Merveil

Well.. I did not have any qualms with the old Merveil.. She was the FIRST act boss, consequently, she was meant to be at the lower end of the curve in terms of difficulty.. Before FM, Merveil was easier compared to the Vaal Oversoul, who was easier compared to Piety, who was easier compared to Dominus..

After FM, Dominus and Merveil are on the same level in terms of difficulty, Piety follows, followed by the Vaal Oversoul.. I'm not sure what prompted this change, but recently, GGG is on a trend of making changes that actually result in deteriorating the gameplay experience (some of them being these revamped boss fights, invasion mechanics, etc).

Frankly though, I don't care about it much, since it's just thrice per character, after which I don't need to bother with this stuff..

Totem users have the same issue, at least on maps. The encounter does absurd amounts of damage to minions and totems, so you get very little damage in. She is much easier with a build that can leech, especially one that has endless flasks (crit).

Kind of oftopic, but is there a topic/poll on skipped map bosses?

I finally have a char that is capable of insane dps like I used to see on streams and youtube so really happy but still scared to do Merveil / Dominus in maps, aswell as very few others.

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Zanixx wrote:

To say it's harder than Dom is very weird to me.

Well, my SRS killed lvl 71 Palace Dominus (from Zana's quest) with ease but after using two portals I had to skip Graveyard Merveil (lvl 70) again because she's way too rippy. I think Merveil is currently the hardest map boss in the game (assuming similar map levels, of course).

Did a 70 Graveyard map this morning on m cold witch. I had just leveled and play on Rampage so wasn't terribly worried if I died. Anyway do the map, jump straight into the bossfight (usually fullclear all maps but I had heard about Merveil and didn't want to lose unnecessary xp).

Died.
Tried different tactics.
Died.
Cleared out trash mobs and went to town on Merveil.
Died.
Swapped attack skills for optimal single target
Died.
Found an optimal totem/buffs, started to get a good freeze chain.
Frozen for 3 seconds.
Died.

Said fuck it and went to do the Vorici mission on my last portal. It was the "Don't kill the hostage" one, no problem.

Offscreened the hostage with Glacial Cascade.

Time to go to work, couldn't exit the game fast enough

The graveyard merv i didn't find to tough. I went in with 75% res, a saphire, 4500 hp, and two flasks with defreeze mod. She does fairly good dps but nothing unusual for the map level.

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Bowman8763 wrote:

To try to kill Merveil as a summoner sucks balls, even with max cold resists. It's just lame how that fight is so hard but yet I can plow right through Piety with no issues at all.

Did anyone at GGG even test out these fights before launch? Doesn't make sense at all. If you're going to make boss encounters more difficult, don't you think you should consider all of them and not just one or two?

Don't get me wrong, it's a good battle, but why should Merveil be the pinnacle of the game? It's an Act 1 boss. Heck, Dominus is an easier fight than Merveil.

Zombies and skeletons die a lot even at lv24, especially at bosses, not just at Merveil. This may be different with necromantic aegis, but i never bothered to try it. I use spectres to tank bosses (right spectre can tank anything) and SRS or spells to do damage.
Also i noticed if before resists were enough - now it seems PoE was tuned so everyone must use shields. And before auras/passives worked different, so it was easy to get 85% all res. But now having 60%+ block/spell block looks like a mandatory to me.
I am playing solely summoner since the OBT start.

That fight seems to be super build dependent. Was having trouble with the map version at first (graveyard and later maelstorm of chaos), and then realized that as a poison arrow ranger I could fire one arrow whenever she attacked, and then avoid the next attack. The animated weapons are kitable even though I couldn't kill them. My trap character is pretty similar for the fight. The second form is significantly harder but is still beatable with decent gear and good avoidance of the columns.

On the other hand I tried cruel mervil with a melee double strike character and barely completed it. I can't imagine doing the map versions with a summoner or melee character where you can't avoid her attacks in the first form.

Some monsters seem to be designed for the just very purpose to kill players under every circumstances no matter what they do. I don't care. I die multiple times and lose multiple 10% xp, but I go on. It's GGG's game, not ours.

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Kumlekar wrote:

[..]
I can't imagine doing the map versions with a summoner or melee character where you can't avoid her attacks in the first form.

Normally i don't do low level maps, but for the sake of experiment.
I went to the Temple map to pick a mob for spectring:
http://i.imgur.com/NEFzWrx.jpg

Then went directly to the Graveyard boss:
http://i.imgur.com/4fBtJHC.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/kMqdhE2.jpg

But imo her lv75 version (Necropolis) is stronger. However even an average tanky type mob can tank her 1st and 2nd forms:
http://i.imgur.com/ggnQfvP.jpg

Mbs i use to tank are giant statues, giant vaal soldiers, giant skeletons, bears, gorillas.