Guild Wars 2

Ok so I am used to skipping him but some groups require it and I just go. So, with all the spam on him from eles, mesmers, sparkly shinies on him etc and being using a ranged weapon myself

I CANT SEE HIS STUPID CHARGE UP ABILITY or whatever you guys call it. Ive heard “Dodge when he raises his sword” – Except when hes fighting, he raises his sword 100 times becuase, thats how you hit people. So he raises sword every second.

So how can you dodge reliabily if you cant see him? Id try to melee, but his whirl will own me and i cant heal while poison and have enough health left.

Same people who tell me l2 kholer etc end up dying too – thats the funny part! its a downed party but some people clearly think theres a way to do kholer without ever dying..

I hate kholer but if i have to deal with him, id like to know how to do it properly. I cant just eye it since things block the animation, not sure what to look for, etc.

I dont wanna watch youtube.

List quickly the moves pls and how you can see it through tons of players spells and how you live (THAT MEANS IF YOU GET DOWNED OR DIE @ KHOLER DONT POST Pls)

Man, you’ve been screaming about dungeon difficulties all day, at least tell us your profession first.

It might help to fight him down the stairs, since the room he is in is really bright.

Just bring a stun breaker if you can’t see it. When you get pulled in, use it and roll away. He only casts the pull around every 30 seconds, which is generally enough time to stun break every pull.

The animation is when Kholer raises his one arm very delibrately and holds it there for a good second or two. You also see that…“Suction” effect where he seems like he’s absorbing power to fire off his kamehameha…or something thing.

Actually I think his pull has a 20-22 second cooldown. I know this because if I use traited Stand Your Ground (24cd) I can’t use it again by the time he uses his next pull, I’m always 1-2 seconds off.

kKagari.6804:

Actually I think his pull has a 20-22 second cooldown. I know this because if I use traited Stand Your Ground (24cd) I can’t use it again by the time he uses his next pull, I’m always 1-2 seconds off.

It’s pretty random. I do AC a lot on my Guardian as well, and Stand your Ground is usually up, but it hasn’t been sometimes. That’s why I said around 30s.

Cleansing Flame, Armor of Earth, Mist Form, Lightning Flash, Magnetic Aura, Swirling Winds, Burning Retreat, Fiery Whirl (and those are just the Elementalist abilities). He will pause , then raise one hand above his head and move the other off to his side/back, he will glow while doing this. You have about one and a half seconds to react.

Stun breakers, stability, projectile reflect/destruction, every man’s best friend.

Papaj.9035:

Cleansing Flame, Armor of Earth, Mist Form, Lightning Flash, Magnetic Aura, Swirling Winds, Burning Retreat, Fiery Whirl (and those are just the Elementalist abilities). He will pause , then raise one hand above his head and move the other off to his side/back, he will glow while doing this. You have about one and a half seconds to react.

Stun breakers, stability, projectile reflect/destruction, every man’s best friend.

This.

The next move after this is a spin move so dodge out then jump in.

Turn off post-processing effects, might help.

haviz.1340:

Turn off post-processing effects, might help.

Yeah, the biggest problem with this fight (and many other boss fights) is that he’s glowing like the sun from all the player attack particle effects. Makes it very difficult to see anything. I’m usually squinting this whole fight.

Get a guardian, spec knight gear, go 0/0/30/30/10, use hammer, pop omnomberry pie/ghost and face tank him all day while you tell rest of your party to do the rest of the dungeon while you solo auto attack him.

I only find his animation hard to see when guardians burn him with that annoying blue fire T_T

I’d suggest positioning yourself so that you can watch his stance. If there are melee hitting him, they’ll usually be in a spot so they can backwards-dodge and not fall into the chasm of water. You want to position yourself on the other side or in a spot so you can see his actions.

When he’s doing all his other attacks, he’s leaping, rolling and lunging all over the place. When he does the scorpion wire, he doesn’t do anything while he’s doing the charge up. He has to stand still to do the attack so when you see he’s not moving around (that’s him attacking) or walking/limping, then most likely he’s charging his pull.

Another way is to just melee. He’ll be easier to see if he’s attacking or charging. You only get hit by the spin after he does the scorpion wire and if you dodged away from him (like you’re suppose to) there’s no way he can hit you.

The only time none of this would be viable is if you’re teamed with a bunch of Norn/Charr melees and you’re just a tiny Asura and they’re forming a screen of muscle/fur so you can’t see Kholer at all. In that case, dodge when you see the wall dodge.

Always have a stun breaker too and use it as a last resort when you get pulled in (gotta be quick about it though).

I’ve seen him do it back to back like four times out of all the runs I’ve done. So, I suspect there’s no cooldown, and he does it whenever he feels like it.

Ioflux.4369:

Get a guardian, spec knight gear, go 0/0/30/30/10, use hammer, pop omnomberry pie/ghost and face tank him all day while you tell rest of your party to do the rest of the dungeon while you solo auto attack him.

You’ll die.

Yaki.9563:

Ioflux.4369:

Get a guardian, spec knight gear, go 0/0/30/30/10, use hammer, pop omnomberry pie/ghost and face tank him all day while you tell rest of your party to do the rest of the dungeon while you solo auto attack him.

You’ll die.

Umm no, you can facetank him while spamming 1, AND eat the spin.

Even if he does it back to back, you’ve got 2 dodges. If you find you’re completely out of dodges after dodging his last round, place yourself next to an obstacle until your endurance gets to full. Hide behind something when you think he’s about to pull. Once you’ve gotten all your endurance back, resume your previous tactics and repeat as needed.

I’d understand some people’s difficulty with this boss if they have latency issues or just have bad reflexes, but his is probably the easiest attack to defend against. Remember that: this boss is probably one of the easiest ‘challenging’ bosses around. Once you’ve mastered this one, don’t get smug and think you’re the best. Try advanced techniques and see if you’re doing as well.

-Try rezzing a couple of team mates who weren’t able to dodge the pull.

-If you’ve got some defensive abilities like distortion, reflect, block and so forth, try using them in a way that not only lets you defend against his scorpion wire but also his spin (can’t reflect his spin though).

-If you have some utilities, test them out. Try using Feedback or Swirling winds to protect your allies or some rez utilities to bring up downed allies.

Think of each challenging boss as a chance to practice your skillz. Don’t just get into a routine every time you run a certain path, mix it up.

The strategy is to bring a good guardian that will use stand your ground and aegis everytime and the rest of the team will have it easymode

Get onto voice chat and have someone who can see the pre-pull pose callout “dodge” at the appropriate times.

No need to dodge everytime. Run behind a pillar, use stability, use smokescreen, use mist form, ect. I think blocking works too.

JJBigs.8456:

I CANT SEE HIS STUPID CHARGE UP ABILITY or whatever you guys call it. Ive heard “Dodge when he raises his sword” – Except when hes fighting, he raises his sword 100 times becuase, thats how you hit people. So he raises sword every second.

So how can you dodge reliabily if you cant see him? Id try to melee, but his whirl will own me and i cant heal while poison and have enough health left.

Same people who tell me l2 kholer etc end up dying too – thats the funny part! its a downed party but some people clearly think theres a way to do kholer without ever dying..

Well for me, I will look out for the animation of his right arm slowly leveling to horizontal level. (slowly as in the span of 1-2secs). The charging sparks to me is unreliable as there might be alot of effects surrounding him that might mask the sparks.

And knowing how the charging attack looks like doesn’t mean that someone is immune to the attack. All it takes is a moment of distraction and you will get hit by the pull.

Shamrocky.5036:

The strategy is to bring a good guardian that will use stand your ground and aegis everytime and the rest of the team will have it easymode

Exactly, or use evade. But some of these players are right. It is hard to predict if he will do it in 5 secs. or 30 secs. Because he likes to do it when he feels like it lol. But one thing is for sure… lots of practice and patience. I need to learn that. When I fight him with a group, I try to use Retreat, Stand your Ground, and the Aegis Virtue. the only sucky thing about it is learning the timing to do them.

And another thing, sadly… I wear my healing gear as a Guardian. I sure wish Kohler wouldn’t keep attacking me when I try to heal haha. =D

Granted I haven’t done this dungeon in over a month but I had the problem of seeing his tell too. In my case, it’s always a norn or char warrior with bulky armor that insist on being close enough to count Kholer’s nose hairs. I end up tumbling every time the guy flinches just to be sure I dodge the attack.

I didn’t know this was a real thing. I thought people having this much trouble with kholer is a myth.

Running the risk of sounding elitist, because there’s really no way you can’t when you say something like this, either learn to dodge or stick to easy dungeons/overland pve. exp isn’t for you.

Writetyper.1985:

I didn’t know this was a real thing. I thought people having this much trouble with kholer is a myth.

Running the risk of sounding elitist, because there’s really no way you can’t when you say something like this, either learn to dodge or stick to easy dungeons/overland pve. exp isn’t for you.

I’m afraid to say that I agree to an extent. I legitimately do not understand any difficulty that anyone has with Kholer. The only attack that poses a threat (the pull and spin) is so obviously charged and choreographed that I feel sincerely apologetic to anyone who can’t dodge it. Even with 3 elementalists in my team, I’ve never seen the effects from our attacks obscure him so hard that you can’t see it coming.

well to be fair guys i havent really had a major problem with this guy, normlly me and the lads pull the troll and kholer together to fight it out, but if at a possibility the troll don’t spawn and you do decide to wipe the floor with kholer, that pulling spell he dose is pretty easy to dodge, as me and the lads say keep ya eye on him and dodge when he raises his sword arm and it kinda lights up, we refer to it as dodge when he looks like he’s gonna go bowling, once you get into the flow of things and spot his patten you should easily sit him down, also as its been mentioned before use the stababilty ultilty spells to help you in doubt…happy hunting!

Just pointing out that OP’s issue is that everyone is spamming Kholer with AoEs and drowns out his charge up animation…

…because everyone seems to be telling OP to dodge the scorpion wires.

I have no idea how I managed it on my mesmer, but i guess i learned the more subtle signs from fighting up close as a warrior.

Also, a friend who plays an Ele swears that Chill delays his PBAoE.

Engaging him in melee reduces the likelihood of him using his signature attack.

That’s the only way I know that works, the rest are just rumors and hearsay.

Its not really a “rising his sword animation”. Hes pulling his hand back like hes about to hit someone or throw something with his whole arm held straight at hip-height. Comparable to a disc thrower. Combined with him standing still this may help you discern between his usual attacks and the one you need to dodge.

lOKI.8152:

Its not really a “rising his sword animation”. Hes pulling his hand back like hes about to hit someone or throw something with his whole arm held straight at hip-height. Comparable to a disc thrower. Combined with him standing still this may help you discern between his usual attacks and the one you need to dodge.

That’s good, key advice right there folks. Lt. Kholer is a flippin’ ninja and he rolls, jumps and evades all over the place when using his regular melee attacks. When he is standing still he is most likely preparing to perform his signature move.

lOKI.8152:

Its not really a “rising his sword animation”. Hes pulling his hand back like hes about to hit someone or throw something with his whole arm held straight at hip-height. Comparable to a disc thrower. Combined with him standing still this may help you discern between his usual attacks and the one you need to dodge.

this.

he puts his sword behind him in this charging animation.
to learn how it looks: it’s the absolute first thing he ever does when you aggro him. since that happens when everybody runs to him, he’s not yet enveloped in sparkly effects of all the attacks, so it’s clearly visible. just be one of the first to run to him, watch the animation and be prepared to dodge.

while I agree stability is a very nice safe against the hassle (necro stability on deathshroud just rocks here), I’d really recommend doing him a few times with only dodgeing. he’s really easy after a while, sometimes you will miss a pull, that happens. be prepared and bring a stunbreaker and just dodge backwards. warriors have it really nice here, shake it off is perfect and always up when he does it again (maybe you need 20% cooldown reduction, I’ve always played with it, since I love shouts).

also, its easier to see his animation if you’re up close and meleeing him =)
his pull has a range limitation. warri with extended bow range can hit him while not being pulled in (its pretty close though, I sometimes test it when we pull kohler to the troll)

other classes:
ele: armor of earth for stability, cleansing fire as stunbreaker
necro: death shroud stability, flesh worm (has to be positioned already) or spectral walk as stunbreakers (beware, necro stunbreakers have a long cooldown. if you’re not good at dodgeing, go for stability as soon as his animation starts!)
engi: rocket boots work nice as stunbreakers, bit slow cooldown, use elixir r as a secondary stunbreaker (you can also throw it to ress people being pulled in). elixir s as an ‘oh kitten’ button is also nice
warri: shake it off as stunbreaker, balanced stance for stability, warhorn as secondary weapon gives you more dodges, otherwise shield to block
guardian: just ignore it ;-) or use the ground-aoe for stability or just f3 before he pulls

other classes I don’t know well enough yet..
thief: sword 2 maybe? or just a simple smokefield in advance? only just started with thief, don’t know him well enough yet. a headshot of pistol 4 might even work to interrupt the pull, so he goes immediately to his spin attack (though your melee players will hate you for it, if they don’t have the complete 3 seconds to get away before he spins)
mesmer blink? phantasmal whatever, the projectile reflector thing, does cleansing mantra stunbreak?
ranger has several jump back abilities, they might work. really no idea

but it’s always the same. you already KNOW how he behaves, now you just have to select the utilities/weapons to work against his mechanic.
first you need to learn to dodge. then you need a backup plan if dodging doesn’t work. this can either be a proactive stability/block before he pulls, or preferably a way to stunbreak and get away if you didn’t even see it coming (happens to everyone, don’t panic, know how to react). I think every class (not sure about ranger though, he seems lacking in condi removal/stun breaks) offers something like that.

i dont know what are your profession?
but i run AC with my tanky guardain
what i do in kholor is i pull it to the colurm near the stair then try to hold position and dont spam dodge if it isn’t neccerry.Using dodge when spin animation appear( save it for that) dodge at that time or may be 1s. if u try that u will know by yourself then wait til the end of spin and come back to your position again.
from my experience. if u have someone or you can hold kholor in position that make that path a lot easier because team can predict the move and see that well.
ps. if u cant dodge that use some break stun, Stability or refect projectile in might help as well.
Break stun use after u was grabbed but Stability, refect use before that.

Oranisagu.3706:

other classes:
ele: armor of earth for stability, cleansing fire as stunbreaker
necro: death shroud stability, flesh worm (has to be positioned already) or spectral walk as stunbreakers (beware, necro stunbreakers have a long cooldown. if you’re not good at dodgeing, go for stability as soon as his animation starts!)
engi: rocket boots work nice as stunbreakers, bit slow cooldown, use elixir r as a secondary stunbreaker (you can also throw it to ress people being pulled in). elixir s as an ‘oh kitten’ button is also nice
warri: shake it off as stunbreaker, balanced stance for stability, warhorn as secondary weapon gives you more dodges, otherwise shield to block
guardian: just ignore it ;-) or use the ground-aoe for stability or just f3 before he pulls

other classes I don’t know well enough yet..
thief: sword 2 maybe? or just a simple smokefield in advance? only just started with thief, don’t know him well enough yet. a headshot of pistol 4 might even work to interrupt the pull, so he goes immediately to his spin attack (though your melee players will hate you for it, if they don’t have the complete 3 seconds to get away before he spins)
mesmer blink? phantasmal whatever, the projectile reflector thing, does cleansing mantra stunbreak?
ranger has several jump back abilities, they might work. really no idea

Thief – Smoke screen, especially if you’re got the Master of Deception trait – this will also help others. Shadowstep, although the recharge isn’t great and requires a ground-target. Roll for Initiative, but again recharge.
Mesmer – While the cleansing mantra doesn’t, the Mantra of Concentration will both give stability and break stun. if you’ve got good timing, Distortion works too, especially with the IP trait.

Ranger is the only class that should have any problems – RaO gives stability, but has a long downtime. Lightning Reflexes has a longish cooldown and is bugged to disable on KD.

The thing with Kholer, is that even though almost every class has excellent utilities that will help, I very rarely see pugs change their skills to take them, and instead charge in with the same build they fight everything else with.
Being able to change skills mid-dungeon is a very powerful option, and yet wildly underused. I’m hoping that the removal of res-rushing will get people to put more fore-thought into what they take into a fight.

kholer is a PITA. i will agree on that one. i’m new. and i play a ranger. i was trying to stay back at max range and shoot him, but that far back i could barely see him at all thru the sea of bodies and particle effects, let alone see what he was doing, and i got sucked in every single time. in frustration i said “what am i doing wrong?!?” and was told “stand closer”. i stood close enough to see him clearly, but still far enough back i was not in melee… and could clearly see his ‘special move’.

his move is this: he holds still and rares back and it looks for all the world like he is getting ready to throw his sword at someone, and he’s taking taking the time to aim… dodge RIGHT THEN. doing this, i was able to live thru the Kholer fight reasonably reliably (allowing for other noob mistakes and poor internet connection) on only my second AC run ever. i used the dodge roll, the jump back from shortbow, and the lightning jump back skill.

JJBigs.8456:

List quickly the moves pls and how you can see it through tons of players spells and how you live (THAT MEANS IF YOU GET DOWNED OR DIE @ KHOLER DONT POST Pls)

The “tell” is that he holds his sword above and behind his head and holds it there for a pause – probably a half-second to second in length. While it’s up there, you’ll see a visual effect that appears to be air rushing into his hand.

The tell animation is very clearly visible from any angle (you can see the hand regardless of your position relative to Kholer). Another way to detect the tell is that Kholer will be standing still (movement-wise), barely moving his entire body (animation-wise), and will not be attacking. Since he’s usually a flurry of motion, the pause is very blatant.

There are a number of methods I personally use to survive. When I’m playing on my thief, I dodge the kukries he throws (this is easier said than done. It’s very easy to dodge to early – such as by dodging when the tell animation starts). If I fail to dodge, I use Roll for Initiative (a stun breaker which throws the player backward a good distance). On my elementalist, I use Armor of Earth for Stability.

Other options which are effective include – projectile reflection/destruction skills. Thieves, elementalists, guardians, and possibly others have access to these. The kukries are projectiles. Any stability skill in general – every class has at least one, and stability prevents the pull-to.

Guardians are the best at preventing Kholer from being a problem, though. My guardian has two ways to apply Aegis and one way to apply Stability… to the entire team. Once you learn the timing on him, it’s easy to fire off one of those options and protect the entire team.

Mesmer Strategy on Kholer.

Stand behind a Clone/Phantasm and range it. Just keep a clone between him and you, especially when Kholer stands still. They’ll eat the “dagger pull” projectile for you. Its something I tell allies who have trouble evading his AoE Pull to Spin-o-Death. Usually I leave a set of Staff Clones in a nice line, forming a literal wall of disposable bodies to eat the pull while giving anyone meleeing Kholer a nice boost of Might and Fury.

Further, a Mesmer can block the pulls entirely with perfectly timed Phantasmal Warden (Casted BEFORE Kholer even raises his sword based on timing). Risky to pull off, and the I.Warden may not always be off CD when the next one comes around. (Still feel unsafe with Feedback and traited Temporal Curtain, as then Kholer is pulled to YOU, and generally gets up to do the spin-cycle of death the last time I did this some months back.)

He raises his hand, here’s the important bit, AND it glows. Plus it takes significantly longer to execute than any of his other animations, 3 seconds is freaking ages. Don’t try to dodge the minute his hand goes up, wait 2 seconds to see if you need to.

If it really worries you stand by a wall – allowing you to walk behind the wall every time you suspect he is doing it; saving you from dying due to false dodges.

You will pick it up eventually, it’s a bit hard to spot for novices (no insult intended, we all got killed by him a good couple of times) through particle effects and whatnot. It is very distinct from his other animations, you just need a little more experience to actually notice it.

Basically, print this out and put it next to your screen: http://dobarrelrolls.webs.com/Don't%20Panic.jpg

I made a post a few months about about not being able to see boss tells because of all the spell spam. One of the worst offenders is guardian fire (I’ve noticed people will often get pulled when I play my guardian and use the fire on this fight), but generally if there is a staff ele or anyone who has a lot of flashy spells, spotting his charge attack becomes MUCH harder. I personally don’t think your party should be able to make content harder because their abilities hide a boss attack.

I’d really like the devs to do something to alter the unintended griefing nature of these abilities when it comes to important visual cues like Kholer.

Shiren.9532:

I’d really like the devs to do something to alter the unintended griefing nature of these abilities when it comes to important visual cues like Kholer.

Keep in mind there is also an auditory queue (which is what I have resorted to using because I am a glamour mes).

As always you need to get the chance to see (or hear) what you should be seeing (or hearing) and hiding behind walls gives you that chance.

Slither Shade.4782:

I think blocking works too.

Warrior shield #5 works like a champ, for both the pull and the spinny thing afterwords.

He has a tendency to do it more often than the cooldown, though.

I remember the first time my group hit Kholer. It felt impossible. Now it’s pretty easy. Once you see his “tell” for the move. OP: it’s like he sort of winds up with a sparkly, sunbeamy kind of thing.

Generally, we just have one player kite Kholer, the other four kill the 2 adds and then it’s pretty much down hill from there. You can fight him wherever you want. For ranged, it’s better to keep him in the room with the pillars. That way you have a pretty wide range of tactics to avoid his pull: distance, evade, LoS.

I once did a Kholer fight on my ranger and I stood on the outside of the pillars and he never even looked my way once. Never had to do anything but shoot. Pet took a beating, though, but that’s another rant.

I use to hate Kholer as well, but its more about experience than anything. As a Warrior there is a bunch of different stuff I can do to deal with his charge attack. Shield Stance, Endure Pain, Balanced Stance, Whirlwind Attack and even plain old dodging.

You either time it right to dodge his charge, or you have a fail safe to deal with it. Damage mitigation or stability works best. If you must, you can range him and line of sight when he starts to charge up. There are lots of things you can try, give some of them a shot.

However, I do admit that it is sometimes hard to time it right, when he is covered in the particles and animations of other players. I have the same problem with Rabsovich in the Dredge fractal. Its a rather small animation that is easily blocked/missed.

particle effects are a big problem, as are some summons.. ice/earth elementals especially like to get close up to him, guess kohler must be really cool and tough and irresistible to them.. problem is, those are bigger than he is and can block the view of nearly his whole body (which we absolutely want, because, ofc, he is cool & tough and all ;-) )

in these situations: if you’re comfortable just using a stunbreaker and have a low cd on it, go for it.. otherwise, ask the ele to not use summons BEFORE the fight, so he can equip something else. elementals are pretty useless in this fight (apart from maybe shielding somone – or a wall or a column or empty air – from a pull)..
most players will readily change weapons/skills if you ask them nicely with a good reason.
also… get vigour.. you get free dodges, that way you shouldn’t be out of endurance when he does his pull..

Puandro.3245:

Yaki.9563:

Ioflux.4369:

Get a guardian, spec knight gear, go 0/0/30/30/10, use hammer, pop omnomberry pie/ghost and face tank him all day while you tell rest of your party to do the rest of the dungeon while you solo auto attack him.

You’ll die.

Umm no, you can facetank him while spamming 1, AND eat the spin.

Nope.