Malachai Still Impossible for Summoners

I originally made this thread back during the beta, but since the thread was deleted (as was the entire beta feedback forum), I think this still needs to be addressed.

Took me roughly 10 deaths, give or take, in normal and cruel both times to kill Malachai. I know his attacks and I know how to dodge them, but in such a tiny arena and him lobbing constant area denial attacks and swarming you with adds, there's literally no way to avoid dying eventually. The biggest offender, however, is that he is still more than easily capable of instantly destroying my minions right as the fight starts. I'm a summoner obviously, and most summoners live or die solely on their minions. If Malachai is shredding your minions and is applying too much pressure for you to try and rebuild your horde in the middle of combat, you are essentially helpless.

The only way I can fight him is with summon skeletons attached to a totem, simply for them to serve as walking bombs. Malachai may have had his HP reduced, but using only minion instability on skeletons still takes forever for you to kill him.

And that's even if you're lucky your totem doesn't focus its summoning on a nearby minion instead of Malachai!

Minions need to have their damage resistance against Malachai raised more, they can barely take a hit. His damage needs to be toned down some more. His arena also needs to be increased in size, the area denial and constant pressure from his own minions make it difficult if not impossible for me to stop for a moment to try and raise more zombies.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2sclIkexro doable but rather irritating with summoner.

Use Animated Weapons... it works way faster than Skeletons (at least in Normal)... and is safer (since you have to go back a lot to reanimate weapons safely)

Edit:
Thanks by the way for the Divination Card you created... I like it a lot

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justaman68 wrote:

Use Animated Weapons... it works way faster than Skeletons (at least in Normal)... and is safer (since you have to go back a lot to reanimate weapons safely)

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vvooee wrote:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2sclIkexro doable but rather irritating with summoner.

If I have to use portals to cheese through the boss, it proves my point that the boss is way too hard in general. I can take on Dominus in both forms in any difficulty without needing portals, I have successfully killed corrupted Piety and the godless three in normal and cruel without dying or portaling once, Malachai should not be an exception.

yep, this is the only minion that works

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Pizzarugi wrote:

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justaman68 wrote:

Use Animated Weapons... it works way faster than Skeletons (at least in Normal)... and is safer (since you have to go back a lot to reanimate weapons safely)

If I have to use portals to cheese through the boss, it proves my point that the boss is way too hard in general. I can take on Dominus in both forms in any difficulty without needing portals, I have successfully killed corrupted Piety and the godless three in normal and cruel without dying or portaling once, Malachai should not be an exception.

You are sure right... for Normal he is ridiculous overpowered (in terms of life AND damage)... since I play only Hardcore Leagues and all self-found it is really safer to use TPs a lot in this fight.

All other bosses are a joke, bring a full invetory of weapons, animate them and watch them die (hint: bring two or three for Dominus)

I don't think it's just summoners, I had issues killing Mal while using Magma Orb. Corrupted Piety melted so I though my damage was sufficient and Mal shouldn't be too much of an issue, but how wrong was I... I am building RF/Spell caster and didn't have much movement speed at the time of the fight for positioning, I was unable to attack using Magma Orb. Searing Bond/ Firestorm + curse on hit/Fire Trap worked out of the end, but took some time.

I think there is a balance problem with Mal at Cruel, in comparison to pre Awakening. Piety needs to be made stronger, but Mal needs to be reduced slightly, either damage or lvl drop.


After watching Ziggy's video of summoner run I came to the conclusion; Temp Chains to slow him down should help a lot in this fight. The biggest issue is targeting, minions go after Mal and not the heart. Positioning, quick reaction is the key in this fight. Make sure you can TP minions when Mal is doing his attacks. If targeting can be resolved summoners will have easy time with Mal.

Hope it makes sense xD

hmmm, normal malachai (pre life nerf) look me 10 min and cruel malachi took me 5 min with 2 deaths each time.



i only use zombies and specters though. i think you need to simplify your build so that it is easier to control.

my summoner build only has 5 active skills. makes evading the larger crap much easier, not to mention the largest reason why a summoner dies .. is standing still to summon skeletons or srs.
i cant stress enough how much easier the fight is once i stopped bothering with skeletons and srs and just tagged him every now and then and then circle strafed his attacks.

the difference between eating a full tentacle attack and being hit by it while strafing him can be around an 80% drop in damage taken from it. and really the tentacle attack is what will get you since it has little warning and hits a quarter of the arena.. all the other attacks including the two smashes are a simple matter of backing off and using convocation to spare your zombies (which can easily tank the tentacles provided you have some rolled animation flasks)

Check my suggestion here :)

https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1324536

Also I'm having great success in Hardcore with an hybrid Summoner / Flame totem build.
Maybe this is the way to go, especially to help target those hearts in Malachai arena.

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Saltychipmunk wrote:

hmmm, normal malachai (pre life nerf) look me 10 min and cruel malachi took me 5 min with 2 deaths each time.



i only use zombies and specters though. i think you need to simplify your build so that it is easier to control.

my summoner build only has 5 active skills. makes evading the larger crap much easier, not to mention the largest reason why a summoner dies .. is standing still to summon skeletons or srs.
i cant stress enough how much easier the fight is once i stopped bothering with skeletons and srs and just tagged him every now and then and then circle strafed his attacks.

the difference between eating a full tentacle attack and being hit by it while strafing him can be around an 80% drop in damage taken from it. and really the tentacle attack is what will get you since it has little warning and hits a quarter of the arena.. all the other attacks including the two smashes are a simple matter of backing off and using convocation to spare your zombies (which can easily tank the tentacles provided you have some rolled animation flasks)

So how do your minions survive if all you're using are just zombies and spectres? How do you get them back if/when Malachai kills them?