Arbiter of Ash is the worst designed boss fight in GGGs history
I just need to get this of my chest, so here's a little rant.
tl;dr:
- Arbiter is RNG-gated content, which is poor design choice. Make loot RNG-gated, not content.
- Arbiters attacks are extremly bad telegraphed
- Arbiters attacks overlap too much and make it impossible to avoid
- Sirus was bad design, but Arbiter is worse
After starting with the EA beginning of January, I've had lots of fun with it. Even in endgame, contrary to many others. I started as a cold stormweaver (no, not the cast on freeze, that was already nerfed) and switched over to spark when I hit late endgame. I do like the pacing of PoE2 compared to PoE1 and the more mechanical focused boss fights. But what bothers me is the Arbiter of Ash.
It's the worst designed boss that GGG has ever made. Period. And here's what's wrong with it:
- How to get to him is completely RNG (yes, you can buy the fragments, but I'd rather play the content, not buy it). Whether you get a citadel and which one is completely random. I've played 240h now, 20 of which were campaign and the rest is mapping. I've cleared 4 of each of iron and stone citadel, found LOTS (like 10 of each) more on the atlas, but up until this week, I haven't found a single copper citadel. At least luckily, it was 2 almost next to each other. But the pathing to it... boi. I had to run almost completely around to be able to get to it (~50 maps), since there was no connection from the side I was coming from. It almost feels similar to Delve in PoE1, which I hate due to the same nature: It gates content behind RNG, not loot. In my 3.5k hours of PoE1, most of which are including Delve mechanic, I haven't seen (or fought) a single Aul, since I never found him. So in short: RNG-gated loot = good, RNG-gated content = bad.
- Regarding the fight itself, not wanting to loose the rare occasion I can actually fight him now, I've watched videos on his mechanics. The orbs, the flame walls... One-shot mechanics, imo not good of a design, but I thought "okay, I'll try it". And boi was I disappointed by how BAD this fight is. The first time I did it, went well. He did his orbs once and then I could already kill him.
- Second fight, +1 difficulty. Which I find is a good thing, since the first fight was WAY too easy for a pinnacle boss. Orbs went well and everything seemed fine, until he started his flame walls. The whole screen is blurry af and I'm unable to see ANYTHING, by some luck I could avoid the first wall, cause I was standing inside the safe path by chance, but the second one killed me. The same happend on my second death. I have no way to tell where I am supposed to go since everything is blurry. Are my settings scuffed here? How do I see where I should go when the whole screen is blurry? (I didn't take clips, because I didn't think it would be SO BAD)
- Next try, no walls so far, then this happens: https://streamable.com/azgn3x how tf am I supposed to reach that last orb? Even if I had seen it (I didn't during the fight, it was almost completely offscreen), since he was in the path to that orb, he would have body blocked me and I wouldn't be able to reach it in time. I know he telegraphs the positions of the orbs when he dashes around, but the first orbs already start to explode while he is placing the last ones, so I couldn't keep track of him there. So why do these orbs spawn so far offscreen, barely (if at all) able to see them? Why do the first orbs start to explode while he still places the last ones, making it very hard to track it? The first thing could be easily fixed by having the camera zoomed out, just like at the start of the fight when you enter the arena.
- Last revive, no walls so far, I got him down to a quarter, then this happens: https://streamable.com/vj0hw5 WTF? How could anyone played that fight and though that this is okay?
I'm not sure if I want to try the fight again with these bad mechanics in it. I do understand everyone now, who builds glass cannons and can just skip all these bullshit mechanics by one-shotting him.