How to tank those Shaper balls on the Uber Elder fight?

No matter what I do, I can't tank them. I have 4.5k life, which isn't good, ok. But my cold res is at 79%. PoB says that with Molten Shell on I should be able to take a hit of 155k cold damage. Still, it only takes one to kill me.

That's PoE, baby!




Real talk, they force you to die so that you "think you have more to learn" and keep playing. Actual business strategy.




I just played a map where I got both Tank checked and DPS checked at the same time. I rolled a map with 120% enemy damage as extra fire, and 120% as extra cold. I decided to play it on my tanky char, whom has 5k HP, 50k armor, 20k evasion, 81% all resists, zero extra damage from enemy crits, 100% spell suppression, and a 10k Molten Shell. I had some close moments going to about 20% HP here and there (where I regained that HP immediately from leech of course), but that's about it.

The map also had 40% more enemy HP, and enemies taking 50% less damage from crits (I was a 100% crit build), but I map cleared pretty fast even still. I have about 300k single target DPS, which I feel is pretty good for how tanky I also am.

Then I summoned Octavius's mutation.

It had extra energy shield, and it had high life regen. I was sitting there tanking and smacking it for like, 7 minutes...

... And then I randomly exploded and got 1 shot, from full.

And I sat there (briefly), watching his HP go from 30% to 100% in about 6 seconds flat.




I ragequit that map.

I actually got Tank checked and DPS checked on the same map. And I remembered why I keep quitting this game. It's just a pile of stuff. Nothing is regulated, not RNG, not balance, not anything. They just pile on the stuff and see what happens in the chaos.




This game is fun when it lets you have fun. But when it doesn't, there's nothing as frustrating as being forced to lose.

So, all this being said... While you're not INTENDED to facetank a lot of things that seem untankable... You're also INTENDED to die, as a business practice. Try to remember that so you feel less frustrated - that is to say, at yourself.

The balls have inherent 25% cold penetration, and deals 5600 to 8400, so they are always gonna hurt. However you should be able to take 1 ball unless it is a crit.

To tank them you are probably gonna want capped spell suppression, spell block and very high recovery

"

ShadyC wrote:

Then I summoned Octavius's mutation.

It had extra energy shield, and it had high life regen. I was sitting there tanking and smacking it for like, 7 minutes...

... And then I randomly exploded and got 1 shot, from full.

And I sat there (briefly), watching his HP go from 30% to 100% in about 6 seconds flat.

https://www.poewiki.net/wiki/Frost_Bomb

Yes, I'm aware of Frost Bomb.

Am I really expected to carry one around on me, just in case I come across this Metamorph boss?




Just because everything technically has a counter doesn't mean it's good game design. I'm going to assume you don't pack Frost Bomb on every build you play.

"

ShadyC wrote:

Yes, I'm aware of Frost Bomb.

Am I really expected to carry one around on me, just in case I come across this Metamorph boss?


Just because everything technically has a counter doesn't mean it's good game design. I'm going to assume you don't pack Frost Bomb on every build you play.

You can take it from stash or just ignore the boss and move on.
Nobody is forcing you ...

"

yarakuro wrote:

No matter what I do, I can't tank them. I have 4.5k life, which isn't good, ok. But my cold res is at 79%. PoB says that with Molten Shell on I should be able to take a hit of 155k cold damage. Still, it only takes one to kill me.

But not the balls with 25% cold res penetration.
Check again while having 54% cold resistance ...¨

I have problem with such mechanics not being explained though ...
There should be some bestiary or smth to be able to see all boss stats.

with that amount of life you need like 85+ resistances or spellblock and get lucky

As mentioned above, the 25% cold penetration makes high max res ineffective, so if you absolutely want to tank them, you'll need another defensive layer. What comes to my mind:
- Spell suppression;
- Cold damage taken as X (divine flesh or tempered by war) that deny cold penetration, combined with high max res;
- Transcendance with reasonable armour coupled with some physical mitigation (so Elder doesn't blow you up).

You can couple spell block with that to avoid shotgun effect, but that won't prevent oneshots (although they become less frequent).

Keep in mind that Uber Elder is supposed to be one of the toughest encounters in the game, so it seems fair that tanking it requires much, much more than +4% to max res and one guard skill. With enough investment one can totally tank Uber Elder, but again, you'll need quite some commitment to achieve so.

"

ShadyC wrote:

Just because everything technically has a counter doesn't mean it's good game design. I'm going to assume you don't pack Frost Bomb on every build you play.

Do I pack it on every build? No. Do I plan for this contingency, especially when I'm not playing a high dps build? YES

You stated you beat on that metamorph for 7 minutes before you got one-shot. During those 7 minutes you could have ported back to your stash, do a quick swap, then do a 30-45 second beat down.

"

PoitelMarto wrote:

As mentioned above, the 25% cold penetration makes high max res ineffective, so if you absolutely want to tank them, you'll need another defensive layer. What comes to my mind:
- Spell suppression;
- Cold damage taken as X (divine flesh or tempered by war) that deny cold penetration, combined with high max res;
- Transcendance with reasonable armour coupled with some physical mitigation (so Elder doesn't blow you up).

You can couple spell block with that to avoid shotgun effect, but that won't prevent oneshots (although they become less frequent).

Keep in mind that Uber Elder is supposed to be one of the toughest encounters in the game, so it seems fair that tanking it requires much, much more than +4% to max res and one guard skill. With enough investment one can totally tank Uber Elder, but again, you'll need quite some commitment to achieve so.

I could add Sapphire flask (eventually with increased flask effect) for an extra mitigation but players are not supposed to tank them but rather avoid them.