Last Boss Vet DSA Guide?

MrTarkanian48

Anyone have a link to an informative guide to the mechanics of the last boss in VDSA? I joined on console when DSA was already obsolete old news, but now that the leaderboards drop new gear I have a renewed interest.

A couple friends and I went in there the other day and breezed through all stages for the most part up until the final boss. Had some struggles and the group got frustrated and called it quits. I am sure there are some mechanics that we are not understanding. Most videos I have found though just show people running it, and it is difficult to see the strategy involved.

Alcast

nvm, got rekt

LegendaryMage

Alcast wrote: »

Hey, I got a guide right here, everything is explained, last bossfight starts at 46:34:
https://youtu.be/F0eSnuX5mac?t=46m34s

Also, a lot more guides and examples of runs can be found here, just scroll down to the vMA section:
http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/242245/pvp-pve-guides-by-alcast/p1

I think he meant Dragonstar Arena if I'm reading correctly. DSA. So last boss mechanics at VDSA, not VMA.

Liofa

You stay in the entrance as DDs and healer . Tank gets the boss to the stairs and takes the flame . After that he gets the boss to you . You gonna nuke him to %75 . He will spawn 2 mini-boss . Healer taunts the shielded boss and you nuke the mage . After mage dies , you kill the shield-guy . After that , you nuke with everything you got until he dies . At %50 and %25 , he gonna pull all of you and leaves you with %1 health . Healer should use all of his HoT effects before he pulls you . That is how my group does vDSA . If you don't have enough DPS , tank should split the boss from you again before it is %50 and %25 . Tank should get him to the entrance . Near the door . Because there will be fire mages and you don't wanna get hit by those flames . I think these are the most important tactics . You can figure out the rest .

Shunravi

Its said that the last boss is 90% of the dificulty of vDSA.

I know of some guides, you could check deltias site for example. But im to lazy to go searching for them atm... And I prefer to keep things on the forum somewhat.

So i will go over how i tend to do the fight.

First off, there is fire everywhere. The floor is gonna be covered in stupid especially if you are not managing the mechanics. There will be several things to watch out for.

You may have noticed in the some of videos that the tank will pull the boss away from the group periodically. This is to counter one of his mechanics, and i know it as the split method. The mechanic in question is hiath will raise his hand over his head and every team member in range will get an aoe fire dot on them. As long as his hand is raised, anyone who gets in range will have it casted on them. After a few seconds the aoe will explode and lay a long lasting ground aoe where you were standing. It will also summon a flame atronach at that position. It is a good idea to kill any atronachs that spawn to keep from beeing overwhelmed (there are also issues with a mechanic i will explain in a bit.)

What the split method does is it minimises the number of players in the radius of this spell. Two good places to stand are up the stairs and by the entrance as they are far appart from each other. The tank should attempt to drag the boss as far away from the group as possible. Once the aoe is cast on them, they can move back towords the group and try to place the explosion aoe in a out of the way place. The group should not move towords the boss untill his hand is down. As the group may be outside of rendering distance to see this, the tank should keep an eye on it and call it out.

Now for the really tricky bit. This boss has healthgates and timers. The mechanic i described above will reoccur every minute above 75% hp. If you do not bring him below 75% within 40 seconds after the aoe explodes, you will need to split again (if you think you can make it in those last few seconds do not split). I recomend watching pc videos where the % is shown on the boss hp bar so you can estimate 75%. If you have the dps to get to the last boss easily enough, you should be able to burn this phase easily enough.

Now it gets interesting.

At 75% his aoe timer resets and doubles to 2 minutes ( i think, im never sure honestly...). And he will summon two mini bosses. A mage and a melee fighter. You have fought them before in earlier arenas. Kill the mage. Once the mage is dead, the tank should split with the boss, and the offtank should taunt the melee miniboss. Did i mention the healer (or one of the dps sould have an offtank backbar, or at least a taunt? I should have mentioned that... Anyways, kill the miniboss and make sure to keep him out of his healing circle. About this time, if things are going well, two flameline casters will spawn near the stairs. Kill them, they will be back on a timer, but burst them down when they show up.

Now burn the boss to 50%.


At this point, things get really interesting. And how you handle it can be tricky. Hes going to summon the sorcerer and templar from the sacrefices arena. Depending on how much fun you had there, you will love or hate this part.

But the mor interestin mechanic is his pull. Hes going to pull the group in and lower your hp to 1%. You need to heal yourselves up before he lets loose an aoe burst. If there are any aoes on the ground or projectiles in the air when he pulls you, and you get hit by them, they will likely kill you. So you need to be sure everything is under control.

What i typically do at this point is straight burn on the boss. Let the tank hold the minibosses, and kill the flame summoners.

Anyways, heres an old video of me doing the fight this way. http://youtu.be/WUYz6xXPnFE

If you have questions or need me to clarify, just ask.

Alcast

LegendaryMage wrote: »

Alcast wrote: »

Hey, I got a guide right here, everything is explained, last bossfight starts at 46:34:
https://youtu.be/F0eSnuX5mac?t=46m34s

Also, a lot more guides and examples of runs can be found here, just scroll down to the vMA section:
http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/242245/pvp-pve-guides-by-alcast/p1

I think he meant Dragonstar Arena if I'm reading correctly. DSA. So last boss mechanics at VDSA, not VMA.

LOL, oh boy, I guess reading would help >.>


Seems Fearturbo got one of the newest uploaded 6 months ago here:
https://youtu.be/GeOMxmkhkc8

There are several ways this boss can be handled, however, it depends how much dps you can pull.

Shunravi

Alcast wrote: »

LegendaryMage wrote: »

Alcast wrote: »

Hey, I got a guide right here, everything is explained, last bossfight starts at 46:34:
https://youtu.be/F0eSnuX5mac?t=46m34s

Also, a lot more guides and examples of runs can be found here, just scroll down to the vMA section:
http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/242245/pvp-pve-guides-by-alcast/p1

I think he meant Dragonstar Arena if I'm reading correctly. DSA. So last boss mechanics at VDSA, not VMA.

LOL, oh boy, I guess reading would help >.>


Seems Fearturbo got one of the newest uploaded 6 months ago here:
https://youtu.be/GeOMxmkhkc8

There are several ways this boss can be handled, however, it depends how much dps you can pull.

My biggest piece of advice for lower dps is learn to manage the aoe flame dot. Especially the split method, but you can do it without the split. Its just harder.

code65536

There are different ways to handle this boss--straight burn with 0 splits, single split, and the classic two splits--and as Alcast mentioned, the amount of DPS you have determines which options are available to you.

That said, if you're doing a run for the weekly, I would recommend the 2-split method (which is more or less what Shunravi described) even if you do have the DPS for a straight splitless burn. The reason is that each second that you save in DSA is worth 3 points. If you shave your time down by a minute, you'll gain less than 200 points. In contrast, the new vitality scoring added in Thieves Guild means each death is worth 1000 points. If you're trying to fight for a top spot on the all-time leaderboard, then you need to take risky, fast strategies and not die.

If you're just trying to get a score good enough to stick for the weekly, it's much better to play it safe and minimize deaths. Even with seasoned groups, things will happen, and when the choice to possibly gain under 200 points from a faster time is also paired with a fairly sizeable risk that you'll lose 1-4K points if it doesn't go perfectly (and then you'll have to re-do the run to get a decent weekly score), it is, IMHO, better to play it safe. The last time vDSA was the weekly, my best run that week was one where we pulled out all the stops, did a full 100-to-0 burn on Hiath, and got a really fast time, but right behind that score was one where we played it very safe (had a tank that only tanked, a healer that only healed, and took very conservative strategies), had a pretty slow run, but we had just one death that entire run. And then I had a lot of runs that we had to re-do because we went fast, took risks, and ended up losing too many points to deaths. And when you have multiple toons to land on that board, you really want to just one-shot it.

LadyNalcarya

Shunravi wrote: »

My biggest piece of advice for lower dps is learn to manage the aoe flame dot. Especially the split method, but you can do it without the split. Its just harder.

Imo split is much more annoying and there's more chances to screw up.
That split tactic is one of the main reasons why I even started speedrunning DSA. XD

pretzl

Liofa wrote: »

You stay in the entrance as DDs and healer . Tank gets the boss to the stairs and takes the flame . After that he gets the boss to you . You gonna nuke him to %75 . He will spawn 2 mini-boss . Healer taunts the shielded boss and you nuke the mage . After mage dies , you kill the shield-guy . After that , you nuke with everything you got until he dies . At %50 and %25 , he gonna pull all of you and leaves you with %1 health . Healer should use all of his HoT effects before he pulls you . That is how my group does vDSA . If you don't have enough DPS , tank should split the boss from you again before it is %50 and %25 . Tank should get him to the entrance . Near the door . Because there will be fire mages and you don't wanna get hit by those flames . I think these are the most important tactics . You can figure out the rest .

This is a very viable strategy if you don´t have the DPS to nuke the boss, but you do have some problematic points.

Hiath has certain points where his mechanics can be ignored. If your group is able to get his health below 75% within the first 6 seconds of his spawn-time, you can ignore his fire circles.
Getting these fire circles isn´t a big deal considering they only spawn measly flame atronachs. In that case, you need to make sure all 4 players are close to each other. Close enough to keep the fire within a small area, but not as close as to overlap the fire. Overlapping fire will mean a bad time for the healer and a bad time for the DD/tank who will surely die.

From there, Hiath spawns two adds - one fighter and one magicka char. Kill the fighter fast because he´ll spawn a healing circle if he just looses as much as 1 HP. Tank also needs to bash him while this is ongoing. From there, kill the magicka NPC and then go on to DPSing the boss. At 50%, Hiath will do his fire pull. This will put each player at 10 HP. Mind your step here as there is a fair bit of fire spouting around you. Make sure to kill atleast 1 of the fire mages from the red circles. Their fire hits hard, but they have approx 30k health so they go quick.

From there it´s just a race to the finish line. Drop all your ultimates once the boss pulls. If you have enough DPS between you, you can ignore his 2nd pull which will come at around 30%-25%.
My group burns him so fast I´ve forgotten alot of the mechanics, but the fight is relatively simple so long as your group is coordinated.

Shunravi

KoshkaMurka wrote: »

Shunravi wrote: »

My biggest piece of advice for lower dps is learn to manage the aoe flame dot. Especially the split method, but you can do it without the split. Its just harder.

Imo split is much more annoying and there's more chances to screw up.
That split tactic is one of the main reasons why I even started speedrunning DSA. XD

lol, yea. i figured it was a passable explanation of the mechanics and a decent way to deal with them...

code65536

KoshkaMurka wrote: »

Shunravi wrote: »

My biggest piece of advice for lower dps is learn to manage the aoe flame dot. Especially the split method, but you can do it without the split. Its just harder.

Imo split is much more annoying and there's more chances to screw up.
That split tactic is one of the main reasons why I even started speedrunning DSA. XD

Having done it both ways, splitting IMHO is so much safer, as long as your tank is able to survive the split.

Also, when you're doing vDSA for the weekly, you often don't have your "A Team". People have multiple alts that they want to get on, so you won't always have the most optimal group composition. You'll sometimes have people on alts that they're less adept with and you'll have groups formed based on what characters still need the weekly instead of what characters would work best together.

LadyNalcarya

code65536 wrote: »

KoshkaMurka wrote: »

Shunravi wrote: »

My biggest piece of advice for lower dps is learn to manage the aoe flame dot. Especially the split method, but you can do it without the split. Its just harder.

Imo split is much more annoying and there's more chances to screw up.
That split tactic is one of the main reasons why I even started speedrunning DSA. XD

Having done it both ways, splitting IMHO is so much safer, as long as your tank is able to survive the split.

Also, when you're doing vDSA for the weekly, you often don't have your "A Team". People have multiple alts that they want to get on, so you won't always have the most optimal group composition. You'll sometimes have people on alts that they're less adept with and you'll have groups formed based on what characters still need the weekly instead of what characters would work best together.

I never do split tactic even with first-timers in group. Works fine. What I am doing wrong?

iam_slickone

i have to find a way to save this post so i can refer back to it... maybe a comment will work

Shunravi

iam_slickone wrote: »

i have to find a way to save this post so i can refer back to it... maybe a comment will work

click the star next to the title

boom782

pretzl wrote: »

Liofa wrote: »

You stay in the entrance as DDs and healer . Tank gets the boss to the stairs and takes the flame . After that he gets the boss to you . You gonna nuke him to %75 . He will spawn 2 mini-boss . Healer taunts the shielded boss and you nuke the mage . After mage dies , you kill the shield-guy . After that , you nuke with everything you got until he dies . At %50 and %25 , he gonna pull all of you and leaves you with %1 health . Healer should use all of his HoT effects before he pulls you . That is how my group does vDSA . If you don't have enough DPS , tank should split the boss from you again before it is %50 and %25 . Tank should get him to the entrance . Near the door . Because there will be fire mages and you don't wanna get hit by those flames . I think these are the most important tactics . You can figure out the rest .

This is a very viable strategy if you don´t have the DPS to nuke the boss, but you do have some problematic points.

Hiath has certain points where his mechanics can be ignored. If your group is able to get his health below 75% within the first 6 seconds of his spawn-time, you can ignore his fire circles.
Getting these fire circles isn´t a big deal considering they only spawn measly flame atronachs. In that case, you need to make sure all 4 players are close to each other. Close enough to keep the fire within a small area, but not as close as to overlap the fire. Overlapping fire will mean a bad time for the healer and a bad time for the DD/tank who will surely die.

From there, Hiath spawns two adds - one fighter and one magicka char. Kill the fighter fast because he´ll spawn a healing circle if he just looses as much as 1 HP. Tank also needs to bash him while this is ongoing. From there, kill the magicka NPC and then go on to DPSing the boss. At 50%, Hiath will do his fire pull. This will put each player at 10 HP. Mind your step here as there is a fair bit of fire spouting around you. Make sure to kill atleast 1 of the fire mages from the red circles. Their fire hits hard, but they have approx 30k health so they go quick.

From there it´s just a race to the finish line. Drop all your ultimates once the boss pulls. If you have enough DPS between you, you can ignore his 2nd pull which will come at around 30%-25%.
My group burns him so fast I´ve forgotten alot of the mechanics, but the fight is relatively simple so long as your group is coordinated.

Did they change anything or buff the last boss or entire DSA recently?

I went in with a killer group last night and we didn't have much trouble until last boss. We got him to 65k HP and wiped which pissed me off but many other times we got him around 15-20% but quit after about 3 hours on just him.

I checked all these guides and many talk as you and say burn the boss during phases, but it has to be impossible. The boss has 6.1mill HP and you are saying to take him down 25% in 6 seconds which is impossible. You are talking 250,000 DPS for 4 people. That is not possible with warhorn and 3 ultimates and ANY group comp, I don't care who is playing.

Another guide says to try to burn him from 50 to 25% before the 2 bosses spawn and they will not spawn. We also tried this with warhorn, 3 ultimates, and 3 very strong DPS and only managed to get him to about 32% because bosses spawn about 8 seconds after he hits 50% and inhales. Again, I do not know how that is possible.

Long story short, has vDSA been buffed since all these 'guides' have been written?

CreepyPahuska

I do vDSA quite often with a group of friends, here's how we kill it (last run was 4 or 5 days ago so it's up-to-date):

Ingredients :
1 - A good healer with a taunt
2 - A good tank able to be on his own and sustain his own HPs for most of the fight
3 - Two good damage dealers

Method :
1 - leave your Healer and DDs at the entrance of the arena. The tank goes alone to the boss and tanks him. After a few seconds, the boss will raise his hand and a fire circle will pop under the tanks feet (make sure the boss is far enough from the rest of the group so they don't have the fire circle too). When he lowers his hand, the tank must prepare to get back to the entrance with the rest of the group. The rest of of the group can move in the tank's direction to meet him halfway through the first platform. When the fire ring disapears, the tank runs back to the group and everyone bursts the boss to take him down to 75% before the next fire ring phase. A flame atronach will spawn from the fire ring, don't bother about him.

2 - At 75%, the healer taunts the boss and everyone but the tank runs back to the entrance. He/she will tank him for the rest of the fight. The first two bosses will spawn, the tank taunts them and runs away, back to where he was before. During that time, the DDs must DPS the boss down to 50% to start the first absorption phase.

3 - That's when the fun begins. At 50% the DDs must NUKE the boss. Never stop DPSing, don't block the absorption, nothing. Just keep killing the boss and burst him down as fast as possible.

4 - When this first absorption phase is over, two more bosses will spawn. The tank, who's already dealing with the first two bosses, will have to come back to the group, taunt the other 2 bosses, and take them away.

5 - At 25%, the next absorption phase will start. The DDs must keep DPSing the boss as fast as possible since the tank is now tanking four bosses on his own, and it's no easy task.

6 - At the very end, the boss may pull a negate on the group, the healer & the two DDs must get out of it very quickly since the healer won't be able to heal inside of it.

We have a few videos of this fight that we can upload if necessary (from the tank & the healer's point of views)

The advantage of this method is that it's very very quick. If you fail, it won't be after an exhausting 15 minutes long fight.

pretzl

boom782 wrote: »

pretzl wrote: »

Liofa wrote: »

You stay in the entrance as DDs and healer . Tank gets the boss to the stairs and takes the flame . After that he gets the boss to you . You gonna nuke him to %75 . He will spawn 2 mini-boss . Healer taunts the shielded boss and you nuke the mage . After mage dies , you kill the shield-guy . After that , you nuke with everything you got until he dies . At %50 and %25 , he gonna pull all of you and leaves you with %1 health . Healer should use all of his HoT effects before he pulls you . That is how my group does vDSA . If you don't have enough DPS , tank should split the boss from you again before it is %50 and %25 . Tank should get him to the entrance . Near the door . Because there will be fire mages and you don't wanna get hit by those flames . I think these are the most important tactics . You can figure out the rest .

This is a very viable strategy if you don´t have the DPS to nuke the boss, but you do have some problematic points.

Hiath has certain points where his mechanics can be ignored. If your group is able to get his health below 75% within the first 6 seconds of his spawn-time, you can ignore his fire circles.
Getting these fire circles isn´t a big deal considering they only spawn measly flame atronachs. In that case, you need to make sure all 4 players are close to each other. Close enough to keep the fire within a small area, but not as close as to overlap the fire. Overlapping fire will mean a bad time for the healer and a bad time for the DD/tank who will surely die.

From there, Hiath spawns two adds - one fighter and one magicka char. Kill the fighter fast because he´ll spawn a healing circle if he just looses as much as 1 HP. Tank also needs to bash him while this is ongoing. From there, kill the magicka NPC and then go on to DPSing the boss. At 50%, Hiath will do his fire pull. This will put each player at 10 HP. Mind your step here as there is a fair bit of fire spouting around you. Make sure to kill atleast 1 of the fire mages from the red circles. Their fire hits hard, but they have approx 30k health so they go quick.

From there it´s just a race to the finish line. Drop all your ultimates once the boss pulls. If you have enough DPS between you, you can ignore his 2nd pull which will come at around 30%-25%.
My group burns him so fast I´ve forgotten alot of the mechanics, but the fight is relatively simple so long as your group is coordinated.

Did they change anything or buff the last boss or entire DSA recently?

I went in with a killer group last night and we didn't have much trouble until last boss. We got him to 65k HP and wiped which pissed me off but many other times we got him around 15-20% but quit after about 3 hours on just him.

I checked all these guides and many talk as you and say burn the boss during phases, but it has to be impossible. The boss has 6.1mill HP and you are saying to take him down 25% in 6 seconds which is impossible. You are talking 250,000 DPS for 4 people. That is not possible with warhorn and 3 ultimates and ANY group comp, I don't care who is playing.

Another guide says to try to burn him from 50 to 25% before the 2 bosses spawn and they will not spawn. We also tried this with warhorn, 3 ultimates, and 3 very strong DPS and only managed to get him to about 32% because bosses spawn about 8 seconds after he hits 50% and inhales. Again, I do not know how that is possible.

Long story short, has vDSA been buffed since all these 'guides' have been written?

My response is indeed outdated given vDSA was buffed with One Tamriel. Check out what @CreepyPahuska said. That's how we do it now

boom782

pretzl wrote: »

boom782 wrote: »

pretzl wrote: »

Liofa wrote: »

You stay in the entrance as DDs and healer . Tank gets the boss to the stairs and takes the flame . After that he gets the boss to you . You gonna nuke him to %75 . He will spawn 2 mini-boss . Healer taunts the shielded boss and you nuke the mage . After mage dies , you kill the shield-guy . After that , you nuke with everything you got until he dies . At %50 and %25 , he gonna pull all of you and leaves you with %1 health . Healer should use all of his HoT effects before he pulls you . That is how my group does vDSA . If you don't have enough DPS , tank should split the boss from you again before it is %50 and %25 . Tank should get him to the entrance . Near the door . Because there will be fire mages and you don't wanna get hit by those flames . I think these are the most important tactics . You can figure out the rest .

This is a very viable strategy if you don´t have the DPS to nuke the boss, but you do have some problematic points.

Hiath has certain points where his mechanics can be ignored. If your group is able to get his health below 75% within the first 6 seconds of his spawn-time, you can ignore his fire circles.
Getting these fire circles isn´t a big deal considering they only spawn measly flame atronachs. In that case, you need to make sure all 4 players are close to each other. Close enough to keep the fire within a small area, but not as close as to overlap the fire. Overlapping fire will mean a bad time for the healer and a bad time for the DD/tank who will surely die.

From there, Hiath spawns two adds - one fighter and one magicka char. Kill the fighter fast because he´ll spawn a healing circle if he just looses as much as 1 HP. Tank also needs to bash him while this is ongoing. From there, kill the magicka NPC and then go on to DPSing the boss. At 50%, Hiath will do his fire pull. This will put each player at 10 HP. Mind your step here as there is a fair bit of fire spouting around you. Make sure to kill atleast 1 of the fire mages from the red circles. Their fire hits hard, but they have approx 30k health so they go quick.

From there it´s just a race to the finish line. Drop all your ultimates once the boss pulls. If you have enough DPS between you, you can ignore his 2nd pull which will come at around 30%-25%.
My group burns him so fast I´ve forgotten alot of the mechanics, but the fight is relatively simple so long as your group is coordinated.

Did they change anything or buff the last boss or entire DSA recently?

I went in with a killer group last night and we didn't have much trouble until last boss. We got him to 65k HP and wiped which pissed me off but many other times we got him around 15-20% but quit after about 3 hours on just him.

I checked all these guides and many talk as you and say burn the boss during phases, but it has to be impossible. The boss has 6.1mill HP and you are saying to take him down 25% in 6 seconds which is impossible. You are talking 250,000 DPS for 4 people. That is not possible with warhorn and 3 ultimates and ANY group comp, I don't care who is playing.

Another guide says to try to burn him from 50 to 25% before the 2 bosses spawn and they will not spawn. We also tried this with warhorn, 3 ultimates, and 3 very strong DPS and only managed to get him to about 32% because bosses spawn about 8 seconds after he hits 50% and inhales. Again, I do not know how that is possible.

Long story short, has vDSA been buffed since all these 'guides' have been written?

My response is indeed outdated given vDSA was buffed with One Tamriel. Check out what @CreepyPahuska said. That's how we do it now

Phew, thats all I needed to hear, lol. I consider myself a damn good player but was starting to question that when we couldn't do what all these guides had mentioned.

Thanks!

code65536

pretzl wrote: »

My response is indeed outdated given vDSA was buffed with One Tamriel.

Minor correction: It was revamped and buffed in Update 11 (Shadows of the Hist).

pretzl

code65536 wrote: »

pretzl wrote: »

My response is indeed outdated given vDSA was buffed with One Tamriel.

Minor correction: It was revamped and buffed in Update 11 (Shadows of the Hist).

Ah, yes, thanks. I cba to remember what happens in which update as it's become alot of them, but good that someone else pays attention

Alucardo

CreepyPahuska wrote: »

I do vDSA quite often with a group of friends, here's how we kill it (last run was 4 or 5 days ago so it's up-to-date):

Ingredients :
1 - A good healer with a taunt
2 - A good tank able to be on his own and sustain his own HPs for most of the fight
3 - Two good damage dealers

Method :
1 - leave your Healer and DDs at the entrance of the arena. The tank goes alone to the boss and tanks him. After a few seconds, the boss will raise his hand and a fire circle will pop under the tanks feet (make sure the boss is far enough from the rest of the group so they don't have the fire circle too). When he lowers his hand, the tank must prepare to get back to the entrance with the rest of the group. The rest of of the group can move in the tank's direction to meet him halfway through the first platform. When the fire ring disapears, the tank runs back to the group and everyone bursts the boss to take him down to 75% before the next fire ring phase. A flame atronach will spawn from the fire ring, don't bother about him.

2 - At 75%, the healer taunts the boss and everyone but the tank runs back to the entrance. He/she will tank him for the rest of the fight. The first two bosses will spawn, the tank taunts them and runs away, back to where he was before. During that time, the DDs must DPS the boss down to 50% to start the first absorption phase.

3 - That's when the fun begins. At 50% the DDs must NUKE the boss. Never stop DPSing, don't block the absorption, nothing. Just keep killing the boss and burst him down as fast as possible.

4 - When this first absorption phase is over, two more bosses will spawn. The tank, who's already dealing with the first two bosses, will have to come back to the group, taunt the other 2 bosses, and take them away.

5 - At 25%, the next absorption phase will start. The DDs must keep DPSing the boss as fast as possible since the tank is now tanking four bosses on his own, and it's no easy task.

6 - At the very end, the boss may pull a negate on the group, the healer & the two DDs must get out of it very quickly since the healer won't be able to heal inside of it.

We have a few videos of this fight that we can upload if necessary (from the tank & the healer's point of views)

The advantage of this method is that it's very very quick. If you fail, it won't be after an exhausting 15 minutes long fight.

Sounds a lot like how my group usually handles the final round, and it goes smoothly every time. We've tried a few different other ways, but this one works very well

Joy_Division

CreepyPahuska wrote: »

I do vDSA quite often with a group of friends, here's how we kill it (last run was 4 or 5 days ago so it's up-to-date):

Ingredients :
1 - A good healer with a taunt
2 - A good tank able to be on his own and sustain his own HPs for most of the fight
3 - Two good damage dealers

Method :
1 - leave your Healer and DDs at the entrance of the arena. The tank goes alone to the boss and tanks him. After a few seconds, the boss will raise his hand and a fire circle will pop under the tanks feet (make sure the boss is far enough from the rest of the group so they don't have the fire circle too). When he lowers his hand, the tank must prepare to get back to the entrance with the rest of the group. The rest of of the group can move in the tank's direction to meet him halfway through the first platform. When the fire ring disapears, the tank runs back to the group and everyone bursts the boss to take him down to 75% before the next fire ring phase. A flame atronach will spawn from the fire ring, don't bother about him.

2 - At 75%, the healer taunts the boss and everyone but the tank runs back to the entrance. He/she will tank him for the rest of the fight. The first two bosses will spawn, the tank taunts them and runs away, back to where he was before. During that time, the DDs must DPS the boss down to 50% to start the first absorption phase.

3 - That's when the fun begins. At 50% the DDs must NUKE the boss. Never stop DPSing, don't block the absorption, nothing. Just keep killing the boss and burst him down as fast as possible.

4 - When this first absorption phase is over, two more bosses will spawn. The tank, who's already dealing with the first two bosses, will have to come back to the group, taunt the other 2 bosses, and take them away.

5 - At 25%, the next absorption phase will start. The DDs must keep DPSing the boss as fast as possible since the tank is now tanking four bosses on his own, and it's no easy task.

6 - At the very end, the boss may pull a negate on the group, the healer & the two DDs must get out of it very quickly since the healer won't be able to heal inside of it.

We have a few videos of this fight that we can upload if necessary (from the tank & the healer's point of views)

The advantage of this method is that it's very very quick. If you fail, it won't be after an exhausting 15 minutes long fight.

This is how the cool kids do it nowadys.

Three issues to watch out for:

1. Getting the boss to 75% before the 2nd fire phase requires good DPS.
2. The DDs/healer need to tell the tank to come back just before the 50% suck in to grab the second pair of adds quickly (the mage loves to hide behind the boss). It's really tough on tank to hold all four.
3. The part past 25% is RNG fest because a negate of nova will drop and force the DDs to move it fire streams. Keep the boss tab targetted.

AverageJo3Gam3r

Any tips about the last 25%? We tried the boss for 3 hours last night with this method. Comfortably could push him to 50% with only a single atro up. But that's when things started to fall apart. Our tank became victim of rng silliness (e.g., mag dropping a volcanic rune on top of him then getting blown up into a flame spinner fire stream).

At 50% after absorption the healer would rotate the boss from the grate to the far left of the first island so the tank can more easily grab the two adds without accidentally taunting the boss. We had plenty of dps to push him to 25% quickly once we parked the boss. But we never had our tank live through the absorption at 25% with all four mini bosses on him. We were able to push the boss to 2% and 12% in two separate runs just by continuing to dps and heal, but most of the time we'd get eaten alive by the mini bosses or the 1HS mini boss would start healing the boss.

Any thoughts or tips?

code65536

AverageJo3Gam3r wrote: »

Any tips about the last 25%? We tried the boss for 3 hours last night with this method. Comfortably could push him to 50% with only a single atro up. But that's when things started to fall apart. Our tank became victim of rng silliness (e.g., mag dropping a volcanic rune on top of him then getting blown up into a flame spinner fire stream).

At 50% after absorption the healer would rotate the boss from the grate to the far left of the first island so the tank can more easily grab the two adds without accidentally taunting the boss. We had plenty of dps to push him to 25% quickly once we parked the boss. But we never had our tank live through the absorption at 25% with all four mini bosses on him. We were able to push the boss to 2% and 12% in two separate runs just by continuing to dps and heal, but most of the time we'd get eaten alive by the mini bosses or the 1HS mini boss would start healing the boss.

Any thoughts or tips?

Sounds like a tanking issue. A tank does need to be self-sufficient in both resources and healing--you don't need tons of health for the job, but you do need good resource management. The volcanic rune can be sidestepped or blocked. And Marcauld should never get close to the boss. Don't come too close to Hiath when taunting away the second add set--a ranged taunt is much better.

Alternatively, the safer (but much slower) method involves killing the first add set. For that strategy, instead of the tank taking the first two adds away, he takes Hiath away while the DPS kills the adds (mage first, while healer holds Marcauld's aggro). During this time, the tank will split up with Hiath, come back when he gets the fire, and then split back up again, doing this as many times as needed until the two adds are dead. It's slower and more complicated, but if having all four adds alive is complicating things for your tank, then this is a strategy to consider.

Strider_Roshin

Git gud.....At taking out the crystals while being mindful of the boss's projectile, and make sure you're behind that wall when it appears. If your DPS is strong enough you can send the boss up before the daedroth appears. If it does appear then make sure you take it out before going up. If your struggling to do that then pick up a healing sigil when the daedroth does appear. Once you take out the crystals grab that shield sigil immediately in order to reflect the boss's channel back at him. Grab the three gold ghosts, then grab the attack sigil before using that soul blast, and kill the boss. Ignore all other adds, and mechanics.

code65536

Strider_Roshin wrote: »

Git gud.....At taking out the crystals while being mindful of the boss's projectile, and make sure you're behind that wall when it appears. If your DPS is strong enough you can send the boss up before the daedroth appears. If it does appear then make sure you take it out before going up. If your struggling to do that then pick up a healing sigil when the daedroth does appear. Once you take out the crystals grab that shield sigil immediately in order to reflect the boss's channel back at him. Grab the three gold ghosts, then grab the attack sigil before using that soul blast, and kill the boss. Ignore all other adds, and mechanics.

LOL, wrong arena. Methinks your thread reading skills might need some "git gud".

Shaiba

AverageJo3Gam3r wrote: »

But we never had our tank live through the absorption at 25% with all four mini bosses on him.

The tank isn't supposed to be grabbed by the absorption. He needs to tank the four bosses far away from the rest of the group. Example : I (as a healer) tank Hiath at the entrance of the arena, the tank will tank the 4 bosses near the stairs. If the tank is far enough he won't be grabbed by Hiath.

About the Volcanic Rune, if your tank must enter in it (cause he hasn't the time to go out of it or dodge), he should block it to prevent being CCed by it.

Magicka taunt from Undaunted skills is kinda a must have for this fight. Your tank won't go melee to each boss to taunt them, it's too risky (specially cause of the absorption thing).

Problem with the slower method is that if something bad happened that cause a wipe you had lost lots of time. And it's not safier than the first one cause it is more complicated. Burst strat is really the easier one and quickier one, specially in this case where it seems they had decent DPS to do it. If they decide to apply the slower and "complicated" strat, the healer must take care of Marcauld's dawnbreaker.

It's slower and more complicated, but if having all four adds alive is complicating things for your tank, then this is a strategy to consider.

If the tank has problem tanking all 4 bosses it can come from 2 things (maybe more but here are the one that came to my mind ) :
- Problem come from the tank : He needs to experience/practice more on his tanking char, be more reactive (specially to volcanic rune thing), see what are his problems during the fight, what can be done to counter it (if he needs more reactivity, better ressources management, when to block,....), how he can improve his build, ... well, practicing.
- Problem come from the low DPS : the more time it takes to kill hiath, the more your tank will suffer (specially when he tank 4 bosses), he shouldn't tank these for days.
Here it seems the problem came from the tank. Is using a more complcated strat for the whole team a good way to counter a strat that is complicated only for one person of the group ? @AverageJo3Gam3r 's team is the only one that can answer this ^^

Git gud

To make it as short as possible and as hostile as what you said : L2R

Lukums1

EDIT: Didn't see CREEPY and JOY commented on this exact strat -

Jezus you guys do it so hard.

There's an easier way LOL.

Tank Taunts Boss
You go into the middle of the arena DPS Boss to 75%
Healer taunts MAIN Boss
Healer and DPS goes back to entrance
Tank Grabs adds and kites
DPS Burns boss to 50%
Tank comes back to entrance to grab mage and sword dude
Takes them back of the arena continues to kite
DPS continues to burn boss to 0%

Win.

All those gay strats you guys are suggesting are $%%@! why make it harder for people.

Follow the above... we do this constantly with no issues this just depends if you have a "real man tank"

Luke

AverageJo3Gam3r

Thanks for the help guys!