Diablo 4 players are clowning on its hardest boss using ungodly broken builds
This'll be over in two hits, Uber Lilith, me hitting right mouse and you hitting the ground.
Uber Lilith. Now there's a scary combination of syllables. It's enough to send shivers down your spine. It's the colloquial name for Echo of Lilith, the amped-up version of Diablo 4's final boss that foolhardy players can take on if they feel up to the challenge. She can deal—and take—massive damage, making her a challenge that only the hardiest players can take on. It's a landmark. It's a milestone. It's a final, brutal test of your build. It's… comically easy? What?
As spotted by GamesRadar, overcoming Uber Lilith hasn't been quite as tough as it's cracked up to be for a player going by the name Struth Gaming. Using a Necromancer specced for Blood Orb use and the Blood Artisan's Cuirass, Struth managed to pretty much one-shot Uber Lilith in both of her phases, obliterating her first life bar with a lazy flick of the wrist and reducing her to a razor-thin sliver of HP when she popped back up for round two.
I haven't beaten Uber Lilith myself—I confess I'm not quite this adept at the game—but it looks to me that Uber Lilith physically can't drop below that sliver on her second phase until she's hung around a little while, meaning Struth effectively one-shotted her twice in a row. I mean, he does get caught out right at the end and die, but only because Uber Lilith did the Diablo equivalent of pulling the pin on a frag grenade as she went down.
Struth hasn't posted the full details of their Necro build anywhere, but I've reached out and asked for more info on how they managed it. I'll update this piece if they get back to me.
It's an embarrassing showing for the Mother of Sanctuary, especially in her mega ultra souped-up form, and it's not just Struth that's doing it. Although the streamer's video claims to be a world record at 79 seconds, there are actually a couple of players who have done it even faster. One of them is a player called Daniel Zsiros, who used a comprehensively busted Druid build to lay Lilith low. That one only took 76 seconds (another Druid is on record doing it in 90 seconds, which is still plenty impressive as far as I'm concerned).
So there's your real world record. Except not, because (as GamesRadar points out) someone annihilated Uber Lilith in under a minute a full 23 days ago. That player was actionchip, who posted their success on Reddit while Struth and Daniel were still young and carefree.
59 secs to kill UBER Lilith with a SORC from r/diablo4
Actionchip was running an Ice Sorcerer build, and took advantage of stagger damage to reduce Uber Lilith to a thin paste. Another Reddit user, Darkhatred, explained how it worked at the time: "his damage is literally healing her until she staggers. This man has over 500% bonus damage in that small window. The pure amount of stagger here is insane". That was further clarified by a user called, well, Reddit_FuckingSucks_, who said they use a similar strat on their level 63 Sorcerer, and that the techniques deployed by actionchip were "no bug". And if I'm honest? I bet someone out there has defeated her even quicker than that.
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So pour one out for the Daughter of Hatred, I guess. She seemed plenty scary when I encountered her in that first cutscene, but I guess at the end of the day she's just another mob, even when you prefix her with the name of the world's scariest ridesharing app. Still, so far I've seen examples of Necromancers, Druids, and Sorcerers absolutely clowning on the poor demoness. Barbarians and Rogues: It's your turn to step up.
One of Josh's first memories is of playing Quake 2 on the family computer when he was much too young to be doing that, and he's been irreparably game-brained ever since. His writing has been featured in Vice, Fanbyte, and the Financial Times. He'll play pretty much anything, and has written far too much on everything from visual novels to Assassin's Creed. His most profound loves are for CRPGs, immersive sims, and any game whose ambition outstrips its budget. He thinks you're all far too mean about Deus Ex: Invisible War.