When do you take on Izaro (Merciless)

So I'm pushing myself to clear the Labyrinth faster and faster on my builds. This league I managed to kill Malachai at level 67. I decided to try the Labyrinth but just couldn't kill Izaro in the last room. So leveled up a bit and tried him again at level 73. So close but just enough of a life pool. Going to try again at 75.

So when do you guys usually take him on?

I've found that merciless is actually easier than Cruel was. Maybe it's the extra two ascendancy points. Maybe it's extra enchants on your gear. Dunno. But I don't have half the trouble with Merc lab as I do with cruel.

Probably comes from playing solo/self-found though. If you trade for gear you couldn't hope to find yourself, then you probably have a different experience than I do.

75% all res, only then, regardless of hp pool as i play evasion based chars. Dps and lvl20 or lvl20+20% gems help too, but not required.

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Necromael wrote:

75% all res, only then, regardless of hp pool as i play evasion based chars. Dps and lvl20 or lvl20+20% gems help too, but not required.

... you should have capped res by the time you finish act 2 merciless. It's, like, really easy to cap your resistances.

Anyway, I've been slowly lowering the level at which I tackle merc izaro. On my previous char (an EQ champ) I did it at 72. On my current RF totem chieftain I managed at 68. Playstyle matters. This Necromael guy probably plays ranged builds if he's primarily evasion-based, so as long as he can just manually dodge all of izaro's big hits he's safe (unlike melee which really needs a high life pool--I had 6k on my eq champ, which ended up being overkill, and 5k on my current rf totem chieftain, who was a bit safer than I needed for merc).

I usually aim to do it between 70-75, depending on how comfortable I am with the character.

Depends on the build, this league I played an IceCrash/Discharge witch so I waited a bit and did it at 73. And a good thing I did, he ate all three essences in second fight so the final one was real hairy, couldn't tank him anymore.

Still, good fun, as an old cat once said to the young - it's no fun if they don't resist.

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HikaruYami wrote:

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Necromael wrote:

75% all res, only then, regardless of hp pool as i play evasion based chars. Dps and lvl20 or lvl20+20% gems help too, but not required.

... you should have capped res by the time you finish act 2 merciless. It's, like, really easy to cap your resistances.

Anyway, I've been slowly lowering the level at which I tackle merc izaro. On my previous char (an EQ champ) I did it at 72. On my current RF totem chieftain I managed at 68. Playstyle matters. This Necromael guy probably plays ranged builds if he's primarily evasion-based, so as long as he can just manually dodge all of izaro's big hits he's safe (unlike melee which really needs a high life pool--I had 6k on my eq champ, which ended up being overkill, and 5k on my current rf totem chieftain, who was a bit safer than I needed for merc).

I really can't understand how people reach such high health pools. I have all possible life nodes on the right side of the tree taken, wearing belly of the beast and I'm at like 4.7k (188% life total I think). Evasion based with dodge.

I did Merc Izaro at level 72ish. Did Cruel at like 70. I tried Cruel once at like level 55 with 2k hp and died in 1 shot to the first Izaro fight so I figured I would come back later. Hadn't played in months so this was my first time doing the lab and I had no idea what I was getting into. Still haven't tried uber lab because I've only found 3 trials (well 4 trials but first 2 were the same) in 15 levels of mapping (tier 1-3 so it's actually a lot of maps).

But speaking of capped resists and self found gear... I realized last night that I'm not capped on my resists (like 60,68, 74 or something) and I haven't changed any gear from 72 to 83. I entered Merc with negative resists and finished Act 4 with 25/40/30 at level 70. Act 4 was pretty challenging. Ranged is great when your gear is terrible.

U need to know his mechanics. The is site poelab.com

Each day Izaro is different. for example in prophecy i can't do him (end lab) when he is dual swords. His Slashe phys attack kills me because im' still in tabula. But all other his forms are ok for me.

So u need to understand him and gear for him, just like vs Atziri

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Namcap wrote:

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HikaruYami wrote:

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Necromael wrote:

75% all res, only then, regardless of hp pool as i play evasion based chars. Dps and lvl20 or lvl20+20% gems help too, but not required.

... you should have capped res by the time you finish act 2 merciless. It's, like, really easy to cap your resistances.

Anyway, I've been slowly lowering the level at which I tackle merc izaro. On my previous char (an EQ champ) I did it at 72. On my current RF totem chieftain I managed at 68. Playstyle matters. This Necromael guy probably plays ranged builds if he's primarily evasion-based, so as long as he can just manually dodge all of izaro's big hits he's safe (unlike melee which really needs a high life pool--I had 6k on my eq champ, which ended up being overkill, and 5k on my current rf totem chieftain, who was a bit safer than I needed for merc).

I really can't understand how people reach such high health pools. I have all possible life nodes on the right side of the tree taken, wearing belly of the beast and I'm at like 4.7k (188% life total I think). Evasion based with dodge.

Gear, levels, and Strength all make a huge difference. Leveling up gives you flat life which is scaled by your % increased life. Characters on the right side of the tree tend not to have high STR, or at least not as high as those on the left side. If you're using a lot of uniques or don't have high life rolls on your gear, the difference is pretty noticeable.

IMHO the right side of the tree is pretty lacking on defenses as a whole. Leeching with high ES seems to be the best option on that end of things currently. Not my thing, but it does seem to work well enough.