Breach and Delirium feel too deadly and punishing

I have a Monk that is melting T3 map bosses in less than 30 seconds and feels quite safe clearing regular mob packs and rares, because I have 80% evade chance, Ghost Shrouds, Grim Feast, capped elemental resistance, chaos innoculation, and I'm usually insta-freezing most things either on the first hit of Ice Strike, or by the third.

but as soon as I open a breach or delirium mirror, I get swarmed and die in 5 seconds.

It seems like these league mechanic mobs do significantly more damage and are much tankier than expected. They swarm around me and I somehow can't deal enough damage to break out of the surround and just die.

I've had a few maps now where the breach or mirror is right at the start of the map, I open it, die in 5 seconds, and then the map is just gone. This feels way too punishing. I really have been looking forward to farming some of the league mechanics in endgame maps. I've got 3k hours on POE 1 and now about 100 hours on POE 2 and it's very frustrating that I can't figure out how to make a strong character that can handle this basic level of content. My warrior had an even harder time before I gave up on him. I'm very much enjoying all the environments, item art, story, etc but the punishing gameplay is kind of exhausting me.

For my [very bad] build Breech & Delirium aren't so bad. I'm having some issue with Ritual .. getting boxed in, don't have screen-wide clears, and then wind up taking Chaos damage as I don't dodge out of the way.

Delirium and Breach both seem to be carbon copies from PoE 1 and that simply doesn't fit the supposed philosophy of PoE 2.

It is very much build dependent if you can do them and I don't think this should be the case for ANY regular game content. Any build with low clear speed is pretty much lost, so I currently simply ignore them because I just risk losing XP when I try and the rewards are not worth the risk.

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Triderpitops#0532 wrote:

I'm usually insta-freezing most things either on the first hit of Ice Strike, or by the third.

I instantly stun white mobs. Boost your build-up, get knock-back, or an escape skill.

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C4Guy#0918 wrote:

Delirium and Breach both seem to be carbon copies from PoE 1 and that simply doesn't fit the supposed philosophy of PoE 2.

It is very much build dependent if you can do them and I don't think this should be the case for ANY regular game content. Any build with low clear speed is pretty much lost, so I currently simply ignore them because I just risk losing XP when I try and the rewards are not worth the risk.

Delirium is better in poe1 for survivability. The mobs don't spawn in your face, but spawn where the hallucinations are. Breach is god awful in this game. Too many mobs and way too fast. Both are manageable if you can keep the white mobs built-up and have huge aoe. Ritual is about the same as Breach. Strongboxes are oddly well done, but a waste of time for me.

Don't touch breach! It's the most bearable of the the end-game mechanics now.

I just wanted to follow up on my original post and say that I am having much more fun now that I respecced my old Warbringer Warrior and started playing on that. I now use Seismic / Corrupting Cry and this feels WAY more survivable and I can clear Breach, Deliruim, and Ritual well up through T8 maps so far. I followed a guide from Skadoosh and Steelmage, for anyone interested.

The knockback from the warcry is a huge defensive layer because it keeps me from getting swarmed so hard. Plus, my AOE damage will hit everything no matter how many mobs are around. It kinda feels like Righteous Fire from POE 1, but with knockback, which is crazy! I recommend trying this build if you're having similar issues, it hasn't been expensive to get the minimum viable gear (strength, resists, armor). Don't skimp on chaos res! you will need it in maps for sure. Now that I've got 34% chaos res, and a bunch of life recovered on kill, I feel way tankier.

Overall, I'm excited to start playing more breach, it's always looked like a cool mechanic to me. By the way, if you're not seeing any splinters dropping from your breaches, I heard they don't even start dropping until at least T11 maps or something. I'm not that high yet, so can't confirm myself.