Guide to defeating doppelganger

The following tactics have been suggested to beat the Doppelganger:

General

 * The Doppelganger will have the same skills you equip, so don't equip any skill you wouldn't want used against you.
 * Exception: PvE skills are not copied, so you can bring whatever you want from those. Ursan Blessing for instance is a good choice.


 * Think very carefully before bringing any skill that can be used to heal yourself.


 * The AI generally prioritizes skills to the left of the skill bar.


 * Equip lots of slow-casting self-buffs: the less useful in the one-on-one fight, the better. The Doppelganger will waste time at the beginning of the fight casting every buff on itself.


 * Cast any self-buff enchantments before stepping on the third stone that starts the cut scene; they will last into the match. Cut scenes no longer run in real time, so any enchantments with a duration will not expire or run down their time during the cut scene.


 * Dodge arrows: Stand as far away from the Doppelganger as you can be and still cast spells on it, and strafe left and right as fast as you can. Make sure to constantly tap both ways. This twitchy movement will cause the Doppelganger to shoot wide and miss most of its shots.

Hard Mode Notes


 * Consider switching to a Necromancer secondary and using the following setup. Equip Enfeeble, Insidious Parasite, and Spiteful Spirit and max out your Curses attribute to 12. This will cause the Doppelganger to kill himself relatively quickly, granting the completion of the Bonus objective. The rest of the skill bar is not important and should be left empty to increase the amount of time the Doppelganger spends attacking; do not attack him yourself. This strategy works for any profession with the advantage that the three spells are all from the Prophecies campaign. Spoil Victor should not be overlooked if you have Factions.

Profession specific tips
If you have any problems defeating your doppelganger, look for profession specific tips below.

Elementalist

 * Bring lots of skills with very long cast times. The Doppelganger will usually waste his time casting these skills, giving you plenty of time to kill him. When using this strategy, consider using skills like Meteor Shower or Maelstrom.


 * Step out of AoE DoT spells like Meteor Shower or Maelstrom; the Doppelganger usually will not.


 * Do not equip skills that could disrupt your spell casting (like Gale or Earthquake).


 * Cast glyphs before stepping on the last stone. This will give you an advantage in battle, as you will waste less time casting.

Hard Mode Notes


 * Hindering his damage dealing ability may be of great help, as you do not have as high armor as other professions have. Blinding Flash or Blinding Surge is a good option to stop him from dealing too much damage with attacking.

Mesmer

 * Backfire is a very usefull skill. Consider using it with cheap other cheap, harmless spells. Just cast Backfire on him and let him cast himself to death. Be careful not to let Backfire trigger on yourself though.


 * Anti-melee hexes like Empathy, Clumsiness and Spirit of Failure can greatly help in letting the Doppelganger kill himself. Consider combining this with Spirit Shackles and Mind Wrack. When using this technique, just do not attack him.


 * Having Illusion of Weakness on your bar and casting it before entering the Doppelganger's arena can provide you with great healing. Place it on the right of your bar, as it is less likely that he will use it himself.


 * Shatter Enchantment is a good idea. Take some cheap enchantments and let the Doppelganger cast them on himself, only to shatter them.


 * Be careful with interrupts. The AI almost always has faster reflexes than you, so it is likely you will get interrupted.

Hard Mode Notes


 * The AI appears to not use spells when it is at low health and has Backfire on it.

Monk

 * The AI will not use Regeneration skills like Healing Breeze to counter health loss, but will use it only to counter Degeneration. Use this to your advantage.


 * Monks have little options to deal damage, so try focussing on Smiting Prayers.


 * Bring Retribution and Holy Wrath to let the Doppelganger kill himself. As this will drain your energy completely, use Signets to heal yourself.


 * With a Necromancer secondary, the skill Rend Enchantments can work wonders. Take 7 monk enchantments, preferably Maintainable skills, and cast them on yourself before entering the arena. Let the Doppelganger use Rend Enchantments to kill himself.

Hard Mode Notes


 * In Hard Mode, the AI will force him to use Healing Breeze.

Necromancer

 * Bring spells that require a health sacrifice. Don't use these skills yourself, but rather let the Doppelganger use them. By including Awaken the Blood or Cultist's Fervor as the first skills in your skill bar, the Doppelganger will use them first, thereby increasing the health sacrifice. The elite skill Order of the Vampire is a very good choice for this role. With a 17% max health sacrifice and a 5 second cooldown, the Doppelganger is likely to kill himself in seconds. With Monk as your secondary profession, Scourge Sacrifice works wonders with this strategy.


 * Take skills that inflict conditions upon yourself, such as Signet of Agony and Chilblains. Don't use them yourself, let the Doppelganger use them, giving itself conditions such as poison and bleeding, while you only take a small amount of damage.


 * Anti-melee hexes like Spiteful Spirit, Insidious Parasite and Reckless Haste make killing the Doppelganger a lot easier. Cast the hexes on him, and let him kill himself. Be sure to not attack him with these hexes on you.


 * Don't bring life steal skills or hexes such as Life Siphon and Life Transfer. The Doppelganger will likely also cast them on you, so at best it will be an even trade and cancel out.


 * Remember that there will be nothing dying in this battle, so not only will Soul Reaping be worthless, anything that requires a corpse (such as any well spells, any minions, Soul Feast, Consume Corpse, Necrotic Traversal, etc.) will do you no good.

Hard Mode Notes


 * Anti-melee hexes work wonders.

Ranger

 * Bring many slow-casting Nature Rituals like Winter and Quickening Zephyr (bringing about 5 to 6 Nature Rituals should enable you to kill the Doppelganger without attack skills before it can even start to attack, if you have a maximum damage bow. Bring Favorable Winds and put it at skill slot number 1, as the Doppelganger will use it first in that instance, thus strengthening your attacks and increasing your attack speed while it casts more useless Nature Rituals). The Doppelganger will waste time casting the rituals while you attack. If you are R/Mo, bring some smiters like Balthazar's Aura


 * Equip bow attacks and stay within melee range of the Doppelganger; it will switch to its axe and thus be unable to use the bow attacks.


 * Bring traps and high Wilderness Survival. If you manage to have the Doppelganger set off a trap or two (use a defensive stance to improve the odds you won't be interrupted) it can give you a significant advantage.


 * Alternatively, get your pet to do all the damage. Set Beast Mastery and Expertise to max. Then, take the skill Enraged Lunge as your major skill, and a few pet buffs and shouts, i.e. Symbiotic Bond, Call of Protection, etc. Predatory Bond should also be taken, as it means you have healing and the Doppelganger does not. As long as all of your skills are pet based, the Doppelganger is useless. Simply instruct your pet to attack, run behind a wall where the Doppelganger cannot hit you with his bow, and use pet healing and attack skills. This tactic works in Hard Mode, even with a low level pet and ranger as a secondary profession, provided you have enough energy to keep up the attacks.

Hard Mode Notes


 * It appears that it is in the Doppelganger's priority, to cast all subsequent Nature Rituals first, and then later attack. One is able to take advantage of this, by equipping up to five long-casting Nature Rituals, Burning Arrow, and Apply Poison. Simply keep up Apply Poison, and spam Burning Arrow while the Doppelganger is spamming spirits for a rather quick victory.


 * The Nature Rituals strategy can be combined with the pet strategy described above. By bringing a few nature rituals as well as a pet (using Enraged Lunge as the elite skill along with a few shouts and pet attacks) a large portion of the doppelganger's life can be removed before it even starts attacking the player. In addition, if Disrupting Lunge is used to interrupt one of the nature rituals, the Doppelganger may begin attacking the pet instead of the player.

Warrior

 * Equip Frenzy, but don't use it. The Doppelganger will, putting itself at a significant disadvantage. Couple this with a few energy-based attacks which you can use right away (such as Power Attack etc) and the Doppelganger should go down in 15 seconds or less.
 * It is also advisable (if you have GWEN) to take Frenzied Defense and Ursan Blessing. Since ursan skills cannot be blocked, you do well over 200 damage with swipe and rage. The estimated time for killing the Doppelganger with this strategy is less than 10 seconds.
 * The Doppelganger does not use a shield, so bringing skills that require a shield (such as Shield Stance and Shield Bash) gives a significant advantage.


 * Equip an attack combo from left to right in reverse order (such as Final Thrust, Gash, Sever Artery). The Doppelganger doesn't understand the order certain skills should be used in, and prioritizes them from left to right on the bar when they are charged. (This strategy does not work in Hard Mode)


 * Any skills that cause you to lose all adrenaline (such as Wild Blow) can be a great benefit. Ignore them yourself and let the Doppelganger waste its own adrenaline using them on you.

Hard Mode Notes


 * You can actually easily kill the Doppelganger by not even attacking him. One method is to use Signet of Stamina, Dolyak Signet, Gladiator's Defense, and Deadly Riposte. Max your attribute points on Strength and Tactics only.  Activate Signet of Stamina, and proceed toward the Doppelganger.  Get close to him so he starts using his Axe, then activate Gladiators Defense and spam Deadly Riposte. When Gladiators Defense ends, use Dolyak Signet.  Rinse and repeat.


 * He doesn't seem to use Frenzy even when it's first in your skill bar.

Ritualist

 * Equip Soothing, Shelter, Shadowsong, Pain, Bloodsong, and Dissonance with your Communing attribute as high as possible. As soon as the fight begins start summoning spirits, starting with Dissonance (to keep the Doppelganger from summoning the spirits itself) and going backward in the list. You don't need Soothing and Shelter: they are only equipped to keep the Doppelganger busy and reduce the chance that it also starts with Dissonance. Typically it will be dead within 25 seconds.


 * Equip only Vengeful Weapon and Weapon of Remedy with high Restoration Magic. Repeatedly spam on yourself for an easy win.


 * An alternative, if you have the elite skill Vengeful Was Khanhei, equip only this with Vengeful Weapon and continue spamming on yourself without attacking the doppelganger. You will easily achieve the bonus too.


 * Equip useless spirits (and don't plan to use them yourself), such as Disenchantment, Soothing, and Recovery. These will not affect you, but will waste the Doppelganger's time. Use a high Channeling Magic attribute with Renewing Surge, Channeled Strike, and any item spell like Cruel Was Daoshen. Caretaker's Charge is very effective. Just hold the item and spam Caretakers Charge, Renewing Surge, and Channeled Strike. The Doppelganger should go down quickly, considering you can do this while he's busy casting the spirits.  You could also bring along Gaze of Fury to make his spirits add to the damage.  He will not use his own Gaze of Fury on your Spirit of Fury.


 * On Normal Mode, he can be killed with only Vengeful Weapon and Spirit Rift, which are both skills you receive on character creation.

Hard Mode Notes


 * You can beat your Doppelganger easily by switching to a Mesmer secondary and using Vengeful Was Khanhei and Vengeful Weapon with Arcane Echo to maintain Vengeful was Khanhei. The Doppelganger will go down in a little over a minute. No other skills are needed.

Assassin

 * Bring a pair of vampiric daggers and no skills with high Critical Strikes and Dagger Mastery.


 * Don't take any Dual Attacks, but include hexes that trigger on them to have the Doppelganger waste its time and energy casting them.


 * As a general rule, if you can start a dagger chain that you can use but the Doppelganger will not, it is quite easy to out damage it. Falling Spider and Horns of the Ox make a great combination that can be alternated to keep an ongoing chain of damage and degeneration on the Doppelganger. By utilizing methods to knock down the Doppelganger (allowing Falling Spider) that it will be unable or unlikely to use, you can start the chain without worry of retaliation. An example of this is to be an Assassin/Ranger and bring a pet. All you need is a pet attack to cause a condition (such as Poisonous Bite), follow with Iron Palm, and now you have the knockdown to start the chain.


 * The Unsuspecting Strike, Wild Strike, Horns of the Ox, Falling Spider, and Twisting Fangs attack chain with high Critical Strikes and Dagger Mastery attributes can defeat the Doppelganger in about 5 or 6 seconds, provided you get off the combo first. To keep the Doppelganger occupied, bring along a slow-casting, useless skill and put it at the far left of the skill bar. Use Death's Charge to shadow step to it at the beginning and attack.


 * Bring Shadow Form with highest shadow arts and a set of 7 attacks. Do bring Horns of the Ox, Falling Spider, Death Blossom. You can also bring a offhand attack that needs enchantments, one lead and another offhand. The Doppelganger will be dead at the end of the sequence most probably (around 8 secs).


 * You can also try the 'A/Me Solo Sin' Build by bringing Arcane Echo, Shadow Form, Empathy, Black Lotus Strike, Black Spider Strike and Twisting Fangs. To see a video of this in action, click here.


 * Equip Shadow Walk and shorter-duration enchantments that can keep you alive, like Shadow Refuge. The Doppelganger will shadow step to you, but be unable to cast any enchantments for 30 seconds. Follow up by laying into it with a dagger combo starting with Golden Phoenix Strike to kill it. Make sure not to bring any other stances.


 * A variation of the above is simply to bring Golden Phoenix Strike, Death Blossom and Moebius Strike with Critical Agility as the Enchantment to trigger Golden Phoenix Strike. Since the Doppelganger cannot use PvE only skills he cannot use the chain, and you will easily out-damage him. Alternatively take other PvE only enchantments from the Eye of the North campaign, or PvE hexes to trigger Black Spider Strike followed by Death Blossom and Moebius Strike. (The writer of this advice is forgetting the Divine Fire enchantment that is on both you and the Doppleganger. Neither side ever needs enchantments equipped to be able to use "if enchanted" skills.)


 * Equip from left to right in this order Frenzy, Recall, Critical Agility, Golden Lotus Strike, Fox Fangs, Twisting Fangs, Shadow Refuge. Apply Critical Agility before stepping on the last platform and when the fight starts, go for broke with Golden -> Fox Fangs -> Twisting Fangs...a couple seconds later you're done with bonus included.


 * Bring Shadow Form and Expunge Enchantments to bring the foe to minimal health, and follow with any attack combo for quick kill. Do not use Shadow Form yourself, however.

Hard Mode Notes


 * In Hard Mode, Empathy, Shadow Form, and Feigned Neutrality work well to have the Doppelganger kill itself. The 'A/Me Solo Sin' build is still quite effective.


 * In Hard Mode the third to last strategy above also works if you time it right.

Paragon

 * Use a lot of Spear Attacks, and stay in melee range. The Doppelganger will use its axe, and will not be able to use these attack skills.


 * Equip chants that have an effect based on spell casting, such as Aria of Zeal or Aria of Restoration. The Doppelganger will waste time and energy using these for no benefit.


 * With a Paragon/Elementalist this was successfully completed in under 25 seconds. Attribute allocation is not of major concern providing sufficient points for weapon and shield are maintained. Place no attribute points into the secondary profession line. Allocate a couple of large energy requirement spells or skills in the first 2 skill slots; attunements like Air Attunement and Fire Attunement are ideal, using 10 energy each. The Doppelganger will always apply these first. In your final skill slot place Aggressive Refrain and apply this echo while the Doppelganger is casting the attunements. Avoid skills that increase defense such as the elite "Incoming!" or "Stand Your Ground!". Attack skills that are effective include Barbed Spear and Blazing Spear, enhanced by "Go for the Eyes!". Once your echo has been applied simply attack and use adrenal skills when charged.


 * Bring Aggressive Refrain, Anthem of Flame, Signet of Aggression, and adrenal spear attacks.

Dervish

 * Bring Vow of Strength with high Scythe Mastery and Earth Prayers. Cast Vow of Strength after the cut scene and attack the Doppelganger; it will go down in less than 20 seconds. A Dervish/Warrior can bring Frenzy for an even easier kill. A vampiric scythe with +15% damage while enchanted also helps.


 * Bring Vow of Silence (let the Doppelganger use it but don't use it yourself), Heart of Holy Flame, Zealous Renewal or Balthazar's Rage, Grenth's Fingers, Dust Cloak, Mystic Twister, and Mystic Sandstorm. Put all of your attribute points into Mysticism, Earth Prayers, and Wind Prayers; Mysticism is the most important. You'll need a staff with +15 or more energy on it and possibly extra energy from armor. The Doppelganger will start off by casting Vow of Silence, which means it cannot use any other spells, then you can use your skills in this order: Heart of Holy Flame, Zealous Renewal, Grenth's Fingers, Dust Cloak, Mystic Twister, Mystic Sandstorm. All of these skills will go through the Doppelganger's Vow of Silence since they are not targeted. If Mystic Sandstorm doesn't finish it off, the burning from Heart of Holy Flame will. This method takes around 6-10 seconds to kill the Doppelganger, depending on your runes and energy.


 * If you are a Dervish/Ranger, bring Avatar of Lyssa and as many slow-casting, useless spirits as possible. The Doppelganger will cast the spirits while you attack with Avatar of Lyssa on.


 * A few high damage attacks (such as Reaper's Sweep, Irresistible Sweep, Pious Assault, or Victorious Sweep) should be enough to quickly overpower the Doppelganger before it can do the same to you. As also valid for most other tips in this guide, bringing slow casting and useless enchantments or spirits from your secondary profession is a good idea, since the Doppelganger will use these first, during which time you can kill it at your leisure without it attacking you at all.


 * Bring the two 3/4 second Scythe Mastery attacks, Mystic Sweep and Eremite's Attack, along with the usual slow-casting skills. Exclusively spamming those two attacks in sequence will drop the Doppelganger fairly quickly.


 * A very simple way to kill the Doppelganger in about 3 seconds is to equip Frenzy on the far left of the skill bar and Vow of Strength on the far right. Skill points should be split between Scythe Mastery and Earth Prayers.  At the start of battle simply cast Vow of Strength, attack the enemy, then activate Frenzy.  The Doppelganger uses Frenzy first, which means he takes an enormous amount of damage very quickly.

Hard Mode Notes


 * For Hard Mode, the tactics described above are usually not sufficient, as the Doppelganger simply outdamages you. A good way of defeating him is to use Ebon Dust Aura with an Earth weapon (such as Bubahl's Grasp) and any spammable attack skill in order to constantly blind the Doppelganger. The Doppelganger will not be able to take advantage of Ebon Dust Aura. On the damage side, you can either use Empathy as D/Me or more attack skills (Victorious Sweep, Chilling Victory) with appropriate attribute distribution). IAS skills also help.