I just finished my first play through of the game yesterday and this fight sold me on the future of this game.
Inspiration for this fight clearly came from Akylios, a raid boss from a little known MMO called Rift. It is one of my favorite boss fights of all time and I always kind of thought it would be cool if someone could figure out how to replicate it in an ARPG. World First Akylios by Voodoo - YouTube
Iâve never played it; I briefly skimmed the video & didnât get that impressionâŚ
Lagon seems to just be their spin on Belial / Kitava / Loghorrean. He has one ability that reminds me of one used by the first two, and otherwise reminds me more of big Log.
If a member of their team has said that, fair enough. But with âbig, immobile, end-of-platformâ bosses being such a staple of the genre, it feels like a stretch to imply the inspiration came from a different genre & a boss that is, mechanically, very differentâŚ
Itâs definitely the same fight, outside of the beginning phase in Rift before you get to the platform. Kind of hard to tell from skimming the video, but thereâs literally a phase where he goes under the platform and you have to fight tentacles while dodging waves from all directions.
Iâm not in the least bit upset by it, itâs a great fight and brought back some good memories. I wiped to that damn boss for 2 months straight.
Fair ânuff. 
Hey there and welcome to the LE Community!
It is really refreshing to hear that someone actually really like this fight, because its is probably one of the most despised fights in the game, because of its many many issues it still has and had in the past. (Minion issues, hitbox clicking issues, pathing issues etc.)
And if the fight bings back good memoeries of yours that is awesome and I guess it doesnât really matter where the inspiration from the fight is coming from in the end, if you seem to see something in it, that you have these memeories of.
But I am basically 99% sure it was meant to be a D2 inspiration, because that is a game were a lot of the devs come from and while maybe some devs played Rift I never heard someone mentioning that as a source of inspiration for LE.
Really? Which D2 boss is immobile on a ledge with 3 phases? D3 I could understand given the similarities to Belial.
I donât think it is the most despised at all. There are others that have more issues, but those are expected to be hard. Lagon is a tune-up or entry-level to what the game has to offer. Sometimes the learning curve can be painful and it is expected to be.
Idonât have any data to back this up, but I am pretty sure Lagon is among the most depised boss fights overall, because it had and still has plenty of issues.
There is no other boss fight having issues, like bugs and unintended behaviour.
Most of the other boss fights have minor annoyances or some slightly unintended behaviour, but there is nothing I can thing of that is as grave as Lagon.
For me lagon is just design wise not that great.
The rest of the bosses you fight for the most part are in wider arenas with more options to move. Lagon is very much a boss that feels like you really have to play it well despite coming before many other bosses.
The other boss I find has a similar issue is the lightless arbor boss, one lots of people also complain about âhow do I dodge the slam? how do I tank X?â the answer is you dont, just like you dont tank lagon beam that cuts off 75% of the stage, or tank his moon blast etc. you are expected to dodge most of his mechanics while having an arena half the size of other bosses. lightless arbor phase 1 is a wall boss and most likely why people have problems with it.
Lagon for me is very much like kitava in poe, its a fight that from a thematic and cinematic point of view is fantastic. but from a gameplay point of view especially trying to do it with hard mods or farm him over and over it shows the glaring issues a boss fight like this presents to an end game situation.
You have pretty much detailed the Lagon fight in general. Some players like the OP like it, some like myself are in the middle and others are in the negative. As you point out, learning the mechanics, knowing what the â1 shotsâ are or as I called them âkilling strikesâ in the old days. If a âgodâ in this genre did not have some sort of snuff-you-out mechanic, it is not much of a âgod/bossâ, but as you get used to the game the mechanics, as you say the issues become more glaring as we have all seen them plenty of times and STILL manage to screw it up.
Lagon and Dragon Emperor are imo the worst bosses in this game. I actually hate the dragon boss, its so cheaply designed and boring but yet you are forced to run away periodically unless you can tank 2500 raw Necrotic if not more
Lagon is buggy and also boring yet he isnt as bad as boss above, the biggest issue is his pattern always repeats the same general sequence: Sweeping laser > Vertical quick beam > Moon circle explosion > claw attack so extremely predictable, my suggestion for Lagon would be to randomise his AI so he can do 2 attacks of the same in a row but limit it to 3 so you dont know what he is going to do next
I once fought Lagon for over 6 minutes on I think on Charge/EQ who couldnt target him on a controller so I had to use Swipe
Yeah, that would be an improvement, though he does only have 3 âproperâ attacks you need to avoid plus a filler (claw attack), it might be good if he had another filler attack which would be randomised with the claw attack & then the âproperâ attacks get randomised every X seconds.
The claw attack at 250+ corruption with Increased physical damage mod becomes his most dangerous attack because its the hardest to avoid, ive been hit for 2200 from it and only just lived, it also stuns you but he has nothing to follow up with so unless a Wave hits you in phase 3, the stun is meaningless
Eater of Worlds one of the new PoE bosses will generally adapt his AI to your range, and he can repeat same attacks including his big charge up explosion he can queue it up to 3 times in a row but you know whats hes about to do by his voicelines,
I actually used to fall in that boatâŚBUTâŚsomewhere in the last month I was reading other posts about the Lagon fight and someone through in an off-the-cuff remark that Iâd never read anywhere else. (I mainly like melee characters so it had to do with the difficulties in targeting as a melee character). That one tip has helped me thoroughly enjoy the fight every since then.
The tip: âAs a melee character you donât have to actually AIM at the creature (which screws up your hits) almost the entire platform covers hitting him.â Since the day that fight originally dropped that 's the first time Iâd ever seen that tip made.
(That said, charge attacks like Lunge are still problematic but not NEARLY as frustrating as it was getting stuck as a melee characterâŚeveryâŚsingleâŚtime.)
That fight is left to right or right to left staying along that line, as soon as you move forward or backward you are screwed. I have said that plenty of times over the year or so. Still, the cursor control and response time can vary a little bit and still get caught like Shrukn said above with a nasty claw hit on high corruption in phase 3. That is most often what catches me if I am not paying the fight enough attention.
Design wise I always thought of Lovecraft or Cthulu.
Lagon is the one Boss that reminds me of the End Boss from Path of Exile.
And this big Tentacle Monster from Call of Cthulhu.
Other then that, I am still on to get past him. No luck yet.
I always figured it was despised because it is the first, true, *-check fight in the game. You need Cold, Lightning and Phys resists close to cap, AND have your DPS worked out. Otherwise this fight just sucks mucho asso. Not only that, but there are still the random âstuck in the corner and killed by his cold beamâ instances, that are enough to warrant fists pounding on the desktop.
Agreed, it is the first boss fight that is really a skill check.
I wouldnât say its as much of a gear/stat check, because the boss is simply very mechanical demanding.
For a new player it might feel like ârandomâ, but those are not random at all.
The beam is 100% controllable by the player.
Later on, I would agree. However, to the new/novice player, this encounter is the first to really punish you, without proper gearingâŚeven simply getting hit with waves during P2 is brutal, and the tentacles can 1-shot a poor resist char. Not to mention the hard hitting, high hp/resist adds also pecking at you. We could argue the tree boss (I forget the name), but those attacks destroy a character, even with maxxed resistances, and is purely mechanical (get out of the avalanche and earthquakes, or die).
Seasoned players can do just any, non-end game boss, by executing mechanics, and gear is just a cherry on the top.