Guild Wars 2

Tien.3865:

I seem to be in the minority here but I actually enjoyed the fight. The first phase with the tentacles was easy enough to figure out; however, I quickly died in the second phase because I was running all over the place. That was the only time I died though. After respawning, I played much more carefully and was able to figure out the mechanics of the fight on the go. As a zerker greatsword warrior, Whirlwind Attack helped me tremendously in avoiding damage. I killed the dragon within two burn phases.

I also managed to get through the entirety of the fight without stability, so I wouldn’t say it’s a must-have. You definitely need a stun break though.

Some tips:
- When the explosive plant bulb things appear, you’ll notice that they’re always in pairs and are attached to each other by a vine. If you run between the bulbs, straight through the middle of this vine, you will trigger both bulbs to explode without being knocked back/damaged. This is an easy way to clear the bulbs so you can navigate the room more safely.

- It’s possible to light the fires without relying on Braham’s stability bubble. Since the dragon’s paw attack (the big AOE circle that can interrupt your cast) has a cooldown, you just have to “bait” the dragon into using it, and then quickly run and light the nearest fire. You can still be interrupted by the dragon’s other attacks, though I’m not sure if the crumbling ground attack specifically targets the player though.

I was fairly fired up about the difficulty of getting the ring of fire lit when I finished it. I was using a zerk warrior with greatsword, solo. I didn’t use utility stability or figure out how to kill the shadows. What was difficult about it was the period of time I was waiting for the fire to be launched over the wall. I counted about 7 seconds of standing and avoiding waiting for the fire. If it were even 2 seconds sooner on the timer I probably would have completed it about an hour sooner. So, it is doable. But, since I now know that the shadows have a vulnerability, that changes everything. What I did with 5 of the 7 seconds was went around and just charged the bulbs so to explode them so that when the fire was finally available, I had a straight run.

So in short, stay in the fire and use a projectile to kill the shadow then go light the ring and when your waiting on your fire reinforcements discharge the bulbs.

I think the npcs outside the ring should drop some hints if you’ve died a few times.

I thought this boss enjoyable compared to the ones from previous chapters. The second phase did give me some trouble, but once I figured out I was supposed to take out the shadow minions the rest of the fight was pretty straightforward.

That said, ANet needs to tone down the AOE spam for their boss fights. It’s not fun having to run around to avoid damage while trying to figure out the fight’s mechanics at the same time. Not all classes have reliable speed boosts or infinite dodges.

Ok, after finally getting to this a second time (I failed earlier because had to do some errands), the hints are there but you have to pay attention because it’s really REALLY easy to get caught in the chaos of the moment.

I kept failing the 4th part of the fight. I assumed it was exactly like the second phase.
Something was putting out the fires. What you need to do is stated in this thread so I won’t repeat it.

I believe it’s Kasmeer that states something about the Shadow and it putting out the fires. I think it’s:

“I’m sensing something. the Shadow is being drawn to the divine fires”.

She only states it once however, and I think Anet should make her repeat it after the shadow respawns because it’s easy to miss the first time when you’re running around, dodging, keeping your health up, dodging….and dodging :-p

I liked the fight well enough, mainly because it initially seemed frustratingly hard to the point where I was cursing at the dragon, but then over time the mechanics “clicked” and it became… maybe not a breeze, but a lot more manageable. The feeling of solving a puzzle or something can be rewarding.

Anyandrell.6238:

Xiahou Mao.9701:

Braham will toss a protective shield onto the cogs periodically, which will grant you Stability if you’re a class that doesn’t have it. Beyond that, and assuming no sources of self-Stability, try to light the fire shortly after the dragon tries a paw attack. That should give you enough time to do it while the dragon does its other attacks.

Braham’s shield didn’t seem to have any stability effect. I was getting interrupted all the same even with it on.

Yeah, this seemed to be bugged. Hint to all elementalists: Take Arcane Shield, makes this part 100 times easier.

I solo’d this on my first pass through, but it was incredibly annoying, cost me a repair canister (almost 2), and took forever. I play thief exclusively. I had to retrait to get this done. None of my traits was really worth anything, but the Acro line, signet of agility, and Fleet of Foot gave me a fighting chance. If you have a chance to equip before hand, consider going full PTV or TVC.

Chief among the obstacles was the camera, which is completely obscured by the “walls” of the circle of plants and the divine fires if you got your camera angle caught behind them. I died multiple times this way because you can’t see the color of the AoE fields when your vision is blocked. Even 1 or 2 seconds of blockage could get you locked into a cycle of AoE spams.

Another significant obstacle was the targeting of the dragon (check your settings before you start, turn auto target off or turn promote on). I probably did 2 or 3 more cycles of this than were necessary because the smotherers were soaking up damage instead of the dragon.

There appears to be some randomness when you respawn from the checkpoint. On several occasions, I didn’t even have time to react before getting caught in a chain of AoE spam. Running the rest of it with 3k health left no margin for error and, realistically, you’re going to take some damage no matter what. When that didn’t happen, I had a better shot of at least getting clear of the spam long enough to get my bearings and try to figure things out.

There is so much AoE spam that getting a handle on the mechanics is difficult. As mentioned, you can keep the smotherers from killing your progress, but if you can’t get to the divine fire, you can’t kill them either. I watched several passes of the fire happen in thick fields of AoE spam. Don’t know what the issue was, but there was simply no way to get at the fire field.

There were many times that I would try to light a fire, but no matter what, the area was targeted over and over and over with AoEs. It’s possible that you’re supposed to move in a particular order or there is some particular indicator of which one you should be working on. It might be that the falling rocks (or whatever they are) may be an indicator of where you should be placing yourself (perpendicular to its line?).

There were sometimes when the field(s?) that blow you into the air actually blow you straight up and you land on your feet. Don’t know how I managed to do that.

Overall, probably my single most hated encounter in this game. There’s nothing I hate more than being a victim of that kitten camera except deliberately confusing and overwhelming scenarios designed to sell new monitors (because you just punched through yours). Even the crystal thing of the last one, which was frustrating to solo, didn’t come close to being as aggravating.

By the way, why does the NPC tell you to ignore the minions? That seemed like deliberately misleading advice. Perhaps I missed something?

RIP mesmers and our crappy stability

Matisse.9356:

On the bright side… if you want challenging content, go all in on thief… and prepare for a lesson on the meaning of stability… or the lack thereof…

Tip: Get a group as a thief (or any class for that matter) – it is much easier that way.

As I have mentioned in previous posts, with all due respect and love for the game – QA really needs some love at Anet, as the final boss fight was a rather frustrating experience – at least from a thief’s point of view.

Beat it on my thief first time through, no deaths. I knew nothing of the fight, but was expecting trouble so I went in wearing full pvt with zerker weapons, and a 2/0/0/6/6 build. stayed in shortbow for all but the burn phase. S/D for that. HiS for heal, SS, and the power and crit signets. Ran dagger storm for elite.

Lowest I got was about 30% when I messed up and bounded into an exploding plant with cooldowns ticking. Between Brahm’s bubbles, dagger storm stability, and shadowstep (it doesn’t break the casts so you can treat it like a pvp stomp) I had no trouble getting the fires lit. Got lucky and happened to kill a smotherer accidentally early, so I got that mechanic right away.

I did get knocked down a couple of times but never took unrecoverable damage, and I never used the Crit signet’s endurance return, though there were probably times I should have. Used the shortbow evade when I had no dodges left. Used bow step a time or two to correct my positioning and get to the fires more quickly.

Had to do three burn phases to beat it. Basically, stood on top of him, blew DS if it was off cooldown, and spammed flanking strike when I had no stab. Rode out knockdowns if I had no counters.

Just finished soloing all of its achievements, and it’s a pretty fun fight. At least it is for an Ele, though I don’t see it being all that different for other classes. It just might take longer to kill some things, increasing the chances of getting hit by a rock.

The achievements were frustrating, but in a fair way. I managed to get the fight down to an art, consistently downing it in about 5-7 mins. All it takes is some pattern recognition and decision making.

I beat it just fine but as with most of the bosses from this season it brought a feeling of relief rather than a sense of satisfaction.

I have this weird notion that a “boss fight” should involve you fighting a boss, not running an obstacle course to spawn a punching bag.

Seriously, can we stop fighting the darn floor? I’m beginning to think there are no “Bosses” in GW2. Just off switches for aoe with a life bar.

Due to that frustrating mechanic i deleted all my characters and the game

gl guys

Point of No Return? More like No Point of Returning if you wanna face the boss solo.

The mechanic to light one part of the wall takes way too long and I end up taking off all my armour as it’s useless. I die far too often and for no good reason than utterly stupid mechanics. Then a lag spike hits me. Basically while I’m standing there I’m dragon-fodder. Nothing more than target practice for it. Meanwhile the smothering things undo all your hard work and the whole exercise becomes pointless if you’re going solo.

This is how I’ve done ALL my LS stuff, and this is the only part I have REAL issues with.

I was able to finish it on my elementalist by, basically, ignoring the “protection”. Signet of air for faster movement. Waiting until two “underground” circles pop, then run to the cog to light it up. Then run in circles, killing shades if they spawn, then again, wait for two underground circles, etc. Fact that shades die with one hit if you have light helps Though I agree, it is not obvious, and I hear that phrase that shades are “drawn to the fires” but it didn’t make any sense. “They’re not drawn to the fire pool she threw, they crawl away from it?”. Also wish the divine fire was thrown more often — I had a few cases where shades are there but there’s no fire

Very long, very annoying, but finally did it

Sigh. This is why we will never have anything remotely close to challenging content. it seems that anything that has a small essence of being a challenge is considered poorly designed or broken. When anything has zero challenge it is also called broken and poorly designed.

It’s not difficult to avoid all damage if you pay attention to what is going on and learn the mechanics. The enemies that smother the flames can be one-shotted when you get the buff. They don’t rapidly respawn so you alternate between killing them and setting up the flame walls. The big orange circles are predictable and you can run out of them. You don’t really need to dodge. The shrub bombs actually trigger when run across the vines between them. If you’re in the middle of the vine, you take no damage from the AoE as it’s out of range.

It took me 4 deaths and some frustration but I finally got it.

I never realised I could attack the shadow things, and didn’t even realise how to get Divine Fire to start with. Should be a lot easier now I know the mechanics.

It also didn’t help that when playing on my US account, my heals and elites cancel 70% of the time.

I didn’t realize you could kill the smothering whatevers if you had the flame on you, that would certainly make it easier.

What really ticked me off was that I lost connection with server, re-connected and was still in the party but not able to join them in the story. I could enter the story all over by myself, while still in the party, but not actually together…

I’m still confused about the exploding onions. Is there a time limit on how fast you need to trigger them? They seemed to explode on their own, making me fail the achievement.

This Boss is not impossible, but it’s just another example of Anet, imho, appealing to the hack-and-slash mentatility. I have yet to see a major boss with an achilles heel and don’t expect Anet to ever offer one

My main gripe is that this boss, like so many others, requires excellent reaction time to be able to fight and dodge effectively. If your reaction time is slowed by disability or age, then you’re in for a rough time.

I’m in the slowed-by-age category and for many bosses, I end up asking guildmates to accompany me. Not my first choice, but at least I get it done.

Donari.5237:

I was losing badly ’til I checked the forums and got the hint that you can one-shot the shadow things if you have the Fire. So hop in the fire, toss an arrow or bullet or whatever at the shadow thing, then get to a cog to light the fire, preferably one Braham has a blue dome over. Try to be at good health before you channel the lighting in case the Shadow popcorns you. The little shadows move very slow so you have time to kill them (you lose the Fire when you shoot them, so you want to be standing in it to immediately get it back).

Before I learned that I got down to losing my doublet from all the dying. After, I got to the attack-Shadow phase within a minute easy.

^ THIS EXACTLY

I did notice the shadows right away, but i was too busy trying to dodge the dragon’s attacks (which required my full concentration, since i’m not very good at dodging) and light the fires, to have the time to think that maybe i should have killed the shadows instead. If i didn’t come here to seek help out of frustration after countless deaths, i would probably be still there, in that cavern, completely naked and fighting a hopeless battle with no chances of winning.

A comment on grouping for it: Two of my guildies went in together; I was listening on Mumble and ready to go help if they wanted, as I managed to complete it before them (a first for me). They reported a bug/feature where if the tagalong died she couldn’t use the shortcut mote to rejoin, so the instance creator had to also die and they had to redo the whole thing.

Has anyone else had that issue?

The Great Al.2546:

Anyandrell.6238:

Xiahou Mao.9701:

Braham will toss a protective shield onto the cogs periodically, which will grant you Stability if you’re a class that doesn’t have it. Beyond that, and assuming no sources of self-Stability, try to light the fire shortly after the dragon tries a paw attack. That should give you enough time to do it while the dragon does its other attacks.

Braham’s shield didn’t seem to have any stability effect. I was getting interrupted all the same even with it on.

Yeah, this seemed to be bugged. Hint to all elementalists: Take Arcane Shield, makes this part 100 times easier.

The dragon has two types of AoE attacks during that part. One of them is the paw slam, which stability does work on. The other is an arm thrust that launches you in the air even if you do have stability. You can block this attack, or you can dodge roll out of it; it’s easy to tell apart from the other attack since the orange warning indicator is MUCH smaller.

gvaughn.4163:

RIP mesmers and our crappy stability

I’ve only done this fight twice, both times as a mesmer. And while I don’t think that the fight is as hard as some people make it out to be, mesmers are actually amazing at surviving this particular fight, perhaps to the point that the designers could almost slap an “all worn armour has zero Defence” debuff on you without it becoming too difficult.

I am not a skilled GW2 player by any stretch of the imagination, but even so, I could easily outheal anything that hit me using Mantra of Recovery with the right traits; and with condi removal covered via Mender’s Purity, I could cram far more anti-CC than the fight actually requires into my utility skill slots.

sadatoni.6524:

My thief gets smashed all to smitherenes while lighting the fires. I’m extremely frustrated.

I thief solo’d it, but had to use the Stability from Dagger Storm, Shadowstep out-back-in stomp trick, and the shield from Braham to do it.

And I didn’t know until now how to actually kill those Smother guys. That would have made it a lot easier.

It took me awhile, but I did finish it solo with my hunter. I generally play lb/sb ,but I wasn’t getting anywhere. So I switched to sb/ warhorn , axe and put my fern hound on passive also traded healing spring for heal as one. Died a bit but it’s done.

I actually really like the fight and thought it was a good balance difficulty wise. Some people might need to load one or two different skills, change their traits a bit or put on gear that isn’t just full zerker, but is that really so bad? I mean this is the final boss of S2 and the champion of an elder dragon, surely the fight shouldn’t be just the difficulty of some random terragriff.

I will say this: if you manage to do rock dodger the legit way, I tip my hat to you: you are THE MAN (or woman).

My group tried for a while, then we started doing the mesmer portal strategy for one person at a time. In the end we were pretty good (2 fights, 1 was outside) in the fight itself, but if anyone wants to call us cheaters or something, feel free, it just was a lot better than endless frustration with the legit way. (also did the exploding mushroom thing the same way)

Traveller.7496:

I will say this: if you manage to do rock dodger the legit way, I tip my hat to you: you are THE MAN (or woman).

My group tried for a while, then we started doing the mesmer portal strategy for one person at a time. In the end we were pretty good (2 fights, 1 was outside) in the fight itself, but if anyone wants to call us cheaters or something, feel free, it just was a lot better than endless frustration with the legit way. (also did the exploding mushroom thing the same way)

Did that for someone last night. We did five attempts and one guy still kept messing up so we resorted to that as some of us needed to go.

this was hard.

died twice fumbling around solo on my first runthrough.

however, while getting rock dodger (legit) (engi, only elixir s) (fml)… i died another 2 times in about 20 tries.

so its mostly a mechanics barrier, in that your thrown into the pit with no previous introduction/tutorial and you have to figure out what to do while fighting under really high pressure.

i enjoyed overcoming it, as it always feels good to complete a challenge. but this maybe needed some better tutorialing, like glints lair.

The mechanics for this fight were fine. Once you learn the tells and patterns, it because easy mode. The complainers are the ones who are just too lazy to fight within the boss/area mechanics. I get the feeling that some players would rather have the dragon stay stationary, and not attack back <cough>Zhaitan<cough>.

Ayrilana.1396:

~Snip~

It’s not difficult to avoid all damage if you pay attention to what is going on and learn the mechanics. The enemies that smother the flames can be one-shotted when you get the buff. They don’t rapidly respawn so you alternate between killing them and setting up the flame walls. The big orange circles are predictable and you can run out of them. You don’t really need to dodge. The shrub bombs actually trigger when run across the vines between them. If you’re in the middle of the vine, you take no damage from the AoE as it’s out of range.

Perhaps this would be true, if not for the fact that on occasion you can have up to 15(yes, fifteen)or more of the shrub bombs cluttering up the entire circle, with shrubs right on top of the vine connecting two other shrubs…leaving no room for movement. Also, why have the paw come at you from the front and not behind, though now that I know it will hit me from the front I can attempt to dodge back from it(as opposed to running straight into it). Or having three orange circles all in a row, overlapping each other like the Olympic rings, a little hard to run out of that now isn’t? Or having a shadow spawn right after you just killed one? You need to remember most of that stuff is random and not scripted…so one person might get an “easy” instance and someone else could get a “ridiculously hard” instance.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

The mechanics for this fight were fine. Once you learn the tells and patterns, it because easy mode. The complainers are the ones who are just too lazy to fight within the boss/area mechanics. I get the feeling that some players would rather have the dragon stay stationary, and not attack back <cough>Zhaitan<cough>.

Why don’t you step off your high horse for a moment and consider those not quite as skilled as you, or the “lazy” players. Is it feasible to expect that every problem is a L2P issue?

Ayrilana.1396:

Sigh. This is why we will never have anything remotely close to challenging content.

It’s not challenging. Nowhere in that fight i have ever came close to being downed. I don’t think i even dropped below half my hp once.
So? The fight was not fun. It was practically constant cc/aoe spam that, instead of actually being a threat (bunker guardians ftw), just slowed everything down to a crawl.
Boring and irritating.

Traveller.7496:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

The mechanics for this fight were fine. Once you learn the tells and patterns, it because easy mode. The complainers are the ones who are just too lazy to fight within the boss/area mechanics. I get the feeling that some players would rather have the dragon stay stationary, and not attack back <cough>Zhaitan<cough>.

Why don’t you step off your high horse for a moment and consider those not quite as skilled as you, or the “lazy” players. Is it feasible to expect that every problem is a L2P issue?

It’s not about me being on a high horse mate. It’s all about players demanding mindlessly easy content. Once you learn to play this Living Story, it get’s pretty easy. The one major factor here is the effort it takes to pay attention and play within the mechanics.

Breckmoney.6387:

I actually really like the fight and thought it was a good balance difficulty wise. Some people might need to load one or two different skills, change their traits a bit or put on gear that isn’t just full zerker, but is that really so bad? I mean this is the final boss of S2 and the champion of an elder dragon, surely the fight shouldn’t be just the difficulty of some random terragriff.

Swapping in some pieces from my soldier set was actually one of the first things I tried after the first couple of failures. I don’t think it’s actually helpful at all.

Different people have different perspectives. Earlier in this thread, you’ll find someone mentioning that they had to ‘retrait’, as if shuffling a few trait points was some massive step and not something you consider as a matter of course if content starts giving you trouble.

GW2 is always going to be in a weird situation as far as bosses are concerned — this particular boss was actually simultaneously far too hard and far too easy. It was far easier than the occasion, level, and significance of the fight warranted for a boss, yet it was still far too hard, because this is the game which puts high-level characters up against bosses like the Gatekeeper from “A Light in the Darkness” — and we won’t even talk about the thrilling and epic conclusion to the personal and dungeon storylines.

Its all about pattern recognition. One head-out-attack, two fist-bumps, time for flaming a wall while the four rocks appear…. bombing plants, kill shadow, ….. and again. That’s all. Just try to watch out for his attack pattern and get your timing right. Although it’s easier with some classes (ele’s mist form can evade the attacks while flaming a wall without interrupting the process).

Main tip that’s already been said – Braham gives shield bubbles so you can light the fields. Use them wisely.

gvaughn.4163:

RIP mesmers and our crappy stability

Of my classes used mesmer first and it sailed through easily the others… have all…found more problematic.

Note: I did not read every post before mine, so somebody may have already said this.

It is entirely possible to light the vines on fire without paying attention to the shield or using stability (though some sort of speed boost is helpful – I used the power shoes engi trait). Its just a matter of timing and positioning. The boss does 2 paw slams in a row. You want the second one to not be covering your targeted fire spot. As soon as the red circle appears, walk out of it and light the fire. By starting the ignition while the second red circle is up, you’ll have enough time to light it, with a couple seconds to spare. Of course, also kill the little shadow demon things as soon as you spot it (get the holy fire buff to kill it).

I’ve actually been enjoying most of the boss fights ANet has been putting out this season. Its nice to have some actual mechanics besides just spamming a dps rotation.

Not “much” of a problem as long as you move to the “protected” fire starter— even the paw attacks can’t hurt there!!—————just don’t try lighting fires at the “open” sites—-you’ll quickly discover how the fly feels!!
Yes, it took a couple of minutes to understand the mechanics———————so look first, act second!!

Copy-paste from the other thread (delete if merged :P)

- Dragon attacks don’t need to be dodged, they can be easily outrun, not wasting dodges or other defensive resources. A 25% movespeed signet/trait is more than enough to feel confortable.
With a 25% speed increase you can easily get out of claw attack AoEs (they have some dust animation floating over them) even if you were standing still before the orange circle appeared. Bite attacks (no dust animation) are a bit faster, so if you were standing still your reaction time might not be enough to avoid them just by running and a dodge roll could be useful.

- Each pair of bombs is connected by plant wires at ground level. Passing over those wires detonate the bombs, which have not enough range to reach the middle part of the wire.
If bombs are bothering you, consider getting rid of some (or all) of them, forcing detonation by crossing the wire at its middle part.

- In order to kill the shadow things you just need to have the flame buff on yourself. (they’ll be oneshoted by any of your attacks and you’ll lost the buff). Bring some ranged attack and kill them while you’re on top or close to the buff source so you can recharge it asap.

- This is probably the most important part: dragon attacks follow a FIXED PATTERN, which consists on CLAW-CLAW-ROCKS-BITE.
The rock attack is slow enough to allow a full charge of a flamewall and doesn’t cc if it happens to hit you (just deals a bit of damage and inflicts a small cripple). If you don’t have stability and don’t want to rely on Braham bubbles, all you need to do is start channeling right after the second claw attack.
Position yourself near a channeling spot (but far enough so it doesn’t get covered by the AoE) right before the second claw attacks and move/dodge out of the orange circle (towards the spot, obviously) when it appears. You might want a dodge roll to easily avoid any bite damage when the channel ends.
IF bombs spawned or naturally exploded during the pattern, then there will be an additional rock attack right after the bite which can also be used for safe channeling.

- If you’re going solo for the rock-dodger achievement, the previous tactic might not be the best since you’ll channeling right before the rock attack, which could randomly (afaik) start right on top on you.
Stability channel during claw attacks is probably the best approach if you have access to the boon.
Remember that claws will happen after the bite (which goes through stability) only if bombs have not spawned or naturally exploded during the previous pattern cycle. Otherwise, there will be an additional rock attack right after the bite that might trigger on top of you, so watch for it before you start the channel.

Thanathos.2063:

Its all about pattern recognition. One head-out-attack, two fist-bumps, time for flaming a wall while the four rocks appear…. bombing plants, kill shadow, ….. and again. That’s all. Just try to watch out for his attack pattern and get your timing right. Although it’s easier with some classes (ele’s mist form can evade the attacks while flaming a wall without interrupting the process).

There is no flipping pattern, you just imagined it in your head…the so-called pattern is actually completely RNG, so keep dreaming you saw a pattern.

Zaklex.6308:

Thanathos.2063:

Its all about pattern recognition. One head-out-attack, two fist-bumps, time for flaming a wall while the four rocks appear…. bombing plants, kill shadow, ….. and again. That’s all. Just try to watch out for his attack pattern and get your timing right. Although it’s easier with some classes (ele’s mist form can evade the attacks while flaming a wall without interrupting the process).

There is no flipping pattern, you just imagined it in your head…the so-called pattern is actually completely RNG, so keep dreaming you saw a pattern.

You sure? I vaguely remember a pattern. The one thing that I know for certain is that both claw attacks occur one after another.

i have try the 3 tasks in the arena about 10 times but the shield protect from Braham is terrible get killed with shield like hell and healing is impossible also takes to long because hit me faster so then i’m dead and lost all mine 3 tasks so i haat when i must fight alone when it is impossible to do it solo and when it’s easy then need get party so for me i like and want to have party in the arena

I’ll throw in my experiences with this one. Whee.

First time through, I was playing my NPE ele (scepter/dagger), who I’ve taken through every episode of this season. I went in with a guildie who was playing a warrior (I didn’t notice what weapons). It was rough going. My ele was constantly rolling out of one bad thing and into another, blah blah, kitten Jim, I’m an ele, not a billiard ball. Oh, we gotta do it all again? Of course we do. Grumble grumble hokey pokey, etc. etc., and we almost gave up, but then woo hoo, somehow we lit all the fires and burned that bad dragon down.

Next day I decided to go in solo with my warrior (axe/mace|longbow), armed with knowledge gleaned from this thread. Killed that critter thingee ASAP every time it popped up, ran between the explodey things whenever possible, and, never mind being interrupted almost every single time when lighting the fires (and having to hit F over and over to get the thing to work a couple of times), I managed to get through it in (what felt like) less time than it took for me and my guildie to get through it.

I’ll probably run through it a few more times later, most likely with different characters. To heck with the rinse/repeat on once character achievements. /e smh

Anyway, here be a big THANKEE for the helpful information presented in this thread.

Beat it first try full zerk solo no deaths no stability. If you’re having issues:
1. Make sure you understand the mechanics.
2. Make sure you are wearing armor and a weapon.
3. Make sure you know how to dodge.
4. Make sure you’re using traits. I know lots of people probably aren’t thanks to trait update, so maybe take some time to unlock before this fight. Trait panel can be accessed by pressing ‘H.’
5. Get gud son.

evilunderling.9265:

Different people have different perspectives. Earlier in this thread, you’ll find someone mentioning that they had to ‘retrait’, as if shuffling a few trait points was some massive step and not something you consider as a matter of course if content starts giving you trouble.

I specifically mentioned retraiting so that others who read the thread will have as much information as possible for solving their problem. The “as if” part of your statement is your imagination.

I don’t consider content that requires trial and error “challenging.” Test my skills, not my patience.

Ayrilana.1396:

Zaklex.6308:

Thanathos.2063:

Its all about pattern recognition. One head-out-attack, two fist-bumps, time for flaming a wall while the four rocks appear…. bombing plants, kill shadow, ….. and again. That’s all. Just try to watch out for his attack pattern and get your timing right. Although it’s easier with some classes (ele’s mist form can evade the attacks while flaming a wall without interrupting the process).

There is no flipping pattern, you just imagined it in your head…the so-called pattern is actually completely RNG, so keep dreaming you saw a pattern.

You sure? I vaguely remember a pattern. The one thing that I know for certain is that both claw attacks occur one after another.

Absolutely positive, and I’m even pretty sure you’re wrong about the claw attacks as well, as I’ve seen and been attacked by only ONE. How would I know that, because if it was TWO, I wouldn’t be able to get up and run away after one. I’ll pay closer attention next time I’m not saying it’s an impossible encounter obviously, since many probably most have done it, and I wouldn’t care for them to change it. Just saying if you lack patience and sometimes your keys don’t respond, or mouse click(which I almost exclusively use, other than looting and movement) well, then you can be in big trouble. I’ve done the first circle just fine, it’s when the shadows start popping up…I’ll keep trying a few more times, but I don’t really care since I’m not even going for the Lumi armor or achievements…and if I don’t finish the story, no big deal either.

Zaklex.6308:

Ayrilana.1396:

Zaklex.6308:

Thanathos.2063:

Its all about pattern recognition. One head-out-attack, two fist-bumps, time for flaming a wall while the four rocks appear…. bombing plants, kill shadow, ….. and again. That’s all. Just try to watch out for his attack pattern and get your timing right. Although it’s easier with some classes (ele’s mist form can evade the attacks while flaming a wall without interrupting the process).

There is no flipping pattern, you just imagined it in your head…the so-called pattern is actually completely RNG, so keep dreaming you saw a pattern.

You sure? I vaguely remember a pattern. The one thing that I know for certain is that both claw attacks occur one after another.

Absolutely positive, and I’m even pretty sure you’re wrong about the claw attacks as well, as I’ve seen and been attacked by only ONE. How would I know that, because if it was TWO, I wouldn’t be able to get up and run away after one. I’ll pay closer attention next time I’m not saying it’s an impossible encounter obviously, since many probably most have done it, and I wouldn’t care for them to change it. Just saying if you lack patience and sometimes your keys don’t respond, or mouse click(which I almost exclusively use, other than looting and movement) well, then you can be big trouble. I’ve done the first circle just fine, it’s when the shadows start popping up…I’ll keep trying a few more times, but I don’t really care since I’m not even going for the Lumi armor or achievements…and if I don’t finish the story, no big deal either.

I’ll run it a few more times. I’ve done it about 8 times and always saw the same sequence of attacks.

I am glad to see I’m not the only one who (kind of) enjoyed this boss, although I only beat him after completely shredding every stitch of armour as I was too dense to notice the little kitten smotherer at first! After noticing him and seeing that I could kill him in one shot, I then got frustrated when he would go invulnerable and it took me a while to realize I had to be infused with whatever it was I had to be infused with.

Honestly, I’d far prefer to see more stuff with quirky mechanics that I get to figure out on the fly than more “is it’s name in red? kill it” material.