I run two hunters and a warlock, and I prefer my bladedancers in PoE. I can solo all the mine disabling and let my team mop up the enemies. The invis is also fantastic for the fallen VIPs. I typically die 0-2 times per run, where the warlock will die 5-10 times (of course, play style is different when you can come back from the dead :P).

Wow. We were running the Kaliks mission Monday and Tuesday (34 and 32, respectively), and I was having REAL troubles as a bladedancer. I could get the first mine - but by the time i made it to the second, there was too much fire to go invis. How are you doing it? What am I doing wrong?

Melee attack the mine to go invisible or use vanish. You have three different ways, each with their own cooldown. Crouching is probably the hardest of the three under fire.

I run two hunters and a warlock, and I prefer my bladedancers in PoE. I can solo all the mine disabling and let my team mop up the enemies. The invis is also fantastic for the fallen VIPs. I typically die 0-2 times per run, where the warlock will die 5-10 times (of course, play style is different when you can come back from the dead :P).

I guess hunters and titans serve almost the same purposes in PoE. I'm going to delete my extra hunter soon and get a titan, then I can make a truly informed observation.

The difference for me is that defender bubbles directly help the entire fireteam stay safe and effective. An invis Bladedancer is great for those times when you absolutely must split up, but I try to avoid splitting up in the Skolas fight because of the devouring essence.

I run two hunters and a warlock, and I prefer my bladedancers in PoE. I can solo all the mine disabling and let my team mop up the enemies. The invis is also fantastic for the fallen VIPs. I typically die 0-2 times per run, where the warlock will die 5-10 times (of course, play style is different when you can come back from the dead :P).

Wow. We were running the Kaliks mission Monday and Tuesday (34 and 32, respectively), and I was having REAL troubles as a bladedancer. I could get the first mine - but by the time i made it to the second, there was too much fire to go invis. How are you doing it? What am I doing wrong?

I guess hunters and titans serve almost the same purposes in PoE. I'm going to delete my extra hunter soon and get a titan, then I can make a truly informed observation.

More "Destiny: YMMV" I guess.

I personally love it too, but I think that when stuff goes real bad, the bubble shield and self res have a better chance of holding off disaster :)

Yeah, I really wanted to blame Jaimez's non-invis-Gunslinger, but it was a team-effort-fail. ;)

And that's why I love Khepri's Sting, no reason to switch away from my preferred subclass to gain invisibility.

More "Destiny: YMMV" I guess.

I personally love it too, but I think that when stuff goes real bad, the bubble shield and self res have a better chance of holding off disaster :)

Yeah, I really wanted to blame Jaimez's non-invis-Gunslinger, but it was a team-effort-fail. ;)

More "Destiny: YMMV" I guess.

I personally love it too, but I think that when stuff goes real bad, the bubble shield and self res have a better chance of holding off disaster :)

Note: I find warlocks much more useful than the other classes for this fight since we can run around for the mines with impunity, but I will not be one since I used it last time. I will be a hunter, probably.

Alright, let's do it. I'll make a thing, y'all can sign up for the thing.

Edit - here's the thing: http://destiny.bungie.org/ftb/853

This is a good week to kill him before/as the 2nd mines spawn. This way you can defuse them with no enemies on the map.
1. Get him just above 25% health
2. Kill all the adds (or as many as possible so you feel comfortable making laps around the map)
3. Go to the left safe area
4. If skolas is far away (greater than 1/2 way across the map toward the back wall), unload rockets on him until he's dead. If he's close, do another lap around the map.

Note: Last week this was more difficult because Small Arms made rockets do less damage.

See, I was actually thinking about this on our last run - wondering if we could just burn him before the second mines - but I didn't want to mess with our concentration that far in by suggesting something new.

Damn. I had the same thought, but also didn't want to mess things up by getting too eager.

With that in mind, I actually might be up to try this again on Friday night. It's not a bad-burn week, and I'd really like to check Skolas off my list for good.

I'd be down for a Friday run. I think there was a piece of exotic gear that wasn't leveled up that I thought might have been better for my Warlock. I'll see if I can't get that ready by then.

-Disciple

This is a good week to kill him before/as the 2nd mines spawn. This way you can defuse them with no enemies on the map.
1. Get him just above 25% health
2. Kill all the adds (or as many as possible so you feel comfortable making laps around the map)
3. Go to the left safe area
4. If skolas is far away (greater than 1/2 way across the map toward the back wall), unload rockets on him until he's dead. If he's close, do another lap around the map.

Note: Last week this was more difficult because Small Arms made rockets do less damage.

See, I was actually thinking about this on our last run - wondering if we could just burn him before the second mines - but I didn't want to mess with our concentration that far in by suggesting something new.

With that in mind, I actually might be up to try this again on Friday night. It's not a bad-burn week, and I'd really like to check Skolas off my list for good.

Note: Last week this was more difficult because Small Arms made rockets do less damage.

P.S. And yes, for the record; we're doing the strategies, rotating around under the platform, the whole deal. I read the tip-posts, they were very helpful, in theory. Apparently I just really suck that bad ...

Not at all. This is a very difficult fight.

I have a couple of suggestions that might help:

1) A huge part of what makes Skolas so tough is exhaustion. I find that it is so easy to fixate on Skolas himself, that I lose focus on the rest of the rounds. So before you go back in, I would suggest putting a decent plan together for how to tackle the rest of the challenge. The last time I defeated Skolas, it only took us about 40 minutes to reach him. It makes a big difference being relatively fresh and alert as you go in to the fight. The Fallen "eliminate target" rounds are actually the toughest in the entire challenge, IMO. It is easy to get hung up on those waves for a long time. So focus on those first. Get a routine down that lets you clear waves 1-4 quickly and consistently. This might mean spending a couple nights running 35 PoE without intention of actually finishing it.

2) When it comes to 35 PoE, all classes are not created equal. Having a bladedancer in the group can certainly be helpful, but not in the clutch-save kind of way as sunsingers or defenders. Having warlocks who can self-res negates some of the threat posed by the devouring essence, and defender bubbles make the mine waves a lot less stressful. I personally feel that a group comprised of sunsingers and/or defenders has an advantage over a group with a hunter in the mix. It is of course still doable with a Hunter (I ran hunter my last 2 times through the 35 PoE) but if you're having difficulty, it might be something to consider.

The below the platform strategy took a lot of the stress off the fight for me. I knew that I could get in the corners and recover if I took too much damage. When I'm up top it seems that sometimes I'm getting shot no matter where I move. I was afraid the captain that spawns down there would be a problem, especially with angry modifier, but 2 maxed Found Verdicts made his visit very short.

From there, the mines are the only troubling part. We wiped our first time because of two poorly timed rockets that killed two of us. On the second try, we had the middle mine come up first. We had two hunter's and a titan. All three of us went to the middle and dropped a bubble. I went invisible and went on to the left side platform. The other two went back to the right side platform. Fortunately, we timed it right so that I was the immune person as I ran to the left side alone. I was able to get that mine and get back before it was my turn. Going invisible really helps with this.