Viper Napuatzi highlights something important (my first actual critique)

I have been stuck on this reworked boss for 2 days straight, after 1000+ hours and never getting stuck anywhere on any character or build. I have cleared all content, on max difficulty levels. I have played ARPG games for a long time, as well as From Software games, and other games notorious for their difficulty (Hollow Knight, etc.). I enjoy "funstrating" games.

HOWEVER, there is a difference between difficulty, and simulated difficulty.

A good example of a difficult boss is Godfrey from Elden Ring. That is my all time favorite boss, because you can literally dance with him for hours and always learn something, come up with cool ways to fight him, and never feel stuck, always having a light at the end of the tunnel because he has a move set that is variable, but learnable nonetheless.

I haven't experienced what most people have talked about concerning GGGs boss design philosophy, but the last 2 days have me a bit concerned.

1. Grinding Gear, you are not From Software because you don't have Miyazaki. You will never be them, because frankly, none of you are even on the same level as From Software, and Viper Napuatzi proves it.


This boss must have been reworked, at least in cruel difficulty.

This entire fight is what is called "simulated difficulty" because I have hours of video proof that it is entirely RNG based.

You cannot bait attacks.

You cannot predict the next move set.

The boss will often spam the same move set over and over, like this most recent attempt - I practically had her beaten, she had already told her cronies to throw spears 3 times, and I immediately started DPSing her after what I thought would be the last spear volley.

Wouldn't you know it, within 2 seconds of the final spear volley, she floats off and the spears start being thrown again immediately.

So as I type this my character lies dead in the arena, again, because of simulated difficulty in the form of spammed 1 shot mechanics.

This brings me to my second point -


I wanted to believe you guys over in New Zealand had a clue, but I think I just blasted through the content so fast before that I never really experienced the dumpster fire that was alot of the bosses.

The executioner is good, however. The bloated miller is decent for a first boss. Geonor is typical, nothing special, but nothing horrible either. Doryani is pretty cool, I like his opening voice line.

But I've been around these boss centric and difficult games since the day they all released, and have played them all - and GGG, if your trying to carve out your own place amongst them, you need to remove RNG from the fights, make some attacks baitable, and if your using adaptable AI, you suck at it (this would explain the Vipers spamming the only attacks that hit me, over and over).

I have been wondering if their is some form of adaptive AI in some of the fights, because it seems like in this Viper fight, she will endlessly spam the attacks that connect most often, and that's not ok.

Anyway, I'll give it another day or so and if I am still hard stopped at this dumpster fire, Imma go play and stream Monster Hunter until you all get this sorted out - because not to sound arrogant, but if I'm walled off by a boss, there is definitely something wrong with the boss mechanics.

Bumped, because I want to hear from the community here.

The improvements to the purple chaos rain has made this fight easier but the spears are what kill me 100% of the time.
I think its fine though, the timing of the dodge roll is everything.
I've died from that exact scenario you said but its only happened once. The spears started again immediately after just finishing and I'd just come out of a dodge roll and didn't have time to dodge again.

You need to explain your build too, because nobody can tell you if it's a you problem without it. But it might be. I beat her with bleed ritualist with 2 beasts in cruel and I found it even easier than on normal. One beast has slow aura so that helps with bringing her down in pace. I don't even use LS for single target, just fast normal spear throw with supports. I just have tools that make bosses easier. I don't know what to tell you besides that your build may be the source of the simulated difficulty. One thing I notice that many people do is that they think "their build" is "the build" and they won't compromise in changing any part of it because it's what they want. Even if it's meta or not. There are tools you could have used, changed, adapted, to beat her. You know her weaknesses, what damage type she does, etc. 2 days on this boss and you say you have experience with From games. Maybe that's the issue because people in those games also get stuck in "their build" mindset instead of adapting.

This is the only fight during the campaign I have to actually gear for specifically on a fresh character. Pump up my EHP and chaos res, then swap gems for max ST damage and blast her back out before she can shrink the arena twice.

Its a bummer to dump currency right before you start mapping but its what I had to do in 0.1 and 0.2

If you’re getting stonewalled by Viper it’s because you’re not generating enough DPS and staying static for too long. PoE2’s boss fights follow a completely different philosophy than FromSoftware’s. One is dance, dance revolution while the other is more like a game of dodgeball. Post your PoB link.

There are definitely unfair mechanics in this fight. I played as class canon mage when EA first released and I was stuck in the boss for a while.

I got thru by increasing my damage and out-dpsing mechs but came back later to see if I could learn the fight.

I wanted to see if I could completely master the mechanics and do a no hit fight with a low dps character.

I gave up after a while. The arrow phase is tricky but I felt got the timing of the dodge roll down.

But there were many many times (I reset the fight 50+ times to get reps in) when she would do her machine gun poison hand attacks immediately after the arrow phase. My character would be at the very end of the dodge roll animation (and not responsive) and the first few attacks would hit me. If I got soft stunned, I would die.

Unless you go very tanky or go all out dps and skip mechs, I don't think you can remove rng deaths from that fight.

To me Queen of Filth is the worst designed boss in the game. There is a version of her in the endgame that is just as stupid as the original. Can only beat her by cheasing her into a corner and curb stomping her. Otherwise she's just way too fast, too random, aoe doesn't match with what's on the screen and endless random crap on the ground.

As for Viper resistances and regen are key i believe.

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Flowneppets#0528 wrote:

To me Queen of Filth is the worst designed boss in the game. There is a version of her in the endgame that is just as stupid as the original. Can only beat her by cheasing her into a corner and curb stomping her. Otherwise she's just way too fast, too random, aoe doesn't match with what's on the screen and endless random crap on the ground.

As for Viper resistances and regen are key i believe.

+1

Build is fine, clear the whole screen in a few skill casts.

Res is fine - fire was 40ish and chaos was 35ish

EHP around 2k, depending on my 3rd ring

Running a companion for 10% DMG mitigation, which means nada in that fight. But the damage from his lightning aoe helped, except Viper is practically immune to all elements.

I beat her, but everything I said still stands.

I will say, this fight isn't a me problem, it's a game issue.