Hello everyone,
After a few attempts I was able to solo the first steps of the fractal “Cliffside hill”, to get to the kite for the achievement “Colossal Kite”. I’d like to share my experience, if anyone was interested in trying.
First of all: why solo it?
long answer: Well, not everyone has time or equipment to find group for fractals. I’m one of those who don’t. After searching for a group interested in doing the kite part for half a day, I gave up and started working my solo run.
fast answer: why not?
Set up:
To give you an idea of how bad I am (and so, of how easy it is to solo this part) here’s the build I used.
http://www.gw2db.com/skills/calc/thief#19|0|3537|2786|3997|3468|4485|0|0|0|0|20|1726|1723|0|0|0|0|0|20|1165|1168|0|30|782|2200|1166|3|3|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|
It’s my pityful version of the famous Lowell’s trollicorn build. My gear is bad (rares and.. greens? really?!? yeah. that bad) , so I will not even try to discuss about what I used. Anyway, this build contains:
- sheer amount of initiative on-demand. Need some? Roll for initiative or use signets. Autoattack regeneration should do the rest.
- feline grace. They see me rollin’…
- a shortbow. Wee.
Tecnique:
Enter the fractals at lvl 1. Reset (enter/exit) until you get Cliffside Hill.
Part 1: First boss.
Just use the shortbow. The boss does 3 attacks:
1) he stops, his hammer glows dark and he spams aoes around the place. They take a couple seconds to trigger, so just run outside of them.
2) he starts wirling his hammer around. purple bolts erupt in all directions, damaging and giving confusion. Roll or push a couple times Disabling shot (shortbow 3) when he starts to swirl, and you’ll be fine.
3) he leaps to you, for a fatal blow. Kind of easy to spot, as he runs toward you and jumps and raise his hammer up and does a fwoosh sound. Really, how could you fall for that? Need neon lights flashing “watch out, he’s going to CRUSH YOU”?? Roll or push a couple times Disabling shot.
For the fight: just autoattack and save initiative and cooldowns for the disabling shots. Use choking gas, signet to heal up or thieves guild only during attack (1).
If he downs you, release and run back in, he takes quite some time to reset, so you can continue the fight from where you left. The first times you’ll probably get hit by his abilities, but when you get the hang of it, you’ll wonder how could you’ve been so dumb.
Part 2: I used to run fractals, but then I took a hammer to the knee.
When the hooded man dies, he drops his shiny Hammer. Which of course is haunted, loves to feast up on souls, and tries to kill anyone who wields it. So use it carefully: when you grab it, you get around 5k damage. While wielding it, a debuff stacks up: at 30 you get dazed. At 40, downed. If an enemy dies near the wielder, a 4th strong ability appears charged for one use.
Important: put Daggerstorm in your last slot. Nao.
So, grab the unfriendly Hammer and run up the stairs. As you’re about to get to the platform near the knees, drop it down and start slaying novices as there was no tomorrow. Do as you prefer. For my sheer lack of ability it worked well to switch Roll for initiative for Ambush to have a little hand. The shortbow autoattack bounces kept the health flowing from Signet of malice and the initiative up for the evasion maneuvres. I’d strongly suggest to stay on the wooden platform, as the stone floor zones have invisible traps.
And they hurt.
Mostly when unrequested.
Well, they’re traps after all.
Keep an eye out for those things:
- Is one of the novices about to die?
- Is my health up enough (about 8 or 10k)?
- is Daggerstorm out of cd?
If all answers are positive, stop attacking, grab the hammer and hit Daggerstorm. The Signet of malice should keep you healthy with the fast attacks, and at least a novice should be killed. That activates the 4th hammer ability. Run to a knee and smash the new ability.
Drop the hammer, rinse and repeat. Another three times. If you’re incredibly skilled, you could even get a novice very low on health, grab the hammer and finish it with the hammer’s abilies, instead of Daggerstorming throu it. But that’s more risky.
Just joking, it’s as easy as hell. But I was too nab to do it anyway.
After that, the gate opens and you can run up to the kite (watch out for the wind traps on the way).
So, here it is. I died a couple times at the first boss, while my slow brain was getting the hang of it. But overall, in more or less half an hour and 10 s of repairs, I was done.
Hope it could be of any help!
(edited by LorVan.1029)