Is Cruel Piety a bit of a difficulty spike?

And if you haven't set up the godly combo Cast when Damage Taken - Enduring Cry - Immortal Call - Increased Duration up and running yet, DO IT NOW! It makes a world different for glass cannon build, speaking from a mostly-glass-cannon player!

Well guys, I did it! It was just a matter of finding an Artic Armor gem, and I made the Fire Form my little bitch. Didn't even need to run from it, just face tank and Freeze Pulse her to death. Ice Form still scares the shit outta me, though...

Yes the Ice form is the scariest from pure dmg.

Instead of using a arctic armour and having to level it up you couldve just used a granite flask of iron skin, as mentioned before in this Thread.

You REALLY should get one.


(Imagine going from like 200 armor to 20.000 as a barely naked witch)

Oh boy, don't wanna upset you, but the real diff.spike happens when you enter Cruel Spectre of God... :D

You need physical reduction, fast... AA alone isn't enough.. use Enduring Cry, granite flasks..

Spectre of God was pretty ok actually. Dominus was hard, but I guess you have to expect the final boss of the game to be something different from a walk in the park.

It seems like the freeze mechanic is an amazing security blanket for my lack of experiece with the game, altough clear speed might be subpar with Ice Spear.

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Vipermagi wrote:

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Monsieur_Madeline wrote:

Spectre of God was pretty ok actually. Dominus was hard, but I guess you have to expect the final boss of the game to be something different from a walk in the park.

For all intents and purposes, Piety is as much an act boss as Merveil, Vaal Oversoul and Dominus. Ever noticed how in A1 and 2, everyone has stuff to say upon killing the act boss, and that it actually happens with Piety instead of Dominus in A3? :P

I would define a 'story boss' as a special enemy with complex moves, NPC/lore hype and a dedicated, obligatory fight scene. The distinction between 'story bosses' and 'act bosses' is just one of timing, not the nature of the fight. By this logic, Brutus and Piety are definitely story bosses, getting as much hype as their respective act bosses. The Weaver probably counts as well. Others are a bit more debatable, such as the bandit lords (you have to fight two out of three, so not quite obligatory) and Hillock (he's a bit too simple to count as a proper boss).

The lack of eulogies for Dominus is probably based on an old RPG tradition that the game ends as soon as you defeat the final boss. Maybe the NPCs in the Sarn Encampment will have more to say when Act 4 comes out. (There's also the question of how and why we will travel to Act 4 - I'm hoping for something better than Lady Dialla saying 'TP up'.)

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Vipermagi wrote:

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Incompetent wrote:

The lack of eulogies for Dominus is probably based on an old RPG tradition that the game ends as soon as you defeat the final boss.

Remember that the release of act 3 (in its entirety) was simply everything up to and including Piety - Dominus was added in later, in what was sometimes called act 3.5. Originally, Piety flatout was the act 3 Boss.

Yes, I do remember that. Even at the time, it was made clear that Act 3 was unfinished (with the Sceptre of God as a mysterious building in the Barracks that led straight into the next difficulty). Given the state of Act 3 now, though, I think we can assume that Dominus is the real final boss of Act 3, and the act is complete apart from the segue into Act 4 (which will hopefully appear in the first half of this year).

What I'm also hoping is with the addition of Act 4, together with maybe a slight expansion of Act 1 (the areas are rather small compared to later acts), there will be enough content that we only need to go through the storyline twice before we're at monster level ~66 and ready for maps. In other words, Cruel difficulty can be taken out of the game.