Guild Wars 2

There are plenty of threads around complaining about how OP Adnul is; this is not one of those threads. We are going to be taking it as a given that Adnul is obscenely difficult and in dire need of another nerf. Instead, the purpose of this thread is to share our winning strategies, to give folks who are still struggling with him a little help.

Feel free to share strategies for the other masters, too!

External guides

• Dulfy gives us some tips and a video of a winning game.
• Belcher’s Bluff wiki page and Adnul’s wiki talk page both share some strategies.

Strategies from this thread/forum

• By Quetz.4389: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/livingworld/bazaar/So-Adnul-is-fixed-what-about/first#post2401202 (popular strategy)
• By Zaxares.5419: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/livingworld/bazaar/A-Guide-to-Belcher-s-Bluff (guide to all masters)
• By Devik.9852: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/livingworld/bazaar/Adnul-Irongut-Guaranteed-Win-Video-More (links to videos demonstrating the Box o’ Fun cheat)

My personal strategy
It took me many, many hours before I finally beat him, and my win was mostly through luck, but this strategy brought me closer to winning than any other I tried.

1. Use “For Science” as your signature move.
2. Adnul opens with belch about half the time, so drink plain Om as your opener to make him waste it. If he doesn’t open with a belch, resign and try again.
3. Bluff for three rounds. If he hasn’t used water yet, belch on the next round. If he has, continue bluffing until his water has recharged, then belch.
4. Continue tracking his water and belch cds throughout the rest of the game. It won’t always be possible, but aim to belch as soon as his water becomes available, and avoid drinking water while his belch is available. You’re mostly relying on luck here, so don’t be disheartened if you keep missing his water or getting yours caught.
5. Water and belch are your main tools for surviving Critique, so avoid using those skills between spams of his signature move unless you have no choice.
6. Save your signature move until your health gets down to 1-2k. That said, if Adnul’s hp is still over 50% when this happens, just resign.

General tips

• Apart from the infamous spammable signature move, all of Adnul’s skills have the same cooldowns as yours. Really.
• Click on your opponent to bring up their status bar. This will help you keep track of remaining charges on signature moves, but you’ll still need to count rounds manually to keep track of the cds on their belch and water.
• If you can’t bluff and you have a choice between belch and water, you may want to choose belch first, since it only recharges when you take a real drink, whereas water recharges every round.
• Boast, Woo and For Science are the best moves to use against Adnul, but try to save them until he’s low on health.
• If you resign or lose while Adnul’s signature move still has charges left, those charges will carry over to the next game, preventing you from opening with a bluff.

Cheats
As far as I’m aware, ANet hasn’t commented on the legality of these techniques, so use them at your own risk.

• Use a Rejuvenation Booster to give yourself constant health regen. Food, healing turrets and healing from other players do not work for this purpose.
• The buffs from Banner of Tactics and Banner of Defence still work, so either play on a warrior or ask a warrior friend to accompany you into the instance. Note that the banners also affect Adnul unless you plant them outside his range.
• Before engaging Adnul, place a Box o’ Fun and set it to petrify or dance mode. Using it during the match will disable your skills and make you invulnerable to damage, enabling you to simply wait it out until the ol’ connoisseur drinks himself to a loss.

This is a good analysis of a strategy, however NPC’s don’t use their abilities right on cooldown all the time, so it’s really luck based to know exactly when he is going to use water. You can track his water all you want, but belching on it might as well be like spinning the roulette wheel.

or just use rejuvenating boosters…they still work. you’re welcome.

finally I have use for those…was pretty easy.

Cheat mode: bring banner of defense and tactics. They severely decrease damage. Warriors have it easy or bring a warrior friend to spam banners for win.
He belches 1 in 4 so heal and bluff after he belches and drink when his belch is up.
Use belch when your health is low or when you have no other choice available.

Easy peasy! I beat him on my 3rd try today.

Xenon.4537:

This is a good analysis of a strategy, however NPC’s don’t use their abilities right on cooldown all the time, so it’s really luck based to know exactly when he is going to use water. You can track his water all you want, but belching on it might as well be like spinning the roulette wheel.

Yup, that’s true, but keeping track of his water use is still better than not tracking it at all, since otherwise you might accidentally waste a belch when his water is still on cd!

Hylgeriak.8250:

or just use rejuvenating boosters…they still work. you’re welcome.

I mentioned this in my post, actually, but you’re right, it can be an immense help. For the record, though: I won without it. So for those who don’t have a booster, rest assured that it is still possible to win without one.

OmniPotentes.4817:

Cheat mode: bring banner of defense and tactics. They severely decrease damage. Warriors have it easy or bring a warrior friend to spam banners for win.

Nice find! I’ll add it to the OP.

I don’t have any boosters or warrior friends. And those don’t excuse buggy/poor game design.

Xenon.4537:

I don’t have any boosters or warrior friends. And those don’t excuse buggy/poor game design.

Deleted my post.

OmniPotentes.4817:

Cheat mode: bring banner of defense and tactics. They severely decrease damage. Warriors have it easy or bring a warrior friend to spam banners for win.

Sorry but its ridiculous that any skill or trait or booster should be able to influence the outcome. Anet you need to balance these mini games properly and fairly.

kitten this event I’m out.

Hmm banners just apply regular regeneration. Slightly surprised that it doesn’t end up giving the boon to the NPC as well.

I thought I’d try with banners. He got the boons from them as well, so that’s a wash.

Donari.5237:

I thought I’d try with banners. He got the boons from them as well, so that’s a wash.

Hmm. I’ll update the OP with this information, but I don’t think I’ll remove the cheat altogether. Having those extra buffs in play still might help someone secure a lucky win.

By the way, I want to remind everyone that this is intended to be a helpful thread — we already know that Adnul is borked, so keep your thoughts about balance and OP to the complaint threads!

I did try planting them further away so I’d be in the aoe and he would not. However I don’t normally use banners so I have no feel for the distance. Plus they are on a timer so there’s the running back to him wasted time to consider.

It does not matter that has the buffs from banners. Those buffs make you take less damage when you have to drink. Save your buff for when hiss health is low. And try to get lucky on your belches. If your health is really low you’ll do big time damage.

I’ve noticed a few people reporting success with the following strategy by Quetz.4389 (original post), so I’m copying it here for reference.

Quetz.4389:

I tried a few different strategies and here’s what worked for me, this was pre any patch so it should still work.

- Pick Boast as your signature move
- Always bluff… if he interrupts it with a belch, belch back and drink water in that order.
- This should keep your own health from dropping as fast as his, with luck you’ll interrupt a heal or two and you’ll go into the next phase with a big advantage.
- Eventually he hits a threshold where he’ll start spamming his signature move.
- Use belch, drink water, drink in that priority unless you can get a bluff in.
- Once you get close to 3,000 or so health use boast.
- Try to time your abilities so you use belch at below 20% health to do a large amount of damage.

If he gets too many belches, or your losing health much faster than him just surrender and try again. It will take some luck but it’s possible and this strategy is simple enough that you can spam games until you get lucky.

When I bluff in the beginning, he belches. When I drink in the beginning, he bluffs. It’s been that way 15 tries straight…

Can’t beat him. He always knows what i will use. Start with drink he will bluff, start with bluff he will belch. He will keep avoiding healing until i have to waste my belch. Then he will heal. Also ridiculous how he can drink like 20 times and i only 4 and he can have his skill 100% uptime. Doubt it it will be fixed. Bet the idea was to force players to buy health regen from shop.

Mere Image.8376:

When I bluff in the beginning, he belches. When I drink in the beginning, he bluffs. It’s been that way 15 tries straight…

At this point, I’m wondering if Adnul is in fact Psycho Mantis, cause he’s that kittening psychic.

Might as well have him start the match with “Let’s take a moment to appreciate this blend’s bold undertones. You like Castlevania, don’t you?”

Grav.4790:

Can’t beat him. He always knows what i will use. Start with drink he will bluff, start with bluff he will belch. He will keep avoiding healing until i have to waste my belch. Then he will heal. Also ridiculous how he can drink like 20 times and i only 4 and he can have his skill 100% uptime. Doubt it it will be fixed. Bet the idea was to force players to buy health regen from shop.

Rejuvenation boosters can’t be bought from the gemstore.

It is possible to catch his heals. Just remember that you’re relying on RNG, so frustrating streaks will happen. And he won’t keep Critique up 100% anymore; that’s been nerfed, so now there’s always a gap of at least one skill between his uses.

Alex, I used the strategy you quoted above. THANK YOU. Last night was sheer hell on him, never could get him. Tonight, I used that strategy and had an easy one shot. On to kite city!

Good thread, Alex. Although I’ve beaten Adnul on all 5 of my characters (including two where after multiple losing streaks, I just gave in and used a Rejuvenation Booster), I agree that Adnul is in severe need of another nerf.

My personal strategy against Adnul was similar, but slightly different to yours. This strategy relies on attrition and Adnul losing health faster than you:

1. I used “Boast” as my signature move.
2. Adnul opens with either Drink or Belch, but if he opens with Belch, I just resign and start again.
3. Bluff for two or three rounds, then Belch to try and catch his Water. If you miss this, odds are you’ve failed, but you can keep trying as long as Adnul’s health doesn’t drop low enough that he activates Critique.
4. Once you’ve interrupted his Water, try and keep Belch in reserve to interrupt his future heals. This is VITAL. At the same time, try and keep track of his Belch cooldown so you don’t use Water when he belches. It’s annoying if you get Belched while Bluffing, but considering Adnul’s signature move, it’s not a priority if Bluff gets Belched since you can’t use it much anyway.
5. Once Adnul starts using Critique, activate Boast and try and stagger your Drinks and Water. If possible, don’t use Water until he expends his Belch first, but keep your own Belch in reserve for when you believe Adnul is going to use Water. Remember, it’s vitally important that you interrupt his healing!
6. Once Adnul drops to the 40% health range, it’s down to mostly luck. You need Adnul to keep Drinking and using your Belch to interrupt his Water. If you still have about 6000+ health when you get to this stage, odds are good you’ve won. If by this point Adnul still has more health than you, however, go ahead and resign.

I followed the boast strategy (after many failed attemps I changed to Woo! and nearly got him but I got unlucky and I returned to boast) and after way too many tries again I beat him.

In fact I think it was a tie as we both belched and I had low enough HP to die on a belch (and in a similar case before he won when we both belched), but it says I won so I moved forward :P

Adnul move is too OP. The other moves are fine, but this one blocks the most important move in the game for 3 rounds! It should be 1 turn so it can be your second “belch” or something. If you manage to interrupt a Bluff, you can wait 2 turns and then use the special for 5 turns without bluffs, that’s too much punishment! The other bluf punishment skill (Spirit Vision) is too soft in comparison (in fact the effects should’ve been switched, as Critique sounds more like a one time punishment, and it would’ve made the Frog the real challenge and that’s what he’s supposed to be).

Might want to add this as the 100% chance to win. Since regen from other sources is being stated as strategies, this one blows the others out of the water ( and may get nerfed )

If you have one of those Boxs of Fun from the Achievement point system rewards. Use it just before you start the Belcher Bluff with him. Make sure its set to only Change Appearance, ( doesn’t matter much but easier ). Then when you start the Belcher with him, just click the box to transform and watch your health instantly be refilled each time. Just make sure you re transform. Laugh as he dies slowly.
Win.

I got his after about 20 minutes of trying it. This is what I did.

Chose your special skill as the one that you take less health for drinking (I forgot the name).

If you can bluff…bluff. No exception. Only time you shouldn’t bluff, is when his ability is up. Once his ability is up for the first time, belch, then drink water. Drink when your forced too only. If you know your going to have to drink twice in a row, activate your special ability first. Order should be;

Bluff
Belch
Water
Drink

Your going to lose, but I see people on here stating that it’s taking them hours, and that sounds crazy to me.

ShunsuiKouKyoraku.9106:

Might want to add this as the 100% chance to win. Since regen from other sources is being stated as strategies, this one blows the others out of the water ( and may get nerfed )

If you have one of those Boxs of Fun from the Achievement point system rewards. Use it just before you start the Belcher Bluff with him. Make sure its set to only Change Appearance, ( doesn’t matter much but easier ). Then when you start the Belcher with him, just click the box to transform and watch your health instantly be refilled each time. Just make sure you re transform. Laugh as he dies slowly.
Win.

Good find, I’ll add it to the cheats section.

SingTheDeadSong.8957:

Your going to lose, but I see people on here stating that it’s taking them hours, and that sounds crazy to me.

It is pretty crazy, but that’s not necessarily the fault of those playing — it’s the fact that beating him relies so heavily on RNG that even perfect use of an excellent strategy can result in a long string of losses. It works both ways, though — my first character took hours and hours to beat Adnul, but my second character roflstomped him on the first try.

Alex.3907:

SingTheDeadSong.8957:

Your going to lose, but I see people on here stating that it’s taking them hours, and that sounds crazy to me.

It is pretty crazy, but that’s not necessarily the fault of those playing — it’s the fact that beating him relies so heavily on RNG that even perfect use of an excellent strategy can result in a long string of losses. It works both ways, though — my first character took hours and hours to beat Adnul, but my second character roflstomped him on the first try.

Very true though, very true.

Alex.3907:

ShunsuiKouKyoraku.9106:

Might want to add this as the 100% chance to win. Since regen from other sources is being stated as strategies, this one blows the others out of the water ( and may get nerfed )

If you have one of those Boxs of Fun from the Achievement point system rewards. Use it just before you start the Belcher Bluff with him. Make sure its set to only Change Appearance, ( doesn’t matter much but easier ). Then when you start the Belcher with him, just click the box to transform and watch your health instantly be refilled each time. Just make sure you re transform. Laugh as he dies slowly.
Win.

Good find, I’ll add it to the cheats section.

SingTheDeadSong.8957:

Your going to lose, but I see people on here stating that it’s taking them hours, and that sounds crazy to me.

It is pretty crazy, but that’s not necessarily the fault of those playing — it’s the fact that beating him relies so heavily on RNG that even perfect use of an excellent strategy can result in a long string of losses. It works both ways, though — my first character took hours and hours to beat Adnul, but my second character roflstomped him on the first try.

I can 100% confirm that this worked. Also, what happened to me was the box petrified me, and when I transformed back, I couldn’t do any of the skills for Belcher’s, but Adnul kept going until he killed himself, and I got credit. Didn’t expect that to happen, was just testing to see if the heal worked (it does).

After being sick of losing to Adnul I decided to cheat using one of the boxes of fun that were just sitting taking up inventory space, that I got from achievement boxes.

The first post suggests to set the box of fun to transforms only. I tried that and still ended up losing. However, the next match the box had slipped out of that mode and petrified me. I was about to change out of the state, when I realised that petrification = belcher’s bluff invincibility mode.

I was at full health, remained petrified, health did not change at all due to being petrified, and rather than transforming back, I just stayed petrified until Adnul drank himself to a loss. The only thing you really need to worry about when petrified is adnul taking so long to kill himself that the box expires.

I just beat him legit using the strategy listed in the OP. I had only 100 HP left and everything on CD except Drink and Belch. I used Belch and he used Heal.

Kaz and Handin: thanks for the clarification on how the Box works. I’ve updated the OP accordingly.

Updated OP with a link to Devik.9852’s Box o’ Fun video guide thread.

I would prefer to actually do it without using what the dev team might consider a exploit with a chanced to ban our account even if Adnul was created by a twisted mind.

Sadly I almost feel like cheating or giving up after 30 times trying I could not get him he just spam his ultimate, if I had my ultimate as often as these npcs had their I might of stood a chance I mean I got him the closes to 10% before I died to his taunt but still its madness.

My god that was painful, finally got it but really this more about luck then skill, this isn’t challenging content this is punishing content. It is one thing to be able to get better and overcome something its another to almost never be able to beat something that can not be beat by skill and give up for most of the time due to frustration.

Come on ANET, have some shame and fix this!

ARE YOU kittenING KIDDING ME?

The human is bugged or something so it’s impossible.
The charr can’t win but neither be defeated (I think it’s supposed to be easy if you have the skill from the human but we already said that one is impossible).
But the Norn? This one is the only “hard” in the right way. Yes it take time and maybe luck but it’s possible without cheats.

Edit: If not bugged, the human is easy and with her skill, the charr is beyond easy.