Why is there such an intense difficulty ramp at Dominus

Just to head off what I know is going to be the first thing someone says - I'M NOT SAYING DOMINUS IS TOO HARD. I actually quite like the fight, and I think it's at a good difficulty level.

Here's the problem, though - it's a huge jump from the rest of a3. On my last character, I was killing Cruel Piety in about 20 seconds by the time I was capable of killing Dominus, and the Dominus fight felt dicey the whole time. (Third phase.) I was ripping through the other content in a3, including the Scepter of God run leading up to Dom, and nothing in there was even close to touching me. Then, I got to the top, and there's this fight which is pounding me into the ground.

This, to me, is a problem. Again, not that Dom is so hard - but that the A3 content leading up to him is so easy. It doesn't prepare you for him. It also doesn't gear you up for him, at all - on my last character I was significantly overlevelled by the time I felt I could safely beat him, and nothing leading up to dominus could drop gear that would be helpful to me at that point. (I was 59, IIRC, so nothing was even close.)

What winds up happening - which in my mind kind of stinks - is that Dominus forces you into the trading system. The big difference between this character and my last one is that someone pointed me towards poe.xyz, which helped me get significantly better equipment than I would ever have found by myself, or even through the trade channel. This isn't the end of the world, but I don't feel like it's the way the game should be played.

Again, I'm not saying dominus should be nerfed. I'm saying some other area - maybe the Library - should be buffed to drop higher level items and have harder bosses, maybe some that mimic parts of the Dominus fight. Dominus is a good fight, but right now it's just too far out in front of the rest of the content.

My problem with Dominus is also not that he's too hard, it's that I think the learning curve for the fight is very steep. I remember sucking as hard against Vaal and Piety once, and then I figured out the mechanics of the fight and now I don't have problems with either one. With Dominus, I'm fine until the 3rd phase and then there is so much chaos on the screen, I just can't figure out where to move when, how to attack when, and what the hell is doing so much damage to me over a short amount of time.

I've figured out the mechanics of the rain, but apart from that I've had a hard time figuring out how to improve, as opposed to Vaal/Piety where I saw what I needed to do to improve and could practice.

Keep doing it until you get the mechanics down =) hell go play Dark Souls hahah good times.

Which form is giving you trouble? I face tank merciless Dominus in his dark beast form. It is getting him to that form that causes me problems :/

The only hard part IMO of his final form is making sure you are facing in a direction that will make your attacks also hit the mobs that keep spawning.

phase 1 i assume is the minion fight, were you fight all those generals and what not.
Easy way to deal with this is to pull one at a time and kite them away from the middle, like to the entrance or something down the stairs.

phase 2, i recommend pulling him away from north part of the map, down to the south part. This way even if you get that suicide bombing spell on you the minions wont get to you straight away. heck sometimes they dont even come at all.
Furthermore, if he stands still for even .5 of a seconde and raises his fist up, run,jump whatever away.
if he does that attack they totally didnt rip off from diablo, you know that lighting laser pew pew thing, either hide behind a wall till hes done or circle him. just dont try to tank it cos it hurts.
Dont stand in the totems and try to kill them with aoe/cleave while focusing domi.
id recommend bringing a topaz flask with dispell shock to the fight.

Phase 3, funny thing is... you can kite that massive thing down the stairs. takes care of the adds, and dont bother going outside of melee range. hes just gonna spam his rain or uses this skill that teleports him to you.
His main damage imo is his bleed which does chaos damage over time. Recommending getting a amnythist flask which removes bleed. Other then that, get some chaos res and some life leech and just face tank him.

Dont be afraid to use a tp to refill flasks if you run out of charges.
Hope this helps and good luck with domi slaying.

I actually wanted to post this same issue, except more along the unfair difficulty line =)

My Duelist did not die a single time leading up to the Dominus fight on the lowest difficulty. Cruised through all the new content no problem. Got to Dominus, handled the first three champs by separating them up. Have near-max resists etc.

I thought that difficulty was just about right. Then the first Dominus form came down. My plan was to dodge around and keep a chaos dot on him. getting past the first form, I died about 15 times. 10 of those times was because he got himself stuck on the path leading up to the platform, blocking me and killing me repeatedly. He also has this one attack that just kills you outright, one hit, no matter what your resists are. Then when not trapped on the stairs, those silly minions run around and blow up on you.

I eventually beat him and began the second battle. Put myself toe-to-toe with the beast, and almost had the health/armor/evade to stay right next to him. Then when I had to move to heal, the first blood rain hit, and I wasn't aware of what it was and died. Came back through my portal, entered the fight area. Blood rain still going. I dies 7-8 times without ever being able to get close enough to him to not be killed by the blood rain.

By the end of the fight, I ran out of portals and had to run from the waypoint to avoid the instance resetting. I eventually got lucky, and Dominus got caught at the top of the stairs. I was able to melee him and he wasn't even able to hit me.

I was pissed. Nothing in the game up to that point warranted that level of beatdown. No other boss had anything close to any kind of complex pattern. Except maybe the Weaver, who died after 4-5 hits.

So I am not of the opinion that the fight was fun.

"

Kmwill23 escreveu:

So I am not of the opinion that the fight was fun.

I think it really could be but sadly 2 things really bother me there. My very low fps* which makes me just happy when I'm done there (and not come back) and the fact that it's just unrewarding lootwise.

But I do think that Dominus is more or less intended to be done after dozens and dozens of high MF Piety runs. I don't know why GGG wants it that way but this ramping-up of difficulty speaks a pretty clear language.


*Thing is you have to keep organized for that fight: Know when to do what and keep a calm head. But with fps of 10-15 and numerous stutters and almost-freezes I am at the end of my wits. So I just keep dying.

I think Dominus is a gear checker, his difficulty is way higher than any other boss, the closer is Weaver.

If you don't have enough defense, life leech, regen,
all you can do is to throw yourself multiple times to lower his health bar bit by bit.

The three phases for Dominus crush most of the solo player, no matter the build. Unless you can out-gear him which usually means the character's level is a lot higher than the map's level, solo farm Dominus is not worth the trouble/risk.

The problem is, when you can farm Dominus, farm next difficulty's Mervil is a lot efficient.

So yeah, the boss fight is pointlessly hard. The only meaning of it is you need to get over Dominus to next difficulty.

"

rrrrr5r escreveu:

The three phases for Dominus crush most of the solo player, no matter the build. Unless you can out-gear him which usually means the character's level is a lot higher than the map's level, solo farm Dominus is not worth the trouble/risk.

The problem is, when you can farm Dominus, farm next difficulty's Mervil is a lot efficient.

So yeah, the boss fight is pointlessly hard. The only meaning of it is you need to get over Dominus to next difficulty.

except when the dominus you can farm is merciless!