That’s a terrible example, because he is one of the most annoying bosses of all the Tier 1 bosses.
As a minion necromancer, I can either kill him fast enough, which is difficult because my minions need to attack 6 times (so about 3 seconds) to proc ring of mendeln, or I need to go to later phases, where all my minions will get pushed out of the circle and die. When Beast in the Ice can be damaged again, I have no minions left, and therefore I am doing no damage.
That’s the reason I only try him in Torment 3.
- If killing Lord Zir takes a bit longer, he will spawn some adds, some blood on the ground, but he still can be beaten easily.
- If killing Grigoire takes too long, you need to play some real mechanics, but this can be done. You either have to face tank him, or find a save spot.
- Varshand is a bit more dangerous, because of the pattern he put on the ground. Having immunity is the easiest solution here.
The problem I have with solutions like kill him inside a 3 seconds window or die is, that you just need a high dps build, toughness isn’t important and learning the boss fight isn’t needed as well.
Doing a boss like a dps check is not a real boss fight.
Everybody should play the boss mechanics every time.
This is why I think Durial is the best boss fight.
Do damage until 66% life - run away, kill 3 adds, don’t let him hit you on the way out. Repeat. Finish him.
If I am doing less damage, the damaging phase will take longer and the adds needs more time to kill, but it is still the same fight.
Playing an OP build and getting a fast pass for all bosses is stupid.
Why not just open the chest without killing the boss?
The mechanics should always be fun and you should only lose the fight if you don’t have enough toughness or you make a mistake.
That would be a solution to have a minimum time a boss fight takes.
If you can at most do 5 % damage per second to a boss, than you will need to play these phases at least for 20 seconds.
But the phases should be doable. The Harbinger’s fight is one of the most annoying boss fights I have ever seen. I would rename him Alt+F4-Dog.