Spiral Knights - Vanaduke techniques vs. actually killing him.

Vanaduke techniques vs. actually killing him.

33 replies [Last post]

Thu, 09/29/2011 - 14:41

Tengu

As I have been recently devoting a lot of time to killing that husky fella, I'm wondering where everyone stands on killing him.

I've also run afoul of a few elite players who have a "system". Shivermisting is an understandable bonus, but I've only seen it work in phases 1-5 twice.
Also, cleaning up/bothering Slag Guards seems to be a deal-breaker in importance.

What I usually have been seeing is everything going south in phase 5, and the system players getting super-angry.

Personally? I'm laggy and pingy. That's why I made a Blitz Needle and a trueshot trinket. If I'm gonna be on the ground most of the time, I might as well spend my alive-time pumping hot death into Vanaduke.

so, how many of you need a system, or you get all bent out of shape? How many of you like the "just shoot him is the butt" technique?

Personally, the way I see it, I would rather have everyone hosing him with bullets than 1 person not doing damage while freeze and another not doing damage while trying to kill slags. I haven't seen too many people in the boss fight that doesn't have a Pulsar variant, needlegun variant, or antigua variant.

Thu, 09/29/2011 - 14:57

Hetero

Wish everyone as ignorant as

Wish everyone as ignorant as you would post threads like this so I automatically knew to avoid you all.

Thu, 09/29/2011 - 14:58

Ummeiko

I try to go for the shiver

I try to go for the shiver strat. There are a few people I run with it works well. In the same vein, I can control both of the phase 5 adds and vana with shiver.

I don't go out of my way to kill phase 5 adds (though like I said, with my usual group I can keep them controlled pretty well while I focus on locking vana). I don't kill the phase 1 and 3 adds until the mask phase unless someone needs a heart right away (which isn't even a guarantee).

That doesn't mean I can't do the usual circle-shoot technique. Stuff can and will happen.

I prefer shiverlocking because it keeps things more controlled. That said, it's only about 50/50 with randoms that it'll last longer than phase 1.

Given the choice, I prefer control as opposed to four people running randomly and shooting randomly. That doesn't necessarily have to be shiver or one guy on adds. But sometimes using two people to control the boss and control the adds leads to a cleaner, faster kill than four people shooting willy nilly.

Also, you are going to see pulsar, needle gun, and antigua because they are the current standards, and it's not hard at all to obtain at least one of them. I've seen a few alchemers and some form of catalyzer. Doesn't happen often though. But for the most part, don't fix what isn't broken I suppose.

Thu, 09/29/2011 - 14:59

Bigfootm

Both. If you have a 4 person

Both.

If you have a 4 person party with 3 of them having a Blitz Needle/Plague Needle, shiverlock him away. If not, then just gun him except in P1, 2, and 4, unless you use a DA or Brandish line charge. Killing/distracting the slag guards isn't nessceasary, and doesn't make THAT much of a difference.

So what were you saying?

Thu, 09/29/2011 - 15:47

Tengu

That was pretty much it. I

That was pretty much it. I don't see why much of an effort should be put into killing the guards when damage/tactics should be focused on chubby. Granted, it's a total pain when they come from the bottom of the screen and directly up your butt, but they're pretty dodgeable, and they drop hearts regardless of getting killed or not.
It's nice to see that there are people with Plan B as a good backup.

Also, Thank you for posting Hetero. I'll keep an eye out for you. I hope I can ruin your gaming experience in the near future.

Thu, 09/29/2011 - 16:02

Eldibs

My preferred strategy is as

My preferred strategy is as follows...

Stage 1: Everyone dodge the zombies and DPS Vanaduke.
Stage 2: Three people handle the mask while one fights the zombies.
Stage 3: Same as stage one, except with all guns.
Stage 4: Same as stage 2.
Stage 5: One person distracts the Slag Guards while the other three DPS Vanaduke.

However, to use a quote, "No plan survives contact with the enemy anyways," so flexibility is key. For example, if someone decides they want to freeze, stun, or shock Vanaduke instead of DPS'ing him, I can handle that. Or if nobody wants to distract the Slag Guards, we can all just dodge them.

Thu, 09/29/2011 - 16:04

Sick

I'd rather be called a

I'd rather be called a team-player than a "system player."

Is assigning specific roles really that hard to comprehend?

Thu, 09/29/2011 - 16:39

Tennis

@Tengu

Don't you see? More control (getting rid of monsters and freezing) would result in less deaths, even if one is lagging. And in the larger picture, this also results in beating Vanaduke quickly because there aren't as much players dying left and right 'cause all they care about is inflicting as much damage before droppin'. Though packing a lot of damage is important, you can do so safely.

With a party of 3+, I'd want atleast one person to get rid of the Slag Walkers, so I don't have their stinky, fiery breath everywhere; this way, I can focus all my attention on delivering as much damage on VD with my Blitz without interruption. And it's just four zombies! It won't take long to get rid of these, but when done, the room is automatically more controlled. In the last stage, the Slag Guards can be a bit tricky.. There's usually two options I see for it:
1) one or two players deal with them quickly, while one freezes Vanaduke, keeping the situation cool
2) this option works with one or both of the Slag Guards, the person freezing can also freeze them (this is NOT an invitation for someone to come up and try to kill the Slag Guard, just leave them frozen!)
After the Slag Guards are taken care of, this leaves everyone else (besides the person controlling VD with the Shivermist) to inflict as much damage as possible on VD.

I think you've gotta watch me and Ummeiko school Vanaduke sometime... We take him down fast but smoothly, through control of course.

Thu, 09/29/2011 - 16:41

Tengu

No, a team player adapts to a

No, a team player adapts to a situation and modifies the tactic. A system player gets angry and starts making google-eyes and ellipses in the chat bar.

Thu, 09/29/2011 - 16:53

Ummeiko

You say team and system

You say team and system players as if they're mutually exclusive.

They're not.

Thu, 09/29/2011 - 16:59

#10

Juances

the only thing I do is run

the only thing I do is run in circles putting sun shards and revving teammates - till a slags puts a spear in ma face or i burn myself. On mask phase i throw water and let my team do the rest.
Vana is not that hard as some say (without the lag anyways).

Thu, 09/29/2011 - 17:05

#11

Khamsin

Technique? You stab him phase

Technique? You stab him phase 1 2 and 4, and you shoot him from off-screen with your polaris to force his charge over and over. The only other thing you need to do is throw water at shadow fire along the edges of the board when he uses his mace after charging.

He isn't hard. You just need to not be bad.

Thu, 09/29/2011 - 17:29

#12

No-Thanks

Zelda

im usually fine with whatever team does as long as it doesnt increase the difficulty for me
and if team can solo everything, i wouldnt mind even if team killed me constantly

Thu, 09/29/2011 - 19:53

#13

Realnight

What made the biggest

What made the biggest difference for me I think is when I realized that Vana only attacks the player with Aggro. So as long as that person stays out of his line of sight at all costs (even if that means doing no damage to him until passing Aggro off to someone else) then things go way smoother. Shivermist strategy usually breaks down when this concept is missed. The most difficult thing is the falling ceiling and the horrendous lag it brings.

Thu, 09/29/2011 - 20:27

#14

Bobtheblaster

seems fine.

Seems like what with what your doing, it isin't THAT bad of a thing to get all bent out of shape about.

For me, being a gunner and stuck with a Polaris and strike needle I've just taken up soloing vanaduke.

until i can overcome that very last enemie room and vana himself solo, then I know for a fact I can actually be useful in a group.

so close to a no death kill...that freakin last danger room and a shield break glitch i've noticed really is hurting the process lol

Thu, 09/29/2011 - 21:15

#15

Tantarian

Nah

Shivering is easy modo. And preferred when you are killing duke for the 80th time and don't really want to pay much attention to it.
PURE FIREPOWER only works if you have enough firepower to not give a damn, otherwise everything quickly becomes a mess. But if it works it's pretty fast.

But yeah, aggro control is always a dealbreaker.

Also lol at "having a strategy" being "systematic player tryhard etc"

Thu, 09/29/2011 - 22:10

#16

Diamondos

Shiverlocking and Corner-Trapping

I know that some of my friends prefer shiverlocking too, but sometimes we just go crazy and just all use our guns and go gun-crazy over vana which then is kind of funny, seeing so many bullets go around vana. But sometimes, my teammates do is trap vana in a corner and shoot him there, while someone kills slags, and we replenish our hearts, and take out the fire tiles with water. These are the only tactics I pretty much use with others, but basically we just shoot him in the back, while we kill slags for hearts.

Thu, 09/29/2011 - 22:22

#17

Nievem

With randoms I try to make a

With randoms I try to make a system, it breaks, but at least I know they are learning some for future runs. In a PUG your team's best gun might be a blackhawk (took 3 hours but we pulled it off because everyone listened to me most of the run at least, when they didn't they died and learned to listen to me from then on :P), but if they work with a plan they can do it, instead you may have blitz needles, but if they are all morons you will be forced to solo him, which isn't pretty if you dont have the gear to do so, so maybe that guy that rages is raging because of that reason, or just because the plan is VERY easy so he's mad that they can screw it up.

With experienced players most want the easy fight and with good leaders that decide the roles based on the player's skill plus gear, if they stick to their orders, the run becomes cake, i mean no deaths, no pills, not even a single pip of damage. Very few enjoy the thrill of dodging everything and request no one to freeze vanaduke and do whatever else (minions and firefighting usually) if they dont want to duke it out with the boss face to face, you can make it a contest and see who can do it with the less damage received then :P but isn't the recommended way to fight unless you are experienced enough, it gets too chaotic to survive otherwise.

Imagine this is a wow raid, the role of the leader is to make sure the party ends the raid, in this specific case, without energy revives, while also in the fastest time possible to start the next raid asap, the no deaths is the priority. Hence a good leader should opt for shivermist and killing minions first (so they don't hit the shivermister even once than having everyone shoot like madmen (unless of course the specific party is so skilled they can pull it off faster than shiver strategy)

Thu, 09/29/2011 - 23:20

#18

Tengu

Now see, there was an

Now see, there was an important point made. He only attacks whoever he's aggro'd on. I pushed from 6 tokens to 41 in Power Surge, and I took any run I could. You know how many times I heard that come up? Zero.

Aggro is a specialty of a blitz-wielder. I dunno if there's anything that causes as much fury in a mob as a million little bullets pinging into him. Now that I'm aware that he's not a proximity aggressor....well then, I'll keep doin what I'm doin, I guess.

I kinda wish I got the technique for a corpse-lock down. I'm sure it's something like "let him charge, sidestep and follow him in...then die".

Fri, 09/30/2011 - 20:25

#19

Clwnbaby

FYI

"Shivermisting is an understandable bonus, but I've only seen it work in phases 1-5 twice."

The reason why you're having trouble shiver locking him is becuase of the guns. Guns do more than dmg Vana they break the ice on one shot. So if someone is shivering all Vana has to do is dash at that moment you break the ice and regardless if there is a shiver cloud around him or not he's free. Thats why its so effective on the first phase, cause everyone uses swords. I notice its exceptionly useless to shiver lock Vana when there is a blitz needle user in the party cause that breaks the ice and keeps it broken in the off chance he re-freezes. If you want to effectively shiver lock Vana you need to use swords the whole battle which btw is much more effective and faster. The fastest run I did of Vana was with all randoms and they joined with no guns. I asked "no guns?" and they all said nah. When we got to Vana I saw why. I havn't used my gun on Vana since.

Fri, 09/30/2011 - 12:26

#20

Crazywave

i usually....

i usually freeze lord v then stun him and shoot him, the freeze him again and shoot him.... i usually get to stage 4 with this trick but after that hi kills me, with all that flying debris and zombies all lover and with out saying the flying head spiting fire allover the place..... but Thanks God for friendship i kill him with help of other grate palls like jalok, juncrystal, negimasonic, volos, meloding, drkx and many many other super friends that i have since beta and beyond.

Fri, 09/30/2011 - 13:59

#21

Negimasonic

so um..yeah...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovQZlZRfDoo

Fri, 09/30/2011 - 15:15

#22

Evilduck

I'm cool with any method if I

I'm cool with any method if I know my team mates are competent and don't fail at team awareness.

I'd rather be called a team-player than a "system player."

Is assigning specific roles really that hard to comprehend?

This, so much. I'm sick of freezers who stop bombing to throw water when it's someone else's job. I'm sick of argent peacemaker robots ASDWing around vanaduke when someone else is trying to blitz charge him (your DPS sucks and you're turning duke to face the blitz guy - who WILL have aggro and can't move while he shoots). I'm sick of people throwing water in mask rounds when it's someone else's job - a) you can bug the mask so it counts down while on fire, b) you can cause it to throw back any players standing near it, and c) you need to be ready to run in and slash it, not pussyfooting around at the water fountains. I'm sick of people grabbing slag aggro and then running slags directly at other players.

I know it can be boring to be the guy who kills zombies and throws a lot of water, but it's a team fight, not a solo fight. I'd rather have the boring job and win cleanly than have an interesting job and end up with several people paying to rev.

My preferred method?
3-4 players:
Phase 1, 3, 5: One player freezes. That's his one and only job. It is essential he keeps vanaduke frozen. He needs to be able to not die in phase 5. I've been the freezer only a few times and I cope perfectly well with slags running around. It's not hard.
One player takes out zombies or slags. Helps to damage vanaduke in 1 and 3, throws a lot of water. Does damage between slags and water duties.
Last player(s) damage, damage, damage. Preferably with blitz needles - if only one has a blitz, the one without needs to be super careful to let blitz guy be as effective as possible. This means shooting very little, and never turning vanaduke to face blitz guy.
Phase 2 and 4: One player throws water. All other players shield up and stay close to the mask. Slash when it's watered.

Fri, 09/30/2011 - 17:07

#23

Mysticbeam

@evilduck

i wish we could maill this to every player out there lol, im sick of ppl screwing up, throwing water at odd times etc

Fri, 09/30/2011 - 19:43

#24

Xylka-Mkii

@Evilduck 1. are you

@Evilduck
1. are you Dr.Lequack or DementedDuck? :)

2. Im copying and pasting your post and sending it to my guildies. I agree so much.

Fri, 09/30/2011 - 20:25

#25

Clwnbaby

Sorry dude

"I'm sick of freezers who stop bombing to throw water when it's someone else's job"

@Evilduck Sorry dude..... we've done several runs together and I do this all the time. BUT! in my defense no one else in our parties ever are throwing water. But again sorry

Fri, 09/30/2011 - 23:23

#26

Tengu

The water is quite the

The water is quite the sticking point, isn't it. I actually like doing it. Bloop bloop....so soothing. I wish there was more water in the game.
Since this thread has turned from a mild rant to an information thread, who's the best waterer during the mask phase. the main blitzer?

Sat, 10/01/2011 - 04:38

#27

Evilduck

@Xylka DementedDuck :P@Clwn

@Xylka DementedDuck :P
@Clwn I wouldn't keep doing runs with you if it was that bad :P I've had much, much worse. Some people do it when I'm already on it. They even take the water from the fountain I'm at. D:!
@Tengu I don't see that it matters who does water on mask phases. Just whoever is best at keeping the mask extinguished (Clwnbaby is awesome at that, if you ever run with her :P). And if several people are, the person with the worst sword should do it.

I should mention I'm all about speed with vanaduke simply because they faster it happens, the less chance there is for people to die. Also, it's really satisfying to do it quickly.

Sat, 10/01/2011 - 05:07

#28

Reulogh

Now I feel sorry for being

Now I feel sorry for being responsible for the derp run I did with EvilDuck about a week ago. Then again, there's nothing much I can do with my latency at night.

I know what to do but my character isn't obeying my command :(

Sat, 10/01/2011 - 06:18

#29

Yagballs

Me: "I'll ice, y'all

Me: "I'll ice, y'all slice."

Team: "ok"

Me: "On P5, one of you dance with the slags upnorth."

Team: "roger"

Me: "Let's roll."

Sat, 10/01/2011 - 08:36

#30

Evilduck

Shaddup Reu, you're great to

Shaddup Reu, you're great to run with.

Sat, 10/01/2011 - 08:43

#31

Kriptoid

O_O

HOTDOGS or HAMBURGERS ?

Sat, 10/01/2011 - 13:17

#32

Clwnbaby

I'm a dude

@Evilduck-I'm a dude

Sat, 10/01/2011 - 13:23

#33

Evilduck

Mind = blown. My bad!

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Vanaduke techniques vs. actually killing him.