HM Amber Shaper 10 without P1 burn, how to keep energy on the perma-construct tank ?

[simkinette]

Yet another Amber Shaper thread !

I have been reading all the available posts on H Amber Shaper, but most of them are dealing with the P1 Burn Strategy. I am looking for an alternative strategy that could disburden the heal/dps from most of the responsabilities in P2.

As a consequence, I'm not a huge fan of the P1 burn strategy that would lead to personal responsabilities in P2 (not losing stacks on the monstruosity, kick the monstruosity + self-kick + eating amber, etc. ).
I'm considering the 3 tanks strategy, in which a tank would keep stacks on the boss during end of P1, P2 and P3, while managing the kick on the monstruosity. Since our tanks are very used to the constructs, I expect this strategy to lead to a kill without the hundred of wypes till everyone knows exactly how to drive this damn construct.

In this strategy, the heal/dps transformed into construct in P2 would only need to self-kick and hit the monstruosity, without handling the eating amber part. Losing stack on the monstruosity would not necessarily lead to hitting enrage following this strategy, since we would not be spending too much time in P1, and the boss would be full of stacks in P3.

My question is how to keep the tank long enough (till beginning of P3) without running out of energy. Presently, our tank runs out of energy in P2 while eating all the amber available. How is it possible to avoid this ?

I'm therefore looking for advices to keep our tank into the construct during all the P2, so that the boss would start the P3 with a maximum of stacks. Should he avoid to kick himself ( which is energy-consuming) ? how many amber should we leave without eating them in P1 ? Is this strategy viable ?

[Veranious]

To keep that permanent construct alive throughout P2 and P3 you need to leave enough Amber Pools when entering P2.
How many pools do you need? It depends on your dps how fast you can push it to P3 - 5 or maximum 6 pools should be enough for your perma construct. It means that while entering P2 you will have 5-6 pool on the ground + additionally 4 Living Ambers alive from the last Amber Scalpel which happens right before P2.

Lets say you are pushing the boss to P2 after 4th Amber Scalpel, then:
1st tank constructed eats 3 pools
2nd tank constructed eats 2 pools
3rd tank constructed east 2 pools
4th tank constructed is you perma construct - he has got 5 pools which havent been eaten + 4 Living Amber from the 4th Amber Scalpel which happened right before the Reshape Life

Perma construct interrupts every self-explosion and he keeps stacks rolling on the Monstrosity and the boss.

You should enter P3 before/after 3rd Reshape Life in P2 (it depends on your dps).
If you are close to entering P3 and you are running out of pools your perma construct might wait few seconds and eat a pool after you enter P3 since it would give him 50 Will Power instead of 20 when he eats in P2.

When you enter P3 the boss should have 35-50 stacks, it depends how long did you keep him in P1. The longer P1 is, the more stacks in P3 he will have.

[Dorfie]

Pretty simple answer...

You eat pools to increase your willpower. The more slimes you don't eat in phase 1 the more pools you will eventually have as the slimes will respawn. If you are running out of pools, leave more up in phase 1.

I think we push on the 4th scalpel and our tanks eat 2 pools each time they get constructed.

[Vathral2]

We literally killed it on monday for the first time, trying various strats for our raid comp. We actually push Ambershaper on the 6th reshape, with our 4th/5th reshapes only eating 2 each (everyone else eating 4 prior), burning on the 6th scalpel+reshape (without lust). When the monstrosity comes out, our perma construct (we run 3 tanks), maintains stacks on both amber shaper + boss, and we use lust on the monstrosity at about 50% or so. We kill the monstrosity before the 3rd explosion since the 3rd explosion happens as the 3rd reshape is happening with this strategy, so we try to avoid that explosion.

Boss has ridiculous # of stacks going into p3, he drops before the first beacons. We felt that worked the easiest as that makes it as close to normal mode as you can make it.

[PHsname]

We ended up going with the burn strat, but we played around with a few different ones while working on this.

When doing the tank-stays-in-construct strat, we had tanks drink two puddles from each scalpel set in P1. I think we had three scalpels before pushing into P2. In P2, everyone drank two puddles.

It doesn't matter which strat you go with, though, stacks on the Monstrosity cannot fall off or P3 will be VERY painful. The added problem with not using the burn strat is that the stacks need to be maintained on the boss as well. P3 actually sucks really badly and you want it to not last long.

[Libertarian]

Just do the burn strat as it is a lot easier on everyone. I don't know why you think it's easier on DPS to do the other way. It's actually much harder and I have done both strats.

[DakonBlackblade]

Isnt the burn strategy fixed ? How does it work now that you cant kill the boss during the burn ?

[Windchilll]

Just do the burn strat as it is a lot easier on everyone. I don't know why you think it's easier on DPS to do the other way. It's actually much harder and I have done both strats.

This got fixed. You can get him to 1 Hp, but until you kill the Monstrosity to remove the shield, he won't die.

[Muk]

This got fixed. You can get him to 1 Hp, but until you kill the Monstrosity to remove the shield, he won't die.

You can't kill him in Phase 1 anymore, correct. However, getting him extremely low in Phase 1 makes Phase 2 faster/easier because you are able to put 100% of the debuff stacks on the Amber Monstrosity. Once Phase 2 is done, Phase 3 is almost non-existent. So indirectly the "burn strategy" is still very effective.

[simkinette]

You can't kill him in Phase 1 anymore, correct. However, getting him extremely low in Phase 1 makes Phase 2 faster/easier because you are able to put 100% of the debuff stacks on the Amber Monstrosity. Once Phase 2 is done, Phase 3 is almost non-existent. So indirectly the "burn strategy" is still very effective.

... provided you can burn him to extremely low %age in phase 1, which happened to not be our case.

We have not down the boss yet, but it seems to us that if you can only burn him down to 40 or 30%, because of the duration of P1 with the burn strategy, you cannot loose the stacks on the monstruosity in P2, or you would hit the enrage.

As a consequence, if you cannot burn the boss to extremely low %age, you need to have all your dps and heals well aware of the construct, since they will have to make sure they eat puddle and stay inside the construct long enough to refresh the stacks till the new heal/dps is being transformed.

Am I therefore correct to state that IF you can burn the boss down to 1% in phase 1, then P2 is not challenging from individual responsabilities and the burn strategy is very efficient, but IF you can only burn him down to 40 or 30 %, then the burn strategy is not that easy, as no construct could screw-up during P2 ?

[turtlefreak]

As said in the other thread my guild killed the boss yesterday with the burn strat.

You dont have to get the boss to 1% in the burnphase.
Arround 30% was completly fine for us. The lower you get the boss the better of course :P

You seem concerned that phase 2 is pretty chaotic.
I had the same concerns when i thought about p2 in the beginning but it really straight forward.

Thats how we did p2:

-You just had the scalpel and nuked the boss to ~30%
-One of your tanks is getting transformed and you have four slimes from the burn-amberscalpel running arround.
-Your raid kills the slimes. After this they deal damage to the transformed player(tank) and to the amber monstrosity
-The transformed player(tank) eats all four puddles and builds stacks on the monstrosity
-He stays transformed until the monstrosity casts the exlosion and kicks it (call the exlosion out ~10s before it casts to help him)
-Arround this time the next player should get transformed and you got a new set of slimes
-Your first transformed player(tank) gets out

-Your raid kills the slimes. After this they deal damage to the second transformed player and to the amber monstrosity
-Your second transformed player eats all four puddles and builds stacks on the monstrosity
-Your second transformed player stays transformed until the monstrosity casts the exlosion and kicks it
-Arround this time the next player should get transformed and you got a new set of slimes
-Your second transformed player gets out

Rinse and repeat until the monstrosity is dead.

When you do it like that there is nearly no time you dont have a transformed player (most of the time we even had a new player transformed while the old one wasnt even out of the construct)
Because of this its pretty easy to keep the stacks up on the monstrosity (and you got that right, the stacks should not fall of the monstrosity)

Now for beeing the construct in p2:
-You interrupt your own explosion
-You press your button one on cd on the monstrosity
-When button one is on cd you drink the puddles. All four of them. You dont think of willpower or anything you simply eat whats available. But dont forget to press one on the monstrosity between eating. Dont let the stack fall of.

Only thing that is that need a bit more attention is the explosion from the monstrosity. And you can help your fellow constructs with calling it out ~10s before.

Its really not that hard because you dont need to make decisions as a construct with this strat, you just work through your to do list :P


ps: one thing you should not forget is that while your tank is the construct: there will be one "filing" (monstrosity throws the highest on aggro arround)

You will have to deal with one fling without the second tank, but this is easily fixed by having a DPS taunt prior

[Muk]

... provided you can burn him to extremely low %age in phase 1, which happened to not be our case.

We have not down the boss yet, but it seems to us that if you can only burn him down to 40 or 30%, because of the duration of P1 with the burn strategy, you cannot loose the stacks on the monstruosity in P2, or you would hit the enrage.

Although less than 20% is most ideal for a smooth kill, you should only need to get the boss to 30% in Phase 1 to be able to successfully carry out the burn strategy. If you can't finish the boss during Phase 3 you either a) have low raid damage output, b) people getting transformed aren't doing it correctly, or c) your healers are letting people die.

[momirmaster]

... provided you can burn him to extremely low %age in phase 1, which happened to not be our case.

We have not down the boss yet, but it seems to us that if you can only burn him down to 40 or 30%, because of the duration of P1 with the burn strategy, you cannot loose the stacks on the monstruosity in P2, or you would hit the enrage.

As a consequence, if you cannot burn the boss to extremely low %age, you need to have all your dps and heals well aware of the construct, since they will have to make sure they eat puddle and stay inside the construct long enough to refresh the stacks till the new heal/dps is being transformed.

Am I therefore correct to state that IF you can burn the boss down to 1% in phase 1, then P2 is not challenging from individual responsabilities and the burn strategy is very efficient, but IF you can only burn him down to 40 or 30 %, then the burn strategy is not that easy, as no construct could screw-up during P2 ?

my Old guild did the burn strategy and our kills were from 27%, 21%, 17, and 25% if I recall correctly.

[spookyy]

Thanks for the strat hints guys, but there's still one question unanswered.
Which scalpel (i mean the number) do you use to burn him? You guys usually just say "we burned him to this.. we burned him down to that.." but the % is always in corelation to the #of scalpels you had in P1.

Because we actually face the enrage timer during P2.
Could someone please tell me the rough number of stacks you had up on the boss and on which scalpel you burned him? Because this way I can calculate how many stacks one would have if you burned him 1 scalpel before/after.
Thanks.


Never mind.. I found the problem. Our tanks simply didn't use the strike on CD, but used it when the buff was only ~4-7s left on the boss. If you keep doing that for a couple of minutes this will result in way too few stacks in too much time.