General tips for A.Lazarus

[KonohaArcan]

Hello guys. Do you any useful advice gear-wise and generally? Playing melee sorc.

[Marrt]

You will need to boost both your defensive mechanisms (to deal with the actual boss), as well as have a reliable and fast way (ranged/caster char) to clear the level full of groupies and totems, as you will most probably not be able to kill him in a single cycle.

Here's some brief explanation of the skills used by the boss:

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Archbishop Lazarus:
- offensive teleport, followed by retaliation, followed by summon groupies
- throw black hand totems
- cast singularity

Black hand totems:
- when standing close, they will cast spell that reduces your health to 2%
- when really close to boss (both aggroed/not aggroed), they will cast a curse, which will cause enemies to instakill you
- when really close to boss (aggroed), they will heal laz to full hp

Groupies:
- tri-elemental hit that deals considerable damage

Here are some considerations about gear setup:

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• Do not use any offensive procs of buffs that could target and kill totems, to prevent healing laz.
• Do not use reanimates or summons (use the RIP recipe on one of your items to remove the reanimates completely).
• As laz is very fast, you will need 20-25% slow and good amount of AR to consistently hit.
• Larger health pool (15-20k hp) is recommended, e.g. for faster healing and remaining at higher health when hit by a totem.
• Cannot be frozen is necessary, otherwise groupies would slow you.
• Having avoid and/or reaching max block is preferable.
• High movement speed is required to be able to easily run away from laz when necassary. Low breakpoints for all combat speeds are recommended, e.g. to hit/cast purify faster and recover from retaliation after each offensive teleport.
• Melee devotion is preferable, unless you sacrifice clearing speed a lot. Chemistry is a good option for faster regeneration after you get hit by a totem.
• Magic resistances can be used to reduce damage from totems.

Here's some gear to consider:

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The Endless Loop

The Endless Loop
Light Belt (Sacred)
Defense: 1101 to 1143
Required Level: 100
Required Strength: 550
Item Level: 105
40% Combat Speeds
+(10 to 19) to Charged Strike
Slow Target 10%
+50 to all Attributes
+75 Life Regenerated per Second
+(0 to 1) Mana on Striking
Socketed (2)

- slow, combat speeds

The Eviscerator

The Eviscerator
Short Sword (Sacred)
One-Hand Damage: 37 to 38
Required Level: 100
Required Strength: 376
Item Level: 120
Strength Damage Bonus: (0.11 per Strength)%
10% Base Block Chance
Socketed (3)

- 10% increased base block chance -> more vitality points

Athulua's Oracle

Athulua's Oracle
Amulet
Required Level: 60
Item Level: 60
+(1 to 2) to All Skills
40% Attack Speed
(150 to 250)% Bonus to Attack Rating
Cannot Be Frozen

- AR, ias, cannot be frozen!

Void

Void
Weapons
'Sur'
Runeword Level: 75
Adds 7-13 Damage
+(58 to 72)% Enhanced Damage
Slow Target 20%
Regenerate Mana +15%
Cold Resist +40%
Physical Damage Reduced by (11 to 15)
+(3 to 5) Mana on Striking
2% Reanimate as: Random Monster

- 20% slow early

Snowsquall

Snowsquall
Gloves
'GlaIu'
Runeword Level: 105
+1% Maximum Cold Resist per 80% Cold Resist
+1 to All Skills
20% Hit Recovery
Adds 100-200 Cold Damage
(3 to 5)% Innate Elemental Damage
-(7 to 10)% to Enemy Cold Resistance
Slow Target 20%
+200% Enhanced Defense
+(21 to 25) to Dexterity
Cold Absorb (3 to 5)%

- 20% slow
Quiet/Enchanted shrine crated gear - more life/magic resists

Adrenaline Rush

Adrenaline Rush
Ring
Required Level: 100
Item Level: 120
+1 to All Skills
40% Combat Speeds
40% Movement Speed
Maximum Elemental Resists +1%

- combat speeds, movement speed

The Sleep

The Sleep
Required Level: 125
Cube After Completing a Trophy Challenge to Awaken
Disenchant to open a portal to the World Nexus
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Maximum Fire Resist +(0 to 1)%
Maximum Lightning Resist +(0 to 1)%
Maximum Cold Resist +(0 to 1)%
Maximum Poison Resist +(0 to 1)%

with kingdom of shadow trophy - movement speed, fhr/fbr

Strategy tips:

► Show Spoiler

• Choose a direction in which you'll go (I go anti-clockwise) and stick to it. Utilizing the whole map is important for fast farming. Fix points where you will run away from laz and clear the map. You need some margin of clean area, in case he starts chasing you.
  
  
• Purify on cooldown and use normal attack to apply slow. You should always purify when laz teleports on you, because if you move away a bit and then cast purify you risk killing a totem.
  
  
• Black hand totems are thrown at you, i.e., there's some time between being cast and actually spawned at your location. If you've already aggroed laz, but he's not using his offensive teleport, it's time you get moving, because the totems are coming. Moving too late means totems will reduce your health, while laz teleports on you at the same time, using retaliation and killing you. If the totems can't reach you anyways and he's just stuck throwing the totems at you, moving in little steps also helps to get him unstuck.
  
  
• Move in somewhat little steps to utilize your dps. You should move away from the totems he might have thrown at you, but also be close enough to him. Also use the map to your advantage, e.g., use walls behind which groupies/totems can't reach you and you can land another purify hit and then teleport.
  
  
• Immediately heal after totem has reduced your health.
  
  
• Running away from laz, when you're ready to clear a part of the map, is essential to learn. It might be a bit counter-intuitive, but before you start running away, he needs to teleport on you. If you start running away before that, he'll use his teleport, because either he's gotten stuck throwing totems or you've gotten far enough from him. If you instead start running away only when he's already teleported on you, there's some distance you can run, without him teleporting on you, and then using teleport to get out of his range directly.
  
  
• For clearing it's preferable to have ranged/caster skills that can easily kill totems from distance. Totems have 1 health so not much damage is needed. In case you have killed all groupies and only totems have remained, you can safely kill them as they will reduce your health to 1 but cannot kill you.
  
  
• If laz is not aggroed and there are some totems/groupies blocking the passage, you can safely remove them with ranged/caster spells, probably getting cursed, but for sure not healing laz. This is a lot safer than moving close to them and hoping he'll teleport on you.

[KonohaArcan]

That's very helpful, thanks A LOT!

[FIngoparna]

Is it still actual after 2 years?

[uberecht]

Yeah, to my knowledge, all the advice here is still sound.

[kris441]

Be assassin or paladin! I tried laz these season for the first time since a long time. Did him as uhm with the pally set and some vit craft full with vita perf cannot be frozen amu and ring with dmg reduction and other stats.. Nothing fancy. It took me 3 runes to practice. The boss is super easy on bouth assass and pali

[MajorCooke]

A couple other tricks to consider:

• Paladin's Colosseum is an extra source of slow, but make sure to use it the moment he teleports on you to avoid the extra damage occurring after he already spawns. If you're feeling daring, Mind Flayer also provides a little bit of extra slowing.
• You can purify greyed totems close to the boss without fear of healing him and making you brittle. Use this if he's around a corner to help free up some extra space so you dont have to worry about undoing your hard work.

Unfortunately I've died hundreds of times to this guy. Looks like I"ll never get the chance to face Samael.

I tend to panic when Laz is chasing me, because the crazy layout of the map makes it so confusing, especially when there are bars involved. Even with a source of Teleport, I always wind up running into a totem or two and instantly dying due to the brittle curse.

Does slow occur when a spell hits an enemy or only when melee attacks happen?

For the record I have the gear necessary to make this happen, I'm just... lacking in skill. At least he isn't bullshit levels like in the old days.

[IronMan]

A couple other tricks to consider:

• Paladin's Colosseum is an extra source of slow, but make sure to use it the moment he teleports on you to avoid the extra damage occurring after he already spawns. If you're feeling daring, Mind Flayer also provides a little bit of extra slowing.
• You can purify greyed totems close to the boss without fear of healing him and making you brittle. Use this if he's around a corner to help free up some extra space so you dont have to worry about undoing your hard work.

Unfortunately I've died hundreds of times to this guy. Looks like I"ll never get the chance to face Samael.

I tend to panic when Laz is chasing me, because the crazy layout of the map makes it so confusing, especially when there are bars involved. Even with a source of Teleport, I always wind up running into a totem or two and instantly dying due to the brittle curse.

Does slow occur when a spell hits an enemy or only when melee attacks happen?

For the record I have the gear necessary to make this happen, I'm just... lacking in skill. At least he isn't bullshit levels like in the old days.

I have farmed the trophy this season on Assa and in previous seasons / single player on other chars and maybe something in here can help you:
-I usually use magic resist crafts with +life rolls on the slots where its possible to roll life and with max MR rolls on the crafts themselfs, never tried vit crafts but i suspect more life beyond a certain point doesnt make that much of a difference
-mo'ed breakpoints for combat speeds, more vit, cast speed on weapons, socketed with rubies and runes for breakpoints
-finding multiple good spots to lose laz is crucial, my route looked kinda like this:

-dont try to make it a clean run while using the space with maximum efficiency, instead give urself lots of room and reset/ lose him frequently
->this also makes it so you arent instanly fucked if you fail to lose him since you will have some more free space to try again
-obviously respec for him, usually all stats into vit, if you can, specc into a build that clears the groupies / totems while also having meele devotion, i did assassin with naginata + laserblade (talent) + wyrd from rings this season and it was great. crafted claws with claw block for kiting laz and switching to nagi for clear. died like 6 times during the entire trophy farm. there is a trade-off between having easy and fast clear without meele devotion and safer, more realiable laz kiting with meele devotion but most classes have some build that can have a good enough clear with MD
-its doable without meele devotion and i have seen people do it with summons as a way to lose laz by having him port onto the summon while the player runs out of range but i wouldnt want to do a trophy farm without MD, why make it harder than it needs to be
-dont get impatient during clear and get yourself sniped by groupies + totem aoe, clear with care
-i dont really use slows for him, i would definitely not use aoe spells like mindflay, but a weapon switch with some "Slow on hit" might be worth it, i usually dont feel the need since AFAIK slow is capped against bosses at 25% so its not thaaat much of a difference, who knows, maybe its worth it but i didnt feel the need yet
-its really just a simple rythm of getting ported on, purifing him (sometimes you take a step first), walking away a bit, get ported on, purify still on cd so you walk away till purify is ready again and than it starts over, keep up buffs if you have to, highest tension moments are when you wanna lose him, line of sighting him behind a wall does not do much in my experience, running in a straight line very fast is also not great, its more about getting some distance without him porting on you and then you port away out of his range
-the spots on my route use the fact that you can increase your port range when you teleport over terrain a bit, esp if you have long range assassin teleport skilled this is insane for laz but with normal range teleports its still good to use at the marked spots

[MajorCooke]

Oooh right I forgot durability is no longer a thing. That's nice! Now I don't have to worry about making it indestructible. Okay that's one concern nixed so I can have maximum slow.

I have the gear necessary to do this, it's just the execution I keep stumbling on.

The Line of Sight trick can work if you time it correctly so you teleport just after he does, then run like hell. But you also need to make sure you teleport as far away as possible to prevent him from locking on and teleporting again because he'll do that even if you're out of sight no matter what. That's one of the problems I keep having.

[cowking]

The Line of Sight trick can work if you time it correctly so you teleport just after he does, then run like hell. But you also need to make sure you teleport as far away as possible to prevent him from locking on and teleporting again because he'll do that even if you're out of sight no matter what. That's one of the problems I keep having.

You need to wait for him to teleport on you, run away without hitting the edge of his tele "leash" range, then tele over the edge to drop aggro.

The red line in the pic is roughly the amount you have to run (without breaking line of sight) after he teleports on top of you before teleporting yourself.