Archon Barthollem revisited

[frdnwsm]

In a relatively recent post, I complained about Archon Barthllem and that I found him hard to fight. A lot of folks commented that they had no problem defeating him. I'm not going to bring back the entire folder, but here is part of what I said at the time.

>>OK, what the #@&% is up with this guy? I have 2 characters, Defiler and Apostate, who are with Death's Vigil and had to retrieve some ashes that were in this guys possession. Defiler went first ... and died 3X before taking the sucker down.

I figured the Apostate would have an easier time of it, but noooo! He bit the dust 3X also. <<

OK, so, 3 levels later, With improved skills, I took my Apostate and Defiler back for a rematch, and indeed, they did much better ... they only died once each. Bah! This was with all resistances at 70-80% range, btw.

Now I would like to also mention that both these characters have defeated a number of bosses without dying at all: Kalis Ka (East Marsh), Bane Gargoth (Obsidian Throne), Commander Lucius (Fort Ikon), Bloodlord Thalonis (Seal of Loghorrean), and of course, the Loghorrean itself.

Good old Bart has several nasty attacks, which he can reel off in rapid succession, and are almost impossible do avoid. Damage diminution skills such as Seal, Renewal, Torment and healing tonic helped for the first attack, but didn't renew fast enough to be useful against the next ones. Also there is no place to hide, and despite having boots that give a total of 10% to speed, he could still outrun me.

I have no idea why everybody else seems to have no problem with this guy; I'm puzzled.

[SchnitzelTruck]

I still dont know how you're dying to Barthollem. Perhaps you have neglected offense to the point where you arent able to kill him in a reasonable time, which means he ends up hitting you more. That's often something players overlook when they want to be "tanky". The best way to survive is to simply obliterate the enemy before they can really hurt you. There's far more to the game than just hitting some fancy resistance number.

Barthollem does heavy physical damage on his charge attack. If you have bad armor values he'll hit you fairly hard. He also reduces your defensive ability by 420 with his ring of flame and fire wave attack. Which means he has a very good chance of landing a crit.

[frdnwsm]

Well, the Apostate and Defiler are the first two guys I have had that faced Ole Bart; the others I have had were with Kymon's, and so didn't need to recover those ashes. Being part Necromancer, these two had to go with Death's Legion instead.

I certainly know how to kite, been doing it all the time; however, as I mentioned, it's a small room, blocking terrain there is almost non-existent, and Bart was actually faster than my guys despite their speed buffs.

Both these characters have excellent defenses, resistances and gear. Armor average value for each is around 800 with 98% absorption and resistances 70-80%. They defeated all the other bosses I named without any deaths at all.

I didn't know about the debuffs he has with his flame attacks, however; that could explain a lot.

[SchnitzelTruck]

If you have to kite vs Barthollem then my theory was correct. Your offense is bad and you are too slow/inefficient which is why you die. I kill him in 10-15 seconds on average with solo self found characters. You also most likely lack attack damage converted to health or other ways to rapidly heal yourself.

[frdnwsm]

Originally posted by SchnitzelTruck:

If you have to kite vs Barthollem then my theory was correct. Your offense is bad and you are too slow/inefficient which is why you die. I kill him in 10-15 seconds on average with solo self found characters. You also most likely lack attack damage converted to health or other ways to rapidly heal yourself.

There is nothing wrong with the offense; I have had no problem killing bosses rated tougher than Bart. 15 seconds to kill him would be OK, except that he was doing enough damage to kill them in 15 seconds.

However, you may be right about the damage->restored health aspect. I did have Mark of Torment, which helped, but as I mentioned, the cool down time was too long for me to use it twice. On the way to Gloomwald, these guys gained another level, and picked up a couple of ranks of Soul Siphon. I had meant to get this earlier in the game, but never got around to it. My bad. It certainly seems to help when fighting the mobs in the Gloomwald area.

[SchnitzelTruck]

I just took my worst ever character. A level 44 spellbreaker on veteran focusing on cold ABB. No defenses to speak of aside from mirror. Garbage armor with 70% absorption. No regen. only 3% ADCTH. No defensive devotions. Extremely mediocre damage output as ABB is my only damage skill and it's not even a good one. Im even using a yellow weapon with nothing fancy for affixes. Fire resistance only at 54%

Killed him in 13 second and didnt die, but did get close. Sooo I honestly just dont know.

Edit: Just used a lvl45 Infiltrator focused on dual ranged ABB. This one is actually properly built. 98% armor absorb. 80% fire res. Ghoul. Pneumatic Burst. 7% Adcth. Absolutely zero chance of him killing me, and killed him in 9 seconds

[Djozar]

You've discussed your active skills enough. What about your Devotion skills? What are you doing there to help yourself? Are you using a self-made build, or an established build you copied? Could it be a respec of a few points and reallocating them might be of use to help get past the boss, then go back to your current build?

[frdnwsm]

Originally posted by Djozar:

You've discussed your active skills enough. What about your Devotion skills? What are you doing there to help yourself? Are you using a self-made build, or an established build you copied? Could it be a respec of a few points and reallocating them might be of use to help get past the boss, then go back to your current build?

Self-made build.
Devotions: mostly defensive. Ghoul, Turtle, Dryad, Eel.
Offensive: Rat, Falcon Swoop.

[frdnwsm]

>"2x LifeLeech rings + HauntedSteel on weapon

15-20% LifeLeech + Bloodthirster skill for 8sec (+30% LifeLeech)"<

I don't think I have ever seen a life leech ring; where are they usually found?
I'll have to look at the Haunted Steel; it's a component I am not familiar with.
Thanks for the input.

[frdnwsm]

Haunted Steel found. I have a communal cache for components with literally hundreds of components stored, but I had NO haunted steel. Apparently I have to craft it, which accounts for my not being familiar with it. Looks cool; I'll definitely give it a try.

[frdnwsm]

Late update:
I still haven't found Soulflayer ... errr, someone was advocating doing aether damage for this build ... but I came across a pistol ... purely as a random drop from some boss or other ... that looks almost as good for vitality damage purposes. It does 40-60 Vitality damage, plus damage % adders to a whole bunch of other stuff, and also adds +2 to Soul Siphon.

I buffed it up with Haunted Steel and put Arkovian Bonemeal (more vitality damage) on my pistol and my off-hand. Bloodthirster is good, but looks like more or less an emergency measure, since it has a 26 second cool-down.

[frdnwsm]

I don't have FG expansion yet, so Oathkeeper is out for the moment.

Why do you advocate melee for the Necromancer build? I am using pistols for the Defiler character due to the rapid attack speed; also using ranged weapons facilitates kiting. (The Apostate, obviously, has a ton of skills on the Inquisitor tree that encourages using pistols).

Level 94 gear is rather far off in the future; I'm more interested in the present right now. That Vitality pistol was a nice find for what I am doing currently.

[frdnwsm]

>"Vitality is similar to Fire.. enemies have high Resistances against it ;(("<

Yes, that's why I have a collection of pistols, doing various types of damage ... fire, vitality, lightning, cold. (Still looking for Soulflayer for that aether damage, however.) I can switch out gear sets depending on what enemies I am facing.

[SchnitzelTruck]

Originally posted by wespe___o=/:*:

Originally posted by frdnwsm:

I don't have FG expansion yet, so Oathkeeper is out for the moment.
Why do you advocate melee ..

-RR range
As a ranged, you want to fight outside the ~4 meter zone. That´s why Inquisitor needs Aura max.. same for Nightblade.. Necromancer Aura is ♥♥♥♥ for ranged
Occultist is obviously ideal, but you need to press another button to debuff ;(

Vitality is similar to Fire.. enemies have high Resistances against it ;((

The necromancer RR "aura" works by hitting enemies when you get hit. It doesn't matter if you're melee or ranged.

[gNuff!~©~gNom3™]

alrighty, @frdnwsm, i decided to do a little "testing", and try a fresh lvled apostate against Bart
and my only conclusion can be 1 of 2 things; either there is some serious gaps in your build, or somehow, each time you fight Bart he spawns with massive godlike wearable items
had 0 issues with him, almost full facetank, only 1 reposition to get out of ground stuff, didn't even break a sweat. So if he is giving you headaches, as an Apostate, there is something seriously wrong. "Defensive" elemental build, 2½ RR, blammo deado
only thing i can suggest is you keep uploading your build and keep taking some decent pointers, because, like usual, the type of boss he is doesn't really seem like one that should give most chars pause for concern.
Guess tomorrow i'll lvl another defiler and see if that spells any trouble (for me) or if you are encountering something weird/godlike wysiwyg items
Barthollem really is nothing special "boss-wise" so i can't fathom what's going on why he kept giving you such woes.

[SchnitzelTruck]

Originally posted by gNuff!~©~gNom3™:

alrighty, @frdnwsm, i decided to do a little "testing", and try a fresh lvled apostate against Bart
and my only conclusion can be 1 of 2 things; either there is some serious gaps in your build, or somehow, each time you fight Bart he spawns with massive godlike wearable items :tgrin:
had 0 issues with him, almost full facetank, only 1 reposition to get out of ground stuff, didn't even break a sweat. So if he is giving you headaches, as an Apostate, there is something seriously wrong. "Defensive" elemental build, 2½ RR, blammo deado
only thing i can suggest is you keep uploading your build and keep taking some decent pointers, because, like usual, the type of boss he is doesn't really seem like one that should give most chars pause for concern.
Guess tomorrow i'll lvl another defiler and see if that spells any trouble (for me) or if you are encountering something weird/godlike wysiwyg items
Barthollem really is nothing special "boss-wise" so i can't fathom what's going on why he kept giving you such woes.

I suspect that he is focusing so much on kiting (since he mentions it so much) that he isn't actually attacking enough to heal himself or kill barthollem. Lots of people who play ranged builds like frdnwsm seem to think they should never go close quarters and always kite away from their opponent, which massively reduces effectiveness of both adtch healing and killspeed. Ranged builds using inquisitor WPS's work best facetanking due to shotgunning.