Warmaster Guide

[Nilxain]

Also, I'm pretty sure that detonators are not ignoring the armor. It's just that cluster explosives ignore damage reduction from armor, just like they do on hellbugs for example. But they're still only damaging the armor itself, not the Warmaster's health. The few times I did try a ground pounder on him, I was getting white damage numbers, not yellow. The reason why on that kill video the WM takes health damage before his armor is blown off is that a bunch of people use Volge battle rifles when he's hanging (even making him fall). But again, just because that worked for them doesn't mean that it's the optimal method.

Unless I'm completely missing something I think the video shows that they are, here's my logic:

There are three things that happen in the video that I contend, when combined, could not happen if the armor wasn't being ignored:

1) The WM is at ~60% health before the armor ever breaks.
2) The WM is staggered without the armor broken at all.
3) The WM died w/o the second piece of armor breaking.

With respect to #1
If it's attacking the armor why is HP lost?

With respect to #2
How did the WM get staggered when previously this has only been seen once the crit point was exposed?

With respect to #3
If the Dets are damaging the armor then why did they break half of the armor in 4 min (less than half the time) but did not break the rest of the armor with the remaining time?


I have not yet found any answers that can fill all three of those conditions combined - other than the ignoring armor explanation.

[Xander Nekil]

I watched the video, and while it shows that ground pounders do work, it doesn't show that they're better than SMGs. Maybe if that group had all used tachmags, they would have dropped him 30 seconds faster? As I said I'm not sure about this one way or another. That's why I think that calculations need to be made on this.

Also, I'm pretty sure that detonators are not ignoring the armor. It's just that cluster explosives ignore damage reduction from armor, just like they do on hellbugs for example. But they're still only damaging the armor itself, not the Warmaster's health. The few times I did try a ground pounder on him, I was getting white damage numbers, not yellow. The reason why on that kill video the WM takes health damage before his armor is blown off is that a bunch of people use Volge battle rifles when he's hanging (even making him fall). But again, just because that worked for them doesn't mean that it's the optimal method.

I ran with that group and our top hitter Techno Tali and a couple others in the top 10 were using a pounder with a volge BR. For those who havent seen the vid we had his health down about halfway before his crystal shattered. Also I noticed that you mentioned not to revive anyone but I highly reccomend someone picking up the heaviest hitter. That will save him/her 10 seconds of having to run back and it'll increase chance of victory greatly. GREAT thread btw

[Kalanosis]

It would be an interesting thing to test, if the explosives ignore the armor.

[Xander Nekil]

Unless I'm completely missing something I think the video shows that they are, here's my logic:

There are three things that happen in the video that I contend, when combined, could not happen if the armor wasn't being ignored:

1) The WM is at ~60% health before the armor ever breaks.
2) The WM is staggered without the armor broken at all.
3) The WM died w/o the second piece of armor breaking.

With respect to #1
If it's attacking the armor why is HP lost?

With respect to #2
How did the WM get staggered when previously this has only been seen once the crit point was exposed?

With respect to #3
If the Dets are damaging the armor then why did they break half of the armor in 4 min (less than half the time) but did not break the rest of the armor with the remaining time?


I have not yet found any answers that can fill all three of those conditions combined - other than the ignoring armor explanation.

Even with his armor attached you can still hit the crit spots which srop his health. A buddy of mine was hitting 14k crits with a Volge BR while he was hanging. Crits are what drops his health. And when hks crystal breaks everyone broke outvtheir high crit guns, mostly wolfies and hit nothing but hit crit spot.

He sraggered because he lost so much health due to everyone hitting those crits with the armor still in tact

Answered number 3 in number one with the crit weaps

[Nilxain]

Even with his armor attached you can still hit the crit spots which srop his health. A buddy of mine was hitting 14k crits with a Volge BR while he was hanging. Crits are what drops his health. And when hks crystal breaks everyone broke outvtheir high crit guns, mostly wolfies and hit nothing but hit crit spot.

He sraggered because he lost so much health due to everyone hitting those crits with the armor still in tact

Answered number 3 in number one with the crit weaps

I actually also propose that crits are ignoring the armor too - which I think is what you think also, am I understanding that right?

So, if that's the case, here's the logic that follows:

If someone uses a VBR or Typhoon to target that hand and just spam crits, and the armor is getting broken, then what's the best choice of weapon?

If the entire raid used dets and typhoons then it would not be hurting anyone in the raid provided the DPS was actually high enough to kill the WM in 7min.

However, if people in the raid are using different weapons (much more likely) then using a VBR/Typhoon could be actually hurting the chances of a kill depending on when the armor breaks.

So here's where it starts to get more complicated: Since 'x' High DPS/high crit DPS weapon is higher DPS than 'y' volge weapon, there must be some point 'L' where the rate of 'x' exceeds the rate of 'y'. That point would be the maximum time the raid can take to break the armor before volge weapons exceed Higher DPS weapons.

I have not done the math yet, because I'm slow and have to set up the problem, and need to know the average DPS's for all of the weapon types in question - which is going to take me a min. But, I think that high crit DPS weapons don't need much time to overtake the DPS output of a players using volge weapons the whole time. If that is the case then using Volge weapons is not the best idea unless the entire raid is using them (or at least a very significant portion), because that player could instead be helping to break the armor; opening a crit point for the crit weapons and vastly accelerating damage output.

I short, I think it's situational, and one situation lends its self better to randoms than the other (since I have to chose a simple way to recommend what people should do).

[Nilxain]

Ok, I think I have some answers:

First let me say what assumptions I made:

I used the weapons I have which are all purple and specifically tuned to do the job that I would be assigning them for here. With this in mind I assume that everyone will do the same thing, and if they are comparing weapons of the same tier (green, blue, purple, orange) then they will probably all scale similar enough to the version that I have to provide these numbers as valid guidelines for what we might be looking at as a lowest armor break time. Fair enough?

It takes my Wolfhound 3 burn phase to equal the damage that my Typhoon would put out if I did 7 burn phase and crit 100% of the time. This means that, as long as the armor is broken by the time 2min and 21sec are left on the clock, my Wolfhound can exceed the total damage output of my Typhoon - in burn phases alone (not even including the damage from my other weapon during the 4 previous burn phase).

2min and 21sec is very late in the fight, and randoms consistently break the armor by at least 3min. With this in mind I think there is enough margin for error there (one full burn phase) to conclude that it is not a good idea to use the Volge weapons (ignoring the thunderer for a min, but I do feel it should not be used either - even though I love that weapon).

It is my current recommendation (which I may wait to update the guide until I can make it less confusing) that players who want to min/max and slaughter this boss should do the following (this will require 2 loadouts):

Use the Ground Pounder on the boss's head, starting before he is ever broken out, for the entire time he's on the ground. (This should work out to be the highest DPS because of ease of use, higher survivability, and timely ammo refills - ~6k average DPS directly to his health).

Use your highest white damage weapon while he is hanging until his armor breaks (blow all CDs).

Then, once the armor is broken (here comes the if then situations):

If he is hanging use the Wolfhound.

If he is on the ground:

*Use the Wolfhound if your DPS up-time (@100% crits) is 65% or greater (that is to say you hit him at max dps with crits more that 65% of the time).

*Use the ground Pounder if your DPS up-time is less than 65% (ie: you have to slow DPS, because of movement and drop shock, so much that you are doing less than 65% of the damage you do during the burn phase).

*If you don't know/can't decide use the Ground Pounder while he's on the ground - make sure to take into account if you are being forced to reload at really bad times and spend a lot of time doing it.

Your score may lower depending on your previous method, but your damage will be more effective.

**I will keep reviewing this to make sure this is the best choice.**

[Nilxain]

First Attempt with the Double Loadout build:


I have to say this build felt really good, the rhythm was perfect! By the time my Det. was on it's last mag the boss was jumping up for the burn phase. Then after the burn phase, while I had no HUD, I would just reload like always and rinse repeat. When the Armor broke I swapped loadouts and did the same thing but with the Wolfhound instead. I used the Ground Pounder while he was moving, and the Wolfhound when he was stopped. best of all this build was insanely easy to use, and right from left doesn't matter :-)

[Fuzzle]

I tried using a ground pounder on one fight, and I have to say it's surprisingly effective. (Just for the sake of information, I joined in when there were only 2 people fighting him, there was 5:30 left on the timer. By the end I had done nearly 800k damage and he had lost maybe 1/3rd of his life before his armor even broke at around 1:30 left) After having tried it I do believe the xbox users had it right on this one. It's easy to use, does very solid DPS, and you can negate having to shoot the armor entirely with enough people using it. Put in a larger clip and you have less downtime, and you can use overcharge occasionally to detonate the grenades without the reload time. Throw down some goo grenades and you don't have to worry as much about him moving out of the blast radius of them.



I'd really like to see a heavy ground pounder team go at him on PC NA sometime. As long as you can kill him I think it'd be a lot more consistent due to the ease of use. You don't have to have him facing a certain direction to do damage, you don't even have to hit a specific spot other than hitting that giant ape guy walking around who's hard to miss. It just simplifies the fight tremendously.

[Nilxain]

The perk sucker punch was recommend also and I did swap it in - I do like it - you only have to be behind him when you detonate.

[Nilxain]

*Updated Guide.

Method 3 is the top recommendation now.
For explanation as to why read the last few pages leading up to this post.

Also, I would really like to thank all of the people who have participated so much in helping this guide become so much better. Thank You :-) Special thanks to the Xbox group and their insights on the Ground Pounder.