Porcupine Goliaths (The enemies that explode into spikes on death)

gotta agree with I_NO, they don't feel as strong as they used to since 2.0 (especially Thistlesage, thankfully... that thing was borderline suicide to kill as a melee in Merc before).

Futhermore, at least from the melee perspective, Abyssal Cry works wonders against them, as anything that destroys their corpses on death (shatter, IB, ignite with Pyre, and now Abyssal Cry) prevents their spikes. Abyssal gives melees a way to always destroy corpses on kill on a mass AoE scale... it renders entire packs of them completely impotent, frankly.

That's so weird, why am I having the exact opposite experience?

PoE never ceases to baffle me :)

I have a lot of problems with evasion characters after 2.0, but this isn't one of them. Abyssal Cry and a CwDT + IC setup pretty much takes care of them.

if you are ranged glass cannon. works like a charm, trust me. just needs getting used to

You need one or more of:

* high evasion
* high block
* high armor (+IC = immunity)
* crit build with Hatred or other source of cold damage (porcupines shatter and dont release spikes)

If nothing works for you, you have to separate them and kill them one by one. Porcupines are one of the better designed mobs, because you are in complete control of what are you doing.

can't say i have much problems with these
haven't tried with an Evasion char killing a butload at the same time

but my cycloner doesn't even see the healtbar move with 5 enduring charges + fortify + 8k armour, on an 75 map with fracture (can't recall if there were damage mods)

in the past am pretty sure that would have hit hard.
they do less damage in 2.0, 100% sure of this. then again people no longer have CWDT+IC+EC+iDur combo anymore wich allowed you to kill them w/o defences in the past

Even with the damage nerf to it am fairly sure the people still building glasscannon are gonna get wrecked by it

Well my problem with them has never been with my cyclone or my other builds. It's been with my eva characters. Some people are suggesting other skill gems. But I find it as going too far to bring in other skill gems just for one enemy. I like the setup I have on my characters and that's why I chose them. I specifically brought up the point that I never seemed to evade their spikes for a reason. It's because I think eva needs to be able to work for them just as damage reduction does (some people have apparently experienced this problem with damage reduction characters as well, but I haven't noticed the issue, maybe just haven't rolled maps with the porcupines on damage reduction characters often so I haven't noticed). But nonetheless, using another skill gem setup for each enemy that gives you trouble seems pretty wild. I like enemies that give you trouble, don't get me wrong. And I like using different tactics for different enemies. But what I don't like is accidentally pulling the trigger on a pack of porcupines (that also happen to have low health, making it easy to accidentally blow a pack up) and one shotting them, and having spikes that each take about 1/7th of my health explode in all directions.

have an Eva incinerator now
it definitely hurts more then my armour based cycloner
but it's still very manageable.

i've yet to see might hp drop below half from it

Another reason to totem... Hide behind a tree while you kill them :-p

- get some defenses
- shatter them
- don't kill 50 at the same time
- or don't be in their range when they die
- CwDT - IC should still work against unexpected burst, especially if you use End Cry