River Hags for a Harcore game

+1

"Cheap mechanics" which bypass most defences should not exist.



Some honourable mentions of these mechanics in PoE2 are:

*instant-death via "Drowning Orbs" of the River Hag (3 sec. Timer or Instant Death, regardless of any defences)
*instant-death via Zarokh's "Finger-of-Death", after the Timer has expired



Some honourable mentions of these mechanics in PoE1 are:

*"Memory Game" (solve the "game" or recive lethal elemental damage)
*"Maven's Punishment" (applied via rotating beams), which disables life and energy shield recovery for 10 seconds. (this forces ppl to play certain builds, not focusing on these defensive aspects)
*"Sirus Meteor" (run out the Maze or get smashed)
*Eater of Worlds "Drowning Orbs"
*Searing Exarch "Searing Rune", which prevents recovery of Life or Energy Shield (didn't had fun with my Boneshatter Jugg' in there...)


All these mechanics "break" some builds by bypassing or disabling a good portion of their Items/Passive Tree specs; while leaving other builds completly unharmed (e.g. a Glasscannon without liferegen).

This is very bad, because it nullifies the players decisions and desires (e.g. to get good defences).

While in PoE1 most of these nasty mechanics stem from "Pinnacle Bosses" to artificial make em "harder" (just for some builds thou);
the Drowning Orbs of the River Hag in PoE2 will torture u in some Maps and in "Drowning City" & "Cruel Riverside".

If i encounter any of the River Hags in a Map; i just log out & re-roll the map btw.
Not worth to loose a character by accidentally getting trapped in a orb.
Similar in campaign, i just "rush" through the "Drowning City" to reach the "Apex of Filth" because i dont want to engage with these mechanics. Kinda sad.


"*Thinking*":

"In Path of Exile (1 & 2), there are many mechanics that disable certain builds, especially on the defensive side.
Why hasn't GGG introduced a similar mechanic to 'cut off' player power for offensive builds, such as Glasscannon?"

Like this:



"Void Barrier" 60 Spirit
"A mythical shield, crafted from void-touched tentacles that warp reality, yet it feeds on the lifeforce of its wielder."

"All incoming damage will be processed through a 'Sigmoid function.'

Very small incoming damage will be exponentially increased,
while extremely high incoming damage will be exponentially reduced.

The Void Barrier also introduces a brief 'hit delay,' meaning the entity protected by the Barrier can only be hit once every 333 milliseconds."

This way Pinnacle bosses would be very resistant to "Glasscannon-Boss-Oneshotting" Builds; while "weaker, zDPS" Builds still do "some" damage.

Players with this Barrier would be immune to oneshot damage (but will likely die to multiple "smaller" hits now).


A very cheap fix indeed; but similar "bad" as the fixes to bypass our defences...


Best regards

ArC

They should never balance around hardcore. Its why poe1 got balanced around the logout macro and why poe2 is pausecore.

It wouldn't solve the problem, but I'd feel a lot better about River Hags if they simply didn't spawn the drowning orb on top of the player. The original mechanic didn't do this.

That small change might help alleviate many of the situations (if not all of them) where you become trapped due to unfortunate circumstances, with little or no recourse to escape the orb(s).

You'd still have situations where three hags hit you with orbs at once from the edge of your screen while you are stuck for one reason or another, but you'd at least have some warning if they spawned at a short distance.

"

Qna#0480 wrote:

Let me know when you encounter a River Hag with Temporal bubble & Shroudwalker, proper pinnacle boss right there. No counterplay beside flinch logout

- Anime steps behinds you and whispers sweet death poem for you to instantly die.

Encountered long time ago with my half-baked monk a River Hag with Freeze & Temporal Bubble combo , had to nope away & use hit & run for several minutes before i got rid of it .

Now imagine you have to fight that Rare with a Mace Warrior lmao
These builds get deleted mid-jump VS white mob river hag , what a circus

Couldn't agree more. Have this mechanic as some form of pinnacle content.

It shouldn't be a basic mob mechanic in campaign. Such a stupid game design.

It is one of the many things that can make the game more of a chore to play than a fun hobby. Needs to be removed soon before many more players move on.

Monster hunter wilds comes out in 2 days. I can only speak for myself but im generally a 1 game at a time player as I get addicted to games fast. Im addicted to peo2 right now but alot of things in the game make me want to rage quit every other day. Once I move on I'm not coming back as I know that there is little enjoyment or dopamine it's just a frustrating addiction.

They don't have much time left to save the game.