Guild Wars 2

While me and my group somehow always managed to kill the shaman up to level 29 we just don’t get him done since we reached level 30 – and it’s really painful if you get this fractal as the 3rd map and have to quit after several wipes.

I have the feeling that our tactic isn’t optimal, so I would like to get some tips as how to approach this fight perfectly.

This is the setup we’re running most of the time:

Ranger
Ranger
Ele
Warrior
Guardian

The first stage doesn’t give us much problems – we’re spreading across the island, attacking from max. range and avoid agony/damage as good as possible.

Problems occur, when he gets into his bubble and the lava adds appear:
1. Guardian jumps to the boss and pulls as many adds as possible
2. Rangers root boss+adds
3. Damage (AoE) to get boss out of his bubble without healing
4. Get the group togehter for a Wall of Reflection against the adds
5. Kill the remaining adds

Most of the time we’re wiping between step 3 and 4 during the stage with the lava adds and we just don’t know, what to change.

Personally, I think it’s not a good idea to have the Guardian and the Rangers getting to the boss for pulling the adds and rooting the boss because that has someting of a suicide mission — after pulling the adds there is so much damage in short time, that almost always 1 or 2 ppl die instantly.

Is it better to stay spread across the island and having eacht player fight his own group of adds or are we trying it the right way?

I’m really looking forward to any kind of help

im a ranger myself and my group usually has no problems with this boss up to lvl 48 (my friend is a guardian)

the following tips might be helpful for your group:
1. BEFORE transition try to group up in one of the corners – left or right. it will give you 5-10 sec to destroy the bubble untill eles reach your group.
2. use quickness + ranger shortbow to destroy bubble
3. as soon as bubble destroyed – pop up all your kitten like projectile reflect and big AOEs. I usually swap to GS, use muddy terrain\roots and we destroy em all in 10sec tops. even is someone is downed you can quickly rally

basically the key to success is projectile block, CC and AoE. Tell your warrior to switch to GS and go melee for adds, ele can use air focus to provide additional support

Here is a decent video for the guardian and your group to watch
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKdOMkq43OY

- Keep him near the middle so he has awhile to get to villagers
- Save all reflects/projectile destruction skills for when the elementals spawn
- Stay together so when the guardian puts the bubble up you are all in it (would put it a short distance away from shaman not on it since you have rangers to bow it)
- Have the rangers take down the shaman’s bubble while the rest deal with the elementals
- Have the guardian gs 5 elementals in the bubble and melee them along with the warrior
- Elementalist should be using a focus for swirling winds to use when the elementals are up
- Get away from the guardian bubble if he puts aoe on it, it is destroyed, or the shaman broke out and is near it. Fall back and have he guardian put up wall and range and kite elementals after that.
- If you have at least 2 up with only a couple or no elementals left you should still be fine. Have the person he is on pull it away from the dead people to keep it busy while the other people revive the rest
- Ele – Mist form, Warrior – Endure Pain (think this works or can use at elementals), Guardian – Renewed focus. Use these to negate the agony after you get hit if needed
- Win

Ask ele to equip a focus…
Ele becomes immortal (only here) :|

earth 2-4-5
air 4
add arcane shield and mistform…..despite the nerf gains seconds to CD other skills.

Remember that ele can cast his shields/mistform without interrupting other actions like ressing and stuff.

P.S: otherwise the evergreen tactic:
any shield => binding blade + 1hb….works everywhere…..

Thanks for your tipps so far and also for the video. It sounds better to split the groups (one for the bubble and one for the elementals).

Hope we can deal with him tonight

Signet of beastmaster + signet of stone + signet of renewal / frost trap / search and rescue / dodge roll shaman ranged attack / brown bear / entangle lava elementals while you burst down shield

Focus fire on shield! Attack the ele’s after the regen shield goes down. Maybe the paw be with you.

The easiest way I find is to not get the boss out of the bubble right away. Instead, chill him with frozen ground or entangle him, then ball up while hiding behind wall of reflection, sanctuary, and shield of the avenger.

In the meantime, all the elementals will ball up so you can AoE them easily. The reason for this is that the boss won’t attack you but just veeeeeeeeery slowly goes towards a target, which provides you with plenty of time to kill the elementals.

At 70+ the elementals hit for 3-4k each, so you really have to there.

Here’s an example of lvl 71, albeit not that great a run, it starts at 1h37m: http://www.twitch.tv/awsmcelly/b/395197640

Some general tips:
- If there are no elementals up and the shaman uses his AoE, don’t dodge but WALK out of it: save your dodges for his bow attack.
- Use a potion of elemental slaying
- Keep the shaman in the middle
- Don’t EVER stand in the lava pits, even when they’re not active

Everyone says “Just watch him for agony arrow” I can never really seem to see who hes looking at. What graphic settings are optimal for seeing his front. Between all the effects, and since hes on fire etc, I waste tons of dodges thinking hes going for me. Is there a surefire easier way. Also im trying to step around lava, dps, watch teammates, dont go near teammates who are hit on arrow. Now like I sit there and go HURRRRRRR till he looks to shoot me. Need better tells or grapical settings. I dont have “Catlike reflexes” either, just regular person so alot of times its too late

JJBigs.8456:

Everyone says “Just watch him for agony arrow” I can never really seem to see who hes looking at. What graphic settings are optimal for seeing his front. Between all the effects, and since hes on fire etc, I waste tons of dodges thinking hes going for me. Is there a surefire easier way. Also im trying to step around lava, dps, watch teammates, dont go near teammates who are hit on arrow. Now like I sit there and go HURRRRRRR till he looks to shoot me. Need better tells or grapical settings. I dont have “Catlike reflexes” either, just regular person so alot of times its too late

Just strafe A>D>A>D>A>….. if you’re ranged. You don’t need to roll dodge if the timing is right. Melee then, idk…..vigor??

It is hard to see with all the effect. I mainly tell who he is targeting by his wings which are the largest part you can see.

i must be doing the timing wrong or the rhythum because ive tried that and get hit.

how long do i have to walk left before i walk right. i thought you were just supposed to walk constantly in a circle, which didnt work either.

so it is walk to the right for 3 seconds, then back left3 seconds etc, or be a spaz and l/r/l/r/l/r/

i can never seem to consistently do it, it works sometimes but never a surefire way of always avoiding it.

well, my pace is a left-right cycle of around 1 second, so 1/2s left, 1/2s right.

I do that because I’m ranged, usually pug hence no communication, and my class has no vigor/reflect so I try to save dodge to some more tricky situation. If your class has vigor/reflect I think you will have an easier time and just dodge/reflect whenever he shoots.

rangers is your problem.

Nuka Cola.8520:

rangers is your problem.

ranger is just the second best class for that boss…

40 seconds to deal with elementals and forgetting boss?
what do you want more?

LordByron.8369:

Ask ele to equip a focus…
Ele becomes immortal (only here) :|

earth 2-4-5
air 4
add arcane shield and mistform…..despite the nerf gains seconds to CD other skills.

Remember that ele can cast his shields/mistform without interrupting other actions like ressing and stuff.

P.S: otherwise the evergreen tactic:
any shield => binding blade + 1hb….works everywhere…..

About to say the same thing.

Put down Air 4 and it gives the entire team a decent place to attack the Shield from.

And note you can use Earth 5 while rezzing someone, so if the boss drops Agony or an AoE on you, you can carry on rezzing without stopping, also Mistform allows this too.. so that’s 7s to get someone up under fire.

Note with Mistform, you can’t use Utilities now, you can still swap into Water for Regen and roll to give healing (if you are traited for these).

A lot of the problem is people are used to going deep and bursting down the elementals quickly after popping the bubble which is a bad habit developed in low levels. At 30+ teh elementals are sufficiently powerful enough that you cant just burst them all down in a few seconds and they hit hard enough to make fighting them without reflects a pretty bad idea. The best strategy is to slowly retreat behind reflects and group them together with binding blades and temporal curtain. Keep retreating periodically.

Incidentally, with an ele in your party for blast finishers and rangers dropping water fields you should have enough healing to do this plan perfectly.

I also want to add: Potent Potion of Elemental Slaying. If everyone in your group has 9% more damage and 8% damage reduction it makes the elementals significantly easier. If people are downing and not using the potions, they only have themselves to blame.

Celly.5912:

The easiest way I find is to not get the boss out of the bubble right away. Instead, chill him with frozen ground or entangle him, then ball up while hiding behind wall of reflection, sanctuary, and shield of the avenger.

In the meantime, all the elementals will ball up so you can AoE them easily. The reason for this is that the boss won’t attack you but just veeeeeeeeery slowly goes towards a target, which provides you with plenty of time to kill the elementals.

At 70+ the elementals hit for 3-4k each, so you really have to there.

Here’s an example of lvl 71, albeit not that great a run, it starts at 1h37m: http://www.twitch.tv/awsmcelly/b/395197640

Some general tips:
- If there are no elementals up and the shaman uses his AoE, don’t dodge but WALK out of it: save your dodges for his bow attack.
- Use a potion of elemental slaying
- Keep the shaman in the middle
- Don’t EVER stand in the lava pits, even when they’re not active

This is great advice. Thank you!

Nuka Cola.8520:

rangers is your problem.

No love for blast finished heals or CC?