Ever had your health bar suddenly evaporate on you with that WB? Not in an AoE that I can see, not in the poison clouds, no sign of a DoT and then instantly dead...

Am I right in thinking you can't prevent the adds from appearing, so you just have to burn them down fast to limit the number of AoEs on the ground at a time?

LootAllTheStuff wrote: »

Ever had your health bar suddenly evaporate on you with that WB? Not in an AoE that I can see, not in the poison clouds, no sign of a DoT and then instantly dead...

Am I right in thinking you can't prevent the adds from appearing, so you just have to burn them down fast to limit the number of AoEs on the ground at a time?

To be honest I just use the Ring of the Pale Order myself when soing World Bosses, though it's often unnecessary and overkill (especially against base game WBs). It does allow you to mostly stand in AoEs and just damage the bosses, though.

I just tried that specific WB and the fight took 40 seconds, during which Pale Order healed me for almost 100K (and I was never in danger of dying).

The main thing is to just watch for when the spider lifts up her legs, because that means she's about to spray poison in front of her in a cone-shaped area. Don't wait for her to start spraying; get out of the way before she does.

Use your destro staff, stay ranged, destro ulti and the destro skills are more than enough to take this boss down.

My cp980 takes it down in no time, I use a lightning staff because the HA on that is easier to manage for me personally.

I have absolutely no idea what I've put my cp into, I use Orders, Deadly(she's a Templar), Oakensoul and Slimecraw.

If I'm struggling with something or content is harder I use Bewitched Sugar Skulls food.

LootAllTheStuff wrote: »

Unboosted health 20k, stamina 27k w/s dmg 3k, critical chance 33% and resistances around 18k-19k. Really not sure what to tweak here.

That seems a little low. Does Unboosted mean without Food buff and any combat buffs? Please, can you check your stats completely buffed during combat? And after that, how high your uptimes are.
Because I think your problem is abilities and rotation, rather than a strict equipment issue.
Even then, Rangers Gait is not a good set.
For reference, this is my SOLO StamBlade: https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Special:EsoBuildData?id=651309

@LootAllTheStuff How quickly do you die? Because, if your offensive capabilities are low, it gives even normal world bosses enough time to drag you out and wear you down. Is that maybe what happens?

On the "How quickly do you die" question: it varies quite a bit, but I never get the boss health that far down before succumbing. Very often, I find myself trapped by a spread of AoEs, and then the health drop is extremely rapid. How effective is dodge-roll in that situation?

Just soloed it to refresh my memory.

The cone is displayed before she rears up and sprays, so move out of the way as soon as you see it.

I'm not sure about the circular AoE, because it didn't seem to snare me like I was expecting; I may have been thinking of other spiders in general. It wasn't deadly most of the time; I just stood in it and kept swinging.

But there might be a couple of different circular AoE attacks, because most of the time it didn't hurt me, but sometimes I did take damage and needed to move out of it.

And of course, break free when you get cocooned.

I basically used the same attack all the time-- Brawler IV (Cleave Morph) from the Two Handed skill line, which gives you a damage shield that absorbs from 5987 to (I think) 17961 depending on the number of enemies you're hitting.

I also like to use the Life Drain Enchantment on my greatsword, which restores 878 Health when it procs.

And I have Strategic Reserve slotted in the red CP tree, which gives 30 extra Health Recovery for every 10 Ultimate, as well as Bastion, which increases the effectiveness of damage shields.

Aside from that, my character is tanky enough that I don't even need to worry about healing while I'm soloing her, so long as I stay out of her spray attack and move out of the other AoE attacks if I start taking damage.

LootAllTheStuff wrote: »

1. FB: Funnel health, merciless resolve, killer's blade, Bloodthirst, Deadly cloak, and Dawnbreaker (for FG passives)
2. BB: Siphoning attacks, sap essence, magical explosion (scribed), magical soul (soul passives), funnel health, and soul tether.

@LootAllTheStuff I'll be going through this one by one, with my experience on SOLO Nightblade in mind. For context, my main is a Breton MagBlade and I also enjoy a phenomenal SOLO Khajiiti StamBlade. Both can SOLO tough DLC WBs.

Funnel Health: No need to use it. Even if, Swallow Soul is the better morph choice, because of its much better scaling with weapon damage.
Merciless Resolve: 👍
Killer's Blade: 👍
Bloodthirst: I use Surprise Attack, because I want to have the Sundered effect and Off Balance. Both buffs are game changers when you are SOLO. I'd only use Bloodthirst with Classes that have no strong spammable, like Warden or Necromancer.
Deadly Cloak: It's Okayish. The disadvantage of this ability is its range. 5m sounds standard, but uptime of it is lower the more you are forced to move and kyte. Besides I do not like DoTs on the frontbar.
Siphoning Attacks: 👍
Sap Essence: Wrong morph. Power Extraction is a game changer level ability. Always use it, when you are Solo. Needs to be on the frontbar, too, because now you have an AoE attack, that doubles as a buffing skill.
Magical Explosion/Soul: Depends what you scribed these with. But I regard them as redundant/useless on Nightblades, because you generally have better options for buffing with your class abilities, that cost less and give longer uptimes.
Ultimates: Nightblades use Soul Harvest on both bars. Full Stop. It is one of the top five Ultimates in the game. With an Inferno Staff backbared, you could think about Elemental Rage. Fuel it with the insane ultimate generation from Soul Harvest and you'll be using it really often. It is arguably better in encounters with a lot of add waves.

Further observations:
Where is Wall of Elements? Your backbar glyph does not get activated apart from using a light attack while on the backbar.
You use no Shadow Abilities. And such, no Shadow passives.
Twisting Path and Dark Shade are good. Use them!
How do you get the important buffs: Major Resolve, Savagery, Breach and Minor Force? And how do you guarantee their uptime?

Zodiarkslayer wrote: »

show previous quotes

LootAllTheStuff wrote: »

1. FB: Funnel health, merciless resolve, killer's blade, Bloodthirst, Deadly cloak, and Dawnbreaker (for FG passives)
2. BB: Siphoning attacks, sap essence, magical explosion (scribed), magical soul (soul passives), funnel health, and soul tether.

@LootAllTheStuff I'll be going through this one by one, with my experience on SOLO Nightblade in mind. For context, my main is a Breton MagBlade and I also enjoy a phenomenal SOLO Khajiiti StamBlade. Both can SOLO tough DLC WBs.

Thanks for the detailed response. I'll go through it bit by bit, but some background might help first. This is my first toon, and I spent most of the time until relatively recently just playing through story zone by zone, so didn't really need to get deep into builds and theory. Some months back, I started using a companion, and switched up some things to get a bit of ally healing going for that. I still mostly do solo, but occasionally jump in to whatever's happening (or join a guild mate on something). As a result, I've been playing around levelling up a bunch of stuff I hadn't really looked at before and seeing what it actually does, so things tend to change a bit from week to week. Anyway...

Funnel Health: No need to use it. Even if, Swallow Soul is the better morph choice, because of its much better scaling with weapon damage.

FH was largely to get some healing for myself and companion (or other player). After realising I had it twice in different places, I switchted it out on FB for scribed Bloody Knife (with Bleed and Lifesteal). Not sure if I like it or not, but I do have plenty of ink...

Bloodthirst: I use Surprise Attack, because I want to have the Sundered effect and Off Balance. Both buffs are game changers when you are SOLO. I'd only use Bloodthirst with Classes that have no strong spammable, like Warden or Necromancer.
Deadly Cloak: It's Okayish. The disadvantage of this ability is its range. 5m sounds standard, but uptime of it is lower the more you are forced to move and kyte. Besides I do not like DoTs on the frontbar.

Bloodthirst: I had originally been using the Concealed Weapon morph. Bloodthirst was one of the skills I wanted to level up just to see, but I'm not particularly committed to it. Deadly Cloak I slotted more for the reduced AoE damage, which is one of the things I've been struggling with generally in solo play. The pulse is useful for pulling Mudcrabs out of hiding though

Siphoning Attacks: 👍
Sap Essence: Wrong morph. Power Extraction is a game changer level ability. Always use it, when you are Solo. Needs to be on the frontbar, too, because now you have an AoE attack, that doubles as a buffing skill.
Magical Explosion/Soul: Depends what you scribed these with. But I regard them as redundant/useless on Nightblades, because you generally have better options for buffing with your class abilities, that cost less and give longer uptimes.
Ultimates: Nightblades use Soul Harvest on both bars. Full Stop. It is one of the top five Ultimates in the game. With an Inferno Staff backbared, you could think about Elemental Rage. Fuel it with the insane ultimate generation from Soul Harvest and you'll be using it really often. It is arguably better in encounters with a lot of add waves.

Magical explosion has magic DoT and Off Balance, which I've found pretty useful as an opening salve on an unsuspecting trash mob, especially followed up with something that can also hit multiple targets. The 2s cast time makes it tough to use otherwise, especially against higher level mobs who can interrupt. Magical Soul likewise has the mag DoT and applies Major Breach. Sap Essence was initially for companion healing, but it also gives Major Brutality and Sorcery.

Further observations:
Where is Wall of Elements? Your backbar glyph does not get activated apart from using a light attack while on the backbar.

Can you explain a bit what you mean by the backbar glyph comment - not sure I understand? Wall of Elements got dropped while rotating around between Bow and Staff on backbar, so I kind of forgot about it.

You use no Shadow Abilities. And such, no Shadow passives. Where do you get you Major Resolve from?
Twisting Path and Dark Shade are good. Use them!
How do you get the important buffs: Major Resolve, Savagery, Breach and Minor Force?

I had missed that,. I had been using Shadowy Disguise originally, but it seems like I completely overlooked all the other Shadow skills. I think that's what got switched out when I wanted to level up Deadly Cloak.

Question 1: If I have two active skills that both give major savagery, do those stack or can only one be active at a time?

Question 2: What would be a good source for Major resolve that I could work with.