The boss you fightin the chtonic rift before entering Malmouth deals ridiculous damages through his pool of fire he sometimes summons. Even with maxxed resistances to fire and all it can quickly kill you and the red color oof this area makes it harder to notice.
Th master flesh is also very hard , you cannot really predict his moves. On the grim dawn server on discord, some players agree that some fights are designed in a way where boss just deals shotgun damage and you cannot really learn from his patterns or it is way too hard.
I did kill those bosses, but it didnt feel satisfying because of how the fights were designed, it is not as in afight where i could say" i won or lost because i dodged/did not dodge".
What i am trying to explain is the fights have some “brute force” design that feels a bit tasteless.
I consider it as a bug becaus ein my opinion those damages are excessive granted they happen with maximum resistances. A one shot dead with high end gear and maxxed resistances feels ridiculous.
First you say that the fire pool deals damage. Then move out of it. It probably has resist reduction, so you can’t facetank even with maxed reistances. You really can’t facetank everything with every build. Is that an issue?
After this you say that the moves are not predictable. This is not true. Every boss move is precisely timed (you can even read about this in the grimtools monster database) and even has some signs when the dangerous move will be executed. You can dodge them easily if you take notice of this.
One shot with high end gear and maxed resistances never happened to me, not even close. (It happened in some other game a lot. ) However it is worth to mention that you have to overcap resistances heavily if you really wanna facetank the resist reduction bosses. Or kite a lot.
this is one of the cases where you have to play the game like it’s a computer game rather than just a massive statistics engine.
There is a big island in the area where the boss you mention lives. Just kite around it until he spawns the fire thing, then attack him on the other side of the island- safe from the flames. This way you don’t have to worry about the fire and can still fight him. Just like Mario jumping over Koopas
Don’t expect a lot of sympathy, OP. People literally didn’t believe me when I said Ekket’Zul was reliably hitting me for 8k damage at max resists back in October.
I have to agree! Some of the damage being dealt by the baddies in the expac are so over powered such as poison damage that resistances aren’t effective. I came upon the Chupacabra and after kiting for about 10 minutes or so across half the landscape and not making any gains, I quit the game. By any metric my build should’ve in its class, been overpowered but it was an exercise in futility. There’s a point where a game is too easy such as Diablo 3, and there’s a point were the game is so imbalanced against the player that it’s no longer fun to play.
The only way that is happening is if your resists are not good.
Anyway, there are some cases where I think the damage and ability to dodge stuff is out of whack (that aether giant guy at the draw bridge. I don’t know how you can dodge his huge hits+stun, though he can still be beat). But the examples you gave are not exactly the most difficult and are very predictable.
As mentioned, c’thonic boss can be kited around the island to avoid much of his damage, or if you do have good resists, you don’t even have to do that, just side step the volcano so you only get hit with 1 or 2 pellets from the volcano.
The Master of Flesh is also very predictable. The first stage is simply a matter of DPSing the adds. The 2nd stage is mostly just DPSing the Master, with a little light kiting if you can’t face tank him. Don’t stand between the big crystals, move him to the bottom left corner, and you won’t have to dodge his special attacks that come from those crystals.
The 3rd phase is the most critical. Move him to the bottom left corner of the room if you haven’t already. When he jumps up, you just have to move away, because when he lands, he will stun you if you do not. When he makes all the crystals send projectiles at you, stand in that lower left corner between two steams. If you are lucky or find a good spot, you can do free DPS on the Master while he stands there making the projectiles fly (easier with a ranged character).
Once you learn his patterns, the final fight is pretty easy, as long as you can deal with the 1st wave, which should be easy, as long as you have the proper DPS or defenses needed.
The problem is that there are some players with such insane tanky builds that bosses need to hit that hard to challenge them. On the other hand it’s pretty much expected from everyone now to have 80% resistance on everything, 2500 armor and all points put in physique to even play the expansion on ultimate. Also lots of running around in circles.
On the other hand it’s pretty much expected from everyone now to have 80% resistance on everything, 2500 armor and all points put in physique to even play the expansion on ultimate.
For the “common” resistances this was mandatory in Vanilla, too. It´s called Ultimate.
For AoM, you need a decent amount of Stun Resistance. Not absolutely capped, but you need it to make things easier.
Normal/Veteran - Essentially tutorial. Designers meant for anyone with no knowledge of the game to be able to beat this. Only the weakest of builds fail here. Meant for a lot of forgiving experimentation to develop basic knowledge of what makes builds good.
Elite - “Normal” mode. Designers meant for people that have learned basics of build-making to be able to beat this. The idea being that you’ve messed around a bit in the previous difficulty to know a bit about what works and what doesn’t, and raising the bar more on how good your build should be.
Ultimate - “Expert” mode. Designers meant for people with hundreds of hours in this game to be challenged while beating this. Only the best builds can thrive here. Making it beatable is secondary to making it challenging.
Basically, the gap between Elite and Ultimate is waaaay bigger than Normal to Elite, because the priority changes from being beatable to being challenging. It’s very normal and common to have a build stomp Elite and get man-handled in Ultimate. If you’re not convinced that all Ultimate content is beatable (excepting Mog/Ravager), you can look at the Class/Build section of the forum and see pages of builds of all different class combos not only beating Ultimate, but making it trivial. Take some advice/inspiration from builds similar to yours, maybe even farm Elite for better gear, and try again.
As far as mechanics of fights go, watch YouTube videos and look for patterns. In my experience, all bosses follow a set routine of attacks and you can get to the point where you’ll know what move is coming next because of the move preceding it; Master of Flesh 3rd phase in particular does this, and even has catchphrases for each attack.
Normal - Fun Mode
Elite - Pay attention while having fun mode
Ultimate - Just pay attention
Ultimate End game/Crucible - Expert Mode
No Buff Crucible - “You must really love Stonefist Rebuke” mode
His skills are meant to be avoided, actually. You dont have to stand in his volcano-like skill, you know…
And if you have really tanky character with really high resists, HP, etc - he can facetank all that in endgame. Yes, and last boss in AoM too.
At least two builds of mine have beaten Log on Ultimate and performed far worse in the expansion. Basically three, since I have an ill-conceived Fire Strike Sorcerer that would get torn to shreds most likely. It’s not really fun to see a character you’ve spent that much time with being useless.
I think some do damage you’re meant to avoid, for example when the boss of BoC stacks enough fire on you I’ve been obliged to move even with virtually unkillable characters (like who can facetank Grava and Kuba, yet still have to move out of fire tornadoes).
There is some truth here, but Ultimate is more than just being an expert difficulty. It also makes you farm for gear. Normal and Elite doesn’t require good gear. Although Elite still needs decent resists, due to the lesser penalties, it’s generally pretty easy to get passable resists to easily beat Elite (with good gear, Elite is easier than veteran). Ultimate on the other hand, requires good gear. AoM Ultimate, requires better gear. The level 94 gear is needed to do well in AoM.
A lot of people were doing good in normal Ultimate, and AoM is a lot harder now. Not only is there some difficulty increase, but the biggest thing is that you are now a noob again. You no longer have mules full of level 94 items to easily gear our your characters. This is like when you first did normal Ultimate, but now that you have a lot of good gear, you forget what it was like when you first started farming for that.
The last thing that is a problem for people new to AoM, is that they try to take their level 85 characters directly into AoM. AoM is a level 94+ zone. Those old characters are not only under geared, but under leveled. You’ll need to level them up before they are ready for AoM, and hopefully find better gear as well.
I’m having a heck of a time with Conjurer (non-pet) build even on non-nemesis bosses. The builds posted usually have top of the line gear which make them work. So, there seems to be a catch-22 – how do you get the gear necessary to do the content that drops the gear?
I tried a variation of it that used Storm Totem last night and it took hours to finish off the boss - Master of Flesh Theodin Marcell. If deaths caused loss of experience at max level I’d probably be level 98 now.
-You don’t need so many points in Spirit. You want as much Cunning/Spirit for equipment needs and the rest to go into Physique for more health and Defensive Ability (DA).
-Dreeg’s Evil Eye generally used in these situations:
Investing in Dreeg’s Evil Eye/Blood Burst and transmuting it for large amounts of Poison on a cooldown-based skill.
Putting a single point into Dreeg’s Evil Eye, Blood Burst and Terrifying Gaze and investing heavily into Vile Eruption for a strong, spammable ability that deals Acid/Vitality damage. Conversion will mean you can do more Acid or more Vitality depending on what else you want to supplement it with (like Sigil of Consumption/Doom Bolt).
Putting a single point into Dreeg’s Evil Eye, Blood Burst and transmuting it (1 point into Terrifying Gaze/Vile Eruption are optional) for the reduced target’s Physical damage debuff. It’s also not bad at proccing devotions when transmuted.
I don’t know how much damage Dreeg’s Evil Eye is doing for you currently or where it fits into your playstyle but it’s something to consider.
-You might want to consider working towards an endgame relic like Eldritch Pact or Solael’s Decimation. Blight is not doing you much good except for the Impaired Aim/Fumble.
-Some of your gear could be improved as it doesn’t really mesh with your build at all, namely the Basilisk Claw, Ring of the Black Matriachs and Empowered Essence of Beronath.
Some accessible items you might want to consider as replacements are a Wendigo Blooddrinker, Reaver’s Hunger (based on the Elite Wendigo Pauldrons, I’m assuming you are able to access these items) and if you’re Honoured with the Coven of Ugdenbog, a pair of Coven Defender Seals.
-Stun resistance. Plenty of things in the game stun for a good amount of time that can leave you susceptible to further damage.
At a minimum, I would consider putting a Leathery Hide on your Headgear for now. In general, you could use more components on your gear (unless grimtools isn’t showing some of them for reasons). At the very end of the game, you should be have a good stock of and be using every resource that you have collected.
I feel some class combinations are just going to have to deal with not being so tanky. I got wrecked with my Defiler in this vid at 17:00 and I really don’t kinow what the hell caused my health to plummet so quickly.
I also died twice against the Master of Flesh. Though admittedly I wasn’t really paying attention to his pattern. I was too busy checking which skill had come off cool-down.
) However it is worth to mention that you have to overcap resistances heavily if you really wanna facetank the resist reduction bosses. Or kite a lot.