I've been seeing lots of talk about the Skolas battle around here, as well as on Facebook and Twitter. Lots of people seem to be finding it a bit overwhelming, and understandably so. It is an intense marathon of an encounter. So here's a quick guide to help people get a feel for how to approach the fight.

The most important thing to keep in mind during the Skolas battle is that you are in complete control. There are several phases to the battle, each with their own unique mechanics and objectives. These phases, as well as enemy reinforcement waves, are all gated by Skolas' health. Once his health drops below a certain point, the next phase of the battle is triggered. This means that you get to decide when each phase begins. If you aren't ready for the next phase, don't attack Skolas. Simple as that.

With this in mind, it is very important to be patient. Have a plan of attack for each phase of the battle, and make sure you are ready to execute that plan before you progress the fight. Sometimes this means hanging back and killing time while you wait for Supers or Ammo Synths to recharge. That's fine.

My group tends to treat the elevated platform in the far left corner of the arena as our "home base". We find it to be the most easily defensible position. There is another, smaller elevated platform in the far right corner, which we treat as "position B". Set up positions in home base and hold out there for as long as possible. But as soon as you're feeling the slightest bit overwhelmed, rotate as a group over to position B and continue from there. You'll want to repeat this process throughout the entire battle. In most cases, you'll want to rotate along the outer edge of the arena... cutting through the middle is almost always guaranteed disaster.

Reference video:

Phase 1 - Servitor Bonds (Video time 0:00-1:09)

During the first phase, Skolas is protected by several cloaked servitors scattered around the arena; one on the left, one on the right, and one in the middle. The exact location of the Servitors varies, as they are constantly moving, but they each stay within their generally defined areas. In order to damage Skolas, you must first destroy one of these servitors. This will trigger a "Servitor Bonds Weakened" notification, along with a countdown timer. This is your window to damage Skolas. Once the timer reaches "0", the Servitor Bonds will regain full strength and Skolas will again become invulnerable until you destroy the next servitor. The phase ends when you've done enough damage to Skolas to permanently break his Servitor Bonds.

You will want to enter this battle with full Heavy Ammo. As usual, Gjallarhorn is ideal for maximum damage per second. Begin the battle by entering the arena and immediately running towards "home base" in the far left corner. A cloaked Servitor will be floating around on the platform. Destroy it, then hit Skolas with everything you have. By the time the countdown hits "0" Skolas will likely have moved very close to your position. As soon as his shields are back up, end your attack and rotate to "position b" in the far corner. By this time, substantial enemy reinforcements will have flooded the arena. Take your time and clear them all out before you engage Skolas again. The goal here is to avoid triggering the next phase of the battle, and the next round of reinforcements, with plenty of Fallen still running around the arena. Take your time dealing with the adds, rotating between home base and position B as needed. Once all the adds are gone, refill your heavy ammo, kill another cloaked Servitor, and hit Skolas again. Repeat this process until you receive the "Servitor Bonds are Broken" notification.

***VIDEO NOTE: In this video, we actually broke the servitor bonds with our very first attack on Skolas, so we proceeded directly in to phase 2. This is unusual. Phase 1 typically takes a lot more time, with several rotations between positions. ***

Phase 2 - Skolas Taints a Guardian's Light (Video Time 1:09-3:19)

With Skolas' servitor bonds permanently broken, he can now take damage at any time. Yaaaay! The bad news is that he responds by poisoning a member of your fireteam with a debuff called the "Devouring Essence". Once infected by the devouring essence, a player has 30 seconds to live. The only way to survive is to have another member of your fireteam take the essence from you by standing next to you and holding the X or Square button. This will pass the devouring essence over. But there's a wrinkle: Once the essence has been taken by your teammate, you will be immune for 40 seconds. This means you cannot take the essence back until your immunity wears off. Since the immunity lasts longer than the infection, all 3 members of your fireteam must pass the essence along in a set order. You also don't want to take the essence from your teammates too soon, or your other teammate's immunity won't have time to wear off. Use "10 seconds" as your signal. When the infected player has 10 seconds left to live, it is safe to move the essence to the next player. When their timer is down to 10 seconds, it is safe to move it to the 3rd player, etc.

This phase is all about getting a feel for passing the devouring essence between members of your fireteam. Get to work on thinning out all the fresh Fallen reinforcements, paying close attention to your various timers and practicing moving the essence around your group. Rotating around the arena is particularly dangerous now. You don't want to get separated or trapped in enemy fire as you go, since you may need to pass the essence between players while on the move. Once the adds are again eliminated, attack Skolas until his health hits the next threshold and triggers the next phase.

Phase 3 & 4 - Dismantle Mines (Phase 3 video time: 3:19-7:17, Phase 4 Video time: 7:17-end)

The final phases of the Skolas battle are both Mine dismantle rounds. Dismantling mines is the riskiest part of this entire battle, so your fireteam will need to have a firm plan in place, and react quickly. Unlike the rest of the Skolas fight, you do not have the luxury of time here. When the mines appear, you must get to them quickly. The mines will always appear in 3 locations ("home base" on the left side, "position B" on the right side, and the middle platform) but the order in which they appear is random and cannot be predicted. I mentioned earlier that cutting across the middle of the arena should be avoided, but during these rounds you may be left with no other choice. Move as a group as much as possible, but be prepared to split up if necessary. You must also keep a close eye on your devouring essence timers, and factor that in to your decisions. If you do need to split up, try to avoid sending the infected player way off on their own where they will likely die to the essence before you can reach them. Instead, try to send the player who was last infected, as they will be immune for some time anyway.

Your exact tactics will need to be based around the makeup of your fireteam: the classes and subclasses you're all using, & the abilities you have available. Some general tips for each class:

*Warlocks - Sunsinger is preferable over Void Walker here, purely for the ability to self-res.

*Hunters - go Bladedancer with invisibility. Being able to cloak makes the Hunter an ideal choice for sneaking across the arena to dismantle a mine solo, if necessary.

*Titans - Defender class is by far the best choice. Make sure you have a bubble ready at the start of each mine round. If possible, save the bubble for the middle mine; it is the most open to enemy fire. A bubble on that platform makes it far easier to dismantle the center mine, and it gives your fireteam a much-needed safe zone as you cross the arena to reach the mines on each side.

Once the first wave of mines have been dismantled, you can settle back into your previous routine of thinning out the Fallen forces, and preparing to attack Skolas. Once everyone is ready (full heavy ammo, supers charged, essence recently passed between players) hit Skolas until the 2nd wave of mines begins, then repeat the process.

If you successfully manage to dismantle the 2nd wave of mines, you are now on the home stretch! From here it's a simple matter of hitting Skolas until he is finally defeated. Be patient and careful... the devouring essence is still in play, and Skolas is still a dangerous foe even without any reinforcements. Play it safe, take your time, and you will beat him.

Conclusion

Hope people find this helpful! It's worth mentioning that there are other tried and true methods for defeating Skolas. This is just the method my group likes to use, and we've had great success with it.

If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to post them!

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stand_by_Your_Ad_provision

But your devouring time should be "until the end", not 3:19. Since it does happen the rest of the match.

the only thing that i have done differently was to send 2 people to the farthest mine. If you get held up at all traversing the map, you will need both people to dismantle the mine.

Also, it is good to trigger the mine sequence while on the small platform, as a single person can hide behind the little wall there to dismantle it. The mine by main base is out in the open.

Good summary. These are my favorite tips:

The most important thing to keep in mind during the Skolas battle is that you are in complete control.

In most cases, you'll want to rotate along the outer edge of the arena... cutting through the middle is almost always guaranteed disaster.

You will want to enter this battle with full Heavy Ammo. As usual, Gjallarhorn is ideal for maximum damage per second.

Play it safe, take your time, and you will beat him.

You must also keep a close eye on your devouring essence timers, and factor that in to your decisions.

The psychology of being in control takes some getting used to. But you really aren't in danger unless you put yourself in danger.

This is incomplete:

My group tends to treat the elevated platform in the far left corner of the arena as our "home base". We find it to be the most easily defensible position. There is another, smaller elevated platform in the far right corner, which we treat as "position B"

You didn't mention the only actual safe area -- underneath the far right corner. You could stay down there and nothing would spawn or attack you forever (as long as you don't shoot anything).

the only thing that i have done differently was to send 2 people to the farthest mine. If you get held up at all traversing the map, you will need both people to dismantle the mine.

Also, it is good to trigger the mine sequence while on the small platform, as a single person can hide behind the little wall there to dismantle it. The mine by main base is out in the open.

Thanks! And good suggestion. I didn't get into any points quite that specific because I've always found the mine rounds require a bit more improvisation than the rest of the battle. That's why I said "try to stay together, but be prepared to split up". Who goes where often depends on who's carrying the debuff at the time, what order the mines appear in, and where you're starting from.

My group always has at least 1 defender Titan, so we'll typically head to the middle and drop a bubble as soon as the round starts. If a mine spawns on either side, we'll send 2 people to it while the 3rd stays in the middle waiting for the next mine. That way they can either handle the middle one solo, or at least get the one on the far side started while the other 2 players make their way across.

But that strategy is very much reliant on having a bubble, so I didn't want to get into anything so specific :)

Thanks for pointing that out. When I'm referring to "phase 2", I'm describing the portion of the fight where the debuff is introduced, up until the first mine wave. I do mention that the debuff is still present in the later phases, but I should have been more clear.

If that's the only complaint I got it's a good job.

I did see how you said it would be there later, but I can see people missing it and then going hey, it's still there. Nitpicking of course.

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I recommend DreadPirateWes's strategy of using the room underneath the right side platform. I used it last week to great success. One note: With lightswitch as the modifier this week, the Captain spawn could wipe a team - watch for it!

This may be more detail than necessary, but with regards to the essence management during the mines:
We ran Hunter/Warlock/Titan and passed the essence in that order. When we were ready to trigger the mines, we ran from safety as soon as the Titan had the essence (running clockwise to the left side platform). We passed the essence to the Hunter just as we got to the left ledge, then dropped Skolas below the threshold. We then passed the essence to the Warlock. The (immune) hunter stayed behind to cover that mine using his various invisibility skills with Skolas so close, while the poisoned Warlock and Titan (who would grab the essence next) ran to the right side to cover those two mines.

First of all, thanks for reading it!

This is incomplete:

My group tends to treat the elevated platform in the far left corner of the arena as our "home base". We find it to be the most easily defensible position. There is another, smaller elevated platform in the far right corner, which we treat as "position B"

You didn't mention the only actual safe area -- underneath the far right corner. You could stay down there and nothing would spawn or attack you forever (as long as you don't shoot anything).

I specifically avoided talking about this technique for a few reasons (although I did link to your writeup so people can check it out).

a) I haven't tried it myself yet, so I don't have a great feel for it. I definitely want to check it out, though.

b) This is more of a playstyle preference than anything, but I just don't feel comfortable spending much time in a position where I feel "cornered". For me, part of being "in control" of this battle is keeping a good overview of the entire arena and constantly clearing adds out of the right and left lanes... none of which you can effectively do from under the right-side platform (if I understand correctly). That said, it is great to have a "danger free" zone to retreat to. I really want to give it a try for myself. Certainly sounds like a great method :)

This may be more detail than necessary, but with regards to the essence management during the mines:
We ran Hunter/Warlock/Titan and passed the essence in that order. When we were ready to trigger the mines, we ran from safety as soon as the Titan had the essence (running clockwise to the left side platform). We passed the essence to the Hunter just as we got to the left ledge, then dropped Skolas below the threshold. We then passed the essence to the Warlock. The (immune) hunter stayed behind to cover that mine using his various invisibility skills with Skolas so close, while the poisoned Warlock and Titan who would grab the essece from him ran to the right side to cover those two mines.

This is funny to me because I like to do it the opposite way... the hunter gives the poison away and then goes to defuse the other two mines on the other side of the map. However, the invisibility advantage with the advancing Skolas does make a ton of sense. I think I've been doing it wrong!

b) This is more of a playstyle preference than anything, but I just don't feel comfortable spending much time in a position where I feel "cornered". For me, part of being "in control" of this battle is keeping a good overview of the entire arena and constantly clearing adds out of the right and left lanes... none of which you can effectively do from under the right-side platform (if I understand correctly). That said, it is great to have a "danger free" zone to retreat to. I really want to give it a try for myself. Certainly sounds like a great method :)

I feel the same way -- the "normal" way is more fun and enjoyable. But camping under the platform makes the fight go much faster because you don't spend much time circling the map and you are less likely to wipe and have to start over. It's also much easier to teach because there's less improv.

This is a bit like a Nexus nightfall. I really like running all around the bottom, trying to stay alive, killing the vex adds, and shooting the boss occasionally. However, staying up top and dealing with the Minotaur every so often is just so much easier. Skolas isn't quite that extreme because you can't stay in your hidey hole the entire fight, so you at least get a taste of the good stuff.

PS I know a lot of time goes into a post like this... you have time to put it together at work?

Excellent guide, CruelLEGACEY!

I'm sure there are multiple strategies for the earlier rounds, but in case anyone is having trouble here are strategies I've used:

Round 1 (Hive with Exposure and Brawler): I think this round is intended to give you a sense of security and confidence; it plays out like any other Hive round. Run to the left side and split your team across the two raised platforms with cover. A Black Hammer sniper can speed up the larger enemy kills.

Round 2 (Vex Destroy Mines with Grounded and Airborne): Run to the right side; there's cover and you can snipe all the mine locations (a couple of them are a little tricky - if in doubt or pressed for time use a tracking rocket). Harpies can fly up to the platform, but otherwise all enemies must funnel through a single set of stairs to approach you - have one person cover the stairs and left side open area, one person (furthest to the right) cover the right side of the open area, and one person floating between cover on mine duty and support.

Round 3 (Cabal Destroy Mines with Catapult and Arc Burn): For the first wave, run to the back left raised platform and clear adds. There are clear fire lanes on the left and right, but watch for jumping Cabal - they can jump right to the center of your platform. For wave two and three, put two guardians on the raised, sloped platform between the center mine and the left mine, and one on the ramp leading to the top of the "crows nest" right side structure. The two guardians should send rockets into the back spawn doors a few seconds after they open to create some breathing room. They can move as a unit to the left or center mine to clear them quickly. A hunter here is preferred to leverage his invisibility if it gets crowded. The single guardian should pick off adds until the right side mine appears, then move to the roof of the structure and dismantle the mine from there (there's a small corner above the mine where you can disable it). Don't spend too much time on the roof, or a shielded Centurion will eventually spawn above you. A titan here is preferred to leverage a bubble for protection, or a Warlock for self-res since he's running solo.

Round 4 (Fallen Kill the Target with Specialist and Juggler): For the first wave, run to the left or right platforms (whichever you prefer) and clear adds. Watch for splash damage. For wave two and three, get out your shotguns and stand just beside the door where the VIP spawns. Wave 2 will have 2-3 Captains precede the VIP. You can dispatch them (and the VIP) very quickly with concentrated shotgun fire, then return to your safe platform for the rest of the wave. Wave 3 has 4-5 Captains precede the VIP - you'll probably need to reload. A titan with a blinding bubble opened just in front of the spawn door makes this much easier, but don't get too secure - the Captains begin their melee inside the door and outside of the bubble and can hit you, so keep moving in there. The VIP will often run through the bubble, but he'll still be blinded along with the rest of the adds and easy to pick off.

Round 5 (Fallen Kill the Pilot Servitor with Trickle and Small Arms): Run to the left or right platforms (whichever you prefer) and clear adds. There's not much to this battle - stay alive and damage to the Servitor when you can. The adds come in waves; we focus on clearing until there's a lull, then focus fire on the Servitor until new adds spawn. A Titan bubble with Weapons of light can speed this up (so can a black hammer sniper and a couple of Gjallarhorns).

PS I know a lot of time goes into a post like this... you have time to put it together at work?

I have an hour-long commute to and from work, so I wrote most of this on the subway ride to work this morning and finished it on my lunch break :)

Great overview!

Round 4 (Fallen Kill the Target with Specialist and Juggler)

Your strategy is perfect, but I'd add a warning that this round is more difficult than it appears. Wipes will occur after killing the VIP because there are A LOT of majors still left to kill... maybe 10-15 captains and vandals. Don't get overconfident.

First off, great guide! I like the reminder that the Fireteam is in control of the fight, and that nothing happens until you say it can, which is a real relief compared to how it used to be.

I hope you don't mind me throwing my hat in the ring with a slightly more detailed (but also a little more restrictive - it requires one of each class) method for dealing with mines. It's an exceprt from a post I made a while back, but you've covered most of it better than me so I'll just repost the mines section.

The Strategy
You want to make sure:
# Your Bladedancer has a Super ready and has specced for max invisibility (Vanish, Stalker, Escape Artist, Shadowjack)
# Your Sunsinger has their self-res ready and knows not to use it impulsively
# OPTIONAL: Your Defender has Gift of the Void specced for additional orbs

For this strategy, the order in which you each absorb the Essence matters a lot. It should be:
Warlock -> Hunter -> Titan -> Warlock

Once a Guardian has been tainted, spend a little time getting used to rotating the Essence while you kill adds and build your supers. Once
you're ready, you can start burning Skolas' health down towards halfway. Now this is the important bit: Once his health gets near half - STOP. From here on you're only going to burn Skolas when your hunter is holding the Essence.

Use the time inbetween (While your Warlock and Titan are holding it) to thin out adds and reposition yourself away from Skolas, then as soon as your Hunter Absorbs, start unloading your big guns.

Eventually you'll hear Variks warn you about incoming mines. At this point you want your Titan to take the Essence and move with your Warlock towards the mine that spawns closest to your current location - this is your Home Team. At the same time, your freshly immune Hunter Uses Arcblade Vanish to run to mine spawn at the opposite side of the map. This is why the Hunter needs to pass on the Essence first - the mine phase will take longer than 30 seconds, and your lone Huntwr will die if s/he's carrying it.

If the first mine spawns Far or Mid-map, your Hunter should be able to disarm it while still invisible from the Vanish (Don't forget you can re-vanish just before your Super runs out for additional invisible time), otherwise have your Hunter stay out of sight until the Far or Mid-map Mine spawns and dismantle them while Invisible.

PROTIP: You can attack a mine you're dismantling to activate your Blink Strike Escape Artist for emergency invisibility. Just make sure you're visible when you use it or it will cancel out. 

When the Home team mine spawns, have your Titan put a bubble on it and hang out with your Warlock in there.

At some point during the mine phase, your Warlock will need to Absorb from your Titan. Your Hunter may not be able to regroup in time to save your Warlock, but that's fine because self-res - this is why your Warlock needs to be the last person holding the Essence.

After the mine phase is over, work on killing adds and building up your Supers again, then continue burning Skolas only when your Hunter is holding the Essence.

As I say, this approach is a little more restrictive due to it's class requirements, but if the option is available I highly recommend this method - my team has a 100% Dismantle Rate using it (Disclaimer: Our Skolas Defeated rate is a lower due to stupid mistakes and/or Lightswitch, but it's never the mines that cause the wipe).

I hope you don't mind me hijacking your guide with my own Cruel, I just wanted to share my method with a bit more detail - specifically the rotation order and "rules" for when to burn Skolas.

I hope you don't mind me hijacking your guide with my own Cruel, I just wanted to share my method with a bit more detail - specifically the rotation order and "rules" for when to burn Skolas.

Don't mind at all... In fact, this is exactly the kind of stuff I was hoping to see more of! I'm detecting a bit of anxiety towards this battle from the greater community, so the more tips and strategies we can gather in 1 place, the more helpful this thread can be for those who haven't managed to complete the challenge :)

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I know it's not the tool; it's how you use it, and all that, but in an attempt to be useful I thought I would mention the gear recommendation angle on this and probably (hopefully) spark off a sub-thread on the topic.

# Weapons
are easier to talk about because they are universal across classes. Keep in mind I have almost no experience with the PoE weapons and their crazy specific perks.

## Primary:
I tend to use Hawkmoon (sorry, Cody+Xbox) because it kills people quickly and is useful across a wide distance and I'm comfortable with it. Really, though use what has high impact that you are comfortable with. I think Hand cannons are the way to go as you will have a lot of enemies around you and HCs are your best shot at a one hit kill.

I also bring in Fang of Ir Ut. I use it situationally. Arc Damage is useful, long range is useful, and it's not a legendary so I can swap in the g'horn for bosses.

Word of Crota is my favorite choice for Void burns so it comes along for the ride.

## Specials:
Found Verdict, if it is ascended seems like a great choice. Basically, take all that I said about the first two primaries above and combine it into one shotgun.

Invective is fun and it saves you some ammo problems, but I must say: I rarely run out of special ammo and it's hard to say it justifies the exotic slot. Still, if you have it and it's your best Special, you will like how it works.

Black Hammer. It kills bosses. It's what it does.

## Heavy
Jolder's Hammer is an Arc machine gun that hist hard and shoots straight (I home someone says that about me someday, but I suppose "Drinks hard" is more likely). It earns its keep. If you don't like to spend time on the PvP side of things (or are simply too lazy to move gear across characters at times), my acceptable substitutes include, but are not limited to, The Swarm and Corrective measure.

Gjallergjhogrrrhorn. It kills everything. It's what it does.

# Armor/specs
I main a Titan, and I tend to use Defender for PoE. (I'll let others talk about other classes as I'm getting tired of typing and want to play Destiny.)

It's tempting to use Striker for the Arc damage with all of the Fallen Captains, but the bubble is just too strategically useful for the mines, like Cruel said, and last-minute saves.

Spec for recovery and armor in the skill tree because no matter what you can't turn a tank into a twinkle-toes but also because Dex simply does not help that much here.

I think Armor of Light and Blessing of Light both have a useful place, but if you choose Blessing of Light, CyberKN will yell at you, so keep that in mind.

Suppressor grenade can keep the captains from teleporting, which is neat, but the ratio of grenades to captains is NOT in you favor, so I just keep it magnetic to make things die quicker.

As much as I love using creepy-face, Saint 14 is the way to go here. I made such a big deal about the bubble, you may as well make it even better. Far too many times before I started using Saint 14 I'd throw up a bubble and within 10 seconds it became a fallen dance party with no cover and aliens drink free before 2 A.M. Is anything worse than dying in your very own magical bubble of safety? Oh, yes. Watching the bubble drop and killing your friends right after. And, again, CyberKN will yell at you.

Frankly, my strategy on all the rest of the armor is "whatever gets you to 34" Once again whit this bubble bobble start, you may want to max out Intel first. If you have fancy room-specific perks you can put them on, but my group never has patience to play dress-up between each round so just use what you love.

During Small Arms, Oversoul is a great weapon against those pesky Captains. Better than Fang, imho.

If Specialist is on, please, do consider an ascended Vestian Dynasty. That thing wrecks Fallen and has a lot more ammo than snipers.

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Stand by the door that the Target comes out of. As soon as his waypoint spawns (it spawns before he comes out) through up a titan bubble with Helm of St 14.

The target will become disoriented. Found Verdict (compounded with the specialist perk) will tear him to shreds in seconds.

Stand by the door that the Target comes out of. As soon as his waypoint spawns (it spawns before he comes out) through up a titan bubble with Helm of St 14.

The target will become disoriented. Found Verdict (compounded with the specialist perk) will tear him to shreds in seconds.

It's cool when it works, but I've seen several instances where the Captain just shields his eyes like he's disoriented, but continues to just sprint around the map with his arm over his face. Wish I could figure out what causes that.

-Disciple

Yeah, it seems that enemies who have a waypoint or waypoint route assigned to them seek out that waypoint above just about anything else. Blinding a kill target on Patrol is about the worst thing you can do, for instance, since they'll usually go into a full sprint towards their objective! Similarly, don't blind the Praetorians trying to disrupt the three Sync Plates outside the Vault of Glass because they'll stop fighting and walk straight onto the plate no matter what else is happening.

If you are going to blind the Round 4 target it might be better to just hang out at his destination and blind him there. That way he really will stagger and you can dice him up with shotguns.

Yeah, it seems that enemies who have a waypoint or waypoint route assigned to them seek out that waypoint above just about anything else. Blinding a kill target on Patrol is about the worst thing you can do, for instance, since they'll usually go into a full sprint towards their objective! Similarly, don't blind the Praetorians trying to disrupt the three Sync Plates outside the Vault of Glass because they'll stop fighting and walk straight onto the plate no matter what else is happening.

If you are going to blind the Round 4 target it might be better to just hang out at his destination and blind him there. That way he really will stagger and you can dice him up with shotguns.

i've never had a problem with blinding the target in the PoE. Maybe b/c we just killed him so quickly. 3 people blasting him with shotties takes him down in seconds.

Yeah, it seems that enemies who have a waypoint or waypoint route assigned to them seek out that waypoint above just about anything else. Blinding a kill target on Patrol is about the worst thing you can do, for instance, since they'll usually go into a full sprint towards their objective! Similarly, don't blind the Praetorians trying to disrupt the three Sync Plates outside the Vault of Glass because they'll stop fighting and walk straight onto the plate no matter what else is happening.

If you are going to blind the Round 4 target it might be better to just hang out at his destination and blind him there. That way he really will stagger and you can dice him up with shotguns.

i've never had a problem with blinding the target in the PoE. Maybe b/c we just killed him so quickly. 3 people blasting him with shotties takes him down in seconds.

I like to use the blinding bubble when possible because of the onslaught of Vandal and Captain Majors that swarm you from all sides. It is certainly doable without the blinding effect, but it does make life a bit easier :)