Merveil's coldsnap

So I know there are a number or threads complaining about how hard Merveil is, and I agree she isn't exactly easy. I do not complain about her difficulty, but more the annoyance of the coldsnap she uses.

The triple Ice Spear is no problem. I cannot evade it every time and sometimes I get frozen because of it, but that's my own damn fault of not timing my casting right (I'm a witch for the moment). So that's not the problem.
There is however no possible way of avoiding her coldsnap and the fact that she casts it multiple times (5 or 6) doesn't help either. The coldsnap has a cooldown for players, why not for Merveil? That would solve a lot, an occasional inevitable blow wouldn't be a problem, but an inevitable 50%-of-health-attack-combo is in my opinion.

So suggestions:
- Coldnap has a cooldown for players, why not for Merveil?
- Increase the cast time to have at least a bit of room to react
- Change the attack to a fast projectile or continuous fire (think about Diablo's lightning attack)

This would probably be better in the 'suggestions' or 'beta feedback' forums.

That said, while I agree that her casting 3-4 cold snaps back to back is a bit annoying, adding a cooldown would probably make her a lot easier to kill, which I don't agree with if she supposed to be a boss. She is already pretty predictable for someone who isn't rushing to kill her.

In my case, it was due to her cold snap that I had to re-evaluate my equipped items, skills, and how I played. After doing so she was a lot easier to kill (as a Witch).

Imo, if she did get a cooldown, I wouldn't expect her to wait behind walls or across the room while I port to town, or have her not regen life when I port back in. I'd rather keep her as is than chase me around that little wall when I'm out of pots

Stacking cold resist and health goes a long way. How long freezes and other elemental status ailments last is determined by the percentage of hp that is taken away. If you run in there with two sapphire rings with +hp on them, you shouldn't have any problem.

biggest issue is she casts over the wall when we can't.

The whole boss needs redesigned. It's not fun right now. Vaal Oversoul is ten times the boss she is.

Putting a cooldown on Cold Snap would be a good intermediary change though.

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thelastdonut wrote:

In my case, it was due to her cold snap that I had to re-evaluate my equipped items, skills, and how I played. After doing so she was a lot easier to kill (as a Witch).

As I said, it's not about how difficult or easy she is, it's about the attack that is just plain annoying. I absolutely do not want to dumb her down, bosses need to be hard but still fun to fight against.

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Caiada wrote:

The whole boss needs redesigned. It's not fun right now. Vaal Oversoul is ten times the boss she is.

Maybe yes, her first form is very annoying and doesn't have a lot of variety (2 skills), her second form is no threat at all.
Vaal Oversoul is indeed a lot of fun to fight to: (1) uses combination of spells, (2) has more spells, (3) simple yet good map, (4) different kinds of spells (summon/area/projectile) and maybe more

i think the bosses in general should spam their abilities less. kind of ridiculous when you have to abuse their AI and pathing in order to survive against them. oak, kraityn, and merveil are all huge offenders, each of them will just spam the hell out of their gap closer or frost spell and if you try to fight them straight up for even a second you will get your ass beat.

i don't think normal characters should have a hard time with merveil. if you're new, you aren't going to know that merveil is gonna curb stomp you if you aren't stacking cold resist. it's fine if it happens later on, but new players should not be destroyed so hard by a boss where a non-cold res stacked character has to run around the pillars in the room and abuse her AI while waiting for hp to regen.

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jokulmorder wrote:

kind of ridiculous when you have to abuse their AI and pathing in order to survive against them.

What do you mean with "abusing their AI"?

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jokulmorder wrote:

oak, kraityn, and merveil are all huge offenders, each of them will just spam the hell out of their gap closer or frost spell and if you try to fight them straight up for even a second you will get your ass beat.

Completely agree.

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didii wrote:

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jokulmorder wrote:

kind of ridiculous when you have to abuse their AI and pathing in order to survive against them.

What do you mean with "abusing their AI"?

You can hide behind the rocks against merveil and basically cheese her down. she will not attempt to pursue you except to gain vision so you can regen HP against her and then rinse and repeat until she is dead. it is not particularly difficult, but it feels very cheesy to do. there aren't many alternatives as a squishy ranged though.

or you can get in her face. in melee distance she won't cast cold snap.