Serious request of the development team

Thank you all for the responses and for keeping it constructive; I appreciate it!

I agree that there needs to be variety of boss AI in response to stereotypical play style, indicative of each class. The trouble is not necessarily how the AI moves or interacts with the player, but the lack of subtly in that interaction.

Someone said in a comment that damage is the problem and that is partially how I feel. If a boss moves slowly and then leaps on top of you, the severe amount of damage they do in that first initial hit is usually a one-shot and therefore turns the encounter into a undesirable one.

Please keep in mind -I kite like it's my job with a Ranger. I cast Blast Rain twice and then move a short distance (usually by actually moving) then cast Blast Rain twice, then move again by using Blink Arrow. When I land, I cast Mirror Arrow in the opposite direction of myself, to hopefully lure the boss away from me and then cast Blast Rain twice and repeat the cycle. This type of play is engaging to me and I absolutely love it. Because depending on mechanics of adds, or I miss click, the boss can hit me and do serious damage. It gets the heart going and I mash my potions carefully and then try and start the damage cycle again.

That is the encounter I prefer. Like the first two Izaro encounters. Large room, boss moves slowly and leaps, adds, random mechanics that have to be dealt with, while moving and attacking. The third encounter is where I throw my hands in the air, because GGG defaults back to a design style that I personally detest. Filling the room with unavoidable mechanics that cause serious damage, so you spend more time focusing on not hitting the traps and barely focus on the boss - is not engaging gameplay. The fight becomes avoiding the room and not engaging the boss.

There are too many bosses that do not have the nuance of Izaro - the Spider boss in the Sewer maps, for example. It is at range and then leaps on top of you and hits you so fast and so hard, that you mash potions quickly, trying to move away or recover.

My suggestion is have the boss leap and hit you three times and then leap away. Nuance. Right now the AI feels binary: "move to target, stay on target and continually hit as hard as possible"

If we manage to get away? "Move to target (too quickly to avoid) and stay on top of target and hit as hard as possible."

Nuance to the AI for bosses will make this a better process. Make reaction time a thing in the design. I watch bosses use three different attacks (once they have moved to stand on my head) and they use all three attacks so quickly that I essentially have to just see if my resistances and health pool can survive and when I get the chance to blink away, they jump on my head and repeat.

It's not engaging, fun game play.

Blizzard has gotten D3 wrong on many different levels, but mainly in the area of currency, items, drop rates, etc. PoE has done a BRILLIANT job at this. However, gameplay and AI nuance for D3 is far superior to PoE and one that makes me sad that PoE can't top that level of artistry, for lack of a better word.

I don't want dumbed down fights. I want nuance.

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Someone said in a comment that damage is the problem and that is partially how I feel. If a boss moves slowly and then leaps on top of you, the severe amount of damage they do in that first initial hit is usually a one-shot and therefore turns the encounter into a undesirable one.

a) Movement abilities usually have cooldown (Torr Olgosso and other Exiles aside, although Torr is most notable), exspecially the Blacksmith (Hillock) has one. And he deals heavy damage because he has a very unreliable attack, he cannot hit a moving player. So you bring him half down, wait for him to jump after pulling out the sword and kill him. He is also not that fast and doesn't even hit too hard, autoattacks for most bosses are not really dangerous.

b) The other annoying enemy attack is flicker strike and it is a lot more problematic, because it is the only one that is unavoidable. I can agree that some enemies deal a bit too much damage with it, but again it is not used too often and every character has good ways of avoiding it with Blink Arrow you can almost ignore it, because you can blink when they flicker and they essentially wasted it to go to your clone. It is more dangerous on regular mobs than on bosses atm.

c) Lightning Warp, I would agree that one being terrible if you are melee, because you take damage when enemies warp away (ask a melee how he feels about Courtyard :P), for ranged it is a non issue

d) Shield Charge and Charge are not really dangerous although they might catch you offguard in a map that gives enemies increased movespeed and increased AoE (although only Shield Charge has the AoE). They have a high chance to stun and deal serious damage if the enemy traveled a bit.

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My suggestion is have the boss leap and hit you three times and then leap away. Nuance. Right now the AI feels binary: "move to target, stay on target and continually hit as hard as possible"

Right now bosses jump you and then they are at your mercy. Which makes a lot more sense. They are not spamming their attack and again with the right defenses they don't deal damage. The Sewer boss is not hard, it deals mostly chaos damage and physical damage and not too much. Not to mention that many people when playing ranged take hardly any defense, because they think they can always outrange eneies, which is never the case, because otherwise melees would stand a chance. A ranger with a bow needs the same defenses as a 2h melee ranger, because many situations force him into close combat either by providing a small arena, or by having to handle very fast enemies or by having enemies that can jump.

If your character cannot survive in melee he is simply not good enough for this content. Maybe improve flasks, evasion based characters should always either have taste of hate or at least a basalt flask. Look at defensive Buffs, Arctic Armor is great against enemies jumping you because they get chilled once hitting you making their next attack slower. Cast when damage taken with Vortex serves a similar purpose. I do assume that your resistances are capped (chaos at least not negative) and you have the usual 4,5 to 5k HP which is enough for early maps.

Also Check your equip a lot of people are wearing uniques just because they are unique, but they are often not good. The same goes for weapons if you are an Archer there are hardly good bows, exspecially if you are using Blast Rain, because it doesn't benefit from Projectiles nor from Pierce, Fork, Chain. The only good one would be Lioneyes but reflect could kill you. The Breach bow might also be really good.

So overall if you would make that argument over one of the guardians or red bosses I would totally agree, but when you are dying instantly to a T3 boss I can with certainty say that you might have to improve a few things and just go to the gameplay forum and ask, there are plenty of people that will help you to make some improvements.