Soloing Radiant Spore POTD Upscaled - Wizard

[darkly180]

This was one of my toughest fights on WM2, and after I died a few times I looked up some posts and videos on successful fights, and also consulted some successful Wizard soloers like Dr <3 and grausch. The tips I got were very helpful, and I finished the fight within 5 minutes (80+ sec in-game). I re-did this fight a few times to make sure the strategy could be replicated.

 

So I thought I'd share my experience with everyone as I hope some of the tips can work for other classes.

 

1. Respec to achieve 148 fortitude (including resting and prostitute bonuses, item bonuses but excluding food buffs) through tweaking Might and Constitution. Iron Circle ring provides +4 Constitution, and Whispers of Yenwood (sword) provides +2 Constitution which stacks. Garodh's Chorus helm provides +3 Might, Maelfolc Skull helm provides +4 Might, Godhansthunyr one-handed warhammer provides +1 Might which stacks with everything. There are also +3 belts of Might and Constitution. I also took Primal Bane for the bonus damage to primordials.

 

2. Craft or buy 5 Scrolls of Defense and 5 Scrolls of Moonwell, put it in your quickslots. If you are not a Wizard, prepare additionally 5 Potions of Llengrath Displaced Image and 5 Potions of Deleterious Alacrity of Motion, all in your quickslots.

 

3. Final check on your loadout. I used Maegfolc Skull, Vengiatta Rugia (for low recovery speed with Durgan and high Crush resistance, you can augment further through enchanting), Ring of Protection, Iron Circle, Viettro's Formal Footwear, Mantle of the Excavator, Gauntlets of Accuracy and Coil of Resourcefulness (for -1 Weapon Change Recovery). 1st set of weapon slots were Godhansthunyr and Little Savior, 2nd set Abydon's Hammer. Concelhaut was my pet. You don't need the Looped Rope because there are few affliction attacks by the mobs and boss.

 

4. Once you enter the Vithrack Common Room, hug the right wall until you reach the position in the first image. This is just before dialogue is initiated. Once here, use all of your food buffs. Pearlwood Chicken (+2 Constitution), Dragon Meat Dish (+3 Might +3 Resolve) and Wit Dyr Jerky (+3 Accuracy +5 Fortitude) are especially important. Jojobobo mentioned combining mind grubs (found in the same caves) and Whiteleaf for a whopping +4 Perception +4 Intellect buff, but I personally forgot this excellent advice when I did my attempt. Extra accuracy, duration and AOE are always welcome. You need at least 18 Constitution post-buffing. My stats after the fight ended are in the last image below.

 

5. Once dialogue starts, free the Vithracks with your 18 Constitution. Then the battle starts. Immediately move to the position in the second image. This will limit the engagement of the Radiant Sporelings and cause all of them to be bunched up like a chokepoint. Then cast Deleterious Alacrity of Motion, Scrolls of Defense, Llengrath Displaced Image and Moonwell. This will (1) +20 to fortitude to enable a viable defense against the Radiant Spore Tendril attacks, which hit like a truck AND target fortitude (2) give you a good deflection defense against the Sporelings (3) reduce your recovery (4) cast Moonwell which gives you a strong healing over time AND +10 defense which doesn't stack with Scrolls of Defense BUT lasts longer so you are less exposed when you are recasting Scrolls of Defense.

 

6. In this position, only a couple of Sporelings can engage you and only three Tendrils can attack you. Now you are able to tank the mobs and the boss, and are ready to do some damage. Watch the timers on the buffs and remember to renew them.

 

7. The mobs and boss are immune to Paralyze, Stun and a host of other CC, so Scrolls of Paralysis are useless. I can only relate my experience as a Wizard here and others are welcome to share their experiences. Survival accuracy bonuses work if you are using weapon attacks but not spells, so those will be less helpful for casters.

 

8. Cast Call of Slumber on the Sporelings which works as a prone CC, then two Freezing Pillars. Those DOTs are really damage-efficient. Follow up with two Arcane Assaults and your Sporelings should be eliminated quickly. If you try Gaze of the Adragan and it procs, this process will go twice as fast. During the time it takes for your Freezing Pillars to kill off the Sporelings, refresh your Deleterious Alacrity of Motion, Scrolls of Defense and Llengrath Displaced Image. Moonwell should still be on but check anyway.

9. Once the Sporelings are down, switch your weapon set to Abydon's Hammer. If you had the Coil of Resourcefulness, that switch will be very quick. Why should you do that? +4 Might (stacking with everything) for better nuking. And you get a net gain to fortitude, which is the only defense targeted by the Tendrils.

 

10. Summon Concelhaut and immediately get him to cast Crushing Hammer on the boss and Corrosive Siphon on the boss and the three Tendrils. He takes some heat from the other Tendrils which can now target you when you engage the boss. Throw a Moonwell and Scroll of Defense which overlaps both you and Concelhaut, this will increase both your tankiness and allow Concelhaut to keep taking heat for you.

 

11. Target the boss and the three Tendrils with another Call of Slumber, then unleash your Freezing Rakes. For more protection, you can use all of your four Level 7 spells to cast Crushing Hammer on the boss and nearer Tendrils. This will keep you safe while you keep spamming Shadowflame, Fireballs, Freezing Pillars and other nukes. I forgot to use Abydon's Labor, an amazing 30m+ range death ray which can be used as a coup de grace.

12. If all goes well, you will never be in any danger and will finish the fight quickly. I never healed beyond my endurance so technically I didn't need the Moonwell, but it was a good buffer.

Hope that helps other solo players!

 

[grausch]

Wow, that makes my attempt at the Radiant Spore look like an amateur. I positioned myself close to the entrance, but I still took a lot of heat and needed 3 or 4 Potions of Major Endurance. I only had 5 of those potions, and while I did not run out, I was worried that I would.

 

I always assumed the Survival accuracy bonuses apply to spells as well - my wizard usually engaged in melee and those were the only rolls I investigated. Good to know for any future caster builds though. However, when I was not going to use Citzal's Martial Power (as with this fight), I tended to cast Eldritch Aim. I believe that accuracy bonus works with spells, so it may be a useful buff to have. When you use Kalakoth's Freezing Rake, the extra damage from critical hits is a lot. Unfortunately the duration of Eldritch Aim is rather short, so it helps to just stick to fast casting spells to maximize its effect. Luckily it is fast cast, so you can quickly get it up again.

 

I can't recall if I used it or not for this fight, but Llengrath's Safeguard could also be a useful buff. The damage reduction is useful and I am not sure if there are any defenses that will still be buffed (since you already have quite a few buffs), but the knockdown when you get to 50% endurance does tend to hit the sporelings and buy you some time.

 

Interesting use of Call to Slumber and Freezing Pillars - I never used them, but based on your post it looks like I should have. Now that you mention it, I do believe the sporelings were immune to paralyze and I may have needed to use Gaze of the Adragan. I used it extremely infrequently due to its slow cast time, but casting this while Eldritch Aim is active will increase the chance of crits significantly and having opponents petrified for longer really works in your favour.

 

The sporelings are also pretty vulnerable to Tayn's Chaotic Orb. I can't recall if I used this on the Radiant Spore in the successful battle, but I believe it worked quite effectively on all the battles where I did use it. Is the Crushing Doom able to prone the Radiant Spore or the tendrils - why do cast this for "more protection"? While I did have Concelhaut cast this on the Radiant Spore, I never checked if it actually proned the Radiant Spore. I just wanted Concelhaut to do as much damage as possible before he died. In my game, he managed to cast Crushing Doom, Corrosive Siphon, Parasitic Staff and then miss the Radiant Spore once before he died - I was not that impressed with the feared archmage...

[darkly180]

Great tips... I cast Eldritch Aim during the time when I had Gaze of Adragan proc on the boss. Petrify is not strictly necessary, but yes the combination of the petrify damage multiplier plus crit effect really cut down the boss quickly. Especially when using Freezing Rake and Shadowflame, both fast cast spells.   

I also tried Llengrath's Safeguard, but found it didn't activate often. The sporelings were already well-tanked by the positioning and combination of Displaced Image and Scroll of Defense. Safeguard also took up a Level 5 spell slot which I preferred to use for multiple Call to Slumber castings.

 

Chaotic Orb is a great spell and it would have been very effective given the way the sporelings were bunched up. If the Chaotic Orb did proc petrify on the boss and the Tendrils (as a random effect), that would indeed be icing on the cake, but it was a risk given that the boss and Tendrils are immune to the other randomly-determined CC effects of the Chaotic Orb. So I saved the slot for multiple castings of Crushing Doom instead, because the spell does prone the boss and the Tendrils, and prone from Crushing Doom is one of the few effective and long-lasting CC in this fight.

 

Concelhaut was definitely not impressive on his own! He needed a Moonwell and Scroll of Defense to be effective beyond one cast of Crushing Doom and Corrosive Siphon. In my setup, he was better as a tank for the Tendrils on the left side of the cavern.

[Jojobobo]

I had similar levels of fortitude to you with my Chanter. As an addendum to what you said, I found by hugging the right wall I only had to fight one Tendril initially - I'm not sure why you had to take on three!

 

But yeah, CC the sporelings and then whittle down the Tendrils. Probably the easiest way to tackle things is, once you've dealt with the Tendrils on the right hand side switch to something like Persistence and plink away at the Spore from a distance so the left hand side Tendrils are within range - which should be possible with any class. As a Chanter, you can have quite an easier time of it as you can literally let your summons do all the work once the sporelings are dealt with - not a particularly exciting way to handle things but it keeps you safe.

Edited October 2, 2016 by Jojobobo

[darkly180]

@Jojobobo

I guess I didn't get the positioning right but with the high fortitude and Scroll of Defense, things were manageable. A Chanter run would have been easier- unlimited Animated Weapon summons + Dragon Thrashed would have made this a very safe fight.

 

By the way, I just tried your mind grub+whiteleaf tip against Llengrath, it went just great!

[Jojobobo]

Cool, I'll be using it myself when I get there. It's taken me a while to clear the Abbey of the Fallen Moon, through a combo of the fights being tough but also extremely repetitive so I've not been so enthused to get through the area. Hopefully now I'm at Caryon's Scar it shouldn't be too long before I tackle all the big bads (Kraken, Adra/Alpine Dragons, Concelhaut, Llengrath and Thaos) to finish the build off properly. I think for my next solo run I'm going to stick to a more or less purist tank and hopefully have an easier time of it. 

[Dr <3]

Your next solo run calls for barbarian! Or monk...

[Jojobobo]

It'll be a Monk, there's actually few pure monk tanks from what I can see in the builds section (most people focus on DPS to an extent and dual wield, even if they do go a little tanky) and I have an idea of what to combine to make a tank interesting - so we'll wait and see. With a monk you can get away with taking little to no offensive talents due to their great abilities like Torment's Reach upping their damage with ease, so they're going to be almost as solidly built as you can get. I was half considering a Paladin tank - but they're too vanilla with little to keep combat exciting, or a Rogue tank - but the Yellow Flash build covers most of what's worthwhile to discuss there, so a Monk tank it is.

[Boeroer]

Torment's Reach is also nice for a tanky monk because the AoE cone's crush damage doesn't rely on the damage of the weapon. So with Torment's Reach + Weapon & Shield Style you should use bash shields. Higher defenses plus Full Attacks with Torment's Reach are a nice combination. For me it'S on of the few setups where bash is a good thing. Also I think that Badgradr's Barricade triggers Thrust of Tattered Veils with the cone, too - like barb's carnage does.