Barkhul fight just isn't fair

it was the 5th time I face this guy in Merciless (each with a different character), and I think the amount of minions, rarity of them, and maybe the size of the arena needs tuning.

after dying so many times I lost count, I realized every other fight in Act 4 is fair compared to this. heck, even Piety.

sure I died a couple times at Daresso too - mostly because of my good friend zero-ping - but it's an incredibly fun fight and quite fair, really.
Barkhul is not fair.
when a rare with an aura spawns on top of a literal ton of blues, and to make matters even worse Barkhul himself got Ghosted (Rogue's Grip), it's just come in, nowhere to move, die in a second, repeat.

still scratching my head how I eventually got past the bastard.
please, re-balance the fight mechanics.

His fight isnt that hard, -provided- you have the AoE dps or the multi-target melee dps (such as a strong cleave) to deal w/ all the add's.

If you are lacking in any reliable way to heavily damage/kill multiple mobs with each attack, then i would imagine his fight would be very difficult. Just take a breather and go back to your gem supply and see if you can swap anything out (just for this fight) that would do the above.

I got past him as a dual-wield evasion duelist, with cleave and viper-strike being my 2 damage skills. Cleave-cleave-cleave until he is separated from the trash, viper-strike him to max-debuff stack (or as many as i can get before i'm surrounded again) then go back to cleaving/dodging. Repated until he went down.

One way is to kill Barkhul as soon as possible. It's him who summons more enemies. Staying alive in endless flood of roosters is ...difficult if not impossible for most builds. It's quite unique fight.

There are so many mobs (in Pit map) that I can pop Vaal Skeletons and Vaal Haste twice during this fight. Vaal Detonate Dead must be devastating here.

2ezformedinosaur :P

But in general it is a very brutal encounter I do agree it needs tuning even by my standards and you know how I am.

"

CharanJaydemyr wrote:

really?

I have been told the relevant devs (level design and balance) are looking at this encounter. There is some sentiment the waves are too dense right now.

it's more than just the density of the waves.
the monsters aren't exactly glass cannons that die in one hit (unless you have some serious DPS, in which case you'll probably 1-shot Barkhul too) - so getting overwhelmed by the Blues and Rares will happen. especially if (when) you die and come back to the fight.
right in the middle of a sea of Roosters and Dogs...

the only time I didn't die, was with the Cycloner. Life Gain On Hit is awesome in such a situation.
but when you can't spam a movement skill and "sail" through the critical mass of mobs, dealing damage, and actually need to stand in one spot for more than half a second - you'll be obliterated.

I actually found the Map version of this fight, crazier than Jungle Valley Weaver in how much impact the adds have, and how little space there is to retreat to (or kite from).
that says something.

so in conclusion:

1) make the arena larger. currently there are no safe spots. zero.
2) make the spawns less dense. maybe less Blues which can be tanky as fk.
3) no Rares with auras. I don't mind a bunch of Rares in the mix - but auras are just ridiculous in such a situation.
4) spawn after death, not in the middle of the fight, drawing aggro from everyone, please. if I enter a gate, I should appear at that gate.
5) time to bump Charan's thread.

From my experience, mob density is the biggest problem. Unless you kill them really fast, monsters quickly clutter the whole area making it nearly impossible to manouver. Making the area bigger would help alleviate this as well.


On a side note, has anyone enocuntered an "other allies cannot die" rare?. I imagine it'd be hilarious. Not only there are tons of mobs around you, but they are immortal as well :)

the mini boss on the way to daresso ?

you shoudlnt have any problems with him as a summoner dualcurse vaal trap and thats it takes few seconds

I have found decoy totem very useful.

multi-strike reave lgoh works well

Conversion trap + multitrap ftw

But if ggg is reviewing him I hope they rethink having his slam attack look exactly like kaom's. At least color it differently...