Act 10 Kitava fight is absolutely stupid

Kitava is completly broken.


Could not kill her, and I'm full tank. I'm the party tank and I get one shot by her.


This boss is completely dumb, no other boss comes even close to this.


Stopped playing the game uninstalled. We declared the game finished.

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pack_leader wrote:

I'm full tank. I'm the party tank

Stats please.

Just recently started playing POE on Xbox. I have made it to the end with a Deadeye Ranger on my first playthrough. At L 68, I spent literally an hour, dying probably 100 times only to accidentally hit B to take me to town before instead of hitting A. Since its already too late, because some of us don't stay up all night when we have to work in the morning, I turned off the Xbox.

This is most ridiculous crap I have ever had to deal with. GGG obviously intends players to die many, many times in boss fights, which is why the bosses don't reset. How is this fun? I'm not even playing on Mega-Insane-Nightmare-Death mode. This is my very first playthrough of the story and I am immensely frustrated because apparently in order to play this game you are required to follow one of the theory crafters build guides from the minute you start playing.

1/2 star rating 100%!

So I thought I'd add to this tiny little thread...

To be honest, I expected worse after seeing posts about this fight all over the place, but still, even though it's less godawful than Merciless Malachai was, it's still pretty bad.

So:
1) First of all, why the hell is there no waypoint at the end of The Feeding Trough, like, you know, before every single boss fight? (Same goes for The Rotten Core.) My game crashed during the fight. Crashes happen, okay, but having to run through two instances to get back to the fight...
2) Like probably everyone and their cat said already, some of his skills are very poorly visible. Most of them are not bad and can see the bright red, but a few times I just saw my HP suddenly blow up, having no idea what even hit me or where it came from.
3) That fire breath thing is stupid. It covers almost the ENTIRE battle area. Thankfully, I'm currently playing a very mobility-oriented build, but it was still really annoying and feels like something that pretty much forces you to spam your life flask. Can't even imagine trying to survive that as something slower and bulkier.

But actually, most important of all...

4) WHO THE F*CK PROGRAMMED THE NUMBERS ON THE MINIONS/"CHAMPIONS" AND THOUGHT IT WAS A GOOD IDEA? Their damage is beyond retarded (and that's a mild description), and it seems like even the white ones have a health pool between magic and rare monsters. Plus they spawn CONSTANTLY in insane numbers, so there's no way to be strategic in any way. Fighting them is literally far harder and 10x easier to die than Kitava himself.

The fight in itself is actually quite well designed imo, and has a pretty cool and intense flow - but these things REALLY need to be addressed. Is this fight even possible to complete on Hardcore in its current state?

I really hope this is done in 3.1.0, the game really needs a final boss fight that's actually fun after how atrocious the end of Merciless was before (at least I'm glad to see Merciless Malachai aka "the floor and everything else is lava, and my every fart oneshots you" is gone). This fight has potential, but in its current state it feels like if you're thrown into a lvl80 map, and the poor design decisions don't help.

"

TheLiberation wrote:

Is this fight even possible to complete on Hardcore in its current state?

Yes. For some builds its easy - especially if overleveled and with gear. Example: Tanky totem build with defensive setup. Only some of Kitavas skills (X blast) will do significant damage. Most minions do approximately no damage to a tanky (esp phys mitigation) build.

(This is an answer to your question, not a discussion/defense of the design of the Kitava fight.)

This thread is full of complaints that I honestly find laughable at best. You people seem to be go in with 1k life or something and do not get out of the way of his attacks. Yes, you'll die if you do that. People have learned not to stand in fire since day 1 raiding on WoW, do we really have to reinvent the wheel on PoE?

I've died once or twice to Kitava, but it was my fault 100% each time. I failed to dodge or pressed the wrong skill at the wrong time, whatever, it was my bad. I don't blame the game for my mistakes. I get up and do better next time and honestly, it's not even a hard fight, come on guys.

What I'm trying to say is that it's a fight you need to learn. And when you do, it's so easy you can do it on any build. It's not about having gear or doing damage or having the life pool to survive hits. He hits like a truck. Imagine a truck rushes at you on the road, do you brace yourself or do you get out of the way?

"

Zrevnur wrote:

"

TheLiberation wrote:

Is this fight even possible to complete on Hardcore in its current state?

Yes. For some builds its easy - especially if overleveled and with gear. Example: Tanky totem build with defensive setup. Only some of Kitavas skills (X blast) will do significant damage. Most minions do approximately no damage to a tanky (esp phys mitigation) build.

(This is an answer to your question, not a discussion/defense of the design of the Kitava fight.)

Oh, alright. Well, there's probably a niche counter for everything, but he definitely punishes the vast majority of builds. My current Scion build is made to be versatile and I could manage almost everything to a large extent. In this case, you get punished for both movement and standing still for the most part, and his minions' damage is so overtuned they can rip you apart in 1-2 seconds. The build I have is admittedly only moderately tanky at best, but then doing a Desert map the monsters just tickled me in comparison, rares included.

And I really hope GGG doesn't think that "get overleveled first" is a valid solution, repetitive grinding for several levels before fighting Kitava and then yawning while doing the several first tiers of maps is not my idea of fun.

"

Xavathos wrote:

This thread is full of complaints that I honestly find laughable at best. You people seem to be go in with 1k life or something and do not get out of the way of his attacks. Yes, you'll die if you do that. People have learned not to stand in fire since day 1 raiding on WoW, do we really have to reinvent the wheel on PoE?

I've died once or twice to Kitava, but it was my fault 100% each time. I failed to dodge or pressed the wrong skill at the wrong time, whatever, it was my bad. I don't blame the game for my mistakes. I get up and do better next time and honestly, it's not even a hard fight, come on guys.

What I'm trying to say is that it's a fight you need to learn. And when you do, it's so easy you can do it on any build. It's not about having gear or doing damage or having the life pool to survive hits. He hits like a truck. Imagine a truck rushes at you on the road, do you brace yourself or do you get out of the way?

Ah, here we go, the classic "didn't read but git gud".

In case you haven't noticed, most complaints here are not because of his raw damage (which is actually surprisingly bearable for the most part, Innocence in Act 5 is relatively far more brutal for instance, but his skills are actually well-telegraphed), but because the way the fight is implemented is poor and punishes you even if you try to think and see how he works.

Some of his skills are almost invisible (the most common complaint I've seen everywhere on the forum, which means people KNOW they need to dodge the skills...), his fire breath covers 95% of the battle arena which is near-impossible to dodge even with mobile builds and a fast reaction time, and his minions are absurdly overtuned, with no way to escape them or be tactical with such a small arena.

And seriously, I don't know in what alternative dimension you have to live in not to notice the fight is at least a +50% difficulty spike compared to anything before, and far harder than at least the first 5-6 tiers of maps bosses.

"

TheLiberation wrote:

Ah, here we go, the classic "didn't read but git gud".

In case you haven't noticed, most complaints here are not because of his raw damage (which is actually surprisingly bearable for the most part, Innocence in Act 5 is relatively far more brutal for instance, but his skills are actually well-telegraphed), but because the way the fight is implemented is poor and punishes you even if you try to think and see how he works.

Some of his skills are almost invisible (the most common complaint I've seen everywhere on the forum, which means people KNOW they need to dodge the skills...), his fire breath covers 95% of the battle arena which is near-impossible to dodge even with mobile builds and a fast reaction time, and his minions are absurdly overtuned, with no way to escape them or be tactical with such a small arena.

And seriously, I don't know in what alternative dimension you have to live in not to notice the fight is at least a +50% difficulty spike compared to anything before, and far harder than at least the first 5-6 tiers of maps bosses.

Well, first of all, hi. I'm not new to this thread or the forums, I have actually read everything and my opinion is still the same.

I never denied the difficulty spike, but +50% on a walk in the park is still only a jog at most. It's really not hard to me and I'm not even good at the game. You're welcome to dislike my opinion, because yours obviously differs from me, but it would be better if you respected mine, like I do yours. Yeah?

I like Kitava, because unlike ANY of the other content the game offers, Kitava gives you a taste of what end-game bossing feels like. Something I'm guessing you haven't ever done yet, or you'd probably see the value in the (harsh) lessons taught by the fight.

PoE doesn't hold your hand, it doesn't protect you from harm, it doesn't pamper you and give you second chances. It pushes you right on the edge and forces you to adapt or fall. That's the game. Everyone experiences that when they play their first character. A brick wall with no way across, around or through. You failed. Start over.

The game isn't unfair though. Everything is more than doable, with the right amount of time, currency, experience and dare I say, skill involved, you can do it all. And therein lies the problem...

Do I say "git gud" literally? No, of course not, but the message remains the same and you just don't want to hear it because it's true. That's a classic.

I just think you should be able to skip him, like you could do with the final boss in previous versions of the game. He is way harder than the first 4-5 tiers of maps. I get having a difficulty spike, but the way it is now it's like the game forces you to defeat a yellow map before it allows you to play white maps. I don't understand the point of obsoleting white maps before you're allowed to play them.

The real OG Kitava fight, firebreath, firestorm, icy claws, fire nova...


https://youtu.be/wsruiRjoswo?t=253