I would completely agree that Soul Cages are actually pretty well balance. They are free kills from range and free kills if you stand behind them after they breathe. After they do their frontal cone you have large windows of free damage with a guarantee to not get hit by them. In my opinion you choose to stand in front of them you SHOULD be punished with how free the damage windows are for this particular monster. I just think some players are highly exaggerating their difficulty.
Another one - I died instantly since I just didn’t notice the mob as there are 100 different effects going on and for me the flame is exactly the same colour as on hit effects. I can do 200 item rarity only offensive modifiers monoliths with no problems.
I can tank the Primal Dragon’s and most other bosses dot fully consciously with 2x more damage modifiers but I can’t be in a rare mob’s flame for 0.5s.
I have died( 3 times) ONLY to Soul Cage over the last 20 hours of playing this game. Not a single boss or any other mob.
Those are the two problems here. Solving the second would help with the first.
You have got to be kidding me…
My cursor not moving after the death should speak for itself.
https://i.imgur.com/rfcih1x.mp4
I agree but let me indulge in my stubbornness for one more time - I still believe the damage is completely unjustified compared to how the rest of the game plays out.
Also sorry for using so many negatives in one sentence last night, I don’t know what I was thinking 
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Not wanting to be harsh … but you did stand in front of them while they were doing their breath.
Try to avoid the head end at all costs!
And I feel for you - I die to them too often aswell … but I put this down to my mistake with position/movement not the mob damage which is totally avoidable.
In the first vid, you ran straight into it’s head while it was doing it’s breath.
In the second vid, the one hiding behind the tree was very hard to see and just bad luck imo.
In both vids you got yourself surrounded to some extent, leaving yourself little space to maneuver.
In these scenarios I simply cannot put the blame on myself and hindsight should be applied to only what I can recall to perceive at the moment, no more.
The game is not supposed to be me on my 100% alertness in every moment just in case a Soul Cage pops out behind the tree. During boss fights - sure! While I’m mapping? No.
The problem is that there isn’t a learning lesson in any of these scenarios; and if that’s not the outcome of an unfortunate event, it’s bad design.
I can react, outmaneuver and most of the time even out-tank every monster and boss in this game but Soul Cage as a complete exception from the rest of the game manages to hit me like a lightning during a sunny day.
In both of these scenarios I quite simply and literally did not see( perceive) them and once the channelling commenced, there was no humanly fast enough time to react.
I’m pretty sure plenty of “high performing” streamers have died while on ostensibly easy maps due to not paying attention (especially in Delirium with its hidden on death effects), so you’re neither the first nor the last…
some of these guy relly dont understand what DoT means , DoT arent suppose to 1shot u , even 1scd i could have click flask to save myself from my mistake . also i using orian eye , 10% reduce damage over time , also still getting 1shot lul
I noticed some people were having trouble with the Soul Cage, here’s a quick guide on how to not get killed by this pesky Bone Dog.
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That is the most detailed guide i have ever seen for any video game. Great Job!
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Yeah, that’s what good guides look like. Now you just need to do that in your video…
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The soul cage doesn’t spin while channelling, but the other mobs that have big telegraphed slam attacks (eg, the beetle queen, the lizards that do a slam attack) can rotate while they’re casting/winding up & IMO that should be changed. Since that ****s over melee again more than ranged…
All the dangerous mobs do DOT damage in this game. Ice bats, soul cage, fire golem, and most bosses fall under this category. Seems like intentional design with almost no DOT damage reduction in the game. Which kind of sucks tbh if you want to make a tanky character you will always have one damage type that still wrecks you.
Pretty sure Protections do mitigate dot damage.
They do, DoTs just aren’t affected by glancing blow or dodge. I’ve said before, I wonder if we’re all used to glancing blow reducing the hits by 50% that when a DoT comes along & it’s not reduced by 50% we are all surprised by the damage.
Assuming DoTs aren’t broken somehow & ignoring protections or something. @Sarno @Hackaloken
Regarding DoTs possibly broken …
I had this death from a Siege Golem this morning. And another last night, very similar. I’ve raised a possible bug report about it.
I still have ward, life globe shows some red and yet 0/694.
Not sure what I “did-not-do” to stop this from happening. An answer from devs would be terrific!
Ok, I know I shouldn’t have been in the damage and should have tried to avoid it … but still, feels like “something is rotten in the state of Denmark.”
I’m sure you’re all happy to know that I’ve had a “Saul on the road to Damascus” epiphany in the shape of monolith Lagon & his eye beam & am now batting for the other team.
You can now put me down for 1 in the “dots should be sustained damage that is slow & steady rather than bursting you down faster than a flat earther visiting Australia for the first time (& wondering why they can’t see Polaris)”. Though this is an issue with DoT skills in general (Lagon’s eye beam, Rahyeh’s beam & yes, the Soul Cage’s breath) rather than the Soul Cage in particular.
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I haven’t had trouble with soul cages in a while, I learned how to deal with them, but their design is poor. Their attack animation goes on for so long and it’s all DOT, you’d think that’d mean you get punished for spending more time than you should in that big damage zone. Instead it can be dangerous to be even licked by the flame. Shouldn’t it be that being slightly touched isn’t so bad, but spending more time in there gets you burned? Lower the damage and make it ramp up the more stacks you have on you like poison does, that way they still punish the player for sitting in their big slow DOT beam but aren’t like getting hit with a shotgun.
In a way DOTs being the deadly moves is a great design move, instead of a single big hit getting you instakilled you have time to react with a potion, meanwhile your leech/regen counteracts the high damage rather than you already being dead before that can happen. It’s also how the game makes it so you can’t just ignore protections and instead stack the other defenses.
HOWEVER, with this being beta and all some of the DOT damage is through the fucking roof and there’s no reacting to it with potions or trying to fight through with leech, regen, whatever, you’re already dead. For a DOT like lagon’s eye beam that’s extremely telegraphed and easily avoided? Completely fine, that’s only a DOT so you specifically can’t tank through it because it’s meant to be an instakill. But then something like Yulia’s Husk spawning a DOT on me with no animation or ground marker and killing me instantly despite having high health and protections I just gotta assume it’s a bug.
Have you tried letting Monolith Lagon’s eye beam sweep over you? That’s getting ~10-20 ticks per sec for ~500 damage per tick (after ~65% protections), you may have the reactions to hit a potion & leech through it but I don’t. And yes, I know it’s supposed to be dodged.
But why, DoTs are traditionally sustain damage, not burst.
Yeah, I noticed that AoE dot she puts on the floor, surprised me a bit but my reactions were panther-like so I got out of it (twice) before killing her.
Perhaps your leech/regen wasn’t enough to counter it? 
IMO, DoTs should do significantly less damage (like, 10-20% of a player’s hp) but be used a lot more to put pressure on the player. So the very skilled can manually avoid most of them while you can tank through them with a tanky build & a decent amount of leech (but you’ll be more at risk of dieing from other hits because you’ve got less of a leech buffer).