Guide to defeating Magni the Bison

Magni the Bison
Magni the Bison is a level 24 warrior boss, with all that being a boss entails: a very long lifeline (you have to take about 1300 HP off him to win), double damage, +3 health regeneration, and half skill activation time. If you don't have any defensive skills but try to trade hits, you'll probably die within ten seconds. As such, any strategy to beat the tournament must start with a way to beat him. There are at least five basic approaches that can usually work:


 * Keep him blinded so he rarely hits you.
 * Keep him crippled and kill him from a distance.
 * Keep him weakened to limit damage and bring copious healing.
 * Bring myriad blocking skills to block most of his attacks.
 * Keep Protective Spirit on yourself to limit his damage.

Bison has two knockdown skills, so even some skills will be interrupted if he hits you. He also has a third skill which will knock you down if you block it, so blocking skills don't reduce his knockdowns by much. This means that relatively few builds can invariably beat him, though many can beat him most of the time, if you don't get knocked down to interrupt a cast at exactly the wrong time.

Further, Bison has Purge Signet, which will remove all hexes and conditions from him. He won't use it just to remove crippled or bleeding, but will use it as often as the cooldown allows to remove blindness, weakness, burning, dazed, or poison. As such, if you're relying on kiting him, it may be best to avoid using conditions other than crippled and bleeding, so that you don't push him to use purge signet to remove crippled.

As he is a warrior, if you use a martial weapon, switching to one that does elemental damage can make the battle go faster. This is rarely the difference between winning and losing, but can substantially shorten some long battles.

Assembling a build
As you must beat five other opponents in order to reach Bison, any build that can beat him but not preceding opponents is useless. The way to fill out your build after bringing skills that can beat Bison in particular is to add other skills in the remaining slots to make a well-rounded build.

Skills that affect multiple opponents or multiple allies tend to be less useful here, as there is usually only one opponent and only one ally (namely, you). Skills that incapacitate just one opponent can be highly useful, as that's usually everyone that you have to face.

The polar opposite of Bison's massive damage with no healing approach is the opponents who have little interest in killing you, but will spam self-heals to try for a stalemate. You'll have to bring skills to either cause a substantial damage spike of 200+ HP within several seconds, or else bring interrupts or some other way to stop their healing.

It is also vital that you bring self-healing skills. Many mobs cannot be finished off before they'll do enough damage to kill you if you can't heal yourself. For several opponents, it is necessary to wait until they are low on energy before you can do much damage, and you'll have to spend a lot of time healing before that.

Health degeneration hexes and conditions are useful, as unlike a lot of PvE combat where you put a 20 second condition on a mob and it dies 5 seconds later, you often get the full duration of health degeneration on the opponent--and if you don't, it usually means you won.

Opponents with interrupts can pretty reliably interrupt a skill they don't like with an activation time of 1 second or more if you don't have a way to prevent it. Skills with a 3/4 second activation time are only infrequently interrupted. Skills that activate faster than that are pretty safe to cast, and generally interrupted only by dumb luck when an opponent knocks you down without trying to interrupt anything in particular. If you need to get a longer cast off, doing so while your opponent is using a different skill can prevent him from using an interrupt at the same time.

A simple trick to increase your maximum health at least a little, is to activate your Norn Title. Even a rank of 1 will provide you with an additional 53 HP. 55-HP monks and similar builds should NOT activate this title, because it would probably screw those builds.

Single class builds
If you don't have all of the campaigns, that may make some skills in the builds listed unavailable to you. Some skills are easily swapped out for others (e.g., if you don't have Prophecies, replace disciplined stance by some other blocking stance) but some are essential to the build (e.g., the mesmer build completely fails without signet of midnight). It is too much work to create builds that work for every class and every combination of campaigns available, so you're on your own to fix up a build.

Below are examples of builds for each profession which can take down Magni. None of them are guaranteed to have a 100% success rate so do consider what you bring in the optional slots.

Warrior
The core of this build revolves around:

With maxed Tactics and a solid investment into both Strength and Swordsmanship

The idea is to block most of Bison's attacks while hurting him as well. Since the ripostes are the skills that topple Magni, it leaves you plenty of room to tailor your bar.

Suggested optional skills are:
 * A healing skill, Healing Signet or Lion's Comfort should suffice.
 * A general multi-purpose elite, something like Ursan Blessing, Grenth's Balance or Auspicious Parry are all possible skills. This is because they all work against Magni but also against the other opponents (to varying degrees).
 * A interrupt. While not totally needed, if timed correctly can devastate Magni is used right.
 * Some attack skills. Final Thrust and Sun and Moon Slash are both respectable skills to take as they can help finish off the last part of Magni's life.

Ranger
The core of this build revolves around:

A solid split between Expertise and Wilderness Survival. Also try to reach the minimum level for your bow.

The approach here is to keep Bison perpetually crippled, so that you can avoid getting hit. If you avoid using poison, Bison won't use purge signet, which makes him easier to kite, though poison will finish him off faster.

Suggested optional skills are:
 * A healing skill, Troll Unguent should be more than suffice for any incidental damage you may suffer.
 * A blocking stance such as Lightning Reflexes. To provide some breathing room if you made a mistake.
 * A interrupt. While not totally needed, if timed correctly can devastate Magni is used right.

Monk
The core of this build revolves around:

13 Protection Prayers 11 Smiting Prayers 11 Divine Favor

Uses Protective Spirit to mitigate Magni's mighty blows while using Reversal of Fortune to heal and Reversal of Damage to kill.

Suggested optional skills are:
 * E-management. This skill bar is very energy heavy and thus you will often find yourself without a protective spirit up due to lack of energy. Something like Castigation Signet, some of the Mesmer skills in the Inspiration line should be able to help.
 * More smiting skills. Reversal of Damage will take a long time to kill anyone if it is solely relied on, skills like Bane Signet can help in taking down Magni.

Necromancer
The core of this build revolves around:

Max Curses

Relies on Insidious Parasite to let Magni slowly kill himself while he feebly mashes into you. Grenth's Balance is used to save yourself if the fight goes south (not just against Magni but everyone).

Suggested optional skills are:
 * More killing skills. While Insidious Parasite will work on a weapon-user, it's quite lackluster against some opponents before Magni. Desecrate Enchantments and Necrosis are both possible choices.
 * Parasitic Bond. Since Magni will use his purge signet of recharge, parasitic bond can provide a big heal and relieve some fire while you recast insidious parasite.
 * More protection. Sometimes weakening a opponent will not be enough and this some of the monk protection skills come into play. Protective Spirit is a good skill here.

Mesmer
The core of this build revolves around:

A solid investment into Domination and Inspiration.

This build revolves around keeping Magni blind while he slowly kills himself from Empathy. Ignorance prevents him from using his signets while Spirit of Failure helps manages energy.

Suggested optional skills are:
 * Healing. With a decent investment into Inspiration then Ether Feast becomes quite alluring.
 * More damage skills to help speed up killing. Necrosis is again a excellent choice here. Backfire on the other hand can help with other opponents that can't be beaten with Empathy.
 * A interrupt. While not totally needed, if timed correctly can devastate Magni is used right.

Elementalist
The core of this build revolves around:

Maxed Air Mastery

Basically you'll keep Magni blind at all times while slowly whittling down his life with Lightning Orb. The attunement and glyph are to help manage energy.

Suggested optional skills are:
 * Healing. Aura of Restoration or Glyph of Restoration should suffice.
 * More damage. Something like Lightning Javelin or Energy Blast will help take him down much faster.
 * Utility. A Enervating Charge thrown in there can give some more breathing room as well as making earlier opponents easier.

Assassin
12 Shadow Arts 12 Dagger Mastery 11 Critical Strikes

Start the fight by using smoke powder defense. When Bison first hits you, he'll be blinded, and immediately purge it. Be ready with temple strike immediately after he purges his blindness. Wait until right about when that wears off to hit him with blinding powder. If you wait long enough, he'll waste purge signet removing blindness right as it is about to wear off, at which point you hit him with temple strike again and repeat the process. If you wait too long, you'll have to use smoke powder defense to re-blind him in order to get him to waste purge signet. Shadow refuge is your healing skill. Jagged strike is recommended for its very quick recharge, low energy cost, and ability to do massive damage from bleeding since you can only use it infrequently due to energy constraints and the large energy cost of temple strike.

I was able to beat all the opponents I faced except Lukas, though Gwen and Razah can also be troublesome. Lukas is beatable with this build, too, though, as I twice came within a timely interrupt of healing signet of beating him. Among opponents I did not face, only Eve looks like a potential problem.

Opponents not attempted: Kilroy, Old Mac, Eve, Devona

Ritualist
13 Channeling 11 Communing 11 Spawning Power

Start by casting ritual lord and boon of creation before the battle starts, so that if something goes wrong, you can recast spirits later. Stand in the doorway before entering the arena and cast the four spirits in order. You should position yourself such that when the door closes, the spirits will be inside of it--and not behind it, or it will block their attacks. Cast painful bond on your opponent when he comes over, and the spirits will promptly destroy him. Vampirism can replace one of the spirits if you have it. Putting spirits inside the doorway strikes me as something of an exploit, so ArenaNet may fix it at some point and make the popular spirit spammer approach no longer work. If they do then you can use Summon Spirits to pull the spirits through the door (you must cast after you cross the threshhold but before the gate fully closes or they will remain outside).

The only opponent I didn't beat was Danika, though the game randomly minimized in the middle of the battle, so that fight probably wasn't very representative. Mhenlo, Norgu, and Razah have funky AI, so the battle proceeds a little differently, but they're quite beatable. Argo will destroy the spirits while taking minimal damage, making for a harder fight. The opponents I didn't draw should be easy unless they have unusual AI to not die in the normal manner.

Opponents not attempted: Sogolon, Old Mac, Nika

Dervish
Key (from left): Ebon Dust Aura, Mystic Regeneration, Vital Boon, Aura of Thorns, Signet of Pious Light, Mystic Sweep, Radiant Scythe and Conviction


 * 12 Mysticism
 * 12 Scythe Mastery
 * 11 Earth Prayers

It is absolutely essential to use an ebon scythe. If you don't have one, you can try to compensate with dust cloak or staggering force.

Stay enchanted with Ebon Dust Aura at all times, use scythe attack skills as often as necessary to keep Bison virtually always blinded. Mystic Regeneration, Vital Boon, and Signet of Pious Light are your healing skills to keep yourself alive. Scythe attacks do adequate damage to slowly wear Bison down, though the bleeding from Aura of Thorns would hasten it.

This build has not been tested against: Kilroy, Sogolon, Melonni, Warmaster Tydus

During testing, it was discovered that Mhenlo was only deflatable if he did not cast Mending early on in the battle.

Paragon
14 Spear mastery 13 Motivation 4 Leadership

Start by charging barbed spear, then use it, followed by maiming spear to cripple Bison. You can then run around to kite him, periodically stopping to use barbed spear and maiming spear again. Use mending refrain if you get hit, but maiming spear lasts long enough that you should rarely get hit other than his initial flurry. Avoid using stunning strike or blazing spear, as these will lead him to use purge signet, and thus remove both bleeding and crippled. You can use disrupting throw for its 1/2 second activation time as a quick extra attack to charge barbed spear a little faster if needed.

I beat all the opponents I faced, though Razah is hard if it opens with wanderlust or shadowsong, before you can apply a condition and interrupt it. Among those I haven't fought, Danika and the Ghostly Hero look troublesome, the latter because immunity to bleeding really messes up this build.

Opponents not attempted: Kilroy, Danika, Ghostly Hero, Headmaster Vhang, Nika