Count Geonor is a total pain, overall problems with POE2 difficulty, intrinsic game design flaw

[Satori]

Topic, tried him 5 times, died 5 times. Asked chat for help, they said "stack cold resist"... My entire stash of gear only has +10% cold resist and none of the vendors sell cold resist gear...

This game is too dark souls-y. It's not really an ARPG. It's a dark souls game in the guise of an ARPG.

I didn't really mind the occasional death up to Count Geonor, some of the bosses were a bit too hard sure but nothing was stupidly impossible. Count Geonor was a total pain though and I'm over it. I can't get past him and I don't even want to try again because of all his stupid phases and how it doesn't save what phase you were on.

I don't have the will to grind through to the final phase AGAIN only to die, again. It's not fun. This dark souls gameplay nonsense is lame and a bad and unhealthy trend for gaming.

At the very least, if you want to make your game dark souls levels of difficulty have it be a setting. Like have easy, normal and hard. Don't just assume everyone wants a sweaty, uber difficult megachallenge.

[Satori]

Bump

[DarkFenix]

In fairness, stacking resist is really easy. There are rings with +25%, you can use the charm for that element too, and you get +10% cold res from a permanent item in the first area. no need for any fancy magic gear yet.

But I have noticed that balance can be a bit... odd with some of the bosses, some classes seem to struggle a lot more than others. You should try to keep in mind that this is the whole reason we're playing it now in early access, it is going to be imbalanced in some places, some things will be too good, too bad, too broken, etc.

[NobodysLaw]

Tell me about it, I am a frost sorc. That is quite the most anti enemy I could have.

While it is difficult, the biggest issue is here the randomness of the cleaves in wolf form (doesn't seem scripted?) and the dodge windows of the various attacks. Some have a real long window while others (like the plunge after vanish) has barely any.

But anything else, I actually like the Dark Souls-esque difficulty. But that will surely put off a lots of players.

[Random]

Resist only helps a little, majority of the boss fight is just dodging boss mechanics while you pump in dmg in between boss attacks. Last phase of the boss fight gets a bit tricky and no amount of cold resist will help you with the rng mechanic.

[Fr33falle]

as a monk the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ plunge cannot be dodged. I dont have the movement speed to run far enough to dodge out in time once the red circle spawns on me.
The ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ heaven's laser with bleed effect is just ♥♥♥♥♥♥. I'm already bothered by dodging the damn ice blast. Now i also have bleed after getting mobbed in the fog?
And then there's the dodge mechanic which gets bodyblocked so easy i might as well just stand still in the fog.
I thought about going grinding for gear, but then I have to rerun the whole manor to get to this boss again

[Jaoso]

Starting each boss fight from the start after death is REALLY bad design. It can be fun once or twice, but gets frustrating very fast.

[Billy]

Get good

[xdd]

skill issue. killed him with 8% cold res, on a frost sorc literally second try.
now ultimatum, thats where the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ difficulty begins.
you just either cap 75% lightning res, or just dont even try to get your second ascendancy

[😎Astran😾]

The difficulty is fine for Souls-like game. For aRPG gameplay you should look elsewhere

[Doranov]

I can't even get cold resist items. All the YouTube videos say "Buy from vendor". I could try Finn with his 3K random rings. How much money can you earn in Act 1? Not much.
Yes, in the end it's a "skill issue". I'm sure there are some people who can kill Geonor at level 1, unarmed, without any equipment. I'm not one of those people. Though I'm evading more attacks than the people in the YouTube videos who manage to kill him.

The rest of Act 1 was very easy for me. No skill issue there, apparently. No "wrong" build either.

I'm currently level 19 and I will just continue to level to get some passives. Don't know if I need to respec or try to find better equipment. I have already upgraded everything. I feel bricked, as my own skill level apparently isn't high enough to kill him in his final wolf form.

It doesn't feel quite as annoying yet as playing a level 1 Monk, but with a couple more deaths I'm probably going to shelve this game and forget about it. Time is precious, after all.

Still a few more strategies I want to try out though. Need to deal with the fog and those orbital strike blood lasers.

[Sai]

The vendor in town always sells a cold resist ring that randoms each time you visit.

Go to Una.

You can also get the anti freeze charm.

Every single ability is wildly telegraphed way in advance and their are audio cues for these moves as well.

This boss is balanced perfectly.

[glloomba]

skill issue

[The Thorne]

Yeh I just managed to beat him today after dying a few times on my last two attempts. I just cleared the manor again , boosted my gear a little and levelled up a little but in the end it’s all about dodging and staying out of his attack range. I suck at Dark souls and Elden Ring but I beat Wukong so I guess I have taken some of that into this. It is way harder than D4

[Best Shark]

Killed him as a Monk with 0% cold resist, took like 7 tries.

Originally posted by Fr33falle:

as a monk the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ plunge cannot be dodged. I dont have the movement speed to run far enough to dodge out in time once the red circle spawns on me.
The ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ heaven's laser with bleed effect is just ♥♥♥♥♥♥. I'm already bothered by dodging the damn ice blast. Now i also have bleed after getting mobbed in the fog?
And then there's the dodge mechanic which gets bodyblocked so easy i might as well just stand still in the fog.
I thought about going grinding for gear, but then I have to rerun the whole manor to get to this boss again

- He lifts his head up and fades away long before the red circle appears. Start running before you see it.
- Literally just dodge. Stop attacking him and just dodge the lasers.
- When it's foggy he jumps at you whenever he stops talking.
- There's a checkpoint literally outside his room. If you ragequit then yes, you quite rightly have to run back through.

Every skill is telegraphed to the high heavens along with a voice line for each of them. They quite literally can't make it any easier without just deleting his healthbar.

Also can we stop comparing it to Souls? Just because it has a dodge roll doesn't make it not an ARPG. Souls games aren't particularly hard either. You're just used to ARPGs being faceroll and this just isn't that. PoE1 still exists, might I suggest you play that instead?

[axel8000]

I died about 5 times to Gaenor as well before I figured out how to beat him. I also went and stacked cold resist. Only had like 24% from two runes. All the good boss fights are like this. Hang in there, you'll get it. Just learn the fights and be patient.