How to defeat Ryland Steelcatcher

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

I came to a terrible realization. I came to this realization when I failed the Snowden Drifts DRM CM over and over again... except for the time I played a DPS in which we won. That realization is this: nobody actually knows how to defeat Ryland. It's weird, I know, but time and again I see all of my teammates scattered to the winds and defeated. Rejoice, however, for I, the magnificently sexy and humble Blood Red Arachnid, am here to tell you how to fight Ryland without getting laid out in 5 seconds. The tl;dr is you circle around him while whacking him. The long version:

Now, the Snowden Drifts DRM is simple enough. The most infuriating part is that the escort didn't take his Ritalin, so he lollygags about every time an icebrood shows up. Keep swiftness or superspeed applied to the escort and run backwards a bit if he decides to take in the scenery. Now, for the boss:

Ryland has a fairly set pattern. Once you know this pattern, the only hard part of this fight is all of the random stalagmites that erupt from the ground. At the start of the fight and each time he phases, he's going to do this:

Spin AttackChanneled Attack where he rains Ice Spike down.

Now, although it is very tempting, DO NOT USE THE EMP SKILL ON RYLAND. It stops the channel attack without stunning him, and gives him a ton of boons. Now, you can CC him during this attack, but it is actually pretty easy to avoid. You can let him stand there throwing ice down because it is easy to DPS him during. 1 He will occasionally start the channel attack again. However, when he is not channeling this attack, he follows this pattern:

Swing 1Swing 2Big Horizontal Swing (CC)Cone Damaging attackSwing 1Swing 2Big Horizontal Swing (CC)Spin attackRepeat

Swing 1 and Swing 2 don't do much damage. The Big Horizontal Swing is the telegraphed launch skill that sets you up for his power attacks. The cone attack does massive damage and will probably kill you outright. The Spin attack does a lot of damage, and will usually knock you into a forming stalagmite which will kill you.

So, how do you avoid getting clobbered by his clearly-compensating-for-something sword? Ryland has a pretty big weakness in this rotation: He get gets tunnel vision after swing 2. See, swing 1 and swing 2 will track you. However, after swing 2, Ryland is so focused on topping the DPS meter that he quits looking at what he's doing, and instead looks at his skill bar. He will proceed to unleash his next two attacks without turning to face the player. This is where you can damage him relatively safely. Just move to Ryland's back after Swing 2, and then you'll avoid the Big Horizontal Swing and the Cone Attack. However, you'll still want to dodge the Spin Attack, which has a large, telegraphed AoE.

Once you're used to his pattern, the only hard part of fighting Ryland is the random AoEs that encircle him. So, when you circle Ryland while attacking him, you'll want to pay attention to not stepping in any of circles around him. Ryland will phase at 70% and 35%, in which you have to run to 3 corners of the room and kill an elite mob that spawns. Ryland will return to the fight after these enemies are killed, and he'll begin the cycle all over again.

The time limit is tight in this mission, so you'll want to bring as much DPS as you can. The obstacle that most groups face is staying together for boons and buffs, since the natural tendency when faced with Ryland's big sword is to cry out for mother while running about in panic and despair. It should be noted that the Spin Attack can be blocked by aegis, so having a Healbrand or Guardian that is on-point with Retreat can really up the damage time when fighting him. Occasionally Ryland will get a bunch of boons, so it helps to have some form of removal/corruption in the team. Otherwise, I make no further profession recommendations.

Remember: you lose the most DPS when you go down, so prioritize staying alive during this fight. It is better to avoid the attacks and not do damage than it is to eat the attacks while trying to power through them.

[Dawdler.8521]

So you are saying that staying alive, moving out of AoE and doing damage is the key to success?

Hm.

I have doubts.

Cant I just stand in one place relying on all buffs and hope someone res me if I die instead?

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

Deleted /2chars.

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

Good news everyone! Turns out, you CAN solo the Snowden Rifts CM. Just confirmed it earlier today. It is... surprisingly easy once you know how. You just need a Deadeye to do it.

See, Ryland has a wonky aggro system. I'm not sure exactly what it is, but it seems to alternate between nearest target, highest damage target, and randomly counter-attacking when taking high damage. So, watching him run about gave me idea: what happens if I just camp a rifle at maximum range while Ryland is distracted by all of the teammates and hired help? So I did it, and I can confirm that, if you are on a deadeye, you can rocket Death's Judgement into his back over and over again, and he'll only inconsistently come to attack you. Most of his attacks have limited range, so you can kneel and fire rather safely. The combination of allies and frequent stealth messes with his head.

The build looks something like this:

Gear: Full BerserkerRunes: x6 Superior Rune of the ScholarSigils: Superior Sigil of Force, Superior Sigil of ImpactingWeapons: Rifle + whatever you want.

Traits:Deadly Arts: Dagger Training, Revealed Training, ExecutionerCritical Strikes: Twin Fangs, Practiced Tolerance, Invigorating PrecisionDeadeye: Malicious Intent, Premeditation, Maleficent Seven

Utilities: Hide in Shadows, Shadow Gust, Mercy, Assassin's Signet, Shadow MeldConsumables: Powerful Potion of Icebrood Slaying, whatever DPS food you want.

Now, for the escort you'll want to wear a similar Staff Daredevil build. The mobility and AoE damage is better, which would make the escort easier. For Ryland, the strategy is exceedingly simple: kneel at far range, use 3 round burst 3 times, then stealth and use Death's Judgement. When Ryland phases and spawns elites, just do the same thing to them.

[Ayrilana.1396]

All classes are able to solo it. The primary issues are that players don’t do adequate DPS and fail mechanics... repeatedly.

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

Not necessarily. PVE DPS is currently balanced on the assumption that you'll get full buffs from teammates. In a solo situation, performance can vary by quite a bit. In this particular DRM, the biggest issue facing each class isn't just personal DPS, but DPS availability. Ryland is quite aggressive in melee, so you'll end up spending a lot of time avoiding his high-damage attacks. To that end, I had attempted this DRM multiple times with Holosmith, and I didn't even get close. Keep in mind, I kept the escorts under superspeed the entire time, which gave me ample extra time during the fight.

The reason why the Deadeye works are numerous:

1: Excellent Self-Bufffer.2: The rifle has near 100% DPS availability.3: High modifiers4: Incredible self-recovery with no loss in DPS

Now, I haven't tested all professions with all builds in this fight. There's a few other builds I highly suspect would be good in this fight (Condi Mirage), but even then I doubt they could compete with the ease of the Deadeye.

[Ayrilana.1396]

In case you were not aware, instances scale. It doesn't take that much time to avoid his attacks either.

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

@Ayrilana.1396 said:In case you were not aware, instances scale. It doesn't take that much time to avoid his attacks either.

That neither addresses nor refutes anything I've said. Seriously, why are you even here?

[Ayrilana.1396]

@Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

@Ayrilana.1396 said:In case you were not aware, instances scale. It doesn't take that much time to avoid his attacks either.

That neither addresses nor refutes anything I've said. Seriously, why are you even here?

I said that all classes could solo the CM and you said “Not Necessarily”.

My “ In case you were not aware, instances scale” statement refutes your “PVE DPS is currently balanced on the assumption that you'll get full buffs from teammates“ statement.

My “ It doesn't take that much time to avoid his attacks either“ statement refutes your “ so you'll end up spending a lot of time avoiding his high-damage attacks” statement.

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

@Ayrilana.1396 said:

I said that all classes could solo the CM and you said “Not Necessarily”.

My “ In case you were not aware, instances scale” statement refutes your “PVE DPS is currently balanced on the assumption that you'll get full buffs from teammates“ statement.

No it doesn't. Clearly, you didn't even read the paragraph. I spent the whole thing talking about how solo performance differs from group performance, so CLEARLY I WAS TALKING ABOUT DOING THE CM SOLO.

@Ayrilana.1396 said:My “ It doesn't take that much time to avoid his attacks either“ statement refutes your “ so you'll end up spending a lot of time avoiding his high-damage attacks” statement.

No it doesn't. You're just claiming the opposite.

[Cyninja.2954]

@Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:Not necessarily. PVE DPS is currently balanced on the assumption that you'll get full buffs from teammates.

There have been solo videos of DRM 3CM missions on multiple classes since day one for each and every instance. This is also the case for Snowden. Most often on warrior or reaper, both of which often go melee range in the videos.

None of the solo classes have a full set of boons in the videos. The timers often have a good amount of time to spare. Range cheese is usually not needed or used for success.

Not sure what your assumption is based on given it was disproven for each and every DRM 3CM so far.

As mentioned the scaling for these missions is very generous.

I'm happy you found a way to solo the CM which works for you. In this case though, you are out of touch of what players have been doing in the content.

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

@Cyninja.2954 said:

@Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:Not necessarily. PVE DPS is currently balanced on the assumption that you'll get full buffs from teammates.

There have been solo videos of DRM 3CM missions on multiple classes since day one for each and every instance. This is also the case for Snowden. Most often on warrior or reaper, both of which often go melee range in the videos.

None of the solo classes have a full set of boons in the videos. The timers often have a good amount of time to spare. Range cheese is usually not needed or used for success.

Not sure what your assumption is based on given it was disproven for each and every DRM 3CM so far.

As mentioned the scaling for these missions is very generous.

It helps with your understanding if you read the full post. You clearly missed what I am talking about.

[Ayrilana.1396]

The issues are with specific things that you stated and not with the overall post(s).

[Cyninja.2954]

@Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

@Cyninja.2954 said:

@Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:Not necessarily. PVE DPS is currently balanced on the assumption that you'll get full buffs from teammates.

There have been solo videos of DRM 3CM missions on multiple classes since day one for each and every instance. This is also the case for Snowden. Most often on warrior or reaper, both of which often go melee range in the videos.

None of the solo classes have a full set of boons in the videos. The timers often have a good amount of time to spare. Range cheese is usually not needed or used for success.

Not sure what your assumption is based on given it was disproven for each and every DRM 3CM so far.

As mentioned the scaling for these missions is very generous.

It helps with your understanding if you read the full post. You clearly missed what I am talking about.

I did. You want me to point out the other issues? Sure.

• this DRMs timer is not challenging due to Ryland. It is because the escort can take up way more time than needed which in turn cuts the available time short for the end fight.
• Ryland is not that hard nor that aggressive IF one breaks his breakbar and makes use of his channel attacks which by now have clear animations and even safe zones marked (which was added retroactively and made better visible)
• having boon removal to remove protection helps A LOT for this fight. Classes which have no innate boon removal can use sigils if need be (in case of Engineer, use Throw Mine). No need to explain what perma protection does to power dps I believe
• just in case this was missed: for this fight it is to be avoided to use the EMP from the Waystation because Ryland receives a full set of boons from having his cc bar attacked from this

None of which is relevant to the fact that this fight, nor any fights, in this game are balanced around a full set of boons.