ELI5 what the Elder's "Unstable" phase is

The patch notes imply that it's optional since you get "extra" items for beating the unstable phase, but I've cleared the elder a dozen times (that's not a "hahah I killed him a lot!" note--I mean literally around 12, since after that I got bored of hunting him) and have no idea what the notes were talking about. The wiki isn't helping.

The Shaper/Portals bit. Which speed clear folks just skip because it's faster to let the Elder escape and then burn him down.

Now speed clears have to actually play the fight properly, and if the Elder breaks free of the Shaper's containment attempt you get no phat lewtz. All is as it should be.

Great, thanks for the info.

Until these patch notes I didn't even realize it was possible for the shaper to die during what seemed like a twenty-hour-long semi-interactive cutscene. I just killed all the minions instantly because if I didn't, they'd kill me.

The Shaper can die, yes. Quite easily in fact, if you don't do a very good job of staying on top of the critter count. Allowing this to happen frees the Elder, who starts wrecking shit up again and can be killed normally (with reduced drops and no Watcher's Eye, as of 3.2). It's one of the reasons I loved being a non-crit Inquisitor in 3.1 - I dropped Consecrated Ground everywhere and since the Shaper was allied to me in these encounters, my Cons. Ground healed him and made my life ever so much easier.

Feels bad, did it with endgame gear in Standard and GC Miner in the league, I just thought you wasted the encounter and Elder ran away or some shit if Shaper died lmao

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1453R wrote:

It's one of the reasons I loved being a non-crit Inquisitor in 3.1 - I dropped Consecrated Ground everywhere and since the Shaper was allied to me in these encounters, my Cons. Ground healed him and made my life ever so much easier.

For anyone reading this and struggling with Shaper's survival, remember about this thing:



It also drops conc ground. If you are struggling just grab one of these and pop it when you're next to Shaper.