. Arena is too small to kite in (all other boss arenas are also too small except Grand Arena)
(Grand Arena is a head scratching puzzler since GGG designed that one perfectly with ample
room to kite, plenty of obstacles to duck behind, and we have some mob release control.
So how can that be that Grand Arena is a great design and all others are failure?)

1. Boss room is OK, You can easily dodge almost all malchai attacks atacks, It is hard to dodge his autto atack.
2. Grand Arena is a head scratching puzzler? No, Grand Arena is area with set layout with very littel variance.

"

2. Quantity of blood gore makes it hard to see incoming damage threats.

Work on your monitor brightness and contrast, it might be broken.

"

3. Too much incoming damage is from off-screen (must keep Malachai at a distance) and
with too similar of colors on everything it's near impossible to see clearly.

If you play in 16:9 ratio there apart from malachai boms (traps) there is no off screen damage
- tentacle attack dont have high aoe
- red degen circle is slowly moving
- teleport attack got animation when Malachai disappear and appear where you was when he disapeared

"

4. Slug (grenade) damage is a one-shot death spike (Merciless Malachai can throw up to 5)

As for trap, you an see them in air and use movment skill to run away, if you also cant stand in it for 1-2 second then you need to fix your defence.

"

5. Server processing lag causes death before the next damage graphics to be seen.
(This is not Internet lag, my latency to Dallas to constantly in the 45 to 55 ms range)

If this would be server side problem I would also have it. I don't have it.

"

ZINIAO wrote:

Haha yeah, I hate that fight. Pretty much the whole second half of act 4 actually. I never go beyond Daresso's Dream in Merciless, I just hit the maps instead. My dislike of act 4 in general actually prevents me from making new characters unless there's something I really REALLY want to try in a new build.

My sentiments exactly.

"

Icholas wrote:

"

ZINIAO wrote:

Haha yeah, I hate that fight. Pretty much the whole second half of act 4 actually. I never go beyond Daresso's Dream in Merciless, I just hit the maps instead. My dislike of act 4 in general actually prevents me from making new characters unless there's something I really REALLY want to try in a new build.

My sentiments exactly.

Same here, I'm dreading another act being added. Once I get the passive point in a4m I'm done. It's either dried lake or maps. I once would make 3 chars a league and now I have to force myself to even get to merc with just one. :/

"

kamil1210 wrote:

You just dont know how to fight Malachai.

If only it was that simple...
Even knowing how to fight him, you get a little lag spike and death follows. Combine this with the over-the-top gore in the second part of the fight and what you're left with is about 35-40ish deaths to take him out. It's not fun, not in the least.

"

Shovelcut wrote:

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Icholas wrote:

"

ZINIAO wrote:

Haha yeah, I hate that fight. Pretty much the whole second half of act 4 actually. I never go beyond Daresso's Dream in Merciless, I just hit the maps instead. My dislike of act 4 in general actually prevents me from making new characters unless there's something I really REALLY want to try in a new build.

My sentiments exactly.

Same here, I'm dreading another act being added. Once I get the passive point in a4m I'm done. It's either dried lake or maps. I once would make 3 chars a league and now I have to force myself to even get to merc with just one. :/

"

kamil1210 wrote:

You just dont know how to fight Malachai.

If only it was that simple...
Even knowing how to fight him, you get a little lag spike and death follows. Combine this with the over-the-top gore in the second part of the fight and what you're left with is about 35-40ish deaths to take him out. It's not fun, not in the least.

Yup thats the main problem with Act4 for me too besides the fact its pointless killing Mal you don't get anything worth killing him.