How to beat a veteran bristleback as a reaper

I'm sorry if this question doesn't belong here but I'm having a headache and I just don't care at this point.

I'm a new Reaper player, have played most of my time after coming back to the game as a Chrono. Having to learn fights from the scratch is a fun experience when different classes have different strengths and weaknesses, but failing miserably multiple times is not. Now, I have zero ideas as to how am I supposed to solo simple veteran mobs as a Reaper. With a mesmer, I could just have my clones tank the damage, better yet, I can projectile reflect it all back with feedback for hasty kills. What's my tactic with Reaper, breaking the bar as fast as I can and start dpsing? I run full berserkers but I don't really feel squishy at 20k HP + shroud, don't get me wrong. It's a refreshing feeling from a Guardian with 11k HP where everything feels do or die instantly.

My utilities don't have an answer, I've tried traiting for life siphoning in blood magic but that doesn't give that huge amount of a sustain either. All I can do is use the GS pull, chill to the bone or flesh golem elite to break the bar, with flesh it even tanks damage before a bristleback is even aiming at me and they're at half HP but they'll manage to down me and I need to finish them in a downed state.

This is all a l2p issue I'm sure, and I know you can kite them from a range but I don't have any fast methods of closing that gap to start dealing damage before the next infinite volley, and doing it this way makes the encounter of a single veteran last for ages. I'm just hoping for some guidance at this point please. What's the optimal play here.

P.S I can't believe how easy mesmers are to play even with their lower health pools when compared to these problems, I'm a solo player and have soloed pretty much all of the tricky hero points from Verdant Brink + Auric Basin alone and don't really get downed (the benefit here though is that as a necro, getting downed isn't really that much of an issue all of the time as you can get up, but as a mesmer you're pretty much doomed if it's a bad spot).

You either block its attack or interrupt it. You can also run away from it so the attack is out of range but you may risk resetting the mob if not careful.

To be more specific for necro:

• Using the Flesh Golem’s Charge ability does 232 break bar damage.
• Wail of Doom on warhorn does 200 break bar damage.
• Grasping Darkness on greatsword does 150 break bar damage.
• Executioner’s Scythe in shroud does 200 break bar damage.

Another option is to put something between you and the mob in order to block the attack.

@Ayrilana.1396 said:You either block its attack or interrupt it. You can also run away from it so the attack is out of range but you may risk resetting the mob if not careful.

To be more specific for necro:

• Using the Flesh Golem’s Charge ability does 232 break bar damage.
• Wall of Doom on warhorn does 200 break bar damage.

I was just about to comment on how Necromancers don't really have blocks but Corrosive Poison Clouds blocks projectiles! So there was a simple solution with one utility swap!

@pakkyun.9321 said:

@Ayrilana.1396 said:You either block its attack or interrupt it. You can also run away from it so the attack is out of range but you may risk resetting the mob if not careful.

To be more specific for necro:

• Using the Flesh Golem’s Charge ability does 232 break bar damage.
• Wall of Doom on warhorn does 200 break bar damage.

Death’s Charge in shroud will block projectiles but it’s short duration.

Your best bet if you don't slot projectile hate is to pop the breakbar and burn it down. The problem is if your dps is too low and the bristleback recovers, you will probably lose that fight because these guys really hurt!

I believe bristlebacks have 120k health, so you probably need to deal a good 10k dps to make this work or slot projectile hate to survive longer.

@AliamRationem.5172 said:Your best bet if you don't slot projectile hate is to pop the breakbar and burn it down. The problem is if your dps is too low and the bristleback recovers, you will probably lose that fight because these guys really hurt!Eh I dont even see how one can loose. I run a hybrid minion reaper and can still fairly easily kill a veteran bristleback, just takes a little while. Maybe 40s or something. Dagger 2 alone will facetank through half a projectile sequence with 0 hp loss and often it's aiming for one of the minions, minion reapers are incredibly tough and regenerate a ton of hp in a fight. I went and checked just to make sure it's the same mobs I was thinking about, killed about 10 of the vets before a treasure mushroom train came, lol. Not sure if I ended a fight below anything but ~100% hp. 2 at once was a little harder.

No real tactic involved, just smack it in melee, cycle cc breaks and let the minions take most of the pounding. They like dying for the cause anyway.

One option is use projectile hate. I.e. Poison Cloud

Another option is to break it, ideally during the big long cast to interrupt it and put it on CD (So, keep its Defiance bar low, but not broken until it casts)

The third option is to simply tank it. Using stuff like Blood Magic + tons of minions, Dagger MH skill 2, Spectral Armour, Wells + Siphoning Wells GM trait in Blood Magic, using Rise! or even dipping into Death Magic and getting some Death's Carapace stacks for extra toughness.

The final option it to try and just burst it down before it can do much. I.e. Drop Well of Suffering + Nightfall > Death Spiral > Reaper Shroud > Infusing Terror > Terrify (Detonate the IT shield to apply Fear and Chill) > Soul Spiral > auto attack until shroud drops > Death Spiral > Grave Digger spam until its dead.

@Dawdler.8521 said:

@AliamRationem.5172 said:Your best bet if you don't slot projectile hate is to pop the breakbar and burn it down. The problem is if your dps is too low and the bristleback recovers, you will probably lose that fight because these guys really hurt!Eh I dont even see how one can loose. I run a hybrid minion reaper and can still fairly easily kill a veteran bristleback, just takes a little while. Maybe 40s or something. Dagger 2 alone will facetank through half a projectile sequence with 0 hp loss and often it's aiming for one of the minions, minion reapers are incredibly tough and regenerate a ton of hp in a fight. I went and checked just to make sure it's the same mobs I was thinking about, killed about 10 of the vets before a treasure mushroom train came, lol. Not sure if I ended a fight below anything but ~100% hp. 2 at once was a little harder.

I was more referring to glassy builds. I'm currently playing ele and while I don't doubt I could manage to dance for 40 seconds with these guys, I'm used to just nailing that breakbar and taking them down before they get a chance to fight back!

I found lifestealing to be most efficient on a full Minion Master, having around10ish minions feeding you small pockets of lifesteal can sustain you really well, specially on more tanky builds where you can practically become unkillable against most things in the PvE game.

Necro is a very sustainy class tbf, you just need to work out how best to access it and what works for you.

I wanted to come back and clarify my starting position with a more relaxed and cleared head after learning about Corrosive Poison Cloud.

I'm an idiot and an apparent masochist who likes making things overtly difficult for themselves and playing the game wrong, I don't run minions, I don't like pet classes, I dislike rangers, illusions and phantasms however are still somehow OK inside my head, I know the reasoning is weird but I can't enjoy the game with a pet class even if it is a total detriment, this is why I mostly run stun breaks and condition removal on all my berserker characters I play. This is all due to my own selfish hubris.

I probably wouldn't have any of these problems if I ran trailblazers minion master. Thanks all for the help and not being condescending when I was ranting all frustrated.

@"pakkyun.9321" said:I wanted to come back and clarify my starting position with a more relaxed and cleared head after learning about Corrosive Poison Cloud.

I'm an idiot and an apparent masochist who likes making things overtly difficult for themselves and playing the game wrong, I don't run minions, I don't like pet classes, I dislike rangers, illusions and phantasms however are still somehow OK inside my head, I know the reasoning is weird but I can't enjoy the game with a pet class even if it is a total detriment, this is why I mostly run stun breaks and condition removal on all my berserker characters I play. This is all due to my own selfish hubris.

I probably wouldn't have any of these problems if I ran trailblazers minion master. Thanks all for the help and not being condescending when I was ranting all frustrated.

I think that if this thread demonstrates anything, it's that there's more than one way to approach combat in this game. We have a very free-form and flexible system here. I happen to agree with you. I don't spend much time on necro as it's just not a class that appeals to me, but even when I do play it I don't like minions. It's never been a problem for me! But others swear by it. There's no wrong way to do open world play!

Anyway, here's how I typically handle bristlebacks...