Are there any sites with good boss AI and ability descriptions?

[MongoJerry]

My hardcore level 60 Wizard just got killed by Rakanoth in hell. Yes, yes, we're all saddened by it. She'll be reborn and will return soon enough.

However, this and a couple other scares in previous boss encounters got me thinking that I am certain that I am taking damage from some attacks in boss encounters that are entirely avoidable. For this reason, I tried doing some Google searches for guides for various D3 bosses, hoping they would give me some tips listing all of the boss abilities and various quirks about their AI so that I can improve my play -- especially before I start trying to tackle some of the bosses in Inferno. However, all of the guides I found were... well, let's just say they weren't good. They often weren't specific about boss abilities or AI, they often were written from just one class's point of view, and frankly, I recognized some of them to have bad or wrong information.

So, is there a site that you know of that has reliable information on all or most of the bosses?

And, as long as we're on the subject, throw me a bone on Rakanoth. My gear was fine for the fight. I was able to heal up using a potion after he teleported on top of me and slashed me a couple of times, and I was doing decent damage to him. However, while I was already recovering from a previous attack, I think he critted me with a second teleport/slash attack and while I ran to try to buy time for the potion to come off cooldown, he teleported on top of me again and finished me off. From the jumble of sites I found, a few comments said that if you stay just out of melee range but keep him well on screen, you can avoid getting melee attacked and at the same time, he won't teleport on top of you. Is this correct?

[Elric of Grans]

I have not seen such a thing, but that is what The Lounge is all about. We can pool out knowledge.

Rakanoth was giving me trouble today too. He has an attack that does absurd damage and cannot be dodged. Roland joined me and put out enough DPS that he did not have enough time to get to that attack

As best I can tell, Rakanoth has the following special attacks in addition to simple melee ones:
1) a whirlwind breath that hits roughly a 90 degree arc in front of him (he can turn just before attacking). This seems to have medium range, and their are (randomly located) gaps in it.
2) a breath attack that hits all around him, at random points. This also seems to be mid-range, and two of those tongue minions spawn (forget the creature name).
3) a teleport. If you are close, he teleports away; if you are far, he teleports to you. The teleport towards has an instant attack, but can be Dodged/Blocked, or avoided with things like Smoke Screen or absorbed with Crystal Skin.

As far as I can tell, he mixes these up fairly randomly, though he always uses (1) followed by (2) or (3). I have never seen (2) and (3) sequential, nor any move used twice in a row. He also seems to be immune to control effects (eg Stun). I tried the `just outside melee range' trick a couple of times, but sometimes after he teleports away he would teleport towards and attack before I could get back into range. For a Wizard, Teleport would have allowed the instant closing of the gap needed.

[Lissa]

My hardcore level 60 Wizard just got killed by Rakanoth in hell. Yes, yes, we're all saddened by it. She'll be reborn and will return soon enough.

However, this and a couple other scares in previous boss encounters got me thinking that I am certain that I am taking damage from some attacks in boss encounters that are entirely avoidable. For this reason, I tried doing some Google searches for guides for various D3 bosses, hoping they would give me some tips listing all of the boss abilities and various quirks about their AI so that I can improve my play -- especially before I start trying to tackle some of the bosses in Inferno. However, all of the guides I found were... well, let's just say they weren't good. They often weren't specific about boss abilities or AI, they often were written from just one class's point of view, and frankly, I recognized some of them to have bad or wrong information.

So, is there a site that you know of that has reliable information on all or most of the bosses?

And, as long as we're on the subject, throw me a bone on Rakanoth. My gear was fine for the fight. I was able to heal up using a potion after he teleported on top of me and slashed me a couple of times, and I was doing decent damage to him. However, while I was already recovering from a previous attack, I think he critted me with a second teleport/slash attack and while I ran to try to buy time for the potion to come off cooldown, he teleported on top of me again and finished me off. From the jumble of sites I found, a few comments said that if you stay just out of melee range but keep him well on screen, you can avoid getting melee attacked and at the same time, he won't teleport on top of you. Is this correct?

I do not know of any site like this, but specifically about Rakanoth, if you are not within 10 yards within a couple seconds (even if Rakanoth teleports), he performs an instagib move that the only way out of it is either get lucky and dodge it or have some kind of power that forces him to target something else (smokescreen -- works, mirror image -- need confirmation from a wizard that has used it, not sure on WD). Rakanoth is deadly to ranged classes because of this instagib move he does (and no matter how much health you have or how much armor you have, you die if hit).

[Quark]

I do not know of any site like this, but specifically about Rakanoth, if you are not within 10 yards within a couple seconds (even if Rakanoth teleports), he performs an instagib move that the only way out of it is either get lucky and dodge it or have some kind of power that forces him to target something else (smokescreen -- works, mirror image -- need confirmation from a wizard that has used it, not sure on WD). Rakanoth is deadly to ranged classes because of this instagib move he does (and no matter how much health you have or how much armor you have, you die if hit).

It is not instant kill. I survived it in Normal, Nightmare, and Hell. It's simply an incredibly high amount of damage - on Hell with Force Armor I was going to below 40% life, which means the hit was ~175% of my HP. Note that being within 10 yards causes him to spawn adds. This is why Wizards going in on Inferno are using Familiar + Ancient Guardian, having the Familiar eat up all the teleport attacks while they stay away from letting adds get spawned.

I didn't need the trick in Hell, but that's because I was spec'd and geared for a bunch of Life Per Second recovery to get me back to the safe zone before the next teleport.

[MongoJerry]

I do not know of any site like this, but specifically about Rakanoth, if you are not within 10 yards within a couple seconds (even if Rakanoth teleports), he performs an instagib move that the only way out of it is either get lucky and dodge it or have some kind of power that forces him to target something else (smokescreen -- works, mirror image -- need confirmation from a wizard that has used it, not sure on WD). Rakanoth is deadly to ranged classes because of this instagib move he does (and no matter how much health you have or how much armor you have, you die if hit).

His attack is not insta-kill at least on hell and below. It took him hitting me three times that way during one potion cooldown to kill me. I had about 40k life, 5k armor, and decent resists for Act 4 hell at the time. I can take a hit on occation, but I need to discourage him from doing that to me too many times in rapid succession, which is why I need to understand his AI better.

[Lissa]

I do not know of any site like this, but specifically about Rakanoth, if you are not within 10 yards within a couple seconds (even if Rakanoth teleports), he performs an instagib move that the only way out of it is either get lucky and dodge it or have some kind of power that forces him to target something else (smokescreen -- works, mirror image -- need confirmation from a wizard that has used it, not sure on WD). Rakanoth is deadly to ranged classes because of this instagib move he does (and no matter how much health you have or how much armor you have, you die if hit).

His attack is not insta-kill at least on hell and below. It took him hitting me three times that way during one potion cooldown to kill me. I had about 40k life, 5k armor, and decent resists for Act 4 hell at the time. I can take a hit on occation, but I need to discourage him from doing that to me too many times in rapid succession, which is why I need to understand his AI better.

Well, for a DH with 33k health and 4k armor in hell, it's an Instagib cause DH does not have a reliable damage reduction skill.

[Trevan]

I'm not sure about the mechanics of his ai, but this video at least demonstrates what ranging him at all times does:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrDQR8fNK...re=related

So at very least we know one thing:

He only spawns minions if you're close-midrange.

[MongoJerry]

I'm not sure about the mechanics of his ai, but this video at least demonstrates what ranging him at all times does:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrDQR8fNK...re=related

So at very least we know one thing:

He only spawns minions if you're close-midrange.

Interesting. But Rakanoth's minions weren't really dangerous -- they seemed like free health globes to me. It was his teleporting attack that was nailing me.

[Trevan]

I'm not sure about the mechanics of his ai, but this video at least demonstrates what ranging him at all times does:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrDQR8fNK...re=related

So at very least we know one thing:

He only spawns minions if you're close-midrange.

Interesting. But his minions weren't really dangerous -- they seemed like free health globes to me. It was his teleporting attack that was nailing me.

Yeah, i'm honestly not sure. Many people have been trying to figure that one out, and yet so far that i've seen, people have only discovered how to force him to use it. For what it's worth, I don't think keeping him slightly offscreen stops him from teleporting judging from that video. The way they anticipate his teleport is because he stops moving on the minimap...which is just off screen.

As an aside, he is vulnerable to stuns. In nightmare, my DH cluster bomb stunned him to death without him able to do anything. Everytime he'd start the animation to a move, i'd stun him with it. However, I expect I'll run out of hate in hell. My DH is hc so she's being a little slow.

[MongoJerry]

Yeah, i'm honestly not sure. Many people have been trying to figure that one out, and yet so far that i've seen, people have only discovered how to force him to use it. For what it's worth, I don't think keeping him slightly offscreen stops him from teleporting judging from that video. The way they anticipate his teleport is because he stops moving on the minimap...which is just off screen.

I can say definitively that keeping him slightly off screen does not work. That's what I was trying to do in the first place -- use a combination of Hydra and Magic Missle-Seeker while keeping him just off screen so I could avoid some of his other attacks. And, of course, he was teleporting onto me frequently.

I'll try the tactic of moving in closer to see if that prevents him from teleporting onto me when I get to him in normal. I've also found it helpful before taking on a boss in a new difficulty to go back and fight the boss on an old difficulty with a low dps weapon just to get the feel for a fight in a safe manner.

[Treesh]

Yeah, i'm honestly not sure. Many people have been trying to figure that one out, and yet so far that i've seen, people have only discovered how to force him to use it. For what it's worth, I don't think keeping him slightly offscreen stops him from teleporting judging from that video. The way they anticipate his teleport is because he stops moving on the minimap...which is just off screen.

I can say definitively that keeping him slightly off screen does not work. That's what I was trying to do in the first place -- use a combination of Hydra and Magic Missle-Seeker while keeping him just off screen so I could avoid some of his other attacks. And, of course, he was teleporting onto me frequently.

I'll try the tactic of moving in closer to see if that prevents him from teleporting onto me when I get to him in normal. I've also found it helpful before taking on a boss in a new difficulty to go back and fight the boss on an old difficulty with a low dps weapon just to get the feel for a fight in a safe manner.

Keep in mind that "off screen" range changes depending on your resolution. I know when playing with other people they're able to see stuff that isn't even on my screen yet and they're standing right by me.

[MongoJerry]

I just beat Rakanoth in hell, and it was pretty easy compared to what I had experienced before. Staying just out of melee range worked wonders. I think I had trouble the first time, because when I tried to keep Rakanoth at the edge of the screen, I think it may have pulled the Templar off Rakanoth -- and I think when he doesn't have anyone in melee range, he's more likely to use his teleport special rather than his other specials.

When I tried him out in lower difficulties (with low dps weapons), I noticed that he had this kind of pattern with his specials:

1. A damage spray
2. A damage spray that spawns two adds
3. A damage spray
4. A teleport/smash attack

When the pattern got messed up by Rakanoth teleporting due to me going too far away or the Templar running after an add rather than staying on Rakanoth, then the pattern wouldn't be in exactly that order, but once the everything was set up again the teleport/smash (or whatever the technical name for it is) still seemed to be every 4 special attacks. It's probably tied to a cooldown of some kind.

So, this time, it wasn't hard, since he was only teleporting every 30 seconds or so. I could either potion through it if I got hit or if my Diamond Skin was up, I could absorb it.

And, now, I see a video explaining a much better method for dealing with Rakanoth:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXJqhqdOAhE

So, basically, you can interrupt Rakanoth's special attacks with any kind of stun (frost nova or wave of force for wizards). That makes sense and would've been a lot easier. OK, knowledge filed away for Inferno.

[Trevan]

And, now, I see a video explaining a much better method for dealing with Rakanoth:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXJqhqdOAhE

So, basically, you can interrupt Rakanoth's special attacks with any kind of stun (frost nova or wave of force for wizards). That makes sense and would've been a lot easier. OK, knowledge filed away for Inferno.

I actually discovered that in nightmare difficulty on my DH. I manage to chain stun rakanoth on nightmare to death with cluster arrow.

Similarly, I tried it out on inferno difficulty. With some luck, I was able to get him to about 50% hp before running out of hatred/rng hated me.

I did point this out earlier in the thread. But I dismissed it as a strategy because DH doesn't have any 100% stun chances on anything but a 30 second CD. However, never thought about the other classes.

[MongoJerry]

I did point this out earlier in the thread. But I dismissed it as a strategy because DH doesn't have any 100% stun chances on anything but a 30 second CD. However, never thought about the other classes.

Yeah, you did. I just didn't think of Frost Nova as a stun, which I should have, nor remembered that Wave of Force had a rune that caused a stun. I was too worried about not having Diamond Skin and Teleport that I didn't think about the fact that you could pretty much stop him from using his specials at all if you got both and alternated them. I'll probably try them out on lower difficulties a few times before trying again in hell or Inferno.