Anyone else agree that Merciless Malachai sucks?

I've been working on getting the Achievements for a while, and had left the "Finish the game in HC" unfinished. After Awakening was release, I severely regretted having not finished that achievement beforehand! Luckily, I was able to kill Merc Mal in HC without issue, but I didn't even attempt it until my character was well geared at around lvl 90 or so. He was still dangerous for sure, but not all that bad.

As many have stated, the difficulty of Merc Mal is kind of a non-issue otherwise. There is absolutely no benefit to killing him.

this is just a tip of an iceberg really

1) the act 4 is.. mediocre. sadly as the art is top notch (except for dried lake that if find bland and boring and 'unpleasantly predictable'). it has all the perks of 'budget implementation of a great idea': it is linear, it has little substance, all the 'plot twists' are so cramped that there is no sense of doing something special (oh, kill 3 'iconic' heroes from poe lore in span of 4 minutes? NO PROBLEM!), the city was predictable (far east lore/jungle lore) and the most important: the difficulty is just a joke. it is not even 'broken' it is just a joke. the power rise between acts is broken and makes designers look really bad. act4 is harder than act 3 of NEXT DIFFICULTY. what kind of design is that?

2) this is min-max game? so why bother adding unappealing alternative to low-maps? there is nothing act4 areas have that maps do not. nothing. the harvest exalt div card is cool but the drop rate.. players are supposed to make best decisions based on risk/reward/gain calculation so what is the gain from doing act 4 content besides that (luckily easy) 1 passive and merc rare jewel rewards? why would anyone farm it when maps give more of everything and are easier? or less annoying (kaoms dream). Daresso arena was cool with these lootsplosion from the trio but.. got nerfed. who farms it now?

3) gfx performance. poe runs on an old rusty engine that is incapable of doing certain things (even on good rigs). so why is that that each new fight/climax encounter is FULL of these 'things' that poe' engine cannot handle? just why? for that one good looking photo in gaming magazine? really? it is just stupid. Daresso fight is a good looking fight with a very good theme and mechanics - and it runs smoothly because the 'theme' is created without 'just slap all effects we have, it has to look cool with it all' but with a creative approach that knows 'less is better' rule. Malachai fight is so full of gfx vomit that i have trouble remembering what were the 'things' i was fighting. clearly a great, memorable design. you know what i fought there? 'lots of red blobs'. this is the result of not knowing when to stop

4) unwillingness to admit to a mistake. all 3 above were pointed out long ago, several times, we experienced the same 'balancing' with act3x. all are fixable (maybe except that the act4 lack of substance) but pretty much nothing had changed. there were tweaks, but miniscule and designed to not really change a thing

number of people ending their 'campaign' on passive quest in act 4 shows that it all works perfectly, isnt it?

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Shovelcut wrote:

This is simply just not true. There is a difference between hard and bat-shit stupid over the top gfx that lag you to the point where it doesn't matter what build you have you're going to rip over and over and over again. I've got a char with a solid tree and 80+ex worth of gear and I fully understand the mechanics yet I have to fire the corpse cannon up to 40 times. This is where a4 should be?

And before you go talking about my potato, I can play the rest of the game just fine even with laggy skills like discharge. :)

I have a by all standards mediocre PC (i5, gtx660ti, no ssd) I play on higest settings at HD resolution and have never ever had any gfx lag. Not even when my friend comes mapping with me with his insane everything-flies-around-and-lights-up hipster discharge rainbownuke builds. Poe is not meant to be played on a toaster and I think it's very well optimised for such a small company. I know someone who plays it emulated on a macbook, tbh he does complain about gfx lag.

Also if you have to fire the corpse cannon 40 (!) times then you DON'T have a solid tree and you wasted those 80 exalts completely. How you got that much currency in the first place baffles me, because with the amount of time that takes you should he able to play the game blindfolded by now. My most expensively geared character is 10 exalts in gear at most and absolutely laughs at Malachai.

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Kasparov13 wrote:

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Shovelcut wrote:

This is simply just not true. There is a difference between hard and bat-shit stupid over the top gfx that lag you to the point where it doesn't matter what build you have you're going to rip over and over and over again. I've got a char with a solid tree and 80+ex worth of gear and I fully understand the mechanics yet I have to fire the corpse cannon up to 40 times. This is where a4 should be?

And before you go talking about my potato, I can play the rest of the game just fine even with laggy skills like discharge. :)

I have a by all standards mediocre PC (i5, gtx660ti, no ssd) I play on higest settings at HD resolution and have never ever had any gfx lag. Not even when my friend comes mapping with me with his insane everything-flies-around-and-lights-up hipster discharge rainbownuke builds. Poe is not meant to be played on a toaster and I think it's very well optimised for such a small company. I know someone who plays it emulated on a macbook, tbh he does complain about gfx lag.

Also if you have to fire the corpse cannon 40 (!) times then you DON'T have a solid tree and you wasted those 80 exalts completely. How you got that much currency in the first place baffles me, because with the amount of time that takes you should he able to play the game blindfolded by now. My most expensively geared character is 10 exalts in gear at most and absolutely laughs at Malachai.

Just because it plays fine for you doesn't mean it does for everyone else. As I said I can play everything else in the game just fine. Build is fine too (mjolner discharge - Here is the tree) Here is the build if you're interested.
Edit: If you're wondering about the jewels, I'm dual wielding mjolners...

There are plenty of posts out there to confirm what I'm saying, dating all the way back to the awakening beta.

As for how I've amassed my items, I play self found for the most part and RNGesus loves me. ♥

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Shovelcut wrote:

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Kasparov13 wrote:

"

Shovelcut wrote:

This is simply just not true. There is a difference between hard and bat-shit stupid over the top gfx that lag you to the point where it doesn't matter what build you have you're going to rip over and over and over again. I've got a char with a solid tree and 80+ex worth of gear and I fully understand the mechanics yet I have to fire the corpse cannon up to 40 times. This is where a4 should be?

And before you go talking about my potato, I can play the rest of the game just fine even with laggy skills like discharge. :)

I have a by all standards mediocre PC (i5, gtx660ti, no ssd) I play on higest settings at HD resolution and have never ever had any gfx lag. Not even when my friend comes mapping with me with his insane everything-flies-around-and-lights-up hipster discharge rainbownuke builds. Poe is not meant to be played on a toaster and I think it's very well optimised for such a small company. I know someone who plays it emulated on a macbook, tbh he does complain about gfx lag.

Also if you have to fire the corpse cannon 40 (!) times then you DON'T have a solid tree and you wasted those 80 exalts completely. How you got that much currency in the first place baffles me, because with the amount of time that takes you should he able to play the game blindfolded by now. My most expensively geared character is 10 exalts in gear at most and absolutely laughs at Malachai.

Just because it plays fine for you doesn't mean it does for everyone else. As I said I can play everything else in the game just fine. Build is fine too (mjolner discharge - Here is the tree) Here is the build if you're interested.
Edit: If you're wondering about the jewels, I'm dual wielding mjolners...

There are plenty of posts out there to confirm what I'm saying, dating all the way back to the awakening beta.

As for how I've amassed my items, I play self found for the most part and RNGesus loves me. ♥

Again, if you play somethings as outrageous as dual Mjolners and you still have problems with act4 merc than you must be very bad at this game.
Also there is no way to get these self found and by trading a bit when not sinking a shedload of time in this game ergo becoming really good at it some point, coming back to my first point; act4 merc should be no problem whatsoever for you.
….Or you got those in a different way, that would explain a LOT.

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Kasparov13 wrote:

Again, if you play somethings as outrageous as dual Mjolners and you still have problems with act4 merc than you must be very bad at this game.

It's not just merc, it's act 4 mala in general. What does my playing ability have anything to do with major lag in the area? Now you're just trolling...

Mustn't be too bad if I'm better off than you gear wise.

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Kasparov13 wrote:

Also there is no way to get these self found and by trading a bit when not sinking a LOT of time in this game, coming back to my first point; act4 merc should be no problem whatsoever for you. Or you got those in a different way, that would explain a LOT.

Just not true. And yes, I have put A LOT of time into this game.

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Shovelcut wrote:

"

Kasparov13 wrote:

Again, if you play somethings as outrageous as dual Mjolners and you still have problems with act4 merc than you must be very bad at this game.

It's not just merc, it's act 4 mala in general. What does my playing ability have anything to do with major lag in the area? Now you're just trolling...

Mustn't be too bad if I'm better off than you gear wise.

"

Kasparov13 wrote:

Also there is no way to get these self found and by trading a bit when not sinking a LOT of time in this game, coming back to my first point; act4 merc should be no problem whatsoever for you. Or you got those in a different way, that would explain a LOT.

Just not true. And yes, I have put A LOT of time into this game.

If its just about performance then yes, you must be playing on a toaster because really? GFX lag in POE being the reason atc4 sucks? Come on man…

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Shovelcut wrote:

Mustn't be too bad if I'm better off than you gear wise.

Exactly, it can't be skill why you hate on act4, because you have better gear and skill than me.

So it's just GFX lag; That's like me crying I can't do the speed limit while Im on the highway with a tricycle. What system do you own? I'm curious because it must be bad if GFX lag is such a big turndown for you.

It's the only zone in the game like that for me...not a toaster.

Edit: If you seriously think it's only me then you're making an ignorant/misinformed assumption.

Also, I have no more will left to converse with you. Good day.

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Shovelcut wrote:

It's the only zone in the game like that for me...not a toaster.

Still it's your problem, not GGG's, it's NOT a common problem. And yes, apparently your system/hardware/connection/whatever is not up to standard. GFX wise act4 is not that different from the rest, Dominus is more GFX intensive than 90% of act4. And additions to the rendering engine, render path, are made to all acts, not just act4 because it's new.