I'm SURE everyone's already used to him but

"

MedicMortal wrote:

Actually I'm offering healthy criticism of certain game design choices that may lead to a better overall experience for what should be the main player-base, Hardcore.

Your ad hominem/strawman mixup doesn't address any of points I've made about this specific encounter.

First:
Main player-base for a company should be the one, thats contributing the most money.
Thats for sure not hardcore.

Second:
If you want to discuss every single encounter in the game that might obliterate your character without warning, you just signed up for a very very long and exhausting task.
Its part of the game to acquire that knowledge - doesnt matter if you watch videos or read the wiki to get there or trade RIPs for knowledge. Thats entirely your call.

Third:
If you go for the "I´ll find out myself and do it blindfolded in HC" approach, dont be surprised if noone gives a shit or laughs at you.

I love how people are taking this time to give me advice on the boss instead of discussing this point at hand.

I'm highlighting a broken expectation here; IF I destroy Izaro without using a basalt flask of iron skin, and a granite flask I reasonably expect to be even more tanky when I use these flasks and it puts me from 8k to over 16k armour.

What I do not expect, what NO ONE should expect is to still take 4k damage between two shots that happen in less than a second. The problem is 16k armour feels exactly like 7k or less armour which to me is a design flaw.

It doesn't actually make sense to expect the player to think "OK I doubled my amour, now I'm going to take the exact same damage" regardless of how trivial endurance charges makes the fight if you kite him. Making him dangerous is fine but make it telegraphed like every single other encounter prior to this.

Even innocence says "I am your god" and Daresso gets his buff multiple times before he gets it permanently(clearly showing the buff after he sits still for multiple seconds), Malachai has a portal thats easy to see, kitava's ground explosions follow a set pattern and don't hit you in quick succession in a milisecond time frame

The difference in design is staggeringly simple to see, and I am baffled that anyone would defend this when a better example of a boss IS LITERALLY IN THE SAME AREA

Taking this time to defend your game is pretty pointless seeing as I invested multiple HC characters and have played through the pre-map content. Obviously I like the game. No excuse to ignore problems with it.

"

MedicMortal wrote:

I love how people are taking this time to give me advice on the boss instead of discussing this point at hand.

I'm highlighting a broken expectation here; IF I destroy Izaro without using a basalt flask of iron skin, and a granite flask I reasonably expect to be even more tanky when I use these flasks and it puts me from 8k to over 16k armour.

What I do not expect, what NO ONE should expect is to still take 4k damage between two shots that happen in less than a second. The problem is 16k armour feels exactly like 7k or less armour which to me is a design flaw.

It doesn't actually make sense to expect the player to think "OK I doubled my amour, now I'm going to take the exact same damage" regardless of how trivial endurance charges makes the fight if you kite him. Making him dangerous is fine but make it telegraphed like every single other encounter prior to this.

Even innocence says "I am your god" and Daresso gets his buff multiple times before he gets it permanently(clearly showing the buff after he sits still for multiple seconds), Malachai has a portal thats easy to see, kitava's ground explosions follow a set pattern and don't hit you in quick succession in a milisecond time frame

The difference in design is staggeringly simple to see, and I am baffled that anyone would defend this when a better example of a boss IS LITERALLY IN THE SAME AREA

Taking this time to defend your game is pretty pointless seeing as I invested multiple HC characters and have played through the pre-map content. Obviously I like the game. No excuse to ignore problems with it.

Dude, please except that you are a new player and your expectations are completely unreasonable for a game like this. This is a complete live and learn title, not a hand holding game.

In your OP "When I play a game I fully expect to be able to kill something as every type of character I choose"

Really? If you honestly expect this to be true than you should just quit the game now because you will not like the content ahead, this is not the game for you. I mean that in the most sincere way. PoE is a complete trial by fire title and not an "everyone wins" type of game. There are also plenty of other encounters like this in PoE where the hardest monster in a map is not going to be the boss. Argus is a good preliminary example of this, he is fast and he hits much harder than Izaro. This isn't a "design flaw", it the design. It may not be typical or even logical in some cases but it is the design. The fact that you can't accept this doesn't really bode well for your future experiences because if you are complaining about Merc Izaro, I can only imagine your posts when you fight some of the harder map bosses that have no visual or audio cues on their immense danger. Or your first 4+ essence mob of Envy that grabs you from the ground to drop you at it's feet to kill you or your first living blood encounter without a bleed flask. I can go on for days about potential ways you are going to die in this game.

First rule of Hardcore, expect to die, and die often. If you can't accept this than you are not going to enjoy your experience. Knowledge > All in this game. Live and learn and leave your traditional ideas about game design in the past with PoE, a lot of things regarding "normalized" progression, difficulty curves, build investment, player interaction etc are all completely unique to this game which is mostly what makes it amazing.

"

MedicMortal wrote:

as a new player who only played Hardcore, I am extremely frustrated by the 'boss' Argus in Mercenary Labyrinth. I had over 16000 armour and 4k hp and completely obliterated kitava and Izario himself without using my basalt/granite flasks to get my armour that high.

Walk in and fight this dude for a millisecond and die instantly. Extremely poor design to have what seems to be a random encounter do more damage than your end boss to be honest.

Completely killed any motivation I had to continue playing the game. I'm sure there's more examples of this where something just unexpectedly completely erases your character despite putting in time and effort and being invulnerable 95% of the time.

Guess its completely balanced around those that purchase kills from other players and boost their character by purchasing exalted orbs or something.


When I play a game I fully expect to be able to kill something as every type of character I choose; Obviously this fight is extremely one sided to melee skills like cyclone, etc.

If thats how the games designed then it won't see any money from me.

You have a really weak character, if Argus in Merciless lab destroys you. When i was leveling my Slayer, i crushed Argus without any problems.
How many HP do you have, and how good is your HP sustain? Do you use Fortify?

Also, Argus is strong while he uses Enrage, but still very dumb. He can be kited, he can aggroed on Decoy totem, etc.

And my personal advice - dont play Hardcore in PoE, if hadnt learned it very well, at least. Will save you from insane frustration and countless inevitable deaths.

"

casper0010 wrote:

There is a unique door to Argus' room.

It may depend on the lab's layout, but in the one fight I had with him since he was cut out from the twi lower lab's recently, there was NO door before his 'room', definitively.

Another good advice would be:

If something looks like it could chew you through like a gum and spit you on the next wall as a ball of goo, than you may not facetank it!

Even with your "insane" amount of 16k armor (which is nothing as mentioned above) you don't want to tank all hits, especially not from enraged Boss-mobs^^

Git Gud, or buy a taste of hate/ wear lightning coil.

I think 16k armour will mitigate more physical damage than a lightning coil + taste of hate against merciless argus.

"

Snorkle_uk wrote:

I think 16k armour will mitigate more physical damage than a lightning coil + taste of hate against merciless argus.

Well, assuming capped light+cold res, LC and ToH are better, even the non-legacy ones.