Arbiter of Ash fight isn't bad, but it's unfair

So after 350 hours of grinding I finally found 3 towers to go fight AoA.

All I can say is thank the Lord that you switched tier 0 to infinite tries.

It took me 35 attempts (deaths) to finally beat it. All of them were on the first phase. The second phase was a breeze really.

The problems stemmed mostly from the fact my dps was terrible as minions like to stand outside of the circle blasts and die. If I wasn't having to do multiple first phase one-shot avoidance I might have done it way quicker.

When I say it's unfair it's for two reasons. First, the visibility on the fire-alley is kind of abysmal (but maybe put that down to my eyesight) and the body blocking from AoA can be annoying so I fixed that by repositioning myself once that phase began.
Second, the circle-blast timing can be too tight for the RNG positioning of them. Combined with running anything that leaves templates on the floor (ie. Vaal Guard fire) the visibility of the next circle can be bad. Let's say that's a build issue for now but also the camera height and the position of the circles can leave you unable to notice where the next one is. If you have a circle at the bottom of the zone, it can be tough to see a circle spawning at the top of the zone. Any deviation from your path means you don't have enough time to reach it. If AoA is in the way, running around him means you can miss it. Blink would fix this but not everyone carries it around with them.

I've done every boss fight that has ever been introduced to POE (minus a couple in the 3 or so leagues I missed) and this has to be the most annoying boss. Mostly because of the tight windows, the awful dodge rolls during fire-alley phase which can change direction, and the fact it's not that the fight is hard. It's just got a bit of RNG that can one-shot you.

I have no problem with one-shot mechanics that are telepgraphed, but when the telegraph is so quick that 30% movement speed boots aren't enough to beat some of the RNG involved and the dodge roll can go in directions you didn't expect because you reposition the mouse to get DPS in or get ready to click into a better position, then it's a bit too frustrating.

I can honestly say that I won't ever be doing this fight again until I'm back to tier 0 next league. And maybe not even then. I'd rather sell the 3 keys for 4div considering the loot I got was Nazir's Judgement Quaterstaff (1 alch or less) and Ab Aeterno boots (1 exalt). A thoroughly unsatisfying end to a 350 hour journey.

Take this as feedback or just me whining. It's upto you.

bro 35? holy cow.

Arbiter is badly designed by GGG devs that just don't want to learn their lessons.

They could have fixed the problem of players 1-shotting the boss by adding fixed invulnerability points which then execute the boss mechanics.

In other words, at 75%, 50%, and 25% health arbiter would become invulnerable and you would have to do one of the "dance" mechanics to avoid the bosses 1-shot. And no amount of DPS could bypass these checkpoints. And the boss 1-shot mechanics would ONLY happen during these phases. That way EVERY SINGLE PLAYER that kills the boss, no matter the DPS, has to do the same amount of difficult mechanics.

This alone would have helped them balance the game, as the more experienced players with a platform on youtube could give feedback if these 1-shot mechanics were too difficult or unfair. Instead, these elite players are just able to completely bypass the mechanics by having enough DPS, which is bad design for the devs to allow this in the first place.

This also prevents players with low DPS having do the boss 1-shot dance 5+ times because the boss takes too long to kill.

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MissDerry#3540 wrote:

First, the visibility on the fire-alley is kind of abysmal (but maybe put that down to my

Hey there, I completely understand what you’re going through. I’m having a similar issue myself. I’m not sure if the developers tested this on a large TV screen while playing from the sofa. I have to stand next to the TV to see it clearly.

I hope they can improve this visual issue.

"

92ranger#4205 wrote:

Arbiter is badly designed by GGG devs that just don't want to learn their lessons.

They could have fixed the problem of players 1-shotting the boss by adding fixed invulnerability points which then execute the boss mechanics.

In other words, at 75%, 50%, and 25% health arbiter would become invulnerable and you would have to do one of the "dance" mechanics to avoid the bosses 1-shot. And no amount of DPS could bypass these checkpoints. And the boss 1-shot mechanics would ONLY happen during these phases. That way EVERY SINGLE PLAYER that kills the boss, no matter the DPS, has to do the same amount of difficult mechanics.

This alone would have helped them balance the game, as the more experienced players with a platform on youtube could give feedback if these 1-shot mechanics were too difficult or unfair. Instead, these elite players are just able to completely bypass the mechanics by having enough DPS, which is bad design for the devs to allow this in the first place.

This also prevents players with low DPS having do the boss 1-shot dance 5+ times because the boss takes too long to kill.

Absolutely correct.