How are the Artifact Challenges going?

[Tatuin]

Took me about 80 tries to get this. Did not have prydaz wich would have made it ALOT easier. Sadly i only have velen and the head for disco legendery so it was abit tricky.

I ended up to interupt the eartquakcs but i always had him to drop like two rocks so i could get the stacks off the worm anyway

[Mazeari]

Guys a little question about holy one. I have 906 equipped with all leggos except for prydaz. What stat weights would u recommend for all phases? Should I minimize mastery (since it is a late ticking hot on adds) and focus more on crit / haste for burst healing and dps? Versa is useful or should I avoid it too? Any help would be appreciated

I did it with 898 ilv, with all 3 stats equally balanced (syphuz & pants). For P3 I switched to a little more crit and haste, except on the kill I forgot to switch. Took me 2 tries this Magetower, me and my friend are pretty sure they nerfed it.

Key to p3 is renew on rogue and war before the adds come. Hymn, and spam serenity till they are in LoS. If you crit the first one it's cake, then you drums, and save apo for wave 2 and wave 3. If you don't crit you gotta apo first wave.

Oh and don't cast PoM in p3, it bugs out the adds.

Edit: 29% crit, 15% haste, 34% mastery, and 2% vers. With guldan trinket and 855 algaman spine, 37 traits.

[Nephthysis]

Guys a little question about holy one. I have 906 equipped with all leggos except for prydaz. What stat weights would u recommend for all phases? Should I minimize mastery (since it is a late ticking hot on adds) and focus more on crit / haste for burst healing and dps? Versa is useful or should I avoid it too? Any help would be appreciated

Yeah i had to drop like 5? overall ilvl to pick up haste. 3 shot it after doing so. Haste > Crit > Vers > Mastery imo.

However, Muzes is REALLY good for stage 5, the only part where our stats really matter. So you might not need to go all out if you have it (I sadly have neither Muze's nor Velen's which kinda trivialize that part).

[worcester]

For me the most difficult part was stage 5. Tried the first time around with 899 ilvl and 39 traits and gave up. This time 901, I can definitely say cosmic ripple helps there during apotheosis to keep your party somewhat alive. But most importantly, you need to crit that first spirit in the first wave to make things infinitely easier in waves 2/3 (able to offset your cooldowns).

edit: removed ranting. About nerfing, would like to know as well. it did seems easier this time around.

[Venara]

Guys a little question about holy one. I have 906 equipped with all leggos except for prydaz. What stat weights would u recommend for all phases? Should I minimize mastery (since it is a late ticking hot on adds) and focus more on crit / haste for burst healing and dps? Versa is useful or should I avoid it too? Any help would be appreciated

There are no recommended stat weights for this. Once you're at 890+ beating the scenario is hardly about stats and all about execution.

Some people, like myself, have given some gear advice in previous posts as there are some pieces of gear that make it easier, though none of them are by any means a "If you have this you win" thing. I would recommend you go back and read the entire thread to find these.

[Mintra]

Disc challenge happened to be pretty easy at 905 ilvl, 45 traits, got it on the 3rd try today (drums+prolonged power+flask+food+Prydaz+Sephuz)
These weakauras helped a lot - https://wago.io/4kqzBb2nM (set Tugar as focus) - got them prom H2P discord. If your language is not English, you need to translate the spells in trigger section.

[drtrann]

got it last night after many many attempts dying with 20-30k overkill due to a combination of bad luck, poor gearing, and bad play.

finally got it on my last attempt before calling it quits: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/135555984

that's a pretty sloppy attempt but this was at 3 am and I'm pulling the "I was really tired" card. note my positioning and movement. I can always double fear the worm and boss, as well as move with penance or when PTW needs to be applied to multiple targets. there are a few other things I could probably do to increase cast efficiency but it's likely just knit-picking at this point.

notes: do not attempt this unless you can do over 250 dps (although keep in mind that there is always something you can do to optimize your dps). last week I had almost none of the new points and also had a massive amount of mastery which totally boned my dps to 210-230. this causes the fight against the first boss to last upwards of 5:30, at which point you run out of ways to survive, and you die.

prydaz, aegis of wrath, skoj massively reduce the stamina requirement for this boss.

post game commentary:

each of the bosses damage and cast speed is linked to their HP, so it may be more beneficial to slow your dps after the first minute (when prolonged falls off), and focus on chipping away the bosses HP while handling the mechanics properly. the boss hits like a whet noodle early on, and only really becomes deadly sub 50-60%.

at ~3:30 you should have the boss at roughly 40-30%, at which point you burn drums + prolonged power, and go ham on the boss, you goal is to burn him as hard as possible as your PI and mindbender will come up again at the tail end of the drums and prolonged. you want to kill the boss as fast as possible because at this point he will start casting more often than you could possibly mitigate, and hit your harder than you could deal with.

you will notice several times I have fear off CD, but dont use it. this is because I'm saving it for when the boss and worm simultaneously cast their abilities. I fear both of them at the same time to stop the wombo combos, also I am able to offset the cast time of the worm's abilities, which means I have more time to cast smite and need to heal myself less.

final gear stats:

Ilvl: 900
legs: belt + skoj bracers
haste: 31%
crit:23%
mastery 37%
verse 1%
intel: ~46,000 buffed
tier: 2 piece
trinkets: promises + 895 crit stick

[Naga Coatl]

My best attempt was 30% on the twins, but the rng involved is too much for my tastes. I'm trying with the standard raid talent setup with Misery instead of PI, I have Sephuz and Prydaz but I can't reliably go through phase 2. Relying to tentacle spawn to slow the twin while the hand spawn everywhere is brutal. Glyphs spawning in extremely unconvenient places is also a problem. Sometimes I reach the last phase with relative ease, sometimes the twin doesn't want to stay slowed hand spawn ruin everything and I die way too early.

I'm just 894 ilvl but I'm not seeing myself completing this challenge anytime soon.

[KaPe]

Holy was a mess. I mean, it's more about healing than tank scenario is about tanking, sure. However, the burst you have to deal with in phase 1 is a rather crazy and doesn't fit typical dungeon/raid. NPCs can get from 100% to 10 in two seconds if Archers and Mages decide to target them. In normal content, you get some sort of indication that X is going to receive major damage. Here, it's just random 800k arrow spam. The damage they do is abyssmal, so we pretty much need to nuke the mages ourselves in order to remove the biggest threat.

Part two is just boring waste of time. They could have cut it out and nothing of value would be lost, except saving five minutes of time. Maybe reset cooldowns along the way, since you pretty much need everything to deal with add healing. And once again, better hope granny doesn't get ganked by the other two, so you can focus on adds. And pray for Serenity crits. Seriously, that last one is so annoying. In my successful attempt, I had like 100% crit rate on adds. If you can top them with a single cast, everything is trivialized.

And Shadow shows the "mastery" of S2M. Mine is still lacking, since I don't really play the spec, but just a second or two more (or some actual Shadow traits) and he'd be dead. It's so much easier than dealing with every other mechanic - just group up the adds for a nice mind sear and you're set. No need to hope for tentacle procs or kiting 15 mobs which you can't really kill without wasting ton of time and/or specing Misery.

[Deleted]

My best attempt was 30% on the twins, but the rng involved is too much for my tastes. I'm trying with the standard raid talent setup with Misery instead of PI, I have Sephuz and Prydaz but I can't reliably go through phase 2. Relying to tentacle spawn to slow the twin while the hand spawn everywhere is brutal. Glyphs spawning in extremely unconvenient places is also a problem. Sometimes I reach the last phase with relative ease, sometimes the twin doesn't want to stay slowed hand spawn ruin everything and I die way too early.

I'm just 894 ilvl but I'm not seeing myself completing this challenge anytime soon.

Well first off, you shouldnt be relying on slows to kill the hands, you have a stun for every hand, even better when you have sephuz. Also, you should really try StM, i had ~15 tries with LotV and then 1-shot it with StM

[Naga Coatl]

Well first off, you shouldnt be relying on slows to kill the hands, you have a stun for every hand, even better when you have sephuz. Also, you should really try StM, i had ~15 tries with LotV and then 1-shot it with StM

I use the stun everytime, but 4 seconds are not enough for me to kill a hand while keeping the distance from an increasingly quick twin. I try to use stun --> sephuz proc --> VF+VB spam at every hand but I can't do it reliabily, and most of the time after 3-4 hand the twin reaches me. The hands always spawn somewhere behind him so to reach them I often reduce the advantage I have over him.

I tried with StM but without LotV I have even more trouble surviving the second phase and killing the hands, but I've not done enough tries wth StM yet - 30+ with LotV, 3 with StM.

I also saw a video with a peculiar strat - using StM during phase 1, entering phase 2 with ~40 VF stacks, and killing the objective in 30 seconds. I tried this tactic but I manage to bring him to 30-25%, so I suck, have poor equipment, or both.

[Deleted]

I use the stun everytime, but 4 seconds are not enough for me to kill a hand while keeping the distance from an increasingly quick twin. I try to use stun --> sephuz proc --> VF+VB spam at every hand but I can't do it reliabily, and most of the time after 3-4 hand the twin reaches me. The hands always spawn somewhere behind him so to reach them I often reduce the advantage I have over him.

I tried with StM but without LotV I have even more trouble surviving the second phase and killing the hands, but I've not done enough tries wth StM yet - 30+ with LotV, 3 with StM.

I also saw a video with a peculiar strat - using StM during phase 1, entering phase 2 with ~40 VF stacks, and killing the objective in 30 seconds. I tried this tactic but I manage to bring him to 30-25%, so I suck, have poor equipment, or both.

I have exactly the same problems as you, hitting roughly the same walls with each strategy. Feels like LotV has the most potential for progress but after many attempts I just can't keep up with the hands and put out enough dps on Karam at the same time before either he catches up or the hands overwhelm me. So if you come up with something that works be sure to write back, or anyone else with fresh tips in this kind of situation.

894 ilevel as well if I use my 4pc, 902 without in my highest ilevel gear (but kind of bad stats, not enough mastery to do s2m cheese to my understanding, although I freely accept that I'm not really skilled enough at playing Surrender anyway). Not really sure where to go from here, I put in the attempts but don't quite have enough whatever I try. Can't really get into heroic Nighthold raids to gear up more without curve. I guess I'll just hope for some luck with Mythic+ caches and wait for Tomb otherwise.

[nuxxy]

902 ilvl with Cloak and Prydaz. Killed it with the S2M cheese, had around 12 try's with multiple 0.5% wipes evcentually got it

[Shaiandra]

I tried the Shadow one today (didn't try it at all the first time the Mage Tower was up) and eventually won, having more luck with LotV than StM myself (899 equipped with 4p, legendaries were Sephuz's and Twins' Painful Touch). Spent about 40 tries without looking up strategies, then watched one video and won within ~5 more attempts..

I feel that the last phase is only slightly harder than the second Karam phase; largest priority is the Hands, kiting the adds and Karam, and keeping damage on one priority target (only real difference is you might have runes to step on). So i feel that specs that do well in the first Hand phase will also be able to handle the end.

The consumables I used were Int Flask, Prolonged Power Pots, Drums, and Bear Tartare as the food buff. The DOT spread from Twins' Painful Touch not only helped with a lot of Insanity generation with Auspicious Spirits, but probably helped with ToF uptime and occasionally procced free sprints whenever an add died. Although other legendaries might typically do more direct damage to my primary target, I think the above benefit me more..

I'm not too sure how much Mindbender helped, but it is a fire-and-forget ability which continues to do damage even if you can't stop to cast, so it's at least a decent consideration.

I sorta wonder if I want to try the Disc challenge; I don't really play Disc though. My Disc weapon's 37, and I have no spec-specific legendaries for it and don't have Prydaz, so my two legendaries would be Sephuz's and probably whatever has the most stats (the Vampiric Embrace helm)...

[Naux]

[Naga Coatl]

I'm trying the 'Use StM at the beginning of phase 2' but I keep failing. With that talent setup phase 1 is almost difficult, with Karam reaching 4-5 stacks, and even if phase 2 becomes 'easy' (the hand positioning still messes up my rotation from time to time) I just can't manage the transition from phase 2 and the intermission. I reach 40-45 VF stacks then I suddenly die. I just don't know how those in the videos manage to keep sustaining insanity so seemingly efforlessly, when around 35-40 I see my bar oscillating between 20-40%. God I hate StM SO much, I suck at it and my PC doesn't help with it.


EDIT: Just did it! Done the first time I managed to go from phase 2 to the intermission. The trick was to use drums a bit earlier and to focus a random add during the 'activation' of Raest.

[Deleted]

I dont think you need to be a StM god to pull this off, pop StM when the 1st hand spawns, use your kick for that one, the second one should fall really fast and you have dispersion for that. In my kill I had around 70-80 stacks, so you dont need to be a magician to do that, maybe a few stacks more with worse gear.

Remember you can dot up the adds while moving to get extra AS procs as well as using mind sear to top yourself up at the higher stages. With the movement you gain it should be no problem to stack the adds under the boss. Use the crafted neck to gain extra seconds!

[jag5268]

I just completed Thwarting the Twins. My ilvl was 899. I ran Twist of Fate, Body & Soul, Mind Bomb, Lingering Insanity, San'layn, Power Infusion and LOTV. I used PI on pull to bring Karam down. Focused hard on Raest in the intermission with hero and second pot, bringing him down to 60%. I used PI to deal with phase 2 to bring the hands down quickly and karam down to purgatory. This helped with my transition from phase 2 to phase 3. I kept shadowfiend adds alive to keep ToF at 100% uptime in phase 2.

Overall I was having issues with the phase 2 to 3 transition, taking Power Infusion really helped me here. Legendaries I had were Prydaz and Sephuz.

[Naga Coatl]

I reached 87 stacks IIRC, but I forgot flask, prolonged power, and more importantly I could have activated Sephuz but I forgot it too, I was too focused on keeping my rotation flow since it was the first time I got to that last phase. I was doing the 'switch' incorrectly and once I fixed that, it went smooth even with just 894 iLvl.

[Demetrion]

Finished mine last night (shadow).

Used STM 2 phase tactic. Had shoulders/belt for legendaries with metronome/whispers as trinkets. Took me around 20 tries. Worst thing was waiting for the STM cooldown. Nothing much to explain here, but that it's crucial to time your dispersion right so it ends as soon as phase 2 starts. Then it's only a matter of pumping enough damage into him. Prolonged on pull, Deadly Grace as 2nd pot.

Forgot to add, 905 equipped ilvl with 43 traits (no last golden).