Guild Wars 2

I ran this for the first time last night, and never before have I had such a problem dying with a boss.

Just looking for any tips to help fight him as an Engineer.

I run CoE religiously as an Engineer, and even take the DR occasionally on the token rewards.

Regardless of path, you’ll encounter Subject Alpha in all three paths. Actually, you’ll meet him THREE time per path! That’s nine times a day if you do all three paths!

The common thing to do when you fight Alpha is to time your dodges. Don’t dodge too early, but obviously don’t do it too late. I’d say give it a good second or two before dodging. Almost all his attacks are delayed giving you enough time to either move out of the way, or dodge at the right moment.

Some groups might request for you to stack together. The reason behind this is that it makes it a bit easier to dodge his AoE, and in paths where he uses the Imprisonment Crystal, it’ll be easier to break the crystal. Also, if anyone goes down, it would be much faster to res them up assuming the four others help out.

As an Engineer, I pick up Infused Precision [III] in the Firearms line and Invigorating Speed [I] in the Alchemy line just for this particular dungeon. If you crit a lot, you’ll accumulate Swiftness quite fast, and with swiftness procs, you’ll also gain Vigor every time the cooldown is up. That means faster Endurance regeneration and the capability of dodging Alpha’s AoE abilities more often. It’s recommended, but if you can get used to dodging his AoE attacks without Vigor, or often group with someone that already provides you with Vigor, then you can swap out those traits for whatever suits your build.

Also minions and such will cause him to put aoe circles out so the less minions and things like spirit weapons the better. The advice Ari gave was excellent though.

Easy way:

Path 1: All 5 stack melee, easy mode

Path 2: His main attack in melee range is the earth rings. He will also cast an ice spike in the middle of the earth rings for the 1 person who is furthest. If all 5 people stack melee in path 2 (and 3), the ice spike will hit everyone, meaning everyone needs to dodge. What my group does is 4 people stack melee on top of each other, we just stand there and kill him. The 5th person who is ranged needs to basically time their dodges so they get an invincible frame to take no damage from the ring. You basically wait 1 second then dodge.

Path 3: His main attack is the same as path 2, except immediately after the rings he casts his cone attack. Again 4 people stack melee, except right after the earth rings proc you want to move into his body to avoid the cone attack. Once you push him into the wall you can just stand in his body and never get hit.

Basically as long as one person who is ranged is good at dodging he’s super easy. This is what my dedicated group does for each path.

For the cone attack at range, simply be behind him, or be in front of him and dodge left and right. For close combat, you’ll notice that the spike starts a foot in front of him, so just clip into him and it’ll miss you entirely.

For the double-circle AoE:

4/5 people will have the inner circle safe, so they can just stand in spot, and the outer ring dangerous, it will pop a ring of earth spikes.

For the one unlucky person, they will have an inner circle that is dangerous and an outer ring that’s safe, so it’s literally a matter of strafing left and right to avoid damage.

You never need to be outside both the red circles for that AoE attack. Just strafe left and right.