Solo veteran Icereach with Bastian

Jaimeh

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJdP20bB4CY

I wanted to see how a veteran DLC dungeon would go with a companion, and decided to run Icereach because it's one of the easier DLCs. Since I didn't do a lot of theorfycrafting for the run beforehands, and just went in to see what would happen, I didn't have a lot of strategies in place, and in hindsight, there's a few things I would change: for example, equipping Bastian with a resto staff would have been a good idea; he was only taunting in the second boss, because I found out he couldn't survive the other bosses with the taunt on (at least in his current build--he's missing 3 purple vigorous pieces and only has green/blue so far), so a resto staff would have made more sense than s/b in those bosses, but I didn't have one on me. Regarding the fights, here are a few things I noticed:

Trash pulls: the only dangerous thing is the ice atronach when he summons his ice attack; you can survive it by two roll dodges, and a shield.

Boss 1 (Giant): Bastian cannot survive when taunting, but the player should have the boss aggro anyway, since you need to position the giant near the ice pillars. If the atro spawns it's usually game over.

Boss 2 (Hagraven): This boss without Bastian is very difficult, because you have to be extra tanky and spam shield when the boss does her drain attack. With Bastian though it's a piece of cake, since he doesn't die from her attack, and you only have to worry about melting down the plants with the fire. I kept my barrier ulti for a long time because I found that sometimes Bastian loses aggro momentarily, and the boss does her drain on you, and after waiting a bit I decided to use the ulti anyway, and then she went ahead and did the attack, I just spammed harness and thankfully survived it

Boss 3 (Flesh atro): This was the second hardest boss in the dungeon; Bastian couldn't taunt, and I couldn't survive more than one of his basic attacks on my build. Plus, there's a lot of mobs, including the perma-tethered skeletons. So I decided to just kite the boss throughout the whole fight. This made for a very long fight, and probably not the most effective way to do it.

Boss 4 (Mage): Bastian couldn't survive this boss with taunt on either, but the fight itself is not very difficult, just make sure to dodge the ice formation, and kill the storm atros when they spawn.

Boss 5 (Witches): Bastian couldn't taunt here either, and this was the hardest fight. It's very stam intensive because you need to dodge the constant heavy attacks, and bash when the mechanic happens. I didn't have the crushing shock morph, so I couldn't range interrupt, but I definitely recommend it for this fight. I just used trifood, and also swapped to the red CP node that gives a free next roll dodge, it works really well for this fight. When it gets to 30% reserve the ultimate, because you need it when the centre witch comes up, since from there on it's a dps race, and you have to kill her really quick.

My build: x5 Medusa, x5 PFS, x1 RotPO, X1 Slimecraw
Blue CP: FF, Deadly, MaA, Thaum
I had 10 points into health, and used Clockwork citrus/trifood depending on the fight

Thank you for reading!

Dojohoda

Grats @Jaimeh!! I enjoyed watching your video and I watched much of it at a slower speed to see the mechanics. I learned a few things from it! Thank you for sharing it!

Did you use One heavy piece or two? I'm guessing since ring of the pale order is equipped, at least one medusa body is equipped. Did you backbar a maelstrom staff or use two inferno medusa staves?

Thank you

Jaimeh

Dojohoda wrote: »

Grats @Jaimeh!! I enjoyed watching your video and I watched much of it at a slower speed to see the mechanics. I learned a few things from it! Thank you for sharing it!

Did you use One heavy piece or two? I'm guessing since ring of the pale order is equipped, at least one medusa body is equipped. Did you backbar a maelstrom staff or use two inferno medusa staves?

Thank you

@Dojohoda Thank you very much! I wasn't sure if I should leave it at normal speed or not because it was close to an hour, and I thought it might be boring, but good to know! I used one heavy piece (medusa shoulders--cuirass would make more sense, but I didn't have it), backbar is indeed vMA inferno (infused/berserker), and the front bar is medusa inferno (presice/flame).

code65536

Impressive!

I'm curious, did you try blocking the heavy attacks on the last boss, as a less stam-intensive alternative? I'm not sure if they're survivable on a damage dealer with just block, but they don't hurt that much when blocked on a tank (relative to other DLC boss heavy attacks, at least), probably as compensation for how often the bosses spam their heavies.

Jaimeh

code65536 wrote: »

Impressive!

I'm curious, did you try blocking the heavy attacks on the last boss, as a less stam-intensive alternative? I'm not sure if they're survivable on a damage dealer with just block, but they don't hurt that much when blocked on a tank (relative to other DLC boss heavy attacks, at least), probably as compensation for how often the bosses spam their heavies.

Thank you! I tried that, and I could sometimes survive the heavy of the lightning witch, and when I had a barrier active I just blocked the heavies of the first and the plant witches to save stam, but it wasn't consistent, and sometimes blocking the heavies without barrier and just shielding caused me a wipe, so I decided to roll every time. Once I swapped to the free roll dodge CP it was fine, even after the bashes, I just had to be mindful not roll needlessly.

ZOS_Kevin

Congrats on your run here, @Jaimeh! Very impressive! Really liked your breakdown as well.

Jaimeh

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Congrats on your run here, @Jaimeh! Very impressive! Really liked your breakdown as well.

Thank you very much, I appreciate it!