Advice for a slagger?
Mon, 08/13/2012 - 14:06
I usually party with two other friends, plus an occasional third, and since I'm the only one without a real gun or bomb I've pretty much become the designated slagger/waterer of the group for our Vanaduke runs. Although I consider myself at least a halfway decent swordie, I often find myself a bit less effective at distracting and killing slag guards than I'd like.
Currently I'm wearing full vog with gray owlite shield. I use a glacius and flourish with two elite sword damage trinkets, although recently I've been playing around with the FoV instead of the toothpick (I really only ever used that for trojans and breaking things anyway).
Are there any tips the community can offer for being a better slagger? What are my priorities? What are the best ways to grab and hold the slags' attention? What gear should I wear? Should I invest in a gun, like an alchemer or blitz? Any help is appreciated.
Thu, 08/23/2012 - 06:29
#2
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Probably picked a bad time to post this with the recent shard bomb change. Now that the storm has died down a bit, anyone else got any advice?
Thu, 08/23/2012 - 08:01
#3
._.
One quick method that comes in handy for me is this: a charged blitz needle. When the last phase of Vanaduke comes around I hit the slag nearest to me with a charge attack from the BN. If we have a 4-person party I will need to do this twice per slag, but they do die rather quickly with this method. If we have less than 4 people, then it usually kills them on the first attack. If you had a gun damage increase trinket this might change for the better, however, and given that you had said that you typically go for the guns this might be a worth while investment.
Thu, 08/23/2012 - 08:11
#4
well, just because you don't
well, just because you don't have a gun or bomb doesn't mean you can't contribute to vana damage. I used to run Vog + Snarby Fire High with FoV and would do my fair share. Granted, my team of blitzers were so good (we didn't shiv) that I'd be lucky to get 1 FoV shot in during the last phase after I killed a slag guard.
These tips work best if your blitzers aren't dependent on shiv, otherwise you'll have to time things better so you don't screw them up.
1) During phase 1, unleash the FoV on Vana while also hitting the slag walkers (zombies). This lets you do double duty. Whoever is blitzing should put out more damage than you (maybe not right off the bat) so you should be free to ignore pretty much everything vana does if you are standing right up against him.
2) during phase 3, water 2 fire orbs (next to each other), then go to work on vana. You should be able to repeat what you did in phase 1. If you can't, take a brandish to the zombies.
3) during phase 5 line up to kill a slag guard with FoV and attack as soon as they spawn. The one should attack you (lead it into a bottom corner away from everyone else) and then use your brandish (or whatever) to finish it off with a few swings. This works best with Sword Damage Max + (I used 1 trinket + BTS + Snarby). Once the slags are dead, you can water vana then FoV (you only need to water the inner circle), or you can do what I sometimes do, and just run in there and unleash a FoV charge attack and bounce back out (on fire), then repeat. I typically have enough remedy and heatlh capsules that I can do a few runs of this no problem.
For the mask phases, you really just need to convince your other party members to properly equip. In a 3-man party, 2 Blitz charges (max damage, max CTR) and a FoV charge (max dmg) + maybe 1-2 sword swings is enough to destroy the mask with 1 watering. This is fairly easily achievable. In a 4-man party you need to add another blitzer. You can replace the FoV with a blitz charge if that is what your party has. There really is no reason to ever have to water the mask more than 2 times with a competent party, but it is very easy to achieve just 1 watering. If the guy who waters the mask throws a poison immediatly after he throws the water it'll make the timing a little bit easier to make.
water only if there is too much to move around reasonably, otherwise water while vana is transitioning and you can't do damage to him.
Thu, 08/23/2012 - 11:15
#5
Quickly damage everything
Quickly damage everything besides Vana to get aggro on it, lead them away from Vana into a corner, kill them. For the Deadnaughts you want to keep them in a corner by making them charge at 45 degree angles with the corner, like a right triangle.
Thu, 08/23/2012 - 11:53
#6
Skilled knight with a
Skilled knight with a shivermist can both keep vana in ice and also place bombs in a way to make dreadnaughts get froozen too which helps slagger to kill them and stop them from rampaging freely around battlefield.
You cant blame slagger for everything. If something goes wrong and everyone dies i often hear one players throwing meat on other "omg we are all dead, why you didnt shiver", "wtf i was shivering but slags killed me, why you dont kill slags" ,"wth how im supposed to kill slags if i get ran over by vana, kill him faster", "how i should kill vana if its not shivered"....
Cooperation.
Sometimes it cant be: Shiver - only shivers vana, blitzer/gunner - only attack vana, slagger - only kill slags. Person who is supposed to kill vana should also help with slags if see something goes wrong, shiver should help with freezing not only vana but also slags. Also everyone in party should know that if something goes wrong and situation is slipping out of control you introduce emergency protocools. Keep vana froozen and take care of everything else. Its hilarious when everyone are dying around, whole place is on fire, slags are running everywhere and vana got out of ice and people instead of doing something to go back to control (rev shivermist first, keep vana frozen and dont touch him, clear floor from water, kill slags) keep rushing to kill vana.
Wait for spawn and release a Glacius attack from the side so you can hit both on one side. Don't mind it if they don't die, go to the other side and do the same. Now you have their aggro. Finish them off.
Same for P5 slags. Wait on spawn point.
In P3 and P5 I usually like my slaggers to water patches of fire so I can move rather than kill slags first.