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Conquest: Boss Mode Guidelines
Our moderation manager Bagstone has put together a thread with tips and guidelines on how to clear the Boss Mode conquest, which is sometimes considered hard but can be easy for a coordinated group that has the right information. Check out the snippet below, or the full guide here!
We've discussed the conquests before, and I think all of them are straightforward (3 gems to 65 is about the grind, TX in 2 minutes about getting the right map, GR75 about indiviual power level, and Curses! just about your burst damage). Boss mode is often left out and considered to be hard - when it's actually relatively easy and by far the easiest for any well-coordinated group. And in my opinion, it's by far the conquest that's most fun this season.
Time to KILL a Boss: Estimate your Power
First, we need to understand the relative difficulty of the bosses. There are four bosses that have animations and take a bit longer to kill:
- Malthael
- Diablo
- Urzael
- Belial
All the other bosses can, at least in theory, be a one-shot. Test how long it takes you to kill Malthael on TX, and after that any of the others (e.g., Azmodan) just to get a feel for how long the boss fights will take you. Can you kill Malthael in less than a minute (including all animations) and Azmodan in less than 15 seconds? Then your DPS should be high enough.
Time to FIND a Boss: Make an Ordered List
Next, we need to look at the difficulty of getting to the bosses. For that, we create an ordered list. The one we used for our run was this:
- Malthael
- Urzael
- Adria
- Diablo
- Izual
- Butcher
- Aranae
- Siegebreaker
- Cydaea
- Ghom
- Skeleton King
- Azmodan
- Rakanoth
- Belial
- Maghda
- Kulle
Basically the list can be split into two halves (top 9, bottom 7). The first 9 take a bit longer, either because the way is so long (Malthael, Siegebreaker) or the pathing can be difficult to find (Izual, Aranae) or both (Urzael, Adria). Also, as aforementioned Malthael, Urzael, and Diablo take a bit longer because of animations and transitions and stuff, so it's good to get those out of the way early (only Belial being on the bottom half).
Gear and Spec Requirements/Advice
In terms of gear/specs, you obviously need great mobility. That means:
- Wizards need Teleport and Aether Walker. Also get some arcane power regeneration. You can switch out Aether Walker before the boss fight to some DPS weapon of your choice. Alternatively, you can try Illusionist+Teleport, or even In-Geom, but it won't be as fast at all (and quite dangerous as well).
- Witch Doctors are strongly recommended to have Manajuma's set + Angry Chicken. Again, switching to some DPS for the boss. You can also use In-Geom and kill elites on the way to get Spirit Walk up in combination with the Zuni set and lots of pets; it works, I've tried it, but is a lot slower of course. But it's a great synergy with a boss spec (lots of pets) and can be done with the starter set (Zuni) and requires no gear switching.
- Demon Hunters have Vault, enough said. Vault alone is crazy, with Danetta's it's a joke. Again, switch weapons out for boss.
- Crusaders absolutely need Swiftmount and Steed Charge. Again can be done using In-Geom and then killing elites on the way, but will be significantly slower.
- Barbarians don't need anything for running as the Raekor set is great for constantly charging, so they're basically set up from the start to do this. Remember to use Boulder Toss for the bosses!
- Monk can be really fast with the Thousand Storms set or Jawbreaker to use Dash, or even In-Geom, but it's not as easy to get there as for other classes I'd say.
Can I Solo It? Yes You Can!
I think for doing this solo, WD is probably best because it has a great mix of mobility and insane boss DPS. But any class can do that, though for monk+wizard it's probably the most difficult to solo. In any case, if you're solo, start from the top and keep in mind that the last ones can be done super quickly. You could probably do the bottom 6 in 3 minutes including going there and killing them, so if the first 12 take you 15 minutes you'd still be more than fine! It might take a few tries, but it's absolutely possible.
My group did Boss Mode and it was definitely quite fun. Though, we each took A1, 2, 4, and 5 (my barb was specced for a bit of speed so I took A5... didn't stop me from being last to our respective bosses each time). Went to one boss in each of those act per round and did the TP and waypoint trick as suggested in the article. After the 3 bosses in each of those acts were done, we then split up A3.
Done with 2min spare.
Between this and the 350 kill conquest, they're definitely the two easiest to do in groups.
just did it easily [solo WD chicken farm spec]
solo with 2 minute left
easy ;p
Easier then expected indeed.
did it solo with DH (ok DH have it easy)
had 2 minutes left and just cleared it act by act
The breakdown by time to find a boss needs to be updated. Malthael went from really hard to really easy due to a new spawn point a few years ago. You now spawn at a location where the path to Malthael is linear so you never get lost and it's only the distance that is a factor any more.