I posted in general about the mechanics of this fight and how they pose some significant challenges to ranged classes. Cross-posting here to see if anyone has bright ideas around gear/spec/strategy that will ease this fight. Clearly we will want to beat it on as high a MP as possible to up chance of organs so the more survivable the better - though there are enrage mechanics so DPS has to be kept reasonable as well. Any thoughts, post them here -- be glad to get some discussion going on about it.
Original post below:
I've been in on PTR doing Infernal Rakk/Ghom and seen footage of Skeleton King/Maghda and Siegebreaker/Kulle. Not too surprisingly there is only one piece of successful solo footage I've seen on Rakk/Ghom that isn't a Monk or Barb. The issue is you move out of the clouds, you get charged and insta-gibbed by Rakk. You stand in the clouds, cloud damage junks you. You're pretty much left choosing which way you want to die. The one successful ranged solo vid I found was a DH with a Legacy Nat's set that lets him stand in corner and just tank the cloud damage and avoid any Rakk charges. But that's a setup based around a specific set that doesn't even drop in the game anymore).
Now, prior to 1.0.4, there were some viable ranged "tank" builds for DH/Wiz/WD. However, with 1.0.4, all the coefficients were nerfed to a point where there isn't really a viable tank the cloud strategy. I've put in alternative gear that jumps up my resists significantly, adds in 6% life-leech, 2k+ LoH, changed spec to something more viable for this fight than my farm spec and I can barely tank 1.0.4 Ghom clouds (easiest way to do a repeatable litmus test on to see if you have any chance at all to survive the Infernal Machine version of this fight).
I understand there may be benefits to grouping this fight but if the game is meant to have solo-play as a choice, this particular fight needs some looking at in terms of ranged-class solo viability. I have only tried this one fight on PTR -- the other Infernal Machine fights look workable -- it's the one-shot charge mechanic of Rakk coupled with having to move out of gas that makes this particular encounter far more problematic for ranged classes.
I am changing nearly a full gear set and spec trying to find a workable model (still haven't) whereas Barbs/Monks are strolling in with their farm gear and spec business as usual. I don't expect a reversion on coefficient changes but maybe Blizz could alter how Rakk's charge works in this fight (say cap it at 25% or 50% of player max health or something) so ranged classes have a reasonable chance to solo this fight.
Maybe I'm missing something -- I'm going to do a separate post in WD to see if any creative minds have solutions I'm not thinking of. I'm definitely not saying ranged won't find some creative schemes based around rare equip to cover this fight but, if the mechanics of this fight are left as is, I think those are going to be the only solutions.
Positioning-wise I tried a bunch of things in terms of staying out of clouds and it gets to a point where you can't keep both bosses, their adds, etc in a consistent location while avoiding clouds. The one consistent way I've seen so far is DH with specialized gear Gloom tanking them in a corner with Ghom acting as a "fat-block" from Rakk and his adds. Issue there is I'm not sure there is a viable WD tank setup to do this without a complete overhaul of gear -- i.e. a gear set just for this fight -- which is meh. Even with a complete gear set change, still seems like it will be challenging to beat enrage with how hard dps will take a hit. Then again, maybe the WD forums has some bright ideas I haven't come up with yet - here's to hoping.
Actually curious if anyone is still running a tank-build in 1.0.4 and can share what is working best right now . . .
Through some testing on 1.0.4 Ghom, think I found positioning and a build that may work. Pets are tanking all the Ghom melee hits, Rakk and Rakk summons shouldn't be able to get to me if I'm right (Ghom should block them), and that point, it's pretty much enough leech/LoH to stay up through clouds. Ghom goes down first and then Rakk should fall easily after. Once I gather up enough keys for 3 machines on PTR, I'll test out all bosses again and update.
EDIT: unless of course, when you character copy again, it only updates your specific character and doesn't update your stash or your inventory from the initial copy (only the items you have equipped) so I have no access to current LoH/leech/resist gear . . . /sigh
Agreed on Acid Cloud and I am using that. I am surprised that 3% leech carried you through -- what was your dps and resistances in this gear setup? My dps drops significantly when I put on resist gear, switch to a leech/loh weap and it feels like I need every bit of the 6% leech plus additional LoH to sustain higher heals than damage. It could be I just don't have it balanced right -- I haven't been using much resist gear since 1.0.4 and the resist gear I do have is admittedly not optimized for damage output. I really don't want to go out and spend more gold than required acquiring swap-in gear pieces for this one fight but will if need be.
Yeah, I have that damage, life, and globe radius in my farming set but it's very low on resists (as they aren't really required for Act farming) and I also have no LoH/leech in my farming set as again not required in the least.
My current excuse for a resist/leech set gets me to the 600 resist level but the leech weapon and gear swapping drops me to half of that dps and the resist set also has no globe radius.. This explains why the life leech alone is not carrying me. Thing is, that level of resists isn't required for Act content so I never prioritized spending the extra gold to pick up all resists on my damage set.
Getting all resists with high damage value/globes replacement gear would take out budget that I'd rather not spend as it doesn't add much value outside of this fight (I can farm Acts at any MP level with the 200 resists I currently have). Looks like I'll probably need to spend the gold on some slots though I think with positioning, I may have have sorted it to minimize the incoming damage -- hopefully that will shrink the necessary gear replacement costs to beat this fight at MP10.
Original post below:
I've been in on PTR doing Infernal Rakk/Ghom and seen footage of Skeleton King/Maghda and Siegebreaker/Kulle. Not too surprisingly there is only one piece of successful solo footage I've seen on Rakk/Ghom that isn't a Monk or Barb. The issue is you move out of the clouds, you get charged and insta-gibbed by Rakk. You stand in the clouds, cloud damage junks you. You're pretty much left choosing which way you want to die. The one successful ranged solo vid I found was a DH with a Legacy Nat's set that lets him stand in corner and just tank the cloud damage and avoid any Rakk charges. But that's a setup based around a specific set that doesn't even drop in the game anymore).
Now, prior to 1.0.4, there were some viable ranged "tank" builds for DH/Wiz/WD. However, with 1.0.4, all the coefficients were nerfed to a point where there isn't really a viable tank the cloud strategy. I've put in alternative gear that jumps up my resists significantly, adds in 6% life-leech, 2k+ LoH, changed spec to something more viable for this fight than my farm spec and I can barely tank 1.0.4 Ghom clouds (easiest way to do a repeatable litmus test on to see if you have any chance at all to survive the Infernal Machine version of this fight).
I understand there may be benefits to grouping this fight but if the game is meant to have solo-play as a choice, this particular fight needs some looking at in terms of ranged-class solo viability. I have only tried this one fight on PTR -- the other Infernal Machine fights look workable -- it's the one-shot charge mechanic of Rakk coupled with having to move out of gas that makes this particular encounter far more problematic for ranged classes.
I am changing nearly a full gear set and spec trying to find a workable model (still haven't) whereas Barbs/Monks are strolling in with their farm gear and spec business as usual. I don't expect a reversion on coefficient changes but maybe Blizz could alter how Rakk's charge works in this fight (say cap it at 25% or 50% of player max health or something) so ranged classes have a reasonable chance to solo this fight.
Maybe I'm missing something -- I'm going to do a separate post in WD to see if any creative minds have solutions I'm not thinking of. I'm definitely not saying ranged won't find some creative schemes based around rare equip to cover this fight but, if the mechanics of this fight are left as is, I think those are going to be the only solutions.
D3Progress: http://www.diabloprogress.com/hero/emberos-1608/Emberos/51824579
Sorry, I copied it from another post and apparently, it grabbed background color and font color detail. Editing it now to fix.
D3Progress: http://www.diabloprogress.com/hero/emberos-1608/Emberos/51824579
Positioning-wise I tried a bunch of things in terms of staying out of clouds and it gets to a point where you can't keep both bosses, their adds, etc in a consistent location while avoiding clouds. The one consistent way I've seen so far is DH with specialized gear Gloom tanking them in a corner with Ghom acting as a "fat-block" from Rakk and his adds. Issue there is I'm not sure there is a viable WD tank setup to do this without a complete overhaul of gear -- i.e. a gear set just for this fight -- which is meh. Even with a complete gear set change, still seems like it will be challenging to beat enrage with how hard dps will take a hit. Then again, maybe the WD forums has some bright ideas I haven't come up with yet - here's to hoping.
Actually curious if anyone is still running a tank-build in 1.0.4 and can share what is working best right now . . .
D3Progress: http://www.diabloprogress.com/hero/emberos-1608/Emberos/51824579
EDIT: unless of course, when you character copy again, it only updates your specific character and doesn't update your stash or your inventory from the initial copy (only the items you have equipped) so I have no access to current LoH/leech/resist gear . . . /sigh
D3Progress: http://www.diabloprogress.com/hero/emberos-1608/Emberos/51824579
D3Progress: http://www.diabloprogress.com/hero/emberos-1608/Emberos/51824579
My current excuse for a resist/leech set gets me to the 600 resist level but the leech weapon and gear swapping drops me to half of that dps and the resist set also has no globe radius.. This explains why the life leech alone is not carrying me. Thing is, that level of resists isn't required for Act content so I never prioritized spending the extra gold to pick up all resists on my damage set.
Getting all resists with high damage value/globes replacement gear would take out budget that I'd rather not spend as it doesn't add much value outside of this fight (I can farm Acts at any MP level with the 200 resists I currently have). Looks like I'll probably need to spend the gold on some slots though I think with positioning, I may have have sorted it to minimize the incoming damage -- hopefully that will shrink the necessary gear replacement costs to beat this fight at MP10.
D3Progress: http://www.diabloprogress.com/hero/emberos-1608/Emberos/51824579