Act 1 Boss Solo as a Warrior

I did it with warrior, using two handed mace. Not sure whether I was over-leveled or not but I beat him. I just smacked him with armor break until his armor was broken then did infernal cry, earthquake, and shockwave totem. My earthquake has bleed linked to it, not sure if other people do that. I also had a hard time with this area until I made sure I had enough armor on all my pieces.

Third try for me as a solo warrior using a 2 hander, its not really a block fight, you need to roll and time the rolls well. Learn the fight and boss attack pattern and you can do it. I had no special gear, blues and 1 yellow I believe, think I was lvl 16 or 18.

It was challenging but damn fun!

I used the roll attack, slam totem and the skill that does dmg when their heads light up that also stuns the boss

Was my act 1 boss bugged or something? I easily 1 shot him with melee monk, literal basic attack and then bell and the multihit combo staff skill.

cant beat boss as witch. minions die all time so u are with zero dps. my fingers are damm hurt becouse wasd, tryed controller but its just not for me. wish dodge and wasd be more optional.

What is sad is you have to play the warrior like a ranged char. Run in and drop a totem and roll out. Run in and smack down an earthquake and roll out. No idea what the point of a shield is in this game since its all about dodging not blocking.

I thought melee got the short end of the stick in poe, in poe2 its so far behind ranged....

So far the only valid responses have been.
1. It's too hard/has too much health.
2."Just block" when I specifically mentioned not using block.
3. From the melee warr who did it as 2h, use skills that make it not melee (totems) or have delay (EQ). I only use empowered EQs and drop one before denial of area attacks (the delay even when shortened via support is just way too long)
4. Use pin/freeze - I am using a support to help chill the boss (I do a some cold damage), dodging has not been an issue in the fight itself just the add phase due to low ability to do aoe with current skills. Clearing in zones is perfectly fine, but the swarminess of the adds in this fight are much less of a "flask refresh phase" and more of a "you need to survive this" phase. Honestly if they were treated more as a refresh phase this fight wouldn't be so bad, since its so long and tight for melee not getting any any breaks sucks.

Not useful so far:
People saying melee monk was fine. Aren't half your abilities ranged/melee hybrids? There's a reason I mentioned Warrior specifically.

Just want to point out that the shockwave totem I mentioned is used for erupting the EQ jagged ground faster. I do exactly as you said, empowered earthquakes via infernal cry. Fought it purely as melee did not use the totems to do all the work. Found that in the adds stage I was able to kill everything easily so maybe that’s the difference.

2h mace setup for Act 1 Boss:

Rolling Slam + Brutality/Overpower and Perfect Strike + Fire Infusion/Window of Opportunity

You use Rolling Slam to damage as much stun threshold as possible, and when he's heavy stunned you channel with Perfect Strike for a meaty slam and ignite. One well timed Perfect Strike can eat 1/6 to 1/4 his health in beast form--depending on your spec and gear of course.

Update: Apparently shockwave totem is just OP, good remote damage and stun buildup. Did it first try just using it. Definitely many user scenarios where you just don't have it and it makes the fight much much harder. This also is only with maces as a wep type so its more likely you don't have it at this point with all the melee skills available. I'm saying this on top of learning the fight and doing all the right dodges, it was a night and day difference with/without the totem.

we know if you play poe1, go marauder, pick heavystrike and try to just go with the weapons that drop your game will feel like total balls compared to some kind of meta caster levelling.


its so hard to balance a game like this, its gonna take a while, some builds do feel very punishing and some feel really good. that was always gonna be the state on launch right?

i havent tried warrior yet. i beat act1 boss on first go with a fire witch. im gonna try and finish act1 on a lightning sorc now but given the first 10 levels the sorc feels WAYYYYYY worse, its like playing a totally different game in terms of difficulty.



i think this is what people need to do tho. no good saying game is too hard i hate poe2 i quit. tell them what your class is, what bits of content in particular are problematic. cause its balance issues, they will address them but they need to know what to address so well done for describing the problem rather than just ranting, and dont give up, maybe try a different character if that one is just not a vibe right now.