Sirus should be harder, but less punishing

TLDR at bottom.

GGG has stated that they have been actively been trying to "bring difficulty back into the game" however I think the method that are using is creating a rather unhealthy game environment, and I think Sirus is a good example of the difference between making a game hard and punishing.

First off I will define what I mean by hard and punishing
hard: a high likely hood of failure ex: boss you only beat 1 in 10 times
punishing:a high price for said failure ex: boss that loses 50hrs of progress if you die

Sirus as a fight shows the primary rift between players, the highest tier of players want Sirus to be more challenging, to really be able to test their limits, as to them he is much too easy. Conversely for many player Sirus is already very challenging to the point that many people will never defeat him. I think the problem however isn't how difficult Sirus is, it is how punishing he is. Regardless of whether or not sirus is easy or difficult for you, its will take around 10 to 15 hours of play to challenge him again, maybe more maybe less but this seems about average to me depending on skill. this is fine for skilled players, for them you beat him, get some loot, and go on your way. For players who struggle with sirus, this is oppressive, 15 hours of play for a boss that may take 7 tries or more to defeat is a massive time sink for players with less time to dedicate to the game. TL;DR right now Sirus is kinda hard (easy for some difficult for others) but universally punishing (losing to him means you get nothing and have to spend forever getting back to him)

Now what I think should change, here are things that I think should be added/changed. these are more starts of ideas, I don't claim for sure all or even any of these are perfect as is just suggestions.

-Sirus fight should be made more difficult, increased hp, damage reduction more attacks, whatever you like just make is harder. Frustrating as he can be Sirus is the final boss, he should be the hardest encounter in the game, bar none. Additionally Sirus could have access to abilities the threaten all build (ex instant death beam) that could equalize the gap between very strong builds and very weak ones. It is important that these buffs be balanced by the following

-Time it takes to find Sirus should be reduced. Right now, it just takes to long between Sirus fights and it makes the gap between really strong players and weaker player too big. Sirus should take more attempts to take down then he does now, but you should get those chances more often. This could devalue Sirus' loot however I don't think this is a huge issue as it has many solutions. Even though you can fight Sirus more, if he is harder you should fail more which means overall loot totals shouldn't change a ton.
-33% for conquerors stars after Sirus is killed, not when you first find him.
-conquerors appear in the same way they do before sirus, but forever.
-if you die to sirus you can challenge him again right away, but with reduced loot
-if you lose to sirus there is a chance you get to fight him again right away
-each time you kill any conqueror there is a chance sirus will spawn etc etc.
-somehow gives player the option to fight sirus more, at the cost of less loot

-killing sirus 5ish times enables him to drop a special watch stone that makes Sirus absurdly difficult, tons of hp, all telegraphed attacks do millions of damage, make it hard for even the best in the world, but only have it give like double loot, its not about economy for fighting this guy, its just meant to test your skills. This will hopefully give the challenge that people want, without forcing it upon everyone.
P.S. you can also apply this to the game in general if you find it appropriate

TL;DR Sirus should be harder, but you should get to fight him more often, this will balance skill gap between players

Lastly feel free to critique and such, open criticism though I ask you don't base a reply off solely the TLDR in case I answered it in the post proper. Have a nice day all.

What a dogshit disaster of a boss I'm more annoyed that Q/A approved of it.

1) There's no engagement in intermission it's literally just you waiting for him to float to you

2) Only thing that can be remotely hard that's can aggravating is his last phase

3) Pain in the ass to even spawn the guy

Other then that this is single handly the worst ARPG boss I've ever possibly experienced.

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I_NO wrote:

What a dogshit disaster of a boss I'm more annoyed that Q/A approved of it.

Unfortunately Quality Control and Quality of Life features have always been GGGs weakest link in the chain.

They've been designing content like Sirus for a while now. I'm not sure why the community suddenly noticed with this League but there's been little to no lean into boss mechanics for a while.

I stopped playing HC during Abyss league after coming back from a long break because I had to finally admit most bosses and encounters were a trial and error situation. Not a matter of skill much as memorization. You could make Sirus one-shot with every ability at this point outside the disco beam and he'd rarely if ever kill me because I blindly slammed my head into his non-intuitive mechanics until I knew them by both animation and sound ques.
I know the exact point during the Phrase "Feel the thrill of the..." *Dash*.

What I mean by the difference is a player has no idea what these ques mean until they happen. There's no mini Sirus. There's no Vortex playground or any other stepping stones to where all those mechanics are combined to present the player with a fair challenge.

Unless they want to Degen the hell out of a player or give them inhuman level of tasks at once; repetition equals perfection and I think that's the main reason he takes so stupidly long to spawn.

Increasing spawn rate just makes the items worthless.

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Antigegner wrote:

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I_NO wrote:

What a dogshit disaster of a boss I'm more annoyed that Q/A approved of it.

Unfortunately Quality Control and Quality of Life features have always been GGGs weakest link in the chain.

Just look at the fact that they dont even adress any of the complaints of people here in the forum. That shows perfectly that the pr guy should be fire and an intern should take care of that.

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plaguefear wrote:

Increasing spawn rate just makes the items worthless.

implying the helm isnt alch shard tier already and the gloves last I check (3-4 days ago) were 40c only the orb or the sword and maybe certain awakened gems were worth something.

the bullshit of keep making it less frequent so drops are rare and worth "more" is just a lie and not right.

Absolutely agree with you. The fight is now easier than this guardians. Before they nerfed the stroms, he was only hard for the wrong reasons.

But more frustration brings for me the boring and random mechanic to spawn him. I am so annoyed and demotivated to play this game, that the only way to get myself into the last steps for 40/40 is, to completey ignore this mechanic. And then we have to do it 75 for the endgame grind? Holy sh*t. When it stays the way it is, than my motivation to start from the beginning the next league tends towards zero. It was exiting for a while because it was new, but the disillusionment started early.

I am tired of these 3 month cycles with unfinished and not tested content.
Wolcen will be released in a few days, I will see what this brings.

Keep his last phase only, increase his health if need to, remove the phases where he sits up there for a minute.

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Xystre wrote:

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plaguefear wrote:

Increasing spawn rate just makes the items worthless.

implying the helm isnt alch shard tier already and the gloves last I check (3-4 days ago) were 40c only the orb or the sword and maybe certain awakened gems were worth something.

the bullshit of keep making it less frequent so drops are rare and worth "more" is just a lie and not right.

Within 4 hours of the nerf saviour dropped 10 ex.