Mogara ... Holy Crud!

[frdnwsm]

Currently I am running my level 46 dual pistol Purifier through Act 3, on Veteran. I can take out heroes and most bosses fairly easily. Krieg got me once, mainly because I didn't know I had to kill the SOB twice. Darius Cronley was a cakewalk by comparison. Queen Ravena also pulled a fast one on me, when she shed her ovipositor and started moving around. Old Briarthorn was a laugher. There was also a teleporting boss whose name I forget ... was it Boneburner? That was annoying at first until I figured out the pattern he used. I was able to kite around during the 2 seconds it took him to reappear, and be elsewhere, avoiding his attack.

Now I am supposed to kill Mogara the manticore; this gal is whole 'nother level of bad. She deflects 10% of projectiles, has a buff which increases her speed and health, and does FIVE different types of damage. Physical, poison, bleeding, piercing and vitality. She also has bloody Shadow Strike, which is even worse than a teleporter.

Now, I have 50 % resistance to poison, 40% to bleeding, and 80% to piercing, as well as word of renewal and vindictive flame, my gear has that heavy armor plate augment that supposedly absorbs a fair amount of physical damage. I also have the Turtle devotion completed and at level 10. I am working with a decent 7000 health, but none of that helps worth a damn. She does so much damage per strike that the resistances might as well not be there. I am dead in 2 combat rounds.

So I kept going back ... grabbing my death sites first, of course ... and got killed a total of 4 times. Then I paused the game and looked at her health, and she was less than 10% dead, despite having been hit not only with my guns but also demon breath, grenado and ground stomp attacks. I calculated that I would probably get killed 40 more times before I took her down, so I gave it up as a bad job.

I may come back and try again in 10 levels or so. Anybody know what her level equivalent is, or have any decent suggestions on how to defeat her?

[gNuff!~©~gNom3™]

okay, i have to be honest, this sounds very very weird
aside from "seeing" you character, like uploading it to grimtools, how you describe it, lvl resist, hp, it sounds very much like mogara should be a cakewalk for you "stat wise"
-i've beaten on her vet, numerious times, in lets shall we say "less" resist than that and it was always just facetank and spank zomg ded.
ircc, shadow strike wasn't used "in melee"? (i'm bits off with my new toon so can't really confirm that yet) but if so, are you trying to stay ranged with your toon? It's a habit some can get/attempt when they go ranged, but a bunch of bosses actually favours close range proximity or at elast "mid" to close, sorta like a sweetspot zone where they wont use their ranged attack/ triggers/counters nor heavy melee blows.
i will try to reach mogara soon'ish and see if i can spot something that might be beneficial other than "just facetank and spank".
^but besides that, idono, maybe it's this weird "bug" you've encountered where a boss is suddenly harder for someone despite shouldn't be (i've seen 2 posts mentioning that a regular boss was suddenly super hard to deal with during one attempt, Logh and Zharzullean -and "we" tossed it up to user error/lack of situational awareness)

[gNuff!~©~gNom3™]

okay just tried with my 38 pyro, 5900 hp and 20 bleed pierce and poison resist, 12 vit resist -using a shield tho, not dualwield (not really a character i've made "serious" for some reason)
and it was pretty straight up/simple as it used to be, debuff/reduce resist and face tank while spamming heal potion and blood of dreeg for heal every cooldown
definitely did do serious chunkcs of damage to me ofc, but nothing couldn't handle
this toon was not very focused in dmg, maxed Vulnerbility for resist reduct, 1point in dmg skills, (Firestrike line, BWC, Pipe, Mortar 5pts in grenado for some reason)
i do have a significant portion of DA tho, with morgara only having 83% chance to hit me, and i've got 480 armor with 100% absorb, which might help a bit too -"vendor" gear tho nothing really "great"

aside from tank and spank i don't really "see" something potential being up/helpful. Really didn't appear like used shadow strike other than the initial attack, but suppose it might be random and not range triggered when off cd, dono.

could be your build is focused too much in dmg and not defenses? possibly not taking advantage of resist reducts to increase dmg output vs direct dmg ?

edit, 3 tries now, and didn't see shadow strike being used while just facetanking, starting to guess it really is range based because sure must have been off cd these times

[frdnwsm]

Well, she was definitely using shadow strike on me, and it's a real killer, but, as you guessed, as a dual pistol wielder I was trying to stay at range. Since she can block projectiles and also buff her speed, it is pretty much impossible to stay out of her melee attack. I might grab the bladewielder talisman and try dual wielding some heavy hitting one handers, or maybe a 2 hander.

[KG]

https://www.grimtools.com/calc/

Upper left corner, load the character from your save file, generate a link, paste it here.

The last time I recall having any sort of issue with Mogara was pre-AoM and even then related to a complete lack of caution I think. She shouldn't be particularly dangerous from what I can see. I'm not seeing any sort of deflect chance or Impaired Aim debuff on her.

If you're a DW pistol build, keep using DW pistols. Don't run so far away - I bet like most bosses there is a minimum range at which she'll use her teleport attack. A Purifier at level 46 should have or nearly have access to Inquisitor's Seal - dropping one of those of a decent level and standing on it should almost eliminate her DoT effects and nuke the rest of her damage too.

[MedeaFleecestealer]

Drop back into Normal difficulty from Vet and try again.

[SchnitzelTruck]

Considering you can beat mogara with no resistances and nothing more than a health potion or 2 I'm feeling like your build has some other flaws that we need to see in order to help.

Originally posted by frdnwsm:

Well,. I might grab the bladewielder talisman and try dual wielding some heavy hitting one handers, or maybe a 2 hander.

Definitely dont do that as your inlquisitor weapon skills won't work with melee weapons. You'll just gimp yourself further

[gNuff!~©~gNom3™]

you don't have to be at range tho, close range is fine for pistols, and if it negates her shadowstrike it might eb the way to go + closer range means wont have chance to burst your projectiles before they land

[frdnwsm]

Isn't bursting good?

Anyway, for whatever reason, I can't facetank most bosses. I have a screenshot of my resistances, which I will attach. One normal manticore is nothing, but if I try to facetank 4 or 5 I get wrecked. Most heroes are easy enough, but for a halfway hard boss, after 2-3 seconds I have to kite to give my health regeneration a chance to kick in.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2033623471
So, yeah with these modified resistances I was able to defeat Mogara; fire off everything once, then run like a bunny while hitting health potions. Rinse and repeat.

Now, I have a level 85 character who can in fact facetank most bosses, but 80% of his gear is legendary, the rest epic, with soulbound augments. And even for him, some of the more extreme bosses can wreck him. He has yet to finish the Path quest.

[MedeaFleecestealer]

Do this

To upload your character to https://www.grimtools.com/calc/ click the 'up arrow' button in the upper-lefthand corner. If you have cloud saves enabled (enabled by default) your save file will be in \Program Files (x86)\Steam\userdata\########\219990\remote\save\main\_{character name}\player.gdc

Otherwise it will be in \Documents\My Games\Grim Dawn\save\main\_{character name}\player.gdc

Then click on the icon below the arrow and copy the link shown to paste here. Then we can have a look at it.

[gNuff!~©~gNom3™]

okay naow i'm starting to see some potential stuff being "up"
looks like you're sticking with your old "shinies"/epics, despite having massively outleveled some

it can be fine to stick with some lower lvl items/epics if they give "fitting" stats, in terms of dmg type +skills etc, however, you will be lacking stats you could have easily gotten with greens that were closer to your lvl, armor, hp, da, possibly more resist (not that you'd need more resist as i facetanked mogara with almost no resist). Also if my eye isn't decieving me, looks like you have no scaled hides, which means you don't have near 100% armor absorb, which means phys attacks are gonna be auchie
(scaled hide is a low'ish lvl recipe that usually should drop fairly soon/easily, so might be worth a check at your blacksmith to see if you can craft scaled hide there, then slot 2x scaled hide + 1 ancient armor plate for 100% absorb, or just 2x scaled hide for 98% absorb is fine at least)
-you actually have less DA and armor than my lvl 38 pyro, in greens. This would be part of why you get a smackin in facetanking them. Then when you fight Mogara she gains like 10+lvs vs my fight, which means the mob OA/DA +dmg rises, but yours (DA+armor) remains lower than mine at 10lvl below, which might explain why you have a harder time/take some bigger hits

without seeing your full build, (can upload to grimtools if you wish so we can see what might be going on), then i'd at least suggest you start by reconsidering replacing those items that are like 15-20+lvls lower than yours, if my eye aint mistaken looks like you got a couple. Swapping to "lvl current" items would alone raise your armor rating a fair bit, if you then add near 100%absorb like i mentioned that's potentially couple hundreds phys dmg you take off from each hit right there. Then maybe check how your DA fares against X/Mog OA(mog/X chance to hit/crit "on you" will be displayed if you mouse over your DA when/after you been hit by monster), but i'd venture a guess you might have been slightly within crit territory, which can hurt.
^this can be something to keep in mind in the future, so you keep aware of your item lvl/stat range generally it's often well adviced to upgrade items somewhat around every 15lvls or so, as armor rating alone will increase a fair margin by then, and it usually falls within 1-2 increased affix ranges(depending on items ofc). And while you lvl, before you get really decked out in "equal" X avg item lvl Epics, the "slight" increase in stats, armor, hp da, etc you get from lvl appropriate items can be significant when it's all added up, specially on the lower lvls/before midgame epics that can last you a while (from65-84+ ircc)

But yea, my guess, aside from maybe some misplaced build points/"don't know of", is your stats/item range happened to be juuust low enough for your/this fight with Mogara vs your lvl to spell trouble for you/forcing you to try and kite, which makes it harder when you "enable" her to shadowstrike you

[KG]

Originally posted by MedeaFleecestealer:

Do this

To upload your character to https://www.grimtools.com/calc/ click the 'up arrow' button in the upper-lefthand corner. If you have cloud saves enabled (enabled by default) your save file will be in \Program Files (x86)\Steam\userdata\########\219990\remote\save\main\_{character name}\player.gdc

Otherwise it will be in \Documents\My Games\Grim Dawn\save\main\_{character name}\player.gdc

Then click on the icon below the arrow and copy the link shown to paste here. Then we can have a look at it.

^

Making people who are trying to help you play the guessing game when you've been around here long enough to know the drill - I hesitate to say this - seems kind of rude. I feel bad for gNuff!~©~gNom3™ who will write pages of advice with such limited info.

[frdnwsm]

I have never actually used gimtool, although I have head of it. I'll take a look at it when I get a chance.

[frdnwsm]

Also, regarding the comment that I am using gear below my level ... gear is sort of limited by what drops. I haven't been finding much recently that has things I want. And I have been hanging onto stuff that has specific resistances I want to beef up. A set of gear with good aether resistance for when I hit the Conflagration, another with Chaos resistance, that sort of thing.

As far as scaled hide goes ... I went with ancient armor plate instead. Both components increase armor by 35, and while the armor plate has less absorption it does buff physique which also helps with ability to withstand crits. Do you feel then that the hide is better?

I want more defensive armor and other items, but recently all I am finding is gear with offensive buffs.

[Childe Roland]

Originally posted by frdnwsm:

As far as scaled hide goes ... I went with ancient armor plate instead. Both components increase armor by 35, and while the armor plate has less absorption it does buff physique which also helps with ability to withstand crits. Do you feel then that the hide is better?

I want more defensive armor and other items, but recently all I am finding is gear with offensive buffs.

I would recommend replacing one of the Mutated Hides with a Scaled Hide and swapping the other with either a Scaled Hide or another AAP, being ready to switch to Scaled Hide if the AAP doesn't give you 100% armor absorption (so I'd probably just go with 2 SHs from the start). While armor only affects physical damage, I think most enemies do at least some physical damage and without 100% absorption you'll take noticeably more damage. Direct physical damage is the only type that you can completely negate and there's no reason not to try.

[frdnwsm]

OK, I am sorry for my computer ineptitude, but ... I found Grimtools, went to the build calculator and set the level and difficulty parameters (normal, level 47), but after an hour of screwing around,I still have no idea how to upload the stats of that particular character. To be more specific, I found out how to do it but when I try to upload the character files, ALL of my other character files are available EXCEPT for this one. I have no clue why or where it has gone.

I am thankful to those spending time trying to give advice. I replaced the low level armor of the Gunslinger Jacket with a better one, replaced the 2 heavy armor plate and a mutated scales with 3 scaled hides. This resulted in the loss of 900 Health and 830 DPS. However, I then played mix and match with other gear and components, and regained about 400 health and 600 DPS. Going to see how this works out.