Arbiter of Ash. Interesting idea, terrible execution.

Good day!

I would like to raise a question regarding the boss fight with the main boss of Atlas, which can be reached by defeating 3 citadels.
To avoid premature conclusions and accusations, I will say that I did not go to it before the patch, and I have no more than 400k dps (judging by the numbers near health). I do not care about the profit from it, so the duration of the battle is not important.

My philosophy regarding boss fights with opponents with a wide range of skills and several phases is as follows: This opponent is either a master who tests the player. Or this opponent is a deity who underestimates the player to the last, starting the battle at "half strength".

So. The main boss, the most difficult to reach, and the most disappointing. Compared to the bosses of the acts, this boss is distinguished by its uninterestingness. Further, of course, it will become clear why I think so.


It seems that his name should not be Arbiter, but Gambler. Too many random moments. Several platforming scenarios, several options for filling the arena ground. And of course, an element of luck, so that he does not use a one-shot mechanic during another one-shot mechanic.
And this is a problem, not diversity, due to the quality of implementation.

Firstly, the most important thing is that the mobility of the characters does not imply the ability to run between the circles if they appeared at maximum range (I, being in demon form, with a dodgeroll of 5 meters, did not always have time to reach the farthest circles). If the boss literally REQUIRES the use of Blink, then this destroys the foundations of build diversity.

Secondly, the timing of the boss's activity is either incorrect, or it is a terrible idea to let the boss attack the player while he is trying to survive in the above-described circles.


Thirdly, the randomness on which the passage depends. Not every character will be able to pass the same rings, while other events will be simpler. At the same time, there is an element of battle, where the boss covers the entire arena with some effect. And if chilled ground complicates the battle, reducing mobility, and can be reduced or ignored with the help of immunity mechanics, then Burning ground literally breaks my build, since it turns off health regeneration, and this cannot be weakened in any way or get immunity to it. I have 90% fire resistance, 55% reduced effect of ignite on me. But burning ground does not damage my energy shield, it turns off my health regeneration.

Fourthly, this is another boss whose voice lines are useless. If you remember the boss fights with Maven, Sirus, Elder, Shaper and so on, they all have excellent sound design of voice lines. You do not need to be a native speaker to understand that after a precise, clear and loud "Die!" a beam will follow. It was because I was used to fighting bosses in PoE 1 that I found it hard to accept that in the battle with Jamanra, he attacked not on the accented syllable, but after the line. Both the Arbiter and Xesht have this problem that they are some kind of zombies, whose voices are a hoarse whisper that cannot be made out in the heat of battle to understand what attack is about to happen. They sound like blah blah blah, the same, not contrasting.

Fifthly, this is more of a nitpick regarding my philosophy and the logic of the scenario. The hypothetical god sees an enemy on his doorstep, meets him with a powerful beam, a series of AoE attacks, after which ... he begins to swing his sword very slowly. And he does this according to the Elden Ring DLC ​​template, with an awkwardly long swing. And so he seems to lose 50% of his life, understands that he can't cope, becomes more serious, spawns seeds that slow down the player (or break my build), and... does almost nothing at this time. What? Why?

It seems to me that if the Arbiter's skills were replaced with Ketzuli's skills, he would be a cool boss, interesting. With whom you want to fight a couple more times. Because it's interesting and readable. You can hear what he's going to do, You can see what he's doing. And randomness doesn't put you in a hopeless situation, but only creates a unique sequence of tests.

And I am grateful to the will of chance that I went to try it after adding respawns, because otherwise I would have been immensely disappointed that I had to spend a hundred hours in the atlas to finally find and get to the copper citadel (still haven't got there, just bought a piece), only to die on the first try due to poor implementation, because I don't have 200kk damage from one hit (ubnormal). I'm afraid to imagine what players with less than 100k dps must do. How many times in a row do you have to be lucky to avoid falling into the trap of poorly calibrated timings?

What can be fixed?
1. Increase the radius of the circles and the delay before the explosion for 15~20%
2. Adjust the hitbox of Flaming Gales so that you can't die because the pixel of your heel touched the edge of the Gale. (decreases with proximity, as with Storms on Sirus arena)
3. Abandon seeds with ground effect, or make their effect strictly on half of the arena, so that you can choose the preferred option.
4. Speed ​​up sword attack preparation animations by increasing the attack completion animation.
5. Sound design with more contrasting voice lines.

I played on low dps builds, and my bossfights against the last bosses of Acts 1, 2 and 3 could last 10 minutes, but it was not tedious or unfair. It was exciting. I saw that everything depended only on me, and not on randomness. And in the bossfight with the Arbiter, I did not have such a feeling even once.

Kind regards.