Guild Wars 2

Bombs are higher personal dps than grenades. So, for soloing, you should definitely use bomb auto over grenade 1 between cooldowns.

But, if you must stick with the easiest possible setup, while still doing decent damage, then camping bombs is your best bet. I recommend starting with that, and work your way up to managing multiple kits. First, learn the timing to swap to rifle for skill 3&5 burst damage, or shield 4 for the blast (rifle is higher damage, but pistol/shield gives and extra blind and blast finisher). Then, decide on which kit you’d like to learn next. Most people would recommend grenades, but if you’re like me and hate grenades, I recommend e-gun.

As for canceling the leap, its often easier/safer to just turn your back towards the wall/corner to prevent flying far back. Also, if you’re not going to use grenades, but want something close to meta, change the meta traits to something more appropriate to your set-up – if following my recommendation, swap shrapnel to forceful explosives, grenadier to anything else, precise sights to hair trigger or infused precision if using invigorating speed.

My personal set-up is further off the meta – 55400 traited bombs, rifle, and energized armor/power shoes (I tried speedy kits over power shoes, but just found it annoying). My default kits are bomb kit and e-gun, with a third utility based on the current situation (usually utility goggles or elixir u, but sometimes toolkit).

Peristoteles: https://www.youtube.com/user/Eliphas769
has some good AC and CM videos.

There was somebody else who managed to solo the burrows room in AC, but I can’t find the video. I was actually thinking about trying to do that before, but he beat me to it.

I’ve pretty much solo’d it before (it takes a long time to solo because I had to resort to toolkit pulling mobs). If you can’t find a group by time I get on later tonight (around midnight EST), I’d be willing to help you get through it. It would be best to find a guardian or mesmer also (I’m an engineer), for the reflects.

The only places I currently use it are:
1: to solo the orb of light in Arah p3 & 4.
2: underwater, because we don’t have any good underwater heals.

I’m thinking it might be useful whenever I decide to solo hunter/crusher in Arah p3 again, especially with the aforementioned trait that resets heal when hit below 25% health.

As far a gadgets being useless, that is definitely not true for PvE (all gadgets are useful at some part of dungeons). While I don’t do PvP/WvW, from what I’ve read, rocket boots is used in alot of builds. Rocket boots is a gadget. Also, I would assume the toolbelt skill, analyze, on utility goggles would be very useful against thieves (prevent stealth), as well as the main skill being a stun breaker.

Shakki.3219:

Open world map and you guys want to report people for being afk?… this is getting pathetic lol

not reporting for simply being afk. reporting for abusing a bug – with a pet on aggressive, you’ll get credit for completing events, even if you did nothing. the bug part is that it doesn’t auto-logout because the pet counts as activity.

I remember seeing some of the elite guilds use an engi in their run (at least one run was a record run). Brazil has been running engi in their “casual” runs. I’m not too aware of other youtubers that run primarily engi, besides poliswag and myself – http://youtube.com/Link500X. I don’t post videos very frequently, and they are not speedkills, so I don’t consider myself up there with some of the much better people (which run mostly warrior), such as Purple Miku, Brazil, Sanderinoa (mesmer), etc. When I do post though, its something either very uncommon (or even not done/recorded before), or a special way of handling certain fights (such as my fortified turret vids). I might make some more videos soon. Some things I’m considering doing are: updating my Lupi vid (with a much better time – hoping for under 10 min), Arah p3 (I came up with the way to solo the orb), SE p2, and might go looking for interesting “group event” enemies. I’m open to requests, but don’t count on it happening too much, as I’m not as skilled as the elites and I work full time.

I guess for now, we can just drag specific mobs to the AFK people. First, drag the enemies that charge and knockback – try to knock them out of the range that the NPCs will rez them, preferably into the poison aura of one of those big plants, so they die again if somebody does rez them. To kill them and their pet fast, drag one of the enemies that have the explosive attacks (I can’t remember the name atm, but they look like smaller versions of the enemies that charge). If they WP and run back, or constantly walk back to the same spot after being charged, they are likely using a bot – definitely report for this.

I also recommend OBS (Open Broadcast Software). I wanted to add though, that I’ve tried some of the other programs before. FRAPS is a huge fps hit if I remember correctly, largely due to lack of video options. Bandicam works well and is easy to use, but the free version adds a watermark and limits the time to 10 min per file (you can just use multiple files if you want). One important note about Bandicam, and probably some other software also, is that when using the video card render option (instead of one of the CPU options), your max resolution may be limited – it failed to record at 2560×1600 with a Radeon HD 7970. It probably only supports up to 1920×1200, but idk about the newer R series cards from AMD (not worth the upgrade vs the 7970) or Nvidia cards. If you’re not running at a ultra high resolution, it might be worth giving something a try that supports video card rendering.
The main downside to OBS, is that it isn’t as straight forward to configure as the other options, due to OBS being mainly a streaming software, with the ability to record to disk as an option. But, it has more config options than most other programs, so you can adjust the settings according to what your computer can handle (lossless is an option too, but is a huge fps hit). You can make high quality lossy recordings at a relatively small fps loss, compared to other software.

you also gotta think about balance in both PvE and WvW/PvP. In PvE, I agree glue skills are basically useless (net skills are far better in the few situations where you need immob – tar boss in Arah). While I don’t do anything PvP related, I would think that having a large group of ppl with a longer lasting immob on them might be overpowered (sitting ducks to grenades or any of the elementalist AOEs). Sometimes I wish they would make a distinction between skills/traits in PvE and other situation.

some people will tell you to run the meta, which is 6/6/0/0/2. however, I personally never run the meta because I hate grenades. Besides, bombs offer better personal dps, which means bombs are better for solo (at least for most stuff – might wanna stick with grenades if you fight Melandru’s priest in Arah p4).
My default setup is 5/5/4/0/0, focusing bombs and rifle (steel-packed powder is still useful because fire bomb stacks vuln multiple times). I prefer the quality of life that power shoes provides over having to swap to speedy kits between fights. Also, if you aren’t focusing full dps skills (including toolbelt skills), I think energized armor might be better than static discharge – most toolbelt skills don’t do anywhere near as much damage as bomb aa (in some cases, even combined with static discharge damage. multi-target hit isn’t much of a bonus to static discharge because bombs can hit more targets than static discharge.)
All that being said, I do often swap traits according to the situation, especially solo because I have nobody waiting on me. For example, at Belka in Arah p2, I run healing traits x/x/6/4/0 (x = one of those is 4 the other is 0, I’m still experimenting whether power and +10% bomb damage or precision and rifle traits are better) because I refuse to do the ooc exploit, and also don’t wanna resort to hiding to heal (hiding is an acceptable way to fight her, just not my style. exploiting is not acceptable. neither are worth recording in my opinion). I definitely recommend retraiting for a legit Lupi fight – at least get invigorating speed (I currently use adrenal implant and fortified turrets instead, but might tweak my solo build soon).

tldr: focus on bomb kit traits for most stuff, but tweak your build according to the situation – nobody is waiting on you to decide on traits when you solo.

I guess nobody likes rage runes. I’ll think about using scholar runes in the future. But for now, ranger runes it is. Thanks for your input.

My main issue with scholar’s is that I don’t want to have to focus on keeping my health over 90%. This isn’t just an issue when soloing (which I sometimes make videos of), but also because I usually join random pugs on the lfg, or make an anyone welcome (just no exploiters) post and I can’t really rely on always getting a good group. I might one day make an extra set of armor with scholar’s runes, but for now I’m looking for something with a more guaranteed/constant dps boost. I’m mainly split between ranger and rage runes. Another note I forgot to mention in my original post: I currently run with blood and force sigils, but that could change.

As far as the healing turret goes, I’ve been trying to get into the habit of blasting it in my fire field when I don’t need the extra blast healing and don’t think I’ll need the turret on reduced cd from picking it up. Sometimes I purposely waste the heal for might (such as at the abom in arah2). In that case, do you think 3 might stacks are worth not using an attack for – that is, will the dps from 3 might make up for not using the bomb AA? Although I’m not interested in running the meta, there are things that I’m experimenting with to figure out my best options, so I guess I’ll override what I originally said about not looking for advise – just not looking for anyone to tell me to run the meta (I know and understand the benefits, I just don’t like how grenades work).

Can anybody confirm if minis still count as companions for the ranger rune dps boost? Also, any info about at what point power from berserker’s is better than precision from assassin’s? – Guang, you around? I know you like this type of math

Another idea: make it so all reflects can’t crit. Maybe even make reflects do half damage – you have to admit, reflects are a bit overpowered, and should be more for defense than offense. This would reduce/prevent future problems too. Fortified turrets can’t crit and will only take about a third of his health – I only tried this once, as I don’t like to do this sort of thing (I don’t even use the OOC exploit at Belka when I solo).

I’ll soon have my Saphir’s (asceneded assassin’s) gear finished, and am wondering what rune set to take.
First, my playstyle:
I hate and rarely use grenades (mostly on the eye turrets and the Melandru boss).
I camp bomb kit most of the time (swapping to rifle for skill 3 & 5, and in some cases elixir gun).
my other utilities change from boss to boss (elixir b and utility goggles for my dps default – fury uptime), elite is either supply crate or mistfire wolf, depending on the fight.
I mostly run Arah, and sometimes Aetherpath and fractals, but have been trying to go do other dungeons every once in awhile for the dungeoneer title.
I run a 55400 build most of the time
I know what the meta is ankitten ot looking for advise beyond rune/armor choice.

As for the runes I’m currently considering (cost isn’t an issue):
Flame Legion – bomb kit has near 100% burning uptime and 7% is higher than 5% damage boost. It is the rune set I currently use. However, there are a couple cases where I don’t use bombs in my personal playstyle (Lupi and hunter/crusher) and that 7% will be worthless solo.
Ranger – mini still counts as companion, right? its also 7% boost, but gives precision and ferocity instead of power.
Strength – benefits are well known. I usually have some amount of might on me, but it is rarely the focus of my build. Is the extra might uptime worth it if I don’t stack it very high? (vs 7% dps increase from other runes).
Rage – near 100% fury uptime and 5% dps boost. I’m thinking this might be ideal for soloing, but is it better than Ranger runes, which give 7% and ferocity instead of fury (higher crit damage, but less likely to crit)?
note – scholar runes are not a viable option for me because I’m rarely above 90% and will sometimes solo.

Lastly, gear talk:
Should I be going for full assassin’s (Saphir’s incase filter blocks it) or mix some berserker in too (keep in mind, I’m an engineer)? Right now, I’m going for Saphir’s armor and rifle, with berserker trinkets (maybe assassin’s where available). I know that, for things that can’t be crit, berserker’s is better. But for other stuff, what is the point at which the power loss overrides the crit chance? For example (random numbers): a 100% crit chance with a base damage of 100 is worse than a 50% crit chance with a base damage of 150 (200 average damage vs 225 average damage). I know those numbers are an extreme difference, but they are to show my point.

Thanks in advance for any advice. I’ll be going to work soon and will check up on the thread later.

I agree, but its not just noobs doing it (i’ve had one instance where there was somebody from one of the elite guilds that insisted on doing it). I cringe every time I see a guard or mesmer now. I used to mainly join other people’s group, but now I find myself making my own post much more often (simple post “p1, no exploits”). If I do join a group with a guard or mez (unless its one I know will fight legit), I ask before I even go in the dungeon if they are planning on fighting legit. Fortunately, I often tend to have aggro in phase 1 and will either not push him at all or push him away from the wall. If they do an invisible wall, they’ll have to make sure they do the whole area, or somebody will just find a spot they missed and it will become the new standard to push him to that spot to exploit. I still think the best option is to make him shadowstep to the middle of the room just before using that AOE.

They stated that, starting season 2, living story would be end-game content (ie harder than lower level content). While this is indeed way more challenging, if you want it to be, than other open world stuff, it is not anywhere near Arah difficulty. If you would like easy mode, they have sort of provided that in the ability to sit on roofs and use the arrow carts (mobs may still come after you if there are no tastier targets near them, but usually only 1 at a time). Personally, I feel we need more challenging enemies like this in open world. Also, it helps to learn the mechanics of the different enemies – the spinning plant thing can be immobilized or CCed to allow you to maintain damage, the plant things that spawn vines under your feet should be CCed to interrupt their vine spawning, back into a corner when fighting wolves to prevent them from getting behind you or blind them, etc.

edit: also, its not being forced on you. you can ignore the rest of the area if you just want the story, or can choose to do other open world stuff instead. they haven’t released a dungeon in a long time, so it is nice to get a better middle ground on content difficulty (harder than other open world, but easier than dungeons) while we wait on a new dungeon (which they said they are not currently working on).

I’ve got 2 ideas on how to fix this (I read through the post quickly and didn’t see it already mentioned, but sorry if it already is).

First option: make the chests personal items (other players can’t see/open your chest) and either give the shovel charges or give it a chance to break with each use (maybe an increasing chance – start at 5%, and double the chance every use)

Second option: make the chests only available in the cooldown period after the breach.

edit: also, wanted to say thanks to ArenaNet for giving us another source of dragonite (obi shards too, but mostly dragonite). As long as they don’t remove the dragonite drops, I’m happy – no more boring world bosses for me (there are a few fun ones, but most are afk AA fests)

Ezeriel.9574:

Most of my toons don’t have zerker gear, and I find the new content absurdly hard, when I play with them.

…and bugged.

Caithe’s recon squad… if I mine the corpses, I don’t get any credit. If i don’t mine the corpses, I don’t get any credit.

…and I see no way to repeat only this part. I have to start all over from the beginning of the series of quests.

I’m beyond frustrated.

you need to complete the whole story to unlock achievements. once you do, they will appear where your buffs/condis do until you complete or fail them. you can also go to any section of the story at any time after the first time and redo it as many times as you need to for the achievements.

Halcyon.7352:

I did okay with (exotic armor, asc weapon) zerk gear, and asc cavalier trinkets. Took about 6 mins on my first try.

I took Elixir U for the quickness – dual purpose healing/damage burst instead of Utility Goggles. Also, the toss U reflects/absorbs his (healing?) auto attack.

If that was against horror, you should definitely record and upload it, as that beats both mine and Sandy’s time by alot. I’m thinking you’re talking about lich though. If that’s the case, then yes, his AA heals (I’ve tried holding him at 5% for the zerg and noticed his health went up to 15% in about 30 sec). Just be careful with quickness because it could eliminate your endurance (dodges). If you’d like to reflect his attacks instead of out healing them, fortified turrets might be worth a try – they offer a higher reflect uptime, on a lower cooldown, and you can blow them up in your fire field (assuming bombs) for extra might. Just make sure to blow them up before he spawns skeletons on them. Either way, good job on successfully soloing.

Wow, never expected a red post. Thank you, and thanks to everyone else to for the compliments as well. To be fair, I’m not the first person to solo and record it, Sanderinoa is (with mesmer).

I’m not sure if I’m going to do a Grand High Viscount of Candy Corn solo, I’ve solo’d him once to 40%, but wasn’t recording, so I tagged up for others to come join. The way I solo’d GHVoCC though might be boring to watch, as its just LOSing him around the wall. I did try a solo again yesterday, but tried with grenades, which went alright (despite me not liking or being good with grenades), but horror respawned and ruined it. I might try once more with minimal LOSing and fortified turrets (I saw a necro vid starting GHVoCC and just circle strafing in melee range, but that didn’t work when I tried it – might just need to practice, or use perma-vigor traits).

update: I was able to attempt this in berserker gear, but only got him to 40%. based on the amount of time that it took to get him to 50%, berserker gear isn’t any faster (vs celestial armor/berserker trinkets) against this particular boss (I was even running around less, connecting more hits). Berserker is better for most other PvE stuff though, so don’t take this as promoting the use of tanky gear in dungeons.

Malediktus.9250:

There are usually 2 reasons why the recording might be choppy: Either the HDD you use for recording is too slow or you are using the same HDD for something else (Windows, GW2 etc) at the same time. Best to use a dedicated HDD with at least 100MB/s writespeed for recording in FullHD.

I’ve used the same set-up (codec – lossy but still high quality, resolution, HDD, etc.) for my previous videos, so I don’t think that is the problem. I do use one HDD (different partition, but I doubt that matters in this case), but it is a fairly good one (WD black). Its possible that Avast decided to run a scan and used up read cycles, but unlikely, as it would affect my fps to a lesser extent as well. I’m thinking its actually an update I did to OBS just before recording. I’d really like to get a hardware capture utility, but none currently support my resolution (2560 × 1600, downscaled when recording). Thanks for the input though.

Decrypter.1785:

lol op turret engi move along ty

not really. only turrets that I used were from my elite (supply crate). also, they’re weren’t traited in any way. And as Halcyon said, turrets are actually counter-productive – the boss not only cures, but has a chance to transfer conditions. This is why if I do this solo again in berserker gear, I’ll likely use mistfire wolf instead. If anything, you can maybe say “bombs OP.”

No, please no… they would have to rebuild the engine. Which, would result in a horrible UI and controls (for PC, console would be fine), and much reduced graphics.

My solo vs the lab horror:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGSPRPu1BWk

Far from perfect, but still a successful solo. If I get a chance, I might redo this in berserker gear, but this time I had to use celestial. I don’t know why the video is choppy. I thought speeding it up a little (only ~10%, mostly to match the length of my music, which I think is highly appropriate for this fight) would make it better, but actually made the choppiness worse (It is something with the recording – it wasn’t this bad while playing; yes, my original and edited fps are the same – 30). I might do the grand high viscount of candy corn at some point, but it is unlikely that I’ll be able to fully solo due to other players joining in. I did manage to start soloing him before (to about 60%), but I wasn’t recording, so I decided to tag up so others can come collect a reward too.

edit: thought I’d add a little more info:
I chose to fight here for a few reasons. It is one of the few areas that I can fight without other mobs joining in. The other choice is the SW corner, which offers more room too (less likely to fall off the edge, which I almost did twice in this fight). Also, I wanted to try to get a spot where others (the zerg) wouldn’t join in. Most people avoid the lich, so this is the best spot for that. It would be nice to have an arena added to the game to fight bosses solo (I know its been suggest before).

Challenge to fight? No, I think very few people find these mobs a challenge to fight. It is clear though that people find it a challenge to run through. I, personally, don’t find it a challenge. But I know how to use blocks, mobility, dodge, etc. I can run down that whole side of the map and get pulled maybe twice. Its a minor annoyance, sure, but its effective way to make people feel like actually fighting the mobs instead of skipping everything. But, then again, I never run to join up with the zerg (I’d rather solo), so I can’t say I entirely know how that feels. The closest I’ve come is running to a spot to solo the lab horror or lich, which was still very easy. I think mobs in more areas should make you actually want to fight them (but still be skippable such as in the lab).

Labjax.2465:

It’s not about being more powerful, it’s about irritation. AI doesn’t have feelings and can’t get frustrated at losing control of its character.

Also, we have mobs that are about equal or greater in strength than players: Veterans and Champions.

Veterans are not anywhere near as powerful as a player. I can stand in one spot, not dodge, and beat most of them very easily. Elites are about equal to players though (with a larger health pool).

As far as what you’re saying about being CC’d is irritating – why do you feel that all content should be afk aa snore-fests? Do you seek no real challenge to be in the game? Last I checked, this is a PC game, not a flash/touch-screen game. PC games tend to be more about challenge, and I for one don’t wanna see that change; If anything, make it more challenging. Maybe enable a special map for people that don’t like pull/knock-back – replace all mobs with elite risen illusionists, hunters, and eles from Arah. See which people prefer

Rauderi.8706:

If it should go both ways, does that mean I can petition to get my hammer a one-hit KO skill?

Afaik, the only thing that does that is Crusher in Arah p3. He is a boss, not a regular mob, and as such should be much more powerful than players.

As an engineer, I can load up on plenty of CC (I have a short cd one on rifle 4). Why shouldn’t certain types of enemies be able to do the same thing? Why do we players have to be 1000x more powerful than mobs?

edit: and yes, I can do it without noticable dps loss (Big ol’ Bomb is one of the hardest hitting skills in the game)

Open world stuff is already very easy, including the labyrinth. No need to make it even easier. Stealth, stability, blocks (even aegis), mobility skills, traits that convert conditions to boons – all make it easier. The only thing that is a threat to most people when running the lab is the lab horror. If you need practice running, i recommend Arah (solo the runs to learn) – if you can run Arah, you can probably run anything.

Edit: also, you can just nicely ask for a mesmer to portal you.

You sorta have it in the form of commander tags, though it would be nice with some more UI elements for squads.

Yes, please put dragonite in them. I don’t WvW, and most world bosses are boring, afk auto-attack things. Just make it so you have to cross a few checkpoints to get the chest, so people can’t keep alts at the end or use portals to skip it.

FearTheQuadLazers.8297:

HAHA! Good job. It takes like 20 people to help me out and I still die. What gear are you using?

thanks,

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fdIQFAElUUptrtbxPrRULoQH1NGAR2ls8xIcAA-ThRBABXp87m9H1fm4CAUoOAAeAAmpEEA-e

full berserker, flame legion runes, my own regen build.

My solo showing the lich is relatively easy, so long as you can dodge (dodge in the middle of his dark AOE to avoid spawning skeletons). The problem people have when trying it in a zerg is that people either are too lazy to dodge, or can’t see when to dodge because of the particle effects.

just added another one (#5) that I forgot about earlier, and I don’t think that one was on the main list that the devs locked.

1) Ancient Ooze safe spot. thankfully I haven’t had many runs lately where ppl insist on using it. but it still occasionally happens.

2) bosses in path 4 – prevent them from getting stuck.

3) Lupi – it is very disappointing that even elite guild members immediately ask to cheese the fight before even attempting it properly. I don’t even bother pushing him to the wall anymore, just to prevent this from happening (as engi, he usually has his focus on me). suggestion – make Lupi shadowstep to the middle of the room just before using the mass AOE attack.

4) minor but easy one to fix at the same time as the others – the extra waypoints in path 3 and 4 (the ones just before Lupi)

edit: forgot an another important one:

5) hunter/crusher – make them both reset to their starting position if one of them goes through the door. people cheat at this boss by separating them.

probably related to the same bug at the end of Arah path 2. it has to do with the transparency effect with armor with particle effects.

First, this might only be happening to engineers (I asked my party members, and they seemed to have no problem).
I can’t swap out my utility/elite skill after a forced transformation. I first noticed it when you are transformed into a ghost in Ascalon Catacombs. But it also happens in the charr fractal (probably thaumanova too).
Well, I can swap skills, but only once, immediately after transformation, and before entering combat. Once I either swap the skill once, or enter combat, I can no longer swap the skills until the end of the dungeon (when transformation ends).
This is very annoying because I prefer to use different utilities for clearing burrows, then swapping for the boss. This would be a nightmare in Thaumanova, if it happens there too.

I think you might have misunderstood what Minigrump meant…. Do Arah p1,2, and 3. but, instead of doing Arah P4, do AC 1 & 3. As far as difficulty goes, watch some Arah videos, especially one on Lupi (Brazil has a good one on YouTube). Arah is much more difficult than AC.

forgot to mention a couple of other things.
1) its called a silver fed salvage-o-matic. because of the name, it needs to cost at least a silver.
2) most importantly, if it cost less than the rare kit, it would be considered a pay to win item, and there would be many more complaints. copper-o-matic isn’t pay to win because its only equal to the lower tier kit. the only gathering tool that can be kind of considered pay to win is the watchwork pick because of the bonus loot. The others aren’t pay to win because if you are gathering, you will be going by many vendors that have more tools.

Just wanted to say, I actually like the Silver Fed Salvage-O-Matic. I was well aware of the cost difference when I bought it. But, the amount I get back from selling silk almost always covers that; also, I get plenty of gold from running Arah. When you’re calculating the cost, also consider the cost of waypointing twice (once to a vendor, and once back to where you were – in my case, Arah). I was looking at the copper fed salvage-o-matic for a long time, but everytime I just couldn’t get over the fact that it is 800 gems for an unlimited version of the second lowest grade kit. Also, I was using mystic salvage kits for awhile (they don’t last me a week), but started to run low on the forge stones. Since I find most zerg stuff is rather boring, I can rarely bring myself to do world bosses and therefore don’t get many forge stones (rarely get them from dailies).

I can sortof understand the cost of the item:
1) its 300 gems cheaper than the copper fed salvage-o-matic, but is equivalent to the highest tier kit found in-game.
2)convenience item – waypointing after every 2 dungeon runs to buy more kits is something I never enjoyed.
2.5)this also saves me time in other areas. I previously went on the TP and looked at the value of every item and sold only the ones that resulted in a net profit (after fees) vs vendoring it. I would then salvage any remaining items, then sell the runes/excess salvage mats. Now, I just salvage everything since I don’t have to worry about running out of charges.
3)it talks – amusing at first. there is a cooldown between its lines of speech, so it hasn’t gotten annoying.

robertul.3679:

Can you please post your build? I’m trying to improve my engineer skills and this is helpful. What elite you recommend if I don’t have mistfire wolf? Is stability on mistfire wolf mandatory? Doesn’t it survive enough without it? I will buy deluxe edition if I have to but I would rather not.

This isn’t an optimal build, but I wasn’t trying for a speed kill. For optimum damage, you’ll want to swap to your ranged weapon (rifle, elixir gun, or grenades) when its attacking. Optimal damage in a party would probably use grenades the whole time for the vuln stacking, but I hate using grenades. Solo, bombs are better. I’m not sure what the best ranged option is for solo, probably grenades (although with e-gun you can use skill 4 instead of dodging or walking away when it’s off cooldown for alot of damage, or it might be better to keep a buff in that slot, such as the fury buffs that I used).

Challenge I gave myself was – no ranged attacks, no dodge, and take no damage.

I made this video mainly for PUGs, so they can see that this boss is easy to melee and they don’t have to find a safespot (especially one a mile away from the ghost as the current standard is). I feel the fight was done fairly well; a few things I could’ve done better – I overused fire bomb (I wanted to make sure burning was up because I was using flame legion runes), and I could’ve timed some skill use a little better (toss elixir b on my mistfire wolf to give it stability). The fight took about 9 and a half minutes. I could probably cut off at least a third of that time if I used ranged attacks while the ooze was bouncing, but wanted to do a melee only run.

A couple other recommendations form PUGs – clear the turrets in the big room before the fight. I also recommend pathing the risen from the room after the boss’ room to make the skip easier.

http://youtu.be/wbCf7CEVEvo

maha.7902:

Thank you.

Is there any chance of Spider Queen being reverted in this case? It had a poison attack it would cast at range, and people could melee to prevent it. This was changed so that the queen used it regardless of proximity which reduced the depth of the encounter.

I hope not. I like the fight much better now – for most parties, its not another simple stack in the corner fight anymore. I like moving during battles, rather than just dodging into the corner every 5-10 seconds.

Give the Ancient Ooze a small AOE ranged attack. I’m tired of all the afk safespots.

I don’t understand why people insist on using safespots for the ancient ooze. If you have any speed buff, you don’t even need to dodge – you can just walk away when it glows. It seems almost impossible to convince a PUG group to not safespot it. I’d be fine with them ranging, but since I switched from ascended celestial armor to exotic berserkers, I can’t hold it’s aggro.

dlonie.6547:

…

2) They “fix” Consecrated Ground to not work on walls.

That’s right. It’s gonna end up like wardens. Works on level ground (part of the time, anyway), but super iffy on a slope/bumps. Like blink getting snagged on a rock, etc.

I think I would actually prefer option 2. Consecrated Ground was never a very popular trait, and nerfing it would just put things back the way they were before someone figured this out, with pretty much no fallout.

They would have to fix other reflects the same way. Turrets can be dropped up there with supply crate (and probably the trait to throw turrets too). “Toss elixir U” comes with the ability to be thrown, with a 50% chance of being WoR. I’m not sure if feedback can also be aimed up there or not. A better option would be an invisible wall that extends above the visible wall.

A friend and I tried this last night, using just feedback on the split, and it didn’t work. The boss probably did have defiance up because I was blasting might throughout the fight; I’m not sure if that changes whether or not the split is reflectable. Both spawns did appear on the same exact spot though, but that might be because we had it in the corner. We might try some other stuff later (untraited wardens, block on top of it, etc). I’ll post if we figure anything out.

It me maybe 8 hours total for a full solo. The first time I tried (with walling him) for about an hour, then started to get some lag, so I quit. Second time I did it without walling him, and it took about 7 hours with a few breaks. Phase 1 was definitely the biggest challenge for me. I think it only took me 2 or 3 tries once I got past phase 1, but I had plenty of prior experience fighting phase 2 and 3, especially when pugs wiped. I also always run my own builds rather than the meta (engineer, and I don’t like grenade combat).

Engineer notes:

general notes:
1)stealth – has a cap of 12 sec if using smoke bomb. I use healing turret, flame turret (won’t aggro stuff like rifle turret will, and only has a 5 sec longer cd), thumper turret, and bomb kit. you can also put something else (rocket boots for mobility) in the slot of flame turret and use shield 4 as the other blast finisher instead. for max stealth, swap bomb kit to elixir s and toss it on yourself during the run (not limited by the 12 sec cap that the previous blasts were) for a total of 17 sec stealth. also, i recommend disabling auto-targeting and static discharge while skipping.

Arah path 1:
1)first skip should be easy, but in case you’re having trouble, use toolkit’s shield and/or elixir s. rocket boots can also cure the cripple if you get hit by an ooze as well as give you distance from it. clear the turrets in the boss room before starting the fight – grenades can out range them. toss elixir u has a chance to reflect also.
2)no special notes for the boss fight, but super speed (slick shoes toolbelt) and rocket boots work great for carrying the blood.
3)for the skip after the giant ooze, you’ll likely not have time to blast stealth on yourself, so I recommend rocket boots, toolkit (shield), and either elixir s or super speed (super speed and rocket boots combo can easily clear the last group of oozes).
4)alot of people will probably disagree with doing this, but I’m not a meta-only fanatic so I don’t care: for crystalline entities, trait bombs (10% damage and radius), elixir infused bombs, and backpack regen. this will allow you to stay in the light much longer. I also recommend getting about 5 stacks of green light, then blasting might just before pulling the entities.
5)Shoggroth – nobody should touch the whiskey at all if there is an engineer in the party; we have plenty of burning. If you are not using the stack and immob method, I recommend dual pistol (pistol 4 and incendiary ammo with pistol 2), flame thrower (skill 3 & 4, and toolbelt), flame turret (open the fight with the toolbelt skill, then place it near the boss – it doesn’t seem to draw any aggro), and bomb kit (fire bomb and auto-attack while the other skills are on cooldown), and of course supply crate for the extra turrets. If using the stack and immob method (assuming others will bring some burning as well), use rifle instead of pistol for the net shot, and swap flame thrower for net turret.
6)the path to Lupi – grenades can out range the turrets. also, 2 fortified turrets are usually enough to take them out. smoke bomb works great for negating the aboms’ attacks.
7)the skip after Lupi – if solo, just charge through with defensive skills (toolkit, elixir s, and rocket boots for mobility). if in a group, toss elixir s for the first 2 mobs. path the next group of enemies then blast stealth (if they are pathed, the stealth should be enough to get you past all of the risen). the rest of the run is easy enough, just keep running (preferably with some sort of speed boost – power shoes work fine); as long as you don’t stop you should be fine.
8)a few notes about the final boss – fortified turrets are a less effective source of reflect – they can’t crit.
-the ring of fire is actually a dome. it not only insta-downs anyone who touches it, but it also blocks projectiles – so, you can’t stand outside the circle tossing grenades, and there is no way to jump over the ring (because its not actually a ring but a dome).
-toss elixir u next to him. if you get smokescreen, you can move to the side the boss is on to use the crystal to reflect. if you get WoR, everybody can stand behind it to save their crystals (they won’t break if they’re not hit)

~I’ll edit this post with more info later~

Before clicking a link, understand that I never had any intention on trying to speed clear, so these videos are rather long.

I actually have recordings for all of Arah path 2 and will eventually upload the full run. But for now, here are the bosses that I feel were worth uploading by themselves:

Lupi
Belka
Alphard

The Lupi solo was done without walling him, and with fortified turrets. I used undead slaying potions and health steal food. Other information about the fight is in the video description on YouTube.
The Belka solo was done without the ooc cheat or hiding for half the fight.
Alphard was trivialized with fortified turrets.

I’m probably not going to upload the other 2 boss fight individually because Abom is easy and I accidentally bugged Brie, so thats not worth uploading. I’ll likely redo the Brie fight at some point, making sure not to bug the fight and then upload it.

I’m curious as to the amount attack is increased. If its by a greater amount than his armor, then might it be useful to allow him to get some grubs to boost reflected damage?