Quin69 is playing a mercinary thats useing a two handed mace.
So you can just swap over... the issue is the amount of uncut gems and skill gems you find is too limited to easily swap.
Your really tempted / eased into useing the starting weapons of said class.

I've made a mercinary and so far (maybe because of better gear, or having played abit already), its going much smoother than my monk character.
So if your having issues with say a Mace or Quarterstaff.... don't be scared to try pick up a wand, bow, crossbow.

Yeah I had so much trouble on the act1 boss that I started over as a mercinary.

Also your heavily rewarded for focusing on damage passive tree nodes.
Don't waste too many points on the defensive stuff.
That's my 2cents.

Kind of agree, and as mentioned above; you get rewarded for focusing on damage. With movement nerfed/limited, and dodge rolls lacking phasing, there's a lot of incentive to get things over with quickly. I've had trouble with most story bosses when trying to play it defensively - all out attack just works better, especially when increasing Stun effects to reach the threshold faster. With Stun being so essential in combat, defensive players will inevitably suffer more in the (literal) long run. They'll balance things out for sure, but as it stands, there are certain paths with all-too obvious advantages to take.

Yep mercenary now, is my main.
Screw monk and quarterstaff, and wasting passive points on evasion/energy shield nodes.
Full damage, barely enough stats to carry gear (rest into str for HP gains).

Mercenary murders bosses.
Stuff that would be hard with my Monk are easy now on merc.
What I miss from monk, is the wave clearing.
Crossbows wave clear doesn't feel nearly as good to me.
However boss fights? b**** please.

Early on, I'm doing High Velocity Rounds + Scatter shot + Double barrel for bosses.
This seems like the "best" cross bow route for single target dps.
The plan is to go for aoe nodes on the passive tree, and maybe get grenades going for wave clear. (less skill duration + aoe size + multiple projectiles)
(if grenades fail me.... the next root is to play bow skills in offhand, and use a bow skill for wave clear, and crossbow for bosses)

Also shoutout to Wind Dancer (30spirit skill).
Getting 15-20% "more" evasion pr stage (upto 3 stages) means alot.
I go from like 40% evasion to like 70% at 3 stages.
And if something gets melee range and hits me, it procs a counter attack, that pushes targets nearby away.
(then a few sec. lateron its back to 3 stages and ready to proc again)

Boss fights are the gatekeepers for getting to endgame.
And the best boss fighters are imo  witch,sorc,merc,.. >>>> warrior=monk.
(this could be because I buildt my monk poorly though)

Small update.

Comparing Act1 bosses:
Monk: took like 15 tries to beat the Act1 endboss (poorly skill gem layout, bad passive tree) (this was nerve wracking, super focus mode to pull off, and took forever) (after this, I thought maybe I made a mistake and warrior was what I was supposed to play, I like melee characters generally)

Warrior: I gave up after like 5 tries... again didn't feel like I knew what I was doing. Bad layout of passive tree/skill gems. Deleted character.

Mercenary : 1st try and easy.... I'm laying on the couch not even playing in a "concentration" state, with full focus to dodge/avoid stuff. Granted better gear/passive tree/skill gems this time around.


I'm just amased how differnt my take on all 3 classes is.
I know thats probably down to me going in blind, not knowing what passives are important on each class early, and what skills and skill gem combos to use. Its just, such a vastly different experience. Not saying that each class cannot function well enough to do bosses.

Most people report that melee is brutal overall, the hit windows are punishing compared to ranged and kiting builds. I think Warrior will shine later on, but it's tough going. Act I boss took me 7-8 tries, after 5 or so, I went on a grind and gained two levels, I also changed my gear. I'm only level 23 so far, so I haven't even ascended, I'm excited to go for the Titan though! Regardless of difficulty, I'm having a ton of fun, I just wish I had more time to play this week (it's one of those 80 hour work-weeks that comes along every now and then).

I have one of those weeks next week leading up to Christmas.
Typically have a 4day work week that's like 10hours a day.
Next week it'll be a full 7days in a row.... its gonna be brutal.

What did you do on your warrior for the act1 boss?

I swear I saw a video with a guy saying something like... just raise your shield and trade blows....
F*** if that worked for me though, and the Regen you have early levels just doesn't feel like it does much of anything (same with armor).

Can anyone confirm the lag is fixed on ps5 OG/slim?

I dodged. A lot. His "run across the map and deal damage" attacks are easy to dodge and offers respite, and the minions he spawns allow you to get a couple of flask chugs back. I kept my distance and went in for secure shots, I have really good Stun percentages so I whittled him down pretty fast. When he went prone, I went in and smacked him with regular blows to save mana, as well as summon totems and earthquake next to his form. Mind you; I had about 20% HP left and no potions. He was damn tough. My main tactic was using regular attacks as much as possible to conserve mana so I could throw the works at him when he went prone.

Right now, I'm in a good place in Act II, haven't died more than once so far, in about 3-3.5 hours. I have several AoE attacks I can stack, crowd control, decent boss damage as well. I also got more used to the play-style and behave more strategically. I usually start fights by placing two totems, then I lay an earthquake next to them to smack those who attack the totems - followed by leap slam on ranged units, and lastly one rolling slam on the remaining folks around the totems. Clearing speed is really good right now. I took down a story boss pretty easily as well, it was the one death (dual-bosses for the win).

I'm going to play Mercenary next, my friends who tried it says it's great fun, and much less frustrating. But I do like the warrior, I think I'm approaching the ascendancy soon (though I hear it's a real nightmare to do them).

I'm not sure its worth it to play Mercenary for the ancendencies.
The crossbow is fantastic and the skill tree from it (so are bows too though).
However the more I look at "Witchhunter" and "Gemling Legionaire".... the less impressed I am by these 2 choices.

I haven't picked up Witchhunter yet, but that is likely the move.
Going for the "Pitiless killer" and "judge,jury, and executioner", first.
And then the explosion on kill effect one (zealous Inquisition).

Managed to get through the trial on my second go. Picked the witchhunter.