The House Of Hope is honestly one of the best parts of the game;

  • Incredibly well made and interesting
  • Artistically rich with tons of fascinating lore
  • Has one of the best characters ever (love Hope so much grin)
  • Raphael's boss battle is freaking exhilarating with such phenomenal music! A definitive highlight of ACT 3.

But Raphael himself... unfortunately is just a 666hp meat-puppet that does nothing really and is far too easily crowd-controlled. Mostly just runs around the room, throws a fire pillar sometimes that doesn't do much damage anyway and heals every few turns if he's bored. And to add even more salt to the wound afterwards the dialogue itself is aware of him not putting up a proper fight;

[Linked Image from i.imgur.com]

The entire House of Hope is a portrayal of his vast power and unlimited cruelty when it comes to hellish damnation, but he himself poses no threat whatsoever. Gets dominated, gets proned, gets completely shut down.

What's better than a devil you know?

  • A devil YOU control! (Planar Binding)
    [Linked Image from i.imgur.com]

  • So easily crowd-controlled that he took a nap mid-fight.
    [Linked Image from i.imgur.com]

  • And never got up since because he's perma CCed...
    [Linked Image from i.imgur.com]

And this was a completely blind first-time attempt at him, on Honour Mode of all things. Didn't even bother smashing the pillars and the party isn't using any one-trick pony builds that one-shot bosses/mobs.

He could really use some serious buffs that make him more of a formidable threat with some proper CC resistances because as cool as it is to be able to dominate him with Shadowheart and such, at the same time this is Raphael. Such an intricate villain deserves far more respect than this, it just doesn't feel right that he's a boss whose only threat comes from his goons as he's flopping on the floor like a fish.