How to go about beating Act 5 Avarius in HC

So I'm currently on my second hardcore attempt with the same build after dying to Avarius and I'm about to get to him. I died to his second phase dash that spawns a bunch of little lightning balls. I have about 40% lightning resist, 1.4k health, and an evasion flask. Anything else I should get to prepare or tips?

you are wearing, literally, non magic helm and chest.

at least go to your crafting bench and craft +life on them...

and then use an augment on each, maybe youll roll a resist too.

High_Templar_Avarius

It's fire dmg not lightning. But regardless, you should try to get all of them to 75 asap.

The 4L Contagion is a lot of tied up mana. After the nerf to SS, I personally found it easier to play the sling like you do post sling. Self cast the contagion and just sling ED and Soulrend. For bosses you don't really need the contagion and the extra dmg really helps to kill them. The dual leach ES/Life really helps with survivability too.

It seems like you're using the default attack to proc the sling, you should add in Frenzy with curse on hit for Despair. Keep frenzy low lvl since it's dmg is pointless. Add in more projectiles (LMP or GMP) for easier cursing in the early game.

Those are just some basics, I'd suggest hunting down a guide for more in depth answers about how to optimize the build.

He also tosses around a couple types of fire projectiles so you want fire resist as well. (The lightning sparks are in the wake of his charge.)

Difference between 40% and 75% ele resist is significant. If you can manually dodge everything, or manage to evade, it won't matter of course. But getting hit by several of the sparks/fireballs at 40% will kill you. At 75% it probably won't.

If you learn his verbal cues for those abilities, you can also focus on getting distance, or getting behind a statue if one is up, which it often will be.

I find him the most deadly of all the bosses while leveling.

As stated above, cap your elemental resists.
This is a MUST for HC.

Get a good life roll on EVERY gear piece.

The other HC trick is to over level.
Go back and do several act 5 zones over and over and over and over and over...

This help a lot, not just with getting higher level, but more rare loot drops to get better defenses on your gear.

The slowly dispersing bullet hell (like Shaper's bullet hell) are fatal even with maxxed resists. Having maxxed resists just means it is more forgiving (i.e. we get one more chance to live). They're not meant to be tanked. We are supposed to anticipate the cue and then carefully wiggle our way around the bullet hell. More DPS means the less time we'll see him performing this skill.

This boss has another similar skill which does far less damage. It looks and sounds like Spark. Those can be tanked.

open a portal

His attack has audible clue

have quicksilver flask


He has a few attack

Slam, have a icon on the ground at charge up stage, just walk out from that area

Beam, just running in circle and don't get hit. Or behind the stone guard

spark, ez, can't remember how to dodge it

Ball. Ball is the most deadly attack, just want carefully the ball pattern and/or behind the stone guard

Sorry your latest guy died as well. (Obviously no idea whether it was on this fight...)

If you try again at some point, HC is not about doing or knowing a couple extra things that enable you to survive the hardest fights. It's a completely different way to play PoE.

Good luck.

The simplest way to master a boss fight is experience. So, consider running Avarius on a softcore character repeatedly to learn his visual and audio cues. There are also very good video guides online for major boss fights in POE, which can help quite a bit by not leaving you to figure everything out on your own.

On another note, if your character is ranged, and it seems that is the case, then stay slightly out of melee range with him. Your character needs to be close to him when he does his channeling attack anyways and it's easier to see his visual cues if your character is close to him. Plus, the simplest answer to most of his attacks is to move your character behind him while he's winding up so Avarius's attacks hit empty air, which becomes easier when you fight relatively close to him. As a bonus, after you get behind him then your character tends to get some hits in on him with no concern about being hit back before he turns around to face your character once again.

Also, having move speed on your boots is good defense for that fight because positioning and movement are very helpful for turning that fight from "scary" to "straightforward."

In this fight you need two things: damage and TP open.

gtfo as you see him casting the balls, hiding behind statues ( if there are any :/ ) may put you into trouble