"The mouth will not open while any of the Guardians are still alive"

Yeah, instances stay active for a period of time before expiring. Contol click the entrance to an area or the waypoint and you'll see how long it will exist without anybody entering.

Malachai is the only act boss that has a waypoint directly to him. Killing the three bosses in the same instance you enter the black core makes you work to farm the boss. The same way you have to travel up 3 levels to get to Dominus every time or however many floors in the pyramid to get to Vaal Oversoul or go through both Caverns of Wrath and Anger to get to Merveil. And yes, there is a reason to farm bosses. People wouldn't do it if they didn't get loot from it. Dominus runs were a big deal. I'm sure when people gear up and are able kill Malachai quickly, he'll be a farming spot too.

I experienced the same thing...but Piety is actually gone. Like she's no longer at the WP?? Not sure what to do here...

I had a similar experience when I first did the zone.

It was pretty annoying, hopefully it's one of those "smooth playthrough experience" issues they'll fix. Probably by making it so: First run through the zone uses quest states. After you kill Malachai, any additional runs require killing the three bosses. I think the reason why the didn't just use quest states in the first place was due to concerns that players will make "malachai-killing builds" and farm him all day since the waypoint is right outside the boss room.

Yes it is a very lame mechanic in spite of all the excuses listed.

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UsefulDingo wrote:

You don't need to kill the final boss to get to cruel and merc?

since Normal and Cruel Mal come before Merc, they are, by definition, not the final boss.

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Mr_Bill wrote:

Yes it is a very lame mechanic in spite of all the excuses listed.

Yeah. That'd be like Diablo 2 making you open seals and kill 3 packs of monsters before getting to Diablo or having to kill waves of monsters to get to Baal. Inconceivable!

Seems like it would be ideal if this were a quest that reset every time you killed Malachai. Like,
if 3 guardians killed, malachai path=open
if malachai killed, malachai path=closed (reset guardian condition to required)

Farmers have to kill guardians. Normal humans with shit to do come back at their relative leisure.

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Replacement_Human wrote:

Seems like it would be ideal if this were a quest that reset every time you killed Malachai. Like,
if 3 guardians killed, malachai path=open
if malachai killed, malachai path=closed (reset guardian condition to required)

Farmers have to kill guardians. Normal humans with shit to do come back at their relative leisure.

I had just this problem - killed the godless three, and thought, I'll do Malachai the other day, I was out of time. Then the next day, "What I must do those three gain? What a waste of time!"

I also think, once one has killed them, the entrance to Malachai should be open, until Malachai is also dead ... then reset and restart if players want to run Malachai.

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Ferrocet wrote:

I had just this problem - killed the godless three, and thought, I'll do Malachai the other day, I was out of time. Then the next day, "What I must do those three gain? What a waste of time!"

Same thing happened to me. There should at least be a warning in chat or something!

Seeing as how the door is opened by a quest mechanic, and previous doors remain unlocked as the story progresses, it's reasonable to assume this door should remain unlocked as well. Both act 1 and act 2 have doors that permanently remain unlocked as the story progresses.

I was unfortunate enough to clear the area (which is tedious at best) only to return to camp to upgrade my gear and double check my gem arrangements before attempting the boss. Which, of course, took about 10 minutes and had the instance reset.

There's really no reasonable explanation for why it's behaves this way. You don't need to go back and kill the bandits in act 2 if you don't kill them all in 15 minutes. So why would the door suddenly lock again once you've provided Piety with the body parts.