What are you supposed to do about enemy true-combos?

Scarefish · August 12

I often find that fighting against the hardest World Bosses in the game is a complete gamble. Most of them have mountains of CC for some reason, and if they're feeling cheap they will stun you and place a OHK under your feet immediately.

Vaqual · August 12

You either need to know how to avoid all damage and play the mechanics or you have to build tanky enough to survive mistakes. Sometimes maintaining a shield and a HoT does the trick already. Where you thinking about a particular WB? How experienced are you?

SkaiFaith · August 12

Some say 30K health is more than enough... Yeah, sure.
I reach almost 50K on my solo build and I can tell you having that much health, plus "On the brink" CP, plus Mystic Fortress from Companions, plus 2.000+ health regen and Heavy armour - that's what have kept me alive and made able to clear in a loooot of situations.

Put me at 25-30K health and I'm dead as soon as I'm spotted by a squirrel.

Scarefish · August 12

Vaqual wrote: »

You either need to know how to avoid all damage and play the mechanics or you have to build tanky enough to survive mistakes. Sometimes maintaining a shield and a HoT does the trick already. Where you thinking about a particular WB? How experienced are you?

Zalsheem in Northern Elsweyr.

CP1274 Playing as a stamina DPS Dragonknight with dual wield daggers.
Build is Unfathomable Darkness + Relequen's + Slimecraw Helm + Oakensoul Ring. 0/0/64 Attributes, Traits are Divines + Sharpened + Swift. Glyphs are I believe Poison Damage + Stamina + Weapon Damage/Stamina Recovery Weapon Damage. The Lady shrine, and eating Braised Rabbit with Spring Vegetables.

The boss has a bunch of adds that spawn indefinitely throughout the fight. I had the idea of keeping one alive, but my crows will keep killing them. I had the idea of blocking all of her attacks, but that drains my stamina, and her stun seems to be instant - you have to predict it rather than react to any animations. I was using Bastian with a bow as my companion, just to get his level up and try to level companion skills; I could have switched to maybe Isobel or Sharp-As-Night, but that wouldn't do all that much since all companions have dumb AI. The fight results in me just blocking, heavy attacking, and using Dual Wield Bloodthirst to heal up, using Banner ulti whenever it comes back up. Another added annoyance is that bosses in this zone despawn randomly as well.

Scarefish · August 12

SkaiFaith wrote: »

Some say 30K health is more than enough... Yeah, sure.
I reach almost 50K on my solo build and I can tell you having that much health, plus "On the brink" CP, plus Mystic Fortress from Companions, plus 2.000+ health regen and Heavy armour - that's what have kept me alive and made able to clear in a loooot of situations.

Put me at 25-30K health and I'm dead as soon as I'm spotted by a squirrel.

I should note, as a dps player, my default HP is about 17k. I think Braised Rabbit with Spring Vegetables puts me up to ~24k

AvalonRanger · August 12

About tank situation.

1, If WB doesn't have healing skill, then just keep swinging sword.

2, If WB have healing skill, then good bye. Or call DPS.

SkaiFaith · August 12

Scarefish wrote: »

SkaiFaith wrote: »

Some say 30K health is more than enough... Yeah, sure.
I reach almost 50K on my solo build and I can tell you having that much health, plus "On the brink" CP, plus Mystic Fortress from Companions, plus 2.000+ health regen and Heavy armour - that's what have kept me alive and made able to clear in a loooot of situations.

Put me at 25-30K health and I'm dead as soon as I'm spotted by a squirrel.

I should note, as a dps player, my default HP is about 17k. I think Braised Rabbit with Spring Vegetables puts me up to ~24k

Not expert about DPS setups, but if you want to solo, what I noticed is that a lot of one-shot hits go for about 25K damage, so I would probably try to at least have a bit more than that.

Expert DPS players will probably have more accurate knowledge than me on how to survive with low health, but since you use Oakensoul and trying to solo, I just want to say: I started as DPS and died a lot soloing... Then Oakensoul came and I turned to a tankyer setup - you won't do 100K DPS, more sitting around 60K, but it will make a HUGE difference in survivability and ability to solo.

Choose what you prefer but don't be afraid of steering away from pure DPS. I don't regret the change. Have fun your way!

TybaltKaine · August 12

Weaken but don't kill all of the shadows. They do less damage at lower health, and will respawn immediately when you kill them all.

Bosses don't despawn, you are back pedaling and leaving the area, causing them to reset. Stay within the arena and try not to panic and backtrack.

When you weaken the shadows and only have one or two left, focus back on Zalsheem. Avoid her AOE's and focus on breaking out of her shadow stun asap. She likes to cast it a few seconds after spawning the clones so they rush you. Break free and kite the clones down until one or two with 20% or so health.

DK, you should use ferocious leap as the ulti to focus/stun the shadows. Yeah Banner helps survivability, but that doesn't matter if you can't keep shadows in the ring and are having to move it all the time. Leap also gives a shield after using

You have a lot of options to help buff you up as a DK Protective Plate morph of Protective Scale helps with the shadows range attacks.

Noxious Breath on Zalsheem as a kite skill, drops her resistances, applies a dot

It may be worth taking off a piece of Unfathomable to avoid the crow spawns. If you find that you lack an AOE, using DW spin should help take out the shadows.

Vaqual · August 12

Scarefish wrote: »

Vaqual wrote: »

You either need to know how to avoid all damage and play the mechanics or you have to build tanky enough to survive mistakes. Sometimes maintaining a shield and a HoT does the trick already. Where you thinking about a particular WB? How experienced are you?

Zalsheem in Northern Elsweyr.

CP1274 Playing as a stamina DPS Dragonknight with dual wield daggers.
Build is Unfathomable Darkness + Relequen's + Slimecraw Helm + Oakensoul Ring. 0/0/64 Attributes, Traits are Divines + Sharpened + Swift. Glyphs are I believe Poison Damage + Stamina + Weapon Damage/Stamina Recovery Weapon Damage. The Lady shrine, and eating Braised Rabbit with Spring Vegetables.

The boss has a bunch of adds that spawn indefinitely throughout the fight. I had the idea of keeping one alive, but my crows will keep killing them. I had the idea of blocking all of her attacks, but that drains my stamina, and her stun seems to be instant - you have to predict it rather than react to any animations. I was using Bastian with a bow as my companion, just to get his level up and try to level companion skills; I could have switched to maybe Isobel or Sharp-As-Night, but that wouldn't do all that much since all companions have dumb AI. The fight results in me just blocking, heavy attacking, and using Dual Wield Bloodthirst to heal up, using Banner ulti whenever it comes back up. Another added annoyance is that bosses in this zone despawn randomly as well.

In the situation you describe you are getting overwhelmed by multiple mobs, which is understandable, as your weapon and set choices clearly favor single target damage. The easiest way to actually capitalize on the number of opponents in a fight is to bring some AoE and a source of lifesteal, like Reaving Blows CP or Ring of the Pale order. In many cases weaker adds even help you with your sustain if you build correctly, or even amplify your damage. You could also choose to pump up your HPS/HP/Defenses as 17-24k is a bit on the unforgiving side. Once your TPS is below your HPS the encounter will likely not be able to kill you, but you may fail DPS checks.
Your build resembles a typical group-DPS build (abilities and CPs not disclosed), which is not ideal for soloing without certain tweaks, as soloing implies that you will have to take hits on certain encounters. You can compensate a lot with knowledge and skill, but a DPS optimized build will often not outperform a more encounter adjusted solo build.If you were willing to swap your mainhand for this fight for instance, you could go with 2h and slot brawler, which would supply you with a high amount of shielding during the add clears. That is of course just one out of countless options that you have.
If you are not already using it I would recommend to slot Whirling Blades and the Reaving Blows CP and changing your ult to Leap Instead.
And really, when I say to options are endless, I mean that. You just have to figure out what you are struggling with and what tools you have to overcome that issue. Then it is mostly just a question of what are you willing to bring in terms of effort, cost and flavor.

Bucky_13 · August 12

Scarefish wrote: »

Vaqual wrote: »

You either need to know how to avoid all damage and play the mechanics or you have to build tanky enough to survive mistakes. Sometimes maintaining a shield and a HoT does the trick already. Where you thinking about a particular WB? How experienced are you?

Zalsheem in Northern Elsweyr.

CP1274 Playing as a stamina DPS Dragonknight with dual wield daggers.
Build is Unfathomable Darkness + Relequen's + Slimecraw Helm + Oakensoul Ring. 0/0/64 Attributes, Traits are Divines + Sharpened + Swift. Glyphs are I believe Poison Damage + Stamina + Weapon Damage/Stamina Recovery Weapon Damage. The Lady shrine, and eating Braised Rabbit with Spring Vegetables.

The boss has a bunch of adds that spawn indefinitely throughout the fight. I had the idea of keeping one alive, but my crows will keep killing them. I had the idea of blocking all of her attacks, but that drains my stamina, and her stun seems to be instant - you have to predict it rather than react to any animations. I was using Bastian with a bow as my companion, just to get his level up and try to level companion skills; I could have switched to maybe Isobel or Sharp-As-Night, but that wouldn't do all that much since all companions have dumb AI. The fight results in me just blocking, heavy attacking, and using Dual Wield Bloodthirst to heal up, using Banner ulti whenever it comes back up. Another added annoyance is that bosses in this zone despawn randomly as well.

I figured I'd try and solo him on my stamblade just to see if my solo build worked on him. It did.

Number one: Use Pale Order mythic instead. Oakensoul is nice for one bar, but Pale Order is amazing for solo content, it's just better with all the healing you get from it.

I ran Ansuul 2 barred, Pillar of Nirn front barred, 1pc Slimecraw, Pale Order and Blackrose DW on backbar. One reason why I prefer DW back bar and 2h front bar when running solo is survival. 6% less damage taken is great when you're face tanking enemies (From Arena Weapon). It also means I have Carve on front bar for a small shield + solid AoE damage spammable + a nice dot. Running DW front can work with Whirling Blades at least for this boss I think, I was rarely beneath 50% health in the fight. I would probably go 2h for back bar in that case just to have Carve, but Staff or Bow can work too.

Since running Pale Order, Dots are your friend and gives heal from your damage. Also, using AoE spammable when adds are up gives a huge burst heal.

Build wise, I had 5 AoE damage skills, Carve, Blade Cloak, Dark Shade, Fiery Contingency (Flame dmg+dot+give minor vulnerability) & Power Extraction for Major Brutality + some nice AoE damage. Then Single target spammable + single target execute skill. I did have Echoing Vigor slotted but never used it, Single target ult (incap Strike) and lastly Sihponing Attacks for sustain.

Used tri pots on cooldown but I think any pot with restore stam and whatever you want works. The retore health was nice but not that needed.

I don't know DK that well so can't tell what skills to use, but I do know DKs are generally better than NB in PvE, only challenge might be sustain, but weaving some heavy attacks in can help a lot with that. Or just kill the shades since can also help with stam sustain a lot if you have the Bloody Renewal from red CP tree.

As for the fight, I got stunned sometimes, didn't bother to block and just broke free. When the shades appeared I hit them a bit then then focused the boss. When they started to do their ground AoE thingie I just stepped away and reapplied buffs + dots before going back in. Part of the reason why I prefer Ansuul over Rele, as this is the kind of fight where it can be easy to lose stacks unless you have a ranged weapon if you step back. I did run low on stam at one point and used a Leeching Strikes, weaving 2 heavy attacks in might have worked there otherwise.

BasP · August 12

If you're not averse to using two bars, I'd also recommend using the Ring of the Pale Order because you can just focus on dealing damage instead of your survivability when you're fighting World Bosses that are on the same difficulty level as Zalsheem. I just tried that boss on my DW/Inferno Staff MagDK with 24K Health and because of the Pale Order ring I didn't have to use an actual healing skill during the fight.

I also tried it with an Oakensoul setup I haven't used before. I morphed Venemous Claw into Burning Embers to see if I could rely just on the healing of that skill (when applied to not just the boss but also some of the adds that spawn) along with the damage shield from Ferocious Leap (an Ultimate I don't normally use). It worked well enough and I didn't really get close to dying, though I definitely prefer my regular two bar setup with the Pale Order ring.

Below you'll find the Oakensoul setup I used, in case you're interested. I figure something like that could work on a StamDK as well if you use a Stamina costing skill like Deadly Cloak (or possibly Blood Craze for another HoT) instead of Eruption.