Innocence's damage is just way too brutal.

The other boss which I think needs to be regularly mentioned so that he's addressed in 3.1. Bloody hell, the fight design is really good and feels like it was made to reward skill (always a big plus in my books), but his damage is absurdly off.

Mostly as a fun challenge to myself, I did the Turmoil event in Hardcore SSF mode - as I'm leaving today afternoon for a week, so won't have 10 days and decided to do a serious one-day ubergrind.

I literally ROFLSTOMPED everything before with my Gladiator. I think Malachai died in less than a minute without me even dropping below half HP at any point, same goes for all other Act 4 bosses. The minor bosses before in Act 5 (Overseer and Casticus) weren't even a snack. I cyclone-rolled through enormous enemy groups just minutes before this fight, including a unique strongbox, without even losing 1/3 HP. Avarius himself also barely scratched me and died in about a minute.

Remembering what this fight was like, I wondered if this is where my HC adventure ends. But okay, I know what to expect this time, got plenty of movement speed and a movement skill, let's focus...

Yep, pretty much got deleted by Innocence on my first mistake, I think it was the "glowing balls everywhere" thing. Level 47, 1245 HP (not impressive, but I think solid enough), maxed resists. I ain't even mad because I can go to sleep (it's 8 AM here. I guess I can also blame inferior reflexes on that), but... come on. I don't claim to be a great player, but I can do the math if just 30 minutes earlier I steamrolled through a bunch of rather notorious bosses, hardly ever even using any life flasks, and I get literally deleted in this case.

I honestly wouldn't blame any newbie who ragequits PoE on this fight, and I guess that should be the main concern for GGG. The design is really good, but this difficulty spike and raw damage is absurd. I constantly remind everyone the same thing: before 3.0, you fought Cruel Brutus at this point. Answer yourself if he did half of Innocence's damage. (Oh, and this is "normal" difficulty.)

Nice feedback!

I also want to shout, "NO, NOT HC!!!" to save you from doom, but it seems it's already got its hooks on you and there's probably no saving you now.

(If you ever get tired of RIPing ending your fun, SSF SC is a good alternative, if I might be so bold.)

Edit: I see you have a lvl80 in SSF Standard from your profile... It seems you're just a masochist and want HC to punish you :P It's okay, maybe you're good enough :D

Knowdledge is your friend!

Yes it's a difficult fight until one learns the telegrafed attacks and how to avoid them.
One slipup are probably fine but not two.
Think Ive done that fight perhap 10 times so far and it's fine for me now :)


1245 HP in HC.... weeellll personally thats low for me in SC doing that fight.
(with maxed res and some phys mitigation)

The glowing ball everywhere is easily avoided once you've learned the "i'm ur god" phrase. His tone is so different when he says this that you know what he's gonna do the moment he says "I". Then you either hide behind a statue or escape through the portal.

I personally hate "i'm the torch" and "i'm the end" (or whatever it is he's saying before making that one-shot slam).

You have two options.

1. More life. If you want to increase the odds of you surviving mistakes, this is the way.

2. Knowledge. Know the fight, practice it. It's all very slowly telegraphed and real easy to dodge all of his attacks.

By no means is this fight unfair, so keep trying.

This might not be what you want to hear, but for the last several characters I'm finding Innocence turning into not much more than a minor speed bump. In fact, I just fought him last night with a blight / essence Occultist in the HC SSF 10-day turmoil league, blight did most of the damage, and she didn't drop below 80% hit points once during the whole fight (She had 2K hit points, so that means about 400ish damage was as much as she took at any one time).

Nobody would confuse me with a top tier player. I certainly don't. It really is a matter of learning and reacting to his tells.

Edit & PS: Still, there is something to what you say. There is sometimes an issue with his "Big Ball of Death" spreading in such a way that your character either heads to town or dies because there is literally no way to dodge (no statue, not enough space for a character between the balls). It's a corner case scenario, but it's an important corner case scenario in a game with a hardcore mode.

Sadly, the Innocence fight is one of the better ones we have at the moment. Yes, the damage is off the charts, but for a PoE boss, his attacks are singularly well-telegraphed (audio cues help, who'da thunk it?). It's one of those fights where your main focus is dodging oneshots, and you get some damage in on the side when you can. But unlike some other fights I can think of *coughmalachaicough*, you can actually see the oneshots coming.

I just wish there was a map version of him that we could practice on. Who knows, maybe in 3.1.

Could we have other bosses buffed instead of nerfing everything all the time?

Thank you. It's reassuring to hear other threads about how OP Innocence is.

In my view, even Kitava is better than Innocence. Kitava, you die a few times, no big deal but with Innocence I have fire resistance capped, 1.5k life and he still nukes me in 5 seconds. Kitava at least gives you a chance to fight back.

My experience with Innocence is a "Welcome to the Suicide Squad.". Fight for 30 seconds, die, and then go fight again. I've done this fight on 3 builds and all had the same result (2 distinct builds).

Since I've been playing ranged builds (a Marauder with dual Ancestral Warchief and a Witch with Caustic Arrow) I found this fight kinda easy, but I agree with you, the damage is there. Even running away from him I almost got oneshotted with my Witch, which by then I had a good amount of ES and Life. At this point I can't imagine how playing melee feels, it must be a really though battle.

It's something to take care of, definitely.