Act 4 is not doable for me.

[Extinction]

Im playing a ice witch and i have about 2.5k shield at level 58. I beat act 3 pretty good and it was fun. Im mostly playing with a friend and we cant play together anymore, because there is no chance we could ever win against the mobs there. Mobs get buffed way too much. Even singleplayer is not doable without dying 24/7. There is no mechanics to it. one example at kaoms dream 75% resistance on everything then i walk over a bridge and get nuked from somewhere i dont even see where. I then farmed myself vaal summon skeletons - that was my only chance to even get over the bridge without beeing oneshot food. Then daressos dream or whatever it is called. I get thrown into a arena where i get surrounded by 2 rare mobs and a boss and 1000 other mobs. I am dead withing 0.1 seconds. Then when i try to go in again i get throw into the middle of the arena surrounded by every mob.. That doesnt make sence because how in hell do i get into the middle when i enter the front? We tried it in a group first but it was just a slaughterhouse. We both got nuked in an instant. My friend is playing tank with 5k armour and 500 hp/second and was dead before he could blink an eye. after he died i got killed instantly. He managed to get past that arena in solo, but its not possible for me. Worst of all my drops suck so bad that i still have to walk around with ilvl 33 because nothing better dropped ever. act 3 was fun and doable, but act 4 killed the game for me. Its not fun at all. I dont drop currency. The best i got with 2 characters played too sixty and one farm character at level 60 with 300% i drop is some crappy uniques 1 exalt and 10 chaos. my 60 character is at merciles and act 2 merciless is NOTHING compared to act 4 cruel.. This is not how difficulty should be. Mechanics at boss fights are somewhat strange with a squishy range because kaom oneshots me if i dont manage to get away fast enough. which with range animation is hard. Endboss was already freakin hard at normal.. I dont even want to know how many 1000 times i will die. The are is cramped, i cant do damage because ground aoe will destroy me when i cast. Im depended on my energy shield or do the devs want me to play a tank mage? with 1000hp/second? People hwo start with a level 80-100 char that already have good gear and can farm have no problem with this act. But for a squishy character this act is the greatest pain..

[Gennesis]

When you get to mercs farm the dried lake or aquaducts untill you are 7 levels above that area.This will get you gear and currency.There is NO point to finnish mercs you get nothing worthwhile .The only thing that you have to get there is an extra point from the mines and thats it.Get to level 75 or so and off to maps with you .If you making your own build might have hit a wall and the build will go no further.Best recomendation i can give you find newbie friendly build on the path exile forums and use that.They will get you far.

[Extinction]

Uhm im at cruel difficulty and i cant get past cruel difficulty. Leveling takes a ♥♥♥♥ ton of time already and im actually 4 level above. THIS is my problem, this part where it is impossible for me to get past.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=560055118

How is a mage supposed to survive this? I get ported into 100s of mobs without beeing able to move. I die in a blink of an eye before i can even cast 1 spell. i have rebuilt the map like 100 times and every freaking time i enter this part so many mobs spawn that i cant even move anymore. This act is the worst thing i have ever seen in this game. Act 3 was good, good mechanics that actually were doable and not 100s of mobs thrown at you in a area you can barely move. I tried this part with my level 60 marauder and hwo thought aoe melee attack with life gained on hit is enough to take the wave out but still dying 2 times. But not with a mage, im depended on movement and getting myself out of bad situations. I can understand making this act so hard in merciles. But act 4 cruel is way harder than act 2 and 3 merciless. How and why? that does not make sense. Mobs have more hp, deal more damage and mechanics are way harder also. What do they want to do when they add act 5? Add a unkillable God that destroys the universe with one blow and in act 6 they throw 20 of them at you? I liked the difficulty of diablo 2 but this is just the worst i have ever seen. Not even darksouls made me go in enrage like this act does.

[Gennesis]

This means there is a problem with your build.You are not dishing out enough damage to kill them fast enough .What skill are you using ?How are they linked ?

[Gennesis]

Here is a good build easy and very cheap .Just follow this build and you wont have problem clearing 95% of the game. http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1147951.From the picture you gave i already see few mistakes where is your golem get the chaos one he is a mini tank ?Get them they are good to distracts mobs and dish out damage.Since you are running ice build where is your hatred aura i only see a ice herald...

[Extinction]

Originally posted by GENNESIS:

This means there is a problem with your build.You are not dishing out enough damage to kill them fast enough .What skill are you using ?How are they linked ?

This is Totaly not correct. My Freezing pulse in this part is my main attack with 10k dps. I 5 linked it with critical, spell echo, cast speed and depending on the situation multiple projectiles or life on hit. it starts first wave spawn i kill them with 1-2 hits next wave spawns but some mobs just stay on the other side of the arena before i can clear them next wave spawned and the boss constantly keeps me moving because of his spin attack not beeing able to cast. And even if i nuke them they swarm me from all sides. I went for a icemage and using arc lightning with no skilled lightning wont do anything for me. This act is not balanced, why is this act on cruel harder than merciless act 2 and 3? i would understand act 1 because of mechanics but not of mob hp and damage. Gearwise is a little problem because i dont drop ANYTHING that could be of any use to me at all. And before act 4 came out i actually had no problem clearing 95% of the game. All this act is, is dying - respawn - dying - respawn and somehow get through it without having fun at all. Actually i didnt even get one level in this act because i kept dying a 1000 times. But thank god, now im done with this and ill never play any other champ up again until this act gets a smooth difficulty like the other acts have.

[86ER]

U need to hav atleast 1.3k life for every stage.. example for norm,cruel,merc.. By end-game aprox 4k life. As u alrdy know it takes 135% in norm to hav 75% resists capped in merc.Also use rares their cheap on poe.trade. Uniques is where ppl make their currency. That way u will have and need life on every item in your inventory. You can not kill if u are dead. I have 5k+hrs on steam and 3.5k+ on the GGG server. come by i hav all kinds of rares that won't sell. They are awesome for chars though. GL HF and may u hav Great Drops.

[Pvt. Gonzo]

Whilst taking a look at ur screenshot, I noticed one thing: U have set Default Attack on ur left-mouse button. Change that to Move Only immediately (footprints). Hope this will bring u further. (makes no sense to have default attack set as a caster). Use Arctic Armour as an additional defence as it costs 25% mana reservation only and helps a lot, leaving a trail of ICE behind u if u have to make tracks. Discipline (50% mana reservation) is a significant boost to ur energy shield and is pretty damn good. CYA in PoE

p.s. (Warum schreib ich eigentlich Englisch, du bist doch ein "Kraut" wie ich, oder?) :-)

[Extinction]

Originally posted by Pvt. Gonzo:

Whilst taking a look at ur screenshot, I noticed one thing: U have set Default Attack on ur left-mouse button. Change that to Move Only immediately (footprints). Hope this will bring u further. (makes no sense to have default attack set as a caster). Use Arctic Armour as an additional defence as it costs 25% mana reservation only and helps a lot, leaving a trail of ICE behind u if u have to make tracks. Discipline (50% mana reservation) is a significant boost to ur energy shield and is pretty damn good. CYA in PoE

p.s. (Warum schreib ich eigentlich Englisch, du bist doch ein "Kraut" wie ich, oder?) :-)

♥♥♥ ich bin eine Kartoffel. Ja die Arktische Rüstung hab ich, man sieht es nurnicht da ich die Auras und reservations rausswappe. Wie gesagt ich bin mit Act 4 auf cruel Fertig und kann jetzt - Gott sei dank - Farmen. Ich hab jetzt die ersten 2 akte auf merc durch ohne irgendwelche probleme. Act 4 cruel sollte einfacher sein um eine gute schwierigkeitsstufe kurve zu erreichen und nicht eine komische welle mit auf und abs. Ich versteh das der akt sau schwer auf merc ist aber warum muss er den so schwer auf cruel sein? Vor allem für magier ist dieser akt ein stachel im A****. In Akt 1 und 2 merc bin ich einmal gestorben und das auch nur weil mir der Apex typ seinen laser ins gesicht gepumpt hat. In akt 4 bin ich alleine bei paar Blauen mobs 1 hit gewesen ohne das ich überhaupt wusste was passiert ist. Life hab ich 1,5k und schild 2,5k. Life werde ich am ende vl 3k haben, weis nicht genau. Aufjedenfall energyshield ungefähr 5-6k. Ein level 100 hat mir gesagt das ist ausreichend um akt 4 merc zu schaffen solang meine chaos resistance hochgenug ist oder ich pots hab die mich resistänt dagegen machen. Mal schaun. Und ja die Footprints sind eine gute idee :D Ich bin nämlich par mal deswegen gestorben.

[AlexHunter]

Not sure if it's been mentioned before, but I find Decoy Totems a lifesaver, at least underlings gets distracted and won't swarm you, bosses are a little harder to distract.

[JHS_]

Looking at the screenie it's bit hard to see stats, but I'd assume you will have hard time keeping up the mana consumption with small mana flask. I'd also update that medium life flask...

That part of A4 is kinda a DPS check. Kill the boss ASAP as it will constantly spawn more mobs if you don't. Try to position yourself somewhere, where your freezing pulse hits both the boss and mobs if possible. Also if you don't move all around the arena, some of the mobs on other side of the arena may not attack you (this doesn't always work though).

Having movement skill like lightning warp or flame dash is pretty much mandatory at that point of the game to get you out of harms way, if you get overwhelmed by too many mobs. Totem may help to give you time to cast.

Also having few bubling/insta life flasks helps against DMG spikes.

You will most likely want to be hybrid (life/ES) build at that point of the game instead of trying to be ES only. Problem with ES only @Cruel is you probably don't have enough ES buffer to kill everything, not much ES leech (and requires Ghost Reaver passive anyways) and there are no ES flasks.

[Extinction]

Mana consumption is no problem, My spell costs 75 mana per shot and i have more reg than it takes. I just think that this act is not balanced for mage or they dont give much love to mage. Because a 0815 marauder build is enough to beat the whole arena stuff with ease.

[Shajirr]

Going Energy Shield was a mistake.

You should never do this as a new player, since it relies extremely heavily on getting good or just adequate gear to get high enough ES level. You don't have this gear.
Generally speaking, less than 3k ES - you will have huge problems clearing the game.

Same isn't true for life - with life you can use instahealing potions to keep you alive.
I got into maps with 2600 life, died around 10 times total, most of which in room with Act 4 piety and Redblades in one room, one guy was constantly spawning Flameblasts. Although this is using a totem build.

Unless you want to restart, going hybrid life/ES is probably your best bet.

[Sexualchin]

Delete character and make an hardcore one, problem solved :D

[jbridso]

ES is really really hard to pull off midgame and requires rares with +HP, +ES, and +%ES whereas armor/evasion builds really only need +HP at the same point. You can manage with an ES build, but you have to be prepared to do a bit more farming especially if you're playing self found. You also need to have some other form of defense... ie) minions, freezing, stunning, etc or do so much damage that things die before they can really hurt you... ie) incinerate build.

I'm guessing that you're having a really rough time in Daresso's Dream and getting insta-gibbed by the melee things in there that hit with viper strike. Since they do chaos damage, which ignores ES, they're cutting through your low hps like a wet noodle.

Also, they kinda screwed up the balance in the expansion by adding in so many move or die mechanics... You're basically forced to have movement friendly abilities such as totems/minions/DoTs/cyclone...

[Xao]

Originally posted by jbridso:

Also, they kinda screwed up the balance in the expansion by adding in so many move or die mechanics... You're basically forced to have movement friendly abilities such as totems/minions/DoTs/cyclone...

This is so true that I seriously can't understand what the developers were thinking with some of the stuff.

Kaom's is about the only fair boss, and he's still a pain at very end of the fight when it starts to get a bit overkill. It's like they didn't even try to make things vaguely balanced for your average use-what-you-find build. All the others have instagib ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ that requires you to constantly dance around in circles and/or absurd amounts of screen filling spam. Well, there's also the one that spawns all the exploding books. That fight is pretty fair. But still.

It reminds me of fighting fireball chucking shotoclone players in fighting games. In the sense that you spend 75% of the time trying to dance around their ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ and 25% of the time actually playing the damn game, and even if you can win 100% of the time it's still incredibly unfun to deal with.