End of Act 5 impossible

Most things have already been said but there are a few things that i'd like to add.

1. Try to incorporate Warlords/Poachers mark into your build. Either via Blasphemy Support or by using curse on hit support. With them you won't need mana flasks anymore and they help a lot with staying alive. You also won't run out of healing if a boss battle takes longer an issue i faced often without them.

2. You can't have enough defenses in this game, it's literally not possible especially not once you reach the end game. Innocence otked you because you had bad resists, be prepared to get one shoted despite having full resis in the endgame. You need 5+ life on top of maxed out other defenses like armor/resis/evasion to at least avoid otks for the most part. This won't always save you from oks and 2 hit koes will be normal but it's at least something. When making a char you need about 200% max life from your skill tree, that requires about half the skill points you have and it's still not enough to really be save.

3. Once you start doing maps i highly suggest when you face the bosses then use the first encounter to study them. Instead of rushing in and trying to kill them, take your time, study their attack patterns and see how much damage they do to you with each of their attacks. If you end up getting killed doing that that's fine because when you have to do them again you know what your up against and some of them become a hell of alot easier once you know their attack patterns and can use that against them. In general in boss fights, don't even think about tanking their attacks, always dodge what you can.

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Baharoth15 wrote:

Most things have already been said but there are a few things that i'd like to add.

1. Try to incorporate Warlords/Poachers mark into your build. Either via Blasphemy Support or by using curse on hit support. With them you won't need mana flasks anymore and they help a lot with staying alive. You also won't run out of healing if a boss battle takes longer an issue i faced often without them.

2. You can't have enough defenses in this game, it's literally not possible especially not once you reach the end game. Innocence otked you because you had bad resists, be prepared to get one shoted despite having full resis in the endgame. You need 5+ life on top of maxed out other defenses like armor/resis/evasion to at least avoid otks for the most part. This won't always save you from oks and 2 hit koes will be normal but it's at least something. When making a char you need about 200% max life from your skill tree, that requires about half the skill points you have and it's still not enough to really be save.

3. Once you start doing maps i highly suggest when you face the bosses then use the first encounter to study them. Instead of rushing in and trying to kill them, take your time, study their attack patterns and see how much damage they do to you with each of their attacks. If you end up getting killed doing that that's fine because when you have to do them again you know what your up against and some of them become a hell of alot easier once you know their attack patterns and can use that against them. In general in boss fights, don't even think about tanking their attacks, always dodge what you can.

Thank you so much for more excellent feedback and advice. This community is great!

No idea how difficult this "Maps" business is, but I'll keep in mind the advice to use the first boss encounter to observe their behaviour, and take a death if it happens (just hope it doesn't happen in one second, hah).

Looked up those 'Mark' skills, and they do indeed look very good. The one planned for the build is Assassin's Mark, however. The downside to that is that it's intelligence-based, more or less, which I've found to be a big problem with this build. The crit chance gem I have is currently stalled at level 13 due to lack of intelligence, and I already have heaps from the amulet. Thankfully it sounds like the defense bit should be covered, as the build should have +210% life.

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- 210% total life from passive tree with additional possible 35% from jewels and huge amount of STR results in easy high HP,
- Juggernaut provide easy access to general and elemental damage reductions,

I'll post some of my thoughts about the build, probably mostly for myself (it helps to write things down), but also for others that may be interested in it.

The build can be found here, and is called [3.3] "Size doesn't matter" - Double Strike Tank Guide [HC] Atziri/Izaro/Guardians/Shaper/Elder.

The build is based on strong defense, partly from ascendancy specialisation. On mechanics or offense, it is based on
* Swords
* Dualwielding (one "stat-stick")
* Double Strike in two set-ups: single target (boss) and clearing
* Focused on increasing critical strike chance and multiplier
* Hatred, which boosts cold damage
* Assassin's Mark curse, coupled with Curse on Hit and Herald of Ice (later Herald of Ash)
** Assassin's Mark increases chance for critical strikes, and Power charges
* Enduring Cry, to boost life regen and Endurance charges

Admittedly I have not been able to follow everything to the letter, particularly because it requires the right mix of sockets and basically all linked. Not easy to find randomly on good enough gear. I have also been using Cleave for crowd clearance. It's really, really good, although it means you need two good swords instead of 1 great + 1 stat-stick.

I do have most of the gems, but not all. And as mentioned above, a problem I have is relatively low intelligence, despite boosts from gear (primarily the amulet).

The way I see it (with fairly newbie eyes), is that the build is really well-made with skills that interact and empower each other. Highly specialised in swords, plus cold damage, and high boosts to crit chance+multiplier from both passive skills and other skills (and ideally equipment). Choice of curse plays into this, and presumably also charges.

I'll try to implement more bits of the full puzzle moving forward, but I do find the whole thing difficult. I don't have the right gear (sockets/links) and jiggling so many skills in chaotic combat is too much for me really. So far at least, in normal combat it's basically enough to just storm in and wave the swords around, and watch people freeze, explode and die. Cleave + Multistrike is very potent. Currently it is reported as 20k DPS, and it's "only" a 4-link. Double-Strike (5L) is reported as 11k DPS right now, but is definitely more efficient against single targets.

Don't know how frequent Maps will drop, but hopefully it's a good omen that I've found a Graveyard Map so far =)

You can craft some attributes such as inteligence by using crafting benches on your gear eventually.

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Rakiii wrote:

You can craft some attributes such as inteligence by using crafting benches on your gear eventually.

OMG, how do the experts pull off the Merciless Labyrinth (never mind the last one)?

Got an extra treasure key, got a pile of orbs from a silver key+cache, got to the very last fight with Izaro and whatever else he had in there. Got away a few times, healed up and managed to hit him a bit, then BOOM, you're dead :cry:

Traps all over the place so not many places to move, especially with all that stuff he throws all over the place.

Any tips?

Currently 3600+ HP and should be dealing plenty of damage with ~14k DPS from Double-Strike, prior to some other bonuses kicking in. But sadly he completely pawned me. Oh, and I disabled a mechanic of sorts in an earlier fight from a insta-kill item I picked up, so he *should* be weaker than his worst.

About to head off with Kitava for the last time, but figured another pair of ascendancy points would probably come in handy.

You need more life, much more. At 3,6k one of his slashes should be an otk or at least close to it. I wouldn't even bother trying him with less than 4,5k life. Better is 5k+. Also make sure not to carry over any mechanics from the first 2 battles. And try to get one or two shrine buffs, ideally the one that disables the traps in the last encounter.

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Baharoth15 wrote:

You need more life, much more. At 3,6k one of his slashes should be an otk or at least close to it. I wouldn't even bother trying him with less than 4,5k life. Better is 5k+. Also make sure not to carry over any mechanics from the first 2 battles. And try to get one or two shrine buffs, ideally the one that disables the traps in the last encounter.

Ouch! Then I need a lot more life :-o

Didn't find any shrine buffs in this run, at least not a permanent one (only found one in total so far in all my runs). Will keep my eyes peeled though.

Didn't get much sense of the flow of battle either in this last encounter, as I died within probably 10 seconds. But if I'm lacking 1000 life, that explains a thing or two. Will be hard to get that much more life while also keeping resistances and the right sockets-links. But I shall try.

- You should have whirling blades (WB) linked with faster attack and fortify (temporary buff that reduces incoming damage from hits by 20%).

You can consider using leap slam rather than WB (especially in lab worth using).

- You´re missing some reliable source of life recovery (beside life flasks) so think about taking Vitality Void passive to leech some life.

- Use enfeeble curse on bosses. It has triple effect (reduce their accuracy and both damage and crit damage).
It´s the best defensive curse in game (despite some penalty on bosses).

You can selfcast it on bosses or use blasphemy version.


Izaro deals mostly physical damage so use any source of physical damage mitigation to help you survive

such as endurance charges, granite/basalt flask or stibnite flask.

Although stibnite flask doesn´t reduce damage directly it will blind enemies and make them less accurate (works perfect with enfeeble).

- If you still struggle try to use decoy totem (linked with minion resistance) to distract Izaro (any boss).

Get some extra levels and upgrade your gear and try again.

Gl:)

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Pangaearocks wrote:

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Baharoth15 wrote:

You need more life, much more. At 3,6k one of his slashes should be an otk or at least close to it. I wouldn't even bother trying him with less than 4,5k life. Better is 5k+. Also make sure not to carry over any mechanics from the first 2 battles. And try to get one or two shrine buffs, ideally the one that disables the traps in the last encounter.

Ouch! Then I need a lot more life :-o

Didn't find any shrine buffs in this run, at least not a permanent one (only found one in total so far in all my runs). Will keep my eyes peeled though.

Didn't get much sense of the flow of battle either in this last encounter, as I died within probably 10 seconds. But if I'm lacking 1000 life, that explains a thing or two. Will be hard to get that much more life while also keeping resistances and the right sockets-links. But I shall try.

More life would be good. Knowledge is very important though. This site is used by many players: https://www.poelab.com/ It has general information and the daily layouts.

If you use Enfeeble (some curse-on-hit setup like orb of storms) + Arctic Armour + Fortify + Endurance Charges + blind + evasion/block then you can probably do it with 3.6k life per facetanking him if you disable all his buffs. But ultimately you need much more life anyway as a melee build.

Thank you both. poelab looks incredibly useful! Almost like cheese :o

Since the last post I've tried to grab more life-gear, and spent perhaps too many alchemies on upping resistances again. Didn't quite get there, but currently I have 4600 life and 71% fire, 75% cold and 67% lightning. Can't enchant the gear any further unfortunately (and had some unlucky rolls).

Had to shuffle skills around too, and unfortunately lost the very useful Stone Golem. But have also set up a trigger now, so I hope that will help a lot.

The helmet only had 1 red socket, so I had to spend some orbs, but it came out okay I think. Since I lost a red socket Cleave isn't as strong as it was, 20k down from 25k. But it should be okay I think. Double-Strike is strong, though, 17k now.

Not sure how this trigger business works, but this is my gear right now:



Quite pleased with that amulet, as now I shouldn't have any more problems with Intelligence. Hoped for more resistances here and there, but hopefully I can pick up some better gear later, enabling me to top up resistance again.

Life on particularly the boots and belt is very good. Sad to lose the unique belt, but this one should help me out more.

I moved the Faster Attack Support from the single-target Double-Strike setup over to Cleave, and bought Culling Strike for the former. Probably less DPS than Faster attack, but that 10% kill could be real useful against Izaro -- if I can survive long enough in the last fight.

Kinda need Hatred for damage, and am a little worried about enabling Arctic Armour too. That would take up 75% of a fairly small mana pool. An I already run out sometimes during these hefty combats (a life flask 'steals' 10%).

edit: Oh, and btw I see Fortify support was mentioned. I have a level 17 or so gem, but get it for free from the only Jewel I have so far, when using Cleave. So I basically have Fortify all the time.

The quickest way to a weapons upgrade as a non-trader: get a white corsair sword with as high a item level as you can. I like corsairs because of the high attack speed. If you notice the white corsair has almost a high physical damage as your rare ones before adding quality. Hit it with 4 whetstones and then an alchemy orb. Always use whetstones and armorers before using an alchemy because you have to use less to get to 20%. It's ALMOST (damn rng) guaranteed to be better than what you have. If you're going to use alchemys on things to upgrade gear make sure the implicit is higher or as close to what you're currently using. It should also have as high anilevel as possible. You stand a better chance of getting higher rolls.

Also, when you're a melee build you should have movement speed on your boots. Sometimes you have to run away like a scared child. No matter how many times you ask Izaro to leave you alone He never does, so you have to run :).