Guild Wars 2

So in the season 2 story mission “Taimi and the Asura” (part of The Dragon’s reach part 2)

there is a inquest Veteran Mark I Golem that heals and buffs allies.

but it also heals and buffs itself…and thats my problem….it spams retaliation and protection on itself so it always has over 20 secounds of the stuff, doesnt drop below that.

so being a thief this is problematic as i’m literally killing myself.
i’ve tried using sword to steal the buff but it immediately rebuffs itself and i end up having to do a non stop attack, kite, shoot till i die. respawn. run to it and repeat till it dies.

there has got to be a better way? am i doing something wrong? or is the golem ment to be this unfair?

-i’ve tried this with my ranger and necromancer. both times the same. this golem kills without doing anything other than retaliating all my dmg with the insane buff spam.

Necromancer has the skill Corrupt Boon, does it hit the golem? Well of Corruption also.

Yeah, the golem can be a pain. But I didn’t have much trouble on my necro. Focus 5 is a boon strip, plus you have well of corruption and corrupt boon to strip boons. You can use flesh golem as a meat shield while you try to burst as much damage as you can. Use deathshroud often to stay alive.

I’ve not done it on a thief, but using Thieves Guild would probably help a bit if you start with that.

RoseofGilead.8907:

Yeah, the golem can be a pain. But I didn’t have much trouble on my necro. Focus 5 is a boon strip, plus you have well of corruption and corrupt boon to strip boons. You can use flesh golem as a meat shield while you try to burst as much damage as you can. Use deathshroud often to stay alive.

I’ve not done it on a thief, but using Thieves Guild would probably help a bit if you start with that.

just tried it and it does work.

but my thief and ranger are still failing miserably.

ranger takes 3-4 deaths(with heals and a sylvari hound heal) while thief….yeah that burst kills me before i can pop the heal.

i also got a warrior in the mission just now…..easier to stay alive with but alot slower to win cause i have to spend such long periods of time just kiting without attacking while health trickles back.

CC works wonders too. Ranger has pets and bows with decent interupts. Bring a friend if needed!

Thief can steal boons with S/D.

arenta, when you are fighting golems with a thief, you need to think outside the box.
Read closely because this may save your life.

Boon stealing is fine, but as you said, they reapply the boons very often. They squat and they start buffing. The same goes for the golems in CoE, the gong dredge, and a handful of bosses.

When you are pitted against monsters actively buffing themselves, think thief-like:
Thieves are the single profession with most interruption power in the game.

I tell you: just bring a pistol in your offhand. As a thief, you are nimble on your feet. If you know how to play, you won’t need to rely on stealth to survive. All you need to continue dispatching your enemy is to interrupt him in the right moment.

If you don’t fancy pistols, there’s other ways too, but you would need to play around with your build and utilities.

If you want a quick tutorial on how to do it, poke me in-game. I can show you how to survive without sitting in stealth too

Happy holidays!
Seal Axon

Seal.5964:

arenta, when you are fighting golems with a thief, you need to think outside the box.
Read closely because this may save your life.

Boon stealing is fine, but as you said, they reapply the boons very often. They squat and they start buffing. The same goes for the golems in CoE, the gong dredge, and a handful of bosses.

When you are pitted against monsters actively buffing themselves, think thief-like:
Thieves are the single profession with most interruption power in the game.

I tell you: just bring a pistol in your offhand. As a thief, you are nimble on your feet. If you know how to play, you won’t need to rely on stealth to survive. All you need to continue dispatching your enemy is to interrupt him in the right moment.

If you don’t fancy pistols, there’s other ways too, but you would need to play around with your build and utilities.

If you want a quick tutorial on how to do it, poke me in-game. I can show you how to survive without sitting in stealth too

Happy holidays!
Seal Axon

i using a pistol focused build =)

and yeah the daze skill is nice but is there a certain animation the golem does before it uses the retaliation buff or is it about timing it every like 4 secounds.

i’m trying again (idk why…just want to do a flawless run)
only changed by build to heal as much as possible in stealth while still critting and stealing hp.

nearly got it, but i still lose hp so fast.

seems the golem is ment for a party, not a single person run…

With golems, it’s usually a golem squats down on the ground and buffs everyone around itself. I can’t recall if the golems in that story do that, but chances are, they do. One will squat and buff all of them with retaliation. Focus fire on that one, interrupting him when he squats down.

There’s several ways to do this!

Get rid of their retaliation:
A. You can interrupt the Retaliation golem.
B. You can pull your target away from the rest (with Scorpion Wire), steal his boon, and kill them all one by one.

To survive meanwhile:
A. Put down a smoke screen on top of your target and work within.
B. Use Ambush, so you don’t get all the fire.
C. Use something other than pistol/pistol – better use melee weapons (I use D/D) for your main attack because they are more survivable.

To survive retaliation:
A. Rely more on condition damage.
B. Hit less times, but for more damage (no P/P Unloading – you’ll need a sword for that)

There’s more, always

it doesnt squat. i’m looking for an animation but i cant find one.

i dont want to change my build to condition dmg as my armor/weapons/ builds have always focused on either constant dmg or crit dmg.
changing to condition dmg would go against why i love thief…i’d play necro if i wanted condition.

i did try to hit less but for more dmg. got a 7k crit and killed myself….at least with p/p unload i can turn around and end it early to try to cut the dmg off…

Retaliation hits depending on the power of the target (so it is stronger on targets with Might, but Weakness does not change its damage at all), and ticks based on the number of hits you deal .

The best way would be to reduce all nonretaliation damage to zero by kiting, and using high damage single hit attacks, while healing when you reach 50% hp. One way is to use smokefield=>heartseeker=>backstab=>stealth heal=>backstab etc. the other is to use shortbow and dump skill 2 on the target generating retal from max range.

The two worst skills against retal are pistol whip and unload, which can kill you in one or two rotations.

arenta.2953:

RoseofGilead.8907:

Yeah, the golem can be a pain. But I didn’t have much trouble on my necro. Focus 5 is a boon strip, plus you have well of corruption and corrupt boon to strip boons. You can use flesh golem as a meat shield while you try to burst as much damage as you can. Use deathshroud often to stay alive.

I’ve not done it on a thief, but using Thieves Guild would probably help a bit if you start with that.

just tried it and it does work.

but my thief and ranger are still failing miserably.

ranger takes 3-4 deaths(with heals and a sylvari hound heal) while thief….yeah that burst kills me before i can pop the heal.

i also got a warrior in the mission just now…..easier to stay alive with but alot slower to win cause i have to spend such long periods of time just kiting without attacking while health trickles back.

Try using the devour pet with the ranger. If you have two, even better. For whatever reason the enemy/monsters really dislike devours & target them while paying little attention to the ranger. Might not stop a ranger dying, although it could cut down the amount of times the ranger dies.

Devourers draw aggro relatively effectively as they have the max toughness stat any pet can possess. That said they tank better for rangers who are positioned further away, melee rangers might still get aggro back.

On rangers it helps to have healing spring up, and firing your skills through it. Projectile finishers proc regen that heals the damage lost from retaliation in addition to the heal from the skill itself. Just don’t use the longbow AoE as it does a lot of weak hits – a standard recipe of death by retaliation.

WvW zergs are known to kill zerk LB rangers by area retaliation alone in a single use of that skill.