Thread: Ruingalad the unkillable :P

Originally Posted by oopsies

Probably the only reason you were able to win the fight

Do bear in mind it only heals for ~400, and I could've popped another pot, another heart, and manheal. I think I would've pulled it out even without that particular legacy.

Originally Posted by oopsies

Compared to a hunter or champion, I was just trying to point out that the less damage you do to this mob the less damage it does to you.

It still has over 18k Morale, so you will still end up taking over 9k reflected damage regardless of how hard you hit it. Unless you do most of your damage through bleeds.

Originally Posted by oopsies

I'm not saying that the mob isn't difficult, all I'm saying is that if you don't have any healing there is no chance for you to take down the mob.

You mean in terms of having a Herbalist as your pet or in general a lack of incoming healing through a Class Skillset will prevent a player from defeating him?

I run QK on my Burg and a Guard as my pet. The latter being completely useless, sometimes I just let him drop from the encounter and move on. However, I've been running SoT just to run into this Mob and I finally encountered him this morning. I just kited him a bit and waited for MG (45s CD) to be up and then when ST was back up, would begin to DPS him.

Without a doubt, the worst Encounter in all the skirmishes but a first attempt and being used to EMs (SoA days), it was doable.

That being said, it isn't worth the time for 20 skirmish marks or whatever lowly amount comes from it.

Originally Posted by oopsies

I'm not saying that the mob isn't difficult, all I'm saying is that if you don't have any healing there is no chance for you to take down the mob.

Even with healing it's hard. I tried three times on my minstrel, and I literally took damage faster than I could spam bolster courage (no war speech). I tried sending in soldier first, but it was dead in seconds even at high rank (maybe protector might, but my warrior is squishy and can't hold aggro). Tried fire defense tale, even faster defeat (pointless skill really, but I thought I'd give it a go :-) . Yes, with great gear maybe it's doable, but it's a huge step up in difficulty compared to all other solo tier 1 optional encounters I've seen. (the screenshot of the minstrel doing it clearly shows 1st age weapon and 5K morale, so not an average player)

I like the offensive skirmishes myself. But Dannenglor has two optional encounters that make me avoid it and try others instead. It's nice to see that it's being fixed. Yeah, if some players want a challenge, then just bump up the tier, raise the level, or get an underpowered soldier instead.

Originally Posted by Ames

Go try it with a hunter and then come say this.

Originally Posted by Bear_

Got him today, last one for the deed. Wasn't too hard with a good herby.

quickshot -> barbed arrow -> penetrating shot -> lowcut -> run away, runaway

worked pretty well.

Someone already did.

Key here is kiting and a healer.

Personally I suck at kiting - or at least haven't practiced much. I also have a protector - so it looks like i'm pretty screwed on that strategy for now.

Then again I'm not an OCD completionist - although with repair costs going down in the next patch, I might try it out a bit more.

Ok, I just tried this guy, finally got the encounter.

I used a normal Rack of Lamb before the fight started. I had on 4 pieces of the Dar set for the fire mit. My soldier is a level 10 Archer with skills at level 5 or so.

Even using taunts and letting my soldier do all the DPS, I was down below 3k morale before Ruingalad was below 12k. Died without getting close to killing him.

Second try I went active DPS. Got him down to about 5k before I had to kite him. I used Sprint to get out of his fire aura and then just let my archer plug him, also used Let Fly for the extra damage. I finished with about 1600 morale.

So, yes, this guy is soloable, but I don't see how anyone finds him easy. I certainly don't see how anyone kills him without kiting. The fire aura and damage reflects sap morale far too quickly.

EDIT: by comparison, the elite Morvul encounter mob only knocked me down about 2k morale, and I used no pots or self-heals in that fight. Both Ruingalad and the morvul have 18k morale.

Originally Posted by Solien

I certainly don't see how anyone kills him without kiting.

This is certainly the key.

It's incredibly challenging for melee classes to kite and kill but it's doable. Had I known about his mechanics/aura/wound dot, I would have tried a Ranged pet (which would have been seemingly as useless as he would be Lvl 1) but as it was, my Guard (Whatever they're called) just followed him around taunting.

I do hope that Turbine leaves the challenge of Ruingalad as is. There aren't many things in this game that allow one to truly test your skill and skillset, well since SoA and the EM challenges.

Originally Posted by bprorsum

It's incredibly challenging for melee classes to kite and kill but it's doable. Had I known about his mechanics/aura/wound dot, I would have tried a Ranged pet

Yes, having an Archer really helped. When I started kiting him, he was at about 5k morale, I was under 2k. I hit Charge and a morale pot at the same time. It took him a while to get close to me again, and while he was chasing me, my archer was plugging away and knocking him down pretty hard. At that point it was just a matter of staying out of his fire aura and getting off a Let Fly shot whenever possible.

Originally Posted by bprorsum

I do hope that Turbine leaves the challenge of Ruingalad as is.

IIRC, there's plans to nerf him in some regard.

Heaven forbid something be more challenging than easymode.

Originally Posted by Bombadil411

Heaven forbid something be more challenging than easymode.

Removing the reflect damage but leaving the fire aura will not turn this into easy mode. And the change is only for solo mode, the group modes will remain the same.

I killed this guy with very little trouble last night. I just tanked him. I didn't even have to burn my man-heal. I think I used 1 moral pot. I had a bit over 500 moral left after he self destructed.

Because I knew about the reflect damage I did not try burn him down. I equipped my sword and shield and drew out the fight letting my Warrior soldier's bleeds do their work. I wear the 25 radiance DG set, so my fire resist was about 23.5% to 24% I used no food, because I forgot to. I also probably should have placed my moral banner for the 1k extra moral buffer, but I forgot to do that as well.

Weighing in on the easy/hard debate on this encounter.

Harder than the average bear. Most encounters that are elite grade are generally manageable simply because the type of mob they relate to have few/no tricks up their sleeves. Lordfisher in Thievery and Mischief can hurt more due to the bleeds and armour debuff. Fear debuffs from Angmarim and the like can hurt anyone who already has power issues.

This guy has:

Constant bleed - fire aura
Reflect Buff - all damage
Potential for extra bleed (5%) - fire.
Plus it's usual auto-attacks - fire.

If that weren't enough - this is the big one that I would like to address:

Self-Destruct

I do not believe that this skill is working as intended, or at least...it may just be opinion but this ability of his is unfair and can only be gotten around with the use of LoS issues.
Interrupts - they work.
Except they don't. MAYBE maybe wardens could do this, but - the induction for the self-destruct ability will simply re-activate even if you interrupt this skill. This seems rather out of line of normal induction skills with enemy mobs. The fastest I have ever seen barring 2 separate heal inductions that NPC defilers can do back to back or the spirits in Sammath Gul who can summon every ~4-5 seconds (and therefore possible to interrupt with 5s stamp, clobber etc).

Luckily, I have found that I am capable of going toe to toe with this creature and even taking the explosion at the end with well over 1000-2000 morale to spare.

That said, I'm a guardian, the mitigation tank and also the now +5 per vitality point guardian.
No wonder we can outlast it, it's what we've pretty much been able to do since day one.

This somewhat reminds me of the Gurvand fight in Dark Delvings. The fight is a difficult one but possible...what made things really difficult was that in challenge mode, the odds were just so grandly stacked against you. The incoming damage debuff, the adds, slowed inductions therefore healing, throws, more adds, "it's time to reflect damage" (...Bleeding Ears? I never understood that name).

The point is - compared to all other encounters, so many odds stacked against that one person.
Now - it is reasonable that not all encounters be ideal for solo. A 3 person version would be easier in that you'd be able to heal the extra damage coming in so fair enough.

So personally, my only complaint is this:
Self-destruct, if you can stun him, fear him, interrupt him etc out of this ability...he doesn't get to do it instantly again once he's up and running (stun/fear) or once you've stopped it (interrupts). By all means, it can happen again but not straight away - maybe make it recur based on remaining morale (i.e. multiple points, at the moment it occurs at ~3000 morale, so set another 2 or 3 points like 2000, 1000, 500 or just 2000, 1000).

Anyway...that's all.

P.S. Still, I feel for the people who simply cannot do this. It's hard to take a good stance on this as I agree that for some class/soldier combinations it's just too much, but on the other hand, I do enjoy a more interesting fight and wouldn't want to see it just become an 18k fire grim with nothing of interest to it. What I would say though is this:

I find it exceptionally strange that this particular encounter has so many tricks to it by comparison to other fire grims in this skirmish, yet so many other encounters are really just more morale versions of their lesser kin, why the discrepancy?

Killed him the first time I encountered him on my mini, luckily I had read these posts before then.

I made sure I had Ballad of flame up at all times, ran the tale of frost and flame, and wore armor with fire defense. As other posts suggest, sent my warrior in first as I tiered up ballads and then let him go at it. Hit ruingalad as much as I could until I was about 1/2 morale and then dropped warspeech and just made sure to keep my warrior and myself up.

I don't believe this was the toughest skirm encounter I've completed because I learned many lessons doing all the other encounters. Had I not had that experience (and the remarks here, thanks to those that piped in advice!) I certainly would have not fared as well.

Originally Posted by Ultiheart

I find it exceptionally strange that this particular encounter has so many tricks to it by comparison to other fire grims in this skirmish, yet so many other encounters are really just more morale versions of their lesser kin, why the discrepancy?

I noticed that just like with Lieutenants, some encounters gain new tricks at higher group settings. It's possible that with this one they forgot to disable some for Solo.

I still find it amusing that jwbarry's response to this thread was basically, "some encounters may not be meant for solo skirmishes." Amusing because I thought that the whole idea behind skirmishes was that they scaled to the group size. Also amusing because there's not a single other encounter that I've seen that even approaches the difficulty of this one (save a self-healing defiler I ran into on my Captain... not having an interrupt on a short cooldown or a stun made that dude pretty tough.)

Anyway, I've taken Ruingalad down on my Champ and Captain so far. Sadly, to kill him on my Champ I had to set the encounter to level 61 (when I was 65) and turtle up in Glory w/Invincible traited. I was using a Bannerguard, but perhaps an Herbalist would've been better. Having done it once on the lower setting, I'm fairly sure that I could take him again on-level, but I honestly don't care to try. My eyes are bleeding from all the skirmishing I've done for Scrolls of Empowerment.

As for my Captain: on-level, HoH-traited, Warrior, Improved Hope Banner, Revealing Mark... worked like a charm. I did have to pop Last Stand, though - even with 8.5k morale at the start of the fight.

I look forward to doing this fight on my RK - I suspect that I'll just have to clear the courtyard, then kite and burn.

Originally Posted by Lestache

I still find it amusing that jwbarry's response to this thread was basically, "some encounters may not be meant for solo skirmishes." Amusing because I thought that the whole idea behind skirmishes was that they scaled to the group size. Also amusing because there's not a single other encounter that I've seen that even approaches the difficulty of this one (save a self-healing defiler I ran into on my Captain... not having an interrupt on a short cooldown or a stun made that dude pretty tough.)

Anyway, I've taken Ruingalad down on my Champ and Captain so far. Sadly, to kill him on my Champ I had to set the encounter to level 61 (when I was 65) and turtle up in Glory w/Invincible traited. I was using a Bannerguard, but perhaps an Herbalist would've been better. Having done it once on the lower setting, I'm fairly sure that I could take him again on-level, but I honestly don't care to try. My eyes are bleeding from all the skirmishing I've done for Scrolls of Empowerment.

As for my Captain: on-level, HoH-traited, Warrior, Improved Hope Banner, Revealing Mark... worked like a charm. I did have to pop Last Stand, though - even with 8.5k morale at the start of the fight.

I look forward to doing this fight on my RK - I suspect that I'll just have to clear the courtyard, then kite and burn.

jwbarry later replied that the encounter was being changed a bit. Ruingalad is losing its reflect ability in Solo Skirmishes.

And yeah, that Defiler in Assault on the Ringwraith's Lair is somewhat of a pain. I have to switch to Sword and Board because the Parry line stuns are just not reliable enough to stop him from his back-to-back healing he likes to do as his morale gets low.

Originally Posted by Golledhel

jwbarry later replied that the encounter was being changed a bit. Ruingalad is losing its reflect ability in Solo Skirmishes.

Why?

It's incredibly frustrating that a portion of the community wants a difficult encounter because they like to be challenged and then when faced with that encounter, they want it nerfed.

So far, it seems like every class has been able to down him. Not every player, sure but every class has and for that it shows that the given class skillsets are enough to defeat a tough encounter.

Originally Posted by bprorsum

and then when faced with that encounter, they want it nerfed.

I don't think this happened because players wanted it nerfed, but because the devs realized it was an unintended mistake.

Originally Posted by bprorsum

Why?

It's incredibly frustrating that a portion of the community wants a difficult encounter because they like to be challenged and then when faced with that encounter, they want it nerfed.

There is a difference between difficult and impossible.
As a champ that does rather well in skirmishes, he is simply impossible to dispose off.
Period.
Fraps as Champ or it did not happen.

Oh and on level encounters selfbuffed please.

A kinmate RK defeated him first attempt-- his soldier is a warrior-- he had the soldier go at it and he just healed the soldier-- but it took a while!..

I simply skip this encounter after failing miserably twice.... and I agree with one of the earlier posts that stated if it spawns in a solo it should be soloable by reasonably geared/traited players.

Originally Posted by neologia

There is a difference between difficult and impossible.
As a champ that does rather well in skirmishes, he is simply impossible to dispose off.
Period.
Fraps as Champ or it did not happen.

Oh and on level encounters selfbuffed please.

Did it the once, self buffed champ. My herbalist is better now but I'll go back in and fraps the fight for you.

Food allowed?

I took him down fairly easily with my warden when he had an herbalist - didn't even really realize it was a "hard" fight. Then I went back in with a sage, I still won but got killed by the self destruct (didn't realize it hit that hard and was letting my morale drop to DPS the last little bit). Over all, even when I could win easily I decided the guy wasn't worth the time/effort and cost of using a pot and waiting for everything to regen.

Tried him on my hunter and - died *quickly*. So much so that I find it pretty much impossible. I'll believe someone out there can do it and if I was willing to die a bunch to figure out exactly how I may be able too - but even then I bet I would need better gear and would just skip the whole thing.

I'm OK geared, since I do not raid I do not have any rad gear. I figure that if I had better grear on my warden I wouldn't have died with the sage - I think he got me by under 100 health. I sit at ~6250 health right now. On my hunter I have a mix of the purple Moria instance gear (got it back when you could get it of the AH) and SoM stuff so she is better geared than my warden. I also suspect that going from a ~rank 12 soldier to 17+ would help too.

*shrug* If you want the challenge there is a "tier II" and "tier III" in skirmishes. Ruingalad feels like what a "tier III" encounter should be - only the better geared and top players can win. Not a tier I. So to the person saying the people want a challenge, get it, then complain - not true. If I'm on Tier I I'm not playing for a challenge - I'm playing for something else. For me, I like blowing through the mobs - when I *do* want a challenge I simply do a higher tier. There is no reason to have an "easy mode" (that *is* what tier I skirmishes are) encounter only be doable by the top 5% (or whatever - we can clearly see it is a small group on a number of classes). Since you can choose medium and hard mode through a drop down all should be happy if/when this comes to pass (I didn't see anything in the patch notes so I guess we still do not know exactly how the nerf is going to happen).

Originally Posted by strcpy

....
Tried him on my hunter and - died *quickly*. So much so that I find it pretty much impossible. I'll believe someone out there can do it and if I was willing to die a bunch to figure out exactly how I may be able too - but even then I bet I would need better gear and would just skip the whole thing.
....

My hunter is only level 15, so it will be a while before I try this. (A moot point anyway with the damage refection being removed). But I'm thinking fire resist gear and traiting for combat traps and strong traps. Trap him and stand back using auto-attacks and bleeds only. Some kind of healing soldier would help too. I'm pretty sure the damage reflected is tactical, so traiting for reduced incoming tactical damage should help as well.

I got this encounter a couple of times right after the skirmishes came out, I failed. I did not get it again until last Saturday, and I pretty much run this skirmish daily.

I don't understand why I died before. Pulled him, then turtled, popped four of my HoT's and let my Archer do the damage. Never dropped below 75% health.

Yeah, I finally got him today, and he's a pushover for a warden. Keeping Conviction, Restoration, and Celebration of Skill up meant I never dipped below 80% morale on tier 2. Took a couple minutes, mostly due to my sage running out of power in thirty seconds flat, but it was an easy fight. Then again, I can see how it might be rough for a class with less self-healing. He did hit me for over 1k a couple times, and the reflect would have been a problem if I had been actively DPSing him.

Ruingalad the Pwnablebywardens, should be the title of the thread

Originally Posted by LewsTherinTelamon

Did it the once, self buffed champ. My herbalist is better now but I'll go back in and fraps the fight for you.

Food allowed?

Full glory traited & Invincible ?
That could maybe work, I lack the experience with that setup.

Hell my herbalist is not ueber just around 10ish,
which gets me through mass pulls in all other skirmishes.
Based on my statistics I do rather well to excellent,
its just this single mob that gets me every time in a matter of seconds.
Maybe I miss some crucial detail

Yet the point stays the same,
if its a solo skirmish and one has to trait specifically to be able to beat an individual encounter that is a minor feature of that skirmish,
then the monster is the problem not the overall difficulty.

I like difficult, I dislike unreasonable.

Originally Posted by SGWB

My hunter is only level 15, so it will be a while before I try this. (A moot point anyway with the damage refection being removed). But I'm thinking fire resist gear and traiting for combat traps and strong traps. Trap him and stand back using auto-attacks and bleeds only. Some kind of healing soldier would help too. I'm pretty sure the damage reflected is tactical, so traiting for reduced incoming tactical damage should help as well.

The problem is at 18k health it takes so much to kill him and he kills you so fast you can't make mistakes. Further it takes a while to level a soldier up to the point where they are useful that if you hadn't gone with an herbalist you will be spending many many hours just to kill one encounter let alone needing to retrait/re-equip. Again, we aren't playing Tier I skirmishes for "challenge", that is what tier II and tier III are for.

Even with a Warden if I only try and kill by stacking bleeds it takes a long time. At least with a warden I can do so (and self heal) with masteries. However, with just bleeds, the warden out dps's the hunter. My guess is that even with what you say it will take a couple of pots even if things go perfectly well.

*shurg* he something I just skip right now on all of them. Its not worth the 10 SM and the possibility of a SM coin drop. Takes too long to kill with the warden and too likely to kill you on others. If I want it for the deed I'll just run the skirmish at a low level and I should be able to kill him, otherwise those torches aren't going to be lit.

Originally Posted by neologia

Full glory traited & Invincible ?
That could maybe work, I lack the experience with that setup.

Hell my herbalist is not ueber just around 10ish,
which gets me through mass pulls in all other skirmishes.
Based on my statistics I do rather well to excellent,
its just this single mob that gets me every time in a matter of seconds.
Maybe I miss some crucial detail

Yet the point stays the same,
if its a solo skirmish and one has to trait specifically to be able to beat an individual encounter that is a minor feature of that skirmish,
then the monster is the problem not the overall difficulty.

I like difficult, I dislike unreasonable.

Nope traited as I normally am, 4 AoE, 2 Beserker and controlled fury (whatever the CB trait is called). Started in fervour, think I switched to CB fairly quickly, used most of my cooldowns and then the last half hamstrung, kited, sound the attack kited and used my bow. I'll get a fraps next time I get the encounter to show up.

Originally Posted by LewsTherinTelamon

Nope traited as I normally am, 4 AoE, 2 Beserker and controlled fury (whatever the CB trait is called). Started in fervour, think I switched to CB fairly quickly, used most of my cooldowns and then the last half hamstrung, kited, sound the attack kited and used my bow. I'll get a fraps next time I get the encounter to show up.

hmm nods. nearly the same thing i tried, just that i started out in CB then did unload and tried to kite, in between used up manheal // dire need.
Actually now that I think about it, endurance of stone, these 75% fire migitation for 10 seconds could have been a deceicive factor.
Last time I died with him around 3 or 5 k Morale left, if i recall correctly.
Hmm..
I blieve that you killed him, just cant imagine it, yet *grins*

Originally Posted by neologia

hmm nods. nearly the same thing i tried, just that i started out in CB then did unload and tried to kite, in between used up manheal // dire need.
Actually now that I think about it, endurance of stone, these 75% fire migitation for 10 seconds could have been a deceicive factor.
Last time I died with him around 3 or 5 k Morale left, if i recall correctly.
Hmm..
I blieve that you killed him, just cant imagine it, yet *grins*

The 75% fire mitigation would help greatly, if it actually worked. I was still taking the same fire damage after I popped it like I was before. With Superdorf up, my fire mitigation is 98.9% - so maybe for 10s the mob was actually hitting me for 10k a hit, but more likely it just doesn't work right.

Originally Posted by neologia

hmm nods. nearly the same thing i tried, just that i started out in CB then did unload and tried to kite, in between used up manheal // dire need.
Actually now that I think about it, endurance of stone, these 75% fire migitation for 10 seconds could have been a deceicive factor.
Last time I died with him around 3 or 5 k Morale left, if i recall correctly.
Hmm..
I blieve that you killed him, just cant imagine it, yet *grins*

Yeah sounds about right, although I didn't use endurance of stone. I did die to his self destruct but this was the very first time I had seen him so knowing he has it I would have not gone toe-to-toe near the end.

This guy was a pain in the *** to kill on my hunter. Had to S:S QS slow him then tick Barbed Arrow out to avoid the reflect. Bard's Arrow and kiting to get out of his aura. Nasty encounter. Made a bad decision to roll with a bannerguard, but I suppose the heals helped a teeny little bit.

Still haven't beaten it.. though I rarely ever get it. *shrug*

Might as well move this to the top since we're getting a few new posts about it.

Originally Posted by ShinryuLOTR

Still haven't beaten it.. though I rarely ever get it. *shrug*

Might as well move this to the top since we're getting a few new posts about it.

Which Soldier and what traits?

Originally Posted by Golledhel

Which Soldier and what traits?

Generally I use a Herbalist, but I have a partially levelled Sage, Archer and Warrior as well. Traits vary.

In the very few times I've tried, I find I just take damage too quickly with Ruing's aura and reflect combined. I haven't tried with a dedicated S&B set-up yet as I'm generally set up at least partially for OP when running skirms.

Originally Posted by ShinryuLOTR

Generally I use a Herbalist, but I have a partially levelled Sage, Archer and Warrior as well. Traits vary.

In the very few times I've tried, I find I just take damage too quickly with Ruing's aura and reflect combined. I haven't tried with a dedicated S&B set-up yet as I'm generally set up at least partially for OP when running skirms.

Go s&b, and use nothing but basic attacks, guardian's Ward when needed, and keep bleeds up. If necessary, stop attacking altogether and let the bleeds do all the work. Pot the wound as soon as it comes up. When you need to run away, stun him, and (Brutal) Charge to get as far away as possible. Then run around the big square in the courtyard to keep a good distance between Ruin and you, while the Herbalist heals you. Make sure you cleared all of the courtyard before attempting him. Traiting the Herbalist for the big heals, and the Ultimate heal, helps alot, though she'll run out of power fast. Also Defender's Bane personal helps reduce those P/B/Es immensely.

I've beat him solo now with Mini and Hunter. Mini uses a warrior and hunter an Herbalist. What I did with the mini was just stand there and autoattack and heal through the damage while my warrior did the bulk of the damage. When things got too "hot" use fear and run with the fire ballad. Remember that soldiers don't take aura damage so as long as you keep aggro your soldier can beat em up pretty well.

For hunter it was way harder. Strength stance slow and kiting are key and use bards arrow as frequently as possible to give yourself a break and let the herbalist catch up on healing you. Always take a pot to clear the wound as soon as it comes up. I did find I frequently had to toot the horn to get the herbalist to start healing me as when I used bards arrow to fear Ruingalad she would actually stop healing thanks to the anti CC code build into soldiers.

I beat this Encounter on a solo skirmish. I play a 65 Hunter and my Soldier is a Rank 20 Warrior. We had no issues beating him. If you can kite, it makes this fight very easy. I did have to tone down the dps a little to counter the Reflect Damage buff that Ruingalad had, but I was able to get it down in the end. I refrained from using Heartseeker as well, since I figured that wouldn't be to nice of a reflect if it landed a Critical Hit on him!

Originally Posted by Elrendos

I beat this Encounter on a solo skirmish. I play a 65 Hunter and my Soldier is a Rank 20 Warrior. We had no issues beating him. If you can kite, it makes this fight very easy. I did have to tone down the dps a little to counter the Reflect Damage buff that Ruingalad had, but I was able to get it down in the end. I refrained from using Heartseeker as well, since I figured that wouldn't be to nice of a reflect if it landed a Critical Hit on him!

"You wound yourself for OMGWTF points of damage"

I have beaten him twice but I don't need to light any more lamps

I use a pretty well ranked herbalist, keep the slows up and kite, the faster I can get away from the doorway where he comes out the better.

The first time I killed him was actually the easiest and I did it by accident. After I lit the lamps he came out I thought it was just another grim, I got down to about 500 HP in about 10 seconds, sacrificed my healer and DF'd. Came back down to find him at the end of that long walkway from the 1st checkpoint. Plenty of room to stay away, hit the HS first giving the healer time to get me recovered and I didn't have to kite him very much. Precision over SS and I didn't have any misses or resists...

I wouldn't want to see him nerfed though...