Zoltun Kulle is a really fun fight and can be quite challenging, especially for squishier classes.  Here’s my video guide to beating Zoltun Kulle if you would prefer to watch rather than read.

 

Key abilities that Kulle uses:

Fireball

• He shoots a big fireball that hurts a LOT.  I have 62% resist all and 73% armor mitigation in this video and it still takes away between 1/4 and 1/2 of my life.  There’s a very distinctive sound when he shoots the fireball and if you just move in ANY direction when you hear that sound you should avoid the fireball.

Time slow bubble

• Zoltun will occasionally drop a time slow bubble that works much like the Wizard’s time slow bubble.  You want to avoid standing in there, as it makes your attacks slower and also you won’t be able to move out of the way of fireballs in time to avoid them.  These bubbles are very easy to avoid.  Popping serenity also makes you invulnerable to the time-slow effects(at least the part that slows your movement speed, I’m not sure if your attacks are still slowed).

Tornados

• Zoltun will spawn tornadoes around him.  These move around the map randomly and hurt a LOT if you get hit.  Rule of thumb, if you THINK a tornado is coming at you, just move out of the way.  It may decide to veer off course but it’s worth losing a few seconds of DPS time in order to avoid a tornado, even if you’re not sure whether it’ll actually come at you or not.  Overall these are very easy to avoid provided that you’re alert.

Invisibility

• From time to time Zoltun will disappear and laugh. I’m not sure what the point of this mechanic is. But it’s a great time to collect health orbs if you’re low on health and rez dead friends if you’re playing co-op.

Dropping the ceiling

• Kulle will cast an animation and make another distinctive sound when he casts this ability.  It makes rubble fall from the ceiling onto your head and can be very painful if you get caught in the middle. The best strategy to avoid dying to this ability is to run 180 degrees away from whichever direction you were heading whenever you hear him cast this.

Zoltun Kulle phase one:

You start off by fighting Kulle and his two giant minions.  The minions don’t have very much HP but do hit like a truck so you want to dart in and out of combat.  Attack for .5-1 seconds, then run away, repeat.  Pop your serenity proactively to stay in there and do sustained damage.  The same goes for your blind.  Make sure the 15% increased damage buff from breath of heaven is up at all times.  Don’t be afraid to blow your cooldowns, they’re there to be used! I try to keep my CDs always on refresh, because that means I’ve got to use them more in a fight, and that equals out to more dps/more healing/more time invulnerable.

Zoltun Kulle phase two:

Phase two is really simple.  It’s just Kulle.  He’ll sometimes disappear and teleport around the map.  All you have to do is keep chasing him down, avoid his fireballs/tornadoes/avalanches.  Again use your cooldowns!

It’s not a difficult encounter once you get the hang of it. After dying to fireballs and tornadoes a few times you’ll be a pro at recognizing when they’re being cast and dodging them.

The build I used for this Kulle fight(I also got 4 stacks of Nephalem valor killing elite packs in the beginning of Act 1 before this fight using this same build).

Check out my different Diablo 3 Monk build guides here.

The earlier post outlining a lot of the flaws I see in Diablo 3 was a bit pessimistic and was written after dying repeatedly to ridiculous combination of elite packs in Act 2 Inferno. Now that I’ve had time to step back and get perspective on the subject I think I can definitively say I am still VERY optimistic about the future of D3 despite any perceived faults in the game currently.

Here’s a video I made talking about the subject if you’d rather watch instead of read.

1) The game has only been out for ten days!

We as gamers tend to get tunnel vision when it comes to games and forget to see the big picture. D3 has only been out for ten days! Give it some time for the devs to really balance the game.

Remember how frustrating “error 37” was on launch day? And it felt like literally the end of the world? Well, ten days later, that’s all fixed, and thoughts of the frustrations of error 37 don’t even cross our minds anymore.

I think this will be the same with Inferno difficulty tuning. Once the dev team implements some tuning to the scaling difficulty between Acts in Inferno we won’t even think about the time when a pack of elite wasps would totally ruin your day.

Remember WoW at launch?  Here’s what I remember…

• No battlegrounds or honor system.
• Lag was horrendous and players were actually credited with several days of play time because of all the server outages.
• Balance was kind of terrible in some cases.  My Rogue used the barman’s shanker and could 2-3 shot clothies.  I loved it.  I’m sure it wasn’t nearly as much fun for them. 
• No looking for dungeon tool

I could go on and on.  So let’s not be too quick to judge Diablo 3 based on the first ten days of gameplay.

And we also have to consider that people don’t really know how to even play the game yet! I know I’m finding new builds everyday and new tactics for different mobs. Finding different gear to be much more helpful than I originally considered as well. So give it time, people will gear up, and learn to use more optimal builds and the difficulty curve should lower noticeably.

Bashiok, a community manager working for Blizzard posted these two comments on their forums in this thread

Bashiok wrote: We are actually looking at Revenge, but I was … attempting to be funny. I apologize. I realize it’s serious business, but I’m trying not to allow my soul to be crushed by exclamations that Legendary items and class balance are the end of the world and will never be fixed and the game is simply the worst thing ever excreted by humans. I humbly recommend a healthy dose of chillaxification, but I understand some people take that as an act of dismissal.

Quote by a forum user “The game is still very young, and it’s an amazing game (as most will agree.) But there does have to be some changes in the way classes play out. We were promised various viable builds for customization, but it seems like everyone is following 1 person’s build just so they can survive past Act 2 Inferno.”

Bashiok replied: Absolutely! That’s the problem exactly. These outlying OP skills need to be handled before we can pinpoint any content adjustments we need to make for the difficulty to feel a bit better, fight the need to kite everything which is killing melee’s souls, address items, like, we understand and are working on all of these things. We’re going to be working on and supporting this game for years to come, two weeks out, sure it’s probably going to need some sanding. Bear with us. We love you.

These posts give the impression that they are actively working on balancing the game especially for melee characters, and addressing itemization issues.

2) Humans focus on problems and ignore positives

This is an evolutionary development. In the caveman days if you didn’t pay attention to the dangers and problems in the world, you’d end up as dinner for the T-rex neighbor(cause let’s be serious, we all know man and dinosaurs lived together six thousand years ago, that’s just science).

 

This development of evolution carries over to us even in video games. If I really step back and look at the game as a whole I should see that

1. I’ve been kept pretty damn entertained for over 100 hours and still feel compelled to play.
2. There is a ton of content still to discover.
3. Playing alts can make the game feel fresh and new again.

So let’s all step back, take a few deep breaths, and see D3 from the larger perspective.  That of a fun and compelling game with huge potential.

3) It’s in Blizzard’s financial interests to FIX the issues and LISTEN to their playerbase

You might think, “well Blizzard already has my $60, why do they care if they improve the game or not?”

I’ll tell you why!(Say this in your head with Mr. T’s voice)

1. There’s hundreds of millions of dollars up for grabs with the Real Money Auction House. There’s been quite a bit of grumbling over Blizzard’s acquisition by Activision and what’s seen as a move away from quality gameplay and more toward a model of rake in as much cash as you possibly can. Well… in this instance, this negative might actually result in a positive. Namely Blizzard using their tremendous resources to fix and balance the game in a timely fashion.
• So if Blizzard wants to keep people playing and keep them spending money in the RMAH, they will have to make the changes necessary to keep the game compelling and interesting for the large majority of the playerbase.
2. From my quick calculations(I have my degree in Accounting, so these are AMAZING calculations) Blizzard stands to make $420,000,000 from an expansion if they can retain their current D3 playerbase.
• Who wants to bet that Blizzard will be willing to invest a few million into fixing and balancing the game when the potential payoff is $420 million in future revenue from ONE expansion?

There you have it.  This is why I am still very optimistic about D3.

In the meantime if you’re just finding the game too frustrating/difficult here’s a few tips:

1. Farm the highest level difficulty that you can easily farm to get gold and items to sell on the AH, then buy gear upgrades.
2. Find good players to play with.  Co-op is IMO 3-4x easier to progress through than single player.
3. Make alts! If you have 2-3 level 60’s when Blizzard tunes the game you’ll be in a great position to capitalize on the best builds and the best characters to dominate Inferno.
4. Watch my youtube video guides at http://www.youtube.com/user/HappyJacksChannel and learn how to play better 🙂

I want to end this post by telling you that your thoughts dictate your reality. And your mind can only hold one thought at a time. If you get frustrated when you play D3 simple start thinking the thought “I’m happy and having fun”. It sounds really goofy but it works! You literally can’t hold two conflicting thoughts at the same time!

Stay healthy, stay active, reach your goals both in-game and in real life. Remember Diablo will still be here next month if you neglect it, but YOU may not be here next month if you neglect your health.

Youtube video highlighting the issues I pointed out in this post regarding flaws I see currently in Diablo 3 and changes that should be implemented to fix it.

Current flaws I see in Diablo 3

Boring loot

1. Legendary loot is boring and the drop rate is too low.  I’ve put probably over 100 hours into D3 now(yeah I know, kinda ridiculous seeing as how it’s been out for less than 10 days), and have seen only two legendary drops.  Both of which had crappy stats and were really useful to nobody.

If Blizzard is going to make the drop rate for Legendary items so damn low they need to make it so that EVERY legendary drop is worthwhile.  Otherwise they need to up the drop rate on legendaries so that you can get more chances for item rolls so that you can actually find a useful item.

I can understand why Blizzard made legendary drops so rare.  If they dropped every run, well then, it’s not so exciting seeing a legendary drop.  But currently legendary items just lead to massive disappointment for most people because after you identify it you discover most of the time that the stats are crap and your level 60 blue item is better.

Difficulty scaling is frustrating rather than challenging

2. Difficulty scaling is absurd.  I can farm Act 1 Inferno without even fear of death.  Yet with 48k hp, 63% armor mitigation, 68% resist all, 18% block, 33% dodge I STILL get sh*t on by most elite packs at the BEGINNING of Act II. This doesn’t make sense.  If I can EASILY clear the last part of Act 1, then I should be able to at least be viable at the beginning of Act 2.

There’s a difference between challenging and frustrating.  A challenging encounter is one where the player must use his skills and really focus in order to win the fight.  That means dodging big attacks, running to collect health orbs, avoiding fire, using the right combination of skills to maximize DPS.  A frustrating encounter is one where the player’s success depends largely on luck.

And that’s what Inferno elite packs largely come down to, luck.  If you’re lucky you’ll get a combination of skills that’s easy to deal with, like teleport/vortex/lifeleach/extra health.  If you’re unlucky you’ll get some stupid combination like mortar/arcane/illusionist/fast.

This is why people are frustrated with Diablo.  They feel like they’ve lost their locus of control.  Very quickly people who have an internal locus of control believe that outcomes are controlled by their actions and thus they can effect their world, and are generally much more content and happy.  People with external locus of controls believe that things happen to them and they have no control in the world, and thus feel more frustrations/anger/depression.

What Blizzard has done with the ridiculously difficult elite packs is to move the gamer’s locus of control from an internal one to an external one.  Some of these packs no matter how skilled the gamer is and no matter how good their build/gear setup is, there is simply nothing they can do to win.  This is FRUSTRATING.  Frustrating is bad, challenging is good.  Rather than implementing mobs that hit for stupid hard amounts with no way for the player to defend against it, Blizzard needs to implement game mechanics that allow for player skill to play a much larger factor over pure mitigation and dumb luck.

A great example of this kind of design are the boss fights like Belial.  Belial is a very difficult encounter.  However a skilled player that is very attentive to the game can beat him, and as you die you learn little things to change.  This is not the case with stupid elite packs.  There is nothing you can do against elite mobs that 1 shot you, pull you in, jail you in fire/poison/lava.  There is nothing to learn, except to skip that elite pack.  This is POOR game design.  This is game design that is FRUSTRATING when the intent is to be CHALLENGING.

A great design of challenging mobs are the guys in Act 1 with the giant maces who telegraph a big attack which a skilled player can avoid, but will likely one-shot him if he doesn’t avoid.  That’s challenging but not frustrating.  You can learn and adapt.  This is how Blizzard needs to implement is challenge and difficulty curve.  Not straight up gear-checks and making monsters one-shot you.

Why I am still optimistic

There have been a few blue posts saying that Legendary Items are currently being revamped

This is very promising and will hopefully lead to more useful legendary items being introduced into the game.

As a whole, Blizzard is a responsive company that works hard to balance and tune games

This, for the most part, is a good thing.  It can be taken too far sometimes, like WoW, where Blizzards eventually nerfs every encounter into the ground and ruins the challenge.  But it’s a fine line that Blizzard needs to walk.  It’s difficult to balance encounters to make them challenging for the best players and at the same time do-able for the majority.

There have already been a few blue posts on the Diablo 3 forums responding to the community’s concerns.  And in the end if Blizzard wants to keep making money from their games they will have to tune Diablo 3 so that it’s more of a challenge and less of a lesson in frustrations.

From a financial standpoint it still makes sense.  Blizzard has already made a massive investment in the development time and cost for Diablo 3.  If they don’t fix the issues now they will lose out on potentially hundreds of millions in future revenue from sales of expansions and real-life money auction house transactions.

As we know Activision is powered by green.  And ironically enough this might be the one issue that saves Diablo.  Blizzard will work diligently to ensure that its playerbase is happy and stays with the game so that the players will pour money into the RMAH and buy future expansions.

In conclusion, Diablo 3 is a great game with great potential if some minor gameplay fixes are rolled out.

Let me know if you agree with this article.  What do you think are the biggest flaws/issues that need to be fixed with Diablo 3?

Here’s a link over to my youtube video upload talking about the same issue of challenging gameplay vs. frustrating gameplay.