How to Boron?

[ShroudedInLight]

Hey folks, I'm just getting into floor 4 (Story mode, normal difficulty) and I've been working on my various characters to experiment with some different party comps other than Kane, Maeve, Elf, Dwarf. While intergrating the Shadow has been fairly easy (she replaces Maeve as DPS, or possibly Elf as crowd control), I'm pretty stuck on how to even approach Boron as a party member.

Boron feels weird for a number of reasons, and I'd love to hear from folks who have success with him. First, let me explain where I'm getting mixed up.

Boron is a melee character, so he generates a ton of threat. However, he lacks defensive skills and the Heavy Armor like on Kane and Dwarf. He does not gain bonus armor, resistances, hp regen, or some kind of self-heal that the other two melee fighters get. This makes him very fragile in comparison to them, and you cannot simply set him at a chokepoint and check back every 15 seconds or so to make sure he's doing Ok. He'll have taken a huge chunk of damage by then. I tried doing a mix of Might and Life with a greatsword or greataxe but the 2h weapons just were not killing enemies fast enough to out-pace the damage he was taking.

I feel like I'm meant to give him a shield, the most defensive medium armor I can, a ton of HP regen and life-steal, and hope he can sustain himself against the incoming damage but it sounds really iffy.

Has anyone had any success with Boron and is willing to share their tips?

PS: Does Cleave proc on-hit effects like Extra Rage Generation, Elemental Damage on hit, or Mana on Hit?

[Panterich]

Firstly, i`ll mention that i haven`t really found a way that made me comfortable with Boron, so i chose different champions to play. However i played epic difficulty only, and my gripes with him are not the ones you ask about. So here are my thoughts about your questions.

Kane and Rakhem are tanks. They wear heavy armor and have self-heal skills. Boron is not a tank and probably should not be put in that role. It is even more apparent with higher difficulties. Best healing you can give him is %HP regen, since he has a large HP pool. Imo shield won`t work well.

I`ve used Boron 2 times successfully. Both times not as tank, so either Kane or Rakhem was also in a party, as well as Aeric.

First time i used him to solo-kill most of the non-boss enemies in a boss battle. I gave him high damage 2H weapon with bleeding, jumped in a group of enemies, hit each of them once to cause bleeding and ran away, prefferably breaking line of sight. Rinse and repeat.

Second time i used him to pull ranged enemies for quick focused killing by other champions. This time i gave him a good combo of 1H weapons so he could gain enough rage for constant pulling (game mechanics for attack speed of dualwielding were different then). That approach worked very good at first, but had some annoying problems later so i dropped it and never tried Boron again.

So, both times i tried to evade damage, prefferably by killing targets first, rather than sustaining incoming damage.

My tips would be to focus on his HP pool (ie %hp regen) and rage mechanics: higher mana pool gives him more starting rage and mana-on-hit items work good with dualwielding.

As to your last question, i honestly don`t remember results of my tests, but it should not be hard to test by yourself - just select a "pause" mechanic in settings and do a controled test in any battle.

PS: Whisper is quite good for crowd control, and you get 7th champion at the end of 5th floor who is easily integrated in any party.

[ShroudedInLight]

Your post actually manages to mention a couple things that I'd run into while trying Boron, I've tried to make him a DPS character but I always end up needing to micro him super heavily and disengage often. I did not find that I could murder things fast enough and "vamp tank" from just lifesteal and regen without multiple other sources of healing (Including the elf having to constantly baby-sit with his totem). At that point it made Boron like a fragile DPS ent, with less disruption. Not even enough status effects to be a status tank.

I haven't invested the crystals into making a tanky set of armor and trying my sword and board attempt at Boron yet, but I was hoping the extra armor, a focus on health regen, some serious vampirism, and a few other tweaks would make him bulky enough to survive combat without needing a baby sitter. I'd still need to micro him fairly hard in comparison to my other tanks, but right now it looks like the only thing that makes sense if I understand the rules of the game right. (Even then I'm not sure who I'd drop for Boron, guess I could sub out Kane or Dwarf but thats a hard sell when they both do such a good job at being immovable objects)

I figured that gaining cleave on a 1h sword with the shield to keep him alive, while not as fun as a two handed sword or duel-wielding, might be a worthwhile experiment. He just dies too quickly otherwise.

It is good to know Max Mana boosts his starting rage and that mana-regen and rage generation are the same thing. That will help with his itemization, means I'll need to avoid - max mana armor and such.

[Panterich]

This game relies heavily on micro. The only real way to skip micro with Boron is his last skill (which iirc is not available to you atm) which some players find very OP, and which i find useless at higher difficulties.

Mana regen doesn`t work with rage. Mana-on-hit does.

There was a player here who successfully enjoyed playing with 3 melee champions (on epic).

[mk11]

Depends what I'm fighting but typically: Cleave with damage option. Jump with damage option. Stunning Shout with increased stun duration option. Earth Hammer with permanent sunder option. Mostly might with some life and speed but no mastery.

The Barkahus Pendant which gives massive Mana pool and hence starting rage. Dual 1 handed weapons one with Life Leech the other with Stun 20%, Daze 3%, Blind 3%. Moderate spread around armour, resistances, hp regen and critical. Make sure movement is reasonably good - say 8 or more.

Take -mana regen gear as no need for mana regen at all.

Typically, jump into a crowd and then have Kane Dash in so Kane gets in most of the aggro and pulls the crowd back in close. Boron then does most of the damage through cleave but in smaller chunks so not attracting much aggro.

Keep an eye on his hit points and use jump if needed to get out of a hot spot or just run around a corner.

Often ends up being the highest damage dealer beating Maeve.

Biggest two problems: avoid Axe Throw as it attracts too much aggro. Avoid penalty to move items as needs to be able to move fast enough to get out of awkward situations.

[ShroudedInLight]

Hmm, I haven't thought of using Kane's Dash and Dwarf's hammers to draw aggro off Boron. That could be worth trying out. Especially since I've recently learned the gospel of low CD dash on Kane.

As far as microing goes, I know the game is all about Micro. The problem is that my previous attempts at running Boron have resulted in my needing to manage him constantly. There is a difference in the level of micro needed between a tank, a ranged DPS, a mage, and Boron. Previously he'd taken far too much of my micro capabilities to keep alive, and I'd be forced to disengage constantly.

As far as running 3 melee, while I could do that I'd rather not ditch the Elf. His crowd control is just too strong. Unless this damage Boron MK11 suggests works out, then I could potentially swap out a DPS for him.

[mk11]

I was running Boron, Kane, Maeve and Aeric.

Aeric's Ent is also a good way to draw aggro away from Boron and Aeric's Healing Totem good for patching him up.

I've now swapped Boron for Kaela most of the time.

[Zomboss]

Rahem, Boron, Maeve and Shadow on epic.
My Boron gives top DPS in party.
Fast 2H sword with life leech, 20 hp regen.
First skill give you hell of rage and AOE with 2H. Skill with axes + high armour piercing give fast and insane damage. With all of it Boron just came and wipe out everything. If there too much enemies arount - shout on them or jump from them.

[ShroudedInLight]

Hmm, I've tended to use the jump to get in or interrupt an enemy during an attack. Using it to evac seems like a waste, especially since Boron lacks a way to recover if he is too wounded. I guess you use the jump early on if Boron starts taking too much damage.

Will need to see how he works in a party.

[wcc]

On difficulties < Epic he's just insane with max Mastery, Cleave (with Rage Regeneration), Winter Wall and Earth Hammer since spamming this skill brutalizes any ememies so you don't have to care about aggro that much. On Epic this effect sadly wears off and I'm wondering whether I should have invested into another hero.
Still he's useful because he cleans the mobs (directly or via AoE when attacking an boss) and Winter Wall helps to draw aggro from enemies who want to attack my ranged Champtions, to clean stationary summons (just draw the line under as many as you can get at once) or in combination with Kane's Stone Wall.
Since I have Kane with Heal, Command Aura, Stone Wall and Aedric' Totem available and Boron himself has quite a health pool, it's not impossible to keep him alive. But yeah, he requires quite some attention, so I never even dared to test Blind Rage. :)

So all in all he's great for Crowd Control and Crowd Cleaning (there were fights he had twice the damage output of Maeve), but on Epic I'm not sure he's the best choice. Maybe Rakhem as tank or Whisper or Kaela as Damage Dealers would have been a better choice here, but it's not really viable to test that now, with all the blessings and the level Boron already got. Can't tell.

Does anybody have a list which "mana" effects to affect him and which don't? I don't really get behind the system. Everything with regen does not, everything else does?

Edit: I never used him for pulling ranged enemies. I prefered Stone Wall with adjacent Winterwall, which not only blocks and damages them, but also makes them cluster at the end of the wall.