Curse

Warskull · Sep 12, 2005, 06:00 AM // 06:00

Possible Spoiler Warning
The following post contains a description of the final room and some of the methods the final boss uses to attack. It also describes the battle tactics to use to beat the boss. While it is not vividly descriptive of what you will see some people may consider it a bit of a spoiler. Thus if you want everything to be brand new you may not want to read this post. If you want to invent your own way to beat the golem when you first encounter him do not read this post. I don't think there is much in the line of spoilers, but this is a courtesty for the more sensitive and those who wish their experience with the final battle in the furnace to be as pure as possible.

Background
I recently beat the Final Assualt and it was clear a lot of players have no clue how to go about finishing the forgemaster off. I was in a PuG and as usually it took 30 or so DP and all the not so bright players dying off before they were open to ideas. Once that happened things went rather smoothly. During this battle I picked up quite a few things about the golem and devised a simple battle plan that should ensure an easy victory.

The battle grounds
The Golem is set in a room by himself. The room has two entrances, 6 furnace guardians (teams of two, two for each binder), 1 patrol, and 3 dark binders in a triangle formation. If you make use of both entrances you can pick off the patrol and four of the guardians very easily. The key to beating this is to be aware of the Golem. His attacks cannot reach outside the door, use this to your advantage.

The battle plan:
Do not attack the binders until it explicitely mentioned you should. They will attack you if left alone, but do minimal damage. It is in your best interest to ignore them for the time being.

Select one entrace and check where the patrol is. If they have just passed or are on the opposite side of the room you have time to pick off two guardians. If they are somewhat close wait for them to pass. Once you have your opening the warriors should pull the furnace guardians as much as they can. Have everyone other than the warriors deal their damage from outside the door (safety.) Once the two furnace guardians are dead fall back and recover.

Next wait for the patrol to come around. If possible you should pull the patrol (I am not sure if you can, my group refused to try.) You may have to go into the the Golem's room to kill them. That is ok, just kill them as quickly as possible and then get out and recover once more.

Now go around to the other entrance. You are going to pick off the nearest two furnace guardians just like before. This time there is no patrol to bother you. Once the guardians die fall back again once more and recover.

The next group of furnace guardians will be deeper in and require you to risk yourselves. Use the golem battle tactics explained later in this post to minimize the damage to yourself and your team. Again run in, assassinate the guardians, and then flee to recover.

At this point all that remains are the dark binders and the golem (who cannot be attacked.) To kill the golem all binders must be dead at once. They rez one or two minutes after being killed. You do not have enough time to go completely around the circle killing them one by one unless you have excellent spike damage and a quick team. Thus you need to formulate a battle plan. Divide your group into two, half your major damage dealers and a monk in the first strike team and the other half of your major damage and a monk in the second strike team. Now you may have something other than a warrior, ele, or monk in your group. You need to assess their role and determine where they would be best. If they are support they should be placed with one team and perform their support role from as far away as possible. The binders use life siphon so each player in range gives them +3 regen. If they are Damage over time they should be sent to the third binder (the one team 1 and 2 are not attacking.) They can degen him so when they other binders die he is more easily finished. To defeat the binders send strike team 1 to the left and strike team 2 to the right. They each take the first binder they come across (it will be obvious when you see it.) As soon as they kill their binder they proceed to attack the far binder. They should finish their binders at roughly the same time giving you plenty of time to finish the third binder. Also be aware that anyone who steps on the grated platform the binder stands on is going to be set on fire.

After killing the three binders at the same time the golem is defeated and 3 fiery Djinns emergy from him. These are easily killed if you play it smart. They have two attacks. Consuming flames and flourish. Consuming flames deals 400 damage split between all targets near the djinn. If one player is in range they take the full 400 damage. If 8 players are in range they take 50 damage each. Consuming flames also heals the djinn for 400 each time he uses it. Utilizing knockdowns well makes this far easier. You want the entire party to get as close to the fiery djinn as possible to split of the damage and ensure no one gets spikes. You can also you a healing seed to mitagate part of the parties damage if they stay close. Focus all fire on the Djinns one at a time. The djinns behave erratically and sometimes get stuck. If one gets stuck everyone should stop moving and take advantage of this. Try to take them on one at a time if possible (they spawn erratically.)

Golem Battle Tactics:
-The golem cannot attack beyond the door. Be warned if you stand too close to the door you can get hit by splash damage.

-The golem has two attacks, both come from above. One arm pours molten lava on you the other smashes you with a massive hammer on a chain.

-Before the chain attack is launched the golem gives a loud roar. At this point a target is selected and locked onto. You will not know who the target is, but wherever they will standing is getting hammered. So you can do two things. Stay scattered and when you hear a roar everyone who can moves and picks a new location to stand. The warriors really can't do this so they have to hope they aren't the target. Protective spirit on the warriors is a really nice thing to do if you are the monk.

-The molten lava attack is poured from a hand that looks kind of like a dump truck. There is no audio warning with this attack. However the hand will pause and hover over the chosen target before it dumps lava for a few seconds. Thus if you see this appear over your head move, once it begins hovering over the target it is locked into the location and cannot move. It helps to zoom out and watch here. If you spot the hand over a friend select them and do Ctrl+Space to say "I am following XXX." Make sure everyone know this is the signal that an impending attack is targeted on that player and he and everyone near him needs to move. Alternatively shout over voice communication to move it.

-I have no seen the lava attack used between the roar and the hammer drop, so I think you only have to look out for the hammer once you hear the roar.

-The lava attack is difficult to spot, if you are a non-melee class and not locked in position for some reason (like currently rezing) move around every so often. Do not group up if at all possible.

Some Final Words
I did this as my N/R (using a minion build, rendering me a bit useless near the end.) I will probably end up doing this later as my Me/W or my E/Mo, however I need to finish the other furnace quests first. If you have further questions about the Final Assualt feel free to ask and I can try to answer them.

Remember:
"If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle."
-Sun Tzu

minsc and booo · Sep 16, 2005, 07:20 AM // 07:20

how do you get in to the furnace room >? the guardians block the door and when u kill them the door is still closed how do u open those doors >? anyone know

john little · Sep 16, 2005, 07:37 AM // 07:37

use the barrels the dwarf carries around to blow them up.

Ashley Twig · Sep 16, 2005, 11:30 AM // 11:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by Warskull

They rez one or two minutes after being killed.

From my experience it's less than a minute of respawn time for the binders.
But you're right: you have to be real quick.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Warskull

You do not have enough time to go completely around the circle killing them one by one unless you have excellent spike damage and a quick team.

Another way, a monk suggested to me, which I haven't tried yet, is, to lower the binders health to a minimum, without killing them.
After having reduced all 3 binders to e.g. 10% of health, you might finish them off one after another without having to split your team since they don't heal that fast.

I also think, that the lava damage is not as fierce as the hammer damage you get.

For those who want to go and try this mission with hench only: Getting to the golem, getting his guards and the patrol are not at all that difficult.

Getting the 3 binders will, since you can't split a henchteam easily, if at all.

Otherwise, the battle plan of the OP is exactly how you want to do it.

Speculation:
I think using the explosive barrels on the grated plaform, where the binders are, does something, but I forgot what it was. It sure had an effect.

And I also think that neither lava nor hammer attack will strike you, if you are very close to the guardians.

I'm not sure about those last 2 things though.

KaPe · Sep 16, 2005, 01:26 PM // 13:26

"I think using the explosive barrels on the grated plaform, where the binders are, does something, but I forgot what it was. It sure had an effect."

No it doesn't. I'm not sure if that minimal damage I did was from barrel or hench attacking the Binder. You only get burned from entering the platform.

Warskull · Sep 16, 2005, 05:11 PM // 17:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ashley Twig

Speculation:
I think using the explosive barrels on the grated plaform, where the binders are, does something, but I forgot what it was. It sure had an effect.

And I also think that neither lava nor hammer attack will strike you, if you are very close to the guardians.

I'm not sure about those last 2 things though.

Unfortunately I tried the powder keg thing, absolutely nothing. They are nothing more than fireworks once you get through the doors you need to pass.

I've also seen both attacks hit near the close edge of the platform. Our monk wouldn't listen to me and kept getting hit with the hammer in his little corner. Ultimately we just left both monks dead and the 5 of us still alive did it without them.

Sekkira · Sep 17, 2005, 04:42 PM // 16:42

The barrels knock the djinn's over when they explode.