Labyrinth(tested with a 40 lvl HC character) feedback

First of all, I am not a big fan of going to feedbacks and complain about something as much as I despise any other people who complain about the new content/game, etc. But, in this case, I decided to share my objective opinion on this expansion, so here we go.
As an experienced player, I decided to enter(yolo) the labyrinth a little earlier than most of my friends and yes, I failed at lvl 40. I died at Izaro on stage 3 when he had less than 1% HP(absolute black bar). The trials were fine, the labyrinth itself was a bit underwhelming.

First issue is having to overlevel your character to feel comfortable enough in the labyrinth. The mobs themselves are extremely easy(as should be for +7 off level character), however, the traps along with Izaro deals serious damage which is actually not much of a problem(I myself enjoy the challenge). The threshold gap in balance between mobs and traps/boss is what makes people overlevel their characters by 20 levels before entering the labyrinth. This is something to work up on the balance side, coming back to normal difficulty after finishing cruel to complete labyrinth content seems rather unbalanced. As of now, going to labyrinth on normal right after finishing act 3 is a straight up suicide for an HC player. And not because of the traps, but because of the final boss fight combined with all of the traps and boss mechanics.

Second issue, the length of the labyrinth itself. I think the run should take 15-20 minutes at the most, instead it takes around 40 minutes, if not more for less experienced players. It is fun to avoid all those traps and run around new content, but, sadly, it does get old. Very old. And very fast. Considering that I was running with 2 quicksilvers and was flame dashing through most of the traps, just completely rushing through content, it still felt way too long. And maybe the length would be fine if the level of your character matched the level of mobs in that area, so this is tightening up together with the first issue, that I described earlier.

Third issue, the final 3rd phase of Izaro is a bit unbalanced, to speak the least. For a level 33 zone and having no option to logout, tp out to restore flasks, fighting this boss is a nightmare if you decide to complete the labyrinth right after finishing act 3. Having no space to kite, taking huge hits from his physical attacks, lack of spawning mobs, not being able to log out/portal out and an ENOURMOUS HP pool that never ends makes the fight extremely stressful. Seriously, Malachai compared to Izaro with his traps is a joke. And if it was stressful for me, as experienced player, I can only assume how new players feel after encountering this boss fight.

Here is my offer on solutions to these issues:
1. Either lower up the damage of traps or bring the area level to 45-50 to match the difficulty of the labyrinth with the monster difficulty, so you can actually progress through labyrinth and get exp/loot instead of just running it on level 55 and be bored to death.

2. Shorten up the length of the labyrinth.

3. First 2 phases of Izaro are fine, the third one is unbalanced, in my opinion. So, here several options(doesn't have to be all of them) how to balance it:
- Make Izaro spawn more minions to fill out the flasks easier
- Cut his HP pool in half(at least)
- The damage of his is actually fine with me, but the traps should probably get a little nerfed by 10-20% of its damage, though the traps outside of Izaro can keep remain the same. It is the combination of traps and Izaro himself that makes this fight frustrating.


To sum up, it's not the traps that are underwhelming, nor the Izaro himself, it's the labyrinth itself that just keeps going on and on and on and on making you forget if you are actually playing PoE or some other rogue like game.
Hopefully at least some of this feedback will be taken in consideration into future development of this expansion. That's it from me. Thanks for reading

How much hp did you have, what were your resist can you talk a little bit about the spec of your character because I've beated him quite easily with a character with 1k life. I would say he was the last strength as malachai

I just made it at 47 in HC in normal lab. 2339 HP , 3rd fight , took a hit by izaro i wonder what exactly probably a charge as i've been knocked back in traps , dead in 1 sec. GG.

I'm a bit confused currently.

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diablofdb wrote:

How much hp did you have, what were your resist can you talk a little bit about the spec of your character because I've beated him quite easily with a character with 1k life. I would say he was the last strength as malachai

I had 1.5k HP(maybe like 1460). Was capped. My DPS was absolutely fine, I killed Malachai in under 1 minute first form, 1.5 minute second form. The problem was dodging everything, I simply was running out of flasks before he would spawn more minions. His HP was taking forever to go down, the bar was barely going down, the fight was just going on and on and on for like 5 minutes, I am not kidding. When his HP was absolutely black(less than 1% HP) I decided to just act more aggressive and finish the fucker, but not first, not second, not even the third firestorm finished him off, instead I completely ran out of pots before I could kill his minions, went into a saw trap and died there. It's either the guy has crazy elemental resist or he has a way too high HP bar. Or it could be both.

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Yesu wrote:

I just made it at 47 in HC in normal lab. 2339 HP , 3rd fight , took a hit by izaro i wonder what exactly probably a charge as i've been knocked back in traps , dead in 1 sec. GG.

I'm a bit confused currently.

Izaro has a great potential of being an interesting boss fight, but for a level 33 zone. You gotta be kidding me

Well I did him with 47 on a summoner with a friend and actually we did not kill him in a legit way.

He had 2 attacks that onehitted our characters, they were not really tanky, as usual for summoners, but the fact that he randomly gets at least one of the 3 conduits even if you permanently activate them (if not he gets all 3... which at this point is basically GG).

If he gets the cold one he almost freezes with every single hit. And that is with 75% cold resistance, which is not really hard to achieve in normal.

However our solution was fairly simply, one of us just died and the minions killed him alone, and so the other one who was just waiting outside got credit... it is a cheesy way, but he is so much harder than malachai. When I tried him first I actually did not skill any life passivs, because that's how I usually play normal, having the minion nodes early makes life so much... not easier, but leveling just goes faster, and in standard you can live with dying once or twice to something stupid exspecially in normal. And on the first try in normal I actually thought they made the game harder in general. But after visiting Malachai on lvl40 or so (I actually leveled quite a lot inside the labyrinth), I noticed how ridicolous easy malachai is compared to izaro.

Right now there are only two things that are really dangerous, those Perandus Mobs and Izaro. The regular content didn't get any harder despite having a lot more power avaible and the traps deal %based damage so you dont really have to gear for them. Having Lightning Warp allows you to pass most of them anyway and Flame Dash helps with the rest. Blink Arrow likely works similar.

Overall Izaro might not be as hard as malachai but the fact that you cannot port out as a HC player or just die as an SC player makes him way harder than Malachai. If my flasks are empty on malachai I do one of the things mentioned before (either die or port out).

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I just made it at 47 in HC in normal lab. 2339 HP , 3rd fight , took a hit by izaro i wonder what exactly probably a charge as i've been knocked back in traps , dead in 1 sec. GG.

If Izaro has this green ring around him, he teleports one random thing inside this ring into traps. Happened to my Zombies a lot, although they dont really care about it.

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If Izaro has this green ring around him, he teleports one random thing inside this ring into traps. Happened to my Zombies a lot, although they dont really care about it.

Oh , didn't see it. It happened so fast. To my mind the problem is not Izaro itself (including this skill) but the damage of traps which are insanely punishing.

Beat Izaro and Labyrinth at 41 in HC, Gotta learn his mechanics if you think its hard. Playing a 1.2k Life Fire Arrow / Lightning Arrow both 4 links.

Got him at 41 myself, ES/Life Shadow with OoS with PCoC, increase AoE and culling/Arc with elemental focus, controlled destruction, Faster casting.

Takes practice man.

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HeWhoAnswersTheCall wrote:

Got him at 41 myself, ES/Life Shadow with OoS with PCoC, increase AoE and culling/Arc with elemental focus, controlled destruction, Faster casting.

Takes practice man.

His difficulty is not the point of this thread.