Killing Silent Surf Challenge Mode Platform Adds as Healer (Minstrel HFB)

[devzero.4093]

I'm really having trouble with the adds as a healer with full ascended minstrel gear, my dps is just too low to kill the add on time sometimes. I do manage most of the time, but sometimes the beam appears too late or it's for the the platform on the other side and I only get the add down to 20-40% and we wipe.

I tried two different strategies and for both I try to keep my tomes and also prebuff swiftness, might and fury:

1. Telling everyone in the group to go after tethers and I stay in the center hoping I don't get it.
2.  Proactively go after the tether and spawn it and kill it.

Both of these are either a hit or a miss. I can't guarantee either way that I won't fail this phase. If we do 1. I sometimes still end up with the beam and I will guaranteed not have enough time to kill it by the time the beam appears. If I do 2. it depends on where the add is. And with both of these I always run the risk of having to use my tomes to keep party members alive before this phase, so then I'm screwed because I won't be able to use my burns from F1.

I really need some advice for this to be able to guarantee that we don't wipe because of me. Is harriers or celestial required for this? At this point I'm starting to believe that extra damage from gear is mandatory for this CM fractal. Any help is appreciated, thanks.

[Nimris.3781]

first of regarding avoiding tether.

you shouldnt try doing that as its gonna almost always fail you. at 66% you are guaranteed 3+ tethers and at 33% you are guaranteed 4+tethers. (world  cleaver mechanic spawns 1 add and each failed cc spawns add)   so in order to reliably have exactly 4 tethers at 33% you would have to complete every Dread Visage ( thats CC break bar mechanic) until 33% as failing any of cc will result in 5 adds on 33%. also even if there are only 4 tethers you may still get add due to positioning etc.

dont forget about npng as well, you cannot be barely killing adds as this instability will turn this fractal into skip day

because of above you should assume that you will certainly have to kill add and be ready for that, meaning you should get some offensive stats. (for example celestial)

 

now also the reasons why you shouldnt sit there in full minstrel

this fight has almost no dmg pressure, kanaxai attacks deal just a bit of dmg and apply condi (bleed/torment i think) and kanaxai always attacks nearest (no-downstated) player. with natural movement due to mechanics he will swap targets so his dmg is very spread, meaning that a bit of healing, maybe condi cleanse and you are good to go. adds do laughable dmg as well ( ~300-500 or something like that and miss often)

the only real dangerous abilities are:

• Vulnerability (+25% power dmg per stack) and bleeding from spinning axes ( eating 20 bleeding stacks will often result in downstate)
• number mechanic where it always deals 50% of your health. 
• toxic trail instability - pool appears during number mechanic taking away another 30-40% hp if you dont move out

and celestial is more than enough to heal up number mechanic, anything else can be avoided. if someone steps into spinning axe 4 times and eat 20+ bleeding than nothing will save him or if someone gets insta killed from eye, than minstrel is not gonna save him either.

i know that some healers have it easier but overall there is no reason to go full heal here and yes i know that getting another EQ set is annoying, but you should focus on guaranteeing kill on add, dmg preassure is not an issue here.

 

[Krzysztof.5973]

It's very easy on harrier hfb. You just opened with f1 (4, 2) then axe 2, 3 + shield 5 and AA to finish it off.  

[devzero.4093]

10 hours ago, Nimris.3781 said:

because of above you should assume that you will certainly have to kill add and be ready for that, meaning you should get some offensive stats. (for example celestial)

7 hours ago, Krzysztof.5973 said:

It's very easy on harrier hfb. You just opened with f1 (4, 2) then axe 2, 3 + shield 5 and AA to finish it off.  

Thanks guys, I thought this was the case but I had no way to confirm it. This is the only mechanic I've had trouble with so with this settled I think I'll be able to do this as healer once I get another set of gear. For now I'll just swap to dps for this CM.

10 hours ago, Nimris.3781 said:

this fight has almost no dmg pressure

I don't disagree. In my experience so far it's been possible to face tank the boss and just cleanse and heal some. In my training groups however I've had to F2 5 1 1 1 too often to prevent a certain wipe. I even take Bow of Truth for extra healing. I was only focusing on my own mechanics for the most part because I'm still learning this CM, so I don't know what some people were doing wrong to be so often on the verge of death. Sometimes they had a huge amount of stacks of some condition that I was heavily cleansing.  Axes maybe? I know we also had toxic trail yesterday and I did see some just standing in it during split phase, maybe that also contributed to it.

10 hours ago, Nimris.3781 said:

i know that some healers have it easier but overall there is no reason to go full heal here

There are a few reasons I went for minstrels instead of harriers, the first is because I was new to healing and fractals and that extra toughness is really great (basically never died and could make mistakes) and the second reason is that I also wanted to do WvW so I have one set for both game modes. I've since done all fractals in T4 many times and even the other CM's in full minstrel without issues, but this is the one CM fractal where minstrel is actually a huge liability it seems.

[Nimris.3781]

19 hours ago, devzero.4093 said:

I don't disagree. In my experience so far it's been possible to face tank the boss and just cleanse and heal some. In my training groups however I've had to F2 5 1 1 1 too often to prevent a certain wipe. I even take Bow of Truth for extra healing. I was only focusing on my own mechanics for the most part because I'm still learning this CM, so I don't know what some people were doing wrong to be so often on the verge of death. Sometimes they had a huge amount of stacks of some condition that I was heavily cleansing.  Axes maybe? I know we also had toxic trail yesterday and I did see some just standing in it during split phase, maybe that also contributed to it.

afaik each of kanaxai autos apply 3-6 stacks of bleed or torment and hit for as little as 1-2k. so face-tanking wont be an issue with healer on the back. oh and kanaxai has small cleave so players shouldnt all stand on a top of each other but than wont kill anyone either.

spinning axe applies 5xbleed and 1x +25% vulnerability per sec.  so getting 20+ bleed combined with number mechanic is guaranteed downstate... i would say this is the main culprit. not moving out of toxic trail is another issue

Numbers mechanic is not affected by any dmg reduction or increase ( like protection, vulnerability, outflank etc.) and always takes away 50% of max hp so if it downs someone, that person made mistake earlier ( or stands in toxic trail).

if you are still learning this fight it might be easier to do on dps as keeping decent boon uptime on kanaxai is challanging as well.

20 hours ago, devzero.4093 said:

There are a few reasons I went for minstrels instead of harriers, the first is because I was new to healing and fractals and that extra toughness is really great (basically never died and could make mistakes) and the second reason is that I also wanted to do WvW so I have one set for both game modes. I've since done all fractals in T4 many times and even the other CM's in full minstrel without issues, but this is the one CM fractal where minstrel is actually a huge liability it seems.

thats understandable, eq templates are not cheap and for T4 you are only required to keep party up and provide boons so anything with healing + concentration is fine and minstrel is very safe option. if you want to stay sturdy, celestial is decent option as well as it gives you all stats and with bonus vitality/toughness from potion conversion ( ~250-300 of each) you should be able to tank almost anything anyway.

healer that cannot clear add is indeed liability for this fractal as failing World Cleaver wipes entire party and thats why i would suggest optimising build around being able to comfortably kill add with NPNG instability.

personaly i am not playing hfb, but if you have any other questions regarding this fractal i will be happy to help

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

the short and long of it is, you should be healing in celestial gear in high-level fractals, not minstrel's. if your allies can't survive with you healing on celestial, that's more on them than you and you're probably not going to be able to keep that group alive anyway.

 

there's also no tank mechanic and you get a free 15% boon duration so harrier's is almost never used. you can throw a few pieces in if you have trouble hitting the boon duration you need for upkeep of quickness (or alacrity for willbender), but overall the bulk of your healing comes from %healing modifiers like relic of the monk and there's a very steep diminishing returns past about 900 healing power, though ~1k is usually taken for safety.

 

i recommend taking the leadership runes instead of some harrier's pieces, though, as this will always put you at or near 100% boon duration.

 

its important to remember that the firebrand gets alot of extra healing power with quickness which contributes to the soft cap as well, and its likely the only thing you're doing with 1500-1800+ healing power is making the fight take significantly longer due to a loss of ~5k dps.

Edited November 2, 2023 by SoftFootpaws.9134

[Balsa.3951]

hfb here as mentioned harrier and done