Scared to try Act V in HC

So after ~4y of PoE I decided to try and pick up the HC achievements. I'm a long-time roguelike player so permadeath isn't new to me, but I'm not a good PoE player and I don't trade so my builds are generally underpowered. I managed to kill Normal Malachai and Normal Izaro in HC in 2.6, and was about to face Cruel Merveil when 3.0 came out. I've just returned to my HC character (Raider archer) and I've just reached Oriath. How on earth am I going to kill Avarius without dying, let alone Kitava? I'm using NeverSink's Tornado Shot guide, and I was lucky enough to chance a Death's Harp, but I don't fancy my chances at all. I've studied the video guide to Avarius/Innocence and I can't see how I'm not going to run out of flasks, assuming I can stay out of the way of one-shots.

Do any HC players have any tips for the Avarius fight?

Hey there,

The best tip I can give you is to watch this video. Engineering Eternity's guides are the clearest and most informative I've ever found. If you check out what he has to say about each boss before going up against it, you'll have the info fresh in your memory so you're prepared. Just in case it isn't obvious, the background footage shows the ability he's discussing.

As for flask charges, I've never had a problem on that fight. Both Avarious and Innocence will become invulnerable and summon heaps of adds ("I AM THE EMPEROR!"), and that should comfortably fill your flasks. I don't know if the build you refer to is particularly flask-reliant (you haven't given us a link), but I wouldn't expect that of a Tornado Shot Raider.

EE's guide will help you to make sure both that you're adequately geared from a survival standpoint, and also that you understand the mechanics. From my personal experience in Hardcore, I'd say the only difficult part is "I AM THE STORM!". Avarius is trivial. Innocence's abilities are mostly very dangerous but clearly telegraphed, and often the way of dealing with them is pretty intuitive - for example, the beam is countered by running away from it or standing behind something. That isn't rocket science. I found the "STORM!" ability challenging because if you panic and second-guess yourself at the wrong moment, you can be hit by a few of them and they deal much more damage than their tiny size might suggest. Remember that you can always grind a few levels to get a bit more health, or to increase your damage. Damage isn't everything, but the less time you have to spend fighting a boss, the more likely you are to survive the encounter.

Good luck, Exile!

Avarius is actually one of the easiest story bosses. He actually tells you what he's going to do next. Stack somewhere around 1800-2k health and his slam attack shouldn't kill you. Run behind a statue when you hear "i am your god". The torch thing i think is the most dangerous, but it doesn't kills instantly and gives you time to react.

I'd worry much more about Gruthul if i were you.

If you are talking about 'LilyAlan' then (unless you are very skilled player) you will need better gear and more life on the tree. Otherwise Kitava will destroy you.

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magnate wrote:

and I don't trade

I find solution of big amount of problem! You must trade for getting good gear.

May i take some cookies?

You can watch whatever video you will find but the best you should do is getting some practice in softcore before facing boss in HC.

Farm or trade, get gear, cap your resistances get over 2k+ life with some mitigation (fortify, enfeeble ...). Keep you TP opened and stay close to it also helps (you need good movement skill).

Vampiruga - you don´t need to trade but you need to farm then.

Thanks everyone - really helpful on all counts. I don't think I understand what "take come cookies" means but please go ahead - I'm not averse to trading, just inexperienced. (I have actually managed once to use poe.trade to find someone online and buy something from them - Scrolls of Wisdom I think it was.)

I agree that LilyAlan's gear is sub-par - being my first HC character I have nothing to twink. With apologies for my ignorance, how do I put a link to her (or her gear) in my post?

So is there a particularly good forum or chat channel for newbie trading? Or should I just use poe.trade and then whisper people online?

And on farming, I presume the highest level accessible area (Templar Courts) is the best to run?

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magnate wrote:

And on farming, I presume the highest level accessible area (Templar Courts) is the best to run?

Usually the best is the one where you can get the most loot/xp per time. In act 5 before Avarius/Innocence there are several viable areas. Just try them out and pick one you like. You can use the '/reset_xp' command to easily find out how much xp/h you make.

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My impression (by looking at your character) is however that the biggest issue you have is lack of game knowledge/understanding.

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(I only play SSF so I cant properly answer any of your trading questions.)

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magnate wrote:

Do any HC players have any tips for the Avarius fight?

Didnt directly answer that but "overlevel and outgear" was my own approach - without practicing in softcore.

I'm a softcore player and I like to try things out on my own before resorting to guides (which however leads to a couple of deaths every now and then). But once you know the mechanics of the Avarius / Innocence fight, you can easily avoid all of them. On my second attempt, I even evaded the "I am your God" thing without hiding behind a statue.

The only thing you need is fast movement. For HC you may want to have the HP to actually survive a few hits, but theoretically you can beat the fight without losing hp at all. Kitava (especially concerning his add phases) is a lot scarier. So far, the only way I've figured out to beat Kitava without dying was to AoE kill everything before it deals damage.

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magnate wrote:

So is there a particularly good forum or chat channel for newbie trading? Or should I just use poe.trade and then whisper people online?

Definitely the latter, though you'll have a very hard time finding people in the permanent hardcore league that want to trade with you. Hardcore players are generally playing for actual challenge and so almost all of them play temp leagues only.

My most serious recommendation would be to play the Abyss league in HC when 3.1 comes out. Trading will be super easy using poe.trade, you will be able to deck out a character and hit 90 within a few weeks.