I came back to check out the 2.0 patch after not playing for several months and joined a Legend Skittergate queue.
What in Sigmar’s holy name has Rasknitt done to himself and Deathrattler? I have never seen them so tanky, nor so poewrful. Our party, which I can’t say was made up of mediocre players, ended up being only able to camp the respawn so that we might be able to grind down Deathrattler’s health before he finally wiped us all out. Unfortunately with SW+SH Stormvermin spawns surrounding us, we ended up falling to him.
I have played Skittergate probably 30+ times on Legend and have completed it probably 15 or 20 times, but never have I seen it this difficult. I wanted to see if anyone else had notice a sudden spike in difficulty? Surely this wasn’t even that difficult following WoM release? Why suddenly decide to focus on making the final boss more difficult when other difficulties already plague year 1 players?
Perhaps I’m ranting, but coming back to such a bad experience seems to be the norm for me nowadays, and I suppose I just want to lament about the good old days.
Yeah, what was definitely upped are the add spawns. I dont think they changed much about the boss himself, but you will need to spend more time getting rid his reinforcements, especially Storm Vermin and occasional Plague Monks. Otherwise they will eventuall swarm the entire arena.
Also, people need to learn to keep the pressure on Rasknitt once he is dismounted so he doesnt cast spells. Teams that arent as good tend to have the problem that, by this phase, the arena is so filled with adds that they cant reach the boss, take damage from hiss spells and cant even untie a player who died and respawned.
I don’t know how exactly he works in terms of summoning minions but every-time I have a team that has someone in place to where he teleports to (He always teleports facing the skittergate as “front” front left > front right > back left > back right > repeat) there always seems to be less adds. So anytime he is not getting hit or staggered I think on top of casting his script may also be summoning adds. All I have is anecdotal as I haven’t tested anything but been on some teams that camp the corners correctly and the stage feels pretty much empty (a few skaven slaves and clan rats but occasionally but no packs of monks or storm vermin constantly) Yet times where he gets to cast his spells are people are disorganized the entire stage feels jam packed full of adds, and cant get off revives because warp lightning pushes you and thus interrupts any revival that isn’t using a movement ult to evade the lightning hit
As others have said…
Prioritize adds - Just like any monster / stormfiend; don’t tunnel vision death rattler so much that you take a stormvermin halberd to the back of your dome. On legend even skavenslaves and clanrat’s will kill you if all your team does is tunnel vision Deathrattler / Rasknitt
Learn his Teleports - Don’t chase Rasknitt, ever. If your doing that either people have gone down and your reviving or your just doing the fight wrong. Have someone always be where he is going to teleport to. Assign corners if need be, having someone always there to start pummeling his face as soon as he teleports makes a big difference
If you have an ally that struggles with adds due to their weapon or skill-level, or they have a nack for tunnel visioning then keep an eye on them, its better to help them clear adds when they spawn than rushing to pick them up and throwing off the whole teams strategy when they fall down
One thing I occsionally had to pull off was use his teleport knockback to keep chasing him (as my allies werent at the next corner to whack him). So if you know his pattern and have to compensate, stay close to him while attacking and position your back to the next corner. The knockbock of his teleport (which doesnt do damage, thankfully) will fling you about 3/4 of the way to next corner.
Also, ranged wepons can be used to suppress his casting in a pinch, especially the multi-shot ones like repeter gun and brace of pistols.
Regarding the number of adds: Not sure if there is randomness involved, if he cant summon them if he gets hit or if the teams that keep hitting him simply kill him so quick he cant summon much. It might also be that, if you have one guy per corner, the adds just keep getting killed in that corner as soon as they show up, so the arena never fills and it just looks like less. It´s a really efficient strategy and but to really work it means every member of your team must be able to handle few elites on his own.