How do You Flank During Solo/Aggro Content like VMA/Vateshran?

GrumpyDuckling

I like the idea/theme of Nightblade flanking gameplay and want to get the most out of the following bonuses and perks to flanking:

Master Assassin passive
Increases your Physical and Spell Penetration against enemies you are flanking by 2974. Increases the duration of the stun from Sneak by 100%.

Surprise Attack skill
Slash an enemy, dealing 3100 Physical Damage and applying the Sundered status effect. Attacking with Surprise Attack from the flank stuns the enemy for 3 seconds and sets them Off Balance.

Camouflaged Hunter skill
Invoke your expertise in anatomy and enemy behavior to detect stealthed and invisible enemies around you for 5 seconds. Exposed enemies cannot return to stealth or invisibility for 4 seconds. While slotted you gain Major Savagery, increasing your Weapon Critical rating by 2629. You also gain Minor Berserk for [2 / 3 / 4 / 5] seconds after you deal Critical Damage from an enemy's flank, increasing your damage done by 5%.

Backstabber (champion point system)
Increases your Critical Damage done by 3% per stage against enemies you are flanking. (Add to champion bar to activate. 5 stages, 50 pts)

However, for solo content like VMA and Vateshran Hollows, where enemies are always directly facing you and are aggro'd on you, how do you consistently attack from flank? I've been thinking of ways to up my speed to try to kite around enemies like a madperson and hope that most of my hits are registering the flanking from the sides. I've also been thinking about incorporating the Nightblade cloak skill to turn invisible and get behind enemies, but does it still consistently break when in the middle of combat? Thoughts/tips from anyone with flanking experience?

Fennwitty

Not a ton you can do besides subject them to a hard crowd control like fear / stun etc. that makes them stand still.

Waiting until they do some static cone aoe that makes them stay put may work, but sometimes they can spin the cone around.

Theoretically you could teleport back with the shadow archer ability and *maybe* catch them in an instant but they might spin around immediately anyway.

You'd kind of need pets that can take aggro in order to get attacks from behind consistently.

In my opinion it's not worth the resources trying to make it happen though. There are far too many enemies most of the time to be spending invisibility skills or teleports to handle 'trash' mobs. And bosses are generally immune to crowd control so all you'd have is invisibility ... if it works.

Ippokrates

Well, you can try with Expedition or Wild Hunt - just run around bosses in melee range (works mainly in Blue area) and hope they would not turn fast enough ^^

colossalvoids

I don't do that consistently and also don't need to, stuff dies as quickly as just standing right in their face. Only going for it upon burn phases or when making laps around one, doesn't really care otherwise. Don't stress it honestly, when opportunity occurs it's fine but you won't be really able to do it "consistently" in such scenarios.

Finedaible

The angle at which you can "flank" an enemy seems to be very generous to either side (greater than 180 degrees). Generally if you are kiting an enemy up close the passive usually takes effect. You can notice this when stunning enemies using Veiled Strike and morphs, which conveniently gives you even more time to walk around them from being stunned.

Oreyn_Bearclaw

Best you can typically do is circle the boss and try to stay behind them, which is often good practice anyways. Bosses are generally immune to CCs. Most bosses will circle with you, but often you can stay ahead of them. Some bosses, will stop to do mechanics, at which you can stop and go extra hard with spams and ultimates, when you know you are at their flank.

Sometimes your pets will draw their aggro in my experience, but you really cant rely on it. Without a proper tank with a taunt, going all in on flank damage for solo content (unless companions are available), probably doesn't make a ton of sense.

Stx

You don't have to get behind them to gain the benefits. You just need to strafe while attacking and usually you can trigger passives easily from the side or even from the side-front.

Athan1

I agree with others, try to fear or root enemies (I think some Shadow skills achieve the former) and just hit from their side, I think you have around 270 degrees of a circle to do so.