Strike Mission solo mode please

[moonstarmac.4603]

So I tried my hand at my first Strike Mission. Only que option: Squad. Number of Strike Mission groups in LFG: 0. So I figured, well I'll try to solo it. Getting to the boss is easy, but that thing's HP is stupid high. As a ranger I am parked out of it's range hitting it with everything I have. My pet is right up on it tearing in. After 8 minutes of the 12 minute timer I had only dealt 5% damage to it.

These days trying to get into missions is extremely difficult it seems, unless you are part of a Guild that does them regularly. That is why I'd love to see a Solo instance available...even if it means missing out on some of the bigger rewards...I just want it for the 'Footsteps' collections.

[Blocki.4931]

Just make a group yourself. Gets filled in 5 minutes max.

[mindcircus.1506]

@"moonstarmac.4603" said:So I tried my hand at my first Strike Mission. Only que option: Squad. Number of Strike Mission groups in LFG: 0. So I figured, well I'll try to solo it. Getting to the boss is easy, but that thing's HP is stupid high. As a ranger I am parked out of it's range hitting it with everything I have. My pet is right up on it tearing in. After 8 minutes of the 12 minute timer I had only dealt 5% damage to it.

These days trying to get into missions is extremely difficult it seems, unless you are part of a Guild that does them regularly. That is why I'd love to see a Solo instance available...even if it means missing out on some of the bigger rewards...I just want it for the 'Footsteps' collections.The boss is actually soloable on some builds, Firebrand, Condi Rev, Tempest and Power Chrono I have seen. But isnt meant to be solo content.Make your own squad, toss it on LFG. Ive never had to wait more than 5 mins for a team to fill. Saying "ALL WELCOME" tends to help teams fill up fast....That said...If your DPS toon is only clocking 5% of the Shiverpeaks Pass Boss in 8 minutes, you may have build/gear issues and you may want to look at it.

[Ayrilana.1396]

Strikes are not intended to be done solo and making them able to be done that way would defeat their purpose.

[maddoctor.2738]

Which Strike Mission did you try and did so low damage?

[Cyninja.2954]

@moonstarmac.4603 You aren't asking for solo mode. I know you think you are, but you are not, let me explain.

With 5% damage done in 8 minutes, you've essentially done 0.65% damage per minute to boss. That's 6.25% in 10 Minutes (which is the enrage timer). If we assumed 9 more players with this type of performance, you would end up with 60-70% of boss damage in 10 Minutes, still not able to kill the boss. You require at least 1% per minute per 1 of 10 players on average to clear the strike.

Now we also know that, assuming you tried Shiverpeaks Pass which is the easiest of the strike missions, there is a 3 minute gold timer, which very likely gets completed by players for slightly additional loot. Reaching this target, the squad needs to do at least three times the damage on average, so above 3.3+% per player per minute. This means given your 0.65% damage per minute, you are on average off by 150% performance (meaning your own performance would need to improve by 1.5) for clearing before enrage and around 500% off to reach gold timer.

So given this discrepancy, even IF a solo mode was added, you'd hardly be able to clear the boss. What you essentially are asking for is a solo mode AND a massive decrease to boss difficulty.

So what should be your primary concern? Figure out WHY your performance is obviously so far off from the norm or necessity to clear this content. It will not automatically allow you to clear this content without others, but it will certainly go a long way in improving your ability to clear this content and improving your understanding of this game.

[Ayrilana.1396]

I didn’t think to look at their performance. Based on the DPS log of someone who killed it solo, the boss had roughly 11.7M health. If you did only 5% then that would be about 585K damage. Across 8 min, that comes out to be 1.2K DPS which is very very low. That’s how much DPS you would expect a primary healer to do.

[sokeenoppa.5384]

So you are hitting the boss with main healer dmg and asking anet to nerf it?

[Ourasa.7306]

First off: What gear are you wearing? At most, you only want to have your gear support one stat that is non damage related. What would be better is gear that have none at all. If you have things like vitality or toughness, you’re sacrificing a lot of damage.

You want to focus on the following: power; precision, ferocity, and condition damage (if you run condi). Concentration can be run for some classes, since certain boons greatly bolsters their offense (like guardian with retaliation).

Next, make sure you have a full set of a rune: They provide hundreds of stat points, which is like wearing an additional piece of armor.

And finally, make sure you’re consistently rotating between high damaging moves. Autoattacking should be seldom used, unless all cooldowns are blown and you have nothing else meaningful to do.

Warriors, for example, will maybe go through one auto attack cycle of their axe once, before moving on to eviscerate, dual strike, cyclone axe, whirling axe, eviscerate again, weapon swap, hundred blades, arcing slice, weapon swap, repeat.

I don’t know how a ranger might rotate since I don’t even play the class, but I do know that many use an axe (for whirling fortress I think), and a great sword. Some would use maul, hilt bash, maul, then Worldy impact, auto attack a few time, then maul.

From what you said, I think you’re using a longbow. Don’t. The only meaningful attack move you have would be rapid fire. Stealth shot, knockback shot, and barrage are borderline useless in a timed boss fight.

[LadyKitty.6120]

Sounds like a bearbow ranger in soldier's gears, to be honest. So, like already pointed out, there's 2 things to do:

1. Check your build. A good cheap easy effective variation is carrion condi shortbow soulbeast with krait runes and sigils of agony+malice and Black Diamonds as upgrades on trinkets. Costs about 10-12g to gear up.For power, berserker's build with sword/dagger/axe main-hand, axe off-hand and greatsword as the other weapon set. Axe+Axe has good damage with ranged capability.
2. If you don't see a squad in LFG, press P and Create Squad and then set up LFG yourself.

Here's Kitty's "spam all skills" budget condi soulbeast build. Works pretty well. http://gw2skills.net/editor/?POQAUlZw+YSsJmJWaP3P1JkC-zRZULRB13BTQYmhEUIoSfFUAhkA+MLLaWB-eAnd shopping list:Avirdanag (shortbow)Superior Sigil of AgonySuperior Sigil of MaliceShiro's armor set (Except shoulderpads which you get from completing Soulbeast elite spec)Soulbeast Pads (from completing Soulbeast elite spec)Superior Rune of Krait x6Fang of Tequatl x 2Carrion Amulet lvl 80Carrion Ring lvl 80 x2Black Diamond x5

[sokeenoppa.5384]

@Ourasa.7306 said:From what you said, I think you’re using a longbow. Don’t. The only meaningful attack move you have would be rapid fire. Stealth shot, knockback shot, and barrage are borderline useless in a timed boss fight.

Longbow is a meta weapon for power soulbeast in all bursty raids tho.

[Ourasa.7306]

@sokeenoppa.5384 said:

@Ourasa.7306 said:From what you said, I think you’re using a longbow. Don’t. The only meaningful attack move you have would be rapid fire. Stealth shot, knockback shot, and barrage are borderline useless in a timed boss fight.

Longbow is a meta weapon for power soulbeast in all bursty raids tho.

Why is that so? I don’t play ranger, as I mentioned earlier, but I don’t see how only rapid fire can make this a good weapon for maximizing dps.

[Lexi.1398]

@"Ourasa.7306" said:Why is that so? I don’t play ranger, as I mentioned earlier, but I don’t see how only rapid fire can make this a good weapon for maximizing dps.

It kind of is because rapid fire is that good, infact, rapid fire is amongst the best power dps skills rangers have access to, just the autos suck. the knockback helps proc twice as vicious, and you can "precast" lb 5 for extra damage too. What this means is, the longer the boss phase (aka, the more LB autos you do) the worse LB performs, but if the phase is short you get extremely high damage. This makes it amazing in any bursty raid encounter, and even more amazing in fractals where it was meta for a while.

That said, i'd agree with your original advice: don't use LB, with the addendum: unless you know how to use it. In OPs case, LB would be unsuitable, because even with the most self sufficeint high dps power ranger build out there, it'll still take a while to solo any of the strike bosses.

[RaidsAreEasyAF.8652]

@Lexi.1398 said:

@"Ourasa.7306" said:Why is that so? I don’t play ranger, as I mentioned earlier, but I don’t see how only rapid fire can make this a good weapon for maximizing dps.

It kind of is because rapid fire is that good, infact, rapid fire is amongst the best power dps skills rangers have access to, just the autos suck. the knockback helps proc twice as vicious, and you can "precast" lb 5 for extra damage too. What this means is, the longer the boss phase (aka, the more LB autos you do) the worse LB performs, but if the phase is short you get extremely high damage. This makes it amazing in any bursty raid encounter, and even more amazing in fractals where it was meta for a while.

That said, i'd agree with your original advice: don't use LB, with the addendum: unless you know how to use it. In OPs case, LB would be unsuitable, because even with the most self sufficeint high dps power ranger build out there, it'll still take a while to solo any of the strike bosses.

In addition to that: Barrage actually hits slightly harder than Rapid Fire. LB scales better with OWP and Soulcleave and on LB you can run Natural Healing, helping you to keep that scholar uptime.