What is wrong with the lab?

I've been away from the game for like 2 years, maybe more, and I've started playing again with the last update.

Everything was being awesome, I was certainly impressed about how much the game has growth, until I reached the lab.

Who, the fuck, thought this was a good idea? I don't want to play HC, that's why HC exists, being forced to play this thing to get an ascendance class is, IMO, just bad design.

Anyway, after dying 3 times I go all the way again to die against the last boss, I've never in my life ragequited so hard from a game, I consider myself a pretty chill player, seriously, it's the most annoying piece of content I've ever encountered in any game in my life, and I've been playing for around 20 years.

Why has the boss SO MUCH HP? I mean he has like 10x times the HP of any other boss in the game, plus that third combat with traps is just cruel, Malachai is a crying kid compared to that combat.

Do I need to be 30 lvls over the lab to beat it without sweating blood? that doesn't make any sense.

I don't even know if this post should be here or in the feedback forum, since this made me uninstall the game.

You need to be 25 or so levels above the lab for it to make sense. This is simply the way the game breaking asc classes were balanced.

Well it does open job market for uber lab farming.

Sorry about your bad experience. It can be frustrating to say the least.

All I can say is - you're not alone with the call to de-couple Ascendancies from the Labyrinth from a design decision point of view.

I do hope in the name of Quality of Life that GGG will address this somehow.

In terms of the difficulty of facing Izaro, if one must - I can speak from experience that it all comes down to [cliche - sorry] knowing the mechanics (e.g. what effect the different encounter stages have on the final Izaro fight) and knowing when you're ready for the fight in terms of your life/ES, gear, defenses etc. Izaro is just another boss even if he feels stronger than that and there are ways of playing that will allow you to conquer him effectively. It is not unheard of for players to be way overlevelled before attempting (especially Merciless and Uber Labs).

I don't want this to come across as a "just get better" type of comment because that's not my intention (I mean no disrespect whatsoever, and I also don't mean to assume that you *don't* know the mechanics - you might just have been unlucky, it's not my place to judge).

Perhaps something will change and you'll try PoE again in future, or perhaps not. I wish you all the best, regardless.

hint: malachai is a crying kid because you get unlimited tries. if you have to one try after 30 mins to get to him and reset- you'd been the one crying. like so.

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Nephalim wrote:

You need to be 25 or so levels above the lab for it to make sense. This is simply the way the game breaking asc classes were balanced.

Actually, not really. You need good reactions, basic knowledge of izaro's mechanics, a decent skill tree and semi-decent gear.

Izaro actually has more in common with a Dark Souls boss than a Diablo boss, and that's what throws a lot of people. You have to understand what attacks he uses and what effects his arena gives him and work around them, rather than simply throw damage at him until he dies. One mistake can easily get you killed. But here's the other thing that makes him like a Dark Souls boss - Everything Izaro does is telegraphed. The traps follow predictable patterns, all of his attacks have a visible wind-up, and you can determine what all his bonuses are by reading their descriptions.

It's a very difficult fight, but a very fair one. It's unlike most other boss fights in the game in that it's mechanically involved. If you go in there expecting to face-tank him and DPS him down like any other boss, well, you're in for a bad time.

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EdenRage wrote:

hint: malachai is a crying kid because you get unlimited tries. if you have to one try after 30 mins to get to him and reset- you'd been the one crying. like so.

Given that malacahi does not have traps that almost oneshot 70% of my life, nor it has like 4 millions hp, yeah, he is a crying baby, I think I killed him on the second try with a pretty normal tornado shot build, with no fancy gear and no overlevel.

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Trylobyte wrote:

Izaro actually has more in common with a Dark Souls boss than a Diablo boss, and that's what throws a lot of people. You have to understand what attacks he uses and what effects his arena gives him and work around them, rather than simply throw damage at him until he dies. One mistake can easily get you killed. But here's the other thing that makes him like a Dark Souls boss - Everything Izaro does is telegraphed. The traps follow predictable patterns, all of his attacks have a visible wind-up, and you can determine what all his bonuses are by reading their descriptions.

It's a very difficult fight, but a very fair one. It's unlike most other boss fights in the game in that it's mechanically involved. If you go in there expecting to face-tank him and DPS him down like any other boss, well, you're in for a bad time.

I'd love to get better at the fight, but I have to run through an hour of shit to get there, no dark souls boss made you run through an hour of content to fight him, ever.

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Trylobyte wrote:

If you go in there expecting to face-tank him and DPS him down like any other boss, well, you're in for a bad time.

That's not to say that you can't, some builds can more or less facetank him, but for most of us, it's certainly not wise to try. The key is surviving long enough to deal the required DPS, and that means never standing still and dodging the hell out of his attacks.