Guild Wars 2

Two Urban Battleground Fractal runs so far, one at level 22 and the other at 28, both with me being the sole survivor of a wipe when we were going up against Captain Ashym. The first time I was able to solo him for about a minute, whittling his HP down from about 1/10 to the point where it’s no longer visible before he successfully Whirlwind Attacked my kitten, and the second time was the same story except he was already at a seemingly empty health bar, and he ran my kitten over in much less time. Both times he got me were when I ran out of evades (including SB #3) and was pretty much a sitting duck when he spun my way.

I was running a hybrid beastmaster variant in both fights, 0/20/20/0/30 with Melandru armor and zerker SB and GS. With the same build, I think I conceivably could’ve switched to a GS and blocked, but it seems even if I successfully did that, it would only buy me a few seconds… seconds during which I’m stuck with a melee weapon against a boss that I’m pretty sure I don’t want to get close to.

Anyone successfully taken him down in similar circumstances before as a Ranger? If so, what build were you using, and what did you do?

P.S.: The party I was with were more than capable of taking him down, and did so both times after we rezzed, but I figured if I found myself in the same situation again, I’d try to be better equipped to save my party time. And before anyone says it, no, I’m not going to re-roll. I’m working on that, but with how often I’m asked “FoTM?” as soon as I log on some nights, I have to make do with what I have. >_<

Search and rescue.

It would have allowed you to continuesly kite whilst your pet picked up your team. In cases where you know people will go down. Always have it equipped.

What good is dps if they are dead.

I don’t know, man, that boss is hard as he scales up in levels. Around level 30, we’ve found we really need to keep the NPCs alive to help us but they die fast. Spirit of renewal will instantly resurrect a few of them. But as far as I know, solo’ing him will be difficult. At the very least make sure you have level appropriate AR so you don’t have to waste endurance on agony pulses.

KensaiZen’s suggestion is a good one. Search and Rescue is nice if you know you can kite for long enough to buy your pet time to rez an ally. It sounds like you’re more than capable in this fight of doing that.

Chopps is correct about AR. 25 AR pre-30 is all you need. Fractal 30+ you need more.

Other suggestions:

• Don’t use shortbow as the quick attack speed hurts you via retaliation on the boss
• Equip sword or greatsword for more block/evasion/mobility on your alternate weaponset
  • You don’t have to continuously plink away at the boss
• Condition damage ignores protection

Thanks for the advice, guys. I’ll try using a different weapon and S&R and see how it goes if/when I find myself in this situation again. In regards to S&R, the other Ranger on the level 28 run brought it, and even used it to revive me from a downed state at one point, so I can totally see how useful it can be. +1 to that. I just hope it doesn’t end up trying to rez an NPC during the boss fight.

Our current method of fighting him (which may or may not be common… I don’t know) has us stacking on him along with all of the NPCs during the beginning of the fight until he’s at about 50% HP, at which point we back off (hopefully) before he agonizes us. This shortens at least half the fight considerably, but unfortunately results in all of the NPCs getting wiped out once the agony hits. Should I also bring SoR and try to rez the NPCs as well?

I have 20 AR right now, which I thought was plenty until I looked at the agony resistance chart just now. I guess I’m going to have to work on getting an Ascended accessory sooner rather than later. :T

Anyway, thanks guys.

Use laurels to buy an amulet and then a few fractal relics to get the cheap infusion. 25 right there :-)

Use the spirit elite to res npcs. Its an aoe res that is instant on npcs.