Is it feasible to solo farm the Uber bosses?

Question

I'm getting ready to build my Infernal Machines, and I'm trying to decide if I should start looking for groups to run with, or if I can handle the fights solo.

Given how time-intesive it is to obtain sufficient keys to build a sufficient number of Infernal Machines, I'd like to complete the Uber boss fights on a higher MP level.

It seems like most of the strategies I see assume you are in a group, so you can split the bosses. Is that required, or are other tactics for a solo player viable?

I can comfortably farm MP4 with my MF gear, and could probably handle MP6 or even higher. Is it realistic to expect to be able to solo farm Uber bosses at, or slightly below, the MP level I am comfortable farming?

If class is a determining factor, I play a Witch Doctor.

Answer 1

The other answers both provide useful information, but I don't feel they really answer the question fully.

After wasting an Infernal Machine to attempt to solo it, asking around on the forums, and going through the fights with a wizard capable of soloing them on MP6, I feel I now have enough of a handle on it to answer.

Short version: There are certain gear/build combinations available (presumably for each class, although I can't say for certain) that make soloing absolutely feasible. However, just because you can solo all 4 Inferno acts at a given MP level effectively does not mean you can solo the uber bosses.

Many farming builds rely upon burning through enemies quickly and efficiently, and may relegate healing or resource regeneration to health globes or time. These builds still work with regular bosses because those encounters were designed to allow you to learn the mechanics enough to avoid or mitigate most of the major sources of incoming damages (i.e. dodging the butcher's chain attacks, avoiding the ground attacks during the appropriate phases of Belial, Azmodan, or Diablo, etc.).

This is much less feasible for the ubers, due to the combined attacks.

Therefore, in order to be able to solo, you need to have some form of sustained self-healing available (either high levels of life steal or stacked Life on Hit with a properly synergistic skill). Interrupting crowd controls will help a lot, but aren't as mandatory. Uber Siegebreaker, in particular, makes some form of healing on hit of utmost importance, even when grouping.

Without this, it isn't feasible to solo the encounters.

Even with the appropriate levels of survivability, you need to have sufficient DPS, as not only are enrage timers an issue, but you have to worry about keeping the NV stacks up. If you take too long, particularly if it takes you multiple attempts, you will have to periodically go out and hunt elites to refresh your stacks, lest you risk losing your stacks partway through an uber fight (and thereby guaranteeing that they will not drop the organs you seek).

Answer 2

I would advise to play in a group, because you as a group will get more ring parts per Infernal Machine. (edit for misunderstanding: You can get a ring part from someone else's infernal machine when you play in a group)

Also, since it takes time to gather the machines, it's advisable to run at at least the MP level you can farm with.

Note that the ubers are in a narrow space (about the size of the siegebreaker area) and hit hard. I played them with a party of 2, and when one dies, the other doesn't have the time to resurrect, so either play alone or with at least 3. (Unless you're sure you won't die)

Answer 3

Edit 2: Monk thread was deleted off the forums. I will see if I can find his videos posted on YouTube later. In the meantime, the stats I remember him having were:

• 39k Damage
• 600 All resists
• 1700 Life on Hit
• Roughly 35k hp
• 4k Armor

The main factor is his weapon, Sledge Fist (Fist weapon) providing a high chance to stun, and his high LoH on top of his defensive stats.

Another key factor is he swaps in gear to buff his Sweeping Wind damage as high as possible, and keeps that buff up the entire time. This only works due to how Sweeping Wind works by taking a "snapshot" of the monk's damage when it's cast.

I don't if this is possible with other classes, but I assume if you can eventually get the best in slot gear, you'll be able to solo the Uber bosses even at MP10.

On higher monster power, you will need to have the necessary DPS to beat the bosses before enrage. I don't know what the time limit is, so if anyone could fill in that information, it would be much appreciated.

Answer 4

Re: Is it realistic to expect to be able to solo farm Uber bosses at, or slightly below, the MP level I am comfortable farming?

Short answer: Yes

I completed mp 5 ubers including ZK/seige last night on my barb. I had to go heavy on cc abilities:

1.Leap Death from above (stun) 2. War Cry Impunity (all resist) 3. Rend Blood (dps + life steal) 4. battle Rage Marauders (dps) Left mouse: Ground Stomp Wrenching Smash (stun) right mouse: Frenzy smite (20% chance 1.5 sec stun)

weapon: 1 hand with chance to stun/freeze etc (i had to go with a shield due to low health around 30k) and life steal

shield: good block % (i need to research shield attributes so there could be additional benefits if there are stuns available)

passive: tough as nails (again the health issue) gives more armor than nerves of steel

I was able to lock down the dude that picks you up, leap/stun him to get out of those stupid bubbles that slow you down, and slowly whittle him down. Zultan Kulle was easy to kill after that. I didn't time it, but it probably was a good 2-3 minute fight with about 100k dps.

I expect to be able to do mp6 with current gear, but mp7 would probably require more than the 30k health I am rocking right now.

Answer 5

I play the Xbox console version, so my experience might not be applicable to the PC.

While I've been able to solo all of the uber bosses on Master Level V with a mid-level-geared CM/WW wizard, I've always had a great deal of difficulty with the Kulle/Siegebreaker fight. I recently had to give up after maybe 30 tries when my thumb got tired, so I started looking for an alternative way to farm Hellfire Rings. I leveled up my second witch doctor, fairly well-geared, and today I just knocked down all three uber boss fights in a total of 12 minutes. So, my WD is now officially my baddest toon. Here's what I have.

Paragon level: 43

Gear:

Bonesaber of Zumakalis with +.27 Attacks per Second, +9% AS, 3% lifesteal, no socket
Homunculus with +Dmg, Vit, Life, low end ZD and Garg cooldown reduction
Zunimassa's Vision, Trail, and Marrow; each with one of AS, CC, CD
Gladiator Gauntlets with CC, CD, LOH
Squirt's Necklace with CC, CD
Witching Hour with AS, CD Zunimassa's Pox with CD, AS Unity with +Dmg, CC, LOH
Hammer Jammers (boy are they ugly on the WD!) for the movement speed
Reasonable crafted shoulders and bracers
Four radiant square and one marquise topaz, one RS amethyst; also one marq amethyst in helm

As you can see, the gear is pretty good, but not all top end stuff either. I got all of it from leveling up a wizard and a couple of witch doctors. (Well, a monk, a DH, and a couple of barbarians too, but they don't usually drop Int gear. I did get the Zuni Pox going through inferno with the second barbarian, though.)

Stats:

DPS 540k
Life 123k
APS 2.03
CC 46%
CD +304%
All Res 1246
Life Steal 3%
LOH 603
Bonus Globe Radius 15yd
Movement speed 25
Max mana 1021
Mana regen 75/sec

Skills:

Firebomb - Flash Fire
Firebats - Plague Bats
Summon Zombie Dogs - Final Gift
Spirit Walk - Honored Guest
Sacrifice - Next of Kin
Gargantuan - Bruiser
Spiritual Attunement
Gruesome Feast
Zombie Handler

There aren't too many opportunities to use Flash Fire in the uber fights. (They're great for pulling down trash mobs without wasting mana, and they are hands down the best thing I've found for taking out those annoying tombstones in the graveyard.) You can use it to stand back and ping at the adds in situations where you're waiting for more mana and don't want to attract too much agro.

The goto DPS skill in this build is Plague Bats. (I tried Zombie Bears first, because they do more overall damage, but they cost more mana, miss a lot, and there are less of them, which means that life on hit is less. They also have a shorter range, meaning you have to get closer to the bosses to hit them. I found that I was having trouble keeping up life and went OOM a lot. After dying several times on the Kulle fight, I did some rethinking and came up with the bats.)

Blowing up the dogs is great for some burst damage when you need it (wiping out a bunch of adds in a hurry, for example), and the Garg's stun capability comes in handy sometimes. If you happen to be in range of a stunned boss, you get 3 seconds of unanswered Bat Plague mayhem. The pets also draw agro pretty often, which gives you extra time to reset.

Magda/Skeleton King: Go after the skeleton king first. Use the stairs to help stay out of Magda's arcane beams. Pull down the adds whenever you get a chance, pick up globes. Burn through all your mana on the skeleton king, so long as you have above 30k life or so. Hit Spirit Walk when you run low on mana (or life, the DOT from the bats will restore your life if you have loh and/or steal while you're kiting with Spirit Walk), kite around, rinse and repeat. You can ping the adds with Flash Fire from a distance when convenient. When the king is dead, do the same for Magda. Don't eat too many flies, stay out of the arcane beams. When she puts on the shell, burn down the adds.

Ghom/Rakanoth: I don't have this fight down to a method yet, did some improvising. (The wiz just froze them and that was the end of it.) But, go after Ghom first. (Don't be afraid to plague both of them at once, of course.) Let your garg get his attention if possible, then spam plague bats at him from behind. The gas isn't a problem due to the amount of damage you're doing and your LOH/LS. If Rakanoth whacks you, you should be ok due to the LOH/LS. When you're low on mana, Spirit Walk it back. Use dogs to help blow up adds. Keep them down, switch to them if you need to. If you keep the pillars between Rakanoth and yourself, he won't be able to do his teleport-whack thing effectively.

Zoltan/Siegebreaker: This one gave me the most trouble at first, now it's easier than Ghom/Rakanoth. Go after Zoltan first, in fact, stay away from Siegebreaker. If he goes after you, run to one end or the other. He'll come ahead of Zoltan, your dogs and garg will go after him, and he'll spend all his time messing with them. Run around him, find Zoltan. Stay out of his tornadoes. If you get caught in his slow time bubble, get out of it. You can burn a Spirit Walk to do that at full speed. Once you're in range, plague him until he runs off. You can chase him with Spirit Walk, too. Keep plague bats up on him as long as you can, then run off to the other end. If Siegebreaker comes after you, take off. If Zombie Dogs are dying, blow them up and bring them back. Rinse and repeat until Zoltan is gone. Wait for his stuff to go away if you need to, then start moving in on Siegebreaker from the side. Plague him as long as he isn't paying attention to you. Rinse and repeat again. [Edit: next time I tried blowing up the dogs on Siegebreaker, I got one-shotted every time by his reflect damage capability. Probably because my DPS had about doubled and my life had stayed the same. Anyway, I just kept tanking him with the dogs and the garg, pinging him with firebombs until life got low, kiting, taking health potions, and so on.]

Anyway, that's one way to solo the ubers, on the console at least. :)

Answer 6

Uber bosses are tough. I'm fairly well geared and can solo all mp10 bosses without a problem. However, i can't beat uber sk/magda or uber kulle/seige. When seige picks me up, kulle's tornado and rocks can hurt me. Ghom/rakanoth at mp10 was easy though. I might go around beating sk/magda when i get some 200 extra All Resist to survive 3 stacking butterflies. I have no idea how to solo kulle/seige.

Answer 7

Just built and launched first infernal machine, farmed at MP4, against MP2 Ubers to see what the deal was. Self-geared wizard. Naturally its Zolton/Siegebreaker. After getting clobbered switched to the original Diablo kiting build. Force Armor, Diamond Skin, Hydra, Blizzard, Magic Missle (seeker) Teleport (fracture). Just stay away, teleport out of the bubbles, diamond skin if you get grabbed, throw missles and blizzards over your shoulder and let hydra do the damage. Concentrate on Zolton first. ONce he is gone Siegebreaker was easy to avoid and finish off. Also ran the enchantress with a Maximus, so the Demon slave tanked well. No Drop, but I feel like I could consistently kill at this level.

Answer 8

Witch Doctor here, I can run MP6, all acts, with no/few deaths. I did 2 out of 3 ubers Last night on MP 5.

SK/Magda killed me 2x. I survived by running circles while Garg (Bruiser) and Templar (Freeze spec), helped tank.

I run with stun on my gloves, and freeze on my belt, which also helps. I also have no life steal, so there is room there for sustainability (though I do have 1100 LoH).

Answer 9

Demon hunter and even though I die ALOT on mp5 I do fairly well but that's because I run with groups for some extra cash on my part to buy some socketed items and gems to get stronger (hopefully) also a trick that I figured out is set turrets if you are ever in a hallway so you don't get overwhelmed as bad and throw grenades to thin them out (this trick is for demon hunters)

Answer 10

i got a barb on mp3 (console, unpatched) and can effectively take down any ubers, and that's as high as I can go, but I still farm two out of three organs in one go. that's solo, btw.