I am having trouble getting Abaddon down easily enough to the point where I can start cranking up the difficulty level and start farming him. Perhaps, the trouble is that as a mage, this is near impossible.

I have switched out almost all of my gear for +ice damage as he is immune to fire and seems to have a high shadow resist. Currently, I am at +290 ice damage bonus with +10% ice damage also. My fire resist is at 814 with the fire ward on, so I am resisting a lot of his output, but I cannot seem to get him down fast enough without downing a huge amount of potions.

I am level 64 and using the Blue Screen of Life, with my current armor, my HP/MP is 7.5k/21k, and I really don't want to waste the money to respec as this armor is really just for trying to farm Abaddon, I generally play a Shadow Mage, and would be respeccing again when I go back to that setup.

I have farmed all the bosses up to this point without too much difficulty, but Abbadon is really giving me troubles, probably due to his Shadow and Fire resistances.

If you have any suggestions (especially from those who have already done this, rather than those who are just speculating how to do it), they would be greatly appreciative. Thanks.

Level 64.. I'd suggest a bit more hp, and I am level 100, pretty good at abby, still using 30-50 pots a run, thats normal.

Thanks for the suggestion..I'll try to see if I can get some more END gear, I have some KCs I can use to exchange for gear to see if I can get something to boost my HP a bit, since some of my gear is from lvl 58-60.

I am using Ice Bolt as my main attack and Gaseous whenever it is ready. On my ranger, Abby is pretty easy, and I take out his helpers first (caster, then 2 swordsmen), then Abby, but on my mage, Abby ressurects his caster helper almost immediately, so I have had to change and take Abby out first, then the helpers. Is that how you would suggest taking him?

Yep, in fact, I and many 100s that I know just kill abby pick loot, do chests and reset without touching the guards. Still I believe abby is more for a group, as its pretty hard to solo.

Try splitting the support mobs away from Abaddon, like Tristanne does in this thread:

Linky...

Basically, she pulls the support mobs to the front door and uses Monster Bait to hold their attention. Then she pulls Abby to the opposite side and takes him down without having to worry about the support mobs.

I'll have to give that strategy a few tries. It would certainly be easier to take Abby down without his healer, and I'm glad to hear that there are others that don't even bother with the guards at all. I'll probably just loot after taking Abby out instead of wasting my time with the rest of the bunch after he's down.
Thanks for the suggestions.

HI,
Since I am farming Abby right now ILL give you what I have figured. I hope it helps.

Resists..... Have Fire Resistance in place.and fire ward if you have it...The resist only runs a minute but it helps Also Blue Screen is your biggest friend here

Use Ice attacks but use ice shards..... damage for each shard isn't quite as high as the bolt but with three of them you always do some damage Abby will resist ice bolts then that shot does nothing for you.

Use chilling touch to help boost your ice damage as well
I also have gaseous blast for residual poison damage

I use shadow lighting in my left mouse button......it allows me to lock on and close to point blank range with abby.the best thing for the shard attack..... also if I get knocked off abby it allows me to return to optimum attack position.

I run on normal usually but this works for formidable as well...... since abby should scale to your difficulty the buffs should work.

I am using the red and blue mage armor for it gives the best defense and offense against Abby with fire resist and ice damage buff....I also found a Wiz bang Shaman Staff Of the Circumscribing Platypus that has a nice ice boost... it is a purple by the way.

On a normal run I go through about 4 potions maybe one health and two or three mana

I play on world 7 and if you want to chat more come find me there Ghad

Abaddon is one of the most predictable boss encounters so he should be easy enough for most people to farm. Abaddon CAN be killed without fire resistance, potions or even armor, but all of those things make him easier. So don't gimp yourself thinking you need to conform to specific fire resistance gear that cripples your dps.

Mages seem to have the hardest time with Abaddon because most are primarily built around fire/shadow damage. This encounter is entirely about delivering maximum single target DPS for 60 seconds. I don't believe you need more health to farm Abaddon. I often farm him on extreme with only 6k health (maybe 1 pot)and you probably already have that much health. If you cannot survive a single salvo or burst AE damage you need more health, but chances are you only need more DPS output.

You need to evalaute why you die or are unable to kill Abaddon on the difficulty level that you desire.

If you are dying then determine
- When and why are you dying?
- Are you dying from melee or fire damage?
- Are you dying during AE?
- Are you dying only after your Fire Resistance buffs goes out?

My guess is you are dying after your Fire Resistance buff runs out that clearly means you need more DPS and/or different toolbar skills. Look at your toolbar and determine which skills you NEVER use during Abby and replace them with something useful

Here are some things to consider:
- Never waste DPS on the guards
- If you can't survive his AE then prevent it or stop it early
- Don't allow yourself to take damage during the initial AE
- Don't use your FR buff during the initial AE

Once you understand how you are going to kill him and get better with your strategy then you can up the difficulty to the extent of your dps output.

Tristan ,

I agree with yourpost...........but the biggest issue for mages is DPS .... we dont ahve the tools available for high dp2 within the mage worlld.........yes we can hybrid... but mages have the lowest dps for a single boss of any of the class's ....

YOur movie was great by the way...........but as a pure int mage.or close to what would you suggest as a way to fix this..

I am all ears .....I would love to know lol

I pretty much disagree with that, a fair ice shard shot makes 3-4k damage. 3 times a second makes around 9 -12k DPS. And that is really much for me.

well lets see I avhe level 15 ice shard........ does 559-2247 per shard times three I add another 424 bonus on to that .....so basically 1k to 3k times three...if all three hit and fighting abby as a 100 he is at least ressiting 1 per shot.typical of most boss's........ now as forattack speed of these shots.. my attack speed is at .83
with the build I have.

So there is a wide varience in the numbers legand Runner

Ghad your attack speed listed in character sheet is only for melee/range weapon equiped not your spells. Pretty sure the speed he was referring to of 0.33 is for all bolt spells. Although havent tested it in awhile so not positive. The damage will depend alot on your total INT so this may be some of the difference.

I wondered about that after I posted it Joe.thanks for the correction.......I am maxed on int with gear buff I am at 1231 for int

Abby has taken me a long time to get good at as a mage, but I will also share what I have learned. I can farm him easily on normal, doable on formiddable, I need luck to do him on extreme and I need a group to do him insane.

I have experimented between ice bolt and ice shards and am 100% convinced that shards > bolt for Abby. Test it for yourself, lock on to him and use only 1 damage type, and time how long it takes to kill him. Sone things effect this, like how often you get knocked down or a guard jumps between you and abby, but if you try 5 one way and 5 another and compare times you'll see shards is wayyy better.

All of my gear is fire resist and most of it is + ice. My armor makes the biggest difference for me. Abby dropped me one of those ugly shrek/Star trek green colored suits (purple rating) that gives +200 end and +405 fire resistance. This is the perfect armor for my mage, since I run low end but need the extra hp for the abby farm. This gear got my passive fire resistance up over 1000, and this turned out to be key. I can also pop my fire resist for an extra xxx, sorry, forgot the number but it's also pretty significant.

I go fast, and I never use fire resist and chilling touch on the same runs. I use one or the other, and sometimes neither, depending. This method I use up to formiddable.

To do Abby solo extreme, I have to use the monster bait trick, get lucky that they fall for it, and use my fire resist and chilling touch at the same time. It just gets to the point that I spend so much time on extreme that it's not worth it.

I'd recommend farming Abby in a group though, as any build. To me, I've never had as good of luck or as fast of kills solo as in a group, and in Abby, time spent in there with his firestorms is what matters.

OK...the suggestions made quite a difference, especially just realizing that Abaddon is a harder encounter for mages than the previous bosses.

On Normal, I can get Abby down in about 20-30 seconds if I go all out and use all my buffs, generally, I'll limit myself to just one buff, so I don't need to wait for the cooldowns and just alternate, as mentioned in an earlier post.

I can also get him down on Formidable in about 40 seconds if I use all my buffs together. So all your suggestions have helped greatly. Thanks!

When I use the fire resist buff on top of fire ward, I have over 1650 fire resist, which basically allows me to position myself directly in front of him and blast away.

Due to getting frustrated with being knocked down periodically, and having to reposition without those darn guards getting in the way, I have added Thickheadedness as a skill also. Nice on Formidable, as he tends to heal fast and the time lost being down really has a big negative impact.

I was able to use the Monster Bait trick correctly to separate his helpers a few times, but have to practice more to get it down, as I need to stop at certain points to ensure the pull is correct as my mage runs too fast.

Also, it does seem that shards > bolt, not by much, but at least by a few seconds for me.

Does anyone know if Ranged Damage Reflection applies to Abaddon's spell damage?

Thanks for all the replies on this thread.

SHL
SmokinHotLady

Ranged damamge reflection does not apply to any spells only to ranged damage (IE from a bow). .

i lvled up as a mage and consider myself a mage in heart but to solo abby its really best to be a fighter or ranger.. Sure a mage in a group is a good thing as they usually blight, slow with ice but unless you have very good ice gear i would strongly suggest doing rotty instead or rasputin. Or even better i say hdol lvl 3 and if anyone wants to know some tricks and trades doing hdol lvl 3 solo let me know as i share them