Guild Wars 2

Hey guys,

So, as you are all well aware, this update came with a VERY (my opinion, anyway) difficult boss. That’s not a bad thing, mind, I enjoy this content, its just a li’l frustrating trying to defeat her. As it stands, I can pretty much always get her to phase 2 without many problems. However, phase 2 completely obliterates me. I switch to a ranged weapon, scepter + focus usually for the defense skill, but I either:

1. Get really unlucky and start off at a wrong part of the arena covered in red AoE circles, panic and before I can act, i’m fighting for dear life!

2. Get lucky with the AoE placements and get a decent momentum going walking around the dome, only to have my hope diminished by her crippling cripple debuff, which is ok to remove once or twice, but she seems to stack it on me every attack she manages to strike me with, and I run out of cleanse, which leads to low energy, then panic, then ultimately, DEATH

Ok, so when it comes to builds, i’m the first to admit i’m absolutely hopeless at devising sufficient builds for moments like this. I’m not so bad at general PvE; I know what I want, and work my traits around that. However, for this fight I don’t really know what I need or what works best. Best I’ve done is her having 3/4 health by the time i’m dead.

It’s worth noting that I’ve only recently reached level 80 with this character. My current armor is full soldiers set of Koda dungeon armor (power, toughness and vitality) with the default runes these come in which is sanctuary (vitality, mainly). I have a crappy backpiece and some random trinkets / accessory’s ( karka shell, jormag carving / talisman, beserker’s ring, lost seal of usoku)

tl;dr (shame on you): I’d like someone to give me tips on how I should build my guardian / tactics as a guardian I could use against this foe, without the need to spend much coin if that’s possible. I have access to all guardian weapons, and am willing to re-trait, but I’d rather not change runes / armor if that’s at all possible.

Any tips would be greatly appreciated!

P.S. They should totally recruit this Liadri in the fight with the Elder Dragons. Seriously, she’d tear them apart!

I did her with 0/0/10 (VI) / 30 (II, IX, XI) / 30 (II, IX, VIII) with the same type of stats as yours. Scepter/focus was my choice as well.

Utilities – hold the line, save yourselves, retreat – all shouts that remove conditions when used and also give nice buffs. Elite skill is renewed focus as an emergency button.

Heal is between signet and shelter.

Phase 1 is easy as you can strafe and not get hit. Phase 2, i just run in circles attacking her and using the chains to keep her from spamming me with her cripple.

Tips to survive – get the endurance buff from the middle (hoelbrak), endurance food if you feel like you need it. Otherwise, you shouldn’t have an issue with her.

Oh and phase 2 – stand in the middle so you can get in place, then just run in circles near the wall. You can time dodge the AoE – they hit about 2 seconds after they appear. Or just dodge to the blank-safe-zones.

Your biggest problem is your gear.

Berserker is best for all of them because you can DPS the boss before attrition hits and you start making mistakes.

The only other things you need to know are:

AoE goes clockwise, so if you run at a decent pace you can just run from safezone to safezone. In reality though you’ll probably have to dodge into them.

The other thing is that the AoE can be dodged or blocked. Wait 2 seconds, as long as you’re mid-dodge when the AoE falls, you won’t take damage. If you’re out of stamina, use Renewed Focus for invulnerability.

Go Focus/Torch with a 30 Radiance, 30 Honor, 10 Virtues build and just kite clockwise. Get Superior Aria and Pure of Voice to remove conditions and use Retreat, Stand Your Ground and Save Yourself.

Depending on how consistently you can attack her while running, you shouldn’t need to go around the arena more than twice before she dies.

Thank you, will definitely try this! Energy was definitely an issue i was having when I got the running sorted, energy couple with cripple just did not go well for me. Anyways, thanks again

EDIT: And thank you also Unrepentant, I will consider your methods also

What helped me the most was seeing a youtube video of some warrior doing this. He was runing closer to the middle in the phase 2 so that you don’t have to dodge so much and you can focus on other stuff. I would recommend not to run near the wall….this helped me A LOT.

I had berserker trinkets with knights armor….that didn’t work out …I fell down when she had only 5% health left. So I switched to full berserker and was able to kill her. I had scepter/focus for phase 2 and mace/shield for phase 1 so I could block some attacks and get a tiny bit of healing from shield 5, or you can push the mobs aside when you need to pick up a crystal.

Kill those orbs as fast as you can….even if it means using your elite skill.

Still it took me 20+ tries I think of learning.

Also if you have problems with dmg you can go down farm with a zerg and use your staff(or other weapon) to get your bloodlust stacks.

Those buffs from NPCs in the middle dont work…you will lose them when you enter the arena.

I’m too lazy to change my traits. I used Brazil’s dps guardian build…but I bet yu can have better traits for this particular fight.

Also be in a party so you can target her which helps in phase two when you want to target an orb or you need to find her in between the images.

Those buffs from NPCs in the middle dont work…you will lose them when you enter the arena.

- They do, you only lose them when you die. Or at least when i did it.

I beat her in Knight’s gear with just the greatsword. Retaliation works well on her so I ran Stand your ground, Save yourselves for vigor and wall of reflection helped immensely.

The crazy psycho whip attack when she starts flailing madly can be reflected, part of the reason it hurts so much is she is shotgunning her ranged attack from phase 1 during it which is why it can be reflected a bit. This isn’t the spinning whirlwind attack. I just went at her head on and used my dodges ONLY for the aoe, pop retaliation and the wall when she does the crazy wip attack and use your whirling wrath at the same time. shes gonna hurt you a lot but youll do the same. heal up and draw her away from the shadows if they get too close. During the brief moment after dodgeing her Aoe use that small window of time to pump out as much damage as you can.

if you happen to need more dodges, consider energy sigils, as well as endurance regen food. they should also give might when you dodge, so that helps your damage as well.

geared for DPS, specced for sustainability i thnk it a good mix here. : ))

Forgot to mention I used an Energy sigil as well. Saved me multiple times.

I beat her with…
100 tries or more

graphic settings to lowest

gear…
-full zerker armor, ruby orbs
-zerker accessories (exotic)
but, 2 knight earrings and temple of balth backpiece
(they would be zerker if I felt like spending the gold)
-zerker scepter and focus with generosity and either 5% damage or 5% crit
(forgot which but my crit rate is 45%)
-zerker gs with generosity (mainly used to pull shadows, wanted to use more on boss but was too afraid to)

utilities used
- save yourselves reserved for when endurance was low (grants vigor and swiftness)
- stand your ground and retreat (ended up using both to remove cripples)

traits
- mentioned by others already but has to do with shout durations, condition removals, heal on boons, retaliation when knocked down (this one was useless), faster recharge on gs

food buffs
- sharpen stones and whatever that triffle or steak is that grants endurance recharge

“cheat codes”
- rejuvenation buff, run speed buff, and those other buffs from free achievement rewards (or gem store if you don’t have it)

mentality we’ve all probably heard before
- toughness, vitality, and healing won’t save you if you get 1 shot anyways
(red circles)
and if you die from just the boss hitting you then that’s unfortunate
(when she’s spinning, don’t melee, range weapon if needed)

fight sequence went something like this
- scepter 2 on the pull orb to kill at the beginning
(since scepter 1 can’t hit the pull orb)
- lure shadows into first 2 white hole thingy

- gs pull shadow into 3rd white hole thingy
or kill pull orb and/or heal if needed
(which ever comes first)

- switch back to scepter focus for boss fight
- f1 every chance i got
- find relatively safe spot from red circles, dodge if needed
what was red before is kinda a safe zone next (keep that in mind)
- scepter 2 to kill pull orbs when they pop
- utilities to remove cripple
- renewed focus elite when unable to dodge or about to die
- win mini pet and flip out

Hey guys, thanks for all your replies!

I managed to do it (albeit with numerous attempts) with a modified build of Erika’s. I found Erika’s build was good, but I lacked the damage needed to kill her and ran out of time. Once I had pretty much nailed walking slowly backwards near the middle meaning I could constantly hit her, and avoid the aoe without dodging. This meant I could use energy as another failsafe, and the debuffs she puts on dont affect you much walking on the inside as you still make it usually, but then my utilities came in very useful too if falling behind a bit.

Ok, so my build if anyone is interested was:

GS (doesnt matter which, you won’t be using it much)
Sylvari Cultural Scepter
Random looted Focus
Full Soldier Koda Armour Set (power, tough, vit) with sanctuary (default) runes (vit)
Jormag Trinkets looted from Honor of the Waves, some low level backpiece
I think I had a speed buff on (the ones you can buy from the gem store) this helped a lot, although i’m not sure if it wore off by the time I finished it. This was my substitute for not having any food or energy sigils, so if you have any of these lying around and don’t mind using them, they give you a great advantage!

My traits were – 20 / 0 / 10 / 30 / 10

Zeal
II Fiery Wrath – for increased damage against foes on fire by 10%, this helped a lot with damage
IX Scepter Power – Scepter damage increased by 10% – This is what probably tipped the scales in my favor as before I was lacking damage

Valor
VI Retributive Armour – 5% toughness given as bonus precision, giving you that extra damage while keeping toughness

Honor
II Superior Aria – Shouts recharge 20% faster – Needed as your utilities are going to only be shouts, and are extremely useful for dispelling debuffs

VIII Empowering Might – Gain might when you land a critial hit. Again give you extra damage on crit (although I didn’t know this affected you)

XI Pure of Voice – This is what makes your shouts useful for this fight, converts 1 debuff to a buff when using a shout, great for cripple and weakness that she casts on you

Virtues

II Vengeful – Retaliation lasts 25% longer – I picked this because even though I wouldn’t be directly using retaliation, it does do very well against her when used, and stand your ground gives you a retaliation buff and with 25% extra length, it just helps out a bit more with damaging her.

Utilities
Signet of Resolve – I chose this over Shelter as I found the extra condition remove to be very useful and the almost double heal with just a +10 second cooldown to shelter was almost a no-brainer for me. But if you’re finding you’re getting hit by AoE a lot, consider shelter if you feel condition won’t be an issue. Try out both.

“Hold the Line!” “Save Yourselves!” and “Retreat!” – These are what allow you to remove the debuffs and gain a buff instead. They act as Defensive and Offensive skills in this fight, and are invaluable.

Renewed Focus – This is a no-brainer again. The other elites just wouldn’t be no-where near as useful, and I needed this when my heals were down and I was getting low hp; invulnerable to damage, spam your virtues, gain new ones, use them again if needed. It all buys you time for your proper heal to cooldown and as a panic button if you find yourself in an AoE.

Phase 1 – Greatsword
I’ve already explained a little about what I did, but to go through it again, for me, the first phase always started off the same; same AoE areas, same light areas, same illusion spawn areas etc. Only thing that changed was the rift spawn. Start off with your greatsword and immediately destroy the rift. Now just casually lure the first illusion to the pool while attempting to avoid her range attacks as best you can by strafing. Once the first orb has been thrown, use GS #5 skill to debuff the next illusion, run toward the next light field and pull her into it (this didn’t work 100% of the time, sometimes the debuff wore off very quickly and she didn’t get lured) if it works, great you will have bode more time to defeating her. If not, don’t worry just let her walk up to you, and throw. Then quickly go to the next pool and throw.
The faster this bit gets done the more time you have to attack her but obviously you guys knew that. Try not to prolong the first phase. If you’re not bothered about tickets, take risks, grab a crystal right next to an illusion and dodge out the way.

Phase 2 in next post…

Phase 2 – Specter / Focus

Okay, for this you will want to enter the middle of the arena so you can easily watch where the safe spots are. They Always alternate. Once you’re comfortable with where the AoE will spawn, start roughly about mid-way between the walls and the middle (maybe more towards the middle if you find you’re getting caught) and walk backwards in a circular motion around the arena following the AoE’s safe spots while ALWAYS facing and attacking Liadri. You know you’re doing this correct if you’re constantly walking backwards and attacking her, and more or less avoiding aoe (walking out of it before it hits). You will want to be spamming chains#3 and smite#2 on her as much as possible to increase damage output. She is immune to immobilize but chains also stack vulnerability, which again increases damage. Another issue you can find as you’re walking backwards is sometimes illusions can spawn and by the time they enter your view, they’re about 3 seconds away from being in your walking path. If this happens, just pop focus skill #5 (shields you for 3 attacks) which will destroy the illusion and you won’t take damage. If this is on cooldown, you can dodge through them and also be safe. If ever you feel like you’re in a good position and could take a risk, when you pop an invulnerability skill, run into some of the illusions. This will kill them, and make it easier if the illusions are becoming a problem. As for rifts, I try to kill them as soon as I can. More often than not, they proved to be a burden rather than a way to second wind, but it’s up to you. If you think you’ll need it and don’t mind being pulled in every now again, it could be useful to leave.

There is a bit of luck needed for this boss too, sometimes you will just be unlucky with how the illusions spawn and if Liadri will hit or miss you etc. Not to mention the bugs you’ll sometimes face. Just stay calm and eventually you’ll nail it!

Thats pretty much it. I used Erikas build because it was closest to what I had already and I didn’t wanna spend much gold on changing, and I modified her build slightly, but all in all thank you to everyone who posted, really gave me some good ideas on how to defeat her. If anyone wants to ask any questions, feel free to post here, PM me or contact in game.

Thanks and Good luck!