Vessel Of Kulemak Boss Fight

Dear Grinding Gear Games,

As a long-time melee enjoyer, I want to share my experience with the Vessel of Kulemak boss fight in Path of Exile 2.

I’m currently playing an Ice Strike Monk. My setup is solid. I can handle most bosses without much trouble. However, Vessel of Kulemak feels almost unbeatable with true melee skills that require staying in close range, like Ice Strike or Tempest Flurry. It seems this fight was primarily designed around ranged play, and I’m not sure it was ever tested properly with melee builds.

The defensive gap between ranged and melee is enormous. Ranged characters can keep their distance, giving them time to react to or even avoid mechanics. Melee players, by contrast, are forced to stay right next to the boss, which makes every mechanic significantly harder to deal with. To make matters worse, my friends who are at roughly the same power level as me were able to beat the fight with ease, while I spent over two hours retrying before giving up. This creates an experience where melee feels punishing rather than rewarding.

I urge you to consider designing boss encounters with melee in mind. Many of us truly enjoy this play-style, but fights like this make it difficult to have fun or even feel viable.

On a separate note, I’d also like to report a bug: after failing the Vessel of Kulemak fight, the boss health bar disappears in subsequent attempts. This makes it impossible to track de-buffs, health remaining, or even damage dealt, further adding to the frustration.

I spent over two hours retrying this boss without success. I really care about this game, and I’m sharing this feedback in hopes that melee combat gets the attention it deserves.

Thank you for listening.

TFW unlimited degens and no life recovery in tiny arena. Feels bad man.

Even as ranged the boss fight feels scuffed, melee it's just not something I'd wish even on my enemies...

Also very well worded, nice post!
Bump for visibility.

Terrible boss design and why even have 3 stages of choices if you have to fight same boss in a final form, such a waste of time mechanic. Then the final fight is terribly designed for anyone not playing a max out class with one shot builds. locking an ascendancy behind the final boss and so by the time you can even kill the boss you already have a defined class and have no need to even use the 4th class. Zero though in this from developers

This is very true. I think this is true in general. There are so many mechanics that are just trivial for ranged, or even good for ranged, but terrible for melee. For example, when you heavy stun someone, they dramatically jump back. That's great for ranged, because it creates distance, but it's terrible for melee, because you can't reach them with your attack again, without moving again. And heavy stun is supposed to be a melee attacker's thing, since they a 50% bonus to stunning.

I don't envy melee players. I think playing melee is possible. I want to do it. I respect those who do it. But I just always end up asking... why bother?