Path of Exile 2's boss fights have me wondering if it's even fair to compare them to Diablo 4's… I'm not sure I can even call them boss fights now. One game pits you against monsters designed to challenge your build and your reflexes and the other gives you treasure chests with health bars. I love a lot about Diablo 4, but its bosses are just obstacles between me and my loot, whereas Path of Exile 2's bosses are the whole reason I can't stop playing it.
There was a time when Diablo 4's boss fights were actually fights. It lasted for about half a season before just about every class gained enough power to bonk them in one hit. A few of the bosses have mechanics I've never seen because they die too quickly. I'm pretty sure Lord Zir is just a guy who crawls out of a pool of blood and immediately erupts into a pile of loot. It's only encounters like Andariel or Uber Lilith—where you can't bypass certain phases—that I employ any sort of strategy.
Diablo 4's bosses are unfortunately in a game where the loot chase is more important than learning to play your class well. It's an approach that works great for the first few weeks of a season, but leaves a lot of satisfying combat opportunities on the table once you're too strong to actually engage with any fight fairly. My spiritborn brushes up against bosses and deals four billion damage—I'd have to strip my character naked just to keep them alive long enough to even hit me.
It's a shame because bosses like Uber Lilith ask you to dance around the arena as she marks the ground with shadow fissures. Halfway through the fight she starts carving off edges of the floating platform, increasing the pressure as the fight reaches its climax. On paper it's all well paced, but the sheer power of a typical Diablo 4 character means you're going to knock her to zero and spend the rest of the fight waiting for her to cycle through her mechanics so it can finally end.
The fights themselves are almost as good as what you'd find in FromSoftware's games.
In comparison, PoE 2 bosses are practically from another genre, more soulslike than anything you'd expect from a loot-based action RPG. These bosses aren't playing around, and won't hesitate to crunch your health orb like a soda can. They climb out of holes, burst out of walls, and frequently show up out of nowhere Elden Ring-style. These guys don't care if you're mindlessly casting spells at skeletons or gawking at your inventory. Sometimes you can see them coming, but that doesn't make it any less terrifying. I promise you that the mysteriously vacant courtyard with the next quest objective isn't just there for the moody atmosphere. You're going to walk in there and see what hellish creature awaits. It's like prying yourself out of bed when it's cold out: You know it's going to suck, but you really have no choice but to do it anyway.
The fights themselves are almost as good as what you'd find in FromSoftware's games. Draven, an undead swordsman you fight early on, cuts the catacomb arena in half with a poisonous trail of smoke that spreads out to its sides after a beat. Just before it goes off, you hear a thunk to warn you something real bad is about to happen. It's a small hint that reminds me of the way Sekiro enemies alert you with a clear sound effect before launching an unblockable attack, letting you focus on dodging and casting skills instead of staring at the bosses animations.
A typical PoE 2 boss fight takes around two minutes—four if they have a second health bar. Diablo 4's, on the other hand, last three or four seconds. And I don't even know if I'd want to be in a fight longer than that in Diablo 4 with how easy it is to get popped. Fighting bosses in Diablo is like sprinting through a minefield hoping to land your one hit before you set your foot down in the wrong spot. Fighting bosses in PoE 2 is a thrilling duel that challenges your positioning and the strength of your build. They're so expertly tuned that I look forward to running into more, if only to measure how much stronger I am.
I never would've expected to come away from a loot-based action RPG enamored with its boss fights, but PoE 2 seems deliberately designed to upend expectations. When I tried PoE1 earlier this year, it lost me with how slippery moving my character through the world felt. Diablo 4 had spoiled me with movement where you can feel the weight of every step and swing your character takes. PoE 2 is finally here and I'm surprised to say that it might even feel better than Diablo 4. And it actually uses that slower pace to give you combat where something as small as casting one too many spells can cost you. It's the kind of granular decision making that rewards you for being patient and waiting for the right moment to strike, especially against its bosses. Very few games can pull off soulslike combat this confidently and it's going to be painful for me to go back to Diablo 4 where bosses only ever seem to get in the way.
