Megaboss help: when, how and who?

[Aotrs Commander]

Okay, so I have gotten a fair bit of the game done. I haven't gone to Magran's Teeth, but that, Beast of winter and Skipping Ahead are the only quests I have currently open. I ahve explored all of the mao except north of Magran's Teeth and the very bottom corner (around where Beast of Winter appears to be set.

I thought, then, maybe I ought to go to the corroded wastes and maybe have a go (so I could tick off that island from the map quest). In preparation for going to Beast of Winter, I had been training up Ydwin a bit (as she's the recommended companion and was a bit far behind). I entered the battle area, and that XP was enough to push me (pure Cipher Ascendant ranged, primarily using Red Head), Eder (Swashbuckler) and Xoti (Monk/Priest) to level 20; Aloth is currently level 19 (since he and Maia have been swapped out a bit for the other party members who had recommended quests). Ydwin... Is eveidently just totally unsuited to this fight, especially at level 15, though I don't think Maia would have appreciably helped.

I am playing on Normal.

 

Dorudugan absolutely CREAMED me. The first Hellfire attack was a TPK (and a total surprise), before which I was at least just about standing. I don't think I even plinked him past "Healthy." I didn't even GET to the magnetic pull-doofer! Doesn't help my principle damage dealer and enemy killer (i.e. ME) is basically rendered useless because all of my attacks are either vrs Fort or Vrs Will, leaving only Soul Shock of any use.

(Normal operation is "everyone basically just basically delays, Xoti does a bit of healing when she's not hacking things with her sickle, Aloth casts a few spells, until Vaelendir goes Ascendant and then blasts everything to death with Mindblades/Amplfied Wave/Disintegrate/Death of a 1000 Cuts.)

 

Clearly, I need to not remotely approach it this way. Looking at a few guides, summons, summons, summons. In fact, my concern now is that none of the... four? Chanter NPCs I have may not be able to get to high level, unless I can farm XP by fighting pirates and such - clearly, though, I painfully might even have to send Eder and Xoti to the ship and dig some of them out to level up. AND they might have to be rebuilt, since I think only Fassina I spent much on summons (Tekehu is druid/chanter and I mostly concentrated on blasting, Pallegina is more paladin-with-some-healing and Konstanten (the only pure chanter) I went pure offense*.)

 

So, the question becomes, should I do pretty much the rest of the game before trying again? (As clearly, being level 20 is not remotely enough!) Is there, like, a point in PoE where the clear "endgame/point-of-no-return" starts, which I can leave off and deal with that (or does it let you carry on afterwards or something. Is Dorudugan particularly hard and I should maybe try tackling some of the others first? (Especially since I am given to understand there is a cloak what makes some fire heal you.)

(I have, incidently, saved every single piece of gold gear I've ever found, and I extremely rarely use any potions, nor have I used any of the item summons I've found. (Actually, I very rarely remember to use any per-rest abilities, especially empower at the best of times.)

 

(I had considered attaching a save game, but apparently, it's too big...!)

 

*And in looking up how to spell his name, I discovered that he seems to be the recommend companion for SSS, which I do not appear to have unlocked/found yet. (I have all the DLC,) So there's that, at least.

 

[Wormerine]

There is a clear point of no return. 

SSS unlocks after completing the Ashen Maw. 

FS should be available to you already: 

A story book interaction about the big wave when sailing around is the indication that it was activated. You can find enterance to FS on the black isle below Tikiwara, were Wael's Dungeon is (on of the isle for the charting quest). A new enterance will be unlocked in the centre of the dungeon. 

I only beat the first megaboss that was released (the Crystal Spider), so can't offer insight on how to beat most of them. I remember reading somewhere that they don't scale down well, if at all (on lower difficulties they are still difficult). At the same time, they exist there only for challenge with little rewards and no story content, so if figuring them out isn't your cup of tea, there is no reason to force yourself to fight them. 

[Waski]

If you have the tools and don't have allergy  to cheese Xoti can solo him pretty easily.  

edit. you need axe modal to pull it off

Edited June 9, 2019 by Waski

[Aotrs Commander]

14 minutes ago, Wormerine said:

There is a clear point of no return. 

SSS unlocks after completing the Ashen Maw. 

FS should be available to you already: 

 

  Reveal hidden contents

A story book interaction about the big wave when sailing around is the indication that it was activated. You can find enterance to FS on the black isle below Tikiwara, were Wael's Dungeon is (on of the isle for the charting quest). A new enterance will be unlocked in the centre of the dungeon. 

 

I only beat the first megaboss that was released (the Crystal Spider), so can't offer insight on how to beat most of them. I remember reading somewhere that they don't scale down well, if at all (on lower difficulties they are still difficult). At the same time, they exist there only for challenge with little rewards and no story content, so if figuring them out isn't your cup of tea, there is no reason to force yourself to fight them. 

Oh, snap, I hadn't spotted there was a new load of sparkly things on that island (Maia's Gaze...) - I don't think I would have noticed that at all unless you said! Ta!

 

7 minutes ago, Waski said:

If you have the tools and don't have allergy  to cheese Xoti can solo him pretty easily. 

 

I... What...

 

That's... Hilarious!

For what I can gather, it involves getting Brilliant and then using Salvation of Time in concert with Barring Death to become unkillable and then just... Punching him to death with Swift Flurry with elemental damage...?

Ye gods, and people were talking about it taking hours to kill him and stuff!

 

 

What was the teleporting at the start in aid of...?

 

[Waski]

38 minutes ago, Aotrs Commander said:

Oh, snap, I hadn't spotted there was a new load of sparkly things on that island (Maia's Gaze...) - I don't think I would have noticed that at all unless you said! Ta!

 

I... What...

 

That's... Hilarious!

For what I can gather, it involves getting Brilliant and then using Salvation of Time in concert with Barring Death to become unkillable and then just... Punching him to death with Swift Flurry with elemental damage...?

Ye gods, and people were talking about it taking hours to kill him and stuff!

 

 

What was the teleporting at the start in aid of...?

 

First you have to trigger brilliant from the cloak, you can use rakhan boots for that or let companions hit you.  Then start combat , SoT+BDD+buffs etc. Next step- triggering blade cascade from scordeo edge + SoT.  Switch to axe with modal on (bleeding cuts), DOT from it is stackable and will kill him.

edit, and you need immunity to interrupts (helm + wound)

edit2 check the thread , dunehunter killed all megabosses in something like 5 minutes total

   

Edited June 9, 2019 by Waski

[Aotrs Commander]

You know, I had just never considered that Brilliant would bring back spell slots. Oh my goodness. Now Xoti and I can keep me permenantly in Ascendant! Ahahaha! I Brilliant her, she salvations of time everyone every so often...!

(I did do a retrain for her, since I did NOT have Barring Death's Door - I also took the opportunity to swap in Flurry for Lightning Blows and get Blade Turn and Uncanny Luck instead of Torment's Reach and also grabbed spell shaping (extra SoT radius!), which I don't think I'd ever really gotten any milage out of.)

 

 

I also made the mistake of blundering into Belranga, having taken out my Chanter Brigade to try and earn some XP.

Yeah, that went utterly terribly...!

 

(Though, I can see, the Vaelendir/Xoti Infinity Brilliant/SoT Ascendant combo might be the way to do that fight - just keep everything occupied and then settle in to make me and Xoti keep everyone Brillianted and alive....)

 

I am delving now into Forgotten Sanctum, ta Wormerine, which conveniantly should help train Fassina a good bit!

 

 

Edited June 9, 2019 by Aotrs Commander

[Wormerine]

2 hours ago, Aotrs Commander said:

I am delving now into Forgotten Sanctum, ta Wormerine, which conveniantly should help train Fassina a good bit!

About to delve into FS myself as well. 

[Aotrs Commander]

And it was, of course, at this point, I had to backtrack when twiddling with Fassina's AI, I learned that you can't have more than one summon at once. And so large swaths of her skill points were being completely wasted. (I'm in the middle of a near-complete re-build...!)

Also means, knowing that, I ought to make sure all my chanters know at least one summon...

[dunehunter]

@Aotrs Commander If you feel that abusing Brilliant out of combat is cheesy, you can also solo the hellfire mega boss with a SC Helwalker, here's my video to solo it with a bit more than 5 mins, the rest 3 mega bosses is easier and takes like 2 min

 

Also no pausing at all.