Guild Wars 2

The first time i did the dungeon, i noticed how easy it was, and i figured it may be soloable. Then i got to the chest and realized that pieces of Mad King gear were not guaranteed, as they were in the tower. Then began the speed runs.

Skip to a few days and dozens of runs later, and i figured “kitten it. i’m not getting these drops anyway, so the time is now.”

I swapped out half of my gear (mix of prec/tough/cond, including some actual rabid pieces) for cleric’s gear and went in. I didn’t change my usual weapon/utility set, although i did swap trait for protection on wells.

Obviously, the best way to start would be to stand up top, wait out the emote phase, and pull the king rather than dealing with smaller mobs.

I used the mausoleum up top to protect myself from falling off when feared. I kept line of sight on the king when possible, and i otherwise just dodged pumpkins and laid ground effects to whittle him down.

Build?
I also have Clerics Gear and thought about padding it with Shamans weapons and Acessoires!

After around a third of his health was missing, he dropped down to the middle floor. I cleaned up the mobs up top by pulling a couple to me at first, until i had a clear spot at the bottom of the chain.

Then i pulled half of the remnant and clustered them using a mausoleum. Repeat for the other half behind the tree.

As much as i was spamming abilities, confusion was a real threat in the encounter. Upon dropping to the second floor, i picked my preferred terrain and pulled the nearby spiders, clustered them, and killed them.

I picked a spot that had something to hide behind, because his sword slash sends shockwaves and did solid damage. Once or twice i had to drop elite prematurely to heal, because he got a little spammy with it at times.

Sadly, i didn’t get many good screenshots during this stage, because we moved around a lot, and i had spiders adding occasionally. Basically though, i’d just dodge as much as able and lay as much damage as possible, trying to stay in range for staff skills #2 and #4, and catching the protection from the wells i was dropping.

If i had health to spare, i’d take a pumpkin shot on the chance it transformed me. It turns out the transformation strips your weapon and all traits, but it allowed a free use of heal/utility skills. This was pretty useful for speeding the fight.

On the bottom floor, fears became the largest threat. I had no cover here, and i was downed twice, but using scarecrows to recover kept me from dying. Cycling lich skills effectively (start with #4 immediately to ensure it’s up again just before lich form wears) helped speed the fight too. Here you can see me healing my temporary allies to keep them in the fight longer.

I just had to be careful to either stay out of the rings or position myself so that the fear wouldn’t run me off the edge when scarecrows died. I would either use life siphon to kill them at range, or — if the mad king was close enough — i’d just include them in my marks and kill them at range.

Overall, i’m pleased with necromancer in PvE (my primary mode of play). The fight was easy, if a bit long. Perhaps if i’d kept on all my damage gear, it would have been faster and more challenging. Still, i think playing it safe is the way to go for solo, if you really want to avoid riding waypoints hard.

I won, and i was showered with drops for my efforts.

Traits are shown; yes, i build defensively. Weapon was Silence (exotic staff) almost exclusively. Stats (using the alternate gear) follow:

Attack 2,358
Power 1,247
Weapon damage 1,111
Cond damage 794
Critical rate 26%
Critical mod 4
Armor 2,321
Toughness 1,534
Defense 787
Health 22,292
Healing power 508

It should be said that my gear is far from the best, and i’m still swapping pieces out. I’ll eventually have a full cleric set and a full rabid set to alternate as needed, although this was a mix of the two with some other random stuff (berserker, rampager, shaman) thrown in on various slots.

All in all, most of us could have done this. Most of us can do similar, and perhaps we’ll see more attempts at big targets. I’m thinking of trying to solo a dungeon, if i can find one that seems viable.

its pretty easy to solo mad king, it just takes a lot longer then grouped so its not efficient.

My full Berserker gear Guardian did it solo too. I’m pretty sure it was easier than it would have been with my Necro.

Nice job! Wish you would have been rewarded for the effort with a little better in the drops department, but overall it’s always fun to solo something you’re not supposed to solo.

Impressive, however, you’re probably better off farming the cursed shore. 7-10 rares an hour consistently with Magic find gear would probably be more profitable.

That’s if Magic find gear worked. Ran cursed shore for 2 hours yesterday with 3% base magic find on all my gear except my staff, superior pirate runes in 5 pieces of gear for 25% MF and 1 yellow pirate rune in the last piece for an additional 7%. All my accessories have 3% base and +3% MF on upgrades. On top of that, I kept up my Omnomberry bars the entire run. Didn’t get one yellow drop.

Wow Daimius that is sad to hear actually I have much better luck on my guardian who i have a very similar setup with all magic find gear, using foods, and even guild banners and I get at least 1 one a hour and normally more. Still I have never seen 1 exotic from a drop or chest though.

Hehe funny thing you mentioned about soloing it. I vent in thinking it was a solo dungeon and killed him. It was jut a matter of using LOS

Daimius.7128:

That’s if Magic find gear worked. Ran cursed shore for 2 hours yesterday with 3% base magic find on all my gear except my staff, superior pirate runes in 5 pieces of gear for 25% MF and 1 yellow pirate rune in the last piece for an additional 7%. All my accessories have 3% base and +3% MF on upgrades. On top of that, I kept up my Omnomberry bars the entire run. Didn’t get one yellow drop.

Wasn’t there a bug with kills from condition damage and magic find. Pretty sure I read it on forum somewhere.

LOL you have the same trait build I have.

And GG on soloing that guy, I haven’t tried myself.

Daimius.7128:

That’s if Magic find gear worked. Ran cursed shore for 2 hours yesterday with 3% base magic find on all my gear except my staff, superior pirate runes in 5 pieces of gear for 25% MF and 1 yellow pirate rune in the last piece for an additional 7%. All my accessories have 3% base and +3% MF on upgrades. On top of that, I kept up my Omnomberry bars the entire run. Didn’t get one yellow drop.

It works, my mesmer has magic find gear and I run around the Orr, granted the yellow drops don’t come down like rain but I’ve gotten a few each time I log in. Don’t spend all day doing it though or you’ll hit the dreaded DR.

Teknobug.3782:

Daimius.7128:

That’s if Magic find gear worked. Ran cursed shore for 2 hours yesterday with 3% base magic find on all my gear except my staff, superior pirate runes in 5 pieces of gear for 25% MF and 1 yellow pirate rune in the last piece for an additional 7%. All my accessories have 3% base and +3% MF on upgrades. On top of that, I kept up my Omnomberry bars the entire run. Didn’t get one yellow drop.

It works, my mesmer has magic find gear and I run around the Orr, granted the yellow drops don’t come down like rain but I’ve gotten a few each time I log in. Don’t spend all day doing it though or you’ll hit the dreaded DR.

Well I usually keep moving so that I don’t get DR from staying in one place too long. But even last night, I ran Malachor’s Leap for over an hour with food buffs and still didn’t see anything higher than a green drop. I have recently changed from a great sword to a staff because it had better stats. I’ll try flipping back to the great sword tonight and seeing if that has any affect on my drops. If Rizach is correct and condition damage + MF = bugged loot, then that could change it since the staff causes condition damage whereas the greatsword does not.

Also, thanks for the tip Rizach.

Staff. Condition/Toughness for gear. Undead Runes. 30/20/20/0/0 traits.
Unstoppable Necro.

I solo-d Mad King in under 25 minutes. The first time I did it, I kept trying to do emotes thinking it would make the mobs despawn. When he finally came down, I realized that was stupid and it was not bugged. But, since I am an invincible condition/toughness necro, it didn’t matter.

Target Thorn, stack 20 bleeds on him (thats right, I can solo 20 bleeds and maintain it through the entire fight), poison and then Epidemic. All the other mobs died instantly and then I just waited for him to bleed to death.