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How to do boneskinner?


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@Jojo.6140 said:Yeah this seems to be pretty impossible right now. At 75% when all torches get extinguished, the dmg-ticks are so high that you cant survive for 1 second without healers nearby. That is a problem since the cast for relighting a torch takes like 2 seconds. Also keep in mind that the boneskinner pulls everyone to the center when he puts out the torches. So fastest you could do is blink/shadowstep to a torch and press F instantly, but even then you will go down during the cast and thus not actually light it.

The torches get extinguished before the damageing aura appear. So if you light them before that happens your group wont take as much damage. For that you can simply tell people to go behind the torches. That way they will not be sucked into the middle but to the torches instead. That way you can relight them without ports or a shadowstep. Its still a difficult fight but it was a lot of fun tbh. He can stay bugged for longer imo.

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so it easy:1) wait 3 week rotation, and get updated boneskinner2) get no luck ? write on forum "why it so hard? plaese fix it"3) wait 3 week rotation, and get updated boneskinner4) get no luck ? write on forum "why it so hard? plaese fix it"5) wait 3 week rotation, and get updated boneskinner6) get no luck ? write on forum "why it so hard? plaese fix it"7) wait 3 week rotation, and get updated boneskinner8) profit

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@"lare.5129" said:so it easy:1) wait 3 week rotation, and get updated boneskinner2) get no luck ? write on forum "why it so hard? plaese fix it"3) wait 3 week rotation, and get updated boneskinner4) get no luck ? write on forum "why it so hard? plaese fix it"5) wait 3 week rotation, and get updated boneskinner6) get no luck ? write on forum "why it so hard? plaese fix it"7) wait 3 week rotation, and get updated boneskinner8) profit

Hey atleast it feels like we are getting new content pretty often because everytime when boneskinner is weekly strike its difderent than last time ??

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  • 2 months later...

I really wish arenanet would do something about this strike mission. Im tired of people just wanting to do the cheap "easy way" instead of actually playing it all everyone is doing is running around in circles on the boss doing dmg. Which is honestly in my opinion is no fun and nothing to learn about it. I hope that arenanet makes it where people can't do that in the strike mission as its so senseless and just a "cheap easy way" for them to finish the strike mission with out doing any mechanics in the strike mission as it should be played. Not this whole ring run around.

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@Firebeard.1746 said:

@Jayden Reese.9542 said:You get the noone worth their salt comment is the players that would say you need ascended and not insulting you in any way. I'm sure you already reported it but just letting you know

Sure harriers exotic gear is dirt cheap to acquire /sarcasm. And the builds have changed over time as concentration has been added to the game and some abilities nerfed to compensate.

Yes it is, just gobto auric basin and buy bladed armor

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The rezbot heal scourge is pretty much a necessity for newer people if you are just stacking and dodging left. It won’t outheal the damaging boneskinner aura, though, so you will need another pure healer or 2.

  1. Watch your feet for the mass of red/black circles.
  2. When he doesn’t attack for awhile, he’s probably standing up for the cc moments.
  3. Ignore the singular red/black circle afterwards; only move when you see the mass of them.
  4. Ignore the non-cc moments special action key. You’ll probably get caught in the mass of circles during the long aftercast root.
  5. Help rez ASAP.

I’ve been PUGging it successfully even with only 6 people left alive. But these 6 people are all always watching the circles and rezzing like crazy.And if you’re not one of the healers, equipment doesn’t matter terribly much.

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@"ekoknight.2960" said:I really wish arenanet would do something about this strike mission. Im tired of people just wanting to do the cheap "easy way" instead of actually playing it all everyone is doing is running around in circles on the boss doing dmg. Which is honestly in my opinion is no fun and nothing to learn about it. I hope that arenanet makes it where people can't do that in the strike mission as its so senseless and just a "cheap easy way" for them to finish the strike mission with out doing any mechanics in the strike mission as it should be played. Not this whole ring run around.

Same, after it was changed I didn't do it for a while but after EoTN was added I was planning to do weekely strikes for the chest but this single boss has made me say F that.

I don't like cheating or cheaping bosses like this and atm that is pretty much the only way to do Boneskinner effectively and also the only way most people want to do the boss too so I have lost all interest in doing this strike mission until it's fixed.Boneskinner is one of the few bosses in the game atm that I would genuinely call badly designed.. if it wasn't possible for people to use the stack and heal work around I'd expect most players would just skip this boss entirely.It's far too difficult for a strike mission boss.

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@ButcherofMalakir.4067 said:

@Jayden Reese.9542 said:You get the noone worth their salt comment is the players that would say you need ascended and not insulting you in any way. I'm sure you already reported it but just letting you know

Sure harriers exotic gear is dirt cheap to acquire /sarcasm. And the builds have changed over time as concentration has been added to the game and some abilities nerfed to compensate.

Yes it is, just gobto auric basin and buy bladed armor

I believe someone else has already said this. This horse was beat. And died. And then raised in undeath by EotN...

Though this is something frustrating for players who are newer. There's a whole breadth of content in this game and there's a huge difference between QoL for people who understand it vs. People who don't. I barely learned months ago about stat swapping on ascended weapons/armor. This game gets really easy the more you know about it, but until you do, it can feel like a brick wall.

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@sokeenoppa.5384 said:

@Firebeard.1746 said:I appreciate the comments, thank you both. But I'm also failing to see how this is proper raid training: The biggest issue with GW2 raids, as I've understood it, is the gear barriers, so requiring very specific comps of PuGs is just outright unfair/not helpful imo. Especially when strikes up to this point really haven't given that much gear with selectable stats. Thanks again, I'll see what I can do. Hopefully I can get this downed at least for the achievement.

If you are EU i can help with boneskinner.

hi my husband and me would love to come along as we haven't done the achievement as we have been away for a while now returning and not sure how to start this.

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Why does the torches go out when you break the bar, that doesn't make sense to me?The whole torch mechanic is way too demanding and distracting and requires too much effort to pull of, with specific builds and what not.Even if you do it properly you need someone durable and ranged to sit around light the torches. I'm still not sure if it is bugged or not bugged half of the time.I thought i was supposed to be one of those mechanics where you go do the thing and return to the group, but most of the time you get chunked by damage and going out of the group is suicide.
The thing is supposed to be pugable you know.

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Do boneskiner each day.You need 2 hfb, heal alac, heal srourge, druid .. In guldward there members find more easy than dps, trust me.After that you need 5 dps. It most hardest part. Explain: dps is who do dps, but not only have dps gear.

Also some ppl ask ping(hold ctrl and spam) kp from cm100 fractal, or li(li is from raids).

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@lare.5129 said:Do boneskiner each day.You need 2 hfb, heal alac, heal srourge, druid .. In guldward there members find more easy than dps, trust me.After that you need 5 dps. It most hardest part. Explain: dps is who do dps, but not only have dps gear.

Also some ppl ask ping(hold ctrl and spam) kp from cm100 fractal, or li(li is from raids).

Hahahaha kp from raids and cm fractals so you can do beginner group content. Hahahaha

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  • 3 weeks later...

Glad I found this thread. The most explanation or help I ever recieved while attempting this strike was getting kicked by the squad commander and when I whispered them the reply was "learn to play." After a more heated exchange they finally explained why they kicked me and the crappy part is I had another build I could have swapped to that addressed their issues. They said nothing, just kicked! My experience likely isn't common but that was the opposite of learning anything and it really bummed me out. I haven't been back to strikes as I feel like a burden and no mechanics are explained unless the other players choose to explain them. Not a great setup for "learn to play."

I may try again after putting the info in this thread to use. Thank you to everyone for taking the time to post here. It feels good to not be clueless on the boneskinner strike finally. Shame I had to go outside of the game to learn the mechanics.

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Strikes were supposed to be a gateway to raiding. Instead, Whisper and Boneskinner especially have become roadblocks. I have been told by a number of experienced raiders that there are at least a couple of raid bosses that are legit easier than those two, and I can believe it. Whisper needs its many bugs fixed, and Boneskinner needs nerfed. To fix Boneskinner...

  • The ground AOE needs to be slower paced and have a longer warning time, for multiple reasons. First is so players actually have time to see it and react; second so players have at least a few seconds to set their feet, use a few skills and just BREATHE. Is that too much to ask?
  • The ground AOE needs its graphics simplified. The waving black fingers filling the ground is hell on frame rates. I think that's actually part of why the AOE is so lethal, because the way it draws and lags, it often seems to just appear out of nowhere. So remove the wavy fingers; simple black nasty circles will get the job done.
  • More philosophically, Anet needs to recognize that the vast majority of people who play GW2 are casuals of varying degree, a fair proportion of whom play GW2 specifically because it isn't structured around a toxic end game raid grind like WoW. Such people do not want to be forced into group content or harder content just to finish an episode achievement like the "Forged Steel" title or "Shiver" emote, which should be obtainable in more accessible ways than strike missions, or demanding perfection in story missions like LS2 and HoT. GW2 is not a hardcore game and should not try to be.
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@"Jimbru.6014" said:

  • The ground AOE needs to be slower paced and have a longer warning time, for multiple reasons. First is so players actually have time to see it and react; second so players have at least a few seconds to set their feet, use a few skills and just BREATHE. Is that too much to ask?

It’s long enough and the attack is pretty predictable.

  • The ground AOE needs its graphics simplified. The waving black fingers filling the ground is hell on frame rates. I think that's actually part of why the AOE is so lethal, because the way it draws and lags, it often seems to just appear out of nowhere. So remove the wavy fingers; simple black nasty circles will get the job done.

There are orange circles. After that, they have the typical AoE red circle borders.

  • More philosophically, Anet needs to recognize that the vast majority of people who play GW2 are casuals of varying degree, a fair proportion of whom play GW2 specifically because it isn't structured around a toxic end game raid grind like WoW. Such people do not want to be forced into group content or harder content just to finish an episode achievement like the "Forged Steel" title or "Shiver" emote, which should be obtainable in more accessible ways than strike missions, or demanding perfection in story missions like LS2 and HoT. GW2 is not a hardcore game and should not try to be.

Casual or not has no bearing on someone’s ability to do strikes or even raids. GW2 is not a solo game so expect to have to do some group content.

GW2 is far from being a hardcore game. Its extreme distance from that is probably one of the reasons it’s suffering today compared to other MMOs. There needs to be more balance between the hyper casual “I don’t want to play with others” side and the “hardcore” side.

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@Jimbru.6014 said:Strikes were supposed to be a gateway to raiding. Instead, Whisper and Boneskinner especially have become roadblocks. I have been told by a number of experienced raiders that there are at least a couple of raid bosses that are legit easier than those two, and I can believe it.

That's mostly a perception thing as the average quality of Strike groups is significantly lower than that of Raid groups, making them appear a lot more even than they actually are. Even experienced Raiders generally slack a lot more in Strikes, because they can.

A good group can full clear all strikes (5 bosses) in ~15 minutes and if an experienced 10 man group approaches them with the same dedication as they would a Raid Wing, they are practically just sneezing the bosses over.

So while Cairn with 7-8 well played 30k DPS players feels easier than WoJ or Bone with 5 <10k DPS players who make plenty mistakes, if you were to take the same group into the respective other fight the difference in difficulty would be very apparent.

I think WoJ and Boneskinner are placed quite well in their difficulty, putting Strikes in a good middle of the road position - although that doesn't mean there can't be more Strikes of a bit lower difficulty in the future again, I don't think these require any nerfs.

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@Asum.4960 said:

@Jimbru.6014 said:Strikes were supposed to be a gateway to raiding. Instead, Whisper and Boneskinner especially have become roadblocks. I have been told by a number of experienced raiders that there are at least a couple of raid bosses that are legit easier than those two, and I can believe it.

That's mostly a perception thing as the average quality of Strike groups is significantly lower than that of Raid groups, making them appear a lot more even than they actually are. Even experienced Raiders generally slack a lot more in Strikes, because they can.

A good group can full clear all strikes (5 bosses) in ~15 minutes and if an experienced 10 man group approaches them with the same dedication as they would a Raid Wing, they are practically just sneezing the bosses over.

So while Cairn with 7-8 well played 30k DPS players feels easier than WoJ or Bone with 5 <10k DPS players who make plenty mistakes, if you were to take the same group into the respective other fight the difference in difficulty would be very apparent.

I think WoJ and Boneskinner are placed quite well in their difficulty, putting Strikes in a good middle of the road position - although that doesn't mean there can't be more Strikes of a bit lower difficulty in the future again, I don't think these require any nerfs.

So the only way I've been able to reliably PuG boneskinner and Jormag is by stacking healers (and running my auramancer in whisper). I'd been having trouble with whisper ever since I came back, but then i realized, after I took my auramancer in again, that I may have been carrying my group before I took my last break. I prefer at least 3 healers on Boneskinner, but 2 works if they're worth their salt, if you have heals and everyone dodges, it's fine, so I think that's okay. I don't like whisper. That last phase is a poopfest. Not to mention buggy. I can't always clearly discern all the mechanics going on there's so much.. I did 3 healers on my last whisper run. 2 might be okay, but healbrand and auramancer take the cake in terms of making it puggable. The perma protection from auramancer (and range on shout heals) and the blocks from HB make the chains and some of the other mechanics less brutal. Granted, your team mates still have to avoid the mechanics, they're just given more time to with those buffers. Because protection doesn't keep you alive forever and you can only block so much, there's a limit. What really makes them hard is that there's no proper guides on them and people don't know what to build. or how to run them. I do have to say though, my most unsuccessful runs have been commanders trying to assemble raid meta comps, as opposed to survivability. Sure you make not get 2 bonus chests, but they're puggable if you focus on surviving first. The DPS bar isn't really that high.

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@Firebeard.1746 said:

@"Jimbru.6014" said:Strikes were supposed to be a gateway to raiding. Instead, Whisper and Boneskinner especially have become roadblocks. I have been told by a number of experienced raiders that there are at least a couple of raid bosses that are legit easier than those two, and I can believe it.

That's mostly a perception thing as the average quality of Strike groups is significantly lower than that of Raid groups, making them appear a lot more even than they actually are. Even experienced Raiders generally slack a lot more in Strikes, because they can.

A good group can full clear all strikes (5 bosses) in ~15 minutes and if an experienced 10 man group approaches them with the same dedication as they would a Raid Wing, they are practically just sneezing the bosses over.

So while Cairn with 7-8 well played 30k DPS players feels easier than WoJ or Bone with 5 <10k DPS players who make plenty mistakes, if you were to take the same group into the respective other fight the difference in difficulty would be very apparent.

I think WoJ and Boneskinner are placed quite well in their difficulty, putting Strikes in a good middle of the road position - although that doesn't mean there can't be more Strikes of a bit lower difficulty in the future again, I don't think these require any nerfs.

So the only way I've been able to reliably PuG boneskinner and Jormag is by stacking healers (and running my auramancer in whisper). I'd been having trouble with whisper ever since I came back, but then i realized, after I took my auramancer in again, that I may have been carrying my group before I took my last break. I prefer at least 3 healers on Boneskinner, but 2 works if they're worth their salt, if you have heals and everyone dodges, it's fine, so I think that's okay. I don't like whisper. That last phase is a poopfest. Not to mention buggy. I can't always clearly discern all the mechanics going on there's so much.. I did 3 healers on my last whisper run. 2 might be okay, but healbrand and auramancer take the cake in terms of making it puggable. The perma protection from auramancer (and range on shout heals) and the blocks from HB make the chains and some of the other mechanics less brutal. Granted, your team mates still have to avoid the mechanics, they're just given more time to with those buffers. Because protection doesn't keep you alive forever and you can only block so much, there's a limit. What really makes them hard is that there's no proper guides on them and people don't know what to build. or how to run them. I do have to say though, my most unsuccessful runs have been commanders trying to assemble raid meta comps, as opposed to survivability. Sure you make not get 2 bonus chests, but they're puggable if you focus on surviving first. The DPS bar isn't really that high.

You can cheese the last phase of Whisper with I think it was Flesh Worm. You won’t have to deal with the orbs.

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@Ayrilana.1396 said:

@"Jimbru.6014" said:Strikes were supposed to be a gateway to raiding. Instead, Whisper and Boneskinner especially have become roadblocks. I have been told by a number of experienced raiders that there are at least a couple of raid bosses that are legit easier than those two, and I can believe it.

That's mostly a perception thing as the average quality of Strike groups is significantly lower than that of Raid groups, making them appear a lot more even than they actually are. Even experienced Raiders generally slack a lot more in Strikes, because they can.

A good group can full clear all strikes (5 bosses) in ~15 minutes and if an experienced 10 man group approaches them with the same dedication as they would a Raid Wing, they are practically just sneezing the bosses over.

So while Cairn with 7-8 well played 30k DPS players feels easier than WoJ or Bone with 5 <10k DPS players who make plenty mistakes, if you were to take the same group into the respective other fight the difference in difficulty would be very apparent.

I think WoJ and Boneskinner are placed quite well in their difficulty, putting Strikes in a good middle of the road position - although that doesn't mean there can't be more Strikes of a bit lower difficulty in the future again, I don't think these require any nerfs.

So the only way I've been able to reliably PuG boneskinner and Jormag is by stacking healers (and running my auramancer in whisper). I'd been having trouble with whisper ever since I came back, but then i realized, after I took my auramancer in again, that I may have been carrying my group before I took my last break. I prefer at least 3 healers on Boneskinner, but 2 works if they're worth their salt, if you have heals and everyone dodges, it's fine, so I think that's okay. I don't like whisper. That last phase is a poopfest. Not to mention buggy. I can't always clearly discern all the mechanics going on there's so much.. I did 3 healers on my last whisper run. 2 might be okay, but healbrand and auramancer take the cake in terms of making it puggable. The perma protection from auramancer (and range on shout heals) and the blocks from HB make the chains and some of the other mechanics less brutal. Granted, your team mates still have to avoid the mechanics, they're just given more time to with those buffers. Because protection doesn't keep you alive forever and you can only block so much, there's a limit. What really makes them hard is that there's no proper guides on them and people don't know what to build. or how to run them. I do have to say though, my most unsuccessful runs have been commanders trying to assemble raid meta comps, as opposed to survivability. Sure you make not get 2 bonus chests, but they're puggable if you focus on surviving first. The DPS bar isn't really that high.

You can cheese the last phase of Whisper with I think it was Flesh Worm. You won’t have to deal with the orbs.

I don't think cheese mechanics are anything we should rely on people new to raiding to do off the bat. I'll for certain try to spread this knowledge, but I don't consider it good design, even if there's a workaround. Interestingly enough, the player in the video didn't have 25 stacks of might at end (maybe 9, but it's hard to know how much was self buff vs. others), but did have regen. it also didn't have alacrity and quickness. This basically means that if it was a raid meta comp, that raid meta mechanics weren't working towards the end at the last phase. Even with no orbs. Though im' interested to know what composition this top raid guild was using. This was a GS power chrono it looks like.

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@Firebeard.1746 said:

@"Jimbru.6014" said:Strikes were supposed to be a gateway to raiding. Instead, Whisper and Boneskinner especially have become roadblocks. I have been told by a number of experienced raiders that there are at least a couple of raid bosses that are legit easier than those two, and I can believe it.

That's mostly a perception thing as the average quality of Strike groups is significantly lower than that of Raid groups, making them appear a lot more even than they actually are. Even experienced Raiders generally slack a lot more in Strikes, because they can.

A good group can full clear all strikes (5 bosses) in ~15 minutes and if an experienced 10 man group approaches them with the same dedication as they would a Raid Wing, they are practically just sneezing the bosses over.

So while Cairn with 7-8 well played 30k DPS players feels easier than WoJ or Bone with 5 <10k DPS players who make plenty mistakes, if you were to take the same group into the respective other fight the difference in difficulty would be very apparent.

I think WoJ and Boneskinner are placed quite well in their difficulty, putting Strikes in a good middle of the road position - although that doesn't mean there can't be more Strikes of a bit lower difficulty in the future again, I don't think these require any nerfs.

So the only way I've been able to reliably PuG boneskinner and Jormag is by stacking healers (and running my auramancer in whisper). I'd been having trouble with whisper ever since I came back, but then i realized, after I took my auramancer in again, that I may have been carrying my group before I took my last break. I prefer at least 3 healers on Boneskinner, but 2 works if they're worth their salt, if you have heals and everyone dodges, it's fine, so I think that's okay. I don't like whisper. That last phase is a poopfest. Not to mention buggy. I can't always clearly discern all the mechanics going on there's so much.. I did 3 healers on my last whisper run. 2 might be okay, but healbrand and auramancer take the cake in terms of making it puggable. The perma protection from auramancer (and range on shout heals) and the blocks from HB make the chains and some of the other mechanics less brutal. Granted, your team mates still have to avoid the mechanics, they're just given more time to with those buffers. Because protection doesn't keep you alive forever and you can only block so much, there's a limit. What really makes them hard is that there's no proper guides on them and people don't know what to build. or how to run them. I do have to say though, my most unsuccessful runs have been commanders trying to assemble raid meta comps, as opposed to survivability. Sure you make not get 2 bonus chests, but they're puggable if you focus on surviving first. The DPS bar isn't really that high.

You can cheese the last phase of Whisper with I think it was Flesh Worm. You won’t have to deal with the orbs.

I don't think cheese mechanics are anything we should rely on people new to raiding to do off the bat. I'll for certain try to spread this knowledge, but I don't consider it good design, even if there's a workaround. Interestingly enough, the player in the video didn't have 25 stacks of might at end (maybe 9, but it's hard to know how much was self buff vs. others), but did have regen. it also didn't have alacrity and quickness. This basically means that if it was a raid meta comp, that raid meta mechanics weren't working towards the end at the last phase. Even with no orbs. Though im' interested to know what composition this top raid guild was using. This was a GS power chrono it looks like.

I wouldn't even consider that strategy full on cheese and I do like boss design that allows players to come up with creative tools to circumvent or change up mechanics (as long as it doesn't completely trivialize an encounter) and don't consider it bad design.I don't see circumventing the orb spread at WoJ with a Flesh Wurm to be all that different from circumventing Hands at Deimos with a Handkiter, kiting Flak shots at Sabetha, etc.It's just a creative and sound strategy to solve a problem. That is what makes fights interesting.

The reason they didn't have boons in that video didn't have anything to do with Raid Meta comps not working there, besides them clearly not running a Meta comp.Ideally you want a guardian to run Stand Your Ground at WoJ to pop right after everyone is back after the 25% clone phase to prevent the knockback, and then just all stack slightly out of melee range and quickly DPS it down, with a ranged weapon option, fully buffed.

Also if you are struggling with WoJ and spread downs, or just in general especially on Boneskinner, a Heal Scourge is highly recommended.

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@Asum.4960 said:

@"Jimbru.6014" said:Strikes were supposed to be a gateway to raiding. Instead, Whisper and Boneskinner especially have become roadblocks. I have been told by a number of experienced raiders that there are at least a couple of raid bosses that are legit easier than those two, and I can believe it.

That's mostly a perception thing as the average quality of Strike groups is significantly lower than that of Raid groups, making them appear a lot more even than they actually are. Even experienced Raiders generally slack a lot more in Strikes, because they can.

A good group can full clear all strikes (5 bosses) in ~15 minutes and if an experienced 10 man group approaches them with the same dedication as they would a Raid Wing, they are practically just sneezing the bosses over.

So while Cairn with 7-8 well played 30k DPS players feels easier than WoJ or Bone with 5 <10k DPS players who make plenty mistakes, if you were to take the same group into the respective other fight the difference in difficulty would be very apparent.

I think WoJ and Boneskinner are placed quite well in their difficulty, putting Strikes in a good middle of the road position - although that doesn't mean there can't be more Strikes of a bit lower difficulty in the future again, I don't think these require any nerfs.

So the only way I've been able to reliably PuG boneskinner and Jormag is by stacking healers (and running my auramancer in whisper). I'd been having trouble with whisper ever since I came back, but then i realized, after I took my auramancer in again, that I may have been carrying my group before I took my last break. I prefer at least 3 healers on Boneskinner, but 2 works if they're worth their salt, if you have heals and everyone dodges, it's fine, so I think that's okay. I don't like whisper. That last phase is a poopfest. Not to mention buggy. I can't always clearly discern all the mechanics going on there's so much.. I did 3 healers on my last whisper run. 2 might be okay, but healbrand and auramancer take the cake in terms of making it puggable. The perma protection from auramancer (and range on shout heals) and the blocks from HB make the chains and some of the other mechanics less brutal. Granted, your team mates still have to avoid the mechanics, they're just given more time to with those buffers. Because protection doesn't keep you alive forever and you can only block so much, there's a limit. What really makes them hard is that there's no proper guides on them and people don't know what to build. or how to run them. I do have to say though, my most unsuccessful runs have been commanders trying to assemble raid meta comps, as opposed to survivability. Sure you make not get 2 bonus chests, but they're puggable if you focus on surviving first. The DPS bar isn't really that high.

You can cheese the last phase of Whisper with I think it was Flesh Worm. You won’t have to deal with the orbs.

I don't think cheese mechanics are anything we should rely on people new to raiding to do off the bat. I'll for certain try to spread this knowledge, but I don't consider it good design, even if there's a workaround. Interestingly enough, the player in the video didn't have 25 stacks of might at end (maybe 9, but it's hard to know how much was self buff vs. others), but did have regen. it also didn't have alacrity and quickness. This basically means that if it was a raid meta comp, that raid meta mechanics weren't working towards the end at the last phase. Even with no orbs. Though im' interested to know what composition this top raid guild was using. This was a GS power chrono it looks like.

I wouldn't even consider that strategy full on cheese and I do like boss design that allows players to come up with creative tools to circumvent or change up mechanics (as long as it doesn't completely trivialize an encounter) and don't consider it bad design.I don't see circumventing the orb spread at WoJ with a Flesh Wurm to be all that different from circumventing Hands at Deimos with a Handkiter, kiting Flak shots at Sabetha, etc.It's just a creative and sound strategy to solve a problem. That is what makes fights interesting.

The reason they didn't have boons in that video didn't have anything to do with Raid Meta comps not working there, besides them clearly not running a Meta comp.Ideally you want a guardian to run Stand Your Ground at WoJ to pop right after everyone is back after the 25% clone phase to prevent the knockback, and then just all stack slightly out of melee range and quickly DPS it down, with a ranged weapon option, fully buffed.

Also if you are struggling with WoJ and spread downs, or just in general especially on Boneskinner, a Heal Scourge is highly recommended.

I don't have issues with the strategy being there. I have issues relying in some rando to do a very specific thing at a very specific time or the whole group wipes, especially when it's supposed to be a learning experience. That's potentially setting up 9 other people for failure, while they're learning content. If anet thinks that wurm juking was the intended strategy for the last phase and it's completely fine, i'm going to flat out say it's terrible design.

Also i've had people try wurm juking in pugs that have failed fyi.

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@Firebeard.1746 said:

@"Jimbru.6014" said:Strikes were supposed to be a gateway to raiding. Instead, Whisper and Boneskinner especially have become roadblocks. I have been told by a number of experienced raiders that there are at least a couple of raid bosses that are legit easier than those two, and I can believe it.

That's mostly a perception thing as the average quality of Strike groups is significantly lower than that of Raid groups, making them appear a lot more even than they actually are. Even experienced Raiders generally slack a lot more in Strikes, because they can.

A good group can full clear all strikes (5 bosses) in ~15 minutes and if an experienced 10 man group approaches them with the same dedication as they would a Raid Wing, they are practically just sneezing the bosses over.

So while Cairn with 7-8 well played 30k DPS players feels easier than WoJ or Bone with 5 <10k DPS players who make plenty mistakes, if you were to take the same group into the respective other fight the difference in difficulty would be very apparent.

I think WoJ and Boneskinner are placed quite well in their difficulty, putting Strikes in a good middle of the road position - although that doesn't mean there can't be more Strikes of a bit lower difficulty in the future again, I don't think these require any nerfs.

So the only way I've been able to reliably PuG boneskinner and Jormag is by stacking healers (and running my auramancer in whisper). I'd been having trouble with whisper ever since I came back, but then i realized, after I took my auramancer in again, that I may have been carrying my group before I took my last break. I prefer at least 3 healers on Boneskinner, but 2 works if they're worth their salt, if you have heals and everyone dodges, it's fine, so I think that's okay. I don't like whisper. That last phase is a poopfest. Not to mention buggy. I can't always clearly discern all the mechanics going on there's so much.. I did 3 healers on my last whisper run. 2 might be okay, but healbrand and auramancer take the cake in terms of making it puggable. The perma protection from auramancer (and range on shout heals) and the blocks from HB make the chains and some of the other mechanics less brutal. Granted, your team mates still have to avoid the mechanics, they're just given more time to with those buffers. Because protection doesn't keep you alive forever and you can only block so much, there's a limit. What really makes them hard is that there's no proper guides on them and people don't know what to build. or how to run them. I do have to say though, my most unsuccessful runs have been commanders trying to assemble raid meta comps, as opposed to survivability. Sure you make not get 2 bonus chests, but they're puggable if you focus on surviving first. The DPS bar isn't really that high.

You can cheese the last phase of Whisper with I think it was Flesh Worm. You won’t have to deal with the orbs.

I don't think cheese mechanics are anything we should rely on people new to raiding to do off the bat. I'll for certain try to spread this knowledge, but I don't consider it good design, even if there's a workaround. Interestingly enough, the player in the video didn't have 25 stacks of might at end (maybe 9, but it's hard to know how much was self buff vs. others), but did have regen. it also didn't have alacrity and quickness. This basically means that if it was a raid meta comp, that raid meta mechanics weren't working towards the end at the last phase. Even with no orbs. Though im' interested to know what composition this top raid guild was using. This was a GS power chrono it looks like.

I wouldn't even consider that strategy full on cheese and I do like boss design that allows players to come up with creative tools to circumvent or change up mechanics (as long as it doesn't completely trivialize an encounter) and don't consider it bad design.I don't see circumventing the orb spread at WoJ with a Flesh Wurm to be all that different from circumventing Hands at Deimos with a Handkiter, kiting Flak shots at Sabetha, etc.It's just a creative and sound strategy to solve a problem. That is what makes fights interesting.

The reason they didn't have boons in that video didn't have anything to do with Raid Meta comps not working there, besides them clearly not running a Meta comp.Ideally you want a guardian to run Stand Your Ground at WoJ to pop right after everyone is back after the 25% clone phase to prevent the knockback, and then just all stack slightly out of melee range and quickly DPS it down, with a ranged weapon option, fully buffed.

Also if you are struggling with WoJ and spread downs, or just in general especially on Boneskinner, a Heal Scourge is highly recommended.

I don't have issues with the strategy being there. I have issues relying in some rando to do a very specific thing at a very specific time or the whole group wipes, especially when it's supposed to be a learning experience. That's potentially setting up 9 other people for failure, while they're learning content. If anet thinks that wurm juking was the intended strategy for the last phase and it's completely fine, i'm going to flat out say it's terrible design.

Also i've had people try wurm juking in pugs that have failed fyi.

It doesn't set the group up though, the phase is perfectly doable without that strategy if people don't go into panic headless chicken mode, which is an important lesson to learn in preparation for raids.

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@Firebeard.1746 said:

@"Jimbru.6014" said:Strikes were supposed to be a gateway to raiding. Instead, Whisper and Boneskinner especially have become roadblocks. I have been told by a number of experienced raiders that there are at least a couple of raid bosses that are legit easier than those two, and I can believe it.

That's mostly a perception thing as the average quality of Strike groups is significantly lower than that of Raid groups, making them appear a lot more even than they actually are. Even experienced Raiders generally slack a lot more in Strikes, because they can.

A good group can full clear all strikes (5 bosses) in ~15 minutes and if an experienced 10 man group approaches them with the same dedication as they would a Raid Wing, they are practically just sneezing the bosses over.

So while Cairn with 7-8 well played 30k DPS players feels easier than WoJ or Bone with 5 <10k DPS players who make plenty mistakes, if you were to take the same group into the respective other fight the difference in difficulty would be very apparent.

I think WoJ and Boneskinner are placed quite well in their difficulty, putting Strikes in a good middle of the road position - although that doesn't mean there can't be more Strikes of a bit lower difficulty in the future again, I don't think these require any nerfs.

So the only way I've been able to reliably PuG boneskinner and Jormag is by stacking healers (and running my auramancer in whisper). I'd been having trouble with whisper ever since I came back, but then i realized, after I took my auramancer in again, that I may have been carrying my group before I took my last break. I prefer at least 3 healers on Boneskinner, but 2 works if they're worth their salt, if you have heals and everyone dodges, it's fine, so I think that's okay. I don't like whisper. That last phase is a poopfest. Not to mention buggy. I can't always clearly discern all the mechanics going on there's so much.. I did 3 healers on my last whisper run. 2 might be okay, but healbrand and auramancer take the cake in terms of making it puggable. The perma protection from auramancer (and range on shout heals) and the blocks from HB make the chains and some of the other mechanics less brutal. Granted, your team mates still have to avoid the mechanics, they're just given more time to with those buffers. Because protection doesn't keep you alive forever and you can only block so much, there's a limit. What really makes them hard is that there's no proper guides on them and people don't know what to build. or how to run them. I do have to say though, my most unsuccessful runs have been commanders trying to assemble raid meta comps, as opposed to survivability. Sure you make not get 2 bonus chests, but they're puggable if you focus on surviving first. The DPS bar isn't really that high.

You can cheese the last phase of Whisper with I think it was Flesh Worm. You won’t have to deal with the orbs.

I don't think cheese mechanics are anything we should rely on people new to raiding to do off the bat. I'll for certain try to spread this knowledge, but I don't consider it good design, even if there's a workaround. Interestingly enough, the player in the video didn't have 25 stacks of might at end (maybe 9, but it's hard to know how much was self buff vs. others), but did have regen. it also didn't have alacrity and quickness. This basically means that if it was a raid meta comp, that raid meta mechanics weren't working towards the end at the last phase. Even with no orbs. Though im' interested to know what composition this top raid guild was using. This was a GS power chrono it looks like.

Kitty also quite dislikes cheesing mechs much (except Gorseval's wall 'cause people haven't got it right since 2017) as that doesn't actually teach how to play better, only how to cheat better. For that reason Kitty's kinda wondered why many raiders whine "content is too easy, we need more challenging content q.q" when many of them try to find easiest shortcut to mitigate the challenge. In other words, to cheese the content. What's the point of challenging content if people take challenge away?As for the comp on cheese video, guess it's a good time for Kitty's "what could be improved?"-lesson (Read: "How Kitty would've done it better?"). The comp was apparently druid+healscourge+chrono+soulbeast+banners/staff tempest+alacrigade+DD+reaper+dps berserker. So, for starters, no quickness aside from chrono's Time Warp and self-quickness on soulbeast, chrono and reaper. An StM 100% BD chrono or 2 dps quickbrands would've been a huge improvement in that regard.The might could've been better as druid's healing style wasn't optimal and people don't usually build scourge and tempest in a boonsome way like Kitty does (and Whisper of Jormag shows quite well why Kitty insists on healers bringing might and at least some fury instead of being pure healers due to low opportunity cost) which means low-to-nonexistent fury and lacking might.

When Kitty's druiding at 100% effort (which is extremely rare, though Boneskinner requires 90%), she uses warhorn 5 off-cooldown to keep up swiftness, fury, regen and some might. To keep up might on squad and to keep squad as healthy as possible, a good druid enters CA as often as possible and uses 432(-spirits-4). A greedy druid might add CA5 into the mix, like Kitty does 'cause higher might numbers. Never spam CA1 as it has extremely small radius and healing power so rather exit CA to conserve energy than spam CA1. Entering CA should only be delayed for 4-5 seconds max. if there's clearly a mechanic incoming and the heals would go to waste due to spreading/you'll need all possible healing after that. Delaying CA any further means might dropping and it has short cooldown so delaying means missing out on potential boon/heal output.

As for heal tempest, this one was running staff which is specialized on pure resses, heals and regen though it also provides defensive boons and some might through shout spam if tempest uses Tempestuous Aria-trait (which should be ran along with Elemental Bastion and Powerful Aura for that insane synergy they have) and tempest has adequate boon duration (which staff tempests rarely do 'cause magi's). Running Air as 3rd spec also gives squad-wide fury through auras but that competes with Earth's Protection and thus is rarely used. As a good compromise, Kitty personally runs Pack runes to provide at least 60% fury uptime for her sub. It does mean about 16-17% nerf to heals but staff tempest is 3rd strongest healer already and can afford it if you actually spam shouts and blast fields on it. Auto-attack is a strong heal but auras and water blasts are stronger. If there's a druid in squad, though, Stone Spirit can do the protection and staff tempest can run Air-spec with Monk runes to provide fury for all.

Heal scourge isn't known for its boon output and it certainly doesn't have much: just lots of might and regen. But if you go for 100% boon duration on it, Abrasive Grit alone keeps up about 8-10 stacks of might for 10 through Desert Empowerment's "Barrier on F1" and F3 spam. Sand Flare gives a couple stacks for 5, Torch 5 "Oppressive Collapse gives about 14-18 might for 5 on average, Dessicate keeps up 4 stacks for 5 and Blood is Power keeps up 10 stacks for 5 if Curses-traited though that's pretty much overkill unless you're the only mightbot in squad. And kinda even then. Since most of scourge's might scourges are 5-target, except 8-10 stacks for 10 from Shade skills), scourge needs to be in separate sub to allow random distribution which does cover the whole squad due to people moving around. Random distribution ofc requires some surplus due to inoptimal distribution but scourge can pull that off. Kitty's got a long video about that. And if you're a charr, you can outfury druids through Battle Roar and Pack runes which are enough to give full fury for 5. Unless they're using tiger but that's cheating (and Kitty likes providing more than full fury for 10 as druid). And though people like to say "but Monk runes are must for healer!", scourge doesn't benefit nearly as much as others from those due to outgoing heals not working on barriers. They speed up resses and improve the healing from Transfusion/F-Well of Blood, but scourge's actual main form of healing is damage mitigation through barrier, not just ressing everyone. If pure ressbot was needed, people could just run TB's blood magic condi scourge with Mercy runes. Horrible idea but at least it'd do 75% of full damage, proper epi and it would be super-tanky through Parasitic Contagion. Or just a viper's BM scourge. Healing gears just to ress the people you let down by not healing kinda sounds redundant when scourge can do so much more.

Though Kitty's personal favourite choice of boonbot for Whisper and other strikes where people don't stack well is scepter+warhorn aura tempest. By spamming all shouts and pre-casting Wildfire+Phoenix+Dragon's Tooth, you can get yourself to about 15ish might in seconds and then spread it to allies with Heat Sync and then just rotate Fire-Earth (Sand Squall for boon extension)-Water (for heals) through the fight spamming shouts and skills and the squad has most excellent boon uptimes through the fight. Heat Sync and shouts have massive radius and thus even spreading out widely doesn't usually drop the boons at all and the other healers can focus 100% on healing without worrying about boon output. That probably sounds like invalidating Kitty's earlier point of "why Kitty insists on healers bringing might and at least some fury instead of being pure healers due to low opportunity cost" but warhorn boon tempest isn't used as healer in every single squad and Kitty's ended up cursing low fury uptime in pretty much every squad where she's been power dps and her sub's healer was heal scourge, staff tempest or scrapper. Feels sad as reaper trying hard to put the supports' boon efforts to good use by dpsing well. ._.

But then, onto the actual topic of this thread: Boneskinner does more damage than any other boss in this game if you don't do torches. Yesterday Kitty got a log where she took over 1,1 MILLION damage through a 6,5 min fight as druid (Kitty had to try healing harder than ever in last 2 years on that kill). At other bosses she usually takes about 120-250k max, about 300-350k at SH. That essentially means 3-9x the damage pressure compared to ANY raid bosses. So, the according to that log Kitty got from that kill, she essentially took 2,9k damage per second and she wasn't eating those claw AoEs. When it comes to healing out that damage, only heal scrapper (6,5-7,2k/s), renegade(6,0-6,4k/s) and staff tempest(~5k/s) can purely outheal that damage to their subgroup according to maths Kitty did a few months ago when she was comparing healers' max. heal output in optimal situations. Mightbot Druid is about 2,7k/s even with optimal rotation and gears, Firebrand is about 3,5k+aegis (but suffers from very bursty heals compared to rene/temp/scrap), deadeye/berserker/chrono/scourge each around 2,3-2,5k/s. (Kitty's created all those heal builds, mathed and tested.)

Therefore, if Kitty were to choose an all-stars comp, she'd go with power alacrigade+mace healbrand+spirit soulbeast+berserker+power scrapper/condi quickbrand+heal engineer+2 power scrappers/mightbot healscourge. Scrappers are basically immortal and they can ress through Function Gyros and they actually do decent dps. Heal scrapper provides extremely high heals to keep others alive. Heal scourge is a good backup with barriers, fury, might and resses so healbrand can focus on blocking and healing and quickness. Power alacrigade with Tablet nullifies wisps and gives more heals with Soulcleave. Spirits from soulbeast are nice and banner warr likes Spotter. Condi Quickbrand gives some blocks and gooood dps while also providing quickness to sub.

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