SAMAEL, HERALD OF THE END AND RNG
After spending the last few days trying to overcome this boss, many times almost landing my mouse across the room, I finally killed him. And thus I'm qualified to write a guide so you can do it as well. This guide will mainly focus on strategies and things to look out for, not exact numbers, because quite frankly, I don't have any. Will try my best tho. (Entertaining video on my learning experiences - coming soonTM)
Pulsating Worldstone Crystal
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Killing Baal on Hell Difficulty can sometimes get you a Pulsating Worldstone Shard. This is like the Step 0 for the fight. After cubing it several times, clicking through it like NPC dialogue in any game, you'll get to this riddle, which tells you what items do you need to use in order to restore the Crystal
You'll need to cube it with
Using your cube, combine the Crystal with a Taha rune from Fauztinville (or from the trade site/discord, no judging here) and a Greater Signet of Learning (can be made by combining 5x Large Signets too, don't need to specifically drop/find one) - creating a Dimensional Link scroll ,and giving back your Crystal, so don't worry, you don't have to re-farm the first steps again.
Going over to Act 5, right-clicking the Scroll, you'll gain access to the Edge of Nothingness - a very ominous corridor - where you can find the portal the actual Arena. From here, the fight can begin!
You'll need to cube it with
The Glorious Book of Median
The Glorious Book of Median
Required Level: 90
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
+1 to All Skills
Adds 10-15 Damage
+(24 to 45)% Damage to Demons
Elemental Resists +(5 to 15)%
Required Level: 90
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
+1 to All Skills
Adds 10-15 Damage
+(24 to 45)% Damage to Demons
Elemental Resists +(5 to 15)%
Neutrality Pact
Neutrality Pact
Required Level: 90
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
+(1 to 2) to All Skills
+(61 to 100)% Bonus to Summoned Edyrem Life
+(2 to 5) to Purify
Required Level: 90
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
+(1 to 2) to All Skills
+(61 to 100)% Bonus to Summoned Edyrem Life
+(2 to 5) to Purify
Ring of Virtue - The complete Ring from the Void
Ghost Trance - Dropped from Giyua in the Spirit World
Assur's Bane - The complete ring from Duncraig
Using your cube, combine the Crystal with a Taha rune from Fauztinville (or from the trade site/discord, no judging here) and a Greater Signet of Learning (can be made by combining 5x Large Signets too, don't need to specifically drop/find one) - creating a Dimensional Link scroll ,and giving back your Crystal, so don't worry, you don't have to re-farm the first steps again.
Going over to Act 5, right-clicking the Scroll, you'll gain access to the Edge of Nothingness - a very ominous corridor - where you can find the portal the actual Arena. From here, the fight can begin!
Preparations
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The main damage you'll take throughout the fight are Lightning, Cold and Phys/Magic(?) so making sure you have as high of these resistance as possible is mandatory. There is also Fire damage at some points of the fight, so you can stack that as well, but the mechanic for it is not difficult to avoid. So using Perfect Onyx/Bloodstone/Amber and any items with Phys resist is going to make the fight easier by a mile.
Samael has the higest resistance out of all enemies(shared with Phoboss), so if your character is elemental DMG based, you'll need 199% elemental pierce to deal full damage.
There are also many buffs you can use to make you have more HP, like
Another way of preparing is with potions. Because you can't open Town Portals during the fight, and dying is insanely punishing(I'll get to it later, don't worry), stocking up on potions is a nice way to get some extra sustain for a possible 10+ Minute fight. Fill up your Horadric cube with potions, and at the beginning of the fight drop the cube on the ground, and all of the potions will drop as well, making it easy to refill your belt in combat if you're not a fan of opening the inventory in the biggest chaos of events.
And make sure you have game sounds on, because a lot of attacks have audio ques as well, making stuff easier to dodge(although so many times these will overlap, and you won't actually hear the important ones
)
Another useful thing to have is a low-cooldown teleport, universally
Samael has the higest resistance out of all enemies(shared with Phoboss), so if your character is elemental DMG based, you'll need 199% elemental pierce to deal full damage.
There are also many buffs you can use to make you have more HP, like
Relic (Titan's Fortitude)
, but saying you need relics for this is not the best look, I know. You can also do some pre-buffing with the Relic
(Random class Only)
Required Level: 75
+(3 to 9) to Titan's Fortitude
+(101 to 500) Defense
+5% to Experience Gained
(Random class Only)
Required Level: 75
+(3 to 9) to Titan's Fortitude
+(101 to 500) Defense
+5% to Experience Gained
Testament of the Apes
, before going in the arena try to get a Tainted Blood proc., giving you a nice Life Regen bonus with some extra defense. Testament of the Apes
(Ape Set)
Apefoot
Apehand
Apeshoot
Apeskin
Apeskull
Set Bonus with 2 or more set items:
250% Bonus to Attack Rating
+50 to Strength
Set Bonus with 3 or more set items:
Weapon Physical Damage +120%
+75 to Strength
Set Bonus with complete set:
5% Chance to cast level 3 Thunder Slam on Kill
10% Chance to cast level 18 Tainted Blood when Struck by a Missile
+18 to Deathstrike
+10 to Silver Dart
25% Chance of Crushing Blow
50% to All Attributes
Physical Resist 20%
(Ape Set)
Apefoot
Apehand
Apeshoot
Apeskin
Apeskull
Set Bonus with 2 or more set items:
250% Bonus to Attack Rating
+50 to Strength
Set Bonus with 3 or more set items:
Weapon Physical Damage +120%
+75 to Strength
Set Bonus with complete set:
5% Chance to cast level 3 Thunder Slam on Kill
10% Chance to cast level 18 Tainted Blood when Struck by a Missile
+18 to Deathstrike
+10 to Silver Dart
25% Chance of Crushing Blow
50% to All Attributes
Physical Resist 20%
Another way of preparing is with potions. Because you can't open Town Portals during the fight, and dying is insanely punishing(I'll get to it later, don't worry), stocking up on potions is a nice way to get some extra sustain for a possible 10+ Minute fight. Fill up your Horadric cube with potions, and at the beginning of the fight drop the cube on the ground, and all of the potions will drop as well, making it easy to refill your belt in combat if you're not a fan of opening the inventory in the biggest chaos of events.
And make sure you have game sounds on, because a lot of attacks have audio ques as well, making stuff easier to dodge(although so many times these will overlap, and you won't actually hear the important ones
)Another useful thing to have is a low-cooldown teleport, universally
Books of Kalan
, but any skill with lowCD and high distance will do.Books of Kalan
Required Level: 90
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
+1 to All Skills
+(3 to 15) to Teleport
+25 to Life
+50 to Mana
Required Level: 90
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
+1 to All Skills
+(3 to 15) to Teleport
+25 to Life
+50 to Mana
THE FIGHT
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This is where a lot of trial and error will come into play. Even knowing what skills he has, it'll still be a couple of tries get everything into place. Also, RNG is pretty heavily involved. You can work around most stuff, but there are times where you just get the sh*t end of the stick.
You can see 4 "Pain Worms" on the sides, these are invulnerable stationary mobs, firing high-damage cold projectiles constantly towards you, and as with everything in this fight, even with max resists(90%) they hurt a lot.
The other thing to know about the arena itself is the constant lightning damage, like a Holy Shock aura, so you can still take damage even if you're not in any other effects.
Just to make this fight as bad as it can be, every time you die, Samael Heals ~33% of his maxHP, so make sure you rather focus on dodging on your first kill, because even one death can ruin the entirety of the fight. There is a small chance that it won't happen, but I wouldn't bank on it.
On getting hit, Samael has a chance to teleport to a random location, making it harder to setup AoE zones, or multi-hitting abilities. Be careful with name-locking, because he can teleport into other his other abilities, and you don't want to follow him there.
The very first skill/mechanic you'll see once you're in the arena. He also uses it every time you re-enter the zone. Around 2 seconds after the Pentagram appears, it'll send out magic damage dealing rings. If you stand inside the pentagram, you'll take no damage from it, and you can move out as soon as you see the first-second wave go out. It seems to be similar to Ascended Riftwalker's MagicDMG Waves, so I wouldn't recommend trying to tank it. You can also get out of its range, but it almost covers the entire arena.
Samael Sends out a ghost, once it stops moving it uses 4 patterns, always in the same order to shoot Bone spears (I'd write High DMG Bone spears, but what isn't high damage here)
Cross:
The most dangerous out of all, if you get stuck you're pretty much dead. The ghost doesn't have a minimal travel distance, so if Samael is near a wall, the ghost can just start firing immediately, which is (again) most likely an insta-kill.
Spread
Uses this pattern twice, nothing really to worry about, pretty easy to dodge.
Spiral:
Just make sure you hold your distance, as standing close can shotgun you, which I feel like I don't need to explain why isn't good.
Samael teleports on top of you, spawning an expanding ring of fire. Once it stops expanding, the ring fills with smaller circles of fires. These only seem to deal damage once you walk over them, similar to Azmodan's fire traps. So let's say, the Pentagram attack and Ring of Fire happen at the same time, Pentagram spawns in the middle of the fire circle - as long as you don't walk around too much and rather use a teleport skill, you'll be perfectly fine.
These were probably the hardest for me to get used to. On random spots in the arena these pulsating orbs will spawn, after a couple of seconds exploding in a small area, dealing (I assume) Physical/Magic DMG. These can overlap each other, so you can get stunlocked by them, and the damage they deal is pretty big compared to how difficult it can be to notice them sometimes.
The Stage:
You can see 4 "Pain Worms" on the sides, these are invulnerable stationary mobs, firing high-damage cold projectiles constantly towards you, and as with everything in this fight, even with max resists(90%) they hurt a lot.
The other thing to know about the arena itself is the constant lightning damage, like a Holy Shock aura, so you can still take damage even if you're not in any other effects.
Healing - Passive
Just to make this fight as bad as it can be, every time you die, Samael Heals ~33% of his maxHP, so make sure you rather focus on dodging on your first kill, because even one death can ruin the entirety of the fight. There is a small chance that it won't happen, but I wouldn't bank on it.
Teleport - Passive
On getting hit, Samael has a chance to teleport to a random location, making it harder to setup AoE zones, or multi-hitting abilities. Be careful with name-locking, because he can teleport into other his other abilities, and you don't want to follow him there.
Pentagram - Audio Que: DESTRUCTION
The very first skill/mechanic you'll see once you're in the arena. He also uses it every time you re-enter the zone. Around 2 seconds after the Pentagram appears, it'll send out magic damage dealing rings. If you stand inside the pentagram, you'll take no damage from it, and you can move out as soon as you see the first-second wave go out. It seems to be similar to Ascended Riftwalker's MagicDMG Waves, so I wouldn't recommend trying to tank it. You can also get out of its range, but it almost covers the entire arena.
Bone spear shooting ghosts - Audio Que: OBLIVION
Samael Sends out a ghost, once it stops moving it uses 4 patterns, always in the same order to shoot Bone spears (I'd write High DMG Bone spears, but what isn't high damage here)
Cross:
The most dangerous out of all, if you get stuck you're pretty much dead. The ghost doesn't have a minimal travel distance, so if Samael is near a wall, the ghost can just start firing immediately, which is (again) most likely an insta-kill.
Spread
Uses this pattern twice, nothing really to worry about, pretty easy to dodge.
Spiral:
Just make sure you hold your distance, as standing close can shotgun you, which I feel like I don't need to explain why isn't good.
Ring of Fire - Audio Que: THE END HAS COME
Samael teleports on top of you, spawning an expanding ring of fire. Once it stops expanding, the ring fills with smaller circles of fires. These only seem to deal damage once you walk over them, similar to Azmodan's fire traps. So let's say, the Pentagram attack and Ring of Fire happen at the same time, Pentagram spawns in the middle of the fire circle - as long as you don't walk around too much and rather use a teleport skill, you'll be perfectly fine.
Exploding Traps - Audio Que: CHAOS
These were probably the hardest for me to get used to. On random spots in the arena these pulsating orbs will spawn, after a couple of seconds exploding in a small area, dealing (I assume) Physical/Magic DMG. These can overlap each other, so you can get stunlocked by them, and the damage they deal is pretty big compared to how difficult it can be to notice them sometimes.
Unlocking the Charm
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You killed him. I know you did. And now you have the Vial of Elder Blood - with its powers locked. To gain its attributes you'll need to cube the charm with a Qor rune, a Ghal rune - from Fauztineville - and 3 Greater Signets of Learning. Here is charm from the first kill I've done.
I can't tell you how happy I was finally seeing this
To upgrade your charm, you need to kill Samael between the 11th and 12th minute of you entering the fight - without dying even once. So that's a thing that'll keep me busy for another couple of hours.
I can't tell you how happy I was finally seeing this
BONUS QUEST:
To upgrade your charm, you need to kill Samael between the 11th and 12th minute of you entering the fight - without dying even once. So that's a thing that'll keep me busy for another couple of hours.
But I feel like I've given everything I could so you can slay The Herald of End - and have the bragging rights that you didn't buy the charm from another player.
Good luck with your kill - and until my next guide
