I’m about the Ekket’s Zul (???) or whatever, can’t even remember or pronounce his name. The big boss in the void, before Ulgrim.
His animation speed of placing the volcano is too high, like instant. He also use to cast it under your feet. The combination of these results in unavoidable oneshots (already lost 2 high level chars with maxed resists/huge HP pool, both died in identical way).
As long as you obviously don’t intend to reconsider your vision about shotgunning, then got to be very careful with shotgun attacks available to bosses, especially in high level content.
In its current state this fight is unbalanced, and deaths in the arena feel cheap and unfair.
Either make the volcano placement telegraphed, or greatly reduce its damage, or increase its hitbox - to be unable to have it under your feet taking all of the shotgun damage.
P.S.
Had to be in the feedback section, dunno why shoved it here.
The fissure placement is telegraphed when he does it. Keep an eye on his arms. As a melee you can facetank him. As a ranged you can keep distance easily enough. With a pet build he dies before he gets near you.
It is just how only 1 playtester had an issue with this as well. And made vids to teach him how to play. Same applies here
Still didn’t excused the oneshot i got when the volcano wasn’t even beneath my character and i got out of way when he raised his arms. And those videos didn’t teached me jack shit when i already knew how to fight him.
It obviously ain’t well telegraphed, as long as I haven’t even noticed any distinctive animation.
Black-reddish boss in a black-reddish environment doesn’t help to watch his hands closely, as well.
Or animation speed have to be slowed down -to be able to even notice it, and react. No?
As a melee you can facetank him.
Or you cannot? Probably depends on the power of the character, along with the certain build and play style. Is facetanking him mandatory for a melee char?
As a ranged you can keep distance easily enough.
As long as you can offscreen, either way you will get eventually oneshot.
At one hand, such a devastating mechanic got to be animated quite visibly and distinctively.
You, as a playtester, had to inform Crate about it, but not to play the “my dick so big-me superhero-just watch his hands noob” game. At least you were invited not just to play the content for free, but to provide information like this, when it was needed.
On the other, we are once again back to the shotgun mechanics, and how hard (or impossible) is to balance around them.
Why is this still a thing?
Ekket’Zul literally has a linear pattern to his attacks, after he does the wing flap, he uses melee than casts volcano, that is seriously all you need to keep an eye on.
If you see Ekket’Zul move both his arms forward, start running, because that’s when he uses his Fissure attack, and it will shotgun you down, if you stand still.
Well its ok if you don’t notice it the first few times. Eventually you will and learn. Some just take longer to learn apparently. Not really a problem in the design.
Or you cannot? Probably depends on the power of the character, along with the certain build and play style. Is facetanking him mandatory for a melee char?
I can spend most of the fight watching my inventory blocking the screen and still beat him. And that isn’t even with well build builds. With even weaker builds I need to move away from two fissure attacks, let him run into me and resume the fight till he’s dead.
As a range you don’t have to be off screen. You just need to run around the corner of one of the pillars. Keep casting and occasional stutter step. Even as a spellcaster you can stand still through most of his attacks. As explained… He uses a very set rotation of his attacks. So you even know when his next attack is coming well before it does without having to pay attention to telegraphs… in case you can’t see telegraphs.
If you get oneshot you need to fix your build to not be such a dumb glasscannon.
You’re overreacting how difficult this fight is and what odd tactics you seem to be using
You, as a playtester, had to inform Crate about it, but not to play the “my dick so big-me superhero-just watch his hands noob” game. At least you were invited not just to play the content for free, but to provide information like this, when it was needed.
On the other, we are once again back to the shotgun mechanics, and how hard (or impossible) is to balance around them.
Why is this still a thing?
This is bullshit. We didn’t report this because there is nothing to report. And it has nothing to do with e-peen or whatever childish things you might come up with. Ekket’Zul was piss easy. Now he is a little less easy, but still fairly so. If we really wanted our E-peen stroked he would’ve been tuned to be a lot stronger.
If you want to see unfair shotgun mechanics. Go too malmouth and run into the middle of a pack with Arcane Titans accompanied by Regurgitators. And even that is doable if you pay attention and think about your approach instead of whining about nothing.
I haven’t had any issues with fighting him with two different casters. AAR caster took a while to whittle him down as I hadn’t figured out his attack patterns and I didn’t feel comfortable remaining stationary after seeing that fissure attack, but he still died a lot quicker than I had anticipated (mostly from Haunt, Devastation, and devotion procs).
My Witch Hunter caster simply melted him before he could react at all. Given the buildup to the fight, the well-designed arena, I was expecting one hell of a fight. Instead, I watched him spawn and then despawn.
Now that I know his attacks are on a set rotation, I shouldn’t have any issues with him in the future with other casters. So thanks for that information.
This fight is insanely difficult as a conjurer. https://www.grimtools.com/calc/JVlkB4o2
I’ve tried it as a lightning build and as a vitality build. There are just too many ways to die with no time to react (instant death) and then there’s the 5 minute run back to try again for a battle that lasts 10 secs. If I were fighting for 5 minutes without dying then there’d be time to learn but not with near instant deaths. And remember that this isn’t an optional boss like a Nemesis – it’s required to get to Malmouth and is more difficult than some of the Nemesis battles.
And don’t forget that it’s not one volcano but each time he casts it there’s another and you’re in a locked room so eventually one of them will get you. For those that say this fight is insanely easy, what other boss is more difficult aside from a nemesis because I don’t think I’ve encountered it and have finished all of the story quests.
You have no extra armour absorption and low armour. Ekket’Zul does a fair amount of Physical damage on his attacks, including the Fissure which is split Physical/Fire/Burn.
Apply some Scaled Hides/Ancient Armour Platings to your armour so that you get up to around +43% Armour Absorption (getting it exact isn’t necessary, close will do).
You have low OA and DA for where you are at. Consider the Survivor’s Ingenuity augment from Devil’s Crossing as a start.
If you can’t facetank him then don’t, kite him around with Bloody Pox and drop Double Doom Bolts on him when he’s still (like his attack where he fans his wings forward.
Try to get him to place his next Fissure close to his first, probably not easy I know but while you’re fighting him, try and get a “feel” for his Fissure cooldown and predict roughly when he’ll use it next or count the seconds or something.
Edit:
If you’re Revered with COven of Ugdenbog/Barrowholm/Malmouth Resistance, you might want to look at replacing some of your gear like your headguard and shoulderguards, belt and possibly your chestguard too.
Well, as a newb, I encountered two fights that stopped me dead in my track, both in ultimate. The first was Log’s, who destroyed my cold trickster that had been cruising flawlessly throughout the game before this. I tried and died like 50 times. I had to level up a ranged char in order to kill Log. And then came Ekket Zul, who destroyed my Purifier. I just couldn’t go on. That was when I first went to the forum I had to see how people build their chars. I got back to my trickster, armed him with new items and rebuild him from ground up. Voila. Both Log and Ekket Zul were no longer a problem. This trickster is now armed with Korba’s set and I use him to farm both Log and Ekket Zul.
Now I have a new nemesis, in the truest sense of the word: Grava’Thul. Eventually, you will come to love Ekket Zul and shift all your hatred to Grava.
This guy killed my witchblade about a dozen times on Elite when xpac first came out. Up til that point I had paid no attention to boss damage types or my defensive stats, without any problems. This was very frustrating (it’s the run back that’s annoying) so I actually thought about his fire/chaos theme and raised my DA, used a Bloodhound pot etc…and immediately ran away from the volcano.
Haven’t had an issue with him since. I’m not a GD pro at all.
