Beating Legendary Imbued Shaman

(wiki ref https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Legendary_Imbued_Shaman)

Hi, I have found beating the shaman to be a struggle with most groups (last night spent c1h wiping with a T2 group).

The mechanics seem easy (cc boss, kill adds, avoid AOE) but my party were going down constantly, and I would die from ticks, even with plenty of AR.

Is there a specific technique for beating this boss?

If you are struggling, you can range dps him. 90% of the damage he deals is in melee range.If you dont stop moving, you get burning stacks, this is probably whats cauing the ticking damage.For the small elementals, brining a class with relfect skills can help reduce their damage and make them more managable. Make sure to kill all elementals after the boss's shield is broken.Sometimes there are depressions in the ground which light up red. Standing on these areas deals massive damage, so make sure to move out of these.

The Wiki is a little sparse on details, so I'll do a deep dive.

There are a number of important parts to the fight that you ought to understand. Let's begin with the very arena itself. The platform which you fight on sits in the very center of an active volcano, making even the solid rock blazing hot. Standing still for more than a few seconds will cause your character to be inflicted with one stack of Burning, with additional stacks adding to it the longer your character stays still, even when Downed. Occasionally, the lava below will seep up onto the surface through the small depressions on the ground; characters that step on the lava suffer from a lot of damage each second they remain.

Secondly, there are the poor Villagers brought in for the sacrifice. A number of them will appear around the edges of the arena. At every 25% of the boss' health (i.e. 75%, 50% and 25%), the Shaman will shield itself with molten rocks, blocking all incoming attacks, and slowly fly towards one of these villagers. Should the Shaman reach one, the Villager will be consumed, healing the Shaman by 10% of it's maximum health, therefore forcing the tourists adventurers to repeat the phase. Your characters need to keep attacking the boss to remove the protective shield to successfully end the phase.

Above all, the most important, and dangerous, part of this fight are the Lava Elementals. These appear during the shield phase, with more appearing the higher tier Fractal your characters venture into. These elementals will fire projectiles that will Burn, and sometimes Immobilize your characters (see above regarding the perils of standing still). While a single elemental may not be intimidating, more often than not the sheer number of them become the bane of many groups. You can mitigate this danger in numerous ways, depending on your profession and party composition. For example, a mesmer with a focus, guardian with a greatsword, or necromancer can pull the elementals into one tidy pile to be killed efficiently. Skills that block projectiles (e.g. elementalist's Swirling Winds, necromancer's Corrosive Poison Cloud, spellbreaker's Winds of Disenchantment) or reflect projectiles (e.g. mesmer's Feedback, guardian's Wall of Reflect, ranger's Whirling Defence) can also mitigate the incoming damage, allowing party members to clean up the elementals safely. Since the elementals' damage come largely from conditions, using group condition removal skills like the mesmer's Null Field or Revenant's Purifying Essence can also be a great help.

As for the Shaman itself, it has a few attacks with very distinct animations and telegraphs. The solid orange circle will knock your characters back when the red circle within expands fully, although this isn't a great threat. Occasionally, it will fly up and swoop down, laying down three circles of flame beneath it; this is one of its most damaging attack, and groups without dedicated healers need to avoid standing in the fire. Speaking of fire, the Shaman will also call down a fire rain over a large area, and can be dangerous to squishy or low characters. Finally, the Shaman can also fire an enchanted arrow at a random character, causing them to emit a fiery pulse that applies Burning and Agony to allies.

Last but not least, while in T2 and above, you should also be mindful of the Fractal Instabilities, particularly Afflicted. Due to the large number of attacks from the Shaman and numerous elementals, characters can be overwhelmed by the sheer amount of additional condition damage applied to them. The Adrenaline Rush instability is also particularly dangerous for groups with low DPS, as the Shaman's area of effect damage will scale very steeply, very suddenly. Another to watch out for is No Pain No Gain, which causes all the above enemies to gain 10-20 stacks of Might throughout the fight, plus Fury and Protection; if possible, equip some means of Boon Strip in your party before venturing into this sort of Fractal.

One of my fav fractal since day one. Back in the days when we don't have easy access to AR, we have to dodge the arrow from the boss .. If you get hit by his arrow, you get agony. Now you can face the boss directly. I play druid.. I take glyph of tide (for pull) and another mass stun glphy with me for phase (in case we get inexperienced pug) .. Healing spring removes burning condiesEasy and fun boss imo.

Just get druid who knows how to press cele avatar skills, uses trap heal and knows staff 5 is deflect.

@santso.9201 said:Just get druid who knows how to press cele avatar skills, uses trap heal and knows staff 5 is deflect.

or - way better - a chrono with feedback. Also, the raids have made it possible, people only know their dmg rotations. Everytime I see a dragonhunter at this fight and some of the players are struggling it reminds me of the good old times when guardian players were easily able to set a wall of reflection. Best case in combination with fb from chrono. In the past that was guaranteeed by T4 players but nowadays there's too much trxsh.

Thanks for brilliant advice, wasn't aware of some of the mechanics. I'm playing DD and pugging (usually no druid/chronomancer). Thief has a few utils which help Vs projectiles, and I can switch to range if needed.

lol T2. I know it sounds harsh, but that's super easy. Just bring a shitton of DPS, a druid healer/buffer and/or chrono. 3 DPS and burn him down in 30 seconds. You can ignore generally all mechanics on T2, but the one dash/leap thingy he does should be avoided if you are a squishy.

Everytime you break the Shaman's shield he enrages for 10~ seconds. During that time every attack directed at him adds a stack of burning to the attacker. Not a problem with quick condi cleanses but multihit attacks can easily add 15-20 stacks of burning to yourself which combined with the arena burning, the lava pools, the Shaman's own attacks and the lava elementals means a lot of incoming damage.

Following Vince's post, a group that actually plays fractals as they were intended to be played (with versatility and adaptation of your utilities) should never have trouble with the Shaman. You need reflects so take that and you can negate most of the burst (from elementals during shield phase) and also condi cleanse for the burning stacks. Take that and you will hardly even go down. Even if you have no Chrono/Guardian on your party most classes have access to at least one source of projectile denial. Give suggestion to your pug friends to also switch their utilities if needed. I always get **** on for insisting people change their utilities during T4s to make certain parts easier (and everyone is using raiding builds, go figure) but it's well worth it to not have everyone die at Dulfy or other rookie mistakes.

@Tajiseed.7831 said:Thanks for brilliant advice, wasn't aware of some of the mechanics. I'm playing DD and pugging (usually no druid/chronomancer). Thief has a few utils which help Vs projectiles, and I can switch to range if needed.

Yes, Smoke Screen is extremely useful for this fight if you are having trouble controlling the Lava Elementals. The Utility blocks projectiles, but more important creates a Smoke combo field, which will allow your Staff's Punishing Strike and Weakening Charge to launch Blinding Bolts. In addition, Punishing Strike (third hit in the auto-chain) also reflects projectiles.

In the old days before HOTeles take focus air 4 which gives few good seconds to clear ads. The attack from boss is repetitive and not hard to know. Don't let him eat villages so it's best to fight him at the mid keeping good distance from villages before he phases

Excellent summary by @Ojimaru.8970.I think the primary reason PUGs go down is a combination of the mechanics and the instabilities, especially any that add conditions or increase damage (to us) in other ways. If you bring any group/aoe condi removal, that can often make up for the DPS loss.

Great - thanks all for tips.

Many ways you can do this as long as ppl play as a team. My advise is, get your AR up to 150 and join t4 group instead. You will learn faster and play with more exp players... Less pain :p less time waste

@Talindra.4958 said:Many ways you can do this as long as ppl play as a team. My advise is, get your AR up to 150 and join t4 group instead. You will learn faster and play with more exp players... Less pain :p less time waste

Good idea, although do let people know you're new to T4 (at least for this fight, and a couple of others) and to ask how they want to run things. Most people respond well when folks are clear up front, rather than after something goes wrong. (And, on the whole, the ones who don't respond well aren't much fun to play with while you're learning the ropes.)

@Ojimaru.8970 said:The Wiki is a little sparse on details, so I'll do a deep dive.

There are a number of important parts to the fight that you ought to understand. Let's begin with the very arena itself. The platform which you fight on sits in the very center of an active volcano, making even the solid rock blazing hot. Standing still for more than a few seconds will cause your character to be inflicted with one stack of Burning, with additional stacks adding to it the longer your character stays still, even when Downed. Occasionally, the lava below will seep up onto the surface through the small depressions on the ground; characters that step on the lava suffer from a lot of damage each second they remain.

Secondly, there are the poor Villagers brought in for the sacrifice. A number of them will appear around the edges of the arena. At every 25% of the boss' health (i.e. 75%, 50% and 25%), the Shaman will shield itself with molten rocks, blocking all incoming attacks, and slowly fly towards one of these villagers. Should the Shaman reach one, the Villager will be consumed, healing the Shaman by 10% of it's maximum health, therefore forcing the tourists adventurers to repeat the phase. Your characters need to keep attacking the boss to remove the protective shield to successfully end the phase.

Above all, the most important, and dangerous, part of this fight are the Lava Elementals. These appear during the shield phase, with more appearing the higher tier Fractal your characters venture into. These elementals will fire projectiles that will Burn, and sometimes Immobilize your characters (see above regarding the perils of standing still). While a single elemental may not be intimidating, more often than not the sheer number of them become the bane of many groups. You can mitigate this danger in numerous ways, depending on your profession and party composition. For example, a mesmer with a focus, guardian with a greatsword, or necromancer can pull the elementals into one tidy pile to be killed efficiently. Skills that block projectiles (e.g. elementalist's Swirling Winds, necromancer's Corrosive Poison Cloud, spellbreaker's Winds of Disenchantment) or reflect projectiles (e.g. mesmer's Feedback, guardian's Wall of Reflect, ranger's Whirling Defence) can also mitigate the incoming damage, allowing party members to clean up the elementals safely. Since the elementals' damage come largely from conditions, using group condition removal skills like the mesmer's Null Field or Revenant's Purifying Essence can also be a great help.

As for the Shaman itself, it has a few attacks with very distinct animations and telegraphs. The solid orange circle will knock your characters back when the red circle within expands fully, although this isn't a great threat. Occasionally, it will fly up and swoop down, laying down three circles of flame beneath it; this is one of its most damaging attack, and groups without dedicated healers need to avoid standing in the fire. Speaking of fire, the Shaman will also call down a fire rain over a large area, and can be dangerous to squishy or low characters. Finally, the Shaman can also fire an enchanted arrow at a random character, causing them to emit a fiery pulse that applies Burning and Agony to allies.

Last but not least, while in T2 and above, you should also be mindful of the Fractal Instabilities, particularly Afflicted. Due to the large number of attacks from the Shaman and numerous elementals, characters can be overwhelmed by the sheer amount of additional condition damage applied to them. The Adrenaline Rush instability is also particularly dangerous for groups with low DPS, as the Shaman's area of effect damage will scale very steeply, very suddenly. Another to watch out for is No Pain No Gain, which causes all the above enemies to gain 10-20 stacks of Might throughout the fight, plus Fury and Protection; if possible, equip some means of Boon Strip in your party before venturing into this sort of Fractal.

You should totally update the wiki.

Bring two healers to cakewalk it B)