How is one supposed to beat Silver Mantis?

[Ultimo]

So, tonight I was trying to do the patron arc for my War Mace/Electric Armour Brute.  He's L35.  He also has Combat Jumping and Weave.

So I get to the mission where I'm supposed to fight Silver Mantis, who spawns as an orange Elite Boss.  Ok, fair enough.  I've soloed AVs on this character before.

I attack, and she hits back.  We trade blows for a bit, I use a few inspirations to recover health, and get her to around 20% health.  At this point she uses Unstoppable, and my attacks are doing essentially nothing.  So, I retreat to let it wear off.  By the time it does, she's back to nearly full health.  I engage again, and she almost immediately uses it again.  And again.  And again.  I run through ALL my inspirations, run around and around and around trying to let myself recover, since HER attacks do massive damage while mine do nearly nothing.  AND she has a self heal on top of all that.

 

I don't know what else I can do if she's just going to keep hitting the Unstoppable button every time I do any damage, then self heals.  It's been a very frustrating night.

 

So, I was chatting about this in game, and suddenly start taking damage from her.  She's not even on the screen, I retreated.  She's on some other level of the place.  So, I went back to try again and got her to 50% health, at which point she just stopped taking damage at all.  No Unstoppable, and my attacks were putting up numbers (around 100 damage per attack), but her health never moved.

 

So, I don't know what else to do with her.  Yes, I could get someone else to come in and beat her for me, but that's not any fun either.  Kind of defeats the purpose.  Any other suggestions?

[Major_Decoy]

Envenomed Dagger.

 

Edit: the "taking no damage" might be an issue you have to reset the mission for, and you might have to kite Silver Mantis a bit while Unstoppable is active just to keep refreshing the envenomed dagger -regeneration.

Edited March 16 by Major_Decoy

[ZorkNemesis]

She's pretty tough, the fact that she routinely uses Build Up and that she has Dull Pain and Unstoppable makes her very difficult to kill without assistance.  She is very weak to Psionics (no resistance compared to capped S/L), but you don't seem to have that so you'll have to find alternatives.  Envenomed Daggers are probably your best option, you could also get some other useful assistance like a Shivan Shard who's energy attacks will be more effective than your smashing.

 

But don't think that allies "defeats the purpose".  While this one is an outlier (Scirocco actually doesn't tell you to), you're generally told by your contacts when facing a strong boss to bring help.  She's not Scorpion's dragon for nothing.

[Major_Decoy]

All of her attacks (except for caltrops) do -def, so you might be better off with oranges if you're not already at 90% resist lethal.

 

If you find yourself running out of inspirations you can e-mail yourself some before the fight and just load up your tray from e-mail.

[Snarky]

The issue Brutes will always have (in my opinion) in these one on one fights is they are just outclassed.  
 

Brutes have very good armor and very good damage.   They leverage this to win every fight, most easily.  This EB has better armor and better damage.  
 

so.  I would suggest loading up your email with large purple orange and red inspirations.  Then your trays.  You have to be better again. When your inspiration run out refill from email.  Use the envenomed dagger.  Heck, use the p2w buff pet.  She will kill it, that is one attack not aimed at you

[ZorkNemesis]

40 minutes ago, Snarky said:

Heck, use the p2w buff pet.  She will kill it, that is one attack not aimed at you

 

That won't help.  That pet dies when sneezed on and Silver Mantis has Caltrops.

[Scarlet Shocker]

47 minutes ago, ZorkNemesis said:

 

That won't help.  That pet dies when sneezed on and Silver Mantis has Caltrops.

 

Caltropsnot... a deadly new slime power.

 

 

To the OP: Bring a friend. There are reasons why other ATs exist

[Snarky]

4 hours ago, ZorkNemesis said:

 

That won't help.  That pet dies when sneezed on and Silver Mantis has Caltrops.

This is why all my toons use fly…

[Herotu]

Quote

How is one supposed to beat Silver Mantis?

 

One isn't?

 

[Ukase]

Nothing to add other than to say, don't feel bad. I know I've been destroyed by her on a number of different alts. And I build my characters for survivability more than I should because I solo more often than not. I can't rely on a heal or a tank's taunt. She's tough. 

[Uun]

I think this is the version you fight in the patron arc (you also fight her in Dark Watcher's arc). Even without Unstoppable up, she's got 57.5% S/L resistance. Unstoppable has a 60s duration and a 120s recharge, so you really have to burn her after it drops so it doesn't have a chance to recharge. 

 

https://cod.uberguy.net/html/entity.html?entity=arachnos_silver_mantis_medium_high

[Etched]

One of these could help. Should make her a Yellow EB for 60 Seconds.

 

 

 

@Etched

[Yomo Kimyata]

Unstoppable and Dull Pain are a tough combination for an AV (or AV demoted to EB in this case).  In particular, they don't get a crash after Unstoppable wears off like players do, so your best tactic is to pour on as much damage as possible after it comes down and before it recharges.  

[nihilii]

She is definitely one of the toughest AVs out there. It's OK to not be able to solo her. Many characters who can beat other enemies of similar rank (EB/AV) will be powerless against Silver Mantis.

 

2 minutes ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

In particular, they don't get a crash after Unstoppable wears off like players do,

Many of them do. Silver Mantis' is crashless.

[Yomo Kimyata]

8 minutes ago, nihilii said:

Many of them do. Silver Mantis' is crashless.

 

I know "standard" EBs crash (like Minotaurs, etc.), but I'm unaware of AVs that crash?  Note that here Silver Mantis is an AV that got demoted to EB and thus still has purple triangles of doom.

[Luminara]

With a stick, as she sleeps.  But on a horse, with a lance, that EB is unbeatable.

[Player2]

1 hour ago, Etched said:

One of these could help. Should make her a Yellow EB for 60 Seconds.

 

 

 

@Etched

Also, pop a few red inspirations to up that damage... maybe a yellow or two so that you miss less often.  Make very hit count.

Also use the Envenomed Dagger that was previously mentioned for the -Regen effect.

[Uun]

1 hour ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

I know "standard" EBs crash (like Minotaurs, etc.), but I'm unaware of AVs that crash?  

Marauder and Bobcat (non-Incarnate versions)

Edited March 16 by Uun

[Lockely]

I'm really glad to see this wasn't a "me" problem but actually a common issue with her. I mostly solo and I've had to either use auto-complete or call in several friends to beat her when she shows up in missions.

 

Other AVs? Literally no problem. Eat some purples, eat some reds, call it a day. 

 

SM shows up and I'm immediately alt-tabbing to Discord to assemble the (legally distinct) Avengers to take her out.

[Snarky]

34 minutes ago, Lockely said:

I'm really glad to see this wasn't a "me" problem but actually a common issue with her. I mostly solo and I've had to either use auto-complete or call in several friends to beat her when she shows up in missions.

 

Other AVs? Literally no problem. Eat some purples, eat some reds, call it a day. 

 

SM shows up and I'm immediately alt-tabbing to Discord to assemble the (legally distinct) Avengers to take her out.

so... grab some insp, to tank her.  purples/oranges.  then grab a few blasters to sweet talk her....

[Skyhawke]

Sands of Mu and the Blackwand help with their -acc, too. Depending on the character,  I will just autocomplete a mission she's in. Got some Tanks and Brutes that can solo her pretty easy, but for many, discretion is the better part of valor. 

 

[Ultimo]

Well.  FINALLY got past Silver Mantis.  Kicked Barracuda's butt, and then rescued Wretch.  Next mission, defeat Serafina.

 

I go into the mission, fight my way through to the room she's in.  She's showing up as a red EB, surrounded by about 12 Arachnos adds.  I go in, attack with three purples, three reds and three yellows running.  She attacks back and hits me for 1400 damage.  I have 1300 health, so with the adds all doing damage too (since NONE of them ever miss, regardless of the purples), I'm instantly oneshotted.  Seriously, how am I supposed to do anything with this, there's no way I can tank that kind of damage, and she just spams that over and over, every time I try to do it. On the one occasion she started with something else, she STILL did 800 damage with that attack, then followed up with another 400, then another 1400.  I mean, seriously?

 

This is me playing at -1 level, no less.  Just stupidly overtuned.

[ZorkNemesis]

I looked over her stats on CoD and...damn I didn't realize just how hard she hits and a lot of it is Psi damage which is hard to resist.  But you're Electric Armor which offers a large amount of Psi resist in your status toggle, you should not be taking that much damage unless you deliberately turned it off. 

 

Best I can say is to drink purples and beat her down quickly, unlike Silver Mantis she doesn't resist damage or heal.  If you have access to Blue content you can get a short duration version of the Wedding Band from Striga Island's second arc which gives 5 minutes or so of all damage resists.  If you want to wait a couple days, the Psychologist and Cimeroran Day Jobs will also boost your Psi resists (found in First Ward and Cimerora respectively).  And don't be afraid to call for backup, don't let your solo pride be your downfall.

[starro]

I just went through this but a dominator except I could not hurt her.   I could mez her to stand there but no good way to bring her health down.  I broke down and finally pulled in a 3 person pug. 

[Uun]

If you're a rogue, do Sgt. Schorr's arc "Hammers of Justice". At the end of the arc, you have the option of sharing your pay with each of the 3 members of the Hammers or refusing and fighting them. If you share, you get an EB level summon of each of them with a 5 minute duration (only 1 can be out at a time). I pulled one out recently when I was getting stomped by Pendragon, Grant Creston and Aurora Pena in Mr. G's 2nd arc (I was on an Electric/Dark controller). 

 

For psi protection, don't forget Elusive Mind (the accolade power you get with the Watchman badge).