Remember the sigils! The Defense (shield) sigil will up your physical/spell resistance AND reflect all projectiles for its entire duration.

@Joy_Division always gives really good advice on VMA for rookies, so take it to heart. I will give my 2 cents on round 5 boss.

This is the first place that I got seriously stuck in the arena. It is really the only boss fight that I am not trying to do a 100-0 burn. The beauty of this fight is that it becomes really easy once you get the hang of it. As stated above, you control the pace of the fight. Do not be afraid to hold DPS in certain spots. The rest of the arena is a DPS race, but this fight is NOT!

Essentially there are three mechanics to deal with and two of them are 100% under your control. Trolls spawn based on time, so you cant do much about that, but often it makes sense to wait on a troll spawn before you push the boss past one of the health thresholds. The boss Spawns 2 Adds at 90, 60 and 30% of the bosses health. The boss breaks the Island he is on at 75, 45, and 5% of his health. Not sure if XBOX shows percentages, but I suppose you could do the math to get a rough estimate.

This is how I handle the boss on really any class if I am trying to play it safe. As a general rule, circle him when you are sharing an island with him. Try to save stam for a CC break, because you will need it. A badly timed fear with no stam is really the only thing that gets me on this fight.

1. DPS the boss for a few seconds. HOLD DPS at about 92% and wait for a troll to spawn.
2. Immediately take out the troll and then push Boss to 90% to trigger the first wave of adds. This avoids getting adds and troll at same time.
3. Take out the adds as fast as possible. Dont be afraid to grab a sigil when adds spawn.
4. Once adds are dead, push boss to about 77%, be sure to take out any trolls along the way, and HOLD DPS.
5. Wait for another troll to spawn, and quickly push boss to 75%. This will stun the troll, giving you plenty of time to take it out, while you switch islands. I usually go to wherever the troll is unless he is moving towards the island that was just smashed, but that shouldnt happen.
6. Once the boss breaks the island, drop an ultimate on the neried that spawns from the rubble. They are squishy but hit hard, so take it out first.
7. Now you essentially repeat the steps above. Push boss to about 62% and HOLD DPS for a troll.
8. Take out troll, and push boss to 60% for second set of adds, again do whatever to take them out. Sigils are your friend.
9. Push boss to about 47% and wait for troll to spawn, then push to 45% and go to last island.
10. Take out troll, Ulti bomb the neried, and you are in the home stretch.
11. At this point the boss will be around 40% health and you have one island left. Personally, I burn him at this point, but the safe move is to continue the strat above.
12. DPS boss to about 32% health, wait for troll, (he will come to your island at this point). Kill the troll and push boss for last adds. Take out the adds like before.
13. Now it is just up to you and the boss. On a templar, its probably safer to just keep jabbing him, but you could also start your execute. He will blow up the last island at 5%, but you should take him form 5-0% before he has time to do it.

The whole point of this strat is to minimize more than a few adds at one time. Be patient and stick to the strat and it will get better. The toughest part is figuring a way to take out the 2 adds that spawn. Sometimes the ranged adds stay out in the water, but you need to figure out a way to take them out. Because this is not a DPS race, you could certainly change your bars and find a place for something like crushing shock, perhaps instead of toppling charge. It will interrupt trolls and take care of range adds.

The funny thing is that with a little practice this is probably the second or third easiest boss fight if you take it slow. On the other hand, I happen to know this is the number one spot that the Sorc with the best VMA score in the world dies in the whole arena. Now, he is going for speed so he doesnt do anything I suggest and just burns him, but that is a different story. Not something I ever care to attempt. Haha.

N0TPLAYER2 wrote: »

Beat round 5!!!!!! Omg amazing!!

Without you guys help there's no way. Again thank you to everyone!!

I'm sure I'll be back tomorrow with questions about round 6 lol.

Grats Buddy.

Round 6 is frustrating, but I dont think it's as hard as round 5 once you understand the basic mechanics. I wont go into nearly as much detail (okay, maybe I lied), but the basics are as follows:

Everything centers around the 5 pillers that are in the pattern of a 5 on a standard 6 sided die. They will start by being covered with webs. In addition to taking out the waves of adds that spawn, you goal is to remove the webs from these pillars. If you remove all 5 at the same time, you will stun everything in the room for a short duration. They way you remove these is by utilizing the Hoarvors that spawn. Kind of like the trolls in 5, they just seem to randomly spawn at anytime you are in the arena. Killing a hoarver near a covered pillar will remove the web. Alternatively, if you kill a hoarver away from the web, you can stand on top of it and throw a grenade at a pillar very much like the second boss in ICP.

The best way to deal with the Hoarvors IMO is to light attack them with a staff (resto or destro), which will effectively taunt them towards you. You can kite them to pretty much anywhere in the arena (they do almost no damage), but typically I walk to the closest covered pillar and then kill the hoarver. I always go for the center one first if it is covered. They are pretty squishy, so anything more than a basic light attack will kill them where they stand. If you ignore the hoarvor, they wont really do anything and eventually wander off the screen. I often ignore them if I have 4 of 5 pillars uncovered and dont want to activate the stun. When learning, I would just plan to use the stun as much as possible.

The opposite of the hoarvors are the webspinners, little spiders that spawn next to an uncovered pillar. These spiders are also pretty squishy, but they are ALWAYS your number one priority as they will recover the pillar if given enough time.

Why is this important? Every so often, a wave of red spiders will spawn. Trying to attack them is a big no-no. They have huge health bars and will simply overwhelm you. One of the uncovered pillars will glow bright gold, which is your safe spot. Run to the light and the spiders will disperse. Sometimes the light will move on you to another pillar, which is why it is super important to keep at least 2 (preferably 3) pillars uncovered at all times. While the stun is useful at times, it also resets the pillars, so I personally try to uncover four pillars and keep it that way. That way if I miss a spider and one gets covered, its not a huge deal.

There are some mini bosses along the way that hit hard and drop negates, but they are all manageable. Otherwise its pretty typical adds you are used to dealing with. There are a lot of casters so keep Harness Magic up.

As for the boss, she is relatively straight forward. The hoarvors will keep coming. If you die, the pillars will reset. If you are starting from scratch (all pillars covered), you goal is to try to uncover them to stun the boss and then burn the crap out of her. In addition to the Hoarvors and Webspinners, there will be mini versions of the boss that spawn one at a time. They dont look like much, but they will snare you very bad, so they are high priorty targets. The biggest thing here is patience. You should always be DPSing something, but if any of the 3 basic adds are on the screen, they must be dealt with. I would say the priority is 1. Webspinner, 2 Mini bosses that snare, 3. Hoarvors, 4. Boss. Remember that once you see a Hoarver, you can quickly light attack it and take out something else while it is moving towards you.

You should be able to uncover all the pillars by about the time the boss is at 60% or so. If your DPS is high (Especially if you grab a weapon sigil) you should be able to stun and burn here at that point. When I first cleared I would wait to closer to 50% to stun her, now I stun her as soon as possible. With a little practice you can pretty much just burn this boss. They only other thing is that she will spawn is a lurcher at 50% or so. If she is stunned, the lurcher will spawn stunned. If boss is in execute range when the stun wears off, I usually ignore the lurcher. Otherwise, take it out and then back to business as usual.