274 replies to this topic

[Naitaka]

So what stategy have you used against the Ancient Rock Wraith? I've posted my strategy in the other thread but I"m curious as to the build everyone has come up with to beat this boss on Nightmare.

How to take Ancient Rock Wraith down on Nightmare:

Hawke: 2-handed, must have Taunt and upgraded Stonewall
Bethany: must have Firestorm or Tempest
Varric: must have Hail of Arrow and upgraded Fatiquing Fog
Ander: must have upgraded Heal, upgraded Haste, upgraded Heroic Aura, Pancrea, and Aid Group.
Consumable: 4~6 Health pot, 4~6 Stamina pot, 2~4 Lyrium pot

Ancient Rock Wraith has a few attack type:

Basic attack:
1. swings his arm horizontally, hits an arc infront of him, quite wide, low damage
2. Shoot out lightning like regular Rock Wraith, low damage but fast attack speed
3. transform and hit in all direction, mid damage
4. swings his arm downward in a forward straight line, mid damage
5. transform and kicks out with his feet in a forward straight line, high damage

Special attack:
1. Teleport to the middle of the stage, goes nuclear and shoot out red light for a few seconds, summons a group of 8 Rock Wraith around him
2. Turns into a ball and rolls forward doing damage and knocks down on the way
3. Transform and causes a black hole on top of him, sucks nearby enemies in in a 15m circle

So basically, have your range DPS together within range of Ander's Pancrea aura, move them at least 20m away from the boss and ideally near a pillar. Have your Hawke engage the Ancient Rock Wraith and repeat an attack pattern of one attack, strafe left or right, one attack, strafe, rinse and repeat. Use your Taunt and Shieldwall whenever they're availible if Ander's heal is on cooldown, otherwise try to do as much damage as possible while dodging the most damaging attack from the Ancient Rock Wraith.

When the boss telepoert to the middle of the screen and starts charging up, put all your characters behind a pillar and wait it out, as soon as it's over, have Ander activate Haste, make Beth use Firestorm and Varric throws a Fatiquing Fog on your team (with the upgrade that gives 100% obscure chance) and then use Hail of Arrow on the 8 Rock Wraith adds that shows up. Once the crazy AOE ends, run your Hawke up to attack the Ancient Rock Wraith. Once Varric and Beth clear what's left of the  adds, focus your whole team on the boss until he transform back to humanoid form.

When it turns into a ball and rolls, follow it with Hawke and make sure your range DPS ball gets out of its way and runs 20m away from it. If your range DPS ball stand near a pillar, the Ancient Rock Wraith will usually hit the pillar and stops, use that as a guide to judge how far you must run. When it use Blackhole, just keep attacking and use Aid Group after it finishes. Repeat this proccess until it dies.

Edited by Naitaka, 09 March 2011 - 11:13 AM.

[gdmfx]

I have been getting decimated just on Hard difficulty. Thing is I do not have a bunch of those skills at all and I cannot respec my chars. I did not buy any of those potions from the black emporium.

So now I am left with the disgusting option of having to go down to normal or easy to finish this boss and then put the difficulty back up. Real shame

[DragonKP]

I am at this fight now. This is by far the most difficult one so far.

[cainx10a]

Turning point for me, going to finish the game on Normal I guess. I have been having a hard time micromanaging the AI anyway, they just rush in battle like Sandal.

[stylepoints]

Not sure horror works on him, he seems immune to most status effects.

[Luke Barrett]

Despite the fact that Horror description says it works on 100% of enemy types there are specific enemies that are innately immune to stun - of which includes the Rock Wraith.

[Ncdonmiguel]

Pray...just pray. I'm just gonna suck it up and drop the difficulty for this one if I don't take him out in the next couple of tries. It's not worth the life of my ps3 controllers. Next playthrough, I'll be ready for that bugger

[Pinkjello]

While I haven't done this on nightmare, just doing it on normal it seems to come down to just surviving. You can two man the boss using kiting and a healing mage. The rolls are what seem to have killed my party the most.
First time I did this:
Hawke - Rogue archer
Varric - Rogue archer
Bethany - Frost/Fire mage with heal
Aveline - Tank

Second time was with:
Anders - Healing
Hawke - Rogue Archer
Varric - Rogue Archer
Aveline - Tank

For the add phase I just destroyed the adds and left hawke on the boss to get some damage in.
Having improved taunt is also really helpful.
Survive and win!

Edited by Pinkjello, 10 March 2011 - 04:54 AM.

[Swolfmoon]

I'm trying to down this monster myself right now. I'm about to start try 6. I dropped the difficulty to casual  (from NORMAL sheesh), and I am practically pulling out my hair trying to figure out how to survive this encounter. I get the phases (after having played and raided a lot when I used to play WoW), and I think my party is relatively sufficient to survive the boss. I've got Anders on healing, Aveline as a bamf tank, Varric pewpewing with Bianca, and then me. A rogue. I (not surprisingly now that I think about it) am the first to fall, with Varric falling shortly behind me. This is insane. Seriously.

[Pinkjello]

Swolfmoon wrote...


I'm trying to down this monster myself right now. I'm about to start try 6. I dropped the difficulty to casual  (from NORMAL sheesh), and I am practically pulling out my hair trying to figure out how to survive this encounter. I get the phases (after having played and raided a lot when I used to play WoW), and I think my party is relatively sufficient to survive the boss. I've got Anders on healing, Aveline as a bamf tank, Varric pewpewing with Bianca, and then me. A rogue. I (not surprisingly now that I think about it) am the first to fall, with Varric falling shortly behind me. This is insane. Seriously.

Well I was talking to a guild mate just now about it. Apparently, if you want to try, you can just bring 4 dps and destroy him during burn phases. Either way is a possible solution, but ya when I got here I was thinking, "Sh!t, more dumb boss mechanics, taking a few pointers from blizzard, eh?"

Edited by Pinkjello, 10 March 2011 - 05:05 AM.

[Swolfmoon]

This has so far been the only *tiny* let down for me, in that it felt SO much like an encounter I have experienced over and over again in WoW.

But, that being said, I've lurked around the internet enough to try and reinforce my goal of beating this boss before I go to bed tonight...here goes it. Wish me luck!

[Distilled]

Posted in another thread but

"On Nightmare I pretty much got it down completely on my third try.

Pretty much forced everyone but my tank to be ranged for the fight (if you're using two warriors I guess you're screwed on that part and it'll just take longer)

For the first phase just have your tank taunt and kite him around the pillars while your ranged attack him, only taunt with the tank and keep from being in his view so he can't shoot lasers at you.

When he's about to explode put everyone behind a pillar to avoid damage, preferably the same. Micro-manage each person to take down different smaller profanes quickly and then take down as much health as possible.

For the second phase at the start just before he enters it put each ranged in a different corner of the map as well as your tank; whoever he rolls towards micro-manage to dodge it and then run away to make him take the maximum amount of time before he hits you and rolls again. Takes forever but it's pretty easy otherwise.

Repeat the explode phase

Last phase is easy, put all your ranged on one side again and pretty much attempt to do the same thing as phase 1 while running away and trying to get behind pillars when he teleports to the middle and tries to pull you in.

Repeat explode phase and last phase."


Used a Melee Rogue Hawke with a bow, Aveline, Bethany and Varric."

[Naitaka]

Distilled wrote...

Posted in another thread but

"On Nightmare I pretty much got it down completely on my third try.

Pretty much forced everyone but my tank to be ranged for the fight (if you're using two warriors I guess you're screwed on that part and it'll just take longer)

For the first phase just have your tank taunt and kite him around the pillars while your ranged attack him, only taunt with the tank and keep from being in his view so he can't shoot lasers at you.

When he's about to explode put everyone behind a pillar to avoid damage, preferably the same. Micro-manage each person to take down different smaller profanes quickly and then take down as much health as possible.

For the second phase at the start just before he enters it put each ranged in a different corner of the map as well as your tank; whoever he rolls towards micro-manage to dodge it and then run away to make him take the maximum amount of time before he hits you and rolls again. Takes forever but it's pretty easy otherwise.

Repeat the explode phase

Last phase is easy, put all your ranged on one side again and pretty much attempt to do the same thing as phase 1 while running away and trying to get behind pillars when he teleports to the middle and tries to pull you in.

Repeat explode phase and last phase."


Used a Melee Rogue Hawke with a bow, Aveline, Bethany and Varric."

Ah I guess Ander isn't required then, I was wondering if the Haste was worth it if I can get another DPS in to burn the boss faster when he's in cool down phase. I just took him because I want Bethany to be a Grey Warden tbh.

[Xaidan]

Dang, im really glad i found this thread. Ive been trying to take this guy down and hes been walking all over my party and laughing the whole time. Ill give some of these strategies ago and hopefully ill be able to get out of the deep roads finally

[murgotroid]

Awful, just awful. Not fun. Not innovative. Mainly just a waste of my time. Making things difficult is one thing. Making them difficult and making them take forever is just poor design.

[Koshnek]

You know, I normally don't complain. I normally don't even post on websites about games. However, this fight is bull****. I'm playing on hard, and his second form is lame. If he gets close enough to attack you, you CAN NOT get away, its AoE, and it does a stupid amount of damage. Thank god I didnt' run Nightmare.

Whats worse is, the only way I can see to beat it (and which I tried before coming here) is what Distilled suggested, except I'm stuck with two warriors. Either that or there's some secret I've yet to uncover. I never would have dreamt Bioware would create an eno****er that renders tanking AND melee DPS pretty much useless.

Actually, aren't tanks pretty useless for bosses anyhow? I find I'm just tank kiting most bosses. I think its cool that you get plenty of warning to run from rock chunks, spell explosions, and charges (even utililze them). But should I really have to kite every fight (or reposition my tank every 1-2 seconds) during a boss fight? This isn't Vindictus..

Anyhow, I'm done raging now. Lol.

[Kamifel]

Koshnek wrote...

You know, I normally don't complain. I normally don't even post on websites about games. However, this fight is bull****. I'm playing on hard, and his second form is lame. If he gets close enough to attack you, you CAN NOT get away, its AoE, and it does a stupid amount of damage. Thank god I didnt' run Nightmare.

Whats worse is, the only way I can see to beat it (and which I tried before coming here) is what Distilled suggested, except I'm stuck with two warriors. Either that or there's some secret I've yet to uncover. I never would have dreamt Bioware would create an eno****er that renders tanking AND melee DPS pretty much useless.

Actually, aren't tanks pretty useless for bosses anyhow? I find I'm just tank kiting most bosses. I think its cool that you get plenty of warning to run from rock chunks, spell explosions, and charges (even utililze them). But should I really have to kite every fight (or reposition my tank every 1-2 seconds) during a boss fight? This isn't Vindictus..

Anyhow, I'm done raging now. Lol.

If you spend you're time kitting, you're doing something wrong. I'm in nightmare and use my hawk as a tank (2handers with haders razor) and i rarely kit (i put my first 5 point's in cunnig and i usuallky keep my strengh = con)

[Koshnek]

Ah, well I only have one mage and he only has an unupgraded heal. I'm using Aveline to tank. I guess I just need to buy more heal potions or something, lol .

Edit: Really, its just the dragon and this guy that gave me problems. (Spoiler maybe? I don't remember if the quest was part of hte main storly line) I moved around a lot on the first dragon too, but I don't think I actually kited it.

Edited by Koshnek, 10 March 2011 - 12:20 PM.

[Distilled]

Yeah my play-through of Nightmare so far lacks a healer; so a lot of what I've been doing is kiting intensive for bosses(or at least manually controlling Aveline to avoid direct attacks)

Edit: Also, if you're using two warriors you can still do the strategy; it's just going to take longer unless you risk your other warrior having the Rock Wraith turn around and wtfpwn you.

Edited by Distilled, 10 March 2011 - 01:01 PM.

[Ncdonmiguel]

Beat is easily in 2 tries on normal this morning. Just avoid the AOE spell, move the party behind columns, hack, heal, repeat. Easy for some reason today. I had to sleep on it

[sevenplusone]

This fight is so ****ing boring because it's so long and so easy. Yes yes I play on Nightmare, wouldn't have it any other way.



For phase 1 I just made my tank chase him around the area, moving my party of 3 ranged just far enough after each teleport so they don't die to AoE.

As soon as I see him TP in the middle for phase 1.5, I move everyone, no matter where they are on the map, to the pillar with the crates next to it. Once his red beam of death is over, I flip on my hold position hotkey, press my group select hotkey, and focus all the adds down 1 at a time. They die within 2 seconds when everyone focuses on them. I keep my group of 3 ranged as close to behind that pillar as possible during this.

Phase 2 is the extremely tedious snooze fest. I have my 3 ranged start at the top of the area, 1 person by the crate pillar, 1 person in between the 2 pillars, and my healer on the non-crate pillar. Reason being is it's easier for your healer to hit anyone on the map and avoid danger if he sits there. As he does his roll thing, I have my tank chasing him all fight, and I move all 3 of my ranged to the other side of the area even if the roll would miss 1 or 2 of them. Mirroring the same exact position they were in before. 1 mirroring crate pillar, 1 in between the 2 pillars, healer on the opposite of the person mirroring the crate pillar.

Phase 2.5 is the same thing as 1.5.

For the rest of the fight the positioning is the same as phase 2, keep moving the 3 ranged as a group. If done right, since you have 3 ranged, your tank will be the only one taking damage all fight long. Eventually he starts teleporting while being in a ball(unless that was just a graphical error), then he uses an ability that sucks in everyone in the room. If you stay behind a pillar you don't get sucked in, and if you don't just keep having your ranged run but make sure they're staying at max range.

Party was Aveline, Merrill, Varric, Me(Mage). Support/heal mage, so he was doing nothing pretty much all fight long.

So he's easy on Nightmare if:

You move your 3 ranged as a group in phase 1.

Focus fire adds.

Ranged at max range at all time after phase 1.

Split up your ranged evenly on 1 side of the map in phases 2, moving them separately, but at the same time to the other side of the map when 1 is the target of a ball roll. - mirroring their original position.

Also, keeping ranged together for Aura is a bad idea. Your ranged should be taking 0 damage, or close to it. If they do take damage, the infrequent use or group heal will fix them, or they can just chug a healing pot since your tank doesn't need them for this fight.

I cant fathom how anyone would actually have a hard time on this boss. Like I said, he's really easy he just takes forever to kill. And if you're tank kiting on every fight, then you're building your characters really really bad. This fight would have been a lot easier had I had the option to bring my 2h warrior along over Varric. Oh well.

You have so much time to get away from his ball roll, if you're getting hit by it then you're most likely not in the room. If your ranged are getting hit by his other AoE, then your positioning is terrible and you need to fix it. If your ranged are getting hit by his ball, then you have the reaction time of a slug and on top of that, your positioning is terrible.

Edited by sevenplusone, 10 March 2011 - 02:07 PM.

[Naitaka]

sevenplusone wrote...

This fight is so ****ing boring because it's so long and so easy. Yes yes I play on Nightmare, wouldn't have it any other way.



For phase 1 I just made my tank chase him around the area, moving my party of 3 ranged just far enough after each teleport so they don't die to AoE.

As soon as I see him TP in the middle for phase 1.5, I move everyone, no matter where they are on the map, to the pillar with the crates next to it. Once his red beam of death is over, I flip on my hold position hotkey, press my group select hotkey, and focus all the adds down 1 at a time. They die within 2 seconds when everyone focuses on them. I keep my group of 3 ranged as close to behind that pillar as possible during this.

Phase 2 is the extremely tedious snooze fest. I have my 3 ranged start at the top of the area, 1 person by the crate pillar, 1 person in between the 2 pillars, and my healer on the non-crate pillar. Reason being is it's easier for your healer to hit anyone on the map and avoid danger if he sits there. As he does his roll thing, I have my tank chasing him all fight, and I move all 3 of my ranged to the other side of the area even if the roll would miss 1 or 2 of them. Mirroring the same exact position they were in before. 1 mirroring crate pillar, 1 in between the 2 pillars, healer on the opposite of the person mirroring the crate pillar.

Phase 2.5 is the same thing as 1.5.

For the rest of the fight the positioning is the same as phase 2, keep moving the 3 ranged as a group. If done right, since you have 3 ranged, your tank will be the only one taking damage all fight long. Eventually he starts teleporting while being in a ball(unless that was just a graphical error), then he uses an ability that sucks in everyone in the room. If you stay behind a pillar you don't get sucked in, and if you don't just keep having your ranged run but make sure they're staying at max range.

Party was Aveline, Merrill, Varric, Me(Mage). Support/heal mage, so he was doing nothing pretty much all fight long.

So he's easy on Nightmare if:

You move your 3 ranged as a group in phase 1.

Focus fire adds.

Ranged at max range at all time after phase 1.

Split up your ranged evenly on 1 side of the map in phases 2, moving them separately, but at the same time to the other side of the map when 1 is the target of a ball roll. - mirroring their original position.

Also, keeping ranged together for Aura is a bad idea. Your ranged should be taking 0 damage, or close to it. If they do take damage, the infrequent use or group heal will fix them, or they can just chug a healing pot since your tank doesn't need them for this fight.

I cant fathom how anyone would actually have a hard time on this boss. Like I said, he's really easy he just takes forever to kill. And if you're tank kiting on every fight, then you're building your characters really really bad. This fight would have been a lot easier had I had the option to bring my 2h warrior along over Varric. Oh well.

You have so much time to get away from his ball roll, if you're getting hit by it then you're most likely not in the room. If your ranged are getting hit by his other AoE, then your positioning is terrible and you need to fix it. If your ranged are getting hit by his ball, then you have the reaction time of a slug and on top of that, your positioning is terrible.

Your range will always take some damage from the 8 range add that shows up when the Boss goes into cooldown phase. So might as well keep your range as a ball since no one do AOE attacks beside the Boss and he is insanely easy to dodge. Probably due of the fact that I used a two-handed warrior instead of Aveline, he wasn't holding up very well against the boss's attack without healing, so I tend to save my group heal for those "oh crap" moments. Anyhow, the Heroic Aura from Ander also makes it better to just have my range DPS in a ball. That's how I see it anyway.

Edited by Naitaka, 10 March 2011 - 02:17 PM.

[sevenplusone]

Naitaka wrote...

sevenplusone wrote...

This fight is so ****ing boring because it's so long and so easy. Yes yes I play on Nightmare, wouldn't have it any other way.



For phase 1 I just made my tank chase him around the area, moving my party of 3 ranged just far enough after each teleport so they don't die to AoE.

As soon as I see him TP in the middle for phase 1.5, I move everyone, no matter where they are on the map, to the pillar with the crates next to it. Once his red beam of death is over, I flip on my hold position hotkey, press my group select hotkey, and focus all the adds down 1 at a time. They die within 2 seconds when everyone focuses on them. I keep my group of 3 ranged as close to behind that pillar as possible during this.

Phase 2 is the extremely tedious snooze fest. I have my 3 ranged start at the top of the area, 1 person by the crate pillar, 1 person in between the 2 pillars, and my healer on the non-crate pillar. Reason being is it's easier for your healer to hit anyone on the map and avoid danger if he sits there. As he does his roll thing, I have my tank chasing him all fight, and I move all 3 of my ranged to the other side of the area even if the roll would miss 1 or 2 of them. Mirroring the same exact position they were in before. 1 mirroring crate pillar, 1 in between the 2 pillars, healer on the opposite of the person mirroring the crate pillar.

Phase 2.5 is the same thing as 1.5.

For the rest of the fight the positioning is the same as phase 2, keep moving the 3 ranged as a group. If done right, since you have 3 ranged, your tank will be the only one taking damage all fight long. Eventually he starts teleporting while being in a ball(unless that was just a graphical error), then he uses an ability that sucks in everyone in the room. If you stay behind a pillar you don't get sucked in, and if you don't just keep having your ranged run but make sure they're staying at max range.

Party was Aveline, Merrill, Varric, Me(Mage). Support/heal mage, so he was doing nothing pretty much all fight long.

So he's easy on Nightmare if:

You move your 3 ranged as a group in phase 1.

Focus fire adds.

Ranged at max range at all time after phase 1.

Split up your ranged evenly on 1 side of the map in phases 2, moving them separately, but at the same time to the other side of the map when 1 is the target of a ball roll. - mirroring their original position.

Also, keeping ranged together for Aura is a bad idea. Your ranged should be taking 0 damage, or close to it. If they do take damage, the infrequent use or group heal will fix them, or they can just chug a healing pot since your tank doesn't need them for this fight.

I cant fathom how anyone would actually have a hard time on this boss. Like I said, he's really easy he just takes forever to kill. And if you're tank kiting on every fight, then you're building your characters really really bad. This fight would have been a lot easier had I had the option to bring my 2h warrior along over Varric. Oh well.

You have so much time to get away from his ball roll, if you're getting hit by it then you're most likely not in the room. If your ranged are getting hit by his other AoE, then your positioning is terrible and you need to fix it. If your ranged are getting hit by his ball, then you have the reaction time of a slug and on top of that, your positioning is terrible.

Your range will always take some damage from the 8 range add that shows up when the Boss goes into cooldown phase. So might as well keep your range as a ball since no one do AOE attacks beside the Boss and he is insanely easy to dodge. Probably due of the fact that I used a two-handed warrior instead of Aveline, he wasn't holding up very well against the boss's attack without healing, so I tend to save my group heal for those "oh crap" moments. Anyhow, the Heroic Aura from Ander also makes it better to just have my range DPS in a ball. That's how I see it anyway.

If you make your ranged hug the crate pillar and click your hold position hotkey, you just make your tank run out and taunt whenever since you wont get them all. Your ranged should take almost 0 damage from the adds if you do it right, they might take a hit or 2 if you make them run out and focus fire adds too soon. Thee adds should die very very fast though, I had all of them cleared in like 8 seconds. 1 auto attack from everyone took out each add.

I can see the Heroic Aura point. I went into more CC on my heal/support mage so I didn't grab Heroic Aura, should probably do that soon though. I just found it was better to split them up, becuase you get in more auto attacks/skills/spells that way. Since the fight is so mind numbingly boring, long, tedious and repetitive, I went for max efficiency. I wanted all my skills on cooldown at all times, didn't want to see any skills sitting there waiting to be used because I had to run.

So it kinda of went like...:

Boss turns into a ball, targets Varric who's in between the 2 pillars at max range.

Each of my other ranged are to Varric's left and right.

I move Varric while casting a spell on Merrill, giving me just enough time to get out of the bosses AoE and ball of doom on her. While my support mage is getting in a few auto attacks because he has room due to his position.

Spell is off cooldown by the time Merrill is back in position.

More damage, shorter fight.

[shaneho78]

gdmfx wrote...

I have been getting decimated just on Hard difficulty. Thing is I do not have a bunch of those skills at all and I cannot respec my chars. I did not buy any of those potions from the black emporium.

So now I am left with the disgusting option of having to go down to normal or easy to finish this boss and then put the difficulty back up. Real shame

This for me. None of the combos are working for me on this guy.