The fight with General Gravicius (spoilers)

General Gravicius in normal is a breeze, but in Cruel and Merciless he's ridiculous. For ranged characters he's not so bad, but he's a nightmare for melee. His molten shell just destroys life. I'd agree his faux fire trap and fire storm attacks aren't that strong, but his molten shell makes up for it.

"

Etna wrote:

Have him come at you at the same time as his nearby allies attack you instead of waiting in the back until you kill them all, his energy shield aura is wasted without any minions around him.

Well maybe they should change it so his minions don't chase you until after your little speech with him, so that they attack along side him instead of it being possible to lure them away and deal with them first.

At least then the ES Aura can't be wasted.

"

Aysnvaust wrote:

@dust:
Are you talking from experience? I doubt that, sir.
I am in cruel, lvl 53
- Heavystrike with 1280 dps
- 1917 HP
- Ruby flask of dousing
- fire resi 75%
- decent gear
- 92 health regen
- 30 life on hit

and I can't solo this guy. My life melts down like nothing when I face him.
Seems like this is the moment when I will have to group up for the first time.

And yes, all my passives are of defense nature until now.

Maybe you know something I missed - would appreciate to be enlightend.

Odd, I have very similar stats: Lv 52, 1380 Heavy, 1950 HP, 3.4k Armour, 98 Regen.. only difference is I have a 4% Life Leech and Warlords Marked him for a total of 8% life leech, but I also only had 54% Fire Resist and solo'd him without dying.. just face tanked him, by the time all my pots (4 of them) were gone he was dead. All of my passives are HP and Resistances as well.

I'm thinking that Life Gain on Hit, is no match for a total of 8% life leech. Since I'm getting around 110 HP back per hit as opposed to 30. Even counting the blood magic cost of my Heavy Strike, I still get around 70 back.

He was impossible for my dagger shadow in Normal, I would literally get 1 shot while attacking him as he would cast his shield and it would explode before I could move away.

I ended up equipping a newbie bow and shooting him with poison at a whopping 60 dps. But the difference is, playing ranged was stupid easy. Shoot > move > shoot > move. Yawn. As a melee you have to get out of his fire patches to not take dot damage, get out of his firestorm, not attack during his molten shield all while being next to him.

BUT!

This was not the case in Cruel. Normal is difficult on your first character because you do not have great gear and you don't have all the linked sockets you need. However, by the time you get to A3 in cruel, you should have 3L and even 4L gear with a more realized build and better gear. I was able to face tank him on my shadow in cruel and eat his molten shell explosions with little concern.

The entire game is sissified for ranged though. And ranged + group = quite possibly the easiest game I've ever experienced.

He has melted my ranged characters, but was much easier on my dual wield duellist.

Just went at him for my first time and I couldn't even touch him. Witch/Minion/Fire-AE are my main skills; he tore through my minions and my fire skill couldn't do any damage.

Went back to town and got some fire resist gear, and I also happened to pick up minion instability as I was clearing to him which is what made the difference. I spammed skeletons right on top of him and he pretty much killed himself like that. I shot a few projectile attacks from my wand too, I brought an ice skill but he was killing my skellies so fast I didn't want to waste the mana on it.

So in a way difficulty can be situational.. after all I went from doing 0 damage to nearly having an exploit style strategy :)

The fight is a gearcheck on fire resist.
That is all.

Actually, I love Grave, because he taught me how this game has interacting layers of mechanics and has the potential for awesome. Not that they are used much (yet), but Grav shows you how.

Rock-Paper-Scissors

Let's assume you have a melee character.

First, he has a disturbingly thick energy shield. He has more shield then life, in fact. Worse, if you ever have to back off, it comes right back. Second, his molten shell is deadly. Note that molten shell only explodes after it absorbs a certain amount of physical damage. Connecting the dots yet?

Viper strike deals a flat-damage, chaos damage DOT. It goes through his energy shield, and does not rely on your weapons' physical damage. A glass shard with a leveled viper strike gem in it will wear him down in just couple minutes, and won't trigger his molten armor. Stay out of the fire, don't let the dot stack expire, and he's dead.

Now, to be fair, I was annoyed beyond belief until I figured this out. I died many, many times. Rage was quitted. Later, after thinking through the game mechanics, I came to appreciate the brilliance of Grav's design as a boss. He forces you to not just have a strong character, but to learn and exploit core game mechanics.

The irony of this ever-so-important fight is that it can be completely avoided. You don't even need to kill Gravicius in order to progress.

You'd think that after building up the quest so much, it would be required.

"

EndOfEnds wrote:

The irony of this ever-so-important fight is that it can be completely avoided. You don't even need to kill Gravicius in order to progress.

You'd think that after building up the quest so much, it would be required.

I'm not sure I've faced him once in OB yet.