Level 90 Immortal Empire’s End.
The Yulia boss’s Ice Vortex just gets thrown on top of you and is almost always a 1-2shot.
1 Like
I found the Primeval Dragon’s magma explosion ability to be poorly telegraphed. From the visuals of the fire during the charge-up time, it seemed like the damage would occur in a ring around the dragon but that inside of that ring was safe. (Or, possibly, that the very center was not safe but that there was a safe ring inside.)
It also gave the impression that trying to move outside of the ring of fire would result in taking heavy damage when crossing that ring, so staying inside was the intended solution.
Edit: There were a few other instances in this fight of visual cues/expected behavior matching poorly with actual behavior. 1) Abrupt changing in the dragon’s facing before/during the ray of fire charge: moving away during the charge to an evidently safe area did not always work, because he would suddenly face me again to unleash the ray. There was no indication of turning, no delay as he swung around from the old direction to my new location, etc. 2) Similar abrupt, unexpected/untelegraphed direction changes in other attacks. 3) Half the time it seemed to ignore the decoy, or face the decoy but then flicker in my direction to attack me, etc.
That is really an interesting take on the way how exactly an ability like this is telegraphed.
Stuff like this really does not come to my mind as a veteran player, because you immediatly recognize the ability and know what to do.
But now, the way you described it, i could see how a completely unexperienced player could see this.
But i think it’s really hard to make such a big telegraph “clear” whiel not making it overloading the visuals on screen.
I would make the entire ground area that will be hit gain some magma cracks, perhaps, or a little bit of fire (similar to PoE’s burning ground effect, if you’re familiar, possibly at a lower density). As it stands, there were three apparent zones: the area the dragon is breathing fire onto in the very center, the ring of fire around the outside, and the maybe-slightly-orange middle that could just be lighting effects.
Some additional gfx would be nice, but to be fair, it does put a massive orange circle on the ground.
I think recuding the contrast between the “edge” and the big zone in the middle would help.
Also maybe making the big zone in the middle become more intense over the course of the channel would indicate the “danger”.
But it should be never to intense, so you still can see the ground
EDIT:
I think giving the animation/vfx some visual indicator over the “progress” of the channel would be really helpful to better comprehend, when the ability will “go off”
Sometimes it’s really hard to guess how much tiem you exactly have, depending on MoF modifers and also your own slots (like Time Rot, Temporal Blight and Chill)
But the point is, the uniform massive orange circle is hidden by the fancier shit they put on top. If it were just the simple orange circle like some other telegraphed attacks use, there wouldn’t be a problem. They wanted to make it prettier, which is great, but they went about that the wrong way.
This would be an excellent idea. If they want to keep that ring of fire they have, they could start it in the center and have it move out to the edge over the course of the channel; that way, at the beginning, the edge of the circle is still clear, and it also gives a time indication.
2 Likes
Yeah, an expanding magma cracks/etc graphic that hit the outside when it was ready to pop would look awesome & be clearer.
1 Like
Not as “high damage” (at least so far, but I’m still pretty low level), but the charging…mammoths? are quite difficult to predict/watch out for. Maybe it’s more of a problem for me because I have 16 minions hanging around, so if there is a ground mark of where their charge terminates, it’s not visible with the screen clutter.
At the moment, they haven’t been a real threat, but I can see it becoming an issue when there are more echo modifiers, monster affixes, or higher area levels. It’s clear what direction they’re going, of course, but trying to see where the charge ends (and thus, when you’re safe) seems to leave up to a third of the screen as a potential danger area, and that gets annoying.
- Wengari Matriarch
- The Wengari Fortress (Divine Era)
- Earthquake - The caster leaps a medium distance to a nearby position, indicated by a circle of small sparks, dealing Lightning and Physical damage at the location.
This ability literally nukes you even with the right resistances and high health. I have played several characters so far and none of them managed to survive one. The problem is that the impact location is only highlighted by a small circle of tiny sparks, it vastly plays down how strong this ability hits.
Since the other boss in the area, Wengari Patriarch, casts a wave of shards falling down from the sky, indicated by white circles with a lot of snow, it is very easy to miss that one small indication of sparks and thunder before the Matriarch leaps to the location using Earthquake.
2 Likes
That’s very odd, I see it as a blue circle (probably with sparks or something) & it’s fairly obvious (IMO).
In my modest opinion, it is too subtle. The circle is barely big enough to be shown around your character if you stand right in the middle and it is just some little sparks.
If you see it on its own, it is visible enough as an indication that something is going to hit there, I would say, since the surrounding area is dark and the sparks and flashes are in light blue, but if there is the totem up that the Patriarch (?) spawns, casting a snowy aura of some sort, as well as him casting the cascade of shards falling down the sky, it is very easy to miss it.
Nonetheless, the sparks look “cute”, “smol” in that small circle and don’t really indicate how heavy the actual attack hits, especially considering that the spell is called “Earthquake”. The first time that I got hit because I didn’t notice it at first, I blinked twice I surprise and went like “excuse me?”, surprised how heavy damage it deals.
The few first times yes, then you get used to it and you see it far better. It’s well telegraphed and it’s avoidable if you have correct movement speed.
I think the Lithracs that drop a firebomb cluster when they die are a little out of line. I’m not talking about the enemies that drop the orange circles that have a delay before going off.
The Lithracs drop 4 or 5 firebombs when they die with no circle indicator and they go off pretty much immediately. If you killed them in melee range and don’t have a way to immediately dash, you’re probably getting blown to kingdom come unless you’re extremely tanky.
The one redeeming factor I’d say is, they don’t seem to come at you in packs, I’ve only really ever seen these one at a time, and thus I haven’t actually died to them, but I’ve built a fairly tanky character (2400 hp, 850/60% endurance, 2000 armour, max resists), and I still get chunked down to ~500 hp by a single one of these guys dying in level 100 monoliths.
Seconded. These are way stronger than everything surrounding them, and way stronger than other rares.
2 Likes
If you have a melee build, focus on her and she will never leap. The Patriarch’s ice shards are tough but less dangerous than the Matriarch’s leap.
1 Like
I also noticed something like this … and I was curious to understand “what” managed to generate enough damage to kill me with a single blow. What kind of damage, if elemental, what … etc …
Haruspex Orian Nova Ability
This ability hits way too hard at high arena levels, at round 160 it one shot me at 1.8k hp and full resistances. Lower this damage because there is no way to counter it. It does a nova around your body that has 0 indications and he can use it when you are far away
Skullen Shaman Lightning Bolts
They also do a shit tonne of damage and lock on to wherever you are, the only way to counter them at high arena levels is pray to god you kill them before they kill you.
The new Bone Spires are really bad, yes you can see where they are going to land, but their projectiles are almost impossible to dodge if you get 2 or more up, with each projectile hitting for large amounts of damge, enough to one shot over 2k health with good defenses. Its at the point where I kinda just forfeit my prize and teleport out if I get the Bone Spires.