Since this boss was widely skipped in Beta, I guess this boss has been kinda forgotten about by now.
I did my first Gamma today and got Nexus. Obviously we went for a full run since there’s no incentive to do skip runs anymore.
This boss does seem a bit overkill, atleast on Gamma. I was, as a caster dps, charged. The charge did 19k damage to me. Since it’s a charge, I was also stunned for a brief moment, and during that moment I was also hit by a melee swing for 20k or so, which killed me and did about 15k overkill damage.
Perhaps this should be looked into in some fashion. This charge mechanic is not avoidable, and only a handful of classes can outplay it with immunities etc. Unavoidable guaranteed oneshots really don’t fit in 5 man content that you most likely will play with pugs.
Oh no, the easiest form of group content is “too hard” again. A player can die! Does Blizzard not know that you die in real life when you die in game? Why do they keep making these mobs so dangerous?
The issue isn’t that you cannot win by any stretch of the imagination. We wiped twice due to oneshots, but were successful our 3rd try even with one or two deaths.
My issue is that it’s not good or fun game design having unavoidable ~35k damage within a single gcd on 20-25k health pools. Pretty much no player outside of tanks have that amount of health and can realistically survive, assuming normal circumstances. And tanks don’t get hit by the charge anyway.
Edit: This seems to be a problem with charge abilities in general. A trash mob in Utgarde Keep Gamma just charged our healer for 9k and melee swinged him for 10k right after. Granted, this could actually be survived if you’re geared enough (or have a few stamina buffs availible in your group). But this is one single trash mob we’re talking about. It all seems a bit on the extreme side for damage that is not in any shape or form avoidable.
Edit 2: Any charge ability that can hit a non tank seems to be a guaranteed oneshot in Gamma setting. Our warlock just got oneshot in 0.6 seconds on the second boss, same run. Charged for 5k and then melee’d for 20k.
Wouldn’t a charge ability not activate if you stay close enough? You could still get feared, I guess.
If you don’t mind only your dps dying, tank him around a corner, so that your healer has los to the tank, but not to the boss - charge requires los. Not like death is a big deal.
Also, disarm worked on him on regular heroic, maybe that would help.
The charge bug where the mob melees you afterward has been in the game since TBC, same as some melee mobs “reckoning” hitting you for 4 attacks when they reach melee range. For example the doom guards in Arcatraz heroic regularly oneshot people like that, as did the trash packs before Leotheras the Blind in SSC. Blizzard just don’t care, or more likely, they have no idea how to even fix it.
Edit: Unfortunately, all you can do is stay in melee and outheal whatever ability incentivises you not to stay in melee, and sometimes they oneshot you even then. Or like Daigar said, los the healer and hope you kill it before all 3 dps are dead.
The play is to stack on melee as much as possible and to just outheal the whirlwind (yes, it hurts, but it doesn’t oneshot 5k gs clothies, while the charge + melee hit does)
This is what I came up with aswell. The whirlwind does about 95% of my health, so if I eat it and pop a defensive cooldown and/or pop a health potion right after I can bypass the charge by being in melee. I’m geared though, if you’re on a lesser geared caster I guess it’s just a matter of praying for luck.
I guess equipping some PvP pieces can help with survivability aswell. I know certain low hp classes did that early Freya hardmode kills, for example. Not gonna help vs. charge obviously, but it will make it easier surviving whirlwind.
Also just wanna correct the wording here. This is not a question of one might end up dying. You will die if you eat the charge.
I just found another weird interaction. When you get impaled on the last boss in Gundrak Gamma, the boss will melee you. Was just impaled, and he first melee’d me for 25k, which I actually survived, but when you’re impaled you’re also stuck on his spear (or whatever) for a few seconds taking damage. This damage killed me. Not sure if this is outplayable at all since impale is an intended boss mechanic. But the 25k melee hit before being impaled is not.