I met this guy for the first time on Normal, and I agree he’s somewhat too much for an early game boss.
At the time you’re fighting him, the player can only have a chance, if they are either very lucky with gear rolls, or are using gear from previous characters, but even so, it doesn’t makes any sense for someone to hoard low level gear, just to survive a single enemy.
My suggestion is to add them as Bounty Hunter targets for DC instead. That way, you don’t need to actually meet Acedian or the other guy, unless you decide to accept the bounty, and new players won’t feel like they might have ended hitting a progression wall.
Starting a new SSF game on veteran and the two champions of the pit, Aldric and Rekt are crazy hard for an encounter that’s on the main path.
Most builds haven’t come together in terms of mitigating skills or gearing by the 20s and definitely won’t have much in the way of stun/slow resist. It’s a neat fight but makes absolutely zero sense that its placed on the main path.
Currently playing a PRM spellbinder with a focus on survivability. Think I could probably dps through their healing if I totally respecced as a single target glass cannon and was very dodgy but it would be brutal.
Nerf or gate it behind a mini-quest (fight club, anyone?) or place em somewhere else.
I love the optional challenge areas and more bosses is cool - but they are always gated, hidden or there is a warning sign that the player is headed into a challenging area. Crate have (up to now) done a great job at signposting what is optional challenge content.
Speaking more practically, it’s weird that the player has to avoid a part of the main map until later, and take one of the detours to get to Cronley. Should be the other way around IMO.
Met Aldric on normal with a SSF blademaster. It’s my fourth character, but the first melee one and first time I try these masteries. Was aware that they are there but didn’t prepare for them - had 0 stun resist and ~ 20 lightning resist. Also was experimenting with skills so made a mistake and instead of normal attack attacked him with 1-pointed blade arc, dealing less damage all the fight.
Died twice, reducing him to maybe 30% of his hp at the same time, for the third attempt I noticed that I actually have a lightning resist potion in my inventory - drank it - and defeated him without trouble - even while hitting him with blade arc Maybe lost half of my hp in the process this time.
So he doesn’t seem too overpowered to me even for a newer player with little experience. Though maybe blademaster is not the worst possible match for him, that I don’t know yet.
My previous character was a ranged shieldbraker and was able to defeat him without taking any damage - just by kiting.
Both are easily avoided. As said, you can go through Hanneffy’s Mine or just keep well away from the pit. And Loxmere only spawns in that one small area of Plains of Strife.
Somebody earlier on mentioned putting a door on the arena, seems like an easy solution to me.
Looking forward to taking them down in a couple levels, but it sure was annoying having to run back through half of four hills and Hannefy a second time.
If I was a newish player I would probably have started a new build thinking I had screwed something up.
I agree with the general sentiment. Rekt and Acedian are overturned, specially Rekt with his phys damage and stunlocks. Hardly a character will have good resistances against those two things that early in the game. Although the pit is a side-area, it’s just by the main path, and those bastards have a huge aggro range for some reason. Killing the lackeys outside of the pit will aggro them most of the time. The worst part is that they can practically lock you out of doing the Boris’s bounty quest because of the difficulty. Boris was one of my favorite bosses to farm Cronley’s reputation, but now I have to think it twice.
Some suggestions that come to my mind:
*Just straight nerf them
*Change their location to somewhere farther from the main path
*Reduce their aggro range
*Make them both summonable bosses somehow
Good idea. Either put a gate at the entrance that only the player can open, or a destructible gate which keeps them inside until you (or one of Cronley’s blade-throwing Gang members) destroys it.
Another idea is to reduce their spawn chance. Boris keeps 100%, but Acedian and Rekt get 20% each so they are in line with Loxmere who has 40% spawn chance. That would also make life a bit easier for those who want to collect bounties on Boris’ head.
My favorite solution is probably the least feasible: make the whole area larger and relocate the pit to a location that is further off the beaten path, preferably with a closed gate. Maybe even make it a small Dangerous Domain with mutators
My bad. Since the addition of the new champions, I went there like 2 dozen times and Boris was always there, so I was under the impression that he has 100% spawn chance.
So I will extend my suggestion to giving Boris a 100% spawn chance
If people really do feel strongly about it then making them summonable wouldn’t be out the question. Something like a special shrine or “Champion’s Totem” in the far back of the pit could work I suppose.
They would then have to nerf the drop rate on his Axe. Boris was given a 100% chance to spawn with one of his Infrequents to compensate for not being a guaranteed spawn himself.
Hey, new player to GD with about 20 some hrs in. Love the game. I actually came across this thread while searching Acedian Aldric, since he was (and still is) continually wrecking my Ritualist in normal veteran mode. I kept wondering what about my build was failing and it really made me ponder if I had been spec’ing incorrectly, despite mowing down his jabroni friends in that same arena area.
My take as a new player- I enjoyed that there is this challenge I can revisit and love the backstory behind Acedian. It hasn’t discouraged me in the least but rather got me more interested in analyzing my char. He’s killed me prob 20x but I’ll keep at it. He wipes my pets pretty quickly and that lightning and stun stuff really obliterates me. Closest I’ve come is maybe half-health before he kills/heals etc.
As others have said, hes not mandatory and he doesn’t block progress, and I can easily run from him 9/10 times. The only thing is that I expected more… Indication? in his nameplate to show he was a bad mofo.
He has a skull denoting him - all you need to know when you see one of those. Any hero/boss with one of those you should approach cautiously and be prepared to run away.
same as with loxmere, no warning given. Merciless for HC players otherwise you just learn and move on 
