Arbiter one-shots still very punishing, even on T0, for a casual-ish player

TL;DR:
Arbiter one-shots are still a problem I think. It has been made better for players with how accessible the fight is, but the fight itself is still (probably) overtuned.

Rant:
I feel like the difficulty bump from the citadel bosses to arbiter is still quite high, primarily due to the fact that essentially everything is a one-shot. I'm by no means a pro. I bounced of PoE 1 but am enjoying learning and getting good at PoE 2. My current character is an off-meta warrior in SSF and had no problem getting through the citadel bosses, but arbiter (even T0) seems like a really big jump.

Now, I realize this is supposed to be pinnacle content and it's supposed to be hard to accomplish. My gripe is HOW it is hard. Citadel bosses could one-shot me, but it was one(ish) telegraphed attack that was only itermittently sprinkled throughout the fight (for me, it was the "essence of body"-like ice/blood beams from Geonor and Jamanra's big overhead smash).

With arbiter, I feel like when I get to phase 2, it's essentially impossible for me to avoid a one-shot, and very difficult for me to get in decent damage between moves. I know Jonathan has said in an interview that the fight is intended to be somewhere between 30s to a few minutes, and that's the range I'm in for the citadel bosses. But for the life of me, I can't see how I'm supposed to survive that long in arbiter phase 2, where I'm often stuck in a small magma ball circle as he decides to casually fire beam me.

I know there are solutions to this. I can play a meta build that kills him more or less instantly to avoid the mechanics (only partially solved by the invul phase transitions now implemented). I can overgear like hell so my off-meta build still kills him instantly (although this is tricky for me as a new player in SSF - yes, I know I could go to a trade league to make some of that easier, but given how meh trade seems to be right now, even that feels like a crapshoot).

And I can also just get good. That's currently what I'm trying to do since we (thankfully) have infinite attempts at T0. Some combination of playing enough will mean I learn the fight well enough and get lucky to avoid some of the double-up combos that one-shot me.

Personally, that feels pretty unrewarding though. Maybe I'm just too new to the ARPG genre and this level of grinding (either to get good gear or get lucky and survive long enough to do the damage I need) is what is expected - in which case, maybe I'm just not cut out for the pinnacle content right now.

But considering I've been able to do every other pinnacle encounter (with the exception of King since I'm still looking for an audience to run), I feel like arbiter is probably the one that is out of line and overtuned.

You have infinite attempts.

Play better.

Just because you're casual doesn't mean they should straight up make it free for the sake of you.

Since the last patch that adressed arbiter, the fight it's so much cleaner: you have time to travel around the fire seeds (donut explosions) and the corridors.

You have to be aware that the double oneshot combos (fire seed + flamethrower) is part of his design: you have to time entering the donut after the flamethrower.

For instance, i wasn't able to do it with casual/fair gameplay in 0.1 or 0.2, now i'm trying to beat him in difficulty 2.

Oh I didn't realize you have to wait for the flamethrower first and then go in the donut seeds. Thanks for that!

And I definitely don't want it to be free. Like I said, I'm using the infinite attempts to work on getting good. I realize that's part of the process. And maybe that's a difficulty jump they are fine with having. Just sharing my experience that it's a significant step up from a lot of the other content IMO.

"

xXLastDraculaXx#6888 wrote:

Oh I didn't realize you have to wait for the flamethrower first and then go in the donut seeds. Thanks for that!

And I definitely don't want it to be free. Like I said, I'm using the infinite attempts to work on getting good. I realize that's part of the process. And maybe that's a difficulty jump they are fine with having. Just sharing my experience that it's a significant step up from a lot of the other content IMO.

For the fire beam donut.
Firebeam -> roll in at the end
Get out
Arbiter slams the circle -> roll in
Get out
The mechanic is over.

Managed to get my first arbiter kill today - thanks for the advice, guys!