POE 2 Act 3 Boss Guide - Doryani

Doryani is a major figure in Path of Exile lore, and so it is fitting that he is a major boss fight in Path of Exile 2.

Difficulty: This boss is no pushover, but after the challenge posed by Jamanra in Act 2, Doryani can sometimes feel like a victory lap.

Doryani is a fight with two main phases.

Phase 1 puts you up against Doryani the man, when he is named Doryani, Royal Thaumaturge. In this phase, Doryani has about 140k HP covered by a few thousand energy shield (about 360k HP in Cruel difficulty, Early Access only)

However, upon Doryani falling to half health, he will cease fighting and you will be put up against Doryani the machine - a crab robot named Doryani's Triumph, which has about 220k HP (half a million in Cruel) and this time, you need to fight through all of them.

In the second phase, Doryani has a very dangerous move capable of swiftly killing an unsuspecting player, which the game files helpfully name the Doryani Crab Disco Laser. The most important thing with this ability is not to panic.

Most of Doryani's other killing strikes are very, very clearly telegraphed, even if you do not know what to expect going into the fight.

This site has guides to the other Act bosses as well: Count Geonor (Act 1) and Jamanra, the Abomination (Act 2)

All three elemental resistances are powerful when fighting Doryani.

If you are forced to choose one, lightning is the most important, as the "Doryani Crab Disco Laser" ability does purely lightning damage and is the hardest hitting skill that is tough to dodge.

Fire is also very helpful, as his flamethrower move is one skill you will not be able to entirely avoid. His cold skills are easier to dodge, and so cold resist, while useful, is less important.

The more life, energy shield and evasion the better, but prioritize elemental resistances over these. Armor does little to nothing against Doryani.

Improving your damage will help, but resistances will help more. You will also want a level-appropriate life flask with two useful modifiers.

In general, a character that can defeat Jamanra in act 2 can handle Doryani if they have reasonable fire resistance.

Doryani loves to talk while he fights, like the other act bosses.

Doryani's voice commands are mostly just for flavor, rather than a warning to the player to carry out a task or dodge a specific skill.

Known exceptions will be mentioned.

Other than the Crystal Lightning Cone, this phase is pretty relaxed. Most mistakes are survivable.

Doryani will attack the player with a number of spells as well as with his flamethrower. Most can be easily endured, or are very clearly telegraphed such as his Flameblast, which does less damage than it might appear.

Doryani will also leave burning orbs on the ground. These also do less damage than they would appear to, and are also easily dodged.

Among his skills, however, are a few potential killing strikes you will need to actively avoid.

Note: In Case Your Fire Resistance Is Low

You don't want to be in this situation, but if you are, Doryani's flamethrower and flameblast becomes important to dodge, rather than merely endure, and staying in the range of his burning orbs is less of an option.

As always in Path of Exile 2, character power will allow you to survive more mistakes.

Crystal Lightning Cone:

This ability can be hard to see. Doryani throws a pile of red crystals on the ground, then fires a lightning beam at it. The crystals refract the beam, causing an approx 120 degree 2.5 meter cone of deadly lightning damage.

If you see that Doryani is doing this - or even if you don't know what he is doing - drop everything and do one of two things:

- Run away from him (at least 6 meters away, 7-10 is better), as seen in the footage

- Run at least 30 degrees clockwise or counterclockwise, from Doryani's point of view. So if Doryani would consider you to be at the '2' on a clockface, stay at the same distance from him, and run at least far enough to be at Doryani's '1' or '3'.

This ability is deadly enough to roll out of high impact, long activation time skills like the Comet skill, even if doing so invokes a cooldown such as caused by Hourglass support.

Doryani doesn't have consistent voice cues for this skill. He often uses it after saying "The Power Of The Vaal", but there will be plenty of exceptions.

Central Lightning Turret

This ability is very easy to manage on its own, but Doryani sets it off and then it continues acting for 20 seconds.

Doryani conjures a pillar in the center of the arena which will slowly rotate and occasionally target areas that the beams will fire at. You'll get one second of warning before beams fire.

Lightning damage from this ability is annoying rather than truly dangerous. Dodge it if you can, endure it if you must, and do not dodge it if doing so will cause you to be hit by something more dangerous.

Five Lightning Traps

Unlike many of Doryani's skills, this has a commonly used vocal cue. "Five Moves Ahead" or "The Best Laid Plans" means he is putting long lasting traps on the ground in five locations around the arena.

These traps don't become dangerous until the player sets them off by walking over them. Counterintuitively - this is what you should do, as there is a delay before they do damage.

The goal is to remove the traps from the battlefield, so they do not constrain your ability to dodge other moves such as the Crystal Lightning Cone.

When this skill is used, I recommend stopping attacking after finishing your current action, and running around the arena stepping upon all five traps, and then re-engaging with Doryani when it is safe to do so.

Rather than set boss moves, this phase has four main rules to remember.

This phase is longer than the first and Doryani has more killing strikes. However, Doryani is also very slow in his crab robot form.

It's possible to avoid every skill in this phase except the Doryani Crab Disco Laser, and with perfect play that need only hit you once or twice. However, many of the hits do not need to be dodged, they can be endured.

Doryani is slow, clumsy and hard-hitting inside his crab robot.

The First Rule: Watch The Crab's Arms. In One Arm Actions, Dodge Toward The Moving One.

If Doryani is above you on the screen and raises the arm that's toward the right of the screen, it's best to dodge right on the screen. His right arm will usually do something that affects where you were when he started moving, plus areas to the left of it on the screen, as it will cross over the boss.

If Doryani is on your left or right, and he raises an arm higher on the screen than your character's location - dodge upwards. And so on.

This dodging pattern won't work against his fire and ice cannons, but they can be endured. It will dodge all the dangerous ones.

The Second Rule: If The Crab Raises Both Arms, Run.

Two-handed slams are killing strikes. Don't be where his attention was when he started the slam.

This was me testing how much damage the boss did. There are two hits 0.63 seconds apart, the first one for about 1700 damage, the second fatal. Having 3500hp to survive this in Cruel is not realistic, so just dodge this. And every other move Doryani does with both arms.

The Third Rule: During Doryani Crab Disco Laser, Run In The Opposite Direction.

I don't believe Doryani can use this ability until lowered to about 75% health.

If the Disco Laser sweeps in a clockwise direction, you want to run counterclockwise. Attempt to dodge roll through it, and the damage will be minimal.

This becomes deadly if you run in the same direction as the Disco Laser and wind up staying inside the dangerous area longer.

The Fourth Rule: If Doryani Spawns A Circle On The Ground, Drop Everything And Get Out Of It.

There are multiple versions of these slams but they all have the same rule - stop everything, even big windup skills like Comet or skills gated by big cooldowns - and get out of the AOE.

They are among Crab Robot Doryani's hardest hitting skills and will likely oneshot you.