Archnemesis mods is biggest mistake in PoE and ways to adjust or fix it

Arch-nemesis mods on pauper is promising game mechanic that gives players difficult encounters with good rewords, but in practise (Putting aside that those rewords were nerved to the ground)
GGG Decided that adding:
. Monster with aura that drains your mana and damages you in game where 99% of builds reserve 90 to 99.9% of there mana pool when all movement skills require mana to function preventing you from escaping it
. Voodoo doll maker that gatekeeps builds that don't do enough damage to kill it
. Those lightning totems, WHO Made this modifier, WHO believed that 5 lightning totems that aren't summoned one-by-one but all at once and can teleport allowing them to shotgun you
Was. Good. Idea.

And the worst part about it is, unlike other mechanics that that increase difficulty, you can't chose to not engage with it , Delirium? don't enter the mirror or play on delirious maps, Ultimatum? avoid it, Damage reflect? Just play chao.. i mean don't play this map/location

1. Create atlas Keystone that disables them
Simplest but roughest option, you don't need to worry about them while mapping, but wont work for non-atlas mechanics like Delve

2. Delete mods that screw over most builds
The nuclear option, However because mechanics like reflect exist this option would never be chosen by GGG

3. (My favorite) restrict most notorious ones behind different influence/league mechanics while adding new ones
examples, Lightning totems would be restricted to Crusader influence, Voodoo totem would appear only in Viridian Wildwood, exploding chaos crystals would appear in Delve and so on, this wont remove it from the game but would allow players to chose there poison, and if there is't enough for all mechanics, just create new ones, and add random modifier for maps and locations that allow any nemesis mod to appear for maximum chaos

If anything, the only fix would be to buff the mods back to their former glory, instead of leaving them in the current watered down state with each new patch.

honestly effigy, the voodoo doll mechanic doesnt do anything anymore. i remember it being scary, i dont remember why. It doesnt seem to have any effect now and i play zdps hc builds.

As Archnemesis was my last active league and a 40/40, I do hate the dynamic it introduced. There already was issue with "build diversity" and I had to swap between a hollow palm cyclone and explosive arrow ballista depending on the boss mods.

To be fair, they did eventually tone down most of it but the damage was done. It used to be I based my expectations around 75 elemental resists at 50+ chaos. Now with 90% elemental with 70+ block and 50% spellblock and armor I've still gotten one shot outside of pinnacle boss fights, and that's not even counting 11+ in the simulacrum.


Reflect on its own was already an irritating mod, but at least you had a number of ways to get around it.

Like the mana drain vs most melee setups, it doesn't "increase difficulty" it just sets one up for failure. Kinda like the old d2 immunities, its not increasing challenge but outright preventing interaction. Pretty sure one even interrupted my cycloner with 0 mana cost (and its not like reducing mana cost to 0 is a practical option to begin with).

What YEAR is it? How are people still complaining about "Archnemesis mods" in 3.25?

Seriously if you're genuinely struggling to kill rare monsters, not like 5-essence einhar beasts with three tormented spirits in them or whatever, just regular-ass rare monsters, there is something very, very, very, very, very wrong with your build.

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Lonnie455Rich#2087 wrote:

honestly effigy, the voodoo doll mechanic doesnt do anything anymore. i remember it being scary, i dont remember why. It doesnt seem to have any effect now and i play zdps hc builds.

Yep this is true. It was out of control though, I would not want it to go back to how it was. There are other examples like this. The foundry map boss was terrifying and they needed to make it more in line with the rest of the game, but they nerfed it too much, now its just a guy in a separate room. They need to find the right level in between on these things. Bramble valley is probably a good example of one that is about right on difficulty level. It is dangerous, but fair.

I think the mods are about right at the moment in terms of difficulty. Not sure if they gave soul eater a nerf, but I haven't found it to be as rough as it was in previous leagues. Maybe they are a little bit under done. However for the last couple of years there always seems to have been one or two mods that were way more dangerous than the rest. It seems a bit more balanced at the moment. I think they have a lot of other things to focus on currently, like releasing a full league.

I agree, these mechanics are frustrating and overly punishing for many builds.

Agree to all comments here. But consider this: the business model of this game is based on the fact, that you can not beat the game, you can not finish it. We are expected to try endlessly - and we do. So GGG made sure, every build will find its master. For you are - like the vaal - endlessly clever, using almost scientific methods to beat the game, very strong measures are taken: archnemesis mods. They make sure, sisphus' stone will never reach the top.

I loved the idea with the Archnemesis mods, but their implementation did not fit the fun gameplay loop, where we had an estimated one difficult rare monster each map, and a super difficult one every now and then. They rarely provided rewards comparable to their challenges. If only the God Touched, and some very rare random 4 mod combinations, had been the challenging ones, I would guess they would have fared a bit better.

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LewisLong#5792 wrote:

I agree, these mechanics are frustrating and overly punishing for many builds.

I almost always play shit builds in hc and i dont feel like theyre overly punishing. unless you're trying to farm them in t17s or something. I stay out of there after ripping several 99 and 98s their first league.