Guild Wars 2

okay, so I’m not the best player the game, nor am I the worst. I’m pretty average.

like many people, I’ve had a lot of problems with subject alpha. eventually though I got to the point that we could take him, although we had to do some rez rushing.

search the change self my group had significantly more difficulty. we knew that rezzing would be a problem, so we took revival skills.

it didn’t help. Most of us had exotic level 80 armor, and we were still getting 1 shotted, our revival skills got exhausted quickly, and reviving the old fashioned a mess it was almost impossible as every time we would start, we would get targeted by his aoes on top of the character reviving.

while we are willing to keep experimenting to find a good tactic, I am interested in hearing advice from people who have already solved this issue.

Thanks in advance!

Exotic Level 80 armor is not the same as, lets say, Soldier armor. Toughness and Vit are for survival. Alpha is not for the ’zerker sets.

Lerysh.8173:

Exotic Level 80 armor is not the same as, lets say, Soldier armor. Toughness and Vit are for survival. Alpha is not for the ’zerker sets.

Hm.. Yet I’m a Glasscannon, and have fought Alpha a lot of times, done 5 paths since the update, yet I can take the hits… So you’re ‘Alpha is not for the ’zerker sets’ is wrong.
It’s not about your set or build, you have to learn to dodge the attacks, find the right timing. There are a few things you can do. On path 2, if you count to 2 then dodge or even stand still and watch the ice, if the ice goes stand still, if it stays dodge.

My thoughts, this is one of those encounters which should have been made easier with the WP RZ nerf.

He is a pain, i tried him once after the nerf and my party gave up after the first try.

According to the first post, Anet was going to look at encounters that used to be done by WP RZ but this must have been overlooked. The whole speech about making encounters easy was just a mirage, it was thrown in there so players would buy into the nerf of WP RZ.

Hopefully this helps you a bit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgy1tVLvDOI

+ they lowered his health

IMHO Alpha is way too easy now, his health is way way too low, yes before it was maybe a bit high, but it’s way too low now.

He was made easier. His HP dropped by quite a bit.

They did reduce his health, but his health isn’t the problem. Heck, I’ll even go so far as say how hard he hits isn’t rhe problem. The problem is there’s no breathing room to revive an ally during the fight.

if he hit less hard, or if a person trying to revive wasn’t being targeted every single time, then maybe it would be more forgivable.

Time to bust out the Mercy runes.

Seriously, a guardian or warrior with Mercy runes and revive speed traits can raise a downed player in under 3 seconds. His AoE attacks are not that fast.

Also stacking near him mitigates damage. If you haven’t realized, a lot of the damage comes from many circles hitting you. When the team stacks near him, only a few land, and it does much less damage. However if you don’t coordinate with your team or some members get scared and dodge/back up anyways, it could cause chaos.

Lerysh.8173:

Exotic Level 80 armor is not the same as, lets say, Soldier armor. Toughness and Vit are for survival. Alpha is not for the ’zerker sets.

I always repeat those holy words, get more tankyness!

Alpha was never really that hard to begin with. Just stack on top of him in melee range

haviz.1340:

Lerysh.8173:

Exotic Level 80 armor is not the same as, lets say, Soldier armor. Toughness and Vit are for survival. Alpha is not for the ’zerker sets.

I always repeat those holy words, get more tankyness!

Hm, tankiness w/ alpha though prob saves you lasting 1 aoe ‘drop’ from him. Not much of a difference imo. It’d be better to learn how to dodge/why you are getting hit so hard. But tankiness is helpful for slip ups though, which I can understand.

Path 1 and 2 should be easy with him, only path that I ever WP rushed was 3. Never doing that path again, I have flash backs to how bad that path is.

Subject Alpha is a matter of learning how to dodge his attacks. I took a guildie with me into CoE last night, he had never done it before. I told him the different attacks and when to dodge/walk out. He survived.

As for the comment about ’zerker sets. I do Subject Alpha on two of my squishiest characters. My Elementalist and my Mesmer, who are both primarily geared in ’zerker (minus accessories). I rarely die fighting Subject Alpha.

we did to try once to stack on him in melee range. he killed us with that Stoney spike cone of his .

okay, with that last group I don’t know who had tanky armor.

I did. Full exotic level 80 pvt with soldier stuff, etc. I know there are 2 that I didn’t. I’m not sure about the other two.

haviz.1340:

Lerysh.8173:

Exotic Level 80 armor is not the same as, lets say, Soldier armor. Toughness and Vit are for survival. Alpha is not for the ’zerker sets.

I always repeat those holy words, get more tankyness!

Well, I wouldn’t say you need tanky stats to survive, but they help when you’re learning. But yeah, I always would suggest having some sort of ‘ace’ so you’re not a damp tissue sack in boss fights:

Don’t want full-on solider armor? Get some Vit and regen.

Don’t want that? Try some percision + crit chance + lifesteal food.

Don’t like that? A bit of toughness and all defensive utilities works too.

That not your style either? Get vigor and +endurance and dodge more.

But I wish I hadn’t watched Wethospu’s video. When I usually run that boss with a PuG, it’s just a chaotic barrage of red circles. There’s plenty of time to dodge everything and recover your endurance after. Now? -sigh- it’s almost too easy. If people didn’t go down during the fight, you could practically sleep through it.

When I have new people in CoE, the first thing I tell them to do is stop dodge rolling. You can walk out of most of the red circles and survive at least 1 hit. You have 3 seconds from the red circle appearing to you getting hit, which is enough to walk from its center to outside of the circle with normal speed with less than a second to spare.

New players tend to panic and just dodge roll whenever red circles appear under their feet. Stop doing that and walk out casually. Alpha is a slow boss. Pack stun breaks and movement skills for ice prison and panic button attacks, but otherwise he’s slow and squishy. Take your time.

Getting through an alpha fight is not necessarily having the right gear, it’s more about executing a great number of details successfully, dodging is crucial, but what’s more important is not dodging when you don’t have to.

You really have to get into the tempo and have a good idea of which attacks are coming up next. Just in brief:

1) Dragon Tooth: this should never be a problem in the first place

2) Ice circles: don’t stay still when he is doing this attack, it’s much easier to get out of it when you are already on the move when it appears, also you have enough time to move the radius of the aoe circle between appearing and landing the attack. Lastly, search up “fast ice”, “slow ice” if you don’t know what it means

3) frontal cone AoE, he will always face the direction for a few seconds before casting. Run in tangent if you are out of dodge, and when dodging, dodge to the side don’t dodge to the back and front

And about crystal, everyone should keep an eye on the others, he will face the person he is casting the crystal on, and after being trapped there is about a 5 seconds window to dps the crystal down.

You can try stacking, but that’s not a really good strategy in my opinion.

In the process of re-recording my CoE paths since it is easier now. Uploaded P2 last night, will have the new P1 and 3 up soon, but the older videos on my page still apply to the alpha fight, it just takes longer since he has more health in those.

But really, all you do is stand in melee range and time your dodges.

You naturally cleave out whoever gets hit by the purple crystal in part 2 and 3.

In path 1 you don’t even need to dodge the red circles because his only two attacks in melee range are the flame AoE and conal attack
In path 2 the only other attack you need to worry about is his flame AoE, which does minor direct damage so you just want to remove burning
In path 3 you just dodge the same red circles as path 2 but have the conal attack instead of the fire AoE.

Alpha is basically like Kholer, dodge one very obvious attack and everything else is easy. Just count 1-1thousand, 2-1thousand, then dodge.

Strifey.7215:

In the process of re-recording my CoE paths since it is easier now. Uploaded P2 last night, will have the new P1 and 3 up soon, but the older videos on my page still apply to the alpha fight, it just takes longer since he has more health in those.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnRnK3qoYxk

But really, all you do is stand in melee range and time your dodges.

You naturally cleave out whoever gets hit by the purple crystal in part 2 and 3.

In path 1 you don’t even need to dodge the red circles because his only two attacks in melee range are the flame AoE and conal attack
In path 2 the only other attack you need to worry about is his flame AoE, which does minor direct damage so you just want to remove burning
In path 3 you just dodge the same red circles as path 2 but have the conal attack instead of the fire AoE.

Alpha is basically like Kholer, dodge one very obvious attack and everything else is easy. Just count 1-1thousand, 2-1thousand, then dodge.

like I said, we tried stacking on him. we still got wiped.

I’m not sure what the problem was. hi it was the last 1 to go down. the rest, maybe they didn’t have a good enough armor, but really, it was on path 1, his pbaoe fire and cone is what killed us.

Morfedel.4165:

Strifey.7215:

In the process of re-recording my CoE paths since it is easier now. Uploaded P2 last night, will have the new P1 and 3 up soon, but the older videos on my page still apply to the alpha fight, it just takes longer since he has more health in those.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnRnK3qoYxk

But really, all you do is stand in melee range and time your dodges.

You naturally cleave out whoever gets hit by the purple crystal in part 2 and 3.

In path 1 you don’t even need to dodge the red circles because his only two attacks in melee range are the flame AoE and conal attack
In path 2 the only other attack you need to worry about is his flame AoE, which does minor direct damage so you just want to remove burning
In path 3 you just dodge the same red circles as path 2 but have the conal attack instead of the fire AoE.

Alpha is basically like Kholer, dodge one very obvious attack and everything else is easy. Just count 1-1thousand, 2-1thousand, then dodge.

like I said, we tried stacking on him. we still got wiped.

I’m not sure what the problem was. hi it was the last 1 to go down. the rest, maybe they didn’t have a good enough armor, but really, it was on path 1, his pbaoe fire and cone is what killed us.

Stacking is only worth while if you have enough group healing and condition removal. Even then you still avoid most of his attacks by spreading around him in path 1, or dodge the frontal cone and ground AoE.

Morfedel.4165:

like I said, we tried stacking on him. we still got wiped.

I’m not sure what the problem was. hi it was the last 1 to go down. the rest, maybe they didn’t have a good enough armor, but really, it was on path 1, his pbaoe fire and cone is what killed us.

Stacking on him does not mean do not dodge at all. Did you watch the video? Do you not see people dodge rolling the aoe?

Your group is just bad. We’ve been doing CoE all 3 paths every day since the patch, it’s even easier with the health reduction. Stack up on Alpha, dodge the double circles, and the fire attack is negligible with a single engineer in the group (if they know how to play their class, anyway), let alone having a warrior bring “Shake it Off!” or whatnot. I can almost see justification for the earth attack, but if you stand inside him (jump if you have to), you’ll be fine. Use group-wide healing effects and you should be golden. If you stack, crystals aren’t an issue, and rezzing isn’t an issue (if you have at least a 1 second reaction time).

My only issue is when I’m low on health, on a path with the earth attack, and can’t block it because it’s apparently unblockable.

Morfedel.4165:

Strifey.7215:

In the process of re-recording my CoE paths since it is easier now. Uploaded P2 last night, will have the new P1 and 3 up soon, but the older videos on my page still apply to the alpha fight, it just takes longer since he has more health in those.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnRnK3qoYxk

But really, all you do is stand in melee range and time your dodges.

You naturally cleave out whoever gets hit by the purple crystal in part 2 and 3.

In path 1 you don’t even need to dodge the red circles because his only two attacks in melee range are the flame AoE and conal attack
In path 2 the only other attack you need to worry about is his flame AoE, which does minor direct damage so you just want to remove burning
In path 3 you just dodge the same red circles as path 2 but have the conal attack instead of the fire AoE.

Alpha is basically like Kholer, dodge one very obvious attack and everything else is easy. Just count 1-1thousand, 2-1thousand, then dodge.

like I said, we tried stacking on him. we still got wiped.

I’m not sure what the problem was. hi it was the last 1 to go down. the rest, maybe they didn’t have a good enough armor, but really, it was on path 1, his pbaoe fire and cone is what killed us.

Stack INSIDE him. Then the only thing that can hit you is the big red AOE circles which you can dodge. His spike attack will not hit you since it radiates outside of him.

Yesterday I had to beat him solo because everyone in my party died in the last fight. They went afk and I finished the dungeon for them :p

For people that have trouble dodging Alpha’s frost attacks in path 2 and 3, count to 2 inside your head then dodge. This should give you enough evasion frames to dodge the attack completely. Do note that this works best if you are all stacked ontop of mister Alpha.

Jzl.8715:

Morfedel.4165:

Strifey.7215:

In the process of re-recording my CoE paths since it is easier now. Uploaded P2 last night, will have the new P1 and 3 up soon, but the older videos on my page still apply to the alpha fight, it just takes longer since he has more health in those.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnRnK3qoYxk

But really, all you do is stand in melee range and time your dodges.

You naturally cleave out whoever gets hit by the purple crystal in part 2 and 3.

In path 1 you don’t even need to dodge the red circles because his only two attacks in melee range are the flame AoE and conal attack
In path 2 the only other attack you need to worry about is his flame AoE, which does minor direct damage so you just want to remove burning
In path 3 you just dodge the same red circles as path 2 but have the conal attack instead of the fire AoE.

Alpha is basically like Kholer, dodge one very obvious attack and everything else is easy. Just count 1-1thousand, 2-1thousand, then dodge.

like I said, we tried stacking on him. we still got wiped.

I’m not sure what the problem was. hi it was the last 1 to go down. the rest, maybe they didn’t have a good enough armor, but really, it was on path 1, his pbaoe fire and cone is what killed us.

Stacking is only worth while if you have enough group healing and condition removal. Even then you still avoid most of his attacks by spreading around him in path 1, or dodge the frontal cone and ground AoE.

In my videos, 4 of the 5 classes are in berserkers, included my mesmer in this specific video. The only group healing we have is from regeneration from the one guardian which is only up maybe 30% of the time. There is literally hardly any survivability gear/skills other then eating mixed berry/omnom pies. Yes there is condition removal, but if every class equips one group condition removal, it is more then enough for alpha who puts burning on you about once every 7-10 seconds.

Don’t give me that bs about group healing and survivability traits being the reason you can stack melee, and of course you want some condition removal which isn’t really hard to get when you are taking care of one condition every once in a while.

It’s really not that hard.

1. Stack Melee
2. Eat Food
3. Dodge big red circles by counting to 2
4. ???
5. Profit

Grats, you have just negated half of alphas attacks, have no problem dealing with the purple crystal, and if someone does go down you can quickly rez him before the next red circle chain. It’s not rocket science, all it requires is people to count to 2, hit a button, and use a small portion of their brain to equip useful skills.

Not to mention how many people I see who never eat food. The minor silver cost of food would probably save your group so much money in both repair costs and time you waste that could be used for making more money. If anyone complains about regen and isn’t eating pies, or complains about endurance and isn’t eating the stew for 40% endurance regen, then they have themselves to blame.

Strifey.7215:

Jzl.8715:

Morfedel.4165:

Strifey.7215:

In the process of re-recording my CoE paths since it is easier now. Uploaded P2 last night, will have the new P1 and 3 up soon, but the older videos on my page still apply to the alpha fight, it just takes longer since he has more health in those.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnRnK3qoYxk

But really, all you do is stand in melee range and time your dodges.

You naturally cleave out whoever gets hit by the purple crystal in part 2 and 3.

In path 1 you don’t even need to dodge the red circles because his only two attacks in melee range are the flame AoE and conal attack
In path 2 the only other attack you need to worry about is his flame AoE, which does minor direct damage so you just want to remove burning
In path 3 you just dodge the same red circles as path 2 but have the conal attack instead of the fire AoE.

Alpha is basically like Kholer, dodge one very obvious attack and everything else is easy. Just count 1-1thousand, 2-1thousand, then dodge.

like I said, we tried stacking on him. we still got wiped.

I’m not sure what the problem was. hi it was the last 1 to go down. the rest, maybe they didn’t have a good enough armor, but really, it was on path 1, his pbaoe fire and cone is what killed us.

Stacking is only worth while if you have enough group healing and condition removal. Even then you still avoid most of his attacks by spreading around him in path 1, or dodge the frontal cone and ground AoE.

In my videos, 4 of the 5 classes are in berserkers, included my mesmer in this specific video. The only group healing we have is from regeneration from the one guardian which is only up maybe 30% of the time. There is literally hardly any survivability gear/skills other then eating mixed berry/omnom pies. Yes there is condition removal, but if every class equips one group condition removal, it is more then enough for alpha who puts burning on you about once every 7-10 seconds.

Don’t give me that bs about group healing and survivability traits being the reason you can stack melee, and of course you want some condition removal which isn’t really hard to get when you are taking care of one condition every once in a while.

It’s really not that hard.

1. Stack Melee
2. Eat Food
3. Dodge big red circles by counting to 2
4. ???
5. Profit

Grats, you have just negated half of alphas attacks, have no problem dealing with the purple crystal, and if someone does go down you can quickly rez him before the next red circle chain. It’s not rocket science, all it requires is people to count to 2, hit a button, and use a small portion of their brain to equip useful skills.

Not to mention how many people I see who never eat food. The minor silver cost of food would probably save your group so much money in both repair costs and time you waste that could be used for making more money. If anyone complains about regen and isn’t eating pies, or complains about endurance and isn’t eating the stew for 40% endurance regen, then they have themselves to blame.

most people want to eat omnomberry bars, but you make a good point: there is more than 1 food you could use for a dungeon

Morfedel.4165:

Strifey.7215:

Jzl.8715:

Morfedel.4165:

Strifey.7215:

In the process of re-recording my CoE paths since it is easier now. Uploaded P2 last night, will have the new P1 and 3 up soon, but the older videos on my page still apply to the alpha fight, it just takes longer since he has more health in those.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnRnK3qoYxk

But really, all you do is stand in melee range and time your dodges.

You naturally cleave out whoever gets hit by the purple crystal in part 2 and 3.

In path 1 you don’t even need to dodge the red circles because his only two attacks in melee range are the flame AoE and conal attack
In path 2 the only other attack you need to worry about is his flame AoE, which does minor direct damage so you just want to remove burning
In path 3 you just dodge the same red circles as path 2 but have the conal attack instead of the fire AoE.

Alpha is basically like Kholer, dodge one very obvious attack and everything else is easy. Just count 1-1thousand, 2-1thousand, then dodge.

like I said, we tried stacking on him. we still got wiped.

I’m not sure what the problem was. hi it was the last 1 to go down. the rest, maybe they didn’t have a good enough armor, but really, it was on path 1, his pbaoe fire and cone is what killed us.

Stacking is only worth while if you have enough group healing and condition removal. Even then you still avoid most of his attacks by spreading around him in path 1, or dodge the frontal cone and ground AoE.

In my videos, 4 of the 5 classes are in berserkers, included my mesmer in this specific video. The only group healing we have is from regeneration from the one guardian which is only up maybe 30% of the time. There is literally hardly any survivability gear/skills other then eating mixed berry/omnom pies. Yes there is condition removal, but if every class equips one group condition removal, it is more then enough for alpha who puts burning on you about once every 7-10 seconds.

Don’t give me that bs about group healing and survivability traits being the reason you can stack melee, and of course you want some condition removal which isn’t really hard to get when you are taking care of one condition every once in a while.

It’s really not that hard.

1. Stack Melee
2. Eat Food
3. Dodge big red circles by counting to 2
4. ???
5. Profit

Grats, you have just negated half of alphas attacks, have no problem dealing with the purple crystal, and if someone does go down you can quickly rez him before the next red circle chain. It’s not rocket science, all it requires is people to count to 2, hit a button, and use a small portion of their brain to equip useful skills.

Not to mention how many people I see who never eat food. The minor silver cost of food would probably save your group so much money in both repair costs and time you waste that could be used for making more money. If anyone complains about regen and isn’t eating pies, or complains about endurance and isn’t eating the stew for 40% endurance regen, then they have themselves to blame.

most people want to eat omnomberry bars, but you make a good point: there is more than 1 food you could use for a dungeon

I mainly use bar as well. It’s much easier to give yourself breathing room by using pies/ghost than starting off w/o it.

Morfedel.4165:

Strifey.7215:

Jzl.8715:

Morfedel.4165:

Strifey.7215:

In the process of re-recording my CoE paths since it is easier now. Uploaded P2 last night, will have the new P1 and 3 up soon, but the older videos on my page still apply to the alpha fight, it just takes longer since he has more health in those.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnRnK3qoYxk

But really, all you do is stand in melee range and time your dodges.

You naturally cleave out whoever gets hit by the purple crystal in part 2 and 3.

In path 1 you don’t even need to dodge the red circles because his only two attacks in melee range are the flame AoE and conal attack
In path 2 the only other attack you need to worry about is his flame AoE, which does minor direct damage so you just want to remove burning
In path 3 you just dodge the same red circles as path 2 but have the conal attack instead of the fire AoE.

Alpha is basically like Kholer, dodge one very obvious attack and everything else is easy. Just count 1-1thousand, 2-1thousand, then dodge.

like I said, we tried stacking on him. we still got wiped.

I’m not sure what the problem was. hi it was the last 1 to go down. the rest, maybe they didn’t have a good enough armor, but really, it was on path 1, his pbaoe fire and cone is what killed us.

Stacking is only worth while if you have enough group healing and condition removal. Even then you still avoid most of his attacks by spreading around him in path 1, or dodge the frontal cone and ground AoE.

In my videos, 4 of the 5 classes are in berserkers, included my mesmer in this specific video. The only group healing we have is from regeneration from the one guardian which is only up maybe 30% of the time. There is literally hardly any survivability gear/skills other then eating mixed berry/omnom pies. Yes there is condition removal, but if every class equips one group condition removal, it is more then enough for alpha who puts burning on you about once every 7-10 seconds.

Don’t give me that bs about group healing and survivability traits being the reason you can stack melee, and of course you want some condition removal which isn’t really hard to get when you are taking care of one condition every once in a while.

It’s really not that hard.

1. Stack Melee
2. Eat Food
3. Dodge big red circles by counting to 2
4. ???
5. Profit

Grats, you have just negated half of alphas attacks, have no problem dealing with the purple crystal, and if someone does go down you can quickly rez him before the next red circle chain. It’s not rocket science, all it requires is people to count to 2, hit a button, and use a small portion of their brain to equip useful skills.

Not to mention how many people I see who never eat food. The minor silver cost of food would probably save your group so much money in both repair costs and time you waste that could be used for making more money. If anyone complains about regen and isn’t eating pies, or complains about endurance and isn’t eating the stew for 40% endurance regen, then they have themselves to blame.

most people want to eat omnomberry bars, but you make a good point: there is more than 1 food you could use for a dungeon

I mean bars are fine if you know the dungeons and don’t die, especially easier dungeons.

I use bars myself on quite a few dungeons, but use pies on harder things. It just comes with experience on knowing what you can and can’t get away with.

But if someone is using bars while complaining about boss fights which have proven to be simple once you recognize it’s pattern, then that’s their own fault.

I refuse to even try CoE now that there’s no rez rushing.

Have to agree to strifey. CoE is much easier now, did p2 today without any problems at all =) Maybe I can go back to farming charged lodestones again yay \o/

I’ve been running CoE with zerker War and Mes 2-4 times a day since patch, it’s much faster now. I now Prefer path 2 and 3 since patch because of the golem stage and destroyer nerf.

I had one pug rage quit after dying twice on p2. He was a warrior using greatsword with 900 Anet point (kinda worried me). I explained the boss to him and he said he didn’t have enough endurance. I then told him to make it easier to go axe war horn and/or shield. The shield is a free block and war horn for vigor. He flat out refused and proceeded to insta die again.

His exact words after that:
“This is too hard, I’m going to go play WoW”

Anyways, 12 charged cores this week for me.

Funny story.. we beat Subject Alpha pre-patch with 4 ppl, but couldn’t do it after we added a 5th person… many many many rez-rushes that day.

Have not tried this dungeon since the patch… tbh i kind of hate this dungeon, fighting the same boss 45 gagillion times and dodge the red circles which are everywhere. Hit dodge to roll out of a red circle, only to roll straight into another red circle… doh.

Nozdrum.2894:

Maybe I can go back to farming charged lodestones again yay \o/

Please do! More power to you.

CoE is all about learning the mechanics and timing your skills. Learn what abilities you have to save, and what to never use. As a Mesmer, the tactic for surviving is going melee with sword and saving that Blurred Frenzy for the ice hit that usually 1 shots me.
Remember, timing is crucial in CoE.

P.S. CoE is easier now than what it was before the patch.

How is Subject Alpha on Path 2 generally done?

Everyone stacks melee and one person go ranged? The ice spike and dragons tooth should be targeting range right?

What happens if you are stacking melee and the group is getting hit by the ice spike?

Ace.1726:

How is Subject Alpha on Path 2 generally done?

Everyone stacks melee and one person go ranged? The ice spike and dragons tooth should be targeting range right?

What happens if you are stacking melee and the group is getting hit by the ice spike?

Dragons tooth target only ranged players, ice spikes target at any distance.
Stacking melee still requires the party to dodge ice. What you can do is finding out who is the ice spikes target (I noticed Alpha tends to use them often on the same player) and make him go ranged, while the rest of the party simply melees him down without having to move at all.

Difficult, really? We thought that he was difficult in route 3 because we didn’t do it right. Path 1 is really easy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxSWHyI21pc

Melee be careful to heal if needed and no problem at all.

Until we saw how it worked in route three (the first round I was the last one standing and running like crazy until I killed it because I didn’t know how the AoE worked) But is really easy.

Even more easy if you are not the one targeted by the ice/earth AoE (in round 2, you can see it in the video I didn’t move at all) But in round 3 we have to work a little more (This time I really had to move T_T XD), but relatively easy (and like you can see I’m just an average player XD), and I found it good-easy:

What I really don’t like from Route 3 is the experimental Subject. I HATE that boss, is almost endless T_T Some tips for that boss? (something to make it possible to kill it faster?)

to the OP: i meleed him today without any problem each time (3 times to be exact), and the destroyer too ! – yes, we wiped 2-3 times because my ranged team mates died horribly, but we managed finally to kill him and i got 2 charged cores + other nice stuff ^^
in my opinion it is much easier than before patch.

I did it before the patch enough times to say that we didn’t have any problem, the video from route 1 (going Melee) is from before the patch, and like you can see, yes one of our party members fell once but we revived it fast and in general it was really easy. It may be true that your team mates may have something to do with it being more difficult. I don’t know :S

Doesn’t help that the room you fight him in P2 is small as all heck.

Even when some people say it’s not that good, try stacking. Of course you still need to dodge but if you stack:
- You can drop your heals/condi removals on everyone.
- You can insta rezz a downed player.
- You can insta break crystals.
And this one is crucial:
- You can actually dps him.

I’ve been in groups where the targeted player wouldn’t stop running around the room, so he wasn’t dpsing, and nobody else were, we were just trying to catch him to land some attacks on him before he ran away from us. Imagine a warrior missing his 100b because Alpha is moving all around!! It’s horribad, really.

To be honest, I haven’t run CoE since last patch because I’m afraid that it’s gonna suck plus Charged Lodestones price has dropped like hell u.u

TL;DR: Watch Strifey guide, it it awesome! ^^

It’s easier than it was before, and before it was easy. He has an extremely obvious and predictable rotation which is easily dodgeable on each cycle, and if you have no means of getting endurance back faster than the stock regeneration speed and happen to waste dodges when they’re not needed, then you just have to come to grips with what damage you can sponge (the fire AoE up close is a good example) and what damage can be avoided without dodging at all (walking out of the fire/ice AoE if at range and only dodging earth spikes). Focusing on crystal prisons instantly is a given. too.

I’m quite willing to have some guildies rush me through to the end of a path and fight him solo to demonstrate his behaviour and rotation in greater detail. If anyone wants it, just ask. If there’s already a similiar video out there, then I guess it’s pointless, but it’s just a thought.

Since no one has mentioned it before. You don’t need to dodge to avoid a hit. Standing in place and just jumping on 3 is all you need to do to avoid most of his attacks.

OmniPotentes.4817:

Since no one has mentioned it before. You don’t need to dodge to avoid a hit. Standing in place and just jumping on 3 is all you need to do to avoid most of his attacks.

There’s probably a reason for that.
I tried 5 times jump both fire-attack and ice-attack and it worked 0 times. But not sure what’s your definition of “most” attacks.

Strifey.7215:

Just count 1-1thousand, 2-1thousand, then dodge.

Thank you so much for this advice. Tried it for the first time tonight and it worked brilliantly. I actually quite like Alpha now. Intense, but fun fight.

Morfedel.4165:

They did reduce his health, but his health isn’t the problem. Heck, I’ll even go so far as say how hard he hits isn’t rhe problem. The problem is there’s no breathing room to revive an ally during the fight.

if he hit less hard, or if a person trying to revive wasn’t being targeted every single time, then maybe it would be more forgivable.

This problem is in many Kitten dungeons, if you can’t ress your team you cant continue, this needs to be looked at in all dungeons…

Also if they haven’t moved the Way point closer in part 2 i cannot see how a team survives to beat said boss, not that it matters now with the way point nerf these dungeons have lost most of the fun and rewards are terrible..

alpha’s still stupid easy. Much nicer now that he doesn’t tank the shots like the hotw dogs anymore. Dungeon goes by so fast now.