Merveil - Is she really a fair boss?

Hey Guys,

So really I'm here to leave my 2 cents on the current state of Merveil. I've just died on my HC ranger at level 17 to Merviel with gear that's proably just abive average (All slots with rare/magic +dex and resist style gear).

So, After reviewing the footage of the death I think the main issue with Merveil is not her damage, Not her attack speed and not her run speed, It's simple how accurate her attacks are, and the layout of her lair.

Based on the footage linked at the bottom of this I can understand that I am in no way perfect at the game, but I reprisent someone who is at LEAST average, and the shear amount of damage she does along with her accuracy and her ability to chain together 5 attacks (Watch the death) makes her near impossible to solo.

To add to the frey I fear what this boss is like for people playing on a melee class, I mean shes essentially impossible for a ranged solo to kill.

So basically, I understand Merveil is a fiarly easy boss in a team, but I feel she has a fair bit of tweaking to go for solo players, as at the minute without either using portals or massivley outleveling and outgearing her your never going to killer her on Hardcore without dieing.

Link to video: http://www.twitch.tv/knowledged3/b/322881312 (Currently processing, Will be ready in an hour or so)

Please leave your feedback and any hints as to what I did wrong, and add your own opinion on her.

Why should a boss be fair?

It's an actboss and supposed to kick ass.

actually, she gets a lot easier if you melee her, disregarding your class preferances...
those swords look terrifying, but they really are not that bad tbh


after seeing the video i would like to enforce my recommendation :) try getting into melee range and keep shooting. she wont enact ice-age-lite on your ass and instead try to dismember you (yeah she is a classy lady ^^)

the advantage is, besides the obvious not being frozen part, that you dont have to kill off her shield multiple times. maybe take three life flasks for her though

Watched the video.

Ive almost only played Ranger so far, solo only so I don't know what playing in a team is like. Anyway yeah, that's pretty much how my fights vs Marveil have looked.

Never really gotten her at the first try, so I wouldn't have made it hardcore, but she has always been possible in the end for me, pretty much in the same way that you tried.

One key difference though: I've always relied heavily on split arrow vs her, which means that more of my offscreen shots will hit, a lot more, so I don't have to keep up the dodging for quite as long as you had to. So that could be a tip for a tactic.

Last time I faced her, on Ruthless (edit: Merciless, actually), her attacks seemed faster than before though, and I could no longer dodge well enough to avoid getting frozen, so I became completely dependant on flasks with the "dispel freeze/chilled" attribute to survive long enough. Oh and temporal chains on top of that. I dunno if her cast speed is a recent buff, if it's part of the Ruthless difficulty increase or if I just thought slower that day. Still, despite all that, I think I took her down on the second or third try.

edit: changed one word to what it was intended to be

things I noticed:

-You have 206 life/23es. Hardly anywhere near sufficient.

-You have iron rings on, and a regen ammy, suggesting you are specced for damage, and therefore have minimal resists.
- Your flasks are underleveled, should have one or 2 of the level 14 life flasks.

It's not shocking at all that you got destroyed, with cold damage freezing/chilling longer on lower life.

The problem is (specifically normal), merely addressing those 2 issues makes her a complete pushover. The relationship is far too binary for an act boss IMO. A few simple pieces of equipment (2 rings) shouldn't cause a shift from way too hard to way too easy.

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indczn wrote:

things I noticed:

-You have 206 life/23es. Hardly anywhere near sufficient.

-You have iron rings on, and a regen ammy, suggesting you are specced for damage, and therefore have minimal resists.
- Your flasks are underleveled, should have one or 2 of the level 14 life flasks.

It's not shocking at all that you got destroyed, with cold damage freezing/chilling longer on lower life.

The problem is (specifically normal), merely addressing those 2 issues makes her a complete pushover. The relationship is far too binary for an act boss IMO. A few simple pieces of equipment (2 rings) shouldn't cause a shift from way too hard to way too easy.

The problem is that average player will not farm for better flasks at level 14. They may or may not drop on the way to merveil. You may not even get the sapphire rings or blue skills to spare. Of course you can twink it and make it easy but the game should work on first walkthrough...

I noticed that both bosses using Ice Spear (the Tidal Island one, forgot the name, and Merveil) are extremely hard for a new player, just because of Ice Spear's critical chance increase.

I found out (after few deaths) that when faced against these bosses, you should essentialy throw away all what you're used to do with your class, and go close range. This way, you avoid the single worst event than can happen - freeze+critical/dmg-higher-than-regen - that's what caused OP to die (except for not having perfect gear for this engagement).

Kiting the projectiles on the other hand, can get you frozen very easily, considering 600% increased crit chance, even with resistance rings.

Still, I've yet to do a Merveil solo kill without teleporting to town - she has too much ES and HP to do it, while Cold Snap essentialy makes avoiding 100% damage impossible.

I actually think that boss on the tidal islands is harder than Merveil, just because you cannot have much cold resist that early on. I just get frozen solid. Merveil is actually not so bad. I have soloed her with both a Templar on Normal and Cruel and a bow shadow on Normal; she was tough but not impossible...kind of like an act boss, except her 2nd form is kind of pointless.

Disclaimer: with the Shadow I just shot poision arrows in her general direction as she chased me around the giant rock pillar behind which I was hiding. Eventually the chaos damage did the trick, so no acts of heroics there.