Eater of Souls - The Departed

[Farzo.8410]

This thread is proof of how bad the GW2 playerbase actually is.

[Kravick.4906]

> @Asum.4960 said:

> Either this guy got absolutely gutted with nerfs, or the skill discrepancy between players in this game is even more mindblowing than I thought.

> While I thought story fights in the past like Caudecus or Lazarus were an absolute walk in the park, I at least could see how extremely casual players could have a problem with them (aka they had **any** form of mechanic).

>

> This guy though dropped in about 20 seconds on my first try without cheese, not knowing any of his mechanics and I still don't.

> One of my big complaints with Story bosses is always that they are so easy, I would have to extremely hold back on purpose just to see their mechanics, meanwhile other players call them "literally unbeatable".

>

> Now I'm not saying this with the intent of _oh look at me, I'm awesome_, I'm genuinely curious how the same fight can be so easy it's underwhelming for some players, and sheer impossible for others, considering you can't mess up characters in GW2 like in some hard core ARPG's, where content becomes unbeatable and there is next to no respec.

>

> On the other hand, comments like "This boss can't be beaten with low damage classes like Elementalist", a class which has been the absolute uncontested king of DPS since years, might be telling.

>

> Maybe, _"I can't beat this boss with this Stat set and quality of gear and this build, how can I improve?"_ would be a better approach than _"This is literally unbeatable, nerf it!"_.

>

>

 

This. I didn't even know people were even having difficulty on this boss until I saw this thread. I did this last night, first try, on a condi thief. Beat it in a minute or two. I didn't even do anything special and it felt like I just brute forced this encounter. All I did was melee for poison stacks using dagger with the occasional dodge for Lesser Caltrop procs, and obviously avoiding his charges and laser beam attack. If anything, I felt this fight was too easy. Nothing like the Balthazar fights where he'd actually one shot you if you didn't pay attention.

 

This thread is seriously making me wonder about how people play this game if this fight is killing so many people.

 

> @EerieLnu.3789 said:

 

> Professions like engineer, mesmer, elementalist, i.e., all the low DPS ones, just aren't good enough DPS-wise to get through fights like these to be entertaining, to me. The class skew is just meh.

 

This is what I mean. I don't mean to talk down to you, but two of these classes you just mentioned, engineer and elementalist, are capable of pumping out some of the highest damage in the game. Raids practically require an ele and an engineer for the sheer damage output they're capable of. Mesmers are also capable of excellent burst, easily able to break through any content thrown at them. Right now there are threads in the Elementalist forum where people have been able to break 50k+ DPS as an elementalist, where previously 36k was the highest known from engineers.

[Fallesafe.5932]

You all have GOT to be kidding about the difficulty of this fight. I just did it half an hour ago. I made a mistake, and went into the downed state with Eater of Souls at 60% health. So I sat on my butt and threw rocks at him until he was dead. He's literally weaker than open-world veteran mobs.

[Farzo.8410]

> @Kravick.4906 said:

> > @Asum.4960 said:

> > Either this guy got absolutely gutted with nerfs, or the skill discrepancy between players in this game is even more mindblowing than I thought.

> > While I thought story fights in the past like Caudecus or Lazarus were an absolute walk in the park, I at least could see how extremely casual players could have a problem with them (aka they had **any** form of mechanic).

> >

> > This guy though dropped in about 20 seconds on my first try without cheese, not knowing any of his mechanics and I still don't.

> > One of my big complaints with Story bosses is always that they are so easy, I would have to extremely hold back on purpose just to see their mechanics, meanwhile other players call them "literally unbeatable".

> >

> > Now I'm not saying this with the intent of _oh look at me, I'm awesome_, I'm genuinely curious how the same fight can be so easy it's underwhelming for some players, and sheer impossible for others, considering you can't mess up characters in GW2 like in some hard core ARPG's, where content becomes unbeatable and there is next to no respec.

> >

> > On the other hand, comments like "This boss can't be beaten with low damage classes like Elementalist", a class which has been the absolute uncontested king of DPS since years, might be telling.

> >

> > Maybe, _"I can't beat this boss with this Stat set and quality of gear and this build, how can I improve?"_ would be a better approach than _"This is literally unbeatable, nerf it!"_.

> >

> >

>

> This. I didn't even know people were even having difficulty on this boss until I saw this thread. I did this last night, first try, on a condi thief. I didn't even do anything special and it felt like I just brute forced this encounter. All I did was melee for poison stacks using dagger with the occasional dodge for Lesser Caltrop procs. If anything, I felt this fight was too easy. Nothing like the Balthazar fights where he'd actually one shot you if you didn't pay attention.

>

> This thread is seriously making me wonder about how people play this game if this fight is killing so many people.

 

People play this game by waiting for Dulfy guides and then follow whatever the paper says, then write threads like this.

 

[Darcwolf.6817]

Does anet not know how to balance boss fights? The only reason I beat this boss was because he bugged, anytime I would CC him to get rid of break bar it didn't seem to matter, he was still suck me in, heal himself and usually kill me.

[Faaris.8013]

I was basically asking for this kind of thing about two weeks ago here, and they had already put it into the expansion before that. A defiance bar lesson in the story, so that every player has to learn what it is and how to break it. They even made it so you cannot cheat on it by inviting other players to the instance. I love this! Although you may now be heavily annoyed by it, you will find fighting other bosses anywhere in the world more easy, and also fractals. Of course there would be an outcry on the forums, but that's good, people will seek help and find it here.

 

The point in this fight is to break that defiance bar, fast. The first things I did when I started playing a class I've not played before is checking which skills are best for breaking the defiance bar and which skills remove conditions. Every class has crowd control skills, enough to break the bar of this Eater of Souls. Here's a list of those skills for all classes (before the new elites, so there may be more now):

 

http://guildwarshub.com/hard-cc-skill-reference-guide/

 

Go to your class, check which skills are blue in the list and pick them for the fight. Target the Eater and keep an eye on the bar below his name. It will turn blue soon after the fight starts. That is the defiance bar. Hit your crowd control skill as fast as possible (save another one if you have to break a second bar), it will eat away that bar, basically break it. Soft cc might be too slow for this, the list shows all hard ccs. The defiance bar indicates that the Eater (or other bosses) is channeling or casting something that hurts you badly. As soon as you break it, that channeling stops, and usually, the boss is stunned for a short time. In that time, he often takes more damage than usual, so it's time to use all damage skills. I often wait for the defiance bar to be down before I use my high damage skills. In my case, initiative is my cool down for weapon skills (Thief). I'll not waste my initiative on a defiance bar. First break it, then burst.

 

And when you are done with that boss, please do yourself and everybody in your future parties a favour and remember that defiance bars exist and keep those crowd control skills at hand. If this is the first time you consciously recognize the blue defiance bar, you'll be amazed how many more mobs and bosses are in the world that have one, and you will know what to do. Bosses like Vinetooth Prime will be much easier to fight with your new knowledge.

 

By the way, I didn't even realize that I'm dealing with a boss when I did that story part. I summoned my Thieves Guild when I saw that guy, everybody started shooting and slashing and then, for about 1/10 of a second, a blue bar popped up was was down immediately. I didn't even use any of my own cc skills, the summoned thives spam Head Shot and other cc stuff. I didn't really pay attention of how long the fight took, but my thief buddies were still in the fight when the Eater of Souls died, and they only stay with me for 30 seconds. I play double pistol Berserker Daredevil and didn't trait for max dps for the story, and I didn't have any food or nourishment. The Eater of Souls was a trash mob for me until I saw the threads here on the forums. I didn't see any of his attacks, nor did he heal. I didn't have to dodge, just burst him down like any random mob.

 

That is the power of crowd control skills. Hope I could give helpful information here.

[battledrone.8315]

> @Farzo.8410 said:

> This thread is proof of how bad the GW2 playerbase actually is.

what did you expect? a game with millions of hardcore players?

i doubt even WoW had more than a million hardcores

without all those "bad" players, there wouldnt be a game at all

 

[Ramoth.5162]

I did this with my husband. I was the main, on my core berserker, longbow ranger. My husband playing his necro, who got turned into the little buff sphere. The Eater of Souls targeted my pet and my husband, leaving me to dps him down and kite a bit with my longbow. LB 4 took down his break bar perfectly. He never healed during the fight. Now, I did check out Dulfy's guide, as we look to see what the achievements are, so I checked out bosses and their mechanics, as well.

[Kravick.4906]

> @battledrone.8315 said:

> > @Farzo.8410 said:

> > This thread is proof of how bad the GW2 playerbase actually is.

> what did you expect? a game with millions of hardcore players?

> i doubt even WoW had more than a million hardcores

> without all those "bad" players, there wouldnt be a game at all

>

 

This isn't even an issue of hardcore vs casual. I'm casual. I don't even raid. I just hear about all the cool stuff everyone else does. With that said, this fight was still incredibly easy. I'm not even using a "meta" build. Just what I find fun, and I was still able to breeze through this fight. I don't even pride myself at being the best, just play what feels fun. And yet I cannot understand how people have trouble with this boss.

 

The real shame to all of this is that ANet won't try to teach players how to play the game by adding a break bar tutorial in either HoT or PoF some where, but rather dumb the game down so players won't have to learn.

 

Edit: Seriously? The word d-u-m-b is censored?

[Bolita.2071]

What makes it challenging (using that term loosely) is that success largely depends on which profession you’ve been playing the story with. Some are decidedly harder than others e.g. three players in our house, three professions, differing levels of difficulty in finishing off, from just a matter of endurance and timing, to mouse-slammingly hard. At least by our results, Rev was the easiser due to a great deal of swiftness and evade skills. Maining a Scourge necro seemed to leave limited options except to cheese him down (not knowing the battle beforehand).

 

The issue seems to be a matter of balance; the playing field needs to be leveled (not necessarily nerfed, just made fair) for all professions.

[Alwayshappy.2549]

Had no issues with this one when I did it this weekend as a sword/focus weaver. Got him down in 2 minutes.

[ProtoGunner.4953]

Lol this thread just shows how casual the game crows has become. Killed him after 3rd try - just run away after his leap to avoid his leech and that's it.

[ProtoGunner.4953]

> @Valreth.1309 said:

> Mesmer here. Took me a couple hours of messing with builds and such, but I succeeded. I'm a casual player (and not very good), with an ascended armor set with only a couple of runes equipped. Weapons are exotics. At first I was running Mirage with Axe/Torch & Scepter/Pistol. I was doing well, got him to about half health, then I saw he was absorbing /all/ of my clones even when I was doing just fine avoiding the life steal tether. As others have mentioned, absorbing the clones puts the boss back to full health. I still rolled with a condition build so that I was still applying damage even while I was running around and avoiding his attacks. Not once was I in danger of dying either. Hardly had to heal - only did it to top off my health in case I slipped up.

>

> Here's what I ended up doing to finally beat it. It took me about 15-20 minutes of widdling him down. Patience is key with this one.

> **Noob Condi Mirage**

> * Avoid using skills that create clones. (I realize this is easier said than done considering EVERY Mesmer weapon has 1-2 skills that create clones/illusions).

> * Weapons Used: Axe/Pistol & Axe/Torch

> * Skills used: Axe 1&3, Pistol 5, Torch 4

> * Utility Skills: Crystal Sands, Signet of Inspiration (for swiftness as Mirage doesn't have faster movement like Chrono had), Signet of Domination, Jaunt. I used Ether signet for heals, but considering I was avoiding creating clones, a different heal skill is probably better.

>

> **Traits** (Anything that I thought was remotely useful, applied conditions, and didn't risk creating clones)

> * Domination: Confounding Suggestions, Furious Interruption, Power Block.

> * Chaos: Descent Into Madness, Chaotic Dampening, Prismatic Understanding

> * Mirage: Renewing Oasis, Mirrored Axes, Elusive Mind

>

> **Tactic**

> * Attack in melee, using skills mentioned above. Use Torch 4 to apply burning DoT, attack with Axe 1&3, and Pistol 5 until he prepares to leap at you for health siphon.

> *When boss does leap with AOE circle on ground, dodge away twice in a row

> * When boss is still at range and just finishes his larger ground-smash-type AOE, place Crystal Sands in his path

> * Repeat as necessary

 

Are you serious? I played as mesmer, too and it takes maybe 2-3 minutes to kill him. Just blink away after his leap to omit his leech attack. Done. (I ran full ascende viper's gear). Also, I used tons of clones and shatters.

[Tasida.4085]

I beat it solo with my necro......no minions. I just ran around in a circle dropping wells and marks. Then rolling out of range when he leech's. My biggest problem was having to do it 4 diff times because I couldn't access the chests. Souls is fine, ease up on the Balth fight though. That takes an age, and I'd rather not do again on ANY toon.

[Zaltys.7649]

> @Theandil.6045 said:

> I do not know what people talks here. I end up at boss and under 20sec he was down. After fight I was um, so easy...

> d/p thief here - Headshot skill for the win !

 

Congratulations, you beat him with one of the easiest builds. I'm probably in the bottom 10% skill-wise, and even I managed that.. Now do the same (20 secs) with guardian, and that'll be something to actually brag about.

[Leeryan.4021]

It's really weird to see we all have different experiences with that boss. I'm a Messmer main here, playing Mirage, and it took me AGES to defeat it. Condi couldn't do anything (was playing a condi Mirage) so I switched back to chrono (by the way you CAN access your inventory, but through the Hero interface only) and same thing, I couldn't not damage him enough (and whenever I did a significant amout of damage it just healed itself). Running away from its leech attack was out of the question since it basically teleported one sep behind me everytime. I tried to interrupt him using Greatsword fifth skill but the cooldown was too long (even as a Chrono). It was so frustrating I just gave up (which is horrible considering I play mainly for the story and here I was... blocked...)

 

I tried one more time the following day, I wanted to test the "Joko's prison bug" as I call it. Didn't work as well as in the video (the Soul Eater could walk through the chains) BUT I managed to find exploit another bug. I lured it away with clones and climbed on top of Joko's prison. It started to run from one clone to the other without even attacking them and I used Greatsword skill 1 from afar. Couldn't do any real damage since my field of view was obstructed but the magic of bleeding did the rest. Just when I thought it was FINALLY over (it took me 4 minutes with the finger pressed on skill 1) it... debugged itself. And attacked me. And healed. And I had to start over.

 

On the THIRD and last try I used the same trick, which didn't fully work but by chance it got locked in the prison with Joko. And my clones did the rest (well, bleeding did). It took a couple of minutes and I just sat there doing nothing. Super fun. Yay. And the whole time I was scared it would eventually debugged itself again. Luckily it did not.

 

I was too lazy to read all the comments here but I'm pretty sure some other Messmer said illusions and clones healed it... Not in my case, and that is weird. I don't know how the hell I could have defeated it without clones. (And yeah, I used clones, not phantasms, cause it didn't agro phantasms). Anyway it's a very sad fight, you basically have to find a bug in order to get through it.

(Sorry for my english, I try my best but hey, I'm no native speaker)

 

[Silent The Gray.3091]

> @ProtoGunner.4953 said:

> > @Valreth.1309 said:

> > Mesmer here. Took me a couple hours of messing with builds and such, but I succeeded. I'm a casual player (and not very good), with an ascended armor set with only a couple of runes equipped. Weapons are exotics. At first I was running Mirage with Axe/Torch & Scepter/Pistol. I was doing well, got him to about half health, then I saw he was absorbing /all/ of my clones even when I was doing just fine avoiding the life steal tether. As others have mentioned, absorbing the clones puts the boss back to full health. I still rolled with a condition build so that I was still applying damage even while I was running around and avoiding his attacks. Not once was I in danger of dying either. Hardly had to heal - only did it to top off my health in case I slipped up.

> >

> > Here's what I ended up doing to finally beat it. It took me about 15-20 minutes of widdling him down. Patience is key with this one.

> > **Noob Condi Mirage**

> > * Avoid using skills that create clones. (I realize this is easier said than done considering EVERY Mesmer weapon has 1-2 skills that create clones/illusions).

> > * Weapons Used: Axe/Pistol & Axe/Torch

> > * Skills used: Axe 1&3, Pistol 5, Torch 4

> > * Utility Skills: Crystal Sands, Signet of Inspiration (for swiftness as Mirage doesn't have faster movement like Chrono had), Signet of Domination, Jaunt. I used Ether signet for heals, but considering I was avoiding creating clones, a different heal skill is probably better.

> >

> > **Traits** (Anything that I thought was remotely useful, applied conditions, and didn't risk creating clones)

> > * Domination: Confounding Suggestions, Furious Interruption, Power Block.

> > * Chaos: Descent Into Madness, Chaotic Dampening, Prismatic Understanding

> > * Mirage: Renewing Oasis, Mirrored Axes, Elusive Mind

> >

> > **Tactic**

> > * Attack in melee, using skills mentioned above. Use Torch 4 to apply burning DoT, attack with Axe 1&3, and Pistol 5 until he prepares to leap at you for health siphon.

> > *When boss does leap with AOE circle on ground, dodge away twice in a row

> > * When boss is still at range and just finishes his larger ground-smash-type AOE, place Crystal Sands in his path

> > * Repeat as necessary

>

> Are you serious? I played as mesmer, too and it takes maybe 2-3 minutes to kill him. Just blink away after his leap to omit his leech attack. Done. (I ran full ascende viper's gear). Also, I used tons of clones and shatters.

 

This is honestly my only complaint, it's not about the boss mechanics, but it should be equal among all classes, mesmers really get the shaft on this fight due to clone/illusion/phantasm creation with everything they do.

[Slugg.7208]

I did this as a Deadeye and actually found the fight to be really fun. Once I switched to dual Pistols, it was just a matter consistent timing with the 4 skill with Roll for Initiative to make sure I had enough initiative. Thieves Guild really helped act as a distraction. I think it took me five min with this setup.

[Evil.1580]

omg and yet another thread about this :)

 

ANet, I beg you don't listen to these guys.

[Zahld.4956]

Interrupt him when he's about to drain you.

[Fya.5673]

There is a spot to bug him out. I was able to complete it on my Ranger because of that spot.

[MrWubzy.3587]

As Gloam Drifter said the window for CC is a little short. Even after recognizing the telegraph I barely had any time to use my CC (Firebrand). Eventually the boss downed me and, miraculously, I managed to beat him by being in down state for almost the entire fight. Having that Ancient Magick mastery helped a ton obviously.

[Tungsten Monarch.6058]

Maybe I was a bit lucky, but I beat the boss easy on first try. I used a Mesmer Mirage Axe Torch and Scepter Pistol build. Inspiration Chaos and Mirage. Agree on a few points. ONE: took me over an hour to find the weapons. TWO: Boss fight did take way longer than it should have for a solo mission.

[Bourbz.8712]

Been trying to do this as sword weaver but failing miserably. Sword has very low damage for weaver, only 1 CC (earth skill 4) and of course cloth armour is too squishy. I'm going to retry this mission with a staff and see if I fare better.

[Metavahn.7293]

Please do not nerf, i wish for this epic battle on my other chars