Just wanted to share my opinion on the Aberroth fight as this is the first pinnacle boss and probably the standard for the next upcoming bosses. I really did not like this boss fight and wanted to share my feedback:
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DoT: This boss has 10 different DoT (Fire Dot, Cold Dot, auto Void beams, Horizontal void flame ground, projectile circular void ground, phys/void Dot Vortex, phys/void Dot slam after the vortex, two different Void beam attacks in the last phase and the Void DoT that reduces the arena in the last phase). DoT is already overtuned but the sheer amount in this fight is ridiculous(May as well rename him AbeDoT).
Maybe this is just my opinion but DoT ground is lame and its pretty sad that every boss fight gets some. -
Hitboxes: they are wonky, I am pretty sure the horizontal Void ground from his slam attack starts damaging the player before the slam has even happened. When he does the backward leap at the corner of the map, it is very weird(he snaps to another location). His triple Flail slam can hit multiple times if you are in melee range despite the ground indicators showing they are three separate areas.
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Return of Boss DR: He clearly has Damage reduction during the phase transitions (when the timeline is changing) but he also has Ward thresholds tooā¦ I like the change from Boss DR to Ward but having both seems unfair (even though there are still builds that can instaphase him). Also during these phase transitions all DoTs and lingering effects are still there damaging the player while your attacks are wasted cos DR.
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Visual clarity: Despite the individual attacks having decent clarity, the fight is a clusterfuck of DoT effects and flashy attacks cluttering the screen and covering each other making it a mess and impossible to see. Very easy to move over a DoT you can tank only to find there is another below it which kills you.
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Placement and Mobility: I canāt think of a proper way to say this but the movement of the boss is very wonky. He can sit on a bunch of overlapping DoT effects and spam his other attacks at you while you cannot approach him. There isnāt really a good way of making him move to a better location by targeting you. Most of his attacks have really high range or are autotracking DoTs so even if you run all the way to the other corner of the battlefield, he does not follow you and simply offscreens you. An example of how this can be unfair is in the final phase where he can stand in a the corner of the arena and fire the beam fully covering the safe zone (which may also be covered by other DoTs). Since most of the attacks/DoTs track the player, this fight is really bad for any build that has to stand still for more than 2 seconds and even worse for melee as thereās no consistent way to make the boss move (meanwhile his charge attack can easily push you into a DoT).
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Performance: Dozens of DoT effects and flashy attacks = RIP performance.
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Build-up and Atmosphere: This is mixed on one part you do have a decent storyline with the forgotten knight and a hunt for multiple harbingers to reach this boss. But idk it feels flat to me, the story seems more like just exposition as after each generic harbinger kill you just get told about the story progression rather than seeing what happens. You definitely drop Harbinger eyes before killing all 10 harbingers so that just feels like a chore.
And then thereās the final fight with the big bad, well first you have to complete a boring double harbinger gank with some support from Forgotten knight (finally she helps with the harbinger hunt) Aaand leaves you alone for the final boss(would actually be interesting if she helped out here maybe nullifying the DoT ground with consecrated ground?). He monologues a bit and fights you, the timeline shifting is actually pretty cool. But after the sloppy bossfight, How do you get to kill him tho? Well thatās the neat part, YOU donāt. His horse gets tired of the fight, throws him off, kills him and returns to Orobyss. This really lost me, could have made it much more impactful like having the sister finish him to end his suffering or him dying in an explosion of rage while the sister protects you IDK this just felt weak.
Anyway, this is just my thoughts and opinions on the boss fight which feels like the lowest point of the update for me(Even though there are others who seem to enjoy the boss). All my dropped Harbingerās Eyes will go to my highest DPS char to instaphase the fight for the juicy drops. I do not see any point in trying this fight on other chars as it seems a waste of keys which are scarce as it is.