[EDITED] Chimera fight was great, until you changed the smoke color

re: summoner vs minotaur,

i played a summoner in harbinger and found the mino battle to be grossly overstated, in terms of difficulty/bad matchupness vs summons.

i had more of a problem with the falling rocks/inability to see where they're dropping than anything else. the slams are generally easy to flame dash away from.

i ironically had a harder time vs minotaur as a trapper this league.

1) Chimera - interesting fight, sometimes annoying invulnerable phases but overall well designed and you can maneuver well there.

2) Hydra - the design seems interesting and unique but I am not fan of bullet hell. The projectiles are hard to avoid (especially with extra projectiles and/or chain). The fight is quite manageable despite it´s played in the small arena.

3) Phoenix - I like the design but the arena is too small to maneuver there (especially with an extra AoE).

4) Minotaur - He´s cool and all but his "underground move and slam" is hard to avoid and fatal.

Big AoE and damage overall is painful in tiny arena.

I like the boss fights in the PoE in general but the most of them are played in small arenas (especially for party play) cluttered with many different (un)avoidable crap.

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johnKeys wrote:

Really enjoyed this fight. the pace, the intensity. the synergy with the music.

Minions hit too hard compared to other T16 monsters, and could use a slight nerf.
but he is the most fun fight among the 3 Guardians I faced so far (didn't fight Phoenix yet).

It is really nice you like this fight. Personally I started to hate it, not because it is hard, but it is too long and... boring. Of course, first ten times could be exciting, but I killed him… few hundred’s times, so now I’m really disgusted with these invulnerable phases and all that stuff just to… get fragment to access Shaper/Uber Elder. Did it 4 times only yesterday and I have quite enough to answer people “sec., chimera fight”, because when I open portal in the arena, it is easy to accidentally enter it when Chimera enters the "hide in the clouds" phase. And it is not that I’m bored, as I still enjoy Shaper fight. In other side, I started to enjoy… T16 Erradicator fights, from when I managed to completely trivialize this encounter.

chimera is the least fun for me , due to the smoke sections
i find it unfair that he can hit me while i can't hit him.

1. Hydra - it has the most movement , keeping you actively avoiding the attacks.
2. Pheonix - nice fight , that gets progressively harder as it goes on. It can be frustrating with some mods but overall a fun fight.
3. Minotaur - this fight sucks with multiple ppl, but soloing it is simply leading him in a large circle. you have to know to unsummon the golem so you can predict where he will untunnel (where you were)

4. Chimera - as i said smoke sections are not fun, and the other parts are just easy to avoid.
if i find him in the smoke fast it easy, if he happens to be in the last one i go to then i may have taken too much dmg.

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nadakuu wrote:

3. Minotaur - this fight sucks with multiple ppl, but soloing it is simply leading him in a large circle. you have to know to unsummon the golem so you can predict where he will untunnel (where you were)

You know about minion builds, right?

That's my issue with the Minotaur fight, as a Trapper: the artificial difficulty.
Limiting movement with long-lasting AoE zones and barriers feels cheap.

One of the good things about Chimera, is you have plenty of kiting space, and aren't forced to face-tank by cheap arena mechanics.

Minotaur already has that Diablo Butcher style "if he catches you" feel to him. No need to limit my movement when I run around trying to avoid becoming "fresh meat".

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johnKeys wrote:

Minotaur already has that Diablo Butcher style "if he catches you" feel to him. No need to limit my movement when I run around trying to avoid becoming "fresh meat".

There kind of is, because he is quite slow.

Chimara: Imo chimera needs a complete rework. Using a well equipped character you can either win the fight death-less or fail it completely on same skill level just based on luck. It simply comes down if you find the correct cloud early enough or not. Needless to say that the balancing of a fight should never be based on whether you are able to distinguish the colors of the clouds and the ground or not, especially when the game has no colorblind mode. These factors combined makes the phase completely horrible, the rest is somehow ok but not great as well. One attack is easy to dodge, the other one you simply have to survive (you will if you got enough HP), the AOE is also easy to dodge. This phase is boring as nothing else happens than dodging and hitting. The ads are ok. Remove or rework this boss please.

Hyrda: This fight is quite interesting as you somehow have to manage to stay behind your opponent all the time to avoid getting hit. This is not easy as soon as more projectiles cross the room. The only bad thing about this fight: When hydra re-appears anywhere in the room you don't really have time to react. In many cases she just one shots you directly after showing up, maybe you don't even recognized her. Again luck based and should be somehow improved, maybe somehow indicate where she will reenter a few seconds before that happens. Besides that a well designed boss.

Minotaur: Really hard fight. I enjoy his slam attacks and the way you need to dodge these attacks. However the falling rocks combined with the slow are too much imo when you keep in mind that this is only the environment, not even the boss itself. Sometimes the AOE of the falling rocks covers too much of the room, if the minotaur is starting his slam attack you can only decide where you are going to die. At least in difference to Hydra and especially Chimera it is not luck based as you know where the circles will appear and you can try to get him place them somewhere where you can handle it. On the other hand if the rock hits you or not is more or less luck again. Imo this is acceptable as it is comparable to doding a melee attack and overall a good boss, maybe the balancing could be adjusted a little bit.

Phoenix: Very good balancing and fight. I enjoy the flow of this fight very much, the only fight that is really not depending on luck. Can get tricky with AOE mod on map but even in this case the fight is still possible, but you have to manage the positioning exactly to make Phoenix channel his AOE at some edge of the room. More ads at the end of the fight increase the difficulty on the one hand but killing the minions also refills the flasks. Overall a great boss. Absolutely nothing to change here.

minotaur is easy if you have three things:

- movement skill to pass those lightning barriers without contact (blink arrow, lightning warp) and to get away from damaging aoe.
- just one defense layer - solid dodge OR armour OR block + leech, thats it, you just facetanking him and retreating from his damaging areas.
- hp pool to tank his one hit so you will leech to full hp before getting another one.

of course it depends on a build, i found minotaur very challanging to deal with as summoner because you dont have those defenses usually as well as leech, so it will be very good if you have complete build and your minions have huge dps (at least 1.5m shaper dps). you can have 65-68% of block as summoner nevertheless (rumi's, shield (lioneye preferably), bone offering (ascendancy)).

its way easier to deal with him with solid evasion + vp chars, he rarely hits, you just at full hp in one second. well, with certain mods, so to say, this guardian can be near undoable (of course if you not one-shotting him with broken dps).

still this fight is my favourite.

none of these guardians are difficult anymore, just certain mod combos

a build with burst likes minotaur the most because he doesnt really phase besides burrowing. still on any boss in the game if you deal enough damage you miss most of his damage. which is a shame imo but thats for another thread.

a tanky build can take on any guardian but it will take longer and youre more exposed to potential issue

especially minotaur is dumb easy because hes melee. any slow effects or block/dodge coupled with blind and accuracy reduction and hes food if you can take an occasional slam and not die

hydra is the most mechanical fight. if youre mobile enough its easy even with projectiles turboed. watch the turrets and avoid his most telegraphed attack. turbo is probably the toughest mod as it speeds up everything and his delay before attacks shrinks unless you can reliably chill/slow/hinder/whatever

phoenix is the fight that is most dangerous with some specific mods. +AOE and his bomb or cyclone can get you from half a screen away

chimera is ok if youre not doing temp chains or vuln without a reliable way to remove the curses in smoke phase. also always poisoned/ignited by adds can be sneakily dangerous