Yet Another River Hag Rant

So after I had River Hags roll into an Augury, here are my slightly rage-induced thoughts about them.

A "gotcha" mechanic is a term used in game design when the game subverts its own design language in a way that the player does not expect, inevitably resulting in a failure state that the player had no way to predict or avoid. This kind of mechanic is almost never fun, and can be very frustrating for players who don't realize how they are triggering the failure state. Many games (including PoE 1) are guilty of including "gotcha" mechanics in their boss battles as a way to "increase" the difficulty.

Since the clearly-established rules of the game are that death (the failure state) occurs if hit points reach zero, the river hag's drowning balls represent a clear subversion of the regular rules, as they can cause death regardless of the player's hit points. This amounts to a "gotcha" mechanic, something that is only grudgingly accepted by most players in boss fights since many developers lack the talent or creative spark to build a good boss battle without falling back on "gotcha" mechanics to impose artificial difficulty. "Gotcha" mechanics have absolutely no place in the core gameplay loop of any game - their only function is to waste the player's time, something Path of Exile 2 has already become somewhat infamous for doing.

My suggestion - remove the shaper's drowning balls from river hags, and give them a standard frostbolt spell as a replacement. That would allow them to continue to be annoying from behind other monsters without the risk of setting off that spark of rage in the player's mind that may end up costing you MTX sales or hurt word-of-mouth advertising. This would be a much smaller step than completely re-doing the endgame, yet it would still demonstrate a commitment to fixing the elements of the game that are purely there to waste the player's time.