Act 2 boss is WAY too hard

What I found extremely helpful was to go to sleep and return another day.
I first encountered this boss late at night after many hours of playing. I was already exhausted and out of focus plus the boss is not easy - the recipe for frustration.
The next day I was done on the second try after I had a nice sleep, food, and coffee.

I’m a life long Diablo player. With Diablo 4 kinda sucking at the end game I decided to finally give POE a try. I played a monk first getting to the boss around level 32. My healing pot is empty before I’ve done a tenth of the bosses health pool. I went back and leveled to 34 got more resist and still can’t even get to phase two. I quit for two weeks out of sheer frustration.

So I started over making a mercenary. Leveled to 34 and still can’t even get to the second phase. It would be one thing if the entire game had a slow progression of difficulty but everything in the game has been fun and pretty simple and easy until this boss.

I want to continue playing this game. I want to enjoy it. But if all I can do is start a new character and play until I fail a 100 plus times on the act two boss it’s just not worth it. I don’t understand why there is such a HUGE difficulty spike at this boss. Considering just accepting that I’m not good enough to play POE2 and moving on.

none of this has to do with poe1?

the act 2 boss in poe1 requires reasonably fast movement.
get you some boots of speed, add you some passives for move
speed if you can. we _ALL_ seek movespeed. some builds are
just faster than others.

move in an arc (I presume this is true for poe2 as well)
straight lines are predictable and GGG has accounted for this
in poe1. I presume its active in poe2. do not move in a linear
fashion. and when you must, double back at a different angle.

the bosses are all 'bots' don't be predictable to them. learn how
they act. defy expectation.

"

AgnosiousD#2205 wrote:

none of this has to do with poe1?

the act 2 boss in poe1 requires reasonably fast movement.
get you some boots of speed, add you some passives for move
speed if you can. we _ALL_ seek movespeed. some builds are
just faster than others.

move in an arc (I presume this is true for poe2 as well)
straight lines are predictable and GGG has accounted for this
in poe1. I presume its active in poe2. do not move in a linear
fashion. and when you must, double back at a different angle.

the bosses are all 'bots' don't be predictable to them. learn how
they act. defy expectation.

I also believe that this is posted in wrong category

But anyway, regarding the post... Skill issue, if you want some real help post your build, gear and we can see why this is too hard for you

After the latest update, it’s clear that PO2 is going down the wrong path. Not only is the game crashing constantly, but the optimization is awful and there are bugs spread all over the map. It’s not just me – a lot of streamers and players are complaining about how broken the building mechanics are right now.

But what really kills it for me is the terrible design choice they made by introducing a new class – the Hunter archetype, specifically the female archer. The class is basically unplayable. No matter what build you try, the final boss of the act takes 30+ minutes to kill. And I’m not even exaggerating – I tried different builds, spent hours testing stuff, and the result is the same: a frustrating and time-wasting experience.

How do the devs expect players to enjoy this game when it forces us to spend 4–5 hours studying builds, only to face a boss that takes 40–50 minutes to kill? This isn’t fun, it’s exhausting. People want to play, progress, and enjoy – not get punished by poor balancing and broken gameplay mechanics.

And that’s the issue – it’s not just bad software design, it’s bad game design. The gameplay loop is frustrating, not rewarding. If no one fixes this soon, this game is going to keep losing players fast. No one wants to spend half an hour fighting a single boss just because some dev thought it would be “challenging” or “fun”. What world are they living in?

Honestly, the only department that did their job right was the art team. The visual design, the rendering, the overall aesthetic – that part is amazing. But everything else feels rushed, lazy, and disconnected from what players actually want.

There's definitely an issue with this boss, and I think it's entirely graphical.

In addition to the pylons being different types of attacks and those attacks not being telegraphed visually or audibly, or the "suspended" pylons not appearing to be suspended in any way before they slam down and activate, the primary issue with this battle is the sandstorm.

The screen fills with sand. You cannot see what you are supposed to do. You cannot see the NPC. You cannot see what she is doing. She's been completely useless in every fight you've ever been in. Suddenly she matters and you have no idea. You cannot see if you're inside the defensive shield. You cannot see the minion adds that attack during the sandstorm.

All of that is fixed, if you just remove the sand that is visually overlayed on top of the shield she is projecting. All fixed by a reverse mask on the sandstorm.

Suddenly her shielding action is visible. Suddenly it's purpose is clear. And then the adds which were almost invisible in the sandstorm, become visible as they enter the shielded area.


The rest of the fight, is a standard resistance test/Act Boss, in an Act designed to test your resistances. Act 2 is designed to remind you, that in addition to your primary defense (armor/evasion/shield) and your dps, you have to build resistances. They WILL need to reach cap, and you need to be planning for them.